Nowadays, with the reach of globalization, we can undertake any type of business. This is because new technologies provide us with tools that were not available to us in the past. This way, starting a freelance business in any area we wish is now a reality.
In this article, we are going to talk about how you can start a freelance business. In addition, we are going to provide you with some tips on how to create a new business. Let us take a look now:
- What do you want from your business?
- Make sure you are involved
- Find the commercial side of the business
- Start discovering your target audience
- Determine the price
- Network
- How can we help you to start a professional freelance business?
1. What do you want from your business?
Before you set your big freelance business plans in motion, you need to know a lot about yourself and why you are starting your business in the first place.
Ask you some of the next questions: Why are you doing this? Is it to be your own boss? To set your hours? To pursue your passion? All of the above?
And what time and effort are you prepared to dedicate? Is this going to be a side hustle? Are you going to keep your day job?
You need to know the answers to all of these questions, and then some before you can commit to starting your own freelance business. In reality, you cannot know what you are doing if you have no idea why you are doing it in the first place.
To learn more about how to start your freelance business, you can count on our specialized team at Connect Freelance.
1.1 Have a solid picture of your financial situation
The idea of dropping everything to pursue your passion on your terms is a dreamy one. That is why you have to be careful.
It is easy to romanticize the image of you walking out of your office with a big smile on your face, knowing that you are about to do what you have always wanted to do with no one to answer to. It is a lovely concept, but you cannot get carried away. You need to get grounded, and understanding your finances is a crucial part of that.
Familiarize and understand your personal and business-related expenses and know how long your savings can support you. Take a good look at your financial situation and identify a point at which you might jump ship if things do not go as planned.
Take all of that into account and use it to set a monthly income goal
Understanding your finances will help you get a clear idea of what to expect in the future and give you a concept of how to handle problems that will arise.
2. Make sure you are involved
If you want to succeed as a freelance business owner, you must be fully committed. You must find and maintain a special kind of motivation.
You have to ask yourself some burning questions, which include: Am I ready to commit as much as possible to this? Is this exactly what I want to do? Do I have a comprehensive plan? Do I believe in it?
When it comes down to it, you have to believe in yourself, believe in your business, understand that it might not work, and know that you are willing to stay the course to successfully start an independent business.
2.1 Set measurable goals
You will need to set benchmarks to ensure that your business is progressing and that you are staying the course. It will also help your confidence to know that you are consistently reaching the milestones you have set for yourself.
Make sure the goals you are setting are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. Also be sure to set different types of goals, specifically short-term, long-term, and ongoing. A short-term goal might be something like getting your website up and running with a certain amount of monthly visitors within three months.
A long-term goal might be to reach an annual revenue goal within three years. Finally, an ongoing goal might be to devote a specific number of hours to customer communication each week.
Make sure these goals are reasonable and describe a solid trajectory for your business. Keep careful track of them to get a better understanding of what you are doing well and what you could be doing better.
3. Find the commercial side of the business
Before you get started, you will want to take care of the administrative and legal essentials of your independent business.
- You should be clear about the goals of the business, as well as the number of resources you have at your disposal. In addition, familiarize yourself with what your business contracts look like and keep the business organization up to date.
- That could mean taking steps such as formally organizing a business entity and getting an idea of your tax exposure.
- Also, you should have a plan for cash management. In freelancing, how and when you receive cash can be unpredictable. You should have an idea of how you plan to keep enough cash to stay afloat.
- Make sure you figure out things like bookkeeping, the day-to-day running of your business, and how to save and manage your money before you jump into freelancing.
However, running an organized business is no easy task. It requires vision, discipline, knowledge, management skills, and a small dose of intuition.
This task falls, almost always, on the leader or manager of the business. There is no one better than them to know what the company needs and to make the right decisions in this area. In fact, in many cases, this is the same person who has prepared the business plan in the previous stages of the process.
Whatever the nature of the company, the only certain thing is that before getting down to work is that the essential elements of any organizational plan must be clearly understood.
