5 Things New Freelancers Shouldn’t Avoid to Be Successful
It’s painful; but no pain, no gain.
Freelancing comes with its own set of rules. But it’ll be you who will frame those rules. Success as a freelancer will also depend on the effectiveness of the rule and on how well you’ll stick to it or align your day with it.
The luxury life of a nomadic freelancer who is eternally on a workation is a mirage for the majority of us. Well, because many of us like to live at home or can’t travel and have bills to pay and so on.
Well, so any decent freelancer worth his/her sweat will vouch for these
1. Pitching Everyday
We all need quality clients. What often eats my time and energy is qualifying a client.
I’ve worked with 7 to 10 clients since January. And finding an ideal client takes a ton of time. You sent a personalized cover letter, and when you hear back, what happens next?
Any of these:
- They ask for a paid/free test task.
- You reject it and move on, Or you accept it and submit it.
- They might hate it and bid you goodbye. And you move on to find another prospective client. Or
- They like it and want to move ahead. Good.
- You ask for a chat/call to analyze their requirements. They schedule a call quickly and you can go to town.
- They are super busy, and then they go into silent mode. You keep waiting and send a reminder mail every 2–3 days. Yet. Nothing. Radio. Silence. Scary! You lose a week and give up.
To minimize time-wasting clients, what you could do is, - Decide your price for copy or content and consider creating a rate card. When a client asks for your price, state it confidently.
How to create a Rate Card?
- Initially, don’t quote a standard price.
- Think about how long a piece of copy or content is going to take.
- Then come up with a fair price you think your content demands, then state it as a project cost and not per hour cost.
- Sometimes I go by per word cost when I’m not too familiar with the niche.
- Another way to price is — Can you call yourself a pro in an area you aspire to work? Then aim to earn a certain amount per annum. Break it into monthly and weekly earnings. Price your work accordingly. - Lookup for clients you want to work with and pitch them.
Sure it is a little more work. But that’s where the cream is, baby.
Finding your ideal clients across the world has never been this easy, with all their info at your fingertips. - Set expectations early on with your clients. Then over-deliver. And they’ll want to work with you. Just you. I’ve had some clients plead to work with them. I browse for content topics for clients or do a website audit for free, for instance.
- Reduce friction and make it easy to work with you. I offer a 100 % refund in case they don’t find my work up to their expectations. but hardly anyone asks for it.
2. Diversify Income
You cannot depend entirely on writing for clients. It can get monotonous. With no fallback option, you might find yourself on the verge of financial breakdown if a client backs off.
It takes a while to achieve that mental shift from an employee who rents time for money to being a creator and entrepreneur.
- Sell informational products or templates on Gumroad or Appsumo. You don’t even need a website for it.
- Break into affiliate marketing, or dropshipping.
- You learn a great deal by testing products and offers for your own products.
- You can create an email list, a great resource to earn passive income.
- Run a podcast, get sponsorships; Publish a book, or Build software on the side if you’re the techie type.
Do something whatever that’ll propel your boat.
It does take a while to achieve that mental shift from an employee who rents time for money to being a creator and entrepreneur.
3. Staying Goal-focussed
Wait, do you have one?
Losing focus is the easiest street to doom town in freelancing. I have to admit. I’m guilty too, of losing sight of my “why?”.
There are so many important things to do instead of Netflixing or scroll-rolling social media. Avoiding putting off things is one thing. Creating a list of things to do when you have nothing else to do can also be a productivity booster.
You can send an email you created for a client last week and stopped short of hitting send. Or networking is something you can count on. Maybe you can squeeze in a small workout for 10 minutes.
But without a list of things to tackle tomorrow, the day goes wasted. Get it down on paper or at least a notepad online.
4. Being Mindful
You didn’t choose this over your 9–5, to burn out. Or ignore your child’s emotional needs. Or canceling your vacay plans for a snobby customer. Did you?
You're a business now. And can decide your operating hours. The more exclusive you become, the more valuable you can be to clients. Or more clients will value your time and work.
Give yourself,
- the time to breathe,
- relax and enjoy some spa,
- exercise and stay fit,
- go on that planned holiday,
- eat and sleep well.
If you be there for yourself, you can be there for your dear ones and your business. I learned this the hard way.
5. Be a Student
If you love reading, good for you, or you’ll soon empty your creative reserves. Writing involves constantly soaking up new ideas, and new information and making mental (or actual) notes. Reading will help you break open the flood gates of creativity, and expose you to different writing styles. And also tackle personal and professional situations better?
You’ll have to,
- upskill regularly by attending courses in your areas of interest. Having a certificate still holds merit compared to someone who doesn’t.
- master tools to work in your niche. — There is a tool for writing, SEO, web design tools, research, AI analytics, marketing, scheduling and organizing your day, and so on.
- be good to great in at least 2 to 3 skills to be successful. Just being a good writer or a designer doesn’t cut it anymore.
All these are progressively moving us ahead. Like how you are expected to show up in a typical 9–5 where you’ll be appraised year on year. It serves you well to follow the same strategy and appraise your own performance every year and keep moving ahead.
Sure, you get to choose whom to work with and decide your fee. And with nobody to check on you, it’s pretty easy to take it easy and drift away to the side becoming idle, demotivated, distracted.
We got to be our own watchdog.
Burn all bridges of your past if you can, so you can’t retreat into your old life.
Only then can we take freelancing as a full-time business.
Not that I’m living a royal freelance copywriter’s life making a living writing, yet.
But, I’ll hang on.
All change is hard at first, messy in the middle and so gorgeous in the end. — Robin Sharma
New to freelance writing? Here are 31 Creative Writing Prompts (+ my 7 best writing tips) to build a solid writing habit.
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