The freelance economy is booming. Regardless of the challenges they might face, such as struggling with creating a balance between their work and daily lives, more and more people are joining the freelance workforce.
Let’s say you’ve kick-started your freelance business, just like the 4 million Americans who started freelancing in 2019, and now you’re striving to improve your work and increase your income.
There are numerous tools and skills you can use to boost your freelance business, and you don’t strictly need to make monetary investments for using them either (well… Unless you want to!).
Here, we have gathered 5 non-monetary tools and skills you can use to boost your freelance business:
1. Take on more complicated and long-term projects
It’s normal for you to take on simpler and smaller projects when you first start off working as a freelancer; these types of projects are initially helpful for gathering feedback and building your reputation.
But after a while, aside from your reputation, your skills improve as well. Therefore, you can take on more complicated projects and do more long-term jobs.
As a project’s scale and duration affect its fee directly, you should try taking on bigger jobs through time; this will also boost your reputation in turn and help you get more jobs with better clients (who can afford to pay you more).
2. Work more hours and boost your productivity
Revise the hours you work a bit; how do they look? Are you really fulfilling your full potential? Can you pitch in a few extra hours per week? If so, why not?
But remember not to overexert yourself by overworking. Know when to unplug from work and take your time to relax and tend to other tasks.
Try to boost your productivity. Set up a professional and comfortable work environment for yourself if you work from home, give yourself breaks during your work, and change the place you work in from time to time (for example, you can go to a cafe sometimes).
3. Negotiate with your older clients
As a freelancer, you must try to set suitable rates for your work right off the bat.
But freelancing is like any other job; your skills improve, and you become more experienced through time. So your rates consequently go higher.
Freelancing is all about negotiating and renegotiating. Don’t be afraid to talk to your clients, especially if you’ve been working with them for some time.
You can read more about global outsourcing rates to place your prices more carefully by knowing the average global prices for each skill.
4. Ask your former and current costumers for referrals
Ask your current and former clients for referrals. Organizations are more likely to work with you if one of your satisfied clients recommends you to them.
The more referrals you get, the more recognized and popular you’ll be, and this guarantees you more work.
5. Improve your social media activities
Many freelancers overlook the benefits of social media platforms as a business tool; they think they’re a waste of time since there is more “serious” work to be done. But social media platforms present many opportunities to freelancers.
Don’t overlook the fact that clients can find you through these platforms and get familiar with your work (in platforms such as LinkedIn or Pinterest). So be sure to improve your social media activities, create a compelling profile, update regularly, and stay up to date with the trends.
Want to read more? Here are 7 tools in the roadmap of becoming a freelancer.
What services does WinATalent offer?
WinATalent is an online freelance platform with a vetted pool of numerous professional freelancers in various software development fields. These freelancers are willing to help you develop your product in the best way possible.
We also offer estimation services that determine your project’s expenses and duration based on its scale and your budget.