rahul.sharma

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Start Freelancing Today - Complete Guide and Notes

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🔖business, career, guide

Search for "pricing creativity" book -Kelly Vaughn

Establishing Your Identity as a Freelancer

  • A unique company name
  • A website
  • Social media handles
  • Content creation in your specific field

Specializing Your Trade

"Clients are looking for an expert." So specialize in your own abilities. This leads you to become the subject matter expert making the work more easy and efficient and letting you charge more and more. The more you niche down, the more it is easier to market and expand.
Ask your self this question, "What do you do?" and come up with a very specific answer
Eg:

"I’m a freelance marketing specialist who helps hair salons build their online presence.”

Establishing your rates

Setting Hourly Rates

An Example from the Book """ Let’s say I want to make $10,000 in my first full year of freelancing. I have estimated my expenses to be approximately $2,000. That means I’ll need to make a total of $12,000. I intend to freelance approximately 5 hours a week for 48 weeks out of the year. 5 * 48 = 240 hours. I then remove 25% of those hours for administrative work, bringing me to 180 hours. $12,000 / 180 hours = $66.67/hr. """

Charging per Project

The way I like to this, is by calculating the time a particular project is going to take and then using the hourly rate to reckon an estimate.
As you become more experienced in doing similar type of work, the hours required to finish the job decreases, leading you to charge less. But a way around this is to setup daily rates.
Let's suppose your hourly rate is $30/hr and you work for 3 hours in a day.
This means your daily rate is $90/day.
If a project is 42 Days long then you charge: 42 X 90 = $3780
Doing a 3hr job in 1hr gives you a lot of free time to relax or work on more projects, and letting you charge the same.

Finding your First Client

Probably the most difficult task is finding your first client. It is hard to build trust over internet and hence having an online presence matters a lot

Build a Personal Brand

YOU NEED A WEBSITE <3
When you act as a freelancer, you are your own company/brand. So market your self.
The best way to go about this is to start making an online presence.
Having a website that shows, who you are?, what you do?, who you have worked with?, your capabilities and strengths, plays a big role in creating trust between you and a potential client.
Things you need to put on your website:

  • About page:

    About page puts a face to the name and work. You can never go wrong with a nice smiling headshot, can you?

  • Resume and Previously completed projects: One important thing to display on your website is how you have tackled similar problems in the past. A portfolio section portraying all of the previously completed projects in a case study format with some metrics and everything is just what you need.

  • Start writing a blog around your niche: Aim for 500-word articles, preferably once a week or every other week.
    This also helps in SEO.

  • Contact page

Market Your Service

  • Network in person:
    Meetups and whatnot

  • Cold Outreach

  • Social Media:
    Start content generation around your niche.

External Freelancer Site

Pros:

The Lead Sales Process

  • [ ] still left to take notes of

Questionair for the client meeting:

Qualifying questions:

  • How high of a priority is this project for you?
  • When is the deadline for completing work?
  • When are you planning to launch.
  • What is your budget for this project

Scoping Questions:

  • What current challenges are you facing
  • What does success of this project looks like to you. How do you picture the end product.
  • Would you be providing the content that goes onto the website, or would you like us to do that on your behalf.

Signing on your First Client

The most important part of the negotiation process is resisting the temptation to discount your services. By discounting your work you’re creating the perception that your work is worth less than its original value. Instead of reducing your rates just like that, do a trade off between features and cost.

Ask the lead what they would like you to remove from the overall scope of work, as then, and only then, you can adjust the cost of the project. Once again, this is indicating that your pricing is fixed.

Project Management

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools makes your life super easy when it comes to communicating with the client. There are three primary features the author recommends you to look in a project management tool:

A message board for direct client communication, separate “projects” for each client you work with, and a to-do list feature where you can schedule action items for both the client and yourself with deadlines. These tools makes the whole process super transparent. You can let the client know about the daily progress and also about the plans for the coming days. This is generally very useful as back and forth communication prevents any kind of miscommunication. Just try not to overwhelm yourself with more communication and less work. One caveat to these project management tools is that they have bit of a learning curve. Now this might not be a big problem to you but think about your clients.
These leads to the question, "Are these tools even worth it?"
The answer is simple, "Yes, of course!". Choose a tool that like, look for some easy minimalistic tutorial guide and use that to guide your clients. You can make a little tutorial video yourself, if that helps. Then again, options are endless.

Dealing with Difficult Client Situations

When you give an inch, the client will try to take a mile. Remember, what you signed up for. You are providing service and your service have some value.

Scope creeps

Situations when the client asks to add the agreed-upon deliverable or change the entire course of the project. The best way to handle these situation is to ask them wait on a cost estimate for the changes they require.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Would you like me to provide an estimate for this? If you feel tempted to make some changes to the final deliverable, don't go for it. A better way is to suggest those changes or ideas for future improvements. This does two things. If the client has enough budget for the changes, congratulations, you have just made yourself some extra bucks. And if they don't then this lets the client know that there is already a possible growth path for their project. Both ways work in your favor.

The Work Is Taking Longer Than Expected

Here's a script that the author provide for you to use in such situations.

After digging into [deliverable], I do not think the original time estimate I provided will be sufficient enough time to complete the work. This is due to [reason(s)]. As an alternative, I would suggest one of the following solutions: [list solutions] I’d be happy to schedule a call to discuss this further. Also if the deadline is non-negotiable than focus on getting the MVP (minimum viable product) ready. Make sure to the clients know what the MVP will contain and what might the phase 2 for the project looks like.

The Client Doesn't Know What They Want.

The best way to help yourself and the client is by showing them some examples of the similar work, not necessarily done by you.

The Silent Client

Here's a script that the author provide for you to use in such situations.

Just following up on this message to make sure you saw it. I’m awaiting your approval on [X]. If that note goes unanswered for 3-7 days, follow up again.

Checking in again on [X]. I can’t [move on to the next phase/close out on your project/send over the final version] until I have your approval on this item.

How To Fire A Client

Here's a script that the author provide for you to use in such situations.

This is not an easy decision to make, but after careful consideration I have decided it is best if we part ways and discontinue my work on this project. I will officially terminate our relationship on [date].

Until then, I will be finishing my work on the following items: [list items]

I know this can be an inconvenience, so I would like to offer a referral to help you finish up this work. I will make a separate introduction in another email.

Closing Out the Project

Ask For A Testimonial

Here's a script that the author provide for you to use in such situations.

I wanted to reach out and let you know that it has been an absolute pleasure working with you on [project].

I was wondering if you would be willing to share your thoughts on our work together so I can add it to my website. Testimonials help me continue to grow my business. I will display your name and a link to your website with your testimonial.

I know you’re busy, so I don’t want to take up too much of your time. I greatly appreciate you taking a moment to send over a testimonial.

Again, it’s been a pleasure working with you.

Display The Work On Your Website

Don't forget to mention in the contract that you have the right to display the work in your portfolio and your social media accounts. Case studies are always useful and provide a lot of value to the people reading them.
An introduction to the problem, initial solution, tech used, final solution and end result constitute to a nice case study. And as a matter of fact, you already have the most part of the case study ready for you in the proposal you made for the client. Just add the last bit and you are good to go.
A crucial thing that a case study must consist of is metrics. Don't forget to mention how and how much your work helped the client's business grow with measurable points

Clients love to see numbers so they can see how investing in your work will have a direct and measurable impact on their business.