Safe Freelancing – Follow the NINE to be FINE

Be a Better and Successful Freelancer, follow the NINE and be FINE.

You’re your own boss, and that involves a lot of routine tasks that require good judgement on how you go about and run a safe freelancing business.

Every project should have a contract signed

All you need is a general agreement that covers some basic, but important terms that both you and the client need to agree upon.

Having the basic terms in place for every project will help protect you, but more importantly, will help inform the client of how you work.

Down payments are necessary

An issue heard about freelancing is not getting paid on time or getting chilled by the client. You may be lucky if you never experience and that will happen only if you follow a simple project initiation process.

• Take, 50% before starting any official work, and make this clear to the client in preliminary discussions and in the contract. The client having an issue with this should be flagged red.
• By asking for down payment and the project doesn’t progress without it, will avoid risk involved with absconded clients.
• Before delivering the final workable files, request for the final 50% payment. Unless you’ve fully paid, don’t send any master files or designs in full resolution.

Learn to say “no” and run a safe freelancing business

Saying no may be hard but its must, it’s understood that you don’t want to disappoint anyone, so you offer to help any way you can. But you need to consider the stress you may undergo by landing with wrong project or client.

You need to understand that keeping everyone happy is not possible. Turning down work politely and with a genuine reason is understandable in the industry. But wrong commitments with bring up negatives and you may be blacklisted for future projects by the client. Also remember, you can’t say yes to your ideal client if you can’t say no to the wrong ones.

Being Focus will help your freelancing business

You will not find enough work and would struggle to get you name out there in the industry if you don’t focus on your brand identity and the type of projects you take on. Have services in which you are specialised in, and consider taking on work that complements your specialisation. Showcase your services and the work you want to take on or projects which you have done in past.

Transparent business with your clients – Branding your business

You are the name and face of your business, so be sure to represent who you are into your brand. You need to think from the client’s perspective, if you were to hire someone to provide a service, you would want to know who you’re giving the money to.

Explain how your process works. Show your interest in in your client and their business, break down step-by-step about what they can expect by working with you. This will help in building trust and confidence proving to be the most important factor in successfully closing the project deal.

Writing is the key to run a successful and safe freelancing business

Taking freelancing to the next level by writing more and more. If you think that you’re not a good writer, then I would say that you need to start somewhere and this may be that point. Writing is the way to getting your name out there, having clients find you, and to truly grow yourself as an individual and freelancer.

You can write a blog post, a newsletter, a book, a video, or an email to a client—it all starts with writing.

Focus on the now

Know where you want to be one day, so focus on what you can do now to end up there. What are you doing today to achieve your Goals of Tomorrow? Having reliable client base or having a product that will provide income, or if you rely on a single client to make a living, then how will that happen?

Daily to-do list with small tasks is what you need to have for running a safe freelancing business. Setting action pointers to easily complete your daily to-do list. Taking it one step at a time will allow achieving your long-term goals with a clearly defined action plan.

Knowing your numbers is a must!

Freelancing is like a business, and for the business to flow smoothly you need to know your numbers.

• How much do you need to make – Define expected Business revenue.
• Where is the site traffic coming from? What’s your best content? [this is assuming that you have a web presence]

Measure conversion rates and content interactivity (Identity non-performing content – What content isn’t getting views and need to be removed?) Identify the areas that are working or needs improvement. Continuous improvement is must to run a safe freelancing business.

Find out where your business income is coming from and focus more on areas that are performing better in terms of returns. for example, If you’re getting a lot of traffic from a guest post you wrote, reach out and write few more guest post.

Split your income after taxes

If you’re serious about freelancing, you need to separate your income and savings, split it up.

• 12% to Business related expenses
• 12% to Personal Savings

What’s left over goes into my personal checking for living expenses. Important here is to identify taxes, taking taxes out of your paycheck if not deducted at source.

Above tips are the most important tips for running a safe freelancing business, so the above NINE will keep you FINE. This will help you seen some major growth. I hope you were able to pick some insights from them. If you find the above tips useful? Do you have your own tips? Share your freelance insight in the comments below!