The Important Things That Every Freelancer Needs To Remember

September 26, 2019

Freelancing is no walk in the park. It’s an incredibly exciting business opportunity. You can pursue your dream job with no restrictions. You can become your own boss, so you set your own expectations. However, the important thing to remember is that you’ll become more than just an employee – you’ll become an employer. When you become self-employed, you are starting your own business as well as your own career. That means you need more than talent in your particular field of work or research; you need entrepreneurial talent. To achieve this, these are the important things that every freelancer needs to remember.

Patience is crucial.

First of all, you need patience. Every successful entrepreneur knows this. You can’t build a strong business unless you’re prepared to wait. For freelancers, this is definitely the case. After all, you’re probably going to start by running your company on your own. You might hire people to help you out in the future, but you probably have to start out on a solo basis. That means growth might be slow. It might take you some time to build up a loyal customer base, for instance. And you’ll definitely need loyal customers if you want your company to be successful. You’re going to face a lot of competition in the marketplace.

Even if you only have 1 client for the first few weeks (or months), you need to treat them incredibly well). You might be desperate to chase new leads, and that’s understandable, but if you don’t focus on your existing customer (or customers), then you might lose them. That’s why patience is so crucial. If you can accept that it might take time to gain new customers and expand your client base, then you’ll be able to focus your time and energy on impressing your existing customers. In turn, you’ll develop a stable client base and develop a good reputation for your business.

Your office needs to be well-designed.

You also need a well-designed office if you want to be a successful freelancer. This is something that many home-based entrepreneurs fail to realise. In fact, it’s something that many entrepreneurs, in general, fail to realise. Yet, our environment has such a big effect on our mindset. If you want to work well, then you need to be happy with your surroundings. The best way to achieve this is to renovate your home. Perhaps you’ll only be based in your office or study, but the entire house should look and feel good. It’ll improve your mindset and your ability to work in a time-efficient and cost-efficient manner. You might even want to look into bin hire for the renovation process. If you end up decluttering your house to give it a fresh design, then you’ll need to be able to dispose of your old belongings in a sensible way.

You need to be disciplined.

Every freelancer needs to remember that discipline is essential to their success. Working from home, in particular, can make it difficult to concentrate when you first become self-employed. That’s why many entrepreneurs use co-working spaces to separate their home life and their business life. But if you do want to work from home, then you just need to create boundaries. You need to avoid distractions whilst you work. Give yourself allocated time for breaks. This will help to keep you healthy and happy, and that’s how you’ll become successful.

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

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