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How to Become a Successful Freelancer (A 5-Step Guide)

Did you know that according to PayPal's 2018 Global Freelancer Insights Report, at least 2% of the Philippines' population is said to be freelancers? The report also found that 84% of freelancers use a freelancer online platform such as Upwork and Freelancer.

Working on a freelance basis can feel incredibly liberating. Being your own boss, a relaxed working schedule and cherry picking your projects are among the most alluring benefits. You're in complete control of your own destiny and have more control over your working life than most people who work a 9:00 to 5:00 office job. Well, reality is a tiny bit different. Freelancing is no Cake Walk! Self-employment may come with the desired flexibility. But, such flexibility has its own downsides, not to forget. You have to figure out how well are you ready to treat yourself like a business owner? Where do you begin? What processes and structures do you need to have in place? How do you find clients? And how do you know how much to charge?

Freelancing is not just sitting at home and work comes to you. The reality is you have to fight for it, and fight hard. As freelancer, you have to maintain your dignity as being a boss of your own and practicing patience radically increases your capacity for success.

In this blog post, I am going to share with you the Top 5 secrets to Becoming a Successful Freelancer coming from an expert view. “First: you must strive. Nothing good is ever easy.” says Emil Lamprecht, an avid startup and personal advisor in Berlin. He has 7 years of freelance with clients across the globe. He shares the most essential tips on becoming succesful freelancer in your chosen niché.

1. Contact everyone you know.

Literally. Everyone.

A robust network is a freelancer’s best friend. The goal is to start your business with “a group of people who really care about you” and who are ready to support you along the way. Reach out to the people closest to you to let them know what you’re doing.

This doesn’t have to feel like you’re begging for work though. In fact, taking people you like out to coffee or lunch “before you have an ‘ask’” and offering to help them out in any way you can. “It’s the equivalent of doing informational interviews. You’re just making clear the kind of work you’re doing now and that you’re available to help anyone who might need it.

Being in touch with your network isn’t just important at the beginning. It’s crucial to build time into your schedule going forward to continue networking. You never want to be so busy that you can’t reach out to the people who can help you.

2. Work on your Personal Brand.

The reason is that as a freelancer, YOU ARE YOUR BRAND.

So help me god [or deity of choice], this is a truth among truths, irrespective of whether you’re a web developer, a user experience designer, a writer or a marketer.

What do I mean when I say you are your brand?

I mean that when you are selling your services, you are actually selling yourself. So how you come across online or off is reflective of your success, your ability, and your professionalism. Your personality counts. Big time. If people don’t like you, they won’t buy what you’re selling.

So, how did I build my personal brand?

1. I got myself on LinkedIn and I fully filled out my profile. Every single detail of my experience. Every relevant job I ever had. Every morsel about me that could be interesting.

2. I then did the same thing on Facebook. I joined relevant groups for my field and started asking questions, lots of questions, as well as answering any I could.

3. I did the same on Twitter.

4. And on Instagram.

5. And when it was made available I did the same with Quora, which has become the fact-filled platform for experts.

6. I then went to every industry-relevant event I could find, afford and get to, and hustled like a maniac.

If you’re someone who still believes social media is the devil, you’re in trouble, because it’s never a single tactic that will get you anywhere, it’s a combination of many intelligently coordinated pieces.

Asking and answering questions is the easiest way to get people involved and invested in what you do, and while you could meet 15 people during a night out, you could meet 100 online. And perhaps yes, the contact is “shallower” but you can be a hell of lot more targeted. So I recommend starting online, understanding who’s important for you, pre-empting offline events by connecting with people via Twitter, and leveraging LinkedIn connections into meetings for coffee.

If you combine a strong digital brand with meeting people in person, you’ll make yourself:

Easy to find

Easy to remember

Good to know

You want to be understood as an expert and an influencer in your field, and in a world where most industry communication is digital, you better be all over it!

Just remember not to get discouraged if you don’t get 1000 Twitter followers instantly, because what’s important here is that quality wins over quantity every time. Stay focused, stay targeted and talk to every new connection like they’re your best friend.

And vice versa, if you’re awkward and depend entirely on social media to drive your network, you’re doing it wrong. You have to get out, you have to meet people and confirm that you’re real and worth investing in. As Jon Norris explained:

“Although it can be awkward attending networking events, it’s a great way to build contacts. Get out there, hand out business cards and make friends.”

3. Write a Plan of Action.

I want you to pay very close attention to the next statement.

Never, ever, undervalue time taken to plan. Never.

For each of those 30 days before I quit my job I had a goal. Sometimes that goal was to email a relevant contact in my field asking for advice. Sometimes that goal was to expand my network by X number of people, answer a certain number of questions, or attend a meetup.

And sometimes it was simply to plan out the next steps.

For each of those 30 days I wrote down my trials and tribulations into a short (often emotional) blog post, charting my ups and downs in that final month before taking the leap.

I also carefully drafted and redrafted a personal business plan, including my financial requirements, goals, and how I thought that would actually translate into work. I realized that if I landed the equivalent of 2 short projects a month, I could survive. Well barely, but it’s good to know where your survival limit is, because when push comes to shove, it’s accomplish that goal or be stuck eating dry toast for a month.

Unless you’re one of these eternally adventurous types, freelancing is no fun as a hand-to-mouth game. Nobody chooses this path with the goal of living on a financial knife edge. And by the way, it’s ok to be scared, in fact if you’re not, you’re either invincible or a dumb ass, so keep your eyes open, know your limits, and plan accordingly.

