If you’re planning to work as a freelancer, whether it’s your first time or you’ve been doing it for years, here are ten common mistakes freelancers make and how to avoid them.
Not Having Business Cards
Nothing says I don’t have a real job, I freelance like not having business cards. It’s easy to throw them together yourself—all you need is a high-quality printer and card stock. Ordering from sites like VistaPrint can be done quickly, easily and at a fraction of what it would cost to hire a designer or creative director to make your cards for you. Make sure to put both your company name and phone number on your card—this will increase response rates and give people an easy way to contact you if they have questions about working with you.
If business cards aren’t your thing, consider including a personal touch (or two) instead. For example, Jess Rosenthal incorporated her passion for cycling into her self-designed business cards by adding small bicycles to each one she printed. The unique design helped generate buzz around her work when potential clients picked up her card and started talking about how cool it was. The conversation went from I’m looking for a freelance writer to wow look at that bike! Almost instantly potential clientele started asking about working with Rosenthal based off of something as simple as her business card. Don't let these opportunities slip away!
Not Staying Organised
For every hour you work on a project, spend 15 minutes organising your next assignment. If you aren’t organised, you won’t complete all of your freelance assignments, which means less money in your pocket. To help manage multiple projects at once—and not get overwhelmed—spend time documenting and filing everything that comes in or goes out. The clearer you are about what needs to be done and how it should be done, the more effective and efficient you will be at completing assignments for clients. That means more money for you in less time spent freelancing!
Not Keeping Track of Money
Time management is crucial for freelancers, but that can be tough when you don’t keep track of your time and clients. Try using a tool like Harvest, which tracks what you’re spending time on and gives you real-time reports on your work habits. It also alerts you to distractions (you might not realise how much time those random Google searches are taking from your day) and helps you organise all of your invoices in one place. Each month or week that passes with no documentation of money earned makes it harder to project income for tax season. To manage everything, create a spreadsheet that shows how much money each client owes you as well as how much they have paid so far.
Not Asking for Feedback
A freelancer works for a client, but there’s no reason you shouldn’t know exactly what they think of your work. Ask questions if you don’t understand something and ask how they liked your work and if they want you to make any changes. Getting feedback will help you improve in the future and can be used as a source of pride when it comes time to showcase your previous work. After all, every project is an opportunity to learn—and you can’t be great at anything unless you know what you need to do better next time. Make sure to celebrate both wins and losses; sometimes learning from our mistakes is more important than celebrating our successes.
Taking Low Paying Jobs
When you’re first starting out, it can be easy to focus on what you don’t like about your job, or what you’re missing. Even when things are going well at work, it can be easy to let minor issues nag at us and drive us crazy. While it’s fine (and totally normal) to have a bad day now and then, ruminating over problems with your boss or coworkers isn't always healthy. If anything, ask yourself whether you're spending time thinking about their flaws because of something they said or did that is making it hard for you to concentrate on other things.
Being Too Selfish
One of freelancers' biggest downfalls is that they can be a little too selfish. This isn't always a bad thing, especially if you're on a mission to launch your business and see things through alone—but it can come with some downsides if you're not careful. For example, being too self-involved can cause you to lose sight of why clients have hired you in the first place. It's easy to get caught up in your own project and forget that all your hard work should be focused on helping clients out—not proving what an amazing freelancer you are!
Ignoring Your Strengths and Interests
Before you start your search for freelance work, it’s important to think about what kind of freelancer you want to be. Do you like variety and don’t mind taking on a wide range of assignments? Or would you prefer sticking with one area of expertise and find yourself overloaded if things get too hectic? If, like most people, time is a concern—either because you have other work obligations or simply because you need money now—you should probably pick something in which your strengths and interests intersect. These are going to be your priorities when choosing freelance jobs; don’t settle for anything less.
Focusing On The Negative
Freelancers tend to be more easily discouraged than their full-time counterparts. There are times when you’ll wonder if it’s all worth it, but pushing through is an important part of freelancing. You must overcome your negative thoughts and focus on what you have going for you—and remember that every no leads to a yes; there are countless stories of freelance writers who pitched and got rejected by a publication multiple times before breaking through and getting published.
Pushing through discouragement takes time, but it’s essential if you want to succeed in freelancing. Another easy way to combat discouragement is to surround yourself with positive people who can keep your spirits up when they’re down.
Focusing On Only One Field
The problem with freelancing in a particular field is that you’re not likely to find work in that field at any given time. And you shouldn’t be attached to just one kind of work for your career. That means it can be difficult to make a living off of one or two types of freelance jobs (at least if you have bills, family and other responsibilities like most people). So don’t put all your eggs in one basket by dedicating yourself entirely to just a few niches within freelance writing; instead, diversify and get as many gigs as possible from different fields. Then, if one part-time client doesn't need your services for a while, don't worry! There are plenty more out there.
Becoming a Jack-of-All Trades
While it's important to have a specific skill set, it's also vital to be versatile enough to get you through a crisis. For example, if you can only code in PHP and SQL, consider developing your skills in Ruby and Python as well. It will make you more valuable when taking on side gigs or freelancing for others. Becoming a jack-of-all-trades means improving your flexibility and adaptability so that you're able to pursue new opportunities without fear of failure.
Never Claim What’s Not Yours: Whether you're self-employed or work for an organization, do not claim anything as yours until you've got permission from management—or even better—you’ve purchased it outright. Taking credit for other people's work is not only unprofessional but legally actionable in many circumstances. Going back to our developer example, making small updates here and there may earn you brownie points with your team...but claiming those same updates as you're doing could put yourself in legal hot water depending on where you live.
No comments:
Post a Comment