Deciding to live life in your pajamas and become work from home freelancer for the rest of your life is a pretty scary one. Amazing because, well, who doesn’t want to hang up the suit and work in their pajamas, but scary because being a freelancer is so much more than just doing your job well. It is about becoming proficient and certain business functions and obtaining a plethora of life skills that are absolutely vital to success and longevity.
Yeah, it isn’t enough to just own a computer, have an internet connection and know how to build a website on Squarespace. Luckily for you, we are about to cast a little light on what it takes so that you may start to work on this and make the successful leap into a life that you are in total control of (unless you have kids, then you’re never really in control of anything).
1. Be A Good Communicator
As a freelancer, success and failure balance on the tightrope of good communication. Yes, this is important in every job, ever, but it is especially important when you are freelance. You need to be able to pitch to potential clients, network like a boss and have the ability to work with a new team every day. All successful businesses rely on good communication for a reason.
2. Become A Skilled Negotiator
A lot of being a freelancer is about knowing what you and your skills are worth, and then getting your clients to respect that. Yes, there is probably someone cheaper out there. But better value? Now way. It takes time to become a skilled negotiator, one that can be confident at the boardroom table, but you’ll get the hang of it eventually. Just keep plugging away.
3. Know How To Debt Collect
Everything to do with the invoicing process kind of sucks, but worst of all is when people just fail to pay up. If this becomes a persistent problem to your cash flow, then Interstate Capital offers accounts receivable factoring that can help, but it is well-worth learning how to get clients to cough up in a timely manner, of which there are a lot of options available to you. Carrot and stick being one.
4. You Need To Manage Time Better
Your work is going to come like the tide. There will be sudden rushes and there will be times where very little comes your way at all. It is part and parcel of the freelancing game, we’re afraid. The quiet times are easy to manage, but suddenly having multiple projects with back-to-back deadlines can be stressful. So know how to manage your time better. Seriously.
5. Leverage A Little Scheduling
When you are starting out, it can be too easy to say yes to everything that comes your way. Yes, you will want all the work you can get your hands on, but you won’t want to do it at the expense of your professionalism. You need to know how to push back a deadline or say that it is going to be a couple of weeks. Breaking a promise is worse than delivering ahead of schedule, remember that.
