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Becoming a freelancer is a rewarding and challenging career path that millions of creators and consultants are choosing each year. There are a number of factors to consider before you start freelancing: if the lifestyle is right for you, what services you’ll offer, and all the details that go into attracting clients and managing your day-to-day operations.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to become a freelancer, and how to find success in whatever type of freelancing journey you choose to embark on, be it anything from photography to web design.
Determining if freelance is right for you
Before you dive into becoming a freelancer, it helps to be strategic about your priorities and goals, and see if they match up with the realities of freelance life.
The first thing that every freelancer should understand is: You are your own boss. That means you have the freedom and flexibility to set your own rates and organize your own schedule. It also means you’re responsible for everything that goes into running a business: from marketing and accounting, to managing your workload and finding your own healthcare.
Here are a few key considerations while assessing if freelancing is the right move for you:
Do you have the ideal freelancer skill sets?
Practical or technical experience: Take stock of how much experience you have in your field, and what your range of expertise looks like.
Emotional intelligence: If you want to become a freelancer, you need to be self-aware about the levels of your own “soft skills,” like being adaptable and communicating clearly.
Are your finances ready to take the leap?
Safety net savings: Unlike having a traditional job where you can rely on a steady salary, becoming a freelancer means more unpredictable payment schedules, especially as you’re first starting out. Common best practice is to save at least six months’ worth of expenses or, if applicable, make a financial game plan with your partner.
Health insurance: If you’re planning to quit your job and freelance full-time, you won’t have built-in health insurance. Make sure you research the health insurance options available to you in your area, or see if you can be covered through a spouse’s plan.
Taxes: Since freelancers are self-employed professionals, taxes won’t be automatically deducted from your paychecks as they would in a traditional job. Depending on where you live, you could be responsible for paying taxes totaling at least 25% of your income each quarter.
Do the benefits outweigh the challenges for you?
Benefits include: flexibility in scheduling and work location, creative variety, and increased earning potential.
Challenges include: Unreliable workflow, inconsistent pay, no built-in health insurance, and more complex income tax management.
Can you make the time commitment?
If you don’t have the means for building a safety net, or you’re on the fence about whether full-time freelance is the right lifestyle for you, it helps to start out part-time. Experiencing the ins and outs of freelancing in a lower-risk way could help you decide whether it’s the right choice for you—and help you start saving for that safety net.
Learn more: Is Freelancing Right for Me?
Defining your freelance niche and services
If you’ve made the decision to start a freelance business, the first item on your to-do list should be: Decide on your freelance business’s niche.
A niche is a specialized subsegment of a particular field, like the difference between being a content marketing writer vs. being an ebook content marketing writer. Your niche will help determine your target audience, your service offerings, and your overall branding.
To explore what makes your skill set unique, start by asking yourself these three key questions:
What am I an expert in?
What are my marketable skills that I’m passionate about?
What’s in demand in my field that I have a unique perspective on?
Once you know your niche, you can narrow down and describe the types of services you’ll offer clients. For example, if you’re an SEO consultant, you could offer services like “Competitive SEO Analysis” or “Comprehensive SEO Audit,” and describe who those services would benefit most and why.
Learn more: Define Your Freelance Niche & Services
Creating your freelance website
Every freelancer should showcase their brand and services on a freelance business website. A professional-looking website gives you an edge over freelancers who don’t take the time to carve out a homebase on the internet, and it makes you appear more credible to clients.
Build your own freelance website in nine simple steps:
Name your freelance business: Decide whether you’ll be working under your own name or under a business entity name of your creation.
Purchase a website domain: Use your business name to create the address where your website will be hosted.
Select a website template: Select a beautifully-designed website template to help you easily build the site, even if you have zero coding experience.
Develop your personalized branding: Decide on the color palette, fonts, and logo that will define the look and feel of your freelance identity.
Define your brand voice: Dream up the soul and personality of your freelance business.
Describe yourself and your business: Highlight your business’s mission and calls to action within the website copy on your homepage and about page.
Showcase your freelance portfolio: Hone in on your best work that relates to your niche.
Feature your freelance services: Name and describe your services, including the pricing and a call to action that makes it clear how clients can hire you to complete those services.
Add a way to contact you: Include a contact page and online booking system to make it easy to connect with you about your work.
