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How To Create A Freelance Business Plan – Guide + Template

Having a solid freelance business plan is crucial for achieving long-term success. While you may not have the same traditional structure as a brick-and-mortar business, it’s essential to have a roadmap that outlines your goals, target audience, and financial projections. In this article, we’ll discuss the key components of a business plan for freelancers and offer tips on how to create a plan that sets you up for success.

• Purpose of a business plan
• Benefits and advantages

The Business Model Canvas

Value proposition, customer segments, customer relations, key partners, key resources, key activities.

• Revenue Stream

Cost Structure

The lean canvas.

• Freelance business plan template + checklist
• Executive Summary
• Company and Strategy
• Products and Services
• Market Analysis
• Competitors
• Marketing and Sales
• Organization and Resources
• Risk Analysis
• Action Plan
• Common mistakes when creating a business plan

Purpose of a freelance business plan

A business plan forms the foundation of your company. It records the business idea and all the important components that contribute to its success or failure. Therefore, a business plan not only helps to get an idea of what the chances of success are for a plan, but also serves to keep an eye on the development of the company after the start-up, and to make target-actual comparisons and counteract negative changes in a timely manner.

In addition to its internal purpose, a business plan also fulfils external tasks. When starting a business, it especially serves as a basis for evaluation by external capital providers.

A good business plan can already be helpful in the start-up phase to convince potential investors, banks, authorities, as well as potential sales partners, customers or suppliers of the business idea.

However, before diving straight into the creation of a business plan, one should first engage with their business idea in order to illuminate it from all sides. This not only helps to avoid early failure, but also makes the creation of a freelance business plan much easier.

Why use a business plan? Benefits and advantages

Before you start creating the perfect freelance business plan, let’s take a look at the benefits and advantages that it can offer:

• Increased clarity: A business plan can help you get clarity to your decision-making process and helps you put your end goal at the core and work towards it.
• Provides clear structure: A business plan provides structure and allows you to define business objectives. When consulted regularly, it can help measure and manage your areas of focus that are of the utmost priority.
• Creates a marketing roadmap: A business plan allows you to create an effective marketing roadmap, which in turn can help you define things like target market(s), target customers, schedules, timeframes, etc.
• Improved financial decisions: Planning for expenses effectively is crucial when it comes to freelancing. A business plan gives you the information needed to make better decisions financially.

To analyse the potential of a business idea, one can use a variety of methods. One of the most comprehensive tools for this is the Business Model Canvas by Alexander Osterwalder. In this method, a business idea is placed at the centre and related to 9 dimensions – the so-called building blocks:

Revenue Streams

During the development and analysis of the business idea, all fields are filled with the corresponding contents. Plan to spend two to three hours working on these fields. It is important to take enough time to consider the thoughts for each building block, but not to plan every field in detail. Remember, the completion of the Business Model Canvas should only show whether the business idea is feasible and serves as a guide for what needs to be considered.

The Value Proposition defines the extent to which the business model brings benefits to the customer. The following questions help to define the promise of performance:

• What problem am I solving?
• What exactly am I offering?
• Why are customers looking for my service specifically?
• What makes my offer better than the competition?

Next is the definition of the target audience or customers. It is important to define customer segments that will buy your services or products. Potential customers are grouped together based on their characteristics. The group characteristics can be traditional demographic factors (age, gender, location, etc.) or can focus on purchasing behaviour or reasons for buying.

Next, the channels through which you want to inform your customers about the product or service are defined. It is important to find out where and how potential customers shop. Here are some questions to answer:

• How and where do customers find out about the offering?
• How do customers become aware of my product or service?
• How can customers buy my products and services?
• How do I provide the service or how does the service reach my customers?

To capture all relevant touchpoints between customers and your business, it is recommended to record the so-called customer journey. Here, you put yourself in your customer’s shoes and document every step he or she takes from gathering information to making a purchase (and possibly beyond). This will help you identify the channels that you need to establish and manage for your business.

If you have already thought about the customer journey, you’re halfway to defining customer care. It is not only important to consider how to attract and win customers, but also how to keep the ones you already have. Consider the following questions:

• What options do you have to communicate with your customers?
• Is there a customer service hotline, a contact form, an email address?
• How do customers learn about your new offerings?

In the next step, you will think about possible partnerships and how you and your business depend on them. This includes suppliers and vendors, as well as technology partners or regulatory bodies that you need to work with. Focus on the really relevant partners without whom you couldn’t do your job.

The same applies to Key Resources. Here, the resources needed for your work are listed, including:

• Employees or roles that need to be filled
• Financial resources and capital
• Intangible resources such as licences, brands, patents, etc.
• Material resources such as laptops, office equipment, company cars, etc.

Of course, not every pencil you need to buy for your business needs to be listed here. The focus should be on the critical resources for success.

The definition of Key Activities is one of the simpler tasks in the Business Model Canvas. Here, all activities that contribute to the success of the business model are listed. The other components of the business idea also contribute to this, which is why it is worth deriving the Activities from them.

In general, you need to ask yourself what activities need to be performed to fulfil the value proposition, win customers, and maintain day-to-day operations.

Next, it is important to define how you make money with your business . For freelancers, this means defining their hourly rate or considering other revenue models to generate income. Are there perhaps special contracts that bring recurring revenue or are only the hours billed each time? Define all essential sources of revenue and how they work.

