3 Tips for survival while freelancing slowdown

Freelancing slowdown

As a freelancer, you are going to come across slow seasons and that could happen due to many reasons like:

• Type of industry o which you are providing your services.
• Time of the year, your regular clients are away and haven’t given you enough work.
• An economic shift in your country or globally.
• Major technology shift in your industry.

An important question that every freelancer has is:

how to survive a slow down in your freelancing business?

1) Client Relationship

Look through the contacts that you have built over the years and reach out to your past clients who were happy with your services and may not mind working with you again. Check with them if they need you for any new assignments.

Reach them via a short email at first. A short email greeting them, remind and thank them for the opportunity you had in past to work for them and check if they have something new for you to work on.

They may have a short time project/assignment for you.

2) Alter and Scale your Services

Don’t deviate from your core expertise, but during a slowdown, you can try altering what you offer and exploring out new clients.

Try to team up with other known and trusted freelancers to scale the services so that you can provide a good service package to your clients. Strategically partner up with other freelancers for mutual benefits.

3) Passive Income – The backup plan

Comparatively to the above #1 and #2 this advice don’t promise paycheck but if you put the right amount of efforts, earning passive income will give you a good level of financial freedom.

Not all passive income projects will be a guaranteed paycheck, but if you create something you love, you will have the highest chance to succeed.

Ways to earn passive income:

• If you know logo designing – Create a website to list and sell predesigned logo templates.
• If you can do content/technical writing
  • Consider writing an e-book/book.
  • Create an e-course (technical training)
• Make videos for Youtube or for a video series that may attract viewers
• Create sales funnels or lead magnets while you do all of the above, the collected contact can be used as leads to sell other related products/services.

Tighten Your Budget – alter your lifestyle

While you are experiencing a freelancing slowdown, you will have to tighten your budget strings. You need to optimize your daily life and find areas where you can save money by cutting down unnecessary expenditure.

• Food Expenditure – eat homemade healthy food. Cut back all of the eating out & unneeded shopping trips.
• Cutdown on phone bills – try to find mobile network provider deals
• Avoid unnecessary travels and parties which can put a load on your pocket.
• Look for product deals, unused gift cards, collected credit card rewards.
• Consider alternative cheaper brands while you do regular shopping.

Yes, it can be stressful, but just try to have fun with whatever you do. Think of it as a budget boot camp to spend less and gain more.