4. Start discovering your target audience
You will want to start by conducting general research on your target audience. Get a sense of who your customers and prospects are. You should consider contacting those people for surveys and interviews. This will help you understand what type of buyer is right for your business.
From there, you will want to narrow your base a bit. Choose commonalities among the potential buyers you have identified. This could include considering factors such as demographics, how they like to be contacted, behaviors and interests.
Once you have identified trends within your audience, develop personas based on the different patterns you see:
- You can start by asking yourself who will pay for the service you offer.
- Determine the needs your product meets
- Determine if someone has already contracted the service you offer.
- Locate the age and gender of your target customers.
- Establish the conditions under which you will offer your service.
We could liken the target to our target audience and potential audience, either of an eCommerce (customers) or of a marketing campaign (audience).
Thus, when we talk about what is the target, we refer to that group of people who, due to their qualities and characteristics, have a high potential, or there is a high probability that they could become a consumer of our product or service in the future.
It is therefore the group of people on whom all marketing efforts should be focused to attract them to our brand. In other words, it is every person who may be interested in what we sell.
5. Determine the price
When determining to price, it is important to consider how you plan to charge clients.
Once you have landed on your pricing structure, start calculating how much your services will cost. You can start by researching industry averages. Also, take a look at how to calculate hourly rates for freelance marketers and consultants to get some initial estimates.
It might also be helpful to reach out to other professionals in your space to see how much they charge and how well those price points are doing.
5.1 Create and maintain an online presence.
You are going to need to get a website up and running as soon as possible. That is going to be your first point of contact with many of your customers.
Having an attractive, easy-to-navigate website assures potential customers that your business is legitimate and professional:
- Document your strategy
- Build a website that is your digital fortress.
- Create a blog to educate your audience and position yourself as an authority.
- Create innovative and original web pages to disseminate content.
In addition, you will want to establish a solid social media presence. Social media outreach is becoming essential for any type of business, and freelancers are no exception.
A solid social media presence is incredibly important when it comes to interacting with existing clients to keep them interested in your business.
Create and develop profiles on various social networks. The more likes and followers you can accumulate the more reliable and established your freelance business activity will appear to be.
6. Network
You cannot do business without contacts.
No doubt it will be difficult, but the success of your business could depend on whether or not you make the effort to network effectively.
You should start by identifying where your target buyers hang out, both online and offline.
Attend local meetings relevant to your industry to make personal contact with potential prospects and fellow professionals in your space.
Be sure to use social media to maintain constant contact between you and your potential buyers, as well as between you and your fellow professionals.
If you make smart, dedicated efforts to reach out and connect with prospects and fellow professionals, you should be able to establish a productive network for your business.
6.1 Market yourself effectively
You must develop a solid content marketing strategy. Blogging is an essential part of that process. When you do, be sure to write content that is generally relevant to your field, not just specific to your business.
- The best way to do that is to demonstrate that you know what you are talking about when it comes to your area of expertise.
- A content offer is an asset such as a white paper or e-book with information relevant to your field.
- To get a reader to download your content offer, ask them to fill out a contact form. By doing so, you are identifying that reader as a potential customer.
- Promote enriching content that makes you stand out as an authority in your field. In this way, your content marketing strategy will shape your reputation.
It is not necessary to have a lot of content on your site. In this sense, the most important thing is the quality of the content you have and its effectiveness in digital marketing.
7. How can we help you to start a professional freelance business?
Currently, the possibility of starting a business as a freelancer has grown enormously thanks to government initiatives. In this sense, starting a business with an experienced team is an excellent idea.
If you want to start a freelance business and you wish to know how we can help you in this area; you can count with us. In addition to our knowledge, we are your helping hand.
To learn more about how we can help you to start a professional freelance business, contact us through our phone number at +971 43 316 688. Also, allow us to reach you; send us an email at contact@connectfreelance.ae.
Please go to b for further job opportunities. Send your application by visiting thetalentpoint.com. You can also send your resume to contact@thetalentpoint.com. We are your partner and ally in your professional growth.