Claim Freedom: How To Handle A Dry Spell, Collaborating With Creatives, and Practicing Patience

Bimma Williams | November 20, 2023

It's Claim Freedom Monday Y'all!

Here's some wisdom to help you land your first client.

Wisdom From Me This Week

Remain Encouraged During A Dry Spell

2023 has been a challenging year for freelance creatives across the board. Work that used to come very regularly has slowed and almost completely haunt for some folks. This is an industry wide trend, it’s not just you. Do not take the drought personally.

The biggest contributor to this drought is the economy. Businesses are cutting back significantly on spending and only spending on things they determine are essential to grow.

You can use this opportunity to perhaps explore a service that you’ve yet to offer. When something isn’t working, explore if there is an opportunity to realign and offer other things. If one of those new services works, go deeper into that lane.

Slow motion is better than no motion.

Wisdom from Freelance Creatives

Freelance Photographer & Co-founder of Street Dreams Magazine, Steve “Sweatpants” Irby On Building Community Not Competition

“I’ve been able to collaborate with all these different creatives and a lot of it is really getting the point across that is not competitive. I'm not gonna have a competition with you. I'm more competitive with myself, and making sure that I could put out the best work possible. So once you can really establish that you're not being competitive with each other and you really want to create something that stands out for both of you, that really opens up the Pandora's box of all the different kind of opportunities that you can work on.”

“If you're on set with a bunch of people, generally say hello to everyone. It's the social currency stuff that happens on a lot of these shoots. I don't think that people understand how long that goes with people because you could be the most talented person in the world sometimes, but if not a joy to work with or a good person to be around, people don't want to bring you on those sets at all. Would they don't blame them? You know what I mean? As much as the work needs to stand out, you need to make sure that you stand out and be a good person.”

Freelance Host & Marketer, Omarr Olivier Henry On Practicing Patience Throughout Your Career

“Patience is a big thing, especially in today's social media world where you see people posting their accomplishments and their successes. I think creatives start getting caught up thinking they’re doing something wrong or that they need to go faster, not knowing everybody's journey is their own journey. Practice some type of patience as things develop in your career because another person's career might not look like yours.”
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See you next week,

Bimma Williams

Co-creator / Host of The Claima Stories Podcast & Freelance Host​