"Great, now people associate freelancers with Donald Rumsfeld"

I hope never to have enough power that my words may make such a horrible thing so. However, this was the subject line of the email that reader M. recently sent regarding my post about virtual agencies and freelancers, followed by:

I realize you wrote this in the context of virtual agencies, but I'd dispute your opening take on freelancers. "All you leave behind is your reputation" applies particularly to freelancers. The open-ended nature of the relationship means they have to consistently push their work to be considered for future gigs. Those full timers, on the other hand, can easily become too comfortable ... and even complacent.

I agree with M. that, as a freelancer, you have to do your best work for the sake of your lingering reputation. It's just that for me personally, the nature of the situation works against this happening. It's not easy. You often don't have time to build up knowledge about the client or the brand; you're thrown into a new situation and the only thing you can rely on are your abilities to brainstorm and create with the information your temporary employers give you.

When I was freelancing, I found this a hit-and-miss proposition. Sometimes you brought a fresh perspective that was really appreciated. Other times your "fresh take" was taken as evidence that you had no idea what was really going on, and you were quickly out on the street. All you can do is keep pushing out the best work you can, and that discipline is what becomes your reputation.

As for complacency, well, there I'll have to disagree with M. These days no one gets too comfortable, not in any agency I know, and not in the client world either. Complacency has been weeded out by the same Darwinian processes that changed dinosaurs into birds, newspaper classified pages into Craigslist, and everything, in some shape or form, into Google.