{"id":3106,"date":"2014-08-18T19:31:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-18T19:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jkoch.me\/?p=3106"},"modified":"2014-08-18T19:31:35","modified_gmt":"2014-08-18T19:31:35","slug":"freelancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/freelancing\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Secrets You Must Know About Freelancing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is a guest post by Karen Martinez who runs freelancefromscratch.com<\/a>. We met online and quickly discovered we both like the freelancing business model. She has compiled a list of 12 things I wish I had known before starting the freelancing business.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Take it away Karen!
\n<\/em>------<\/p>\n

Most aspiring freelancers know the good side of freelancing. There are hundreds of blog posts about self-employees working from home in their pajamas, going on vacations and being their own bosses. What most people don\u2019t know is the backstage<\/a> of the solopreneur business. It\u2019s fun, but it also requires a lot of work.<\/p>\n

Building relationships is more important than your main skill<\/h2>\n

You definitely need skills. You can\u2019t be a freelance developer if you know nothing about the craft.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re not improving your networking skills, you could become the greatest developer in the world and still have a hard time getting paid projects.<\/p>\n

However, if you learn to find clients, you could increase your knowledge about development as you go.<\/p>\n

Ask family and friends for referrals. There is a prospect out there needing your services. Find this potential client and offer your help.<\/p>\n

Get your first client before you start freelancing as a full time job. It will improve your confidence and it also helps you to pitch to well-paid projects in the long run.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not a natural born salesperson, it\u2019s time to practice.<\/p>\n

Managing all your business tasks will teach you how to delegate them<\/h2>\n

Your business involves more than dealing with projects. You have invoices to send, plans, marketing and productivity. When your business becomes profitable enough, you can afford to outsource some tasks to focus on the big picture.<\/p>\n

However, when you delegate a task<\/a> without understanding the effort and time it requires, you won\u2019t know what a fair deadline and rate are for those services. If the assistant you hired bailed on you, you\u2019ll need to learn how to manage the task on the last minute.<\/p>\n

Start small and learn everything you can now.<\/p>\n

Being your own boss can be a good or a bad thing<\/h2>\n

No one\u2019s asking what you\u2019re doing. No one\u2019s waiting for a filled report. It sounds amazing. However, when you had a boss you knew you had to finish your assignments.<\/p>\n

With no boss around is easy to procrastinate. Game of Thrones rerun in the middle of the day? Sure! Ten more minutes in bed? Why not?<\/p>\n

Are you determined enough to keep on track?<\/p>\n

Social life is no longer an obligation, but you\u2019ll miss it<\/h2>\n

At a day job, you\u2019re forced to spend most of your time with colleagues. You have water-cooler breaks and lunch to socialize with co-workers. Yes, probably you won\u2019t miss your boss. Or that guy from the corner always taking your sandwich from the fridge.<\/p>\n

Now you\u2019re not obligated to waste your time with an office environment you don\u2019t like. Most of the time you\u2019ll be alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is why is so important you find a support group. Join a mastermind group. Be in touch with your best friends constantly. Talk to your family about what\u2019s new. Go out with your girlfriend. Have a new hobby.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll need this, especially when feeling unmotivated.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll become the project manager<\/h2>\n

Remember what I said about being your own boss and procrastination? You\u2019re the project manager now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Long are the days when you could spend 1 hour doing nothing at your day job without any negative consequence- besides getting caught. As a freelancer, time wasted is money lost.<\/p>\n

You need a freelance niche<\/h2>\n

How many times have you heard freelancers getting peanuts in job boards like Craigslist? Generally speaking, those solopreneurs are targeting anybody. Developing a church website? Yeah, he\u2019s the guy. Writing copy for a law-firm? He does that too.<\/p>\n

Do you know the problem with that? You don\u2019t become an expert in a niche and you spend more time pitching prospects because everybody is your target.<\/p>\n

Avoid wasting time and focus on a specific freelance market.<\/p>\n

Execution is just as important as planning<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m guilty of this. I spent too much time planning everything. Like how my website would look like and which plugins to install, planning a budget and calculating my business rates, building a networking strategy. I lacked of action.<\/p>\n

On the contrary, just executing tasks without any sort of planning is just as bad.<\/p>\n

Spend a few hours every week planning what you need to do. And then actually do it.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not good with money, you\u2019re gonna have a bad time<\/h2>\n

As a regular employee, living paycheck to paycheck is bad. As a freelancer, it\u2019s catastrophic.<\/p>\n

You cover your bills such as rent and groceries. But you\u2019re also in charge of your business software and assets such as your laptop and office furniture.<\/p>\n

Imagine your hosting expires this month and you haven\u2019t paid your credit card.You\u2019re going through a rough patch. A few clients are behind with their payments. How will you pay your hosting if you didn\u2019t plan ahead?<\/p>\n

Another example: Your laptop crashes and you don\u2019t have money for a new one. How are you going to work? You could borrow a friend\u2019s laptop. How will this affect your productivity?<\/p>\n

Dealing with rejection is part of your daily routine<\/h2>\n

Running a business is a numbers game. Let\u2019s say you send 10 pitches to potential clients. 6 of these clients say \u201cThanks, but no thanks\u201d. \u00a0Will you leave your home office and go to your bedroom to cry? Well, maybe. (Just kidding)<\/p>\n

No! You need to find out if you targeted the wrong clients, sent the wrong pitches or if it\u2019s simple not your fault. Don\u2019t take it too personal.<\/p>\n

Freelancing is harder than a day job but it\u2019s more rewarding<\/h2>\n

As you see, you\u2019ll wear different hats. You are now bookkeeper, salesman and customer service agent. It\u2019s not easy.<\/a><\/p>\n

You might not be used to perform so many roles at a regular job. Now you\u2019re in control of your day, you decide when and where to work.<\/p>\n

You will accomplish goals you would never accomplish working for someone else. And that\u2019s inspiring.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll experience feast or famine cycle at some point<\/h2>\n

You\u2019ll have times when you are overbooked. You get tons of emails and feel exhausted. Suddenly ,the next week you hear crickets singing love songs (Or is it just me?).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what we call feast or famine cycle. How can you avoid this? Market yourself!<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t do it just because you have free time in your agenda. Perform your marketing strategy on a monthly basis to guarantee you\u2019ll have enough work to cover your bills.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not for everyone<\/h2>\n

So you read the entire blog post. You still want to start freelancing after all these points. Awesome!<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re disappointed, you must know entrepreneurship is not for everyone.<\/p>\n

Some people choose the paycheck instead of pursuing a different lifestyle. That\u2019s okay too.<\/p>\n

At the end, it\u2019s about doing what makes you happy.<\/p>\n

More about Karen:<\/i><\/p>\n

Karen Mart\u00ednez is a freelance blogger for <\/i>hire<\/i><\/a>. She\u2019s the author of <\/i>Freelance from Scratch<\/i><\/a>, where she shares stories and tips for building a freelance blogging business and a better lifestyle.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is a guest post by Karen Martinez who runs freelancefromscratch.com. We met online and quickly discovered we both like the freelancing business model. She has compiled a list of 12 things I wish I had known before starting the freelancing business.\u00a0 Take it away Karen! ------ Most aspiring freelancers know the good side […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,74,169,138,163],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kconsult.services\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}