Starting your freelance career is definitely an exciting time, but there’s sometimes so much information going around out there when it comes to growing your business that you just don’t know which direction to go in. The thing is when this happens it can be overwhelming to the point of you just getting nothing done, and truly, the best way to get started with growing your business is just by getting started even if you don’t feel like everything is perfect – you’ll figure things out as you go.
Pick a niche
The most important step and one of the best ways to eliminate overwhelm and stress when first starting your freelancing business is to pick the niche you’re going to be working in. For example, if you’re a copywriter, then you may want to write only content marketing copy for businesses, so you could develop packages and services that include things like blogs, social media posts, and newsletters. Alternatively, you could focus in a specific type of industry and write for companies like https://profisee.com/ or if you wanted to focus on writing for the travel industry, you could niche down even further and write for in-flight magazines.
Set goals
If you ever want to grow something to success in any area of life, including your freelance business, then you need to be able to measure that success somehow, and the way you do that is by setting goals consistently. The best way to set goals you can achieve is by having a bigger goal, say for the quarter or month that you’re working towards, and then breaking that into your weekly and daily schedule so you know what actions you’re taking are going to be in line with your bigger goals.
Keep it simple
As mentioned above, the sheer amount of information out there right now can get really overwhelming and confusing, so instead of getting caught up in it, focus only on your goals and keep things simple by staying in your lane and focusing on the tasks that will move you forward. This doesn’t mean not learning from others, but be intentional about it and don’t allow yourself to be caught up in shiny object syndrome.
Invest in yourself
In order to grow your business, you need to be investing in yourself to improve. This can be through reading blogs, listening to podcasts, working on your mindset, taking time to reflect on what’s working and what’s not, but again, being intentional about the things you learn. You can’t expect your clients to invest in your services if you’re not considering yourself worthy of investing in, so it has to start with you, and sometimes that will be time or money – often both.
Show up consistently
Whether it’s writing your weekly newsletter, creating content for your blog or social media, you need to be showing up consistently in your business in order for it to grow. Today, things move so fast – especially online, that it’s so easy for people to forget you, so if you want to stay front of mind when they need your services, then you have to be showing up.