People from all over the world are trying to be a freelancer in order to earn their own living. Since the concept of freelancing is spreading like wildfire, one who wants to be a really successful freelancer should know some beginner tips and take some experts’ advice on freelancing.
When you have enough experience and learn to brand yourself as an expert in a niche, you’ll be able to work with brilliant people as a freelancer. You might even have a waiting list for new clients. If you are getting excited and willing to get serious about freelancing, you are in the right place.
So, how to be a successful freelancer and what are some best beginner freelancer tips? Here are some tips and advice we compiled for you.
Beginner tips for freelancers
1- Make to-do lists before taking action
A brain is a complex machine but it has a bad habit, it sometimes forgets. But I can tell you something that never forgets anything, to-do lists. With the help of to-do or action plan lists, you do not miss even the smallest things and it helps you to remember the details. It also avoids procrastination and repetition of same works.
2- Use the power of marketing
Marketing is an essential tool for you and your works to spread. Potential clients do not know your place if you do not tell them before. As a freelancer, you need to take advantage of diversity in marketing. Both social media devices like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and websites, blogs, mobile apps, ads might make a great contribution to your market popularity.
3- An ace in the hole, ‘Meetups’
Attending Meetups according to your interests and business field makes you connected with other people in the business and creates a room for sharing knowledge and experiences. Through Meetups, you are able to discuss with others and listen to their presentations which may lead to creative ideas or useful advice.
Also when you are starting your freelancing career, a solid professional network will sometimes help you get jobs without much effort.
4- Online training platforms and forums
As a freelancer, you need to improve your skills to keep up with what’s new. The alternative way to improve your skills instead of going to college or attending expensive workshops is taking online courses. You can take lessons from the best universities and access almost every course you need.
EdX, Coursera are good examples of online training platforms. In addition to training platforms, you can train yourself by following forums like Reddit and Quora and contribute their community.
5- Positive testimonials
Testimonial’s lexical meaning is a formal written description of someone’s character and qualities given by a previous employer. To get positive testimonials, you can conduct surveys after your projects or you can simply ask for a testimonial. Positive testimonials are crucial to reach more clients and be more professional.
You can also use tools like GoogleAlerts, Buzzsumo to track your mentions online for times someone is talking about you without your knowledge.
6 — Find a niche for freelancing services
When you are freelancing for the first time, it might be hard to find new clients. But after a while, you actually have to picky to work with new clients. Yes, you heard me right. That means saying “no” to a potential income. Why?
Think of it this way: Would you work with someone specialized in designing Instagram video ads or with someone who is building WordPress websites, coding some Phyton and doing some Powerpoint presentations? If you want to start a successful advertising campaign, you would pay extra to the first person, who is the specialist of your need.
The hard question here is, how to find a good niche for freelancing activities? Thanks to Google, you can use Google Trends to see what abilities are needed most recently and demand on that service are increasing over time. After finding your niche, try to build your freelancing reputation on that service.
7- Start freelancing before quitting your job
It’s not easy for most of us to wake up one day and decide to quit our job. If you have a dream of working remotely, being a freelancer or even a digital nomad, you can start with little freelancing projects while you still have your job.
This will allow you to build a portfolio, get positive reviews, earn experience with different clients and most importantly, learn to handle stress. But remember, never work on freelancing projects with your company’s computer!
8- Daily pitch to expand personal contact
The daily pitch as a freelancer is trying to contact a client or a prospective customer every day. One way or another. To build a network, first, you have to build a contact list. So every day, you should try to set up a meeting, make calls, send your portfolio or blog posts to people who might be interested in them.
9- Automate your freelancing processes
After finishing a few freelancing projects, you should analyze your activities, see the patterns and ultimately have templates to automate processes. Are you writing ad copies for Google Ads? A template for briefs that requires the client’s business goal, website, competitors in the market, available budget etc will help you look professional and them to save time and give a thorough brief.
10- Make a habit of time tracking
Time-sinking is one of the biggest handicaps to reach ideal productivity and efficiency. We are also inclined to waste our time. However, if we realize that it is a resource that cannot be bought and should be used wisely then we might understand its importance and necessity.
A successful freelancer is a person who tracks his/her time and manages it smartly. Although it is not always easy to track time by yourself, there are many great tools for this purpose.
Flowmagic, a tool that helps you to track your time in a very easy and useful way, can be a great example of time tracking tools. Start your free trial now and get the real return for your time.
Time tracking software for teams and freelancers Flowmagic
