Being Freelance

AI is already in your freelance business, whether you invited it or not. 

The usual Being Freelance podcast is on its summer break, but here's a bonus treat for you: a replay of a live LinkedIn session Steve did with lawyer Ingrid Fernandez, part of the Being Freelance community, looking at what AI means for freelancers legally - not "will it take my job" but "how does it change my contracts, my responsibilities, and my relationships with clients?"
Ingrid walks through five areas that could be tripping freelancers up:
Putting client information into AI - what counts as personal information, why transparency with clients matters, and why your privacy policy needs to name the tools (including AI) that touch client data.
Clients handing you AI-generated materials - the IP risk when a client passes over AI-made brand elements, logos or source material without saying so.
Using AI in the services you deliver - the reputational and trust risk of client-facing work that's gone through AI without disclosure, and why it's worth putting in your contract.
Clients putting your deliverables into AI - what happens to your IP once a client feeds your design, copy, or podcast into their own AI tools to create derivatives.
Confidentiality clauses and AI - how modern confidentiality clauses are increasingly naming AI specifically, and why redacting a client's name doesn't necessarily get you off the hook.
Ingrid's steer throughout: this isn't about being anti-AI, it's about being transparent, thinking about where you stand, and then getting your contracts to reflect that - so you can stop worrying about it case by case.
Find Ingrid at herlegals.com.
Catch the full library of Q&A replays in the Being Freelance Community.
This was originally a LinkedIn Live - so come find us on LinkedIn:
Steve Folland on LinkedIn
Being Freelance on LinkedIn
Ingrid Fernandez on LinkedIn
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
You're not alone being freelance.
Come and hang out with your BFFs (Being Freelance Friends).
beingfreelance.com/community
 
NEW TO FREELANCING? THERE'S A COURSE FOR YOU!
The Being Freelance course is made for you!
Take the course and you'll also get 6 months FREE community membership.
 
FREELANCER MERCH
Get Being Freelance merchandise at beingfreelance.com/shop
Like VIDEO? - Check out the Being Freelance on:
Instagram - Instagram.com/beingfreelance
YouTube - YouTube.com/SteveFolland

Being Freelance is hosted and created by freelance podcast editor Steve Folland.

David Airey is a freelance graphic designer based in Northern Ireland, self-employed since 2005. 
He's the author of several best-selling design books including Logo Design Love and Identity Designed - both of which started life as blogs, before turning into books... before turning into a steady stream of client work.
In this episode, David talks with us about:
Persuading his former employer to be his first freelance client
Why his early "business blog" flopped, and how switching to writing about design (not just his own) changed everything
Launching logodesignlove.com in 2008, and getting an out-of-the-blue email about a year later from a US publisher that led to his first book deal
How that one book grew into four published titles, translated into multiple languages
Niching down into logo and identity design after realising it was the part of the job he loved most
The costly early lesson of doing design work before securing payment upfront - and how he gets paid now
Why he's deliberately kept his business to just himself for 21 years
How those same blogs, barely updated these days, still bring in client enquiries years later
What makes a good client relationship, and why he pushes back on purely subjective feedback
Why he doesn't set long-term goals and prefers to stay focused on the present
Find David at:
davidairey.com
logodesignlove.com
and identitydesigned.com
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
You're not alone being freelance.
Come and hang out with your BFFs (Being Freelance Friends).
beingfreelance.com/community
 
NEW TO FREELANCING? THERE'S A COURSE FOR YOU!
The Being Freelance course is made for you!
Take the course and you'll also get 6 months FREE community membership.
 
FREELANCER MERCH
Get Being Freelance merchandise at beingfreelance.com/shop
Like VIDEO? - Check out the Being Freelance on:
Instagram - Instagram.com/beingfreelance
YouTube - YouTube.com/SteveFolland

Being Freelance is hosted and created by freelance podcast editor Steve Folland.

New full episode coming soon. But in this super short one - Steve Folland explains why he's not publishing a new interview this week.
Too often we rush on from one thing to another.
But by doing so we don't do justice to the thing we just finished.
With the Being Freelance podcast, that can mean not promoting an episode with clips, socials and emails. That doesn't help the podcast, the guest OR the listener who could have benefited.
Same in our freelancing businesses. If we don't reflect, get testimonials, build case studies, share... we don't help do justice to the project we just finished. We don't do justice to ourselves, to our client... AND we don't help potential new clients know what we're capable of, so weirdly, we're not helping them either.
If you find yourself rushing; pause. Try and build in some buffer to big up your business.
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
You're not alone being freelance.
Come and hang out with your BFFs (Being Freelance Friends).
beingfreelance.com/community
 
NEW TO FREELANCING? THERE'S A COURSE FOR YOU!
The Being Freelance course is made for you!
Take the course and you'll also get 6 months FREE community membership.
 
