How to Start and Grow a Freelancing Business in 10 Steps

Freelancers are self-employed individuals who work on a contract for different companies instead of the traditional way of working for a single employer. As companies seek to hire more freelancers, it’s an opportunity for people to know how to start and grow a freelancing business to success.

Freelance workers enjoy more freedom in where they work, how they work, and the hours they work than traditional employees. The freelance lifestyle has become an inspiration, and more people want to jump on the bandwagon and work independently.

Employers seek to hire freelancers to capitalise on benefits like fewer employee-related expenses, fewer taxes, and less or no need for office space. These are some of the leading reasons why employers are opting to hire freelancers to help grow their businesses to success.

Moreover, many freelance websites are cropping up to meet the demand of freelancers, which is increasing every other day.

Starting a freelance business is easy, but growing and finding new clients is more challenging. However, you can overcome these challenges to build a stable revenue source and break from the feast-or-famine cycle popular with freelancers.

Growing your freelance business gets you better clients who guarantee more money from larger, consistent projects. But to achieve all these, you must have a plan and understand how successful freelancers built sustainable businesses. If you’re a freelancer or aspiring to become one, you found your most valuable read for today. Incorpuk in this guide shows you how to start and grow a successful freelancing business in 10 steps.

How to Start and Grow a Freelancing Business in 10 Steps

Before starting a freelancing business, you must understand its why and goals. Once the bigger picture is registered, you can go ahead and get started as a freelancer. Let’s go through the ten steps of starting a freelancing business:

1. Know Your Goals

Without knowing where you’re headed and why you’re going there, you will have difficulty getting anywhere. Hence, you need to understand why you want to become a freelancer and what goals you have to achieve. These questions will guide you in defining your goals:

1. Are you becoming a freelancer to earn an extra coin or make it your main job?
2. What calls you into freelancing? Lifestyle benefits or the freedom of being your boss?
3. Is freelancing a stepping stone to achieve a different goal?
4. Are you pulled into freelancing because your peers are there and doing well?

A well-defined freelance goal ensures you stay on top of your game. Having an ultimate goal is something top entrepreneurs agree upon when a successful business.

Figure out why you’re starting a freelance business and ensure everything you do is geared towards achieving the bigger picture goal—clarity when freelancing starts with small goals and strategies to grow your business into success.

As you start your freelance business, consider an income target to cater to your life expenses, risk tolerance, and realistic expectations. With that in mind, you have a rough idea of how much money you need to make to ensure your business is sustainable and successful.

2. Get a Profitable Niche

Freelancing allows you to work from anywhere, making it a popular career worldwide. Freelance work can be anything from a content writer, content marketer, graphic designer, or professional consultant.

Focusing on a specific niche helps you develop a strong portfolio and a client base that can generate a decent income. Depending on your niche, there are many freelancing platforms where freelancers can find work and connect with clients.

Therefore, whether you’re starting or looking to take your freelancing business to the next level, you must find a profitable niche and create a portfolio. Focus on being the best in your field and being the go-to person for your specialty; you’ll never run dry on clients.

The flexibility freelancing offers—the ability to work from anywhere, for whoever you want, and set your own work hours—makes it more endearing to many. Having the opportunity to choose the projects you can do and the freedom to work at your own pace is something anyone desires.

If you’re working and considering freelance as a side job, you can start by consulting in your field. Once it picks up, you can leave your regular job to concentrate on freelancing.

3. Identify Your Target Audience (TA)

As your freelance career takes off, be open to working with different clients, and as time goes by, you’ll be able to tell which client is best suited for your business. The clients you’re comfortable working with are your target audience, and you should pursue them to ensure you deliver your best.

Narrowing to a specific target audience means you’ll turn away a lot of business, but there’s no point in committing to a project you can’t deliver.  However, zeroing in on a specific audience means giving your clients your best and providing much better results.

With time, you’ll have several clients who will keep you as their number one, and they’ll even advocate for you to get more clients. Underpin your freelance services on value, not price or money, but meet the goal of building an authority to become the go-to person in your niche. However, it does not mean your services should be cheap. No. Price your services according to their worth to ensure you generate revenue and deliver value to your client accordingly.

By building reliable clients who only come to you for your services, you unlock organic growth for your business. These questions will help you decide who your TA is:

1. Which business best suits your services?
2. Who can afford your services without overpricing or being too cheap to meet your goals?
3. Find the decision-makers in the industry and learn from them: demographics (age, location) and interests. Try to network or connect with them at a personal level.

With this information, you can send the right message to your target audience, connect with them, and offer immediate value.

4. Design a High-Quality Website

Freelancing is much easier with so many online platforms that can collaborate with freelance professionals.

