Last week I shared with you my post “Why don’t you go freelance?” in reference to my participation as a speaker at Personal Branding Lab Day. In the post I reflected on the changes we are experiencing at the labor market level, such as more remote work, a greater precariousness of paid employment, growing globalization … And in this complex environment, going freelance can be a great opportunity (for some professionals perhaps the only).
In this sense, I wanted to share with you the 5 steps that I recommend to start a freelance activity:
- Discover what you are really good at: in my opinion it should be the first step to start a freelance project. Think about what activities you are really good at. Remember episodes from your past where you had a rapid learning. Identify moments of excellence in which you have exceeded the expectations you or other people had. Analyze activities that you usually feel totally satisfied after having developed them. All these ideas can be clues to help you identify your talent, your areas of greatest potential. Along these lines, I also recommend you read a post of mine that dealt with the topic: “5 + 1 ways to discover your talent”.
- Think about what activities you love to do: the second step is to discover what it is that you are really passionate about. It is difficult to find someone very successful in an activity without being passionate about it. Identify activities that you love, that energize you or in which time flies by. Activities that you love doing and that you usually experience the state of flow, that is, activities in which you lose the notion of time and you forget about anything else.
- Define what problem (or challenge) you want to solve. If you are considering joining the freelance revolution, you must be very clear that no one will hire you for what you have studied, for your professional experience or for what you show on your website. They will only hire you to help them solve a problem or help them achieve a challenge. Therefore, you must be very clear about what problem you are going to solve and articulate your entire strategy to solve that problem or challenge. In this sense, it may be good for you to read my post “What problems do you solve”.
- Determine which target market you are going to help. Another of the concepts that you must be very clear before starting a freelance project. You must decide who you are going to help, who is going to be your target audience. Narrow down your market niche well, spend time getting to know who they are, where they are, what they need, what they value … And within the market niche you want to serve, I also recommend that you be clear about how your ideal client should be, what characteristics, your ideal client must have so that you are comfortable with them and can allow you develop your best version of yourself.
- If possible, go step by step. I do not like gurus who launch messages like “leave everything and pursue your dreams.” I have seen many cases of people “jumping into the pool … and then finding that there was no water.” For this reason, I always recommend – if possible – to go step by step. If you are working for someone else, spend a couple of hours a day on your new project. Develop your minimum viable product, that is, a basic version of it. Test it in the market. Does it solve the problem you mentioned in point 3 of this post? How do your clients value it? How can you improve it? Is it profitable for you? If you progressively answer these questions with positive answers, you will surely have more and more clients and a clearer idea of your business. And then you can better consider the fact of stopping working (or reducing your dedication) as an employee to launch your freelance adventure. It does not mean that the risk does not exist, but it will be much lower because you have tested your product or service in the market.
There are 5 steps that can help you prepare your adventure as a freelancer. I am convinced that many professionals will go freelance – out of devotion or necessity – in the coming years
I end with a quote that I love, it is from Joel Klettke, Canadian copywriter. “don’t freelance to make a living. Freelance to make a life”
Welcome to the freelance revolution!
