Tips to Help You Start an Online Freelance Business

Freelance Business

Never before has freelancing had more opportunities than currently. You can now polish your skills and sell your services to clients around the planet without ever leaving your home (or even working from a beach if you like). However, while the freelancing lifestyle may look like the perfect job, it can feel a bit intimidating to start your own online freelance business, especially if you don’t know how to start.

1. Understand Why You’re Doing This

Before diving into the business, you must first ask yourself, Why do I want to freelance business?

Is it for Freedom and Flexibility?

Are you trying to to escape the 9 to 5?

Is it to make more money while doing something you enjoy?

Clarifying your motivation for freelancing should help you get through the motivational dips. There will be motivational dips. This motivation will help give you an anchor.

2. Identifying your skills and niche freelance business

Freelance Business  is not about being a jack of all trades. It’s about providing a specialized service for a particular audience.

To begin with, recognize your abilities, e.g. are you a:

– Writer
– Graphic Designer
– Web Developer
– Social Media Manager
– Virtual Assistant

Now, further narrow it down; for instance, instead of ‘writer,’ you may concentrate on becoming a ‘B2B SaaS Content Writer,’ or instead of ‘designer,’ you may wish to, e.g. ‘E-commerce business branding ‘ freelancer.’ Getting more specific helps you differentiate from a lot of other freelance business, thus making your potential clients decision to, ‘yes, you are the one we need,’ a lot easier.

Build your portfolio – no clients required

Here’s a secret no one tells you – you don’t need to have paying clients to build a portfolio. Anyone can build a portfolio; in fact, everyone should build a portfolio, you are not an exception. The easiest way to do this is to create sample work that showcases your skills. Designers can create mockup logos or branding kits; copywriters can write blogs and landing pages for fictional businesses, and web developers can build demo websites.

Description of your online freelance business

To operate an online freelancer business, you need an online presence, and to do that, you need an online description of your business.

Your first steps should include your services on a LinkedIn profile for networking purposes. To your freelance portfolio, you should also add:

-Who you are

-What services you provide

-Examples of your work

-Reviews of your work, if you have any

-How to reach you

Websites like Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress are all good options for building a freelance portfolio as they have a very user friendly interfaces.

Deciding on a price for your services should also be done at this point. When you are first starting out as a freelancer, this can be hard to figure out as you wont be able to estimate how long a job will take you to do. In the end you should aim for a fair price for the work you will be doing as well as not overpricing as you will not have too much of a portfolio to show potential clients. A few of the more common ways to price a freelancing job are by:

-How many hours it will take to do the job. (Be sure to track your time if this is the case)

-A flat fee for the project. (This is usually more suitable for a project with a well defined scope, like writing 1 blog post or making 1 logo)

-For ongoing work, you can set a monthly fee and clients would be able to contact you for work throughout that month.

Once you have your price set, you will have to decide on where you will be able to find clients. There are a number of good freelance job finding platforms where you are able to post your services. A few examples are:

-Upwork
-Fiverr
-Freelancer
-PeoplePerHour
-Toptal (this is more suited for experienced freelancers)

It can be a bit competitive on these sites at first, but they are a good way to get some initial freelance experience and get some reviews for your profile.

Job Portals:

ProBlogger (For writers)

We Work Remotely

Remote OK

SolidGigs

Design Jobs Board (For Creative fields)

Social Media and Communities:

Facebook Groups

Posts on LinkedIn

Certain Subreddits (e.g., r/Freelance)

Cold Outreach:

After determining who your ideal client is, feel free to reach them directly and share a friendly pitch outline. This should be succinct, to the point, and demonstrate how you can assist them.

7. Crafting a Winning Proposal

It isn’t the best freelance business who get hired; it’s those who articulate their value the best that get the job.

Your proposal or pitch must:

Start with the client’s name

Demonstrate your understanding of the client’s issues or objectives

Detail how you can assist the client (with concrete examples)

Provide links to or samples of your relevant work

Conclude with a strong call to action

8. Consider it a Business

Freelancing is more than client work; it’s a business. This entails:

Defining limits

Establishing systems and procedures

Monitoring revenue and expenditures

Organizing your time

Providing formal invoices

9. Continue to Hone Your Craft

The freedom to work how and when you want is a major perk of freelance business. But with that freedom comes the responsibility of keeping your skills up to date:

Through online classes (Coursera, Udemy, Skillshare)

By following your industry’s influencers

By consuming relevant literature, podcasts, and blogs

Through experimentation using different programs and tools

10. Diversify Your Clients and Platforms

One of the biggest temptations is to stick with a client who provides you with a large amount of work or a platform where you’ve found substantial success. But becoming too reliant on a singular source of income is always a risk.

**Continue developing multiple revenue sources:** More than one customer; diversifying service offerings; broadening your customer base; introducing passive income sources through the sale of templates, online courses, or other digital products.

**Learn to Say No**: Saying “yes” to everything is common practice as a rookie. However, considering your overall goals, not all projects are equally beneficial. Clients who have ambiguous project scopes, offer unreasonably low compensation, micro-manage or overstep boundaries, or leave you feeling uncomfortably uneasy are probably not a good choice.

**Be Professional, Patient, and Persistent**: Success with your freelance business will not be immediate. It’s common for freelance business to experience frustrating situations, including being completely unresponsive to attempts at communication, receiving payment that is substantially less than expected, or even being rejected altogether. Admirable freelancers have all experienced this as well, and they’ve all transitioned from having no customers to being successfully self-employed. Keep learning. Keep improving. Keep making the effort.

**Solicit Feedback to Make Changes**: Initially, no freelance business, pitch, or portfolio will be ideal, and that is perfectly acceptable. Approach those you trust and respect to your request for feedback. Use their comments to improve your approach to service delivery, and the overall quality of your offerings.

Points of self-care

When managing multiple tasks (marketing, sales, accounting, admin, client work), burnout can happen, so incorporate time for:

taking time off

daily exercise

nutritious meals

sleep and self-care

Last Words

It is hard to start an online freelance business, but it is achievable and can be one of the most satisfying things you have ever pursued in your life.

You will have the total autonomy to decide your clients, your working schedule, and the trajectory of your professional development. You will have the total autonomy. For more information, contact Harshit Consulting.