Along with the growing trends of working from home and online, freelancing is becoming a more and more popular career path. Freelancing allows for a high level of autonomy, flexibility, and ultimately, freedom. Regardless of the industry area, there are increasing numbers of opportunities to jump into a freelance career to support multiple clients at the same time while diversifying your income in an uncertain economy. So to provide some clarity, freelancing is a type of self-employment. The key differentiator of freelancing is that a freelancer works with a variety of clients simultaneously instead of running a single business. Freelancers typically offer services, products and knowledge that support a specific area of their clients’ businesses or lives. While freelancers decide what they are going to offer, their work is usually guided by their clients’ requests and needs. Here’s what you need to know before leaping into a freelance career: What You Need to Know Your Workflow Will Fluctuate One of the biggest draws to being a freelancer is the flexibility. No more 9-5 workdays and clocking in and out. But with that flexibility comes some ebbs and flows. Depending on the services you offer, you will need to continually secure clients which will naturally lead to some variation in your workflow. Some weeks you might have a packed schedule, but then you might wrap up with a few clients and have a lighter workload for a while. So while freelancing allows you to decide your own work schedule, you’ll need to plan for financial and time fluctuations. You Need to Create Structure It’s challenging to be a successful freelancer without at least a little structure. Even though a free-flowing schedule is most likely a reason you might choose a freelance career, having a schedule will make you more productive every day, week and month. And since you’re a freelancer, you have the power to set the structure and change it whenever you want! So when you’re creating a work structure for yourself, start with setting yearly, quarterly, monthly and weekly goals. Then create blocks of time using a digital or paper calendar to work on the various projects that need to happen to accomplish those goals. Having time blocked off and real (but flexible) deadlines will help you make consistent progress as a freelancer. And don’t forget to include time for completing business-related tasks (i.e. money management), planning, professional development, stress management, breaks, meals, and personal time in your calendar, too. You Need to Sell Yourself Even if you’re doing freelance scientific writing or quantitative analysis, you need to be able to sell your skills and services to prospective clients. Think about how you can let clients know what makes you different and how you can solve their problems. To do this, it helps to spend some time writing a professional bio to use when marketing your services, building a portfolio of your past work for clients to look through, and crafting a sales pitch that speaks directly to […]
