Freelancing is more than a great career option – it’s a great business option. You’re self-employed, and that means you’re the boss as well as the blue-collar worker. Of course, that also means you need more than a professional talent with regards to the product or service you’re selling to clients. You need to improve your entrepreneurial skills because you’re responsible for running a company now, even if it’s only a one-person operation. Still, once you’ve grown accustomed to this new lifestyle, you’ll be unstoppable. In this article, we’re going to talk about the necessary tools you need to use and the decisions you need to make in order to create a popular shop that doesn’t flop.
Manage your time.
The first step towards creating a successful freelance business is to manage your time. If you want to get the 8 figure dream lifestyle then you need to learn to balance the duties of a boss with the duties of an employee, as mentioned briefly in the introduction. You need to take on all the roles of a business with a full team; marketing, finances, customer service, and so on. Obviously, we’ll talk about improving your freelancing in each of these departments throughout this article, but it’s important that you don’t take on more than you can handle. Specialize your business so that you’re not offering too much to too many clients; it’s better to offer a high-quality limited service than a low-quality extensive service.
You might even want to outsource certain tasks in order to better manage your time. You could get an outsourced team to deal with the customer service aspect of your business. Automating certain parts of your service will help you better manage your time too. If you have a system that can automatically generate invoices or deal with other administrative aspects of your business then you’ll be able to focus your energy and time on delivering projects to clients. Your freelance business needs organization if it’s going to run steadily and continuously in the long-term. Managing your time more effectively will help you to deliver a service that’s as extensive as the other firms in your particular market.
Separate your business and personal life.
Continuing from the previous point, you also need to manage your time in terms of separating your business and personal life. You might not think that this has a big impact on the success of your freelancing, but it does. If you work a 9 to 5 job then you know that you can come home at the end of the day and relax; the office and your home are two separate places. But this often isn’t the case for freelancers. And it can be so easy to end up working ridiculously long hours because you don’t want to restrict the potential of your business. You want to deliver an extensive service to an extensive client base.
However, you need to restrain yourself if you want to look after your mental health. The success of your shop depends on it because you won’t work as productively or effectively if you don’t take breaks and relax with your friends or family. Find time for your personal life in your daily schedule so that you can keep your brain sharp. You control your time, after all – you’re your own boss. The point is that you don’t want the quality of your service to suffer because you’ve not been getting enough sleep or you’ve given yourself too much to do. Look after yourself.
Prove yourself to potential clients.
As a new business entering the market, you’ve got to prove to potential customers that your business is trustworthy. You don’t have the brand recognition or a loyal client base as your competitors so you have to give your target audience a reason to believe that your freelance services are as good as promised. You should start with a portfolio showcasing your abilities. People won’t be able to doubt your ability to design a professional website if you provide them with mock-up images of template sites you’ve created.
Of course, if you really want your freelance business to take off then you need to make sure that the front page of your website contains enticing 5-star testimonials from happy customers. Potential clients will be more inclined to give your freelance business a chance if they see that previous customers were happy with the service they received. Obviously, this depends on you delivering a good service. Treat your customers as well in order to ensure that they leave a good review. You could even offer discounts and deals on their next purchase as a way of thanking them for their service. Going the extra mile to show that you care about your clients will impress them. Consumers like to feel valued by businesses.
Promote yourself loudly online.
One of the main ways to ensure that your solo shop doesn’t flop is to promote yourself loudly online. Even if you’re creating an incredible product or service, you’ll struggle to make the income to keep your business afloat if you don’t advertise your services well. There are most likely many great businesses in your industry already. You need to shout louder than the competition to catch the attention of your target market. Digital marketing is the answer in 2018. If you don’t have an online presence then you’re squandering your potential for success because most people search on the internet for the goods they want.
Of course, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on online adverts. There are other ways to market yourself in the modern age. The goal is to show up at the top of search result pages so that you increase traffic to your business’ website and social media pages. If you work on your site’s content then you’ll stand a better chance of ranking well on search engines; the algorithms rank links based on content. Additionally, you’ll make a better impression on visitors with a well-designed website. We’ve already talked about making a good impression with a portfolio and testimonials on your front page, but you need a responsive layout that looks good on all manner of devices too.