Lastly, the cost structure is defined. The most important variable and fixed costs and their causes must be identified. These may include:

• Production costs
• Marketing costs
• Licence costs
• Personnel costs

As a further development of the Business Model Canvas, the Lean Canvas became known in 2010. It is specifically adapted to the fast-paced and limited resources of a startup and focuses on the problem to be solved and the solution to be provided, as well as the so-called unfair advantage and the core metric. In the Lean Canvas, these elements replace the Key Activities, Partners, Resources, and Customer Relations.

Often business ideas fail because they don’t solve a relevant problem. Therefore, this component was added to the Lean Canvas.

Once the problem to be solved has been identified, the focus shifts to providing a corresponding solution quickly and easily. The Lean Canvas approach involves using an MVP (minimum viable product). The MVP represents the minimum version of the solution – the raw version. This is launched on the market as soon as possible and then further developed in collaboration with customers.

The unfair advantage essentially describes the competitive advantage. For startups, it is important to know this very well or, if it does not exist from the beginning, to define it.

Young companies often lose themselves in the masses of numbers and metrics that define the success of a business. To prevent this, entrepreneurs who choose the Lean Canvas approach should first define only one metric from which they can measure success and failure. At the beginning, when the survival of the company is paramount, this could be profit. Later, when it comes to growth, other metrics come into play.

How to create a freelance business plan – Template + checklist

For those who have thoroughly considered their business idea beforehand, writing a freelance business plan will be easy. The elements of the Business Model Canvas or the Lean Canvas often overlap with the elements of the business plan and only need to be worked out in more detail. The planned size and complexity of the business idea also determine the content and scope of the plan.

The following elements provide a guide for creating your freelance business plan:

1. Executive Summary 

The Executive Summary is a brief overview of the business plan. The business idea is explained briefly and concisely, usually along with the purpose, objectives, and goals of the business. The industry and growth potential of the market are described, and finally, the key investment and financial data are presented.

Write the Executive Summary at the end of the business plan. It serves as a compact overview of the business idea and as the first evaluation criterion for the potential success of the business model and its financing for potential investors.

The chapter, which should be no more than one and a half pages long, includes:

• Business idea
• Offer – products & services
• Industry / Market
• Growth potential of the market
• Financial requirements

2. Company & Strategy

In this section, the foundation for the company’s concept is laid out. The approaches for a successful implementation are presented in detail. It is also important to highlight the arguments and strengths of the idea and the planned company. These can be supported, for example, by a SWOT analysis.

The following sub-chapters are included:

• Founding history
• Milestones, capital, and shareholder structure
• Business goal
• Business purpose
• Vision and strategy

3. Products & Services

This section of a freelance business plan contains all information about your products and services. Define them precisely, describe their unique selling points, and think about pricing segments. 

The subchapters include:

• Products or services
• Product or service advantages
• Pricing segments

4. Market Analysis

For a successful business, the appropriate market potential must be present. Therefore, the selected market must be analysed in detail. Identify customer groups and define strategic business areas. The topics to be addressed include:

• Market volume
• Market position and market shares
• Growth potential
• Framework conditions (economic and legal factors)
• Entry barriers
• Competitive analysis
• Customer groups (segmentation)
• Strategic business areas (product per segment)
• Market objectives
• Outlook on potentials and future.

5. Competition

Here you take a look beyond your own company and get an idea of who your direct competitors are, who your market companions are, and how the situation can develop in the future. The following points belong in the competition analysis:

• Direct competitors
• Their products and services
• Their strengths and weaknesses

6. Marketing & Sales

For a business idea to succeed, the right marketing and promotion of the product or service is crucial. Here, you describe the marketing concept and your marketing mix, where you define what you market where, how, and at what cost. Common models for processing are, for example, the 4 or 7 P’s. In addition, the marketing concept should include all important key points for the timeframe of market entry. The sub-chapters for this chapter include:

• Sales and distribution strategy, distribution channels
• Pricing, price policy
• Communication strategy, channels, advertising, PR

7. Organisation & Resources

For the successful development of a company, resources, management, and employees play an important role. Therefore, this part Organization and Resources describes everything that is important for the organisation of the company, production, or service provision. This includes points such as:

• Production process (location, technology, capacities, etc.)
• Inventory management
• Research & Development
• Legal situation
• Patents/licences
• Responsibilities
• Development/expansion potential

8. Risk Analysis

In this section, possible opportunities and risks are described, as well as measures to counteract the risks. In classic risk analysis, risks and their consequences are listed and classified according to the likelihood of occurrence.

The risk matrix provides information about which risks are critical. For risks in the high and extreme categories, measures to limit or remedy them must be defined. Potential risks can be found, for example, in:

• Management / personnel

9. Financing

A business plan for a planned self-employment cannot be created without detailed financial planning. Create the financial plan in the business plan for a period of 3-5 years to increase planning security. The following topics belong in the financial plan:

• Cost structure
• Revenue cycle
• Cash flow plan – comparison of expenses and revenues
• Profit planning – profit and loss statement
• (Planned) balance sheet – overview of asset ratios
• Required capital / investments

10. Action Plan

No matter how detailed your business plan is, it won’t help if it doesn’t lead to a structured and realistic action plan. Define all the steps that need to be taken until your product or service is on the market. You can use the chapters of the business plan as a guide. The next steps need to be defined, for example, for:

• Product/Service
• Business start-up/Company
• Resources/Partners
• Marketing/Market entry
• Location/Business premises

11. Appendix

In the appendix, documents can be included that would exceed the scope of the respective chapter. For example, the following can be included:

• Resumes / Founders’ Profiles
• Financial planning (Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow)
• Operating permits / Patents
• Organisational charts

📌 Business Model checklist ➯ DOWNLOAD

Common mistakes when creating a business plan (and how to avoid them)

When it comes to such a labour-intensive process as creating a business plan, it can be frustrating when errors creep in. To help you with this, we’ve identified the most common sources of errors below and provide tips on how to avoid them:

Lack of knowledge (e.g. in the area of finance)

• Scrutinise the areas where you are unsure, especially critically.
• Acquire any missing knowledge if necessary.
• Seek out partners and advisors who have the expertise you lack.

