6 Crucial Choices That Determine Your Freelancing Future

We all know that freelancing is all about choices. The choices you make as a freelancer will determine your business’ success or failure.

As a freelancer, the best course is to proactively plan how you will approach each choice. You can always change your approach later if you feel that something is not working for your business.

The alternative of not planning means that your business will sort of drift along. You will deal with each new situation as you face it, but you don’t really have a plan. You will probably base your decision about each situation on how you feel or the latest article you read. Your business direction will seem faltering and inconsistent.

Here are 6 crucial interrelated choices that every freelancer needs to make in order to run and maintain a successful freelance business.

Choice #1 – How serious am I about freelancing?

Sadly, many freelancers are not serious about running a freelance business. Instead, they are looking for a quick way to earn a lot of money with very little work. However, that’s not how you succeed as a freelancer. Freelancing is a lot of hard work.

If you’re not willing to work at it, these other decisions make very little difference. You won’t follow through on them anyway. Freelancing is probably going to be a disappointment for you. However, if you are serious about freelancing, ask yourself each of the following questions.

Choice #2 – What’s my specialty?

This is the first defining decision you will make about your freelance business. The main issue is this: Will you specialise in a certain type of work or perform work for a specific market? Or, will you accept all projects that come your way?

There are advantages and disadvantages to whatever decision you make. If you decide to specialise in a particular type of work or target a very specific type of client, it may be easier for you to be recognised as an expert in your narrower niche. That means that you will be able to charge more for your services. You will also have less of a learning curve with each new project.

A potential disadvantage of deciding to specialise is that there may be fewer opportunities and you may find yourself turning some opportunities down if they do not fit your business model. You will also need to target your marketing to reflect your decision to specialise.

Choice #3 – How will I find work?

There are many different ways to find freelancing work. You could ask half a dozen freelancers where they find work and get half dozen different answers. Some common ways of finding work include:

• Job boards
• Advertised listings
• Cold calling
• Referrals
• Working for an agency

Of course, not all methods for finding freelance work are created equal. Targeted cold calling and referrals tend to result in higher paying gigs than looking for work through job boards and ads. But that’s just a generalisation.

Many freelancers have found good assignments using all 5 methods of finding work. However, each method of finding work requires a different approach to marketing and branding.

For example, if you decide to focus on looking for work primarily through job boards, you may find yourself facing pressures to lower your fees. You also need to focus on strengthening your profile on each job board where you participate.

Choice #4 – How do I market myself?

Marketing is a key part of a successful business. Most freelancers don’t do enough marketing and not doing so is the number one cause of not having enough clients.

There are many ways to market your freelance business. Here are just a few:

• Advertising
• Blogging
• Social media
• Cold calling
• Guest posting

Most freelancers find that a combination of marketing methods works best to keep a steady flow of new work coming in. Whatever you choose to do, don’t choose to ignore the importance of marketing your freelance business.

Choice #5 – How much should I charge?

There’s probably no more hotly debated topic in the freelance community than that of pricing. Many blog posts and even books have been written about the topic of freelance rates. Deciding a price to charge for your services is probably one of the most difficult, yet most important, decisions you will make in your freelancing career.

A sad fact is that many freelancers charge less than they are worth. Charging too low of a rate can be detrimental to your financial health. In the long run, it can contribute to the failure of your freelancing business. To make sure that your business is not in trouble due to low rates, make sure that you understand how much you must earn to stay afloat. Do not go below that figure, even if you are tempted.

If you are doing enough marketing, you should start to get regular client inquiries. In general, it’s better to spend more time on marketing than to lower your rate by too much.

Choice #6 – How do I handle criticism?

As a freelancer, you should expect criticism and even rejection. Handling the negative aspects of freelancing – like rejection and criticism – is what separates those who are serious about freelancing from those who are just playing around with it. In fact, it’s not unusual for the less-than-serious freelancer to give up when first faced with negativity.

However, if you’re serious about freelancing you need to view criticism as an opportunity to learn how to be better. Here’s how:

• Decide whether or not you think the criticism is valid.
  
  
• If it’s not valid, you know it’s the client’s problem and not yours.
  
  
• If it is valid, make a choice to learn from the criticism and take measures to do better next time.

SOURCE: DesignM.ag