A Beginner’s Guide to Freelancing
Due to recent events there are more and more people that are looking to freelance working. Many are realising the benefits of working for yourself and being able to have a flexible schedule for work. There are ups and downs with any kind of business or employment, but for many people, working as a freelancer can be a good thing. If you are thinking of working as a freelancer, or have started working freelance and want to know how to do it better, then here are some things that you can do to boost your success.
Be flexible
When you start out as a freelancer, then you might have a clear or fixed view on what things will look like and how you plan to run things. The best thing to do is to be as flexible as possible, especially at the start when you are first getting clients and work. Things that you might really work might not work out as well or in demand, and other things might be more in demand than you first imagined.
Clear on costs
When you start out, and as you carry on, then it is so important to have a clear idea about the costs that you want to charge, as well as the costs that you will experience as a freelancer. You need to make sure that you are adequately charging for your time, and that you won’t be out of pocket or working for pittance once your expenses have been taken into consideration. Will you charge for projects as a whole, or will you charge an hourly rate? Doing a little research as to what others can do is another idea, as well as knowing what is important for you and the minimum that you can charge.
Stay motivated
When you’re working for yourself you are the only one that will be motivating you, so you need to set yourself some goals in order to stay motivated. You might want to earn a set amount a month, get a certain number of new clients a month, or reach a certain number of followers. Having goals will help you to stay motivated. This is important because working freelance can be tough at times, especially when you wait for unpaid invoices, for example. However, there are things like using something like Gday Loans at times like that, when you know you have money coming in soon, but need to cover costs in the meantime. Help yourself to stay motivated and it will make a difference.
Get compliant
When you start work as a freelancer then it is a big step. So it is important that you don’t make things tougher for yourself by not starting out on the right foot. You might work as a sole trader or want to set up freelancing as a business. Whatever you choose, you need to make sure that you are registered, declare tax, are registered with relevant governing bodies and have things like contracts and waivers, where relevant, for clients.