Missing structure in the business plan

• Pay attention to the logical structure of the business plan. The chapters and subchapters can follow a different order in your plan if it makes more sense for your business idea.
• Focus on the important components of your business plan, which may vary depending on the purpose of the plan (investor pitch, business planning, etc.)
• Various organisations offer consulting services to entrepreneurs, some of which are even subsidised by the states.

Insufficient differentiation

• Even if your idea seems incredibly unique to you, a comprehensive competitor analysis is necessary.
• This is the only way to define a convincing unique selling proposition (USP) – which is also essential for the success of your business idea.
• Not only does the business idea need unique selling propositions, but each product and service also needs to stand out in the market. Therefore, define a unique value proposition (UVP) for your products and services as well.

Underestimating risks

• Nobody becomes self-employed overnight without careful consideration. Therefore, inform yourself carefully about the risks of self-employment and choose your approach consciously.
• Use various analysis tools to minimise risks.

Poor planning

• It’s easier to take the next steps if they are specifically planned and written down. A dedicated action plan of the individual steps is therefore essential to make the business plan a reality.
• To avoid suddenly facing insurmountable obstacles, a secure risk planning is needed. Make sure to think this through thoroughly before embarking on the adventure!

These articles might be interesting too:

• Client Acquisition: Tips to Acquire Clients & Set Up Your Strategy
• Freelance Profile: What to Include, Tips and Examples
• Self-Marketing Tips And Tricks: How To Promote Yourself As A Freelancer

Stefania Volpe

Stefania joined the international team at freelancermap in 2020. She loves marketing, the digital world, foreign languages and meeting different cultures. She moved from Italy to Germany thanks to an exchange program at the university and worked as marketing manager for several startups. Now she focuses on helping freelancers and IT professionals to find jobs and clients worldwide at www.freelancermap.com.

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Starting a Freelance Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

Updated: June 16, 2021

Published: February 13, 2020

So, you’re in the business of starting a business.

You’re looking for the freedom and flexibility that comes with only answering to yourself.

You’re planning to take life by the reins and your industry by storm.

In other words, you want to get your ow n freelance business going.

What Is a Freelance Business?

A freelance business is one that’s started and run by an individual who works for themselves — generally through independent contract work. Freelancers are responsible for handling aspects of their businesses that typical employees would not, including setting their own hours, determining pricing, pursuing contract work, and paying business taxes.

Starting a freelance business is an exciting prospect. Perks like setting your own hours and pursuing your passion are certainly attractive — but a lot of effort, strategy, and planning goes into earning those benefits.

It’s a tough road with a lot of confusing twists and turns, so it helps to have a map.

Let's explore some key points you’ll have to address using a roadmap to starting a freelance business.

How to Start a Freelance Business

• Understand what you want out of your business.
• Have a solid picture of your personal financial situation.
• Make sure you’re really in it.
• Set measurable goals.
• Sort out the business-end of the business.
• Start figuring out your buyer personas.
• Determine pricing.
• Create and maintain an online presence.
• Network, network, network.
• Market yourself effectively.
• Maintain relationships and boost your reputation.
• Stay persistent when unexpected difficulties arise.

1. Understand what you want out of your business.

Before you set your big freelance business plans in motion, you need to know a lot about yourself and why you’re starting your business in the first place.

Ask yourself some of the following questions — Why are you doing this? Is it to be your own boss? To set your own hours? To pursue your passion? All of the above?

And how much time and effort are you willing to put in? Is this going to be a side hustle? Are you going to keep your day job?

You need to know the answers to all of these questions — and quite a few more — before you can really commit to starting your own freelance business. You can’t actually know what you’re doing if you have no concept of why you’re doing it in the first place.

2. Have a solid picture of your personal financial situation.

The idea of dropping everything to pursue your passion on your own terms is starry-eyed daydream material. That’s why you need to be careful.

It’s easy to romanticize the image of you walking out of your office with a big smile on your face, knowing that you’re about to do what you’ve always wanted without anyone to answer to.

It’s a lovely concept, but you can’t get carried away. You need to ground yourself, and understanding your personal finances is a crucial part of that.

Familiarize yourself with personal and business-related expenses and understand how long your savings can sustain you. Take a good hard look at your financial situation, and identify a point where you might jump ship if things don’t go according to plan.

Take all of that into account and use it to set a monthly income target. There are a lot of helpful resources online — like the Boundless Freelance Target Income Calculator — that can walk you through the different factors you must consider when calculating how much you’ll need to make.

Understanding your personal finances will help you get a clear picture of what you can expect going forward, and give you a concept of how to handle the issues that are going to arise.

3. Make sure you’re really in it.

If you want to succeed as a freelance business owner, you have to be all the way in. You need to find and maintain a special kind of motivation.

You have to ask yourself some burning questions, including — Am I ready to commit as much as I possibly can to this? Is this exactly what I want to do? Do I have a comprehensive plan? Do I genuinely believe in that plan? Am I willing to fail?

When it comes down to it, you have to believe in yourself, believe in your business, understand it might not pan out, and know you’re willing to stay the course to successfully start a freelance business.

