Working as a freelancer brings a sense of freedom and enjoying the career path you love. Successful Freelancer can be a long process. The process of getting there is not always easy. It takes time, lots of hard work, perseverance, and consistency. Here are the basic guidelines to be consider as a Successful Freelancer:
- Define your goals
- Decide on what services you will offer.
- Identify your clients and market.
- Setting price for your services.
- Identifying your tools needed to be started.
- Business Plan.
- Commitments.
Define your goals
Identifying your goals gives you a direction where you are going to be a successful freelancer. Your goals will guide every decision about your business. Take time to sit down and make sure goals are achievable. It is a strong intentional action why you are doing something and how to help you get to where you want to be. Make your goal smarter:
S simple
M measurable
A attainable
R relevant
T time bound
E evaluative
R revisable
Decide on your services
Try to figure out what resonates with you based on your qualifications and area of your interest. If you have multiple skills, Identify the most and are in demand in the market. Multiple skills can be offered as your services since you are starting you need to focus on maximum 3 skills to offer for a service. As your clients grow and you already know the flow then all of them you can post. There are limitless opportunities for you to enter the marketplace and compete effectively.
Your ability to select and offer the right services to your clients or customers in a competitive market determine your success or failure. A successful freelancer begin to do self- analysis:
- What are the foremost skills or services you enjoy doing? At least 3.
- Do you like that skills can be offered or to sell?
- Are you excited about your services to be offered?
- Can you see this services for the next five years?
- Is this the skill services that intensely desire to the marketplace?
Identify your clients
Your customers are the lifeblood of your businesses, and if you will not take care of them might look elsewhere for other options! There are many competitors out there and the key to succeed is to develop killer customer service ethics. Be polite, helpful and refrain from responding to abusive behavior by arguing or being condescending to your customers. You do not need to convince an unsatisfied customer to like your work and be happy even if you did hard work and a good job for it. You need to learn how to deal without escalating the situation. Your reputation and credibility define how you treat your customers in both good and bad situations.
Identifying your target clients, it is easier for you to determine where and how you will market your services and why they go for your services. To be a successful freelancer you should know how to communicate and build a good relation to your clients.
Setting price for your service
If you are starting your journey as a freelancer, I recommend you start off by investing in yourself with some new skills. Charging too low doesn’t seem right and charging too high feels like you’re being too demanding. There is no rule when it comes to pricing. Things you need to consider in pricing your services are time, costs of your services and what are you giving up.
As your business grows and your expertise grows your prices should increase as well and sometimes you will outgrow your customers and that’s okay.
Identifying your tools to be used
Freelancing is like doing a business. You need to invest with yourself and tools to hit your goals. Tools for freelancer must have:
- Website + Portfolio – If you can’t afford to have a website, you can easily find a free Online freelancer platform check out my post Websites for Beginner Top 5 Review. I recommend Siterubix.
- Organizational business – these tools are used to organize your schedule and project planning.
My recommendation:
- Trello – consists of Boards, Lists, and Cards. In these tools you can break down all lists in each project’s own board and within the board and tasks required to complete the project. From there you can create labels for each task:
- To Do
- In Progress
- For Review
- Done
For each workflow, you can also share the boards to your clients. This makes it easy for them to see what stage you are working on and what is the progress.
- Google Drive – to put some of your documentation and to make all your files organized.
- To Do – this tool is a checklist of your to-do-list, your tasks, and appointments in a day. You can also put your plans for a week and month.
- WiseStamp.com – professional email signature to give information to your clients.
- Docracy – a tool for contract templates allows you to send and sign contracts by client as you are an independent contractor. In this way, you and your work can be protected.
Business Plan
Getting into the right direction is by taking ownership of your ideas, forming it into strategies, and taking it into action. A business plan requires you to think deeply about what you want for your future, who you want to serve, and how you are going there. A successful freelancer sets a business plan to meet your goals and help you track down how you’re freelancing changes and growth and improves what needs to develop.
Conclusion
A successful freelancer takes deliberate focus and attention. Focus on your daily progress. Be optimistic and patient in all aspects. Freelancing is a great way to choose for those who are dreamers and doers. A typical freelancer has TONS of ideas, but ever more passion. Passion to making them happen!
A successful freelancer knows what he or she wants and how to get here. After consistency comes growth, future plans and improvements. Don’t forget to learn new things. Don’t be afraid to learn too much. Growth is a great way to establish new goals. Everything is possible!
Can you share how you became a freelancer and there any tools you used to run your business that I didn’t include? I’d love to hear about them, so let me know below!