There’s no beating around the bush with this guy. Tiago Higgs has figured out what it takes to succeed as a creative freelancer, and he’s sharing super detailed advice with anyone who’ll listen.
Grab a pen and paper for this one - you’ll want to take notes!
Interview by Bernard / Blog written by Teri
March 9, 2022
Stories about how the top UK creatives run their businesses.
Delivered to your inbox every fortnight.
I’m 37, and I’m a motion designer. I’d say I’m a generalist, but I see that as being a rather strange way of interpreting someone’s job - because nobody can be a generalist to the point where they cover the full spectrum of skills efficiently. So I always tell my clients that I’m a generalist, but that I want to know what the job is about before I decide whether I want to take it on or not.
For the longest time I wanted to do the easiest thing for the most amount of money. If I was presented with a choice of two jobs, where one is super creative for a big studio and the other was a smaller, easier job that paid better, I would go for the smaller job. Because at the end of the day, that’s what bought me my house. A business stays in business.
As far as my portfolio was concerned: as long as these choices kept coming along regularly, I knew that I could always shift course and opt for projects that are better for my portfolio if things ever got out of balance.
Nowadays I work a little differently, because I feel that I’ve gotten to where I wanted to be. I’ve settled down and built a life for myself. So now I can breathe a little, and pick out the projects that are more exciting to me.
I’m also leaning towards work that is less technical and more design-oriented, where I take on a creative director’s role. I don’t think I will ever be able to stop keyframing, because that’s what really pays. Also, there aren’t enough jobs in creative direction because that type of work is rarely outsourced - but when they are, those are the jobs I want.
Today I choose a project, it means I am choosing the people I like to work with, then the creative and the price follows naturally.
Yes. In my 11 years of living and working in London, I’ve never come across a job that works with a project budget - that’s usually the way Portuguese studios work. People hiring you want to be able to get rid of you if they don’t like you, so they prefer to work on a day rate!
I like Portugal very much, but I wouldn’t move back if you paid me! Straight out of school, I got a great job in motion design with one of the main studios in Lisbon. I was paid practically double the Portuguese average wage. But after three months I resigned, and moved to London with £700 in my pocket.
While I was working that job in Portugal, I took a trip to London to watch a concert. As soon as I landed in the UK, something clicked. I’m very volatile as a person, and when I felt that click I knew that I needed to move here. I told my mum I was leaving in a month, and that was that.
When I moved, some friends of mine were working in a company that was big at the time in Covent Garden. They were looking for someone to do 3D experimental work for web, so I grabbed that opportunity and started working full time. For a while there I was spending all my money on things I needed to learn and improve, like buying cameras to learn film and so on. I never once considered the possibility of losing my job - the thought of being fired was an urban myth to me.
But obviously, just like any experimental team, it can either be a huge success or it can tank. Sure enough, the whole team was cancelled a few months into the job and everyone was sent home.
Back then I thought it was the perfect opportunity to enjoy my time and try to go freelance, because that’s what I really wanted to do. I worked super hard at it, but starting from scratch as a freelancer in London while burning through my savings for rent just wasn’t sustainable.
I decided to go back home to Portugal and reassess. The thing is, the real reassessment was when I got back home and realised that I’d rather be homeless in London than be there. Still, I stayed in Portugal for a couple of years to get myself organised and then made my way back to the UK.
I had set up my company Tiago Higgs Ltd. and I was finding work through recruitment agencies. But getting started as a freelancer wasn’t that easy. I didn’t have a proper showreel and I was pretty irresponsible. I was 20-something, my English was terrible and I didn’t know how to conduct myself with clients the way that I know now.
I give mentorship classes these days and I always tell my students: 80% of your success in freelance is your interaction with the client. Your skills only account for the other 20%. People don’t like to hear it, but I know many friends of mine who are heavily skilled but don’t have work - there’s a reason for that. If you’re closed in or cold in your interactions, it will work against you.
As a Portuguese person, I have the advantage in this - like Spanish and Latinos, we have the fervor of exposing ourselves and wearing our heart on our sleeves. Clients and colleagues appreciate that openness. All of these factors play a role in your success.