4. Set measurable goals.

You’ll need to set benchmarks to make sure your business is making progress and that you, personally, are staying the course. It’ll also help your confidence to know that you’re consistently reaching milestones you’ve set for yourself.

Make sure the goals you’re setting are SMART — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Also be sure to set different kinds of goals — specifically short-term, long-term, and ongoing.

A short-term goal may be something like getting your website up and running with a certain number of monthly visitors within three months.

A long-term goal could be reaching a target in annual revenue within three years.

Lastly, an ongoing goal might be dedicating a specific number of hours to client outreach each week.

Make sure these goals are reasonable and outline a solid trajectory for your business. Keep careful track of them to have a better understanding of what you’re doing well, and what you could be doing better.

5. Sort out the business-end of the business.

You’ll want to handle the nitty-gritty administrative and legal ends of your freelance business before really getting started.

That could mean taking steps like formally organizing a business entity, getting a picture of your tax exposure, and familiarizing yourself with what your business contracts might look like.

You should also have a plan in place for cash management. How and when money comes can be unpredictable in freelancing. You should have some concept of how you intend to maintain enough cash to stay afloat.

Additionally, consider building infrastructure that helps you manage your sales, marketing, and customer service. A CRM is a great way to do that. Consider adopting one and letting it serve as the backbone for a lot of your business operations.

The main point I’m getting at here is that there’s a side to starting a freelance business that isn’t particularly fun or exciting. But you won’t get to enjoy the fun and exciting stuff without addressing it first.

Be sure to work out aspects like accounting , how your business is going to function on a day-to-day basis, and how you’re going to save and manage your money before really launching into your freelance business.

6. Start figuring out your buyer personas.

As per HubSpot’s own definition , a buyer persona is “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”

In other words, it’s the kind of person you think you’ll be selling to.

You’ll want to start by conducting general research about your target audience. Get a feel for who your customers and prospects are. You should consider reaching out to those people for surveys and interviews. This will help you understand what kind of buyer is right for your business.

From there, you’ll want to whittle down your base a bit. Pick out commonalities among the potential buyers you’ve identified. This could include considering factors like demographics, how they like to be contacted, behaviors, and interests.

Once you’ve identified trends within your audience, develop personas based on the different patterns you see. For instance, if you’re a caterer, you may notice that 40-to-50 year old women booking their childrens’ birthday parties or other family events make up a significant portion of your business. Use that information to develop a buyer persona specific to those qualities.

Give that group a name and boom! You have a buyer persona.

That’s a very high-level overview of the process, if you’d like a more in depth perspective on how to go about developing one of these personas, check out this article.

7. Determine pricing.

When determining pricing, it’s important to consider how you plan on charging clients.

Will you be hourly? Will you charge a flat fee? Will you use project quotes? It’s important to settle on how you’ll be making money before you start actually making it.

Once you’ve landed on your pricing structure, start figuring how much your services are going to cost. You can start by researching industry averages. You should be able to find some solid figures online. Sites like Payscale and Glassdoor are good places to start.

Additionally, take a look at How to Calculate Hourly Rate for Freelance Marketers & Consultants for some initial estimates.

It could also help to reach out to other professionals in your space to see what they charge and how those price points are working out for them.

Bear in mind, this isn’t an exact science. Finding the right price for your services will probably take some trial-and-error. You should keep experimenting until you get it right.

8. Create and maintain an online presence.

You’re going to need to get a website up and running as soon as possible. That’s going to be your first point of contact with a lot of your customers.

Having a great-looking website that’s easy to navigate assures potential customers that your business is legitimate and professional.

A well-structured, visually appealing website can also distinguish you from other freelancers in your space. You can use it to give your prospects a picture of your services, portfolio, and pricing.

Additionally, you’ll want to establish a solid social media presence. Outreach through social networks is becoming essential to any kind of business — and freelancers are no exception.

A robust social media presence is incredibly important when it comes to engaging with existing customers to keep them interested in your business.

Create and develop profiles across a variety of social networks. The more likes and followers you can gather, the more trustworthy and established your business will look.

9. Network, network, network.

You can’t conduct business without contacts. That’s like trying to drive a car without gasoline. But networking is much easier in theory than in practice.

It takes a lot of energy, and it’s often difficult to know where to begin. There’s no doubt it’ll be tough, but the success of your business could hinge upon whether or not you put in the effort to network effectively.

You should start by identifying where your target buyers are hanging out — both online and offline. Then, you can use that information to develop a marketing and networking strategy that meets them where they are.

Attend local meetings relevant to your industry to make personal outreach to potential prospects and fellow professionals in your space. It also helps to stay active on online forums about the areas your business covers.

Be sure to use social media to keep consistent contact between you and your potential buyers, as well as you and your fellow professionals.

Like I said, you can’t conduct business without contacts, and it’s not easy to establish those relationships. It’s also difficult to maintain those connections once you have them, but don’t get discouraged.

If you make smart, dedicated efforts to reach and connect with prospects and fellow professionals, you should be able to establish a productive network for your business.

Take a look at How to Master Non-Awkward, Effective In-Person Networking for more networking tips.

10. Market yourself effectively.

You should develop a solid content marketing strategy . Blogging is an essential part of that process. When you do, be sure to write content that is generally relevant to your field — not just specific to your own business.

You want to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. That can give you the kind of credibility your business needs to stand out.

You want to show that your business is legitimate. The best way to do that is to demonstrate that you really know what you’re talking about when it comes to your area of expertise.

You’ll also want to write up content offers to attach to your blogs to convert website visitors into leads. A content offer is an asset like a whitepaper or an eBook with information relevant to your field.

