How to go Freelance and land a client in 30 days

So you are currently out of work and you want learn how to go freelance.

Or perhaps you are tired of your job and you feel like you should try freelancing with your skills.

You are not alone, currently, there are 56.7 million workers who are freelancers, independent workers or solopreneur depending on what you want to call it.

These are people who work on projects for other people, they are not entitled to any benefits, their job is to deliver the work and get paid

But how do you transition from working a traditional job to go freelancing?

How do you ensure a steady stream of jobs so that you don’t have long dry jobless spells that are daunting?

These and many more we will discuss in this post

You want to learn how to go freelance? Let’s dig in

How to go Freelance and start a business

1. Identify your skills

Because you want to do this in 30 days. the first 2 days should be spent on this section.

The first step to going freelance is to identify your skills and know what services you will be offering.

Freelancing is about offering your skills to other people or businesses in exchange for money.

You need to have a valuable service you are offering for people to be able to pay you for that service.

For example, I am a freelance writer and content strategist.

This means that I design a content strategy for businesses and show them how to use content to connect with their audience.

I always wanted to write blog posts and send it to my clients, but I have come to realize that some of the small businesses I deal with do not understand how my blog posts fall into the overall picture of their marketing efforts.

I, therefore, offer the service to design a content strategy that will work well to deliver the desired results.

If you want to become a successful freelance business person, know the following:

Your Service

This means itemizing all the services you want to offer to your customers.

For example, you could be a web designer that can do social media consulting.

Identify and list your various services on your website.

You can check out my profile here on my work with me page.

Pricing

How would you price your services so that you can pay your bills?

The freelancing world is unregulated, alot of people charge anything they want.

If you want to become a successful freelancer, you must be able to support yourself on your income.

Your pricing should also reflect what value you have to offer.

A lot of people who are just learning how to go freelance often undercut themselves by charging lower than they are worth.

Problem with that is it is not sustainable.

The best way to price your services is to offer different variations of prices.

For example, when I am making a quote for my blog post, I price my quote based on the number of words written.

So for example, my price for a 500-word post maybe 55 dollars, but if I’m writing a 1000 word post, I will reduce the price per word. This encourages my customers to order more.

This means I will spend more time doing the job than searching for new clients.

When I have more jobs from the same person, trust and network are built which brings repeat business.

Repeat business is the lifeblood of a freelancer. Chasing new clients every time can be exhausting.

Value proposition

What value do you bring to the person that you are trying to get to hire you?

In the business world, people have a lot of options. You must be able to craft a pitch that sells your ability as being better than your competitor.

A pitch is a sales letter you send out to customers to propose your services. It could be to people you know or cold customers you do not know.

For example, you can tell your customers that having you serve their needs reduces the cost of advertising or perhaps the cost of customer acquisition.

Whatever value you offer that makes you better than a competitor, ensure you put it in the pitch.

2. Build a personal brand.

Starting a freelance business is about building a personal brand that tells your customers that you are credible and reliable and can deliver.

As a freelancer, you have to realize that you are selling your person as the business.

The business is basically you. If people cannot trust you, they will not do business with you

You should have a cohesive brand that tells people that you are not some flash in the pan that will take their money and disappear.

The best way to build your brand is to have the following:

Website

This is simply a basic requirement for anyone that wants to go freelance.

When people want to hire you they want to check out your website, this means they want to know that you have an online platform and a business address.

A simple website could be a one-page website that describes what you do, the services that you offer and your experiences.

To build a website you need the following:

Hosting company– I suggest you use Bluehost because they are quite cheap and easy to use.

With just 3.95 dollars you can build your own website.

If you have never built a website before, you can sign up for my course WordPress Without Tears, in that course I teach you how to build a WordPress site that ranks on the first page of Google.

You can also skip this step and hire me to build a one page website for you.

Get a Domain name– A domain name costs about 10 dollars a year if you buy from Namecheap.

A domain name gives you the right to use a name on the internet for one year, you can keep renewing it every year if you wish.

Another hosting company that gives a great deal is Ipage, they offer you free domain name, free SSL and also unlimited domain emails for a small amount of 37 dollars for your first year.

Click below to get hosting and start building your website.

Social media channels

This includes having a profile on the 4 major social media channels. They include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest.

Your availability on these channels gives you credibility and enables you to network with others who are doing the same things as you do, more on network building later.

Your social media profiles should have a harmonized look and should have a professional-looking headshot.

When people want to check you out, they check your website, they also check out your other social media profiles to see that you are a real person.

They don’t want to hire someone who is not visible on social media channels because that looks suspicious.

Social media channels can also be used for marketing and landing clients.

Your branding speaks a lot about you and gives an impression of what you have to offer.

Although building a brand is a continuous effort you put in your business to make it better, setting up all that I have mentioned should take you a maximum of 14 days to execute.

Want to know how to go freelance in 30 days? lets get to the next point

3. Network

Ever heard of that saying Your Network is Your Networth– I know it sounds cliche but it is the truth.

In the freelance world, this saying is much truer.