The world is beyond the traditional ways of getting a job done or using agencies to hook you up with people with the right skills. Today, you design a website and source professionals worldwide: web designers, developers, or writers.

You can use your website as a portfolio to present to your clients whenever they need your services or when looking for a new project. The internet is available all over the world and is accessible to many. Thus, you need a professional to build your website so that you can use it to advertise your services to the world.

In your portfolio website, you can look for other freelancers in your niche to find out how they position themselves for inspiration. Be clear on the services you offer, pricing, and terms of service. A well-designed website is like the reception to a company; thus, how you package it is crucial to send the right message.

5. Price Your Services

Freelancing doesn’t mean you have to work from home, but you can also do so from an office space, depending on the nature of services. Regardless of where you’re working, ensure you set rates to earn you a decent income. If you’re a novice freelancer, you can determine your rates by looking at how other people in your niche and service industry have set their prices. Once you make the decision, go ahead and start looking for clients.

One of the most important lessons you’ll learn in your freelance journey is that clients love value: the more you price your services, the more you attract high-end clients. Some clients are ready to spend money to get valuable services since they expect a return on investment. Others have low budgets and will complain about your prices from the onset.

Anytime you encounter a client who claims you’re expensive, move on to the next one. They might be unable to afford your services, but they shouldn’t be overpriced or underpriced. Remember, no one should tell you how to price your products or services because only you know what you offer.

6. Market Your Services

To grow a freelance business, you must be comfortable with marketing and embrace self-promotion. Thankfully, you can market your freelance business in a variety of ways. Check out these five ways freelancers can sell their services.

1. Networking with potential customers will grant you freelance business exposure and introduce you to ideal clients. The more visible you are, the easier it is for you to land customers. Go to local events and join conferences in your industry to meet your peers and learn a thing or two while marketing your services. Don’t forget your existing connections like friends, family, former colleagues, and your professional networks, as they can play a significant role in marketing your freelance business.
2. Be active in community discussions by offering your professional opinion so that participants know you are a professional in what you do. Most social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram have professional communities where people ask questions or share opinions on different issues. Make sure you’re active in answering some of these questions and also ask some of your own. During this interaction, you may land your most promising client or referrals.
3. Use freelancer platforms effectively to grow your business, and choose a platform that can get you the clients and projects you seek.
4. Paying to advertise your business can help grow it fast and easily. You can pay for adverts on different channels or a single channel. Identify a channel that resonates with your TA, pay for ads, and then wait for results.
5. Identify and send cold pitches to potential clients, and even if they aren’t replied to, follow up several times until you get a reaction. It’s true that approaching strangers can be intimidating, but always remember you’re trying to get a client to work with. If you overcome the initial challenge or fear of cold pitching, you’ll be glad you tried it.

7. Start Small and Build a Portfolio

Sourcing clients might be challenging if you’re beginning as a freelancer. However, you can’t give up because you’ll go hungry, probably be unable to pay your bills or give up on your new venture. Hence, you must scour every platform and send as many cold emails and pitches as possible until you land a client.

As a novice freelancer, you may have to charge low rates to win over clients, and if you offer them value, increasing your rates will not be an issue. Delivering valuable content is key to winning clients and generating more income.

Once clients start flowing and work isn’t an issue, don’t pick projects you can’t work on and deliver. Only pick projects in your niche to avoid disappointing your clients and the reputation of your freelance business. Some deal breakers in freelancing include late deliveries, shoddy work, and unreasonable charges. No client will entertain you if you can’t keep your word to meet deadlines or deliver quality work.

Use the projects you work on as proof of the work you can deliver and build a strong portfolio to present to your potential clients. Also, ask your clients to leave a review of your work and display them on your website as part of your portfolio.

8. Learn to Pitch

Pitching is an asset any freelancer must have and practice often. No matter how good you are at your craft, you must communicate those strengths to potential clients. Winning clients requires you to be tactical in convincing and converting prospective clients to buy your services. You can achieve this by sending strategized proposals addressing your prospective client's pain points. Here’s how to craft that winning proposal for your clients:

1. Make an elevator pitch that provides value to your potential customer.
2. Emphasise your strengths.
3. Anticipate questions that may come up and provide answers.
4. Provide your past work samples to showcase your expertise.
5. Create a visually appealing layout to catch the attention of your prospects.

9. Carefully Choose Your First Clients

Choose a client ready to work under your terms to help build a strong portfolio that you can display to future clients. The more clients you serve, the better for you and your freelance business from a financial and portfolio. Your first clients will give you the confidence to carry on and find more job opportunities. Don’t overwork or overthink your issues to avoid going into decision paralysis. However, take a few minutes to think if a client has enough potential to make you realize your goals.

