Freelancing is often regarded as the future of work. Although freelancing may offer you more freedom than a typical 9-5 job, it is in no way for the lazy. Freelancing usually requires maximum attention irrespective of the niche that you are in. For established freelancers, setting the pace at which they prefer to work is a lot easier than aspiring freelancers.
However, given that you start out the right way, becoming established would take a very short while. In order to do this, you need to start your freelancing the right way. How you start is a major factor that determines how long it would take for you to become a master of the craft and how rapidly you would gain ground. To start freelancing the right way, here are some tips to help you along:
One of the very first things that potential clients would be interested in knowing is whether indeed you know exactly what you are doing. This implies that it is not just enough to know the basics of your craft.
An in-depth understanding is essential to prove to your potential clients that you are indeed a pro at what you do. And it doesn’t matter whether you have got sufficient experience or not. An ability to prove to people beyond a reasonable doubt that you are capable may be all you need in some cases.
You need to be confident and state clearly to the client exactly what they should expect. When you seem confident yourself, potential clients can easily tap into that energy and you might just win yourself a contract.
Also, you need to be great at expressing yourself because having content inside of you without an ability to express yourself wouldn’t do you much good.
Your portfolio basically consists of past works that you have done excellently and are very proud of. Sometimes, clients do not have the time to test the waters, they would rather go with what they can see. And this is exactly what your past work does for you.
From your portfolio, potential clients can easily deduce whether or not you are qualified enough for the job that they have at hand. If your portfolio is impressive, this would definitely make the clients stay.
This is one of the most important aspects of starting freelancing the right way. To build your portfolio, you do not exactly have to start with a massive project. The little tasks that you have played around with or practiced with are good enough to go into your portfolio.
As you make more progress and get better at whatever you do, you can replace those ones with new ones. This way your portfolio is never empty and it only gets better with time.
To succeed in freelancing, you don’t need a truckload of customers. Few customers who keep you busy all the time can make the whole difference. Also, there are so many freelancers out there so taking the time to build your customer base is very important.
In building your customer base, it has to be done very deliberately. How to build a great customer base? Start one satisfied client at a time. Satisfaction is the keyword that would keep them coming back to you for more products or services.
The best way to build up a strong customer base is by offering them great goods or services such that you leave them impressed. Similarly, referrals are great for any freelancer and doing quality work for satisfied customers is what would bring you these referrals. Also, ensure that you get paid for your services and this is where invoicing comes in.
When starting out, offering only paid services is a sign that you are indeed worth your salt and while you are at it, ensure that your invoices go out early enough.
Now, you are literally building a business, a freelancing business if you will so there’s a need to track everything you are doing. First, you would need to learn to go about tracking the tasks you have at hand.
When you have multiple tasks, ranking them in order of urgency or deadline is a great way to ensure that you meet up at the end of the day. Next, you need to track your finances, this is important to ensure that you stay in the green always. You need to know exactly where your cash is going - especially the ones that are auto deductible.
You would most likely be too busy to even remember when you need to pay for certain subscriptions so you would need a way to get around that. Also, for the various subscriptions that you would be making, you need to at least have a knowledge of them.
This way, it would be a lot easier to decide whether you want to cancel or whether you want to go on with the various services.
This is the most important part of the whole thing yet the one that mostly stays neglected by many. Knowing that this might be one of your biggest expenses, you might stick around for a while without taking on any health plan which is fine. What’s a real issue is that you may prolong that and allow one sudden unexpected medical expense to drain your wallet. It is best to be covered, stay safe - And to keep the work coming in.
In conclusion, freelancing doesn’t necessarily have to take ages for you to get established. Treading the right path and making the right moves is all you need. And now that you have got it, you can be certain that starting freelancing is going to be a lot different for you.
Author, Freelance writer