You can use content offers to attract and log contacts. In order for a reader to download your content offer, have them fill out a contact form . In doing so, you’re identifying that reader as a potential lead.

You should also be actively promoting content on social media — and it doesn’t always have to be your own. You can actively post other thoughtful content from other outlets in your industry. By doing this, you can let your followers know that you’re staying educated about and on top of industry trends.

Your content marketing strategy can shape your reputation. If you create and promote enriching content that your readers will get a lot out of, you’ll stand out as an authority in your industry.

11. Maintain relationships and boost your reputation.

One of your first priorities will always be preserving the client relationships you establish. You have to do everything in your power to delight your customers and keep them close.

This means keeping consistent contact and providing exceptional customer service.

Positive word of mouth can be a huge boost when starting a freelance business. Happy customers can provide that, and even happier customers will go out of their way to offer it.

If you can, get testimonials from those kinds of clients to display on your website.

And it should go without saying, but everything on this means nothing if you don’t do your job well. Do good work. Put in as much effort as you can. Be professional and consistent with what you do. And keep your customers happy.

12. Stay persistent when unexpected difficulties arise

You must be prepared to stay the course, if you want to make it. Odds are you won’t see stellar results right away, and it will probably take a lot of time and effort before you do.

You have to set yourself up for success and do everything you can deliver on the goals you set for yourself. You’ll hit snags. Some things won’t go well. You’re bound to deal with at least a few hard times.

In spite of all that, you have to be professional, persistent, and do all you can to best serve your customers. That’s going to put you in the best possible position to make it.

It’s not going to be easy. But if your head and heart are in the right place, it’s going to be worth it.

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Freelance Business Plan Template + Guide

BIG NEWS! We just released The Freelance Files , a collection of professional done-for-you email scripts, contracts, invoices, and more for smarter freelancing. The first 50 customers, save 50% with this link .

Step-by-Step Freelance Business Plan

What is a freelance business plan, who needs a freelance business plan, benefits of a freelance business plan, now, go make yours.

A freelance business plan is the ideal way to make quick progress as a freelancer.

Sure, you already feel like you know exactly what you need to do — find more clients, deliver high-quality work within deadlines, send invoices and recover payments. But freelancers who want to grow their business understand the importance of a freelance business plan.

A well thought out and structured freelance business plan helps to craft your strategic and tactical approach, defines tasks and budgets that you can track, and increases your chances of success.

So today, I’ll share my 14-point freelance business plan template along with a guide for creating your ideal freelance business plan.

Let’s dive right in, then we’ll cover some of the basics after. My freelance business plan template for you consists of 14 questions.

Take some time off work when you are working on the freelance business plan for the first time, and try not to take calls until it’s done. You could review your plan every week and this will only take a few minutes. You could also do a monthly review when you enter your revenue and expense figures of the month, but this should not take too long either.

Let’s take a look at the freelance business plan steps below and the guidelines for answering the 14 questions. Download a copy of the template below and follow along as you fill yours in.

1. Company name

We start with the company name – pretty straightforward.

Question 2 is about your purpose , or why you started your company. It may seem that every business starts with profit as a motive, but when you really think about your own motivation you will find a purpose above profit. Did you start your brand design business because you are passionate about helping entrepreneurs create a distinct identity? Or did you start a video content studio to help more brands get the power of video easily?

3. Target Market

We now come to your target market . If you are in the B2B market then you should define the profile of organizations that you target as well as the specific roles within those organizations who make decisions to purchase from you. If you have done a user persona exercise, you could describe the personas here. If you’re not sure about who your target audience is, The Magic of Choosing a Target Audience will be helpful here.

4. Location

The fourth point refers to the geographical areas where you operate.

5. Products/Services

Next we come to a description of your products or services. Do you work on a project basis – with the scope defined by the client? Or do you have any standard products or packages? What is included in your offer? For example, do you offer freelance video creation as a service, and price depending on the scope of each project? Or have you created some standard packages, such as $350 for a 30 second video, with a 200 word script and incorporating 2 rounds of customer reviews?

6. Competitors

The sixth question is about your competitors . You should research before you answer this question because competitors are not always those who provide similar products or services, rather they are those who help users to solve the same problem. This means that your competitors could be from completely different product categories. You will find these insights by speaking to current and potential users.

7. Differentiation

Question 7 is about your differentiation . If you have not articulated this before, then it’s an excellent outcome of working on your business plan. As you clearly write your differentiation, you will be able to communicate it much more strongly during sales pitches or in your marketing material.

8. Problems

Now we come to the problems that you solve for your users. What were they doing before they started using your products or services? This knowledge helps you to find more users with similar challenges. What’s keeping them up at night? They may not say that it’s graphic design or creative needs, and you need to understand how your work helps them. My course is helpful here.

9. Benefits

Question 9 is about the benefits that your product or services deliver. It is extremely useful to articulate this and lends clarity to sales and marketing communications.

10. Marketing

Next we come to Marketing . How does your target audience get to know you? Are you doing anything to reach out to potential customers? You can mention meetups, events, social media, advertising, email campaigns, SEO, or anything else that’s working for you, here.

The next question is about your business goals for the next 6 months. I have suggested 3 goals but you can make a longer list if you want. One of your goals could be related to the new business that you want to generate. You may also have the goal of adding a revenue stream. Goals could be related to expansion, for example, launching in new geographies or adding new products. You may have sales or marketing goals such as creating a branding package , or a product to sell online. You may also have operational goals such as implementing a project management tool or better bookkeeping.

12. Milestones

In point 12, list the weekly milestones that you must complete in order to achieve your goals. You should review this every week, and refine as needed.

