4 Questions to Answer Before Starting a Freelance Business
If you’re new to freelancing or thinking about freelancing, your first question might be: where do I start?
You start here: define what kind of freelancer you’ll be.
What skills do you have that you can market and eventually sell to your future clients?
Clarity first
Recently, I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across this quote:
Self-confidence is a superpower. Once you start to believe in yourself, magic starts happening.
The catch is, confidence only comes from clarity. So you have to get crystal clear on what you have to offer, and to do this, you have to get crystal clear on what you’re really good at.
Take my story, for example.
I started freelancing more than 12 years ago.
I knew I was a good writer, so I started writing — first small writing assignments, then larger writing assignments. Writing was my first marketable skill, I was clear on that.
I then expanded my freelance business to include more general communication services. I took on any project I could that fell under the communications umbrella: PR projects, social media projects, and design projects. Unfortunately — I took on so much that I was no longer clear. I wasn’t delivering the best final product I could to my clients, and my business was a mess.
I had to take a step back from everything I was doing to get clear on who I was and how I wanted to show up in the market — and I had to do it in a way that felt authentic to who I am and what I’m naturally good at. I had to get back to writing.
4 Questions to Answer Before Starting a Freelance Business
Here are four questions that I used to get clear. They worked so well for me that I shared them with freelancer friends who also needed to clarify their most marketable skills. They worked for them also. Now, I’m sharing them with you; get a pen and paper ready.
What do you currently do for work?
The easiest way to start freelancing is by doing what you already do for work. For example, if you’re an accountant, you can freelance as an accountant. If you’re a designer, you can freelance as a designer. If you don’t want to build a freelance business around what you currently do for work, do you have a hobby you love? This is also another way to start a freelance business.
Whatever it is, you need at least some experience doing that thing in the world.
If you have no experience doing the thing you’d like to turn into a profitable freelance business, become an apprentice with someone already doing what you’d like to do. Take free classes online. Or, do it for free until you get good at it.
Are you good at what you do? How do you know? List three tangible results from the 12 months.
To build a profitable freelance business, you must be good at the thing you’d like to build your business on. So it’s time to brag a little. First, make a few notes on why you know you’re good at your work, then list three tangible results supporting your answer.
You want to be sure to lead with numbers here! Why? Because numbers provide great data points.
For example, this could be the number of blog posts you’ve published over the last year, the number of satisfied customers you’ve worked with, the number of people your most popular Instagram post reached, etc.
Your tangible results can be big or small. It’s not about the size of the accomplishment; it’s about reflecting on where you’ve shined at work. Don’t get caught up on exact numbers, you can approximate.
How many years of experience do you have in your field? The field you’d like to launch your freelance business in.
This includes any and all experience: your 9–5 experience, your volunteer experience, and/or your experience supporting your aunt’s dog grooming business…all of it!
Please note, if you’re new to the field you’d like to launch your freelance business in, I’d work at your craft via the suggestion in question #1 for at least six months to one year before you start trying to sell your services.
What project have you worked on — exclusively or as a team — that was the most successful, and why?
This question is all about you being able to identify the places you’ve won at work. For some, this will be easy; you may already keep track of your wins as they happen.
For others, this question may be a bit more difficult to answer, but dig deep. As a freelancer, you have to be able to show and tell. Show what you can do, and tell how you’ve solved other clients’ problems.
In answering these four questions, you’ll have the foundation to clearly understand what skills you have that you can market as a freelancer, contractor, or consultant. If you answered these questions and they were helpful to you, I’d love to hear about what clarity you discovered.