By Toka

As time flies and we charge into the New Year with prospects for the months ahead, many of us are promising ourselves we won’t get as stressed as we were last year, we will make more time for ourselves and others, and we will finally get to nail this freelance business thing! But WAIT, fast-forward to February when the post-holiday blues set in and many of us will have lost track of our big goals and great ideas from New Years Eve. Making resolutions to improve the way we work is key to succeeding, but planning ahead is absolutely essential if you want to achieve at least one of those goals.

Do you want your freelance brand to grow, develop or progress rapidly in 2016? We’ve got the exact tips you need! Here, we share some tips on how to help your freelance brand boom, achieving at least one of your New Year Resolutions…. (We wish we could to help you stick to ALL of them, but sorry, we can’t! LOL!)

1. Plan Your Workload

Freelancing doesn’t necessarily have to make you go through thick and thin or make you experience alternating fair and bad weather. To sail your freelance ship smoothly, be resolute on when and how much you’re going to work daily. Create a plan to gain enough work to fill your time, stick to the plan but do not forget to give room for some flexibility. Whether you’re working on a new website or writing a series of articles and you also need to share your links on social media or post new Quickies or bid on so many jobs per day/week is entirely up to you and of course, the goals you are aim to accomplish. The key is to plan and stay in track while being flexible when necessary. Planning will help you get a lot more work done in time with little stress.

2. Use the Refresh button (not always though!)

Do not keep your old Quickies running, especially if they’re not selling well. Keep them fresh and sellable by reviewing how well they’ve been doing. Improve on them a bit by including add-ons or re-create them from scratch, after researching on what it is your target clients are REALLY searching for or in need of. However, if any one of your Quickies is selling really well, then keep it! Do not fix it, instead consider featuring it to maximise your sales and profits!

3. Update your portfolio with new projects

Chances are over the last year you’ll have completed some projects/work you’re very proud of. Take the time to upload your best work on your portfolio and clients who may not have used your services before may be tempted to hire you based on the quality of work on your portfolio. Remember to ask for permission to use it on your portfolio if you’ve agreed that the client takes ownership once you’ve been paid though!

4. Review your rates periodically

Observe to know what others are offering and try to hit that “aha” spot between the price a client is willing to pay and what you feel your work is worth. Take a look at some of the popular Quickies, do you offer a similar service at a higher price? Could reducing your rates just a little help you win more business, or are you being a little too kind and need to put your prices up? Review your rates from time to time and compare with others increase sales rather than booming for a while and declining in sales afterwards.

5. What else are you good at?

Expanding your range of services may just be the most phenomenal thing you do in 2016. Achieving a high level of trust with your clients doesn’t come on a platter of gold but once you’ve got it, be sure to leverage it strategically! See what else they need, and whether you could help them with it. If you currently write their blogs, and could handle their social media, then tell them! If they trust you, and the rates are good, they may prefer dealing with one person for all things!

Taking the time to plan, polish, price and diversify the services you offer early in the year could see you win more business, work smarter and boost your freelance brand well into 2016.

Hire Toka here – To guest blog for eWorker please contact us at [email protected]