13. Targets

Question 13 is to define your monthly revenue targets . I have said 3 months, but you can set targets for a longer-term if you want. This is a good time to consider, are you charging enough to reach your goals? If you charge $1,000 for a logo, how many logos do you need to do to meet your revenue goal?

14. Expenses

Question 14 asks you to put down your budget for expenses . This helps you to be more conscious of how you are spending, and when you think about revenue targets and expenses together, you can manage your profitability better. It’s all about profitability. If your expenses are higher than your sales, you’ve got a problem!

Let’s back track for a quick minute. A freelance business plan is a document that lists your business objectives, targets, milestones, timelines, and budgets. Think of it as a roadmap that provides direction to your efforts, shows you the landmarks along your route and helps you avoid roadblocks.

Every business needs a business plan but most freelancers never get around to creating one. I have worked with many, many creative freelancers, and I know that some of them are aware of what a business plan is, but believe that only large businesses need it, while others are just not fully aware of the advantages of having one.

A freelance business plan is created with the specific requirements of freelancers in mind. I strongly believe that the template of the plan should be simple and should not consume too much of your time when you need to create, update or modify it.

Business plans of shorter timeframes say 3 to 6 months, are usually most suitable for freelancers. The work environment for most freelancers is just too dynamic to be able to plan ahead for the next few years.

I’ll share my preferred template for a freelance business plan here, and take you through the steps. But first, let’s see who needs a freelance business plan and what are the benefits of creating one.

Is a business plan essential for all freelancers? Maybe not, so take a look at the list below and decide whether you need one.

You will benefit from having a business plan if:

1. Freelancing is your main source of income

A plan may not be important for someone who has a job or another primary source of income and is freelancing as a side gig. But if you depend mainly on your freelance business, then the business plan should be a high priority for you.

2. You want to grow your business

If you have the ambition to grow your business, possibly planning to create more bandwidth when you get busy or build a team , then a business plan will help you to achieve that growth.

3. You plan to seek external advice or funding

If you are considering discussing your business with potential mentors, investors or consultants, a business plan is a good starting point.

The time and effort that you invest in creating your business plan will yield a variety of benefits.

Clearer direction and focus

The process of listing your goals and the steps that you must take in order to achieve them brings tremendous clarity and a sharper focus to your efforts. You will consciously pursue business relevant to your goals rather than respond to every opportunity that comes your way.

Prioritize better

If your working days are a blur of meetings, deliveries, and firefighting, chances are that you don’t have the time to do tasks that are important rather than urgent. Once you list these tasks down as weekly milestones that must be achieved for your goals to be realized, you are much more likely to make time for them. Maybe you need to attend networking events in your vicinity in order to attract talent, or maybe you need to spend time creating marketing collateral. Putting these tasks down in the plan makes it much more likely that they will get done.

Track your financial performance

Your business plan helps you track whether you are achieving your revenue targets and keeping expenses within control, or in other words, manage your profitability.

Builds the confidence of external stakeholders

When you need to discuss your business with investors, mentors or other external stakeholders, the business plan will inspire confidence in them and show them that you have thought things through.

Although my template is a little longer than some others, I have seen that it works really well for freelancers. It takes some time when you do it for the first time, then regular reviews and updates are pretty quick. I’m confident that you will find this time well worth it, for the direction, focus, and clarity that you gain from your freelance business plan.

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Best Freelancing Growth

Written by Rhonda Page

Contributor at millo.co.

Rhonda is an international speaker and published author. She began as a graphic designer and evolved to brand strategist and business development professional, bringing hundreds of thousands in new business to the various design firms she worked with. She's worked with the biggest global brands such as Kraft and Coca-Cola and been client side too. Her  Business Accelerator Program  teaches freelancers how to spend less time on pitches and close new business more easily.

Rhonda's Articles

Reviewed & edited by Adam Wright , at Millo.

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The Complete Freelance Web Developer Guide: How to Make Money Through Freelance Programming Jobs

It’s common for developers to go the freelance route. This is true for many who have just finished freeCodeCamp and are thinking of working for themselves as opposed to working for “the man.” It is also true for many who have developer jobs but are considering going out on their own.

The idea of freelancing is also appealing to those who would like to make extra money even though they’re already working a dev job.

Regardless of the reason you’re striking out on your own, it’s important that you go about it correctly. Going about things “the right way” can help you look like the person pictured above.

While doing things the “wrong” way can leave you counting pennies.

I’m assuming you would rather look like the former and not the latter. If you have decided to go out on your own, and you are not opposed to prosperity, then this guide will help serve as a road map for how to get your new business running. It will also serve as a guide as to how to manage things once you’re off the ground.

If you’re someone who absorbs information more by reading, like me, then read on. For those who prefer a discussion based format, I’ve prepared this video:

This guide is geared towards those who have already decided to go the freelance/self-employed route. If you’re debating whether you wish to work for yourself, then you may wish to read the first section of my article on making money as a freelance developer .

For those who have already decided that it’s time to strike out on their own, let’s get to it.

This guide, for obvious reasons, is quite long. This road map provides a layout of what we’ll be discussing:

• Three essential rules for making money as a freelancer ( jump to section )
• Funding your new venture
• Deciding what niche you’re going to serve
• Determining what services to offer & pricing
• Structuring your new business
• A “to do” list for planning your new business
• The importance of “starting out right”
• Administrative items to complete
• Marketing items to complete
• A “to do” list for getting your business started
• The need to get clients in the short-term, while focusing on the long-term
• How to sell yourself to clients
• Getting clients in the short-term
• Building a brand for the long-term
• A “to do” list for getting your marketing started
• Administrative & financial management
• Managing your development/substantive work
• A “to do” list for making sure you properly manage your business day to day

When reading this guide, just hit a “back to top” link and you’ll be brought back to the road map. So, without further delay:

There are three essential rules for making money has a freelance developer ( back to top )

The first step in making money as a freelance developer requires an understanding of how to make money in general. Trying to make money without understanding these fundamental things will go about as well as playing monopoly against an expert without having an understanding of the game’s rules.