I also used this as another excuse to grow my network, reaching out to experts in my industry to ask for advice:

· How much should I charge?

· Where do I best find my clients?

· How difficult is it to close a deal?

· Should I template my pitches or create new ones every time?

This created an opportunity to learn, improve and perfect the skills I would need in a month while growing a power-network of professionals in the field. Two birds in one stone at its finest!

Do your research and pay attention to competition.

Whether it was hours scanning social media, reading blog posts like this one, offering my services to friends, or just generally building a network however I could, I absorbed as much information as possible.

Sure, it’s overwhelming; anyone who has spent a 4 hour stint on a single topic online knows that the rabbit hole is deep, and easy to get sucked into. At the end of the day, you have to pick and choose what’s important for you, but what I found most helpful was taking a real good look at what my competition were doing. And there is always competition.

Looking closely at what others were doing, I found out 3 things that helped me a lot:

1. I had local competition, and I mean local. As in down the street from me. But even if they had been doing it for a while, they didn’t seem to be effectively marketing themselves, it took effort to find them.

2. People who were looking for someone of my expertise had no central data bank to find me, or other freelancers like me. I had to be in the right place at the right time.

3. I could easily differentiate myself from my competition by having an attractive personality, and a digital presence.

Leif Kendall likes to tell people to:

“Deliver work that is better than anything your competitors are doing.”

and truthfully, I couldn’t agree more. Maybe you have a lot of experience, and maybe you don’t, but your job is to perform better than everyone else in your field, both in the work you do, and the way you act.

But how did I know what my competition were actually doing?

Remember that old adage “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”? This is one way of looking at it, but in a world of freelancing where your network is everything, you can’t afford to have enemies at all. So try this instead: “Keep your friends close, and make friends with your enemies.”

Don’t be guarded, don’t be defensive. Share, trade, and exchange what you can from your own knowledge and then keep doing it better, and better, and better, and better, and better, and better.

In the end, you’ll find that some people have big egos, but a lot of people are happy to have a friend. Freelancing can be a bit lonely sometimes as by its definition you often lack those daily colleagues who understand the work you do. A lot of people out there are just like you, and happy to have someone they can relate to about work, and even share a bit of knowledge and experience.

Get yourself a mentor—and your first client.

The best piece of advice I ever received was simple in theory and tough in practice:

“Don’t burn any bridges.”

If you’re a freelancer, this quote should be read in all capslock and underlined, because you can’t afford to. Every contact counts , and on behalf of your reputation and livelihood, although it’s very tempting to give your boss the finger as you storm out the door, it’s not something you can afford to do, ever.

No one likes “kissing ass” and I don’t really recommend it, but now that you’re leaving you need your employer more than ever before, because face it: your current employer is your strongest link to your first job as a freelancer. If your job is at all related to what you plan to do, they may themselves be your first client.

In my case, the karaoke bar owner would eventually make it very clear that he “didn’t give a flying f&%$” what I was doing beyond his bar. But I needed something, so I went and found myself a mentor. Aka, I willingly became a slave to an influencer in my industry. It was the smartest decision I ever made because despite totally over-working myself, I sure enough gained Experience, made Contacts, and walked away with one hell of a Reference.

Oh, and yes, I did this on top of the study, the job, and the prep. If you want something, don’t half ass it.

So how did I manage to get myself a mentor?

Well if you have a boss who knows anything, that’s the best place to start. But if you’ve read this article then you can probably guess how I did it: I networked like a maniac, showed my plan of action, and proved I knew how to work like the competition.

In the end, I convinced my would-be mentor that I was worth that little bit of time and effort, and sure enough Richard Levy passed me my first client after only a couple weeks. And Bam! I was officially a freelancer, on schedule and making money.

Whether it’s a boss, mentor, professor, uncle, slave driver, or homeless dude with good advice, the people you see daily are most likely to have the biggest impact on your transition. So be accommodating, be thankful and be willing to work your ass off for an opportunity to do what you love.

As Rik Lomas wrote in his blog post about freelancing on Medium:

“Do not piss people off. Remember that you’re a professional and are soon to be leader of your own company. Act like it.”

So finally….

So what’s my last piece of advice? What’s that final nugget of understanding you need to open the doors to your new career, new lifestyle, and impending financial freedom?

The simple answer is that there isn’t one. There is no one solution, there is no one path. Your puzzle is your own! And understanding how the pieces fit together is what will guarantee your success.

If you’re hunting for that single piece of magical advice that will get you out of your job and thousands of clients a year, let me tell you, it doesn’t exist. Like in life, relationships, and all other forms of comedy, it’s your ability to understand the big picture and refine each detail to pixel-perfect clarity that makes you who you are and good at what you do.

So my advice is don’t forget that, don’t get hung up on singularity in a world full of complication, because what will make you successful is knowing how to apply who you are to what you want to do to the best of your ability.

As for the rest of what you need to know? Start by reading this article! People will say you’re crazy to set out on this path of uncertainty, which if you’re like me is just confirmation that you should be doing it! Freelancing is something you really have to want, and be prepared to work hard for. And the result of that is a lifestyle, and a sense of freedom that is unrivalled by any other job in the world.

So prep it, work it, and then LIVE IT for all your worth!

URL. https://annmargarettelandi.wixsite.com/admin1/post/how-to-become-a-successful-freelancer-a-5-step-guide-1

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