freelancing

How To Start Freelance Business?

By Ashutosh Jha → Sunday, October 3, 2021

The need to start a freelance business is often born of an entrepreneurial mindset. All freelancers will tell you how difficult it is to keep up at the initial stages. Just like every other business, the early results are the inevitable growth we need to experience to make it far in the world of freelance.

This write-up is compiled with good detailing to help you swim the waters of the freelance business without having to drown.

You can order for your business and entrepreneurial-based wall arts at Elephantstock.

Before you dive in

It is safe to assume most people understand the exact reason they decided to start freelancing. Knowing why you have decided to start freelancing has a significant effect on how well the business will thrive.

How do you choose to see the business? Is it just a side hustle or something you are willing to invest the totality of your time in? Is it something to keep you busy? Whatever your answer, you will realize that each answer requires a different approach.

A side hustle is different from the main hustle, but the side hustle can thrive, depending on how well you manage your time. In point, be sure of the exact reason you are making the transition. That is the foundation of how your business will be shaped.

Ensure, to be honest with yourself and always set attainable goals. Disappointments are an unrivaled way to kill morale and dedication. Accept jobs you are certain can be delivered on, both time-wise and quality-wise.

The right niche

A host of startup freelancers often make the mistake of being sentimental when selecting niches. It is advisable to pick a niche that will support you financially.

The inability to make tangible money as a freelancer often brings fatigue and eventually an overall lack of interest in the business. Whatever services you can offer, ensure you can offer said services in its totality and not just a section or part of it.

In most cases, the attainable difference between a successful freelancer and an unsuccessful one is range. How good are you in your field? How fast you are willing to catch up with the knowledge you don’t have?

An experienced look

Your freelance business might just be starting up, but that doesn’t mean it has to look new and inexperienced. A business logo is the best way to show your quality, professionalism, and seriousness. It is difficult to take a business seriously if it doesn’t have a face or an image representing it.

A nice, eye-catching logo is a good way to promote your start-up business. To make it in the world of freelancing, there has to be an understanding that the competition is quite heavy. Ensure you have a standard profile, with good detail and an eye-catching image. The higher you climb, the better you modify it.

The importance of a website

It is understood that logos help attract clients, but it gets to a stage in your freelance journey where you inevitably have to build yourself a website. This cannot be overstated; websites are a great way to boost your freelance business.

They are a place of contact between you and your potential clients. Websites are great for many reasons, it signifies a high level of professionalism, and it instantly raises your class and price as a freelancer.

They are a great way to advertise your business, while simultaneously gaining some ground as a social media influencer. Implement the use of creativity in advertising yourself and your business on various platforms like LinkedIn, fiver, and freelancer, just to name a few.

The trick about pricing

Most startup freelancers are often unsure of how to price. This uncertainty can have detrimental effects; you could end up pricing too high or too low. This leaves you unsure and not confident, any smart client will pick up on that scent.

You should make research on how much freelancers in your niche charge for services provided. Once you have this information, you have to understand that you are new to the business. Start with smaller jobs and accept lesser pay, most of the jobs that come your way will most likely have those details.

From those smaller gigs and lighter pays, you will eventually build a standard and profitable business.

Follow these steps, be truthful to yourself, master your craft, and make your profiles attractive, and you will be amazed at how smooth you will sail the freelancing world.

Start-Up Business

The Start-Up Costs You Need to Consider for Freelancing

By Ashutosh Jha → Thursday, October 4, 2018

Starting a freelancing career is a big step and not one to be taken lightly. It does offer some benefits, such as being your boss and setting your hours, etc., But it often comes with some significant downsides, such as a lack of consistency in gigs, no benefits, and more. Therefore, before you start your freelancing career, you need to look at the start-up costs.

Many of these might be obvious, but some aren’t, which is why anyone thinking about a career in freelancing needs to take a long in-depth, and hard look at the start-up costs. After all, most of the time there’s going to be some costs that you’ll overlook when thinking about it. That’s why we’ve collected some of the biggest start-up costs you need to be aware of before considering freelancing.

