National Freelancers Day profile - digital freelancing

June 17th 2021 is National Freelancers Day. Harvey Morton started digital freelancing while still in school and in 2018 won IPSE’s Young Freelancer of the Year Award. He now runs his own thriving business including freelance social media management, web design and copywriting, working with both businesses and charities. He spoke to us about his experiences.

What first led you to into digital freelancing?

So I started when I was in school, 13, with a school enterprise competition in the Sheffield City Region. I won £25 to start up a business with a friend. Age 15 after winning prizes in the competition, I set up doing IT support - on-call IT support going out to businesses and individuals, setting up things like iPads and laptops for them. Then later through sixth form and university and doing a series of placements, it’s evolved into a digital agency. Today I offer freelance social media management, freelance web design, influencer marketing and SEO [Search Engine Optimisation]. So it's just evolved from setting it up at school. And then I won IPSE Young Freelancer of the Year and I used the prize money from that award to rebrand to Harvey Morton Digital. That’s how I’m known today. So yeah it's not like a conventional journey into freelancing, it’s just that I got the business bug and I was really enjoying it, so it just evolved into my career really.

It’s interesting how you did that because a lot of people start full-time and use that as a springboard into freelance, or in some cases got into it as a result of COVID’s impact on jobs. How did you find it starting from scratch when you were still a student?

It was really difficult starting so young. People were reluctant to go with me because of my age. When I was starting out doing IT support I’d turn up and they’d be like ‘you’re a bit young to be doing this’. So I had that battle. And then when I moved into freelance web design and digital marketing I actually did lots of free work, which I do regret now. I wouldn't recommend it to others. But at that age, it was really difficult for me to get paid clients straight away. Once I built my portfolio, then it was easier to win new business.

The most powerful tool for me starting at that age was networking. Selling myself online, people wouldn’t go with me, but if I could network and build relationships, it helped people to gain trust. And then I was able to meet people along the way who have given me guidance and support. Now I'm quite lucky that most of the work I get is through word-of-mouth referrals.

How did you get your first customers?

I did lots of flyering and just emailing different businesses. Eventually after like two and a half months, I got my first paid customer. Until that point, it was trying to do as much free work as I could, and just raising my profile. But I think it's easier now to do that with social media. When I started social media was there, but it wasn't as much of a business tool as it now is. I think it's easier now to establish yourself and tap into support.

Did you ever go on the online freelancing platforms - have they been useful to you at any stage of your career?

Yes, I’m on PeoplePerHour still and I’ve tried a few others, but I don’t use the freelancing platforms much at all now. They were great in the early stages, but I also found that they attracted a certain type of customer in most instances. They don’t always know what they want from a project. It can be difficult to compete on these platforms against people who are much cheaper that might not have the same cost of living. But they are great for getting your name out there, getting reviews and building a reputation up, so I do think there's some value in using services like Fiverr and PeoplePerHour. You’ve just got to be careful because the moderation processes on there aren’t always great.

So you have some charity clients and some private clients, and you have some board and mentoring roles as well. How do you find charity clients differ from private sector?

Well my journey was that through school I had lots of bullying and teachers who told me that I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t focus only on my studies. That made me really frustrated leaving school. I was being pushed into taking an academic route to sixth form and university, which I’m glad I did. I’d always planned to go to university. But I think my frustration was that there was never any talk of any other options - no self-employment talk, even apprenticeships. It always scared teachers and careers advisors. But when I was leaving school, I was lucky enough to meet a contact who introduced me to Youth Employment UK, the first charity that I started working with.

I wanted to work with them because they helped other young people to move into their chosen careers, because it was something I could relate to. I wanted to make sure that other young people didn't have the same experience as me. That’s where that relationship started. And then I’ve had other work with the Prince’s Trust and the Diana Award Charity. The biggest difference working with charities, whether the work’s paid or not, is I do find it really rewarding that you get to see the impact that your work has on others, moreso than with a normal company. And I think charities and third sector clients can be more collaborative. It’s not that companies aren’t, but I think with charities everyone’s so passionate about the same cause and it really makes a huge difference.

How did you come to win the IPSE award in 2018?

So I got an email from someone at my university the day before applications closed, and had some time that afternoon, The application was about everything I’d done in digital freelancing to date. Three or four months later I was shortlisted. I got called down to London to pitch to a panel of judges for 20 minutes and give a 10-minute presentation, but it was on the day of my last second-year uni exam. I don’t know how I did it all in a day, but I did my exam and went straight down to London. And then I was lucky enough to go to the awards a few months later – I was surprised when I won because I was up against some really talented freelancers. It being in the middle of my exam made me do a better job on the presentation I think. I hadn’t had the chance to get nervous or otherthink it, but crazy that I imaged to do that in a day!