The three rules for making money are:

• Understanding that the amount of money (or lack thereof) that you earn will be in direct proportion to the level of value which you provide to others.
• Understanding that making money requires putting time into high value activities.
• Understanding that you have a full-time job as soon as you strike out on your own, regardless of whether you actually have any clients.

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Developers must understand that making money means providing value to others

Most people starting a business for the first time are used to working traditional jobs. Such jobs often mean getting paid for one’s time. When you go into a job that pays “x” per hour, for example, then you get paid “x” regardless of what you actually produced in that hour.

When you’re providing dev services to a client, however, all the client is going to care about is how much value they receive out of it. If, for example, you’re building a website or app for a small business then what the business is willing to pay is going to depend on the value they expect to receive from the website or app in the future.

The price the customer is willing to pay is not based on the time you put in (as is the case in hourly jobs). Instead it’s based on the increase in value that your customer will receive.

So, to put it bluntly, making money means understanding that your services are about providing value to others and not about putting in time.

It’s also important to understand that value will always be based on the customer’s perceptions and not yours. Too often developers see a website built on one type of framework as “better” than something that looks and functions the same, but is built on another framework.

The bottom line, however, is that if each meets the customer’s needs just as well as the other, then the one which provides the most value to the client is that which costs less.

Think of it like this - suppose a customer can get a website built by someone using a CMS for $2,500. You propose building something with Bootstrap for $3,500. You think yours would be better because you’re using “real code” and not a CMS like WordPress or Joomla.

At the end of the day, however, both websites visually look the same and one does just as good a job of bringing in business as the other. This means that your “better” website didn’t provide more value to the customer, it just cost more. Of course, the customer would not be happy with such an arrangement.

Want to make money? Then start thinking in terms of how you can provide what the customer perceives as value.

Developers must understand that making money means putting time into high value activities

The heading for this section may seem like something you would say “duh” to, but you would be surprised. I see many, many, many, many (many) instances in which small businesses or solo operations are putting time into efforts which really don’t matter very much at the end of the day.

Think of it like this. Many small operations make really good money engaging in activity “x.” They then think that they want to grow their business by beginning to offer service “y” in addition to x. When service y doesn’t work out, they then scrap the idea on move on to service “z.”

This strategy, unfortunately, is a bit insane. If activity x is making money then, instead of spreading resources across activities, just do more of x. In other words, pick your highest value activity and do more of it! This is why Mark Cuban has been quoted as saying that “diversification is for idiots.”

Let’s look at two examples of what I mean by this.

Suppose you can build a relatively simple website, with certain functionality, for small businesses and charge $3,000 for this service. Creating such a site takes you twenty hours (meaning you make $150 per hour of input).

Now suppose you can build larger scale ecommerce products for around $7,500 to $10,000 a pop, but only earn $130 per hour of input due to the projects being more complex.

It’s easy to look at these projects and think the latter is worth more money. The former, however, pays more per unit of input. This means you should be focusing on getting more of those $3,000 projects and try to make such projects your primary business.

To put it simply, identify the projects which pay the most per unit of input and to the extent possible, focus solely on getting as many of those projects as possible.

Freelance developers must understand that they now have a full-time job

I’ve talked to a lot of start-ups and entrepreneurs who don’t understand that they got a full-time job as soon as they struck out on their own. This is true even if they don’t have a single customer. I strongly, strongly, strongly (strongly) believe that this is one of the main reasons why many small businesses fail.

Let’s look at why I say you have a full-time job as soon as you start up.

Suppose Joe Developer starts up his new freelance dev operation. He puts up a website advertising his services and maybe pays for a little bit of advertising. He gets the occasional customer here and there. He completes projects for these customers on a timely basis but never really does much else to grow his business. He probably only puts about twenty hours a week into the operation during the course of the year.

At the end of the year he wonders why his business is stuck in first gear. Joe then shuts down his operation thinking that his phone “didn’t ring enough” from customers and that his advertising was ineffective. Joe blames “bad advertising” for why his business failed.

What Joe failed to understand was that he had a full-time job once he started up. His business failed because he only worked part-time (twenty hours a week) at it.

It’s really quite simple. People don’t get paid for not working. This goes for business owners as well. Once you start up, consider yourself as having a full-time, minimum of forty hours per week, commitment.

What this means is that if your coding and admin work only takes up twenty hours a week, then you are now required to put the other twenty hours a week into hustling up new business. So Joe spent twenty hours a week coding, and should have spent the other twenty hours a week going to networking events or some other marketing activity. If he had put in his time, he would have gotten more business.

Once you start up, just remember one simple rule. You now have a full-time job. To the extent that you don’t have coding projects to put in time on, you are now obligated to spend the rest of your working time trying to hustle up more business.

Do you want to be successful? If so then it’s simple. Understand that you have to provide value to your clients and that you should be focusing on the value providing activities which yield the highest amount of money per unit of input. Finally, put the time into your new business. Those three rules are key to making money in any new enterprise.