Learn more: Checklist: Create Your Freelance Website
Setting your freelance rates and invoicing clients
As a freelancer, you get to decide how much you get paid for your work.
To calculate your freelance rate, consider:
What you need to earn: Include everything from rent/mortgage and bills, to setting aside at least 25% of your earnings for taxes.
What you want to earn: Take stock of the sorts of purchases, activities, and emergency savings that you know create your own best quality of life.
What clients are willing to pay: Research the current market rate in your field for freelancers with your level of experience.
After gathering all of that information, come up with a figure that averages your total cost of living (what you need + what you want) with what clients are willing to pay. From there, you’ll be able to determine your base rate and how to apply that to different types of freelance rates. For example, depending on the scope and length of a contract, freelancers might charge on an hourly basis (e.g., $80/hour) or a fixed-fee ($2,000/project).
Once you’ve set your rates and started taking on work, it’s important to learn the best practices for invoicing clients so you can get paid accurately and on time. Always invoice clients either at the start of a contract or upon completion of the work. Every invoice should include key elements like: your invoice total, payment terms (e.g., NET 30, which means payment is due in 30 days), and a late fee (e.g., 10% charge if payment is received past 30 days).
Regardless of what amount or type of rate you charge, remember to track your time working for each client, and advocate for yourself if a client is late with a payment. Your time and skills are valuable, and you deserve to be paid fairly and promptly for them.
Learn more: Freelance Income 101: Setting Your Rates & Saving for Taxes
Finding and hiring freelance clients
When you’re just starting out with freelancing, looking for freelance work can seem overwhelming. But if you’re passionate and motivated about becoming a freelancer, there are a number of channels where you can nurture relationships and find freelance clients.
The most common ways to find freelance work include:
Establishing your online presence. It’ll be easier to pitch yourself to new clients and establish a credible reputation if you invest time in a strategy for marketing your freelance business. Create your freelance website, set up social media accounts with your own unique social media strategy, and consider starting a blog and/or newsletter connected to your website.
Leveraging your network. Everyone has a network—as a freelancer, your network is your most powerful tool for finding clients. For example, you might already have former colleagues who you could tap for leads, but it’s important to always work on growing a network with more qualified lead potential. You can build that network by doing proactive things like nurturing relationships with other freelancers in your field and networking at industry-related events.
Sending cold outreach. This approach might be useful if you’re a freelancer who’d be comfortable researching businesses who appear to be in need of your services, and then emailing them an unsolicited pitch. The key to cold outreach is to personalize your messaging and focus on why and how you believe your services would benefit their business—not send generic self-promotional messages to just anyone.
Searching gig marketplaces. Popular sites give you the chance to create your own freelancer profile and browser or get alerts for a variety of freelance projects. This approach differs from the others because typically those marketplaces charge you a percentage of your earnings, so take that fee into consideration when exploring this route.
Once you start hiring clients, make sure to always clarify the project scope, align on its timeline, agree on a project rate, and sign a contract that covers those details and your rights as a freelancer.
Learn more: How to Find Freelance Clients
Practicing freelance time management
One of the biggest adjustments to becoming a freelancer is managing your time. It’s up to you to create balance and boundaries between your work and personal life, and manage a schedule that helps you hit deadlines and deliver quality work to clients.
Take control of your schedule with these key considerations:
Organize an effective daily routine. Everybody has their own optimal ways of working and balancing their lives. When you become a freelancer, it’s totally normal to experience an adjustment period as you learn how to prioritize and balance your tasks with your personal life. It helps to start by mapping out your own daily blueprint that you can use as the basis of scheduling each week and month. For example, maybe you know that you focus most clearly in the morning, so you might find the most success in planning a schedule that prioritizes your most important work during the morning hours, and organizing the rest of your schedule in the remaining hours of each day.
Respect your own time and energy. Taking breaks—whether it’s to go for an afternoon walk or take a whole week off—is vital to everyone, but especially freelancers. The best way to prevent freelancing burnout is to say no to projects or plans when you’re in over your head, schedule time off, and actually honor your time to care for yourself.
Set expectations with clients. From navigating out-of-scope requests to when you answer client emails, managing client expectations is an important part of balancing your schedule and nurturing client relationships. For example, if you’ve organized your work schedule so you’re only available to communicate with clients during certain days/hours, always make sure that clients know your schedule up front.
Learn more: Time Management for Freelancers