10. Separate Your Day Job and Freelancing Priorities

Even though you’re starting a freelancing business, remember that your day is your top priority. As you build your freelancing career, you can’t afford to jeopardise your day job because it will sustain you until your new business can profit. It would be frustrating if your current boss fired you, yet your new venture is still undergoing teething problems. Here are some no-nos o avoid:

1. Don’t breach any contracts you’ve signed with your employer.
2. Avoid working on your freelance business during regular working hours.
3. Don’t use company resources like blogging tools, the internet, or computers to advance your side hustle.

Benefits of Starting a Freelance Business

Gradually, freelancing has become popular as more professionals choose the freelance lifestyle. WHY? You may wonder. The main reason freelancing is now the in thing is because of various factors, including flexibility, freedom to be your boss, and the power to choose projects. Whether your freelance business is a side job or main hustle, it’s essential to understand all the benefits that come with freelancing business:

1. More Work Freedom

Since freelancers run their shows, they have more freedom than formal employment. They enjoy the autonomy to decide which new clients to work with or the projects to take on. You can decline if you’re presented with a project that doesn’t align with your expertise or the pay is below your rates. Plus, unlike employed professionals, you set your rates.

As a self-employed professional, you can set your rates, which depend on the project and the agreement between you and the client. You can set your rates at an hourly rate per project or a retainer for a long-term project. From such arrangements, you generate more flexible income than anyone employed earning a monthly salary.

However, you must remember that these advantages also come with responsibility. As a freelancer, you make all business decisions, get new clients, and meet deadlines. You’re also responsible for filing tax returns, preparing invoices, and the payroll. Typically, the employer handles all these duties in a formal job setting.

2. Generate More Income

Starting a freelance business will earn you extra cash. However, you must conduct thorough research to determine what business idea is profitable and suitable for your skillset. After identifying the ideal field to venture into, set realistic goals, organise yourself, and market the new business. The primary reasons as to why freelancing is booming is because:

1. Availability and accessibility of the internet have simplified finding jobs online.
2. Competition for freelance jobs is high, meaning freelancers get paid more for their services.
3. As more people launch their businesses, the demand for freelancers increases.
4. Technology makes connecting with clients easier and executing the job faster than ever before.

As you go into freelancing, ensure that your services are high-quality and relevant to the market to help you stand out. Moreover, offering services or products that people need makes you stand out and attract the right audience. Creating brand awareness lets people know who you are and what you do, making it easy to attract new customers while retaining older ones.

3. Increased Skills

Freelancing means there are different client projects you must work on, exposing you to various tasks. Each project is different, allowing you to increase your skill set. You must be open to learning new things as you proceed in your freelance journey. In a formal job, you may feel stagnant as there’s no continuous learning for everyone. Depending on the nature of your freelancing career, you may purchase courses to increase your skill set or join free courses online.

4. An Opportunity to Test the Startup Concept

Starting a freelancing business allows workers to build their client base and grow their business to success. Freelancing allows you to explore different services and offerings to see what brings in more clients and makes you more money. As your freelance journey progresses, you get valuable insights about effective business strategies, market trends, and client expectations.

The experience becomes instrumental if you have plans to structure your business into an agency and expand your client base. While freelancing offers an opportunity to test the business concept, growing it to success involves other considerations like:

1. Operational management
2. Financial planning
3. Team management
4. Marketing strategies

5. A Chance to Specialise

The primary benefit of freelancing is the opportunity to hone niche skills or gain more knowledge in the industry. Thus, you position yourself as an expert in your chosen field, which is a powerful tool for creating a unique brand for your freelance business. Unlike a normal job setting where responsibilities are dictated to you, you have the freedom as a freelancer to focus only on what interests you.

As an expert in a niche, you can target specific clients needing your expertise and charge higher rates for your services. Over time, your expertise positions you as the go-to resource in your niche, giving you a competitive edge and paving the way for more recognition and profitability.

6. Job Security

Freelancing offers you the benefit of job security through income diversification. Unlike a formal where you rely on a single employer, you can work for multiple clients simultaneously, diversifying your source of income.

As an employee in a traditional job, you can get fired anytime and lose your source of income, which can result in financial problems. However, as a freelancer, once a contract ends, you have others, or you can look for other projects to take on.

Hence, your income flow is sustainable. For this reason, as a freelancer, you should never have one client, but at least two. However, don’t be led by the greed for money to keep more clients than you can handle until you’re mature enough to outsource the services you can deliver.

