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I often speak to people who are frustrated in their jobs, moaning about their boss or talking about an idea they’ve had for months but done nothing about. So if you’re waiting to make the move to starting your Freelance journey. Here’s how, a thread…
First of all define your offer, what role or skill have you been doing for the past several years (not necessarily your day-to-day job) - marketing, design, photography, sales. All of these skills (and many more) can be carved into successful freelance careers.
Now identify your target audience, i.e. who will get the most value from what you offer? (and who you’d like to work with - this is important). This could be small business owners, agencies, charities, etc. And what sector so sport, software or manufacturing for instance.
However we all need a boost and our first project to get us going, this is unlikely to come from clever targeting or marketing. Almost every freelancer I know (including myself) won their first client from an existing contact. Use your network!
You’ll be amazed how often either your previous employer, an old work colleague or a friend of a friend will be open to giving you a shot. Your first assignment feels special, savour it (celebrate the small wins), then get to work!
You’re now building up a body of work from which you can create case studies, source testimonials and request referrals from. The wheels are in motion, don’t stop! You’ll now want to establish your online presence - a website, LinkedIn profile, email list etc.
You may already have these in place but now you have defined your offer, identified your target market and got some credentials in the form of past projects you can really build out a strong online presence to help win new business.
This section (almost) goes without saying, do a great job! As @Tom_Hirst said in his excellent thread related to this one, this is the part that’ll keep clients coming back, help build referrals and ultimately keep the flywheel spinning. https://twitter.com/tom_hirst/status/1293154132753350656
Of course, there’s a lot of hard work to make this thread come to life but it really is that simple in terms of the steps to take to get started on your freelance journey. In my experience if you’re good it’ll work out, every time! Take the leap.
