5 tips + tools for your first year as a freelancer
Taking the leap into full time freelancing is one of the most exciting things that an entrepreneur can do.
Not only is it the ultimate turning point for your career but it is also an opportunity for you to really test your resilience, confidence and marketable skills.
Freelancing was the ultimate pivotal point for Big Cat Creative, as it allowed me to work for other creatives and clients while still enjoying the luxury of being able to build my own business on the side. For me, freelance web development was how I was able to put a foot in the door and grow my business.
When I first began my soloprenuer journey, I was in a somewhat constant state of “what next? What do I do now? How do I do this?” Luckily for me (and you), there’s a ton of resources online. But sometimes, there’s too many resources, and all of the advice just causes more overwhelm!
So today I’m going to break down 5 of my best tips and tools that I found incredibly useful in making the first year of my Freelancing journey easier, in the hopes it will make yours easier too!
1. Build A Website (with Squarespace!)
So — you’ve come to the decision that you want to start working for yourself — cheers to that! But….where on earth do you start? WELL - the first thing that you need to ask yourself is how do you want to be discovered?
If you are a predominantly digital or online based freelancer than the most obvious answer to this question is; ‘online’.
It’s obvious, right? If you’re an online business, you need a website. There’s no question about it.
Creating an online presence for yourself and your business is the quickest way to gain credibility and trust from your audience. Gone are the days where we hand out business cards and brochures to promote ourselves, your website IS your business card!
And before you get carried away with thinking you need to spend $1000’s of dollars on a developer, please, just stop! You can easily DIY your website these days.
Investing in costly websites are a thing of the past. The era of DIY websites is here, and it’s only getting easier every day. I have spent the last 3+ years teaching people how to DIY their websites and trust me when I say, it doesn’t have to be hard or stressful.
If you have any idea about what we do here at Big Cat Creative, you’ll know we LOVE Squarespace for easy to use DIY websites. We also have a free course all about how to get started with your DIY website, which has tons of valuable information in it, here!
2. The Best Tools To Use For Organization
Asana
Think of Asana as your digital version of a hand written daily/weekly/yearly planner. I LOVE Asana for keeping everything in my business (and my life TBH) organised and on schedule! Everything you do in biz can be turned into a simple list of to-dos and organized into its appropriate place. You can color code things, which is fun! I love being able to set recurring tasks (there’s a lot of those in biz) and then check my daily to-dos. It’s free, and it’s my absolute fav.
Toggl
If you struggle with time tracking, or produce work that is based on an hourly rate system then Toggl could be the system for you! Toggl allows you to create projects for each client, and additionally allows you to add separate tasks within each project. It’s a simple timer system that tracks how long you spend on each task for each project or client, and also allows you to share that project with your client or employer so they’re able to track the time that you’re spending on each job. If you use Toggl for every task, it’s also a great way to look back at the end of each week and see how much time you’re spending on each project, and where you’re able to scale back or put more time into.
Calendly
Calendly is a basic booking calendar that helps you create and manage 1:1 calls and client meetings without the back and fourth emails. Calendly is one of those platforms that really plays off the whole “work smarter not harder” concept as all you do is create an account, list your available times and then send the link to your client so they can book in a time to meet with you — simple as that! There’s a free plan and it automatically adapts to you and your clients time zones, which is amazing when you’re working online! It also integrates with your Google Calendar and Zoom account, plus it has a widget that you’re easily able to embed to your website.
3. Boost Your Productivity by Automating Your Biz
Automating the workflow for my business was on of the best moves that I could have made. Big Cat Creative was growing steadily and I found myself needing more hours in the day, more cups of tea, and more processes in place to make my life easier!
After a much needed re-assessment of my business, my day-to-day tasks and my productivity ebbs and flows, I was able to reach a happy medium that allowed me to continue to run my business successfully while no longer needed 26 hours in a day to get everything done!
This is where you might consider outsourcing some of your work to other contractors. While I’m all for this, I recommend you make sure all of your processes are as streamlined and automated as possible before you hire anyone else. It’s insane how much time you can save if you implement some organization.
Where and how within your biz can you make life easier for yourself by streamlining and automation your work?
I used a few different techniques for this:
Making sure everything was always in Asana. Having tasks entered that automatically populate on the right dates. Having very strategic daily to-do lists. Having client projects all planned out step by step as templates so then I could simply “duplicate” them when I got a new client.
Batching my work, learn more about this here!
Using software that does a lot of automating and scheduling for you (eg Tailwind for Pinterest, or scheduling software for Instagram + Facebook)
Think about the things you are doing over and over and over again to see exactly where you need to automate and organize. Are you writing out the same emails every day? Create a canned response. Are you posting on Facebook every day? Schedule it all at once a month in advance.
Try to take all of the little tasks you’re doing every day and condense them into bigger tasks and schedule them to post / work / run for you.
I could go into this forever (maybe a blog post for another day!) but there are SO many things you can do to streamline your workflow and automate your business that will save you SO much time and tons of headaches.
4. Budget for Profit and Taxes
Taxes— oh the joy!
Okay this was one big lesson that I learnt fairly early on. If you are freelancing and working for yourself, it is super important to save a percentage of each invoice that comes through. The percentage will depend on your income and the tax brackets for your country or state, so you need to do a bit of research and estimate your yearly income and choose a percentage you think will cover you for tax season (I ALWAYS try to estimate too high, better to have a tax refund than tax owing!)
Create 3 separate accounts. One for you business income, one where you can put your tax percentage away (don’t ever touch this one!) and one where you can put your fun-money (aka your pay check). Keeping your money separate like this means that you won’t accidentally spend more than you have, and you’ll be ready for tax season.
Check out some more of our small biz money tips in this post.
5. Create Content
If you’ve ever read my blog before, you know that I PREACH about creating content and how beneficial it is for your business. Well, my friend, this post isn’t going to be any different 😂
Creating content was the #1 way I started landing clients early on, and it’s hands down been the biggest needle mover in my biz.
Creating your own content is so great if you want to land clients.
It positions you as an expert. Imagine how confident and competent you look when you’re answering FAQs and sharing super valuable insights with your audience about your specialty!
It creates a relationship between you and your reader. Think about a blog or an Insta account you follow pretty closely— isn’t there part of you that feels like you’re friends with the person behind it? Well, the same thing happens to your ideal client when they read regular content created by you!
It builds trust with your audience - something that’s VERY important in the virtual, online space. By sharing little tips, tricks and insights with your audience for free, you’re building up the trust they have in you. Plus, you’re keeping yourself front of mind, so if/when they need a service like yours, chances are they’ll remember to get in touch!
If you want to learn more about creating content and why it’s so valuable, check out these posts:
Why you should be Blogging for your biz
How to create content that converts
How to create content frequently and consistently
That’s it! A round up of 5 things I found incredibly useful in my first year as a freelancer. I hope you find these tools and tips useful too, and I can’t wait to see your business thrive
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