New City, New Salary

When I moved to Portland, Oregon my original plan was actually to apply for full time jobs at creative agencies but I quickly became disinterested in the opportunities because these positions were creatively limiting, incredibly demanding, and none of them even came close to the salary that I was anticipating.

I wasn’t going to spend 40+ hours a week working for someone else if I wasn’t going to be making more than I previously made as a freelancer.

In order to be successful in a new market, I knew that I would have network nonstop; I grabbed 38 coffees, 26 lunches and attended 8 networking events. What did that all lead to? Well… why don’t you stop reading and starting watching because I breakdown my last year in this video:

Relocating and freelancing is not for everyone

I tried my best to be transparent in this video but in case it hasn’t hit home yet, it is incredibly difficult to move to a new market as a freelancer and maintain a steady flow of income. Essentially the only reason I was able to sustain myself was because of my Seattle network. Though I’ve driven to Seattle more than I would like to admit (30+ times) over the past year, I was fortunate enough to move to a market that would allow me to commute while I was still breaking into the local market. If I had moved any further then I don’t think my Seattle network would have helped much with putting food on my table aside from potentially getting me a few referrals.

Discussing money makes me anxious

When I set out on this journey, I knew that I wanted to be hyper transparent to show people the honest process of what it takes to make it in the film/marketing industry and the only true way to do that is to disclose the hard numbers. I am proud of how much money I made while in a new market but I’ve been incredibly anxious to share the numbers because we’re in the middle of a pandemic and so many people have lost their livelihoods as a result of it. I’ve been holding off hitting the publish button for 5 months now because it simply doesn’t feel like there’s a “good time” to release this type of content.

I say all of this to emphasize that my intention here is not to brag but to show people how much work goes into making a decent salary while freelancing. When I initially started out a decade ago, I didn’t participate in networking the way that I do now and it’s directly reflected in how much I make now compared to my initial years when I still thought that work would just magically show up (slight exaggeration).

Put yourself out there - they can’t hire you if they don’t know you exist.