People hire for attitude. It’s the full-timers that you get to know at a studio that determine whether or not you work with them again. They’re the ones that’ll say “perhaps he’s not the best guy for the job, but we know that he can do the work and we enjoyed having him around last time.” I get called back constantly on that premise. You have to have a freelance personality.
You need to understand that you’re investing in yourself as a freelancer, and that volatility comes with the territory. If you accept and understand that volatility then you’re ready for freelance life.
Even now that I’m established in my career, I don’t rest on my laurels. I’m always ready. I always have something in my back pocket, and I’m always looking for new opportunities. If there’s a vacancy for a creative director at Apple, I apply for it - whether I want it or not. I apply, I wait for the result and only then do I decide whether to go for it or not. You must keep those doors open. In order to live with volatility, you need to prepare escape routes.
I didn’t understand this when I first started out. All I knew was that I got paid at a daily rate and that it looked like a lot of money. That’s why I wanted to be freelance in the first place - I wanted to be able to take a break from work and have enough free time to pursue other passions, and I knew that this wasn’t possible with a full-time job. (Side note - That actually worked out for me - I’ve built a Youtube travel channel on the side that allows me to explore my passion for photography, remote travel and so on.)
Nowadays I’ve learned to monitor and control the situation. I have a document that calculates my net worth which I update monthly. I have another document that calculates my daily budget for the month. I didn’t have these tools back then.
I think the education system is broken. That’s part of the reason why everyone’s in debt. People spend money constantly but somehow never have money for anything. There’s a big lack of financial literacy, and most people are in debt - for their car, their house, this, that.
I fell for it. Hard. Back in Portugal I bought BMWs and spent my money like it would never end. Even when I moved to London, I was still paying for my BMW back home.
I fell for the fiat trap, and I paid for it, but now I’m learning. I’ve learned how to run my company. I understand top line, bottom line, price-to-earnings ratios, market caps, all this sort of stuff. That’s where I started understanding my net worth and setting targets for myself to map out a chart that goes parabolic for the rest of my life.
The chart will never go parabolic if you rely solely on work. It’s mathematically impossible. You would have to buy into someone else’s business or grow your own - but growing your own relies on human leverage, and that is very labour intensive. In my case, I’d rather not grow my own company. I prefer to attach myself to other people’s businesses and investments.
Some people are not made for investing - the idea of throwing thousands of pounds at something and not having it in hand isn’t for everyone. But I am. It’s in my nature.
The industry is a big wheel that moves really slowly, and getting onto that wheel takes a lot of hard work. If you want to improve your chances, I’ll always go back to the personality concept I mentioned earlier. I will slide into the DMs or inboxes of anyone I can. Anyone, any time. If you give me an email for Donald Trump, I will write to him.
Some people are very shy and not very proactive, they sit and wait for work to come to them. But I’ll reach out to any creative director or CEO through DMs, LinkedIn, whatever. I’ll say “Hey, I want to work with you” - and opportunities come!
Another tip I have is to build a document that tracks all your clients. I list all the companies and recruitment agencies I know. I’ll then track:
Then I have a page dedicated to my “premium” clients - those who constantly call me, whether I get in touch with them or not. These are the ones I will always contact first when I’m free, because they trust me more than others.
I don’t know any freelancer that does this - I get the impression that people don’t care somehow. But I care - this is my livelihood.
Pretty much, yes. I don’t have the time or the patience to handle my own accounts. The way I see it, I didn’t want to find the time to learn about filing taxes and manage all my expenses when I would rather be with my daughter.
I was looking for someone my friends trust, which is how I got to know about Accounts Studio. I went to a freelancer friend of mine that I trust, and he told me about them. That was it - I didn’t shop around.
I see the cost of hiring someone like them as an investment that saves me so much time in manual labour. Plus, it buys me the ability to pick up a phone and call them whenever I have a problem! I know that when I call, I’ll be speaking to someone who knows my situation and that I’ve worked with for years - that makes it all worth it for me.
Check out Tiago’s work on his website, and give him a follow on Instagram right here.
Stories about how the top UK creatives run their businesses.
Delivered to your inbox every fortnight