With remote work on the rise, more people than ever want to become a freelancer or start freelancing. Which begs the next obvious question…HOW to start freelancing?
1.define your goals for freelancing
It all starts with knowing your goals for starting your freelance business.
You wouldn’t get in your car and start driving if you didn’t have a destination, and you shouldn’t start a freelance business without a destination, either.
Without a destination, it’s hard to know what direction to move. Goals provide that destination for starting your freelancing business.
2. Choose which skills you’ll start freelancing with
Whether you’re set to become a freelancer full time or on the side, your business will be built around the unique skills you have to offer. Those skills are your greatest asset.
So step one is identifying the different skills you’ve built over the years that other people may not have and want to pay YOU to use.
Start with a simple spreadsheet. In the first column, start listing each individual skill you can think of.
3. Define your target clients
Once you’ve identified the skills that will be the most profitable and enjoyable for you, it’s time to think about who is going to pay you to use them.
A lot of freelancers fail to be thoughtful and aspirational here.
They start freelancing and get so afraid of selling that they’ll take any client offering them any amount of money to do anything.
Don’t be like those freelancers!
4. Package your skills into a service offering
Selecting your skills was just step one of starting a freelance business – next you’ll need to sell them.
How would you actually use those skills for someone else?
What is the service you provide with those skills?
It’s a fine line, but it’s an important distinction.
Writing is a skill and email copywriting is a service.
Coding is a skill and creating custom mobile apps is a service.
In order to sell your skills, you need to think of them as a service.
5. Legally incorporate your business before you start freelancing
Now let’s talk about how to legally start your freelance business.
You could delay this step, but I recommend doing it sooner rather than later to make tax planning easy from the start.
“Start a freelance business” sounds intense – but it’s not. Technically, starting a freelance business is as easy as incorporating a legal entity.
6. Create a portfolio to showcase your skills
Every client, whether they realize it or not, hires you because they trust you.
They trust you to do what you say you’re going to do, and deliver on the quality of work you say you’re going to provide.
7. Develop a strategy for finding clients
Congratulations, your ducks are officially in a row!
At this point, you’ve set a strong foundation to start freelancing. Now, we need to talk about getting your first clients.
There are three major strategies to consider for finding new clients when you start freelancing:
Working with clients direct
Let’s talk about each of them.
8. Tap into your existing network
Let’s explore finding clients to work with directly and subcontracting.
Remember how I said people hire who they trust? Well, they’re even more likely to hire someone they like, too.
So the most likely person to hire you, especially when you’re getting your start freelancing, is someone who already knows you, likes you, and trusts you.
I call these people your advocates.
You already have advocates. They’re your friends, family, coworkers, colleagues, and so on.
Your advocates are always the most likely people to hire you or refer others to you.
The majority of service-based businesses grow from word-of-mouth…and those words come from the mouths of your advocates!
But, chances are, those advocates are not as good at referring people to you as you’d like.
You can change that.
9. Start creating new advocates
When you make the rounds and reconnect with your advocates, ideally one of them hires you or makes a direct introduction to someone else who hires you.
That first project will be your start – do a great job for them, and you can build out from there.
If that doesn’t happen right away, you may begin to panic and think about meeting totally new people to pitch your services.
So let’s talk about how to do that.
But I cannot stress enough how much better off you are, reaching out to EVERY existing advocate you possibly can first.
It is so much easier to find clients amongst people who already know, like, and trust you. So be absolutely sure you’ve talked to everyone you can before doing any direct outreach to strangers.6
Sure there will be easier way to become rich
Sure there will be easier way to become rich
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