7. Develop Valuable Connections

Freelancing allows you to connect with various people with different skills. These connections can be valuable to your freelance career along the way. Attending conferences in your industry and niche can also be valuable to your freelance career in the future. Here’s how you start and run a successful freelance business:

1. Determine your passion or skill set to help you find the right clients and deliver value.
2. Network with other freelancers and entrepreneurs to exchange tips and knowledge.
3. Start your business and keep track of your progress to stay motivated and make necessary changes.
4. Set a realistic work schedule and earnings goals because no business succeeds overnight. A business must go through different phases, good and bad.
5. Be proactive in marketing your business by creating attractive websites, writing compelling emails, and building a portfolio to showcase your work.
6. Success as a freelance entrepreneur takes time and effort. Thus, you can’t give up because of the small hurdles you might encounter.

8. Flexibility

Since freelancers aren’t tied to a single employer, they can work from anywhere, apart from those doing physical jobs that require their presence on the ground. Most freelance jobs are digital, meaning they happen digitally. Freelancers are fully remote workers who can travel anywhere while still working. For most freelancers, the main requirements are the internet and power.

Once a freelancer enters a contract with a client, they can choose when to work if they can meet the set deadlines. Setting up your working hours means you can do other things and still deliver if you don’t feel like working. However, you must be highly disciplined to manage the freedom while ensuring you deliver complete projects to your clients. Plus, you should always strive for quality because you spent time elsewhere and had to rush to beat a deadline.

The Cons of Freelancing

Freelancing comes with challenges, and the most obvious is the responsibility to meet all business expenses, including paying taxes. Before launching a freelance business, let’s discuss the challenges and considerations you must understand.

1. Unstructured Work-Life Balance

Although freelancing offers the flexibility to work at will, it also means there are set schedules or work structures. Hence, there’s no healthy balance between work and life. Freelancers also risk taking on too much work, which can lead to burning out, doing shoddy work, and even missing deadlines. As a result, you can lose your clients and your brand’s reputation.

2. Unpredictable Income

Finding steady clients in the freelancing industry is an inherent risk. Some clients can give a project and halt it without notice. Thus, you’re left without an income and still find it difficult to see more work, leading to a famine season, which is common in freelancing.

3. Higher Risks of Isolation

As a freelancer, you face the challenge of isolation from the world. Since you work alone remotely, it may be tough to engage others, and if you do, it’s never in real life but online. Unless you have other freelancers you can work with, you end up as an introvert.

4. Difficult Customers

Imagine working with a client who makes you do many revisions and then refuses to pay you. Frustrating right? As a traditional employee, your salary is guaranteed, but as a freelancer, you may encounter a ‘difficult client’ who might make you work and then refuse to pay. At such times, you face the challenges of settling bills and paying for work tools, which only add to your problems. Therefore, as a freelancer, ensure you enter a contract with all your clients to remain safe.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I approach a freelance business?

The best way to approach a freelance business is to use existing networks to get clients. It could be your friends, family, or friends you ask to get clients for your new business venture. Once you get the first client, ensure you do a good job, deliver on time, and get paid. Keep looking for more clients and deliver quality work, and the cycle continues.

Where can I start as a novice freelancer?

As a novice freelancer, choose a niche within your passions or skill set, like graphic design, writing, web development, video editing, digital marketing, and more. As you work, create a portfolio to showcase and use to entice new clients.

How can I get noticed as a freelancer?

You can get noticed as a freelancer through a website where you create an online presence that will get you, clients, in your business venture. By creating a powerful portfolio, potential clients know what you can offer and why they should allow you to work on their projections.

Do You Need Help Forming Your Company in the UK?

Incorpuk offers a range of fast and efficient online company formation services that makes it easiest and cost effective to take your business global. Kindly contact incorpuk if you need any help on company formation services today.

In Summary

Starting a successful freelancing business takes a lot of patience, time investment, resources, and personal sacrifice. It’s not a smooth journey, but if you can overcome all challenges, you can create a long-term career with a sustainable income. You meet new people in your freelancing journey, which gives you an opportunity to learn new skills or find membership for the new venture.

So, if you’re wondering how to start and grow a freelancing business, you need high discipline standards to succeed. Freelancing comes with much freedom, making your job interesting or difficult. However, you can set up realistic goals for the business and yourself.

Once you start your freelance business, aim to get what you deserve to make your dreams a reality. As you grow your freelancing business, learn to work with one or two clients to avoid an overload, which can lead to poor work delivery. Disappointing your clients is the worst mistake because they’ll not be back; if it’s bad, they might not pay you. Purpose to deliver high-quality work on time, receive the agreed rates and watch as your business grows to new heights.

Besides hard work and discipline, you also need good communication skills as a freelancer. WHY? You need good communication skills because you’ll deal directly with clients negotiating contracts. Proper communication allows for the smooth running of your business and avoiding misunderstandings. Observe deadlines, keep track of your progress as a freelancer, and always deliver high-quality work on time to ensure your business’s success. If you have any questions about starting and growing a successful freelancing business, kindly contact one of our experts here.