How to Increase Freelance Business?
Are you struggling to accomplish your dreams of seeing yourself as a victorious freelancer? Here are 10 affordable ways that can help you notch your business objectives.
According to a 2017 study by Freelancers Union and Upwork, it is found that more than half of the millennial’s around the world already engage in some form of freelance work and are expected to become the majority of the workforce by 2027. Freelance workforce growth is accelerating; however, there are some challenges when you adopt this industry but still, more and more people are making that shift because it’s fun to do particular pieces of work for different organizations rather than sticking to the same organization for lifetime.
There are successful freelancers out there living their life in a very luxurious way. Selling their own products, designs in their own style, creating content, and letting their sites bring in quality leads for them. This sounds like a perfect mechanism to sustain a beautiful life. And it is very obvious that every freelancer wants to adopt the same lifestyle. But the question is how you can extend the boundaries of your freelance business?
Well, we have outlined some of the most inexpensive ways to stimulate your freelance business. These are some key steps that you need to follow in order to make your living style magnificent.
Never underestimate the power of personal branding
Built a good looking website with attractive theme-based design and super cool animation? Well, that will not be going to bring quality leads for you. If we talk about today’s market rule, the digital presence is the utmost important way to make your business get in reach to the outer world. If your website is not promoting the presence of your way of working with your clients or the kind of knowledge you used to keep related to your field then it’s nearly useless. A purposeless website will not be going to attract good clients for your business, social media profiles need to be updated in a timely manner and blogging should educate people about who you are and what you can do. This is extremely important for a long-lasting impression on any new viewer that visits your website, build those kinds of contents that can convert visitors into customers.
Building great rapport with existing clients
Expanding your business boundaries not always include pitching to new clients, how you deal with your existing clients and what they think about your nature of work is an important aspect of your business growth. Even if you are not doing their project, ensure to reach them occasionally to make them informed about your current products or services you’re offering. This will maintain harmony between relationships and there might be chances they can refer you to some other client looking for the same services. Always put your 100% to make each work memorable and a success.
Grow your network
Active networking is vital to business growth. You may attend some social events, national conferences, or small gatherings or meet-ups to look out for some new people in your field. This is the best way to meet with several new clients and freelancers of your own field. Networking is all about getting to know who can assist you and who has the potential to help you grow. Your network may have some awesome ideas or information to help you out in something and some stories to exchange with you that may actually be turned out to be useful for you. Networking helps you to climb the ladder of your business and helps it reach the greatest heights.
Increase your usual rate
If you have just entered into the freelance world your time’s worth more than what you’re charging. Initially, your freelance business requires a tremendous amount of hard work, you need to work on your skillset to build leverage among people. In the first few months of your business, you may experience sudden growth because you’re charging low rates but this is not ideal you need to overpower your fear in order to get ahead in your business. Once you established yourself, there is no harm in charging more for your quality work. That’s not to say you should suddenly demand a pay rise from your loyal clients but it’s highly recommended that you need to keep reviewing your competitor’s fees in order to ensure you’re matching the going rate for your level of experience and expertise or not. This is an ideal step to make your business grow.
Go after Bigger leads or Clients
Once you are out of the Newbie phase, it’s time to get some bigger goals and work for it. If you really want to see your business reaching some new heights, you need to get some bigger clients in your freelance bucket. Large clients tend to offer better long term opportunities as well as steady engagements even after the project gets completed. Also, having a well-reputed company name attached to your portfolio can cause you to gain credibility within your industry and can bring greater visibility to your work. But working with large clients requires more efforts than working with some local shop, you need to be patient enough to earn the trust of a large client, at the last, they want best services and you need to prove them that you are the most qualified for the services they are demanding for.
Power of Teamwork
If you have already set your mind to grow yourself into the freelance industry then it’s quite necessary for you to let other professionals help you to meet the required goal. Being an individual freelancer you will always be limited to the size of the projects and if you are competing against established agencies and businesses that have larger budgets then it is a prerequisite for you to team up with other freelancers or agencies having similar or complementary skills. It will be productive for many reasons, as it will allow both parties to handle client challenges or brainstorm ideas in any complex projects, grow their businesses by referring clients to each other, having a leeway to go on vacation or take some time off and increase productivity by offering multiple services under the same roof. If your aim is bigger then it’s an absolutely smart idea to get the job done.
Offer additional services
If your focus was on one or two core services as of now then adding new services could help you find new clients, or give you more work with current clients too. But the question is how do you decide which services you should offer as a freelancer? The simple answer is you should first know your client base before adding these additional services to your repertoire. You love photography but do your clients need these things? Try to avoid adding such services having no far link with your client base. If you plan to expand your services, try branching out into similar products and services. It might be that you already have the skills required, you just need some training or online research to uplift your knowledge and expertise.
Make way for Professional Development
Being in any kind of business domain, it is a personal responsibility of any professional to keep his or her knowledge and skills up to date in order to deliver the best of their services which is required for their profession and can meet the expectation of their clients. Above all, the ride to develop oneself professionally is fun and engaging too. There are many ways where one can enhance his or her professional skills and sharpen the knowledge regarding the respective industry niche – Reading business books, getting enrolled in online courses, buying some better equipment, testing out some new strategies, develop new marketable skills and so on. Doing all the practices not only re-energized your ideas for your projects but can reinforce your business reputation.
WOMM (Word of mouth marketing)
Have you heard about WOMM? Word of mouth marketing also known as word of mouth advertising is a free form of advertisement or promotion triggered by satisfying customer experiences. If you are finding problems to search for good projects to bid on rather than sticking to the old formula-bidding new clients on odesk you can consider this formula to grow your network in the most effective form. According to research, Word of mouth marketing impression results in 5x more sales than a paid media impression and people are 90% more likely to trust and buy from a brand recommended by a friend. This is the most feasible form of getting good leads and is absolutely free. You need to look beyond your old techniques and need to stay creative in order to find some good projects to work on.
Share your expertise with the community
Last but not least doing freelancing is not all about getting projects, making money and enjoy your life. If you have been a part of this workforce for any period of time, there could be some knowledge, experience or skills that you might share back with your community people. You can share some great tips via video tutorials or participating in forums discussions etc. And if you have a team of workers by sharing knowledge and experience you can limit the skill gap between your workers and you, as a result, they will easily acquire a new set of skills. Sharing your expertise with other people not only will help them in their professional learning but will also expand your wisdom in your field.
There will be constant struggles in your journey as a successful freelancer but with a consistent, sustained and determined approach, it is way sure you’ll start getting results. There is never going to be an open road but every great success has been achieved by fights, determination and winning spirit. Keep moving and we will keep sharing our pieces of knowledge with you to make you stronger in your freelance workforce.