FREELANCER MERCH
Get Being Freelance merchandise at beingfreelance.com/shop
Like VIDEO? - Check out the Being Freelance on:
Instagram - Instagram.com/beingfreelance
YouTube - YouTube.com/SteveFolland

Being Freelance is hosted and created by freelance podcast editor Steve Folland.

Lisa Emmington is a freelance instructional designer (or as her newly SEO'd website puts it, a training course designer) based near Milton Keynes. 
She's been freelance almost her entire career, starting out as an IT trainer back when Apple Macs were a mystery box on people's desks, and has reinvented her business every time the market has shifted underneath her - from face to face training, to early e-learning software, to mentoring individual course creators today in the face of AI.
In this episode we talk about:
How the desire to be freelance came before Lisa knew what she wanted to be freelancing in
Spotting the shift from face to face training to e-learning, and moving with it
What happened when she and her husband became a limited company for three years, and why it made her invisible in the market
Rebuilding visibility from scratch with a social media VA and an SEO overhaul
Why "instructional designer" doesn't bring in enquiries, but "training course designer" does
Filtering and pacing leads using nothing more high tech than a paper diary
The balance between promoting decades of expertise and the very real ageism facing freelancers in their 50s and 60s
Her three income streams: templates, done with you mentoring, and done for you course creation
Pensions, retirement planning, and why she's planning to keep freelancing well past 67
What 60 actually looks like now, versus what she expected it to look like

So much great advice and things to think about in here around change in our careers - brought about by the inevitability of developing tech and age.
---

EPISODE SPONSORED BY ECAMM
For years people have asked how Being Freelance live shows look so good. Well, this is the secret.

Ecamm is a video studio for your Mac. 
Give anything you do with video, a pro look in real time.
Presentations, screen shares, webinars, video calls, demos. Plus livestream/record in landscape & vertical at the same time, perfectly designed for both formats.
Try Ecamm for free. 
Use code BEINGFREELANCE to save 15% on your first payment.
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
You're not alone being freelance.
Come and hang out with your BFFs (Being Freelance Friends).
beingfreelance.com/community
 
NEW TO FREELANCING? THERE'S A COURSE FOR YOU!
The Being Freelance course is made for you!
Take the course and you'll also get 6 months FREE community membership.
 
FREELANCER MERCH
Get Being Freelance merchandise at beingfreelance.com/shop
Like VIDEO? - Check out the Being Freelance on:
Instagram - Instagram.com/beingfreelance
YouTube - YouTube.com/SteveFolland

Being Freelance is hosted and created by freelance podcast editor Steve Folland.

Zoe East has never had a proper job. A work experience placement at a big TV channel that felt old-fashioned and sexist put her off the traditional route before she'd even graduated, so she went freelance instead and never really looked back. That was over ten years ago.
She started with whatever work came along. The niche found her gradually: charities doing meaningful work, heritage and culture projects, things that will matter just as much when someone watches them in ten years' time.
This episode of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland covers:
Getting started by networking and taking whatever came along
Winning six months of free studio space in a creative co-working community, and why staying there for ten years shaped the career around it
Building a niche in charity and heritage filmmaking - and why charity budgets are often better than people assume
Putting "win an award" on a vision board in January, and winning by April
The adventure filmmaking strand: films about running adventures across Iceland, Tajikistan and Patagonia, and getting into Kendal Mountain Festival and the London Mountain Film Festival
Why cold outreach has never worked for her, but word of mouth has - and how sharing only the work she wants more of has quietly shaped her client list
Dropping Instagram and going all-in on LinkedIn as the one social platform where her clients actually are
Monthly goal-setting sessions with a freelancer friend: yearly goals, monthly focus, and the accountability that comes from having to report back
The rate spreadsheet that makes quoting consistent and takes the stress out of pricing decisions
Buying almost everything secondhand, having all her kit stolen as her biggest low point, and using a post-COVID grant to buy her first ever brand new camera
Moving into the She Who Dares Wins studio with Michelle, and the documentary series and production company they're building together 
---

EPISODE SPONSORED BY ECAMM
For years people have asked how Being Freelance live shows look so good. Well, this is the secret.

Ecamm is a video studio for your Mac. 
Give anything you do with video, a pro look in real time.
Presentations, screen shares, webinars, video calls, demos. Plus livestream/record in landscape & vertical at the same time, perfectly designed for both formats.
Try Ecamm for free. 
Use code BEINGFREELANCE to save 15% on your first payment.
JOIN THE COMMUNITY
You're not alone being freelance.
Come and hang out with your BFFs (Being Freelance Friends).
beingfreelance.com/community
 
NEW TO FREELANCING? THERE'S A COURSE FOR YOU!
The Being Freelance course is made for you!
Take the course and you'll also get 6 months FREE community membership.
 
FREELANCER MERCH
Get Being Freelance merchandise at beingfreelance.com/shop
Like VIDEO? - Check out the Being Freelance on:
Instagram - Instagram.com/beingfreelance
YouTube - YouTube.com/SteveFolland

Being Freelance is hosted and created by freelance podcast editor Steve Folland.