Starting work on any of the leading freelancing platforms along with a full-time office-based job is always a wise move. It opens an array of opportunities to enhance your earnings and, of course, it polishes your skillset as well.
At first, the freelancing platforms enable you to kickstart your earning score while sitting at home. Through continuous effort and proper planning along with time management, these platforms would also open plenty of avenues to turn these early dollars into a stable income stream later.
What is Freelancing?
Freelancing platforms are a virtual marketplace where your potential customers find you through your gigs and profile. The model is largely replicated from that of a physical shop where customers find your place through referrals or advertisements and pick their desired product. If you have seen businesses in the physical world that flourish after starting from scratch, then it should not surprise you that same is true for the online marketplace as well.
Whether you are a budding freelancer or an ambitious top-rated online seller, you have arguably once thought of converting your freelancing career into a profitable business venture. To materialize this, you have to invest your energy and capital in the right way. We have laid out some essential tips below:
1. Bring a Smile to the Client’s Face
Your profile will be more visible to visitors if you have nice reviews from your past clients. Remember, this is not the only point to get more online visibility, but it has quite an important role among many other factors. Your interaction with the client begins with the order request. The best way to get and hold your buyers lies through ineffective communication.
Always be more responsive and never put your clients on hold for hours more than 24. Quick responses always create a great impact. Use the mobile phone apps of freelancing platforms like Fiverr or Upwork to make an instant replay. It is better to inform your customers what you can do and to understand what they need from you.
Sending custom offers may not always bring positive results in return. Take an example of a customer who inboxes you for discussing the idea of a business website, and you instantly respond with your price packages and other custom details. This leads to reticent communication and is most likely to end up in the cancellation of the order. It is absolutely fine to listen to the entire proposal of the client and share your pricing later. Before understanding the complete description of the client’s project, it is dumb and immature to bring pricing details to the table.
Give time to your client and try to start a well-engaged and thorough conversation. This will help you to fully grasp the concept and will also strengthen your bond with the client. Always give a realistic delivery timeline from your end. If the client asks for early delivery, which seems impossible to you, say it loudly and clearly. After passing the deadline, it is a loser’s excuse for not having enough time for the project.
To bring a smile to your client’s face, you will have to grind and sometimes burn the midnight oil. In a bid to start your online business from your freelancing career, you need to have a pool of satisfied online clients that you have worked with. Because they might also be one of the first customers for your online business, hence, retain your customers as long as possible.
2. Stay Focused
Unlike it seems from the outside, freelancing is not an easy nut to crack at all. If you want to stretch your freelancing career to your full-time business, you need to stick with your PC chair for nine hours daily. There is no wonder in saying that most successful businesses thrive only because of their owners’ dedication.
If you have already set the goal of carving out a lucrative business from online earning, you should also make yourself ready to face the music. Make a list and maintain it. Prioritize daily tasks and create a balance between your office job and online working hours. These factors should be kept into account because failing any of them to achieve would result in the form of “Give Up.” You might have sleepless nights, a weekend spent in front of a PC, or get no time for social media feeds, but in the larger picture, this will pay off and add to your worth.
Bring meditation and other mind-relaxing hacks into practice for refining your energy level. This will help you to cope with the highly intense workload and also to keep you focused on your goal. You cannot accomplish or make it to build your own business unless you become a successful freelancer in the first place. From day one, or whenever you decide to turn your freelancing career into a lucrative business, start giving more attention to your clients and their projects.
Remember, you are not only working on their projects to get the work done and get paid, but you also want them to remain with you and help you to strengthen your business afterward. Henceforth, stay focused and bring the maximum out of your client’s project.
3. Grow Your Team
Once you have gone through the process of meeting the client’s expectations and retaining them, the time has come to revise your aim. This revision will deal with analyzing your existing potential, time, and monthly income from online earnings. If it has exponentially raised five times from its starting amount, it’s high time to grow your team. Now it’s the moment to properly channel your earnings instead of crying in the wilderness.
Decide whether you want to expand your niche or looking to explore other gigs as well. For example, if you were providing a front-end web development service, and now you have two options at large. E.g., to recruit more front-end developers or to hire persons of other similar skills like back-end developers, designers, or full-stack developers.
You should not be dealing with too many roles. It would impede the growth and success of your online business. It will create a mess if you single-handedly decide to perform the role of CEO, COO, or handle accounts simultaneously. Recruit an experienced person with related skills and grow your team. Relegating the tasks is an important phase in project management.
After having a dedicated team and more gigs, you will attract more clients and receive more orders. Your team members should be informed of your past sanity maintained by you. These orders should not be delivered late and followed properly. Make sure your employees are giving attention to the values that you have followed to establish this business down the line.
4. Ask For Help
You might have already planned for the spending of your monthly earnings. One cannot assume or include uncertain happenings in the monthly planner. As this ongoing year of 2020 has been hit by the unprecedented pandemic, you might have delayed your plan to start your online business.
This is OKAY to save your earnings for coping with this deadliest disease and its vaccination. It is also unwise or probably not so profitable to recruit a team and launch your business by merely relying on freelancing income. For these moments, there comes an option to ask for help. Don’t be shy or embarrassed to borrow money in this challenging time.
You can go to the bank to apply for credit or approach a family member for a little help in kickstarting your business. Even if there was no pandemic, it is suggested to put all your online earnings out of the bag and invest it entirely in growing the team and strengthening your business. Save some amount for unseen events. Business does not always guarantee a win-win situation.
Be prudent and thrifty while drafting a budget. If you all successfully managed your employees and physical space expenditure, then don’t forget to enlist the marketing cost. This is the area which most of the people blanked out from the list for cost reduction, or overconfidence sometimes. Be practical in using the money but don’t be afraid to borrow if you need some initial capital to give a boost to your new business.
5. Get Yourself an Office
You can supervise your team remotely by using several best freelancing apps for communication. But if it is your first encounter with teamwork as a leader, then never go for remote work. You may not retain your employees for long, and this will also hamper your leadership skills as well. If you have been working online from your living room or a working desk and feel comfortable there, then you have to come out of your comfort zone.
You should go out and find a workplace In the best interest of your business growth. The work-friendly environment will keep your team engaged and motivated. As your business thrives, you might need to hire more employees and customize your workplace as well. Getting an office and waking up from bed for the first day at the office will make you feel the success you have achieved. Relive the moment and get to the office as soon as possible. The office will remind you that you did not settle for anything less than success. Sooner or later, fair play always pays off. Try to maintain your streak of bringing smiles to your client’s faces.
Wrap Up
The ongoing pandemic has stamped the notion that gone are the days when employers hire employees after evaluating their resumes. Now the gig economy has been prevailing for its seamless and consistent procedure.
If your freelancing journey is giving you some extra income, it should not have to stop there. It is a great way to make a large fortune if followed by a proper strategy. Expanding your side hustle into a full reality has been an aspiring dream for many wage earners. For example, if you are providing online content writing services on any freelancing platform like Fiverr or Upwork, you surely need to bring both your patience and skills into practice to get maximum orders. The number of orders and their reviews will determine your future fortune, the same condition for all freelancing niches. Wait for the time when you have orders that allow you to expand yourself and bring another content writer to get the work done.
This is an oversimplified way to grow as an online content-writing service. Pay appropriately and grow your team. There can be many examples held as a case study for doing the same. By following the way, you can make a leap from a freelancer to a small business owner.