As a freelancer, you are your own boss.
This means that you are responsible for your own success. There’s no shortcut or cutting the queue here to get ahead! It’s going to be the result of pure smart work with strong dedication and commitment.
While there are many different routes you can take to succeed as a freelancer. But these 13 key factors will remain constant.
Your chances of succeeding as a Freelancer are greatly influenced by how good you are at these 13 factors.
Here are the 13 factors that will help you succeed as a freelance:
Focus On Providing A Niche-Specific Service.
If you pay attention then you'll notice all the freelancers who are making good income only cater to a specific type of clients based on their skill. They don't run after any and every work.
They have a very clear vision when it comes to what service they are going to provide. They have a clear outline of the client's avatars.
And that's exactly what you need to do too. Stop Chasing any and every work.
Get specific and niche-oriented!
For example, If you are a web developer, then don't portray yourself as a web developer get specific and portray yourself as like a Shopify developer, Webflow developer. By doing these you will portray your experience, and experience very clearly.
Build A System To Get Leads and Clients On A Consistent Basis.
You must have heard that finding clients on a consistent basis is hard, and it's the biggest reason why most freelancers fail.
But what if I tell you that there are systems, and strategies, you can build that will bring new leads on a consistent basis.
You can watch this video to understand more about what is a freelance system and how to build one.
Once you successfully set up a lead generation system for your freelance service then you'll be able to filter out good prospects and work with client who you thinks is a perfect fit for you.
The Quality Of Your Work - It Should Be Top Notch With Added Values
The most important factor that will impact your success rate is the quality you are able to deliver to the client.
If you are always over-delivering, focusing on building better client relationships, and your work reflects quality your success is assured.
Why? Because your clients would promote your services for you, referral, and word of mouth. All these would come automatically to you just because your work reflects the quality. And you'd get an outstanding testimonial.
Word of mouth, the recommendation are one of the most persuasive marketing strategies, because when someone recommends you to someone there's already a certain amount of credibility, trust, and expertise established in the potential prospect's head.
All you need to do is stay professional, and follow your client onboarding process as usual. The chances of conversion are multiple times higher than a cold lead.
Self Confidence
Warning! Everything is useless if you lack self-confidence.
Because if you are not confident about your own work, then how others will find value in it. You can promote and sell something effectively only when you believe in that product or service.
So, you need to be confident about yourself, your ability, and the work you deliver. There's no rush, I know it's going to take time.
Move with your pace, but keep building your confidence always. One secret tip here is, that you don't need other's validation to build your confidence.
It should come from you!
Keep Learning At Every Stage
As I said earlier, if you work on the things I have mentioned in this blog post then you can be sure about your success.
But, the real battles begin after you have become a successful freelancer! How do you keep the title of a successful freelance for a longer duration?
There's only one way to do that, and that's to keep growing your knowledge, and skill.
How do you do that?
By learning new things on a consistent basis. You need to keep growing your knowledge if you wish to stay ahead in this competition.
Learn Time Management & Organizing Your Day
You know, what's the biggest problem you'll face when you start to grow as a freelancer.
It's Managing Your Time & Organizing your whole to-do list.
It's coming from my 9 years of experience as a freelancer if you learn to manage your time and tasks efficiently. Your growth as a freelancer will accelerate and you'll also have time to focus on other ventures also.
You can read this blog post: 5 Tips To Be More Productive As A Freelancer.
Build A Great Network Of Contact With Other Freelancers, Relevant People
Connecting with the right people will help you grow and become wiser.
It's true, that networking is not a cup of tea for everyone.
But even if you are an introvert, not good with social interaction you can still build a strong network based on content sharing, and helping like-minded individuals, prospects, and newbies.
The bigger your network is the wider your reach would be, and you know the importance of reach when it comes to marketing campaigns.
Build A Strong Portfolio
Your portfolio is your biggest asset when it comes to getting more clients.
Your portfolio reflects your quality, and the value you provide and helps a potential prospect to decide whether you are a good fit for the project or not.
People tend to confuse one thing here. A portfolio alone will not get you work, it's just an asset that you'll use to convince and convert the client. Yes! It plays a crucial role in the decision-making process, as well as pricing, but by just relying on your portfolio to get clients, you will not be able to go far.
In actuality, your focus should be on building an impressive portfolio and integrating it well into your lead generation process to get high-paying clients.
And, that's how six-figure, seven-figure freelancer uses their portfolio.
Market Yourself Effectively - Develop A Personal Brand
Have you ever Googled yourself or about your service?
Have you ever put yourself in your client's shoes and thought why would you hire yourself?
Do you have enough credibility, and authority in your niche?
When you will try to figure out an answer to those questions you will automatically know how well you are marketing yourself. The effort you are putting to develop your personal brand.
You don't need to be the next big shot. Just pick one platform and market yourself effectively to build your personal brand.
Without a personal brand forget about success, you won't survive for long as a freelancer.
Invest your 80% time in dealing with the projects, but invest 20% of your working hours every week in marketing yourself as a freelancer, building your personal brand.
The Art Of Communication
For freelancers clear communication is everything.
It's really important to be able to effectively communicate with clients and deliver your message as well as be able to understand clearly what client wants from you.
The Art Of Communication itself is a valuable skill that you need to learn. I am not saying that you need to be a master at it to succeed. No, you need to learn certain methods, and strategies to make the communication, and meetings with clients a bit more effective and meaningful.
One communication strategy is mirroring. It really helps you get more information out from the client while you are lowing you to stay in control of the conversation.
Learn The Tricks Of Sales & Negotiation
For freelancers, the equation of success is quite simple. The more clients you convert the more successful you become.
Sounds so simple to talk about, but in reality whenever you meet any prospect the chances of conversion depend on your sales and negotiations skill.
If you don't have a good grasp on a few sales and negotiation strategies then it becomes quite hard for you to convenience the client.
Thus, it's very important that you invest some time to learn sales and negotiation strategies.
The Art Of Pricing Your Services & Products
Now your profit relies heavily on how well you understand the Art Of Pricing.
If you price your services right you'll make a good amount of money, but if you make a mistake here then you'd not only lose money but the time that you can invest with a new client.
That's why it's quite crucial to figure out the art of pricing as a freelancer.
People make it out to be a very complicated topic, but it's quite simple if you know what you are doing. All you need to do is just measure the number of hours you would be working on the project, your experience, and the value you bring to the table.
If you consider all those quite well and come up with a figure then the chance of you ending up with the short end of the stick is way lesser.
Yes. It would take a quite bit of practice for your to figure out the equation that works for you. But that's how every freelancer grows by investing their time in learning new things and honing their skills.
Tools Of Trades
No matter what service you provide as a freelancer, you must be using certain tools and apps. Your first goal should be mastering that tool.
By mastering, I mean even If someone wakes you up from a deep sleep and asks you a question related to that tool you can literally answer it without giving it much thought.
By gaining that level of mastering, not only you'll be able to deliver high-quality work, you will establish yourself as an expert, authoritative, and credible freelancer.
So, those are the 13 key factors you need to work on to succeed as a freelancer.
It’s not going to be easy, but it’s also not impossible.
Hard work never betrays, it always rewards people at the appropriate time.
Start putting in the hard work and then success will find you.
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See you in the next video.
