What Freelancers Should Know About Collaboration With Companies

May 15, 2024 10:00

Karolin Rühlmann has freelanced for more than 15 years. At Freelance Unlocked in May 2024 she shares seven lessons about working with companies. They come from her own experience with startups, corporates, agencies and public bodies, so take them with a grain of salt, she says. Her theme: most of the work is communication.

**What the talk covers**

- Meet your client in person, at least at the start. In her experience about 90 percent of first video calls did not lead to a project, while in-person meetings almost always did.
- Agree the terms: no work without a contract, a monthly payment schedule, a careful look at termination clauses, and a rate you are content with. Put major task changes in an email and ask the client to confirm.
- Treat communication as your first skill: send status updates, flag problems early, answer even when you do not know yet, and ask each stakeholder how they want to be reached.
- Build relationships with everyone, from executives to security, cleaning and kitchen staff. A security guard once lent her team a screwdriver that would otherwise have needed days of permission. Involve the legal department early, she advises, because it can stop a project.
- Bring a strong work ethic: raise roadblocks, offer solutions, go a step beyond the brief, and say openly that you want to stay a freelancer. After a project is before the next one: anyone you meet may become a client, and she says about 95 percent of her projects came by recommendation.
- Know the elephant in the room: false self-employment (Scheinselbstständigkeit). She gives no legal advice, only the point to do your homework. This reflects May 2024.

**From the Q&A**

She usually gets contracts from clients and finds two weeks' notice short. If a project ends, she prefers talking to relying on a clause.

**Who it's for**

Freelancers who work inside client organisations.