With the unemployment rate stuck on ‘bad’ and the economy still frozen mid-recession, many professionals are looking for alternative ways to earn a living, the most popular being via freelance. However, thriving in what US News and World Report writer Kimberly Palmer calls the Freelance Economy can take some tricky maneuvering. Employing her suggestions for success could mean the difference between catapulting your business to lucrative heights or just barely staying afloat. Here are five of Palmer’s 9 tips as found in her article “Mastering the New Freelance Economy”:
1. Find Your Niche. It’s important that you define your target market and then cater your services to fulfill their greatest needs. If you’re interested in accounting, consider small-business accounting. Many local businesses are required, by law, to perform certain accounting tasks, however most business owners can’t afford to hire full-time accountants to do it for them. By offering to run their financials on a contract basis, you are doing them a tremendous favor, managing what is probably to them a burdensome task while freeing up their time to do what they do best—run their businesses.
2. Know What Motivates You. While money motivates some of us, there are usually more pronounced reasons we want to earn a better living. Tory Johnson, television journalist and small business owner, explains, “For me, it was to protect and insulate my family from ever having to experience that sheer pain from a pink slip. For others it might be to pay for medical treatment of a family member or someone’s illness.”
3. Embrace the Side Hustle. Pamela Slim, author of Escape from the Cubicle Nation, calls freelance moonlighting the ‘side hustle.’ In order to best launch your freelance career, the most stable option might be to build your client base and serve their needs when not working your day job. This is a viable option for anyone either looking to launch a practice or generate supplemental income.
4. Grow Your Loyal Followers. Once you secure clients, make sure you practice good customer service in order to inspire loyalty and, ultimately, solid referrals. The best marketing is still accomplished through word-of-mouth and you want to leave your clients with nothing but good things to say about you and your business.
5. Stop Planning and Take Action. You can only research, project, and strategize for so long before you suffer from paralysis by analysis. There comes a time when you must stop planning and take action!
If you’ve been thinking about starting your own practice, now is the time to move forward. The recession is showing no signs of leaving, and your chance to change your career is all within your reach. Take action now to determine what your future will look like.
Marketing Your Services
Obviously, there are countless other approaches you could use to launch your practice. If you are looking for other ways to get the word out, watch our free video, “The Art and Science of Getting Clients.” You’ll learn how to grow your practice by $30,000 to $125,000 per year! What better deal is that? You no longer have to lose sleep at night wondering how to get more clients. Let Universal Accounting help you with that so you can focus on what you’re good at, accounting. Don’t wait another day to access a marketing strategy that will work for you!
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Resource
Palmer, Kimberly. “Mastering the New Freelance Economy.” 17 August 2011 USNews.com