When a professional decides to start working independently, it’s normal to have numerous doubts about how to start a freelance career.
While it’s a decision that tends to yield many positive results in the future, it requires a lot of organization, patience, and a strong desire to step out of your comfort zone.
In addition to learning to manage your time and productivity, a professional who chooses to work as a freelancer must prioritize, above all, achieving stability.
Therefore, in this article, we’ve selected six tips that will help you take the first step and build a career focused on your goals and creating long-lasting relationships with your clients. Check it out!
Here are 6 tips on how to start a successful freelance career
Despite offering many benefits (such as freedom, profitability, and personal development), the decision to work independently is also linked to several challenges, such as instability, the need for organization, and doubts about how to start a freelance career.
After all, there is no step-by-step guide or ready-made formula that precisely indicates what you must do to achieve success quickly. In fact, good results only come after a lot of effort and several attempts to make it work.
However, even though the path may be different for each freelancer, there are some factors that can help overcome the initial obstacles. Find out what they are and enjoy our tips!
Gain experience and build your portfolio
The beginning of a freelance career is an excellent time to gain experience and enrich your portfolio since the amount of demand is smaller and it may take a while for your client base to grow significantly.
Therefore, it is ideal to use this start to focus on your studies and develop projects that help in your future negotiations.
After all, potential clients always like to check if your work is of quality and actually generates results for other clients.
By taking courses or starting a communication plan to promote your own services, you not only develop your skills and gain new knowledge but also increase your chances of closing new contracts.
Make a financial plan for your business
Financial planning is an essential step for those who wish to work as a freelancer, earn well, and have total independence.
This phase will help you not to mix the costs of your business with your personal expenses, create a money reserve for your future, and learn to deal with lean periods (which, like it or not, can always arise in someone’s life).
The first step in financial planning is to list your goals, the costs you will have while running your business, and the salary you need to live comfortably.
From this survey, you will define your initial billing goal and a deadline to achieve it.
This starting point will lead you to determine the number of fixed clients you will need over time, the number of proposals you will present, and how many companies will be prospected to schedule meetings with potential clients.
It’s not an easy path, but it’s important both for your organization and for setting up your price list, as we will explain next.
Set a price table for your services
Pricing services is one of the most difficult tasks a freelancer faces at the beginning of their career.
How much to charge for a particular service? Should I lower my price because I’m just starting out or charge the market average?
Many doubts arise, but the great secret lies in valuing your time, the quality of your deliveries, and setting a monthly billing goal.
Thus, many freelancers price their services by calculating the value of the work hour and through financial planning for the present and future, for example.
These methods are excellent and essential for determining a table that aligns with your personal and professional goals.
But to make your prices fair for your clients as well, a market study is indispensable.
Formalize your activities
Even though it is not mandatory for freelancers, formalizing your activities is an important step to expand your business, improve your results, and manage your finances more effectively.
By starting a company, you differentiate the individual from the business entity and gain access to benefits that can help in your growth, such as the opportunity to negotiate with companies that require their suppliers to be other companies.
Win the trust of your potential clients
Winning the trust of your potential clients is a crucial step for those who wish to create long-lasting relationships and receive future referrals from satisfied partners.
Therefore, in addition to enriching your portfolio and showing that you have experience in your area of expertise, you should study the problems and closely understand the goals of your decision-maker.
This is an important step to start the project with aligned expectations and customization for each client’s needs.
Another way to win trust and reinforce your commitment to your service is to draft a contract that ensures the rights and duties of both parties and is beneficial for both you and the contractor.
Always keep communication active with your clients
A very important point for success in a freelance career is communication with clients. It facilitates day-to-day operations, strengthens trust bonds, and creates more productive relationships with them.
Knowing how to listen and relay information to the decision-maker is essential for aligning expectations and for the project to proceed as expected.
The client not only wants to stay informed about the results achieved with the actions taken but also needs to know about the future of the project and how you plan to achieve the proposed objectives.
One of the best ways to do this is by generating reports that show both the metrics and the information relevant to involving the client in this process of planning, execution, and analysis.
With Reportei, you can generate reports to get closer to the decision-maker through effective communication that goes beyond the main social media metrics.
In addition to closely monitoring the data, you have the freedom to add open analyses containing your view on the project and can structure your report in the way you prefer, using our customizable version.
This facilitates dialogue with the decision-maker and opens doors for them to cooperate with the success of their own company.
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