Leave a FT position into self employment

[StaySmiling]

I've been working FT in a middle management role with local government for over 10 years now.

I'm seriously considering doing my own thing now, would like to work online WFH am tired of the commute and now in early 40s thinking now isnt a bad time for change.

Has anyone gone into the writing space or digital marketing ?

Need some time away from offices, people and just some alone time, doing my own thing.

Anyone ?

I haven't done it yet, but am seriously working up to it. I'm thinking of making the move in the summer and have gone to 4 days so I can spend a day a week planning.

I’m a freelance copywriter (half the time) and I haven’t worked in a full-time salaried position since 2017.

It works for me — I have a background and qualifications in writing/marketing and a lot of contacts built up over that time. Work tends to find me, rather than me having to go out and find it.

You could be in a good position if you have a strong network in the public sector and have a background in writing for these kinds of projects. Writing for councils/public sector/not-for-profit is its own thing and something of a closed world, and if you have a ‘way in’ from your network, work history and previous experience, that could give you a leg up.

My work isn’t WFH 100% of the time, by the way. Some clients want me to go in to their offices to take a brief, and sometimes I’ll be teamed up with a designer or art director — this kind of collaborative creative ideation work doesn’t really work over Zoom, I’ve found.

Yes, but I was a communicator in financial services before I went into writing and spent my first three years writing exclusively in that niche. What are your writing/digital marketing skills? I absolutely wouldn't recommend going freelance to make a career change.

It's brilliant in terms of flexibility, wfh etc but of course there's lots of other challenges. Lack of support (you are your own support); repetition (you are hired to do a specific job, there's never any 'development' projects as clients are looking for proven skills); lack of company. In the beginning, there's a serious lack of money and a serious amount of hustle too.

FYI in writing, rates have never been lower and obvs AI is a huge threat - I mean it's not, nothing will ever replace human creativity, but the entry level blog posts etc that people traditionally used to build their portfolios and clients are pretty much all being churned out via AI and clients are expecting copywriters to use AI for that sort of work, adjusting rates accordingly.

I'm doing it now but I have experience and qualifications in the field.

How will you convince clients to book you in? Do you have experience of digital marketing?