Five Easy Steps to Kickstart Your Freelance Business

Are you ready to turn your business idea into a career? We’ll help show you how! If you’re reading this, you’ve already completed the hard task of establishing what you want to do. You have the idea, you’ve identified a void that needs filled where you live and beyond and you’re ready to start. So, what’s next?

Table of Contents

Define your parameters

Find Where You Fit

Identify Target Clients

Set Prices for Your Services

Build a High-Quality Portfolio Website

Define Your Parameters

Know where and how your freelance business will operate. Take a moment to think about your freelance business. How do you envision it as part of your life? As the founder of your business you have the opportunity to decide how much work will be taken on, and from where.

Ask yourself the following questions to better define how you’ll operate:

Will this be your full-time or part-time job?

Are your services offered on-site, remote, or both?

Would you prefer to work on a global or local scale?

Will you be readily available to clients or can they expect you to work only within certain hours?

Find Where You Fit

Figure out where your business best fits into the space. Before contacting potential clients, think about how what you’re selling fits into their scope of work. Make sure what you’re offering is clear and easy to understand. From there, consider what your specialty is within your target market that will give you a one-up on someone else offering the same general service.

This is a good time to establish your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition. By having a strong USP, both you and your clients can be confident in the services you are able to provide. Your unique selling point will make it easier for you to be considered for the job amongst others in the same space. Are you one of many web designers looking to redesign websites? Perhaps you also have photography skills in which you can shoot content for clients’ rebranding, providing a one-stop shop for clients.

Identify Target Clients

Consider who needs your work and who you’d like to work for. Now that you have a better idea of how to market yourself to clients, it’s time to identify who exactly would benefit from your services. Does the idea of helping build a startup excite you? Or would you rather work on developing a solution with a team of employees at a corporate company? Defining what type of company would benefit and utilize your service will make the list of whom to reach out to much more manageable. Often, smaller businesses do not have the full staff for everything they need. Often, they’ll outsource work outside their specialty to freelancers, which would be a great place to start if you don’t already have established connections.

Set Prices for Your Services

Know your worth. Be sure your pricing is competitive within the market, but don’t underestimate the value of your work. Depending on the services you will provide, you’ll need to decide whether you will get paid per hour or per project. Larger projects, especially if they’re not as clear-cut, mostly benefit from an hourly rate versus projects with a quick turnaround time, like a short writing piece. With Freework, it’s easy to manage multiple client projects because you can easily swap between time tracking for clients all in one place. You can also create your invoice for a completed project right on the app so that you get paid promptly for the work you’ve done.

Build a High-Quality Portfolio Website

Make it easy to be found from anywhere. A professional site is an easy way to make a great first impression and showcase your skills to potential clients. Creating a high-quality website allows you to show your personality, completed projects and makes it easy for people to find you. It’s a great way for a client to feel more personally connected to you than a general email or resume allows.

Consider including the following pages:

About Me

Work History

Photos

Client Testimonials

Sample Projects

Are you ready to get started? Set up your first project in Freework and make it happen!