Finding the balance between the perfect number of eggs and the perfect number of baskets is not easy. I’ve found myself going back and forth – sometimes too many eggs in too few baskets, sometimes the other way around.

In 2008, I had a major contract with a client that stopped suddenly when the economy crumbled and the company’s shareholders voted to freeze all spending. I had a few other clients but times were tight. This past spring, perhaps as a knee-jerk reaction, I was on the opposite side of the spectrum and had way too many clients than I could realistically serve with 24 hours a day.

What’s the happy medium? It’s hard to discover. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it and researching the times in my career when things were going really well to figure out how to achieve that again. Here are some tips I’ve discovered:

  • Some freelancers do really well with lots of small projects; some do really well with one large project. I like it right in the middle: One or two big projects and several smaller ones to fill in the gaps.
  • The optimum number of clients is this: The loss of any single client should not harm your business or create financial challenges.
  • Know exactly how long it takes you to win more business – from the moment you start marketing to the moment you sign up the new client. For me, it’s a 2 week average based on the methods and systems I have in place. With that in mind, watch your contracts and when they start to wind up, start your marketing with the right amount of time left.
  • Be aware that some clients may need more of your services. They may call you up and ask you for more than you’re currently delivering. Create a policy about this. In most cases, it’s easiest to serve that existing client but give it some thought first: Does it make sense to do this? Is this client adding more and more workload so that, although you’re making good money, they are becoming the single basket carrying all of your eggs?
  • Save some money as a bit of a cushion. One freelancer I know tries to save 3 months of wages but most freelancers I know have saved closer to 3-4 weeks of money.
  • Even when you’re really busy, don’t stop marketing. Keep your marketing going so that every time you have to find new clients, you’re not starting from scratch.
  • Set the number of hours you want to work each day (include client work and marketing) and then accept just enough client work to keep you busy for that time period (while leaving enough time to do marketing). If your client work takes a little longer, it will eat into your marketing time but not your personal time… and just make sure that you don’t let it eat into your marketing time for too long.

As freelancers, by the very nature of our projects, it can feel like we’re just around the corner from having no work at all. But with careful management, you can smooth out those highs and lows by finding the perfect balance between eggs and baskets.