Once you’ve established your freelancing business, you’ll need to consider how to develop it. Think of your business as a river that experiences both trickles and surges and, although constantly flowing, will merge with new streams at a number of points along the way.
These new streams are the business development strategies that will help you grow.
In this chapter, you’ll start to think more strategically about your business. You’ll discover how to find new opportunities, identify passive income streams, increase your fees and find out how to work less to earn more.
You’ll examine these five areas:
Create new income opportunities
Think ‘BIG’
Outsource work
Increase your fees
Nurture a referrals strategy
1. Create new income opportunities
Passive income is a flow of cash earned with minimal or no effort. And it can offer freelancers a number of opportunities to earn cash while effectively doing nothing. Here are a few examples:
a) Sell physical merchandise
Even if you’re not a maker or producer of physical merchandise, is there scope to develop something that is? Can you create a slogan or design to sell on a T-shirt, tote bag or on other merchandise?
This is a good form of passive income because once it’s designed, the work is done and you can license it to e-commerce sites who will do the selling. Learn Michael Essek’s three principles to start earning passive income from selling T-shirts online.
b) Add affiliate marketing to your site
This is where you agree to host ad space on your website. Every time someone clicks an 'affiliate' site from yours, you can earn money.
There are various ways you can earn (pay-per-click, cost-per-acquisition, etc.), with some offering commission of between 30 and 50 percent.
c) Sell ad space on your website
If you’ve built a strong e-profile and get lots of traffic to your website, you may want to think of selling advertising space on your website.
This is more lucrative than affiliate marketing, but advertisers will only buy if your website gets lots of visitors. Set up a landing page on your website, with contact details, specifically for selling advertising.
d) Earn royalties from e-publishing
Ok, so you’ll have to put the initial work in to create the content and self-publish the book in the first place, but once it’s out there, you’ll earn a royalty for every copy sold. Develop a solid following, and you’ll also have a willing audience for any further books you decide to publish.
e) Deliver online courses
Create online courses or webinars in your area of specialism through one of many open source learning platforms, and you can earn money every time someone signs up. If you develop your own channel for your courses on YouTube, you’ll now need at least 4,000 views in a 12-month period and at least 1,000 subscribers before you can start earning.
2. Think ‘BIG’
At some point, you’ll be ready to take on much larger projects. And one of the biggest areas is in public procurement, where you bid for work from public sector organisations such as local government or NHS trusts.
Contracts vary in size and budget, from small short-term contracts suitable for freelancers or small businesses to major long-term projects for large companies. You can search a list of potential contracts at gov.uk. Enter a few keywords in the box and you can scan a list of all current opportunities.
3. Outsource work
When you’re offered more work than you can physically do, you can either:
a) refer those customers to other freelancers or
b) think about taking on the work and outsourcing it yourself.
You will have to build a network of good freelance contacts before you can do this though.
This is, in effect, another passive income stream as you’ll effectively be working as an ‘agency’. You’ll take a percentage of the fee but won’t actually have to do the work yourself.
4. Increase your fees
At some point, you’ll have to increase your fees. Maybe the cost of materials has gone up, or you’ve significantly increased your skills and experience or simply that the cost of living has increased and maintaining the same fee structure means you’re effectively earning less. Raising your fees is an inevitable part of your business development. Here’s how to approach it:
Let existing clients know in advance that you’re planning to increase your fees and explain the reasons why.
Aim to tell them before the start of their new financial year so they can budget and prepare for this.
Accept that you’ll lose some clients. They may not have the budget or decide to go with someone cheaper. It’s the nature of freelancing to lose clients over time for lots of reasons that are outside your control.
Research and approach new clients. With the experience you’ve gained you will find new business, and at your new, higher rate.
Phase in your fee hikes. Start by raising the prices of your most popular products/services first.
5. Nurture a referrals strategy
Nothing is as powerful as word-of-mouth to build new clients and it’s one of the best free marketing tools you can tap into.
Think about the last thing you bought that someone recommended to you. You went out and bought it on their word alone because you trusted their judgement. It’s the same with your happy clients. Here’s how to develop a referrals strategy:
Encourage clients to refer you to colleagues.
Ask them to write a testimonial to display on your website.
Offer incentives (a discount on your services/products) if someone they refer employs you.
Maintain your visibility even after you finish the work. Promote what they’re doing on social media.
Keep the lines of communication open. Re-post and comment on posts in their timelines.
Send a ‘thank you’ card in the post at the end of a project.
And that’s it! You’ve almost reached the end of the course.
We’ve covered everything from planning your day to managing your wellbeing; keeping track of your business income to preparing for self-assessment; managing client relationships to chasing late payment. And to consolidate everything you’ve learned in this last part, don’t forget to complete the final quiz.
Having delved into all this, and more, you’ll now be well equipped to manage your day-to-day life as a freelancer.
It’s been a pleasure taking this journey with you and I hope you’re feeling excited about the prospect of working for yourself. I’ve found freelancing both rewarding and liberating, and I’m sure you will too.
Good luck!