Outfitting Your Office

This one is probably the most obvious in terms of costs before attempting a career in freelancing. After all, how can you do freelance if you’ve got nothing to work with? While exactly what you need depends on what type of work you’re planning to do, such as designer, writer, blogger, etc. There are some things that every freelancer needs.

For example, you’re going to need a desk, office chair, and a computer, at a minimum. The chances are that you’ll also need a multi-function printer as well, for creating hard copies of invoices and receipts, as well as whatever else may come up. Setting up your office space is mandatory, as you’ll often be taking calls from clients, and some of these may be video calls. You’ll need to look professional for these, so the need for proper office space is undeniable.

If you don’t know what you need, think about what you had in your old office; most of the stuff you had there will be required in your freelance career. You may have taken most of these for granted, but once you become a freelancer, you realize just how important they were. This expenditure is probably one of the most significant start-up costs for freelancing, but in most cases, it’ll be a one-time investment.

Get the Software You Need

The kind of software depends on what kind of freelancer you’re looking to be in the future. After all, a designer’s needs are different than a writer’s. Here you will need to purchase these stuff on your own so that is definitely an extra cost since in the office you had access of these for free. You might have taken office supplies for granted in your old job, but they’re crucial for freelancing.

For writers, the software could be as simple as a copy of Microsoft Office, but for designers, it could mean a whole lot more, such as Photoshop, InDesign, Lightworks, and others. Bought in packages, they can be affordable enough, but it is indeed one of the major costs while doing settling your freelancing career. Because they’re important, they’re not something that you can put off while your freelance career develops. However, there is free software out there that you can use, such as Google Docs and Drive, which may help allay some of the initial costs of freelancing.

Some people might also want to consider a type of accounting software, in order to create professional invoices using several invoice template and manage all of their books, payments, and expenses. While this isn’t mandatory, but it could be extremely beneficial in the long run, especially when it comes to paying taxes.

You Could Have Higher Household Costs

Household costs definitely increase after you settled at home and start performing your tasks. These are costs that are going to exist no matter which stage of the freelancing you’re at. The exact amount is difficult to put a dollar figure on.

When you’re working in an office, it’s obvious that you’re not at home using electricity, heat, etc. However, once you’re working in a home office, you can expect that bills are going to increase noticeably, but it’s an unfortunate and unavoidable part of freelancing. Like was stated earlier, these are one of the hardest costs to predict, as it comes down to your usage of electricity, air conditioning, phone, etc.

There’s also the issue of spending more on food, as you’ll now be eating more of the food that you have at home.

Finance & Its Interest- A Major Cost

These costs might mean that you’ll need to take out some loans to purchase everything, even if it’s just a small one. After all, if you don’t have the money to start freelancing, you can’t start freelancing. For some people, a small business loan might be the best thing you can do to start your freelancing business. If you are looking to start small and don’t want to have too much financial burden than 24-hours emergency finance or personal loan would be a path to go.

Accountants

We mentioned accounting software already, but at some point, if you’re successful, you’re probably going to need to get an actual accountant. While accounting software can help put this off for a while, it’ll eat your time as a freelancer, and as someone who hasn’t done accounting for a living, you could end up making some costly mistakes.

Save some money and get a bookkeeper or an accountant. This employee may be a start-up cost, but it’s is going to be a major ongoing payment; it’s something that’ll end up becoming necessary, especially as your business grows. That’s why it’s imperative that you start saving for it as soon as possible. The accounting software will only get you so far, so the sooner you begin to save, the better.

Final Words

Freelancing is undoubtedly a way to get some peace of mind along with some handsome amount of money if you get to succeed at last. In the beginning, these costs seem a lot and might discourage anyone but believe or not, it is worth of risk. A successful freelancer does things that are hard to think of while doing a regular 9-6 Job with a monthly fixed payment.

Freelancing is the primary point of developing entrepreneurial skills. Think of it as an opportunity to pursue your dreams in the future.