Partner Article

How to become a full-time freelancer

If you’ve either been forced to or have selected to “give up the day job” and are thinking about coming a freelancer, here’s our Top Tips to help get you started:

1. It sounds really obvious, but before you make any rash decisions to give up a salaried position for the freedom of self-employment as a freelancer, it’s essential that you invest the time to make sure there’s a demand for the service you’re planning to offer. Once you’ve established that there is a demand, it’s a simple case of making sure you’re confident that you can get access to the people who are likely to become your future clients. Creating demand for what seems like a great idea is extremely difficult and in some cases impossible. Many, many people have gone bankrupt on the back of what seemed like a really good money making idea at the start!

2. Identify your Unique Selling Points (your USPs). These are the reasons why your clients or potential clients choose (or should choose) you and not your competitors. These points are at the core of everything you do and whilst not always easy to identify and then put into words, they’re your little communication pot of gold.

3. Get yourself an image. Business image is really important, particularly if you’re working at a distance as many freelancers do. In this day and age, an image needn’t cost a fortune and can be created with some very simple ideas. Things like a simple logo, an effective business name and a slogan or tagline, will give even the tiniest freelancer business the feel of a big, serious organisation and will help you win clients in today’s busy marketplace. Once you have your logo and your business name etc organised, you need to make sure you use them consistently across all your promotional materials, for example, your business cards, your stationery and your website.

4. Get yourself online. Having a website these days is perceived as being as important as a business card was 20 years ago. That’s not to say that you need to invest a fortune and hire a website designer to create a top-notch website for you, a free to create blog or template website will do the job perfectly well at the start.

5. Get yourself a good business card. An appealing business card will help drive business to your website and is quite literally your “calling card” to every potential client you meet, enabling you to leave something with them which they’ll hopefully keep; use again and again and may even pass on to their network of contacts.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jackson Hearman .