Being a freelancer is exciting. You have the freedom to take control of your own time and keep all the money that you make. Of course, that’s because you’re also your own boss. The important thing to remember is that self-employed work can be more demanding than employed work (even if it’s also more rewarding). Being a freelancer means taking charge of more than just your career – you have to take charge of your own business. Here’s some guidance on becoming your own boss if you’re new to running a business.
Keep learning.
When you run your own business, there are lots of skills you need to pick up. You might already have the expertise and professionalism to deliver services in web design, blogging, photography, accounting, or any other sort of freelancing venture. However, that doesn’t mean you have the expertise to run a business as a whole. There’s a big difference between being an employee and an employer, even if you are your own boss. You need to learn how to price your services, advertise your brand, and so on. We’ll discuss those things in this article.
You might even want to check out itpro.tv to improve your IT skills if your work involves technology. In the modern age, most freelancers rely on technology to some extent. After all, you probably need the internet to expand your business and reach clients. The point is that you need to learn a lot to be a boss; being good in your field of work is important, but there are other skills that you need to pick up. If you want to be your own boss then you need to accept that you can’t delegate roles in your business (unless you have the money to outsource work or starting hiring full-time employees, as we’ve discussed before).
Advertise yourself well.
You most likely don’t have a marketing team to get your brand out there. Again, as mentioned in the last point, you can outsource work or even hire employees to cover your workload, but you might not have the funds to do that in your early days. As the only employee of your business, it’s up to you to get the word out about your services. Of course, if online marketing is confusing to you then you should get professional help with SEO and other advertising techniques, as suggested over at searchenginejournal.com. It’s important to build a strong online presence when you’re running a one-person business. That’s the best way for freelancers to get noticed when there’s such fierce competition from big brands. On the internet, marketing isn’t about the size of your company but the quality of the content you create.
Figure out how pricing works.
You need to do some research to figure out your fees for your services. As suggested over at hbr.org, you can calculate this based on what you earned when you did the same work for an employer; just account for the fact that employers deduct fees for taxes and company profits. Remember, you’re self-employed now, so you make all the profits. Of course, if you’re new to this field of work then you might want to build up a network with other freelancers in the industry to figure out what they’re getting paid. You can always adjust your pricing based on the feedback you get from clients; you don’t want to undersell your services, but high pricing can deter potential customers, and you need all the sales you can get in your early days. It’s all about building a reputation for yourself.
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