Why Freelancers Should Forfeit Billable Days For Learning

TLDR: The time you invest improving your subject matter knowledge and your craft increases your worth and sets you apart from other freelancers.

I get asked by fellow freelancers how I can afford to go to conferences all the time.

There are two major things to unpack here:

• Afford: I can afford to travel and spend unpaid days at conferences because I charge a figure that allows me too. My rate doesn’t correlate with time spent working; it reflects value.
• All the time: My actual conference schedule is about five or six a year. We’re not talking about serious time off. However, I do also allocate time for learning - reading, taking courses, etc.

A few years ago, I wrote a LinkedIn post titled, I Spent $5,000 To Go To A Conference – Here’s Why.

Highlights included:

• Sharing an Airbnb with someone else in the industry.
• Met contacts in-person for the first time.
• Gathered introductions to people in the same building as me.
• Got first-hand demos of the products I write about.
• Spontaneously bumped into people who knew my face from social media.
• Learned information about new technology and expanding markets in seminars.
• Had scheduled meetings with people normally not awake when I’m working (time zones).
• Shared social media of seminars and showfloor to remain visible to my niche audience.
• Met unlimited showfloor exhibitors who all work in marketing and could be classed as an extension of my target audience.

Some other less-business-related benefits for this specific trip included:

• Visiting a new place and having some time to explore.
• Travelling business class for the first time (this isn’t a must-do when travelling for work, of course; but it did mean I had a private and comfortable space to work so I wrote a blog post on the flight back).
• Collecting air miles on my business account.
• Gaining worldly experience of other cultures.
• Adapting to working in different environments.

But some people still don’t get it.

By forfeiting my billable time (writing blog posts, creating whitepapers, running content strategy - you know, my day job), I was able to get myself to this conference and spend undistracted time there.

That week, I did no “work”.

But I didn’t feel even slightly guilty.

And I wasn’t worried about not earning money, either.

What follows in this post are the reasons why every freelancer should adopt this mentality, the benefits of doing so, and how you can set yourself up for freelance autonomy.

Information intake

This is the biggest one for me. My ultimate goal for these conferences is to come back more knowledgeable about the topics and technology I write about. The same applies to webinars online or taking courses to improve my writing, editing, whatever.

The benefit of being such a niche freelancer is that having this domain expertise (some call this subject matter expertise) sets me aside from generalist freelancers.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a generalist. But there is a ceiling on what you can achieve and earn. While you technically have the entire world as your potential client base, that’s not always a good thing.

At these conferences, I make sure to plan my time around the agenda. If I’m not attending talks from analysts, customers, or vendors, something has gone very wrong.

I want to learn about the latest features on the Microsoft Teams roadmap. I want to have seen the latest Webex board in action. I need to be aware that Zoom now does contact center as well as video conferencing.

When I market myself later on, and when clients engage me to write about “new” things, being able to say “Yes, I had a demo of that at Enterprise Connect” sets me aside from every generalist writer who will need to Google it, get second-hand information, and do half as good a job.

In the long term, all this accumulated knowledge means I’m not just a clued up writer, but I’m the go-to resource for marketing work in this niche.

You can only grow as a freelancer if you offer more than your core skill. If you’re a writer, you offer more value and stand out from the crowd by being a subject matter expert.

Want to move from generalist to specialist?

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Networking

Going to an event for networking purposes is bad advice.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying it’s pointless to arrive and expect to meet people who are potential customers.

In my personal experience, this has happened once. And, again, only in my personal experience, that customer turned out to be a nightmare and I pulled the plug on the project after one blog post.

However, if you can schedule time with prospects you know are attending this conference (and you know this or can at least make an educated guess because you’re so niche and your entire LinkedIn is talking about it), then it’s worth attending.

Now, there’s something to be said about customers who you can only talk to in person. That might be a red flag for how you operate. Personally, I prefer asynchronous communication at all times. However, I also recognize that sometimes my target customer is a busy CMO who has zero time and many distractions when in their office.

The likelihood of them scheduling a call or responding to an email is much lower than giving me 30 minutes at a conference.

Visibility

To get more freelance clients, you must be on your potential clients’ radar. This means showing up on their LinkedIn feeds, being present where they are (in-person, in forums, on webinars), and generally being an active presence in your industry.

I’m not wrong in saying that I’m “known” in my industry. My goal as a business is to be “the content marketing guy for unified comms vendors”. I can’t be that if I don’t market myself.

This means writing case studies, sharing success stories, and promoting the content I produce for clients.

As I wrote in my book, The Autonomous Freelancer, I can attribute over $170,000 worth of work in the last 18 months to content promotion.

And, honestly, it’s not hard work. You produced the content so you know what it’s all about. You know the kind of conversations you can offer help to and you understand the audience who would be receptive to this content.

The problem most freelancers fall foul of is stopping after one element of promoting. Simply sharing it on LinkedIn isn’t always enough. There are multiple ways to repurpose and reshare your content that turns into new eyeballs who are ready to invest in your services.

Other common pushback is the dread NDA. Here’s a snippet from my book about dealing with the NDA that says you can’t share your work. Also: It probably doesn’t actually say that.

The number one objection to promoting content that you’ve created is the fear that your customer won’t let you.

Let me be straight with you here.

They wouldn’t pay you if they didn’t want people to see it.

As a business owner myself, when I commission someone to write a blog post or create a graphic for me, I want them to share it.

Why?

Because more people will see it!

