53 million people in the U.S are performing a variety of freelance work: Source
If you are planning to do the same, then we are certain that you’d want to become a competent and successful freelancer. The feeling is the same amongst the existing self-employed; however, in order to actually become successful, you have to follow some rules.
Let us take a look at a few ways for a self-employed professional to become a successful freelancer.
1. Create a reputation and brand image for yourself.
As a self-employed developer, artist, writer or innovator, putting up a handful of adverts on social media and getting some recommendations might be just enough to brand yourself as a freelancer. However, with competition rising and more people advertising themselves as competent professionals, the onus is on you to project yourself in a better way.
You must self-promote your own brand.
You are not selling a service, you are selling yourself - your mind, your ideas, your hard work and skills, your experience and your thoughts. Therefore, it is important that you build a brand name for yourself and then use it to gather additional goodwill, a better reputation, and more customers.
Steps for creating your brand:
- Go social: Wake up and use the internet! Get yourself an account on Facebook, Twitter or Linked-In. Complete your profile and include your experience - include all of the jobs you have previously performed. Once you have enough followers, you can start creating a brand name for yourself.
- Contribute: You can join groups and pages to contribute your expertise toward answering questions and queries of people. The more visible you are the more people will recognize you. You can also use Quora as a platform to organically promote yourself by showcasing your knowledge. Just confirm your awareness of the fact that you join groups that are relevant to your niche industry.
- Remain online. Use apps like Tagove or Slack for better interaction with customers. In fact, staying live on the Facebook app is one of the best ways to stay on top of the game.
- E-mail more: You can make a consolidated page/pdf. of your previous work, attach it to a message and send it out to people who are interested in hiring professionals. Remember to present a small brief about your tasks and your previous experience. In this way, you can directly, give your probable clients the opportunity to assess you.
- Ask for help: Notify your existing clients in order to pitch for you to their friends or fellow professionals. If your work is good, they will vouch for you and your brand.
If you do these things correctly, then you’d definitely find more work and make yourself famous, accessible and easy to remember, in the process!
2. Use tools to reach your clients.
“Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools, he is nothing, with tools he is all”: Thomas Carlyle
If you want to be a successful service provider and freelancer, then you have to depend upon tools and software. You already must, of course, be using top tools to make and carve your creation. For example, a blogger would use Microsoft Word and WordPress; while a designer would use A
dobe Photoshop. However, as a freelancer, you must always avail yourself of the best tools in which to stay in which to touch with your clients and customers. Yes, innovations like Live chat allow users to interact with each other in a much more propounding way. It is very innovatively designed so that freelancers can easily interact with their clients, and vice versa, to explain every single detail of their project.
3. Learn to say “NO”.
You might be swamped with work at corners and people would still want more from you! As a professional, you might face this issue when you are a freelancer and if you are good at your work. Money here is not the issue—but time is. More people would want you to take work and your existing clients/vendors would want you to continue with them.
But, since you have no legal obligation to yes to everyone, you have the right to say no when you feel like it. Many freelancers still fail to say no—and this is what makes them mediocre, to be honest. Remember, you are the master of your own destiny and you are on no one’s payroll—hence saying NO is your birthright.
Saying yes and becoming a Yes Man is quite easy when you are a freelancer, as no one wants to reject work or money. Nevertheless, you must reject work—in order to be successful— when you feel you are not in a position to take it up and complete it. For instance, remember these 4 benchmarks the next time you decide to take a project on broad:
- Whether you like the idea or the project
- Is the pay at par or above your grade?
- Is the deadline reasonable?
- Do you want to work or take a break?
Apart from this, saying “no” to multiple edits and revisions is vital. Some believe that once they hire your services for some work that they actually own you. Most want edits done, because of some issue or another, but they want to done for free. Arguably, you must do it for free if the mistake is from your side. It is better to say “no” if you been you are been taken for a ride.
4. Planning your Future
Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years as a freelancer? This is a very important question which you cannot dodge. In fact, this is quite vital if you want to be successful.
Whether you want long term projects, which pay less but consistently, or short-term projects with excellent rates, these are some of the decisions you have to make and selecting one may affect your future.
Dry days can be a common thing, but you have to endure them. Therefore, planning is vital. Know your capabilities, chalk out a roadmap and stick to your plan.
Ask yourself questions like, “what is the cost”, “how much time should I devote to a project”, when should I increase prices and what shall the payment cycle be, as well as where should I advertise and where can I find my best clients, etc.?
5. Interpretation of the Kaizen theory
In Japanese, Kaizen means continuous improvement and as a freelancer, you are required to put forth the same effort. It is a long-term plan to improve the productivity and overall quality of your work. Kaizen Theory believes in making small and tiny changes rather than large ramifications when it comes to making improvements.
Although generally used by big multinational corporations, the theory can be applied to improve your output and results.
Interpret the practice in your own way and supply the key takeaway correctly. For instance - Kaizen Practices talks about how important it is for every single worker to do well in order to collectively achieve success. Here, you can interpret this as how vital is it for you to play all the roles—of project manager, worker, customer executive, delivery manager, finance manager, and quality check manager—correctly at all levels!
This would certainly ensure long-term benefits, efficiency, and improvement.
Being a freelancer may be a very hectic thing, but it is also one of the best challenges you can ever take up if you want growth and excitement in your career. Hence, if you follow these tips, then you can certainly accelerate your freelancing career graph in a positive way.