5 Actionable Steps Every Freelancer Should Take Today
Simple Ways to Boost Your Business and Productivity
Courtesy John Hain on Flickr
Want to be a Freelancer Superhero? Then take these five steps today to take your independent dream job to the next level.
Already doing some of these? Great! You’re already in the top echelon. My guess though? You WANT to do these things, but life - and the crushing amount of minutiae on your plate - keep you from doing them consistently.
So take the Freelancers Pledge, commit to putting yourself and your well being first, and do these steps NOW (ok, finish reading the article first).
1. Build your personal board of advisors
You may think that freelancing is about going it alone, being your own boss, going down your own path. But like anything else in life, you will need advice from a variety of people to be truly successful. And let’s also face it - freelancing can be lonely. Having other people in your support network, your tribe, helps fill the basest of human needs even for the most ardent introvert.
Start by identifying a key mentor, coach, or accountability partner and reaching out to them. Successful people are by nature incredibly busy and guard their time wisely, so you may need to try a few people before you succeed.
When reaching out initially, be earnest but also realistic - ask them for a small window of time every few months and be specific about areas you’ll be asking for help. You can also give them a graceful “out” by asking if they or someone they know would be interested in helping, so if they’re too busy they can still help you by connecting you to their network.
From there, look for complementary skills from other successful people and reach out to them in a similar manner. The goal is to form a sort of personal board of directors that can guide your fledgling business of one. You can go all in and set up formal “board meetings” on a video conference or just seek guidance periodically over email, chat, etc.
2. Polish your social media presence
Let’s face it - your social media profile isn’t as whiz bang awesome as it should be. Maybe it’s outdated. Maybe it’s too generic. Maybe you still have that picture of you at a friend’s wedding, with your spouse-to-be cropped out of the photo like a bad Ex. Unacceptable, people!
A fresh, vibrant profile that clearly says how you will add value for future clients is Job #1 these days. Update your LinkedIn profile, Twitter feed, and any other sites where you maintain a professional presence. Ensure that you are coherent - the same messaging and value proposition is captured across your portfolio. It can be nuanced and tailored for specific platforms, but it should be generally consistent.
Feel like you’re already on the top of your game here? Have you asked former clients what they think? Sometimes we think we have an awesome professional brand, but it’s not speaking to our prospects in a way we want to communicate. Get out of the echo chamber, get some feedback, and iterate.
3. Join and look for work on freelancer sites
How do you get work today? Advertising? Referrals? Begging? My friends, there’s an easier way through technology. Many of you are hopefully already aware of sites like Upwork, Gigster, and Toptal, that help matchmake freelancers much like Tinder does for dating. While these sites are known to the veteran freelance community, I am regularly surprised to learn that many new and aspiring freelancers do not know of them or how they work.
If you’ve spent time polishing up your social media presence, then your profile on these sites becomes a natural extension of your online self. Your bio, skills, interests, portfolio, etc. are already well established, and you can quickly complete profiles for these new sites.
But it’s not quite as wonderful as sitting back and waiting for the offers to come in. You should set aside time, perhaps 30 minutes every morning, to scan the latest gigs and apply to ones that most interest you. The market is hot, and projects often get posted and fulfilled within a few days, so you need to be willing to invest the time to stay on top of things.
Despite the work involved, these can be some of the best channels for freelancers both new and veteran. These gigs can lead to follow-on work with the original company, referrals and other network effects, and even - as is the case with these authors - lead to co-authoring a book!
4. Organize and optimize your life with technology
There’s an old saying in consulting - “don’t optimize what you don’t need”, or put another way, “optimize before automate”. The theory goes that much of what we do - as individuals or companies - is actually low or no value. Applied to our personal life and freelancing business, it can be a revelation and a revolution.
What does that look like in practice? Start by spending a week logging how you ACTUALLY spend your time (not how you THINK you do). How much time do you spend scheduling meetings? How often are you posting on social media, and which platforms? How much time do you spend perfecting that french press coffee?
Once you have a time log, assess the relative return on investment of each activity. This isn’t an exact science but rather a quick intuition of whether the activity is worth doing going forward. You can then quickly find a lot of time that you likely can get back by simply stopping to do certain things.
From there, you work to optimize your process - chunking tasks together, streamlining communications, etc. The last, but most important step, is to then ask what technology can help with. This is the last step to getting a 10x productivity leap from where you started.
While there are a ton of productivity tools out there, we find that freelancers often benefit from a few key innovations: calendaring (especially across time zones), bookkeeping and invoicing, social media management, and project management. We’re not in the game of recommending a specific tool (though we hear that Venture L is doing some really cool things … yes, shameless plug), but tools in this space are not hard to find.
5. Hire a virtual assistant
Think you’re too small or too proud to have your own assistant? Think again! Your time is the most precious resource and asset your company of one has. You must protect it at all costs, or you’ll never scale enough to be truly successful.
Technology can take you so far, as noted above, but until we have our own truly sentient AI assistants (thankfully still a ways off!), we still need people to help be jacks and jills of all trades to fill in the gaps. Enter the virtual assistant (VA).
These people can help support your fledgling business in a variety of ways, from calendaring and client outreach, to social media and project management. This frees you further to do the things you do best and generate revenue, without drowning in a sea of coordination. This is especially important for those types of gigs that are shorter in nature - web and graphic design, consulting, etc. But even longer-term contracts need the type of support that a VA can tackle.
Closing Thoughts
Ok, let’s wrap up. Wait … what are we talking about? Don’t delay any longer! Get going on these 5 steps now to help supercharge your freelancing career. And take heart - none of these things are easy or will lead to overnight success. But they are the right first steps to turn that flywheel and build a reputation and brand that will propel your business forward.
Good luck! Now go get ‘em.
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The Matthews