If you can’t get over this imaginary hurdle, there are some things you can do to:

1. Ask.
2. Do it anyway.

When you ask your client what their content promotion process is, you might even get some extra work too. If content distribution is a weakness of theirs, you might get a gig writing social media copy or tacking on some outreach time as a deliverable in your retainer.

If it’s all taken care of in-house, a simple “I assume you’ll want me to share it too?” puts you on the front foot. Why would they say no? You just offered to amplify the asset they’re paying you to create.

Even in the case of ghostwriting, the act of sharing the post without publicly calling out you wrote it goes a long way. When someone reads it and thinks it’s great, they’ll ask you if you know the author. And that’s you!

When you do it anyway, there are two outcomes:

1. Your client asks you to take it down.
2. Your client thanks you for sharing their content.

Use scenario judgment to gauge whether this is going to lose you a customer or gain you a fan.

In most cases, however, if your name’s on it, not promoting it is counterproductive to your freelance business.

Oh, but then there’s the dreaded NDA…

NDA stands for Non-Disclosure Agreement. This means your client doesn’t want you to disclose that you’re working with them, a certain product, or part of their business. In the case of security or sensitive topics, this is fairly commonplace.

If “the brand” is the author of blog posts, you might see this too. But it’s not the end of the world for promoting your content.

You have two options when a client proposes an NDA:

1. Challenge it.
2. Accept it.

If you challenge the NDA, there are two scenarios:

1. The client removes the NDA and you continue your work (and are able to promote it later on).
2. The client insists on the NDA and you continue your work as they proposed.

The worst case scenario is they say no. So there really is no harm in asking.

When you promote enough content, success, or metrics, you draw people toward you. Customers come to me because they want me to replicate the success I’ve had with previous customers.

Expand your content promotion process: 50 Places To Distribute Content

How to create the time so unbillable doesn’t mean non-profitable

Being comfortable with unbillable time boils down to two things:

• Pricing your services accordingly
• Diversifying your income with other products

You must do the first. The second is totally optional, but a nice income boost even if you don’t take any non-billable time off.

Price accordingly

The biggest problem with freelancers in 2025 is they still don’t know how to price their projects.

Instead of pricing per word, per hour, or even per day, moving to per project or per deliverable (e.g. blog post, whitepaper, website, graphic, etc.) is a significantly more profitable option.

You could just start asking for more money. That’s what Olly Meakings used as his strategy to earn more work.

“Well, I just kept asking for more. Like the famous Oliver, I suppose.”

Brooklin Nash agrees, stating his best advice to charging more is to just charge more.

“Honestly. Simple as that. It sounds simple, but any freelancer who has increased their rates can tell you it’s scary. What if they say no? What if I never get work again? It’s a difficult mental hurdle to get over. But remember: it’s just mental. It’s all in your head. Over the course of two years, I raised my rates with existing clients twice and increased my rates for new clients every time I signed a new contract. If you’re doing great work and you’ve been consistent for your clients, let me tell you: you’re worth it.”

In the long term, you need to learn how to price freelance projects. Check out Tom Hirst’s viral Twitter thread, which is a must-read for all freelancers.

Pricing freelancing projects.

Everything I've learned.

A thread.

— Tom Hirst (@tom_hirst) June 30, 2020

Diversify with other products

Having created a blogging course, written a book, and assembled a content distribution checklist, I’ve started to diversify my income streams.

This isn’t vital to cover off your non billable days if your pricing is looked after. But two weapons are more powerful than one in any fight.

I’m by no means an expert in affiliate marketing or product creation. But my three independent products have netted me almost $10,000 extra income in the last year.

Sure, I spent time writing a book, producing a blogging course, and creating a promotion checklist. But these were one-off jobs.

I can market and sell these forever.

A bunch of sales for these cover my travel expenses, no problem.

What conferences should you attend?

I’ve browsed Twitter chats and LinkedIn conversations where fellow freelancers have wasted their time attending “Business Expos”.

I’ve spoken to many freelancers who felt so bad after sacrificing a billable day for “nothing” because the conference yielded zero results in terms of both networking opportunities and information absorption.

The root cause of both these issues is poor conference selection.

When I was a full-time employee, and this can be said for a lot of sales and marketing execs, I was able to choose what I went to and how long I spent there. It was company time so it didn’t matter as much to me if the conference was a dud.

However, when it’s your time and your non-billable time, you must be selective.

Attend a conference when it checks off the following criteria:

• Your potential clients are there.
• There are scheduled seminars where you will learn something.
• You can spend time getting product demos on the exhibition floor.
  

It’s the business value that you must prove to yourself. Create a business case for taking the time off and not doing any work that day/week.

If the net return is positive (i.e. you will become a more informed freelancer in your domain), it’s a solid return on investment.

This year, I’m attending:

• Comms vNext
• Enterprise Connect
• Cavell Summit
• Contact Center Expo
• Cavell Summit

These are all industry conferences. They’re about Microsoft, Zoom, and Webex. These are the technologies I must be clued up about to consider myself better than my prospect hiring a generalist.

I will also attend:

• Content Jam

This is a marketing-specific conference, where I expect to enhance my marketing prowess. I will be learning processes, tools, and skills to improve myself as a marketer. I’ve been extremely selective about this as I’ve done nearly all my marketing learning online.

I’ve had this conference earmarked for years because it’s hosted by my content marketing mentor. There is no other marketing conference I’ve come across yet where I can confidently make the business case for taking the time off and not billing any work.

Be selective when considering attending conferences or taking in online learning materials. But do make time in your schedule for some non-billable days that will prove their return on investment in years to come.