Step by Step Guide to Freelancing in 2021
So, you have stumbled upon this article because you crave to become a high-end freelancer?
Here’s a short guide that will largely help you become a successful high-earning freelancer…
If you are planning to kick your 9-5 boss while reading this article, Wait! The first principle of a successful Freelancing Journey is Patience!
First things First! Make up your mind and de-clutter the thoughts of working for someone with a fixed amount of money being dumped into your bank A/c. Before you start freelancing, you must find answers to the questions mentioned below:
- What does Freelancing mean to me in the long run?
- How does it impact my work-life balance?
- Do I genuinely possess the skills required to become a freelancer?
- Does it suit my present lifestyle?
Once you clear the air of questions in your mind, you are all set to commence your freelancing journey!
Let’s get straight to our Guide for becoming a successful freelancer:
- Build Your Brand:
Do you remember the famous quote by Jimmy Wales, the Co-Founder of Wikipedia?
If it isn't on Google, it doesn't exist.
It’s as simple as that! Your brand is your digital portfolio. It describes who you are, your personality, and your way of dealing with stuff.
A personal brand can vary from a plethora of options available. It can be your LinkedIn profile, your own Podcast channel, or your Instagram’s Creator’s A/c.
Here are quick 5 Tips to build an effective Personal Brand:
- Figure out your area of interest and what you are good at.
- Research your target audience and what services you can provide.
- Plan and share your content with your target audience.
- Engage as much as you can with them. Build a community.
- Embrace networking. Try interacting with them & address their problems.
So how will you embrace social media and other open community platforms?
Try engaging with your audience for at least a couple of hours in the beginning. Quora & LinkedIn are by-far the best platforms to build an organic set of audiences.
Interacting with a community and providing solutions for their day-to-day activities is an excellent way to help yourself establish an online presence.
- Establish a set of audience/community:
Get yourself out from the shell of a normal social media platform user. Now is the time, where you are supposed to step inside the Content Creator’s bubble and showcase your interests.
It takes a ton of effort to build an online community. You need to share content daily and measure the level of value it fetches from your target audience.
If your content isn’t valuable, you are not likely to fetch any engagement and thus, would fail at building an online community.
- Sketch Your Service Layout:
Okay! Positively, you have established an engaging community, and now is the time, you roll out your services.
Now, pay attention to the following statement below
You do not need to have 1k+ followers on Instagram or 5k+ followers on LinkedIn to fetch freelance clients!
It’s a stupid belief. What you exactly need is a commitment, quality of work, and timely delivery of the assigned project! That’s it.
What does an ideal Service Plan look like?
A proper and effective Service Plan is highly advisable before diving into the ocean of contacting prospective clients. It must include your desired service offerings, its nature, and other relevant details.
Your Service plan may vary according to the services you are willing to provide as compared to others. There’s no prescribed layout or structure of how a service layout should like.
However, there are certain points that you must include in your service plan and, they are as follows:
- How much should I charge while starting?
- Should I offer for free in the beginning?
- What’s best: A cold approach or a warm one?
- Should I use the general templates or a personalized one?
- What’s the best place to find prospects?
Unless you are an amazingly extroverted person, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea to directly approach clients.
No one has told you before, but we are here to get you familiar with the scenario of the freelancing world.
But hey, that genuinely doesn’t mean that we are demotivating you!
By now, we expect that you can easily create a Service Plan for yourself at this stage. Let’s move on to another important element of becoming a successful freelancer.
- How To Pitch Prospective Clients?
My name is Jack. I am a Freelance Social Media Marketer & Graphic Designer. I provide services like social media marketing, graphic designing, ad campaigns, and other digital marketing services. Feel free to contact me at jackcarter01@gmail.com
At first look, what does this approach look like?
So cheesy and stupid, right? What’s your take?
Would it work?
UNQUESTIONABLY NOT!!!
We can predict the scenario as to what will happen after someone reads such a kind of message!
Your approach would be ignored the way, a female ignores her boyfriend with a smirk as soon as she finds someone else! [vice-versa]
I stumbled across your profile and found that you run a fast-food restaurant at Carter Road. To my surprise, I found out that you are also receiving a lot of responses to your recent posts.
Hey there. Good Afternoon! Jack this side.
I am a Social Media Marketer and thus, I would like to provide you a Free PDF that contains 5 tips on how you can improve your online restaurant experience for your present and future customers.
This will help you move in the right direction and generate more sales thereby!
If you wish to obtain the PDF, share your contact details at jackcarter01@gmail.com
Wish you a good day ahead!
Spot the difference? Well, the latter one looked bad and a quick one to ignore.
The pitch above is exactly not an effective pitch but a good one to kick-start your freelancing journey! It’s all about your approach and intent. Your script needs to be highly crisp and intimidating.
Who likes to read an article or a blog that has a pathetic and boring headline?
Would you? This way, it all comes down to one single thing while approaching a client and that is: Your approach should spark a solution to their problems…
No one, I repeat, no one bats an eye on approaches that feel more of publicity or advertising rather than problem-solving.
Here are 5 tips that you must take care of in your approach script:
- Keep your approach straight. Never beat around the bush.
- Make yourself look professional while addressing their problems.
- A realistic & persuading solution is likely to receive attention.
- Never look desperate. It quickly turns off your prospect.
- Always end your pitch with a CTA statement. For example - I would like to take 15 mins of yours over a zoom call to connect better with each other. Can I?
That brings us to our Fifth & Final step in the guide of how to become a successful freelancer. By now, you are already aware of how one should pitch a prospect!
Cold approaches need to be highly curated and problem-solving as we mentioned above. We would highly recommend checking out the below mentioned link for excellent cold email tricks and templates
Now, what if we make you comfortable and familiar with the reality of Working for FREE at the beginning of your freelancing journey?
- Pricing your services:
8 out of 10 freelancers find themselves in the middle of a lonely road every time they sit to sketch the price plan!
However, it is normal to offer your services for Free in the beginning. This is an ultimate opportunity cum golden chance to grab your client’s project. It is the process of how you can impress your client and build your rapport automatically.
There are several perks of offering your services for Free:
- It allows you to build trust & credibility in the eyes of your client.
- It gives them an idea as to what they can expect if they hire you.
- You have tapped an opportunity and you are likely to convert him/her.
- If you go well in addressing their problems, half the battle is won!
Your pricing plan must convey the value that you seek to offer. Well, in most of the cases, you will end up hearing – Your service charge is too high:(
In such cases, there’s no harm in offering a discount store to your client. Additionally, your marketing and negotiation skills come into place as to how you persuade him/her.
Although, it’s not always advisable to offer an immediate discount in the first place as it can quickly hamper your reputation and attitude towards them. As we said before, it’s all about the value that you seek to provide.
It’s also equally important that you convey your point in a manner that convinces them…
Pro Tip: It’s quite obvious that you both will be negotiating on the prices. No client has ever existed who hasn’t negotiated over the prices :p
So here’s a small piece of advice from the professional freelancers: Always mention the negotiated price as a discount. This helps in maintaining your standards.
Conclusion
As we approach the endpoint of this tunnel, what’s the last bite of chocolate that we would like to share with you?
Everyone has their own set of processes and thereby, it’s up to an individual as to how he maps his freelancing journey. There is no perfect layout or a rough blueprint on how one should operate as a freelancer and begin his journey.
Freelancing is a puzzle wherein, you are the sole decider of your approach towards work.
We believe that this short guide will help you kick-start your freelancing journey. Wish you luck:)
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