The eighth year of the freelance collective – it’s not about the money money money…
Meet Dill the latest Comms Crowd recruit
Time to read: 1 minute
It’s eight years since Sam Howard set up the freelance collective that is The Comms Crowd. This year she learned the real value of belonging to a team. And it doesn’t have a price tag…
Running a firm, however funky, is always a blur of highs and lows. This year was even blurrier.
Freelance collective: The highs
New team babies, client weddings, and discovering a brilliant junior (yes, Marcel. Who knew there was more than one of you!). Finding a prime pitcher, winning another ‘tech for good’ client, thus doing some good ourselves, and working with some of my favourite PR people who are now holed up in-house and chucking some great projects our way. Even the odd trip to Belgium.
Freelance collective: The lows
Personal life was rubbish! When fate dealt her hand this year, I almost folded.
But when I had to step back from work, the team stepped up and said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got this.’ And they had.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that freelancing encourages the propagation of the self-centred gene. After all, you wake up every day, and in theory, you don’t know where the next pound is coming from. Even when you do, you don’t know when you will actually get it.
But somehow, we are a true team
Even though we are a freelance collective and virtual, so don’t hang out in the same office every day. And we are there for each other. Not just to cover busy days and the holidays but also when the kitchen floods, the car breaks down, or we have children screaming or fighting. Or, when we get sick, or our parents get sick, or our dogs get sick and all in all, we are just too distracted to work.
2019 is already shaping up to be a brighter year in so many ways, not least with the addition of our latest recruit, Dill a Mastador pup. A girl this time.
I’ve always been so proud of the Comms Crowd and what we have achieved, but this year, I am also thankful.