Planning your new freelance development business ( back to top )

Once you’ve decided to start up it’s then important to plan out your business. I can’t stress enough how crucial this is. Too many entrepreneurs just open up shop and start haphazardly engaging in activities out of the hope that such activities will yield a profit.

Well, no disrespect to such fine folk, but starting a business without a plan is a lot like getting in your car, driving around aimlessly, and acting surprised when you don’t wind up in a place you’d like to be.

So let’s look at what you need to for the “planning” phase of your new venture.

There are several steps involved in getting your new endeavor off of the ground. We’ll look at each of them in turn. These steps include:

• Funding your new operation.
• Deciding what niche you’re going to serve.
• Deciding on the services you will offer, as well as pricing.
• Structuring your business.

Let’s dive in.

Freelance developers will need to fund their new business

After reading the heading to this section, you may be saying “what funding?” This is understandable as most think freelancing requires little more than their laptop.

Well…...wrong. There are going to be expenses associated with your new venture. Especially if you want to…you know...make money. Such expenses can include renting server space, buying liability insurance for the business, fees for professionals (such as attorneys and accountants), and more.

The good news is that it takes very little money to start up in today’s world. The amounts necessary will seem especially small once you start generating some revenue. With all of that said, let’s look at a few rules around funding your initial operations.

The number one rule to remember with your finances is that, contrary to what many people in tech-related businesses think, it is not OK to lose money! This point was driven home really well in the book Profit First , which I strongly suggest reading.

While many small companies are willing to lose money for the sake of growing quickly, I cannot stress enough that this is actually a really bad idea.

The reasons that this is a bad idea would be a) lengthy and b) the subject of another article. The biggest point to take away for now is that you should be profitable on Day One and in each month thereafter.

The easiest way to ensure that you start out profitably, and stay that way, is to remember to avoid debt when you’re starting up as a solo.

Unfortunately, way too many people start a business (of any type, not just coding) and start putting initial expenses on credit cards. They may also take out some type of personal loan to get started.

But ensuring that you are profitable from Day One, and that you stay that way, is simple as long as you avoid debt. Why do I say this? Because if you’re avoiding debt then you can’t spend more than you take in. So, by definition the worst you can do is break even.

Growing your operations then comes from reinvesting your profits. As you make money, reinvest in the business for growth. This leads to greater profits. Keep repeating the process and next thing you know the business is doing really well without ever having borrowed any money.

Freelance developers must decide which niche they are going to serve

There are a few things to address in regards to deciding what niche you’re going to serve. The first is an explanation of why you need a “niche” in the first place. The second is how to go about choosing that niche.

As I’ll explain below, focusing on a particular subset of customers, and not saying “I’ll take whatever walks in the door” leads to higher profits and a more scaleable business. Second, picking that niche is a lot easier than many people think. So let’s have a discussion.

When striking out on your own it’s crucial that you focus on a few particular types/classes of customers instead of trying to be a general purpose coder for every type of business.

The reason for this is simple: if you’re always building different types of products then you put yourself in the role of constantly learning new frameworks and familiarizing yourself with whatever third-party applications the customer may want to integrate into the product.

While I understand that it is fun to learn new things (I like to consider myself a constant learner), this is not the way to run a business.

The reason for this is simple - it’s scale. If you build products for a particular type of company then you will certainly have to learn something new for each customer, but this learning curve will be nowhere as extreme. This leads to greater profits on your end. Let’s look at what I mean.

My primary business tends to focus on building and maintaining websites for law firms, as well as individual app development which allows an attorney’s practice to run more smoothly.

Since many law firms have similar needs I can generally re-use the same code base. Since I charge a flat rate for dev services, I’m collecting my full fee without always having to build a product from the ground up.

If, by contrast, I offered these same types of services to every type of business which existed, I would lose the ability to scale up the use of existing code. Do you want to grow your profits? If the answer is “yes” then find a niche and focus on it.

One other point about choosing a niche is that you wind up providing a much, much, much (much) higher level of service to your customers. Because I have extensive experience in serving a narrow class of companies, I’m able to anticipate their needs and offer solutions they may not otherwise have thought of.

Also, since I’m not completely starting a new codebase all the time, the client does not have to be overly worried about bugs. So, in other words, I am able to provide a better product and better service by focusing on a niche.

Unfortunately, many startup developers decide to take whatever work “comes in the door.” This is very bad for their long-term profits. I just spelled out why serving a niche increases profits. Taking “anything you can find” works in the opposite direction.

First, you may put a lot of time into learning something new only to find that you never use it again after you deploy the customer’s product. Second, all that time that you put into having to learn something new or write a brand new code base could have been put into developing marketing towards your niche.

In other words, people who take whatever they can get are foregoing actual business building to make a few quick bucks. This is the equivalent of stepping over a dollar bill so you can pick up a penny. Never a good idea.

When deciding what type of niche you want to serve, you really only need to ask yourself two questions.

First, is there an area where you can bring unique experience or value that some other developers may not be able to provide? If the answer is “yes,” then you have an opportunity to provide value to your customers.

Second, ask yourself if there is a particular type of work which you would enjoy doing.

If you don’t fit into one of these two types of niches then you’re going to have problems. The reason for this is simple.

First, if you’re not providing unique value then you’re going to grind it out and get frustrated with how difficult it is to run your business.

Second, even if you’re not providing truly unique value, if you’re really passionate about what you’re doing then you’ll be able to persevere the grind.

Picking an area that you’re good at/have specialized knowledge in or picking one that you have a passion for will help you to succeed.

Developers must figure out their services and pricing in order to be successful

Once you’ve carved out the niche you’re going to serve it’s then time to decide what services you will offer, within that