People will do business with whom they can trust, this means that when you network with the right people, you can get jobs from them and they can refer you to other people.

So the things to do when you decide you want to go freelance is to

Use your contacts

I don’t mean you should send an email blast telling them what you do, that will be an abuse of contacts.

Contact them personally and inform them of the services that you now offer.

This is where your website and social media channels plays a part. You can invite them to follow you on your various social media handles.

When you are starting out as a freelancer, realize that every contact is valuable so do not underrate anyone.

Be courteous and nice and also let them know you can take on gigs immediately.

Join Freelance work platforms

There are many freelance platforms that allow people to sign up for free. Join them and create a profile that you can link to your website. Some freelance platforms include

Upwork.com

Elance.com

Freelancer.com

Clearvoice.com

Copypress.com

A word of caution, it is nice to use such platforms but realise that because competiton is so fierce, a new person on Upwork may get ridiculous offers for same work a known person will charge a high amount for.

I have never worked on Upwork before but a colleague in an FB group mentioned how she was asked to do a 2500 word post for less than 30 dollars.

She was complaining and wondering why people would take up such jobs.

Some schools of thought advise you to start out from there and build credibility before searching for your own clients.

I advise a mixture of both, set up your profile there and build credibility but don’t depend on them, strike out early and find your own clients.

You can use your work on the platform as samples.

Working for a few clients there even if the pay is ridiculous will also help you to get others to trust you.

For my freelance business, I practice a mixture of the two. I pitch to new clients and I have two platforms that I work on.

The advantage of this mixture is that when I am too busy to go looking for clients, my freelance platform provides steady work.

When I have more time to find new clients, I pitch to new clients.

I scale down on my freelance platform work because it pays less and focus on the new clients because they pay more.

That way I can strike a balance that works for me.

Use social media channels

You can also build your network by following and commenting on companies you want to work for.

Twitter is a useful social media platform where you can add valuable info or make comments that resonate with your customers and get hired.

Notice that your networking efforts should lead to your ability to land clients. If you are someone who has to make effort to network with otehrs

Understand that networking is part of business development. Get used to it as you get more clients.

Write Blog posts

A well-written blog post can attract clients’ years after you have forgotten you wrote it.

This is because most people search for information on the internet when they need solutions to an issue.

When you write a blogpost about your service offering you offer free knowledge that can attract your potential customers.

This point should take should take you a week to accomplish

4.Plan /Strategize

You want to start a freelance business in 30 days, you need to have a plan on how to get to your desired destination.

The reason I love freelancing is that it does not require much capital outlay.

You can literally start one after reading this blog post.

Your plan is what determines how you will go about your freelance business.

Most times when you are a freelancer you are going to be working from home or out of your basement or coffee shop.

Regardless of where you are freelancing from, you need a plan that will help you to draft your freelance business and determine how you will reach your goal.

This is why I designed a work from home survival planner.

This planner is born out of the need to help people like you, especially if you are a mom to design a system that will enable you to work seamlessly form your home.

In this planner, I have included a home business start-up strategy guide that will help you to quickly put together a plan for your freelance business

The work at home survival planner takes into account all aspects of your work at home life.

The sections include are:

Work Plan– This section has subsections that deal with getting work at home jobs, starting a home business, already have a home business or you already have a work at home job.

Home management plan- This section takes care of all the home management issues from cleaning to cooking to laundry.

Home schooling plan– This section deals with creating a home school plan. If you home school your kids or you are forced to home school them now because of COVID-19.

Snapshot– This section helps you to pull it all together and gives you a snapshot plan of how to manage your work at home life.

With the work at home survival planner, you do not have to wake up everyday with crisis on your hands becuase you are trying to make it all happen at once.

For someone who wants to start a freelance business in the next 30 days, This is a valuable tool you need in hand before you venture into the world of freelance business.

The planner is currently on sale in on the shop, click the button below to get it.

The Work from home survival planner will cut down your planning time from days to hours.

With this planner, you will have a work from home strategy in less than 3 hours.

This will shorten your time to start your freelance business and free up time to get to the next point.

5. Hustle

I wish I could tell you that becoming a freelancer is easy peasy, it is not. It is a lot of hard work.

Sometimes it is months of no work at all even though you have been pitching and doing all you can to get customers.

For you to succeed as a freelance business owner, you have to bring out your hustle.

You have to contact and follow up your customers until they say yes or no.

Sometimes an ignored application could become important at the nick of time.

When you have finally landed a client, deliver way beyond expectation for the following reasons.

Repeat business– Gives you a continuous flow of income

Referrals– Cuts down your cost of acquisition of customers.

Hustling for clients is a continuous part of being a freelance business owner.

But if you follow all the steps mentioned above, you will land a client within 30 days of starting the business.

The secret is to pitch daily and record your responses. Return to those who did not answer and send follow up emails untill you get results

Be persistent

I know because I have landed a client within a week, that client served me well within the last Christmas period.

Becoming a freelance business owner may not be so simple but it is worth every effort because of the flexibility and control it gives you over your time, income and activities.

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