Want To Transit From Freelancing To A Real Business?
Do these simple things.
It’s only after 10+ years of client work that I realised many things I thought I’ve done right were actually wrong. It isn’t too late, but till now I still hope to turn back time.
Why? Now that my business is growing, it makes me believe that I could have reached success much earlier (before I had kids and got too busy on non-business related things) if I had known what I should have known.
If you are like my twenty-year-old self who is working your face off to build a successful freelance business, here are 5 simple things you can do right now:
1. Schedule Everything
Blocking time off to do anything is one of the best things I’ve ever done to get things done.
Here’s what I do:
Brain dump everything, be it my own work or client’s work, lunch, kids, etc.
Go back to the top, put down a time estimate I need to complete each task.
On a calendar, fit in all items into weeks, days and time slots.
Create notifications to remind me of the deadlines and act on them — no need to pay for fancy tools, Asana is free and work well. You may use only Google Calendar and that works well too.
Here’s how my Asana tasks look like on a particular week:
That said, I learned to always give myself a deadline the hard way.
I used to just let things happen, not knowing how purposefully and intentionally scheduling can help me. In those days, if nothing spurs me to take action, I forget about it until one fine day something tells me to do something about it.
Life has a deadline
By then so much time has passed, I get overwhelmed and put it aside until another day like that happens again. This has been repeating for far too many times in my life.
Always remember that time is not a renewable resource.
You may think it is obvious and I didn’t have to say that, but I didn’t think this way when I was freelancing. I had a mentality of “I’m going to die anyway, why try so hard to do something out of the comfort zone”.
Then I realised I have a life deadline like anyone. Hence I should break down my life’s timeline to smaller timelines, act on them, fulfil the mini goals before I die. This helps make sure the work I need to do gets done to bring me closer to my life and business goals.
2. Be Consistent
Rome was not built in a day.
Same for all businesses and everything in life, only consistent actions toward your goals will bring about the most impact for you to succeed.
You may be able to start a freelance business in a day just by selling time but to build and grow a sustainable business to help you thrive, you will have to find what works.
Knowing what works is the start while using the same method as consistently as possible for a longer period of time will bring you one step forward.
Each day of work is a baby step that will build upon each other if you keep at it. The more times you do it, the higher you move up the ladder.
Great work is built over time.
Wealth is built over time.
Success takes time.
3. Ask Great Questions
When I first started out as a freelancer, I received advise from many people to ask great questions.
But how do you know if your questions are great?
In short, they must be in line with your vision and goals, and nobody is judging here. In my experience, the great questions emerged by first creating questions from what I’ve learned in the past.
It’s much like writing, doing a craft or creative work, the more you do in the shortest time, the quicker you find your voice.
Hence, the more questions you ask, the sooner you find yourself asking questions leading to answers that mould your freelancing business and future.
Here are some to get you started:
Why are you sacrificing other things to build your own business?
Why can’t you just find a job that pays you a regular salary?
Why is it not just about money?
Why did you choose this business?
Why will people pay you for your service?
Why should your business even exist?
Why are you doing this?
Why do you need to make X amount of money a month?
Next, set a day and timeline of 30 minutes to pen down your answers.
Giving yourself a timeline is key, otherwise, it’s easy to procrastinate and that may take you longer to take action to achieve your goals.
4. Create a Service Product
You may be familiar with how Brian Casel terms it as “Productised Service”. This simply means, instead of offering anything that your clients are asking for, you are packaging your services such that you offer them fixed items.
It’s just like a box of chocolate cake premix where people can buy it off the shelf. Everything you need to make this cake is in the box. All ingredients are packed in one place and set at one price.
Providing too many customised items for too long is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made as a freelance graphic designer.
The best move I’ve ever made
This move was to package my service into a product where the items to be delivered are the same for every customer, such that the expertise or skill set required to produce the items is limited to a very tight range.
The design of the item is still customised based on the client’s brand, so long the expertise range that has been packaged up can deliver that item as promised. If my client happened to request for something I can’t create, I’d tell my clients that I am not an expert in what they need, and refer them to someone else who can do that better.
With this way of working, I don’t have to wait until I meet the next customer to know what to create.
I am able to set up standardised templates, files and graphics just once. Later these will then be used to adjust to the specific client’s brand. When another client comes along, this process will be repeated.
The wrong mindset
I used to only focus on working hard to produce the end result. I thought that I must spend more time on one thing to churn quality work. I knew working smart trumps working hard, but I did not know what it means by working smart.
In this case, it’s to create a system or SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) such that there’s never a need to repeat the same process again. There are so many standard items being used in all customised work that I should have documented while working on clients’ designs.
With this service product, it’s also easier to tell prospective clients what they get rather than asking them what they want. There is no need for clunky proposals that have to be created for every client. Instead, I’ve created one offer for many.
5. Develop a marketing plan to get more clients
Why do you need a marketing plan? Getting visibility takes time. Here’s a very short story of what I mean:
In November 2015, I signed up for the Standard Chartered full marathon (that’s 42 KM). I wasn’t crazy to run a marathon, in fact, thousands of people signed up and went for it.
What was crazy of me is, before the race, the furthest I ran was just 10 KM. That’s not even a half-marathon. And the last time I ran before race day was 3 months back.
How did I do? I kept my pace very well, going strong from 5 KM mark, still holding on. Then at 15 KM onwards, my feet gave way, my calves cramped up and I can only walk to simply move on.
I wasn’t panting, but my legs couldn’t bring me any faster than limping. I could have stopped and taken a bus home from there, but something inside me wants to keep going.
Finally, at 27 KM I was the last of the pack. Everyone was ahead of me or left the run for good. I wasn’t exhausted, but my legs just couldn’t resist the distance any longer. I wanted to complete, not for the money or for fame.
I just wanted to prove to myself that I’ve completed a marathon.
Reflecting upon this, what is the lesson here?
Nobody can easily complete the marathon in one day just by doing it without prior planning and training for it.
I shouldn’t expect to finish it without giving my body and muscles time to adjust to the distance and impact.
Hence, I should have come up with a plan. That’s why registration of such events are always ahead of time.
Same for a business. It’s not a sprint but a marathon, a long road ahead awaits us.
What exactly should I have done?
I should have committed to training for it at least 8 months ahead of the race. Starting with 15 minutes run on the first week, then 2 KM, then 5 KM and so on.
In this way, I’m progressively feeding my muscles, and when it’s time for the marathon, I will be closer to finishing it without the bad experience of limping. It’s not even the timing that I should be concerned with.
It’s finishing.
Same with marketing, it’s all about trust and it’s not about you and me, it’s about our customers, clients and people who find us reliable for them to take out their credit cards to exchange for our services.
With that, how do you earn that trust?
Here’s how you can plan your lead up to a sale:
List down what do you want to achieve in 6 months time or 1 year’s time
Break it down into steps that lead up to your end goal
At every step, ask yourself where is it that differentiates yourself from your competition
How does your customer look at you
Who do you wish to attract
Take all the action you need to achieve all the above. For example: posting on social media, emailing your prospects, reaching out to prospects via Facebook, liking their posts, reading their posts, etc…
What Have You Learned?
It’s not easy to be successful, but success is what works best for you, not anyone else. Good news is the steps to take you there are not complicated, they can be done by anyone.
You just got to start and stick with it.
You can do this.