Are there particular skills you’re able to bring across from one sector to another – in terms of ways of working, or bringing private sector innovations in technology over to the third sector quicker because you’re working on both sides?

Yes I do find that there are certain skills that I can bring over to work with charities. What I find working with working with charities is that they often have such a strict brief and there's not much movement in that because of funding or other limitations. So sometimes it's important to improvise. When working with charities, if I've got any other resource that I can use from previous projects I’ve worked on or through working with private sector clients, I always try to give them, because the funding they’ve got doesn’t always match up with what they actually need. So I just have to adapt really and try and take as much resource from elsewhere as I can.

At the same time, working with charities so much has helped me to attract more private sector clients. People are always interested and sometimes surprised by how much charity work I've done. But I say to people that are thinking about working with charities or volunteering or doing some free work to help them out that it does lead to paid opportunities further down the line, even if you don't feel like it will.

What do you find your ambassador board post with Youth Employment UK involves and what role do you normally find yourself playing?

So I started as an ambassador with Youth Employment UK five years ago. I got to speak in Parliament, at APPG meetings or meetings with different ministers, and I really enjoyed that. I never saw myself getting involved with politics, but I just found that when it was something I was passionate about, I loved getting that opportunity to share my own experiences. And then that role evolved into me going into different schools and talking about CVs and job interviews and helping other young people with public speaking, which I found really rewarding.

Then in 2019 I was elected to the Ambassador Board of Youth Employment UK. I’m helping with corporate-level decisions and looking at what the organisation does as a whole, at funding and different events that we can get involved with. I felt I’d given as much as I could as an ambassador and just wanted to take my role to the next level. But before and even in lockdown, I've still been doing talks with schools and different organisations by Zoom as well. I like to stay involved with that side of it and help the organisation to grow. It’s always something that I make time for because I've enjoyed it so much over the last five years.

On your client side, how have you seen your work shift? Has there been a drop-off, or a rush because services have been moving online?

So I've experienced both really. When the first lockdown was announced, I lost a lot of work overnight. I had so many clients emailing me saying ‘can we put this on hold?’ I sort of had a few days where I went into panic mode. But then I thought ‘you know what, I'll just share my experience with digital freelancing on LinkedIn’ and see if anyone I’d worked with previously could help me gain new work, maybe in sectors that were able to continue trading. I did lots of networking and shared what had happened, and it was really rewarding because so many previous clients put me in touch with businesses than I could help.

But then I'd say after a few weeks, there was a real rush for website support. Businesses were wanting to get online who had no online presence before - needing solutions as quick as possible, not able to trade. I was trying to help as many people as I could, so I ended up getting to a point where I was so busy I had to start a waiting list. And then I've had points where it's dropped off again. Any time there was a lockdown announcement coming up or negotiations I was in the middle of, it went quiet until people knew what was happening. But I think that's been the biggest factor - with so much unknown people have not been committing to things as quickly, so that’s not done freelancers any favours really. But I have been fortunate to keep busy, I’ve been luckier than most because my services are in digital.

Have you had many charity clients on the digital side in that rush?

Yeah I've had a few charity clients wanting that change. Most are great at having a digital presence anyway, but they’re wanting to expand that with COVID and come up with new ways to run their events and support their networks. That's been really rewarding, especially if I get feedback to say what a difference my website design work or freelance social media work has made. It’s been a good mix of different work. I’ve worked with some sectors that I've never worked with before because people were wanting websites done so quickly, it’s kept it varied and kept me busy in lockdown really.

What have you found about government support for freelancers – were you able to call upon that because you’ve been at it longer, or do you know other freelancers who have had issues?

Yeah lots of friends have had trouble accessing the different support available to freelancers because they were new to being self-employed. They only recently got included in the government grants. I think there was a huge gap where so many people were left out of support, even freelancers that registered as limited companies. I was quite lucky where I was - I could access the support if I needed to, but because I've been busy I've tried not to access that. Instead I focused on helping others who didn’t have any support with grants and schemes they could access that were outside of the government funding. The majority of freelancers I knew weren’t included for one reason or another. I was lucky enough to get funding to collaborate with other freelancers on some projects as well.

What advice would you give to someone considering the same career path, or those who have switched to it in the past year?

I'd say just go for it really. If you're ambitious, if you give it a try and it doesn't work out, you can say that you’ve tried. But if you’ve got something you’re passionate about and you want to give it a go, and you’ve got another job, maybe start freelancing in the evenings and weekends, even if it’s really tough at first. Once it takes off you can make that jump, but it makes sense to have a bit of a safety net in the early stages. I found there were times when I’d expect work to be coming in, but it can take a while to get that first customer.

I’d also say to new freelancers, be consistent with social media posting, and look at how you can support others alongside. People just share posts selling themselves often, but you will get more back if you engage with others, so look at what others are doing and support them as well. No one wants to see someone who’s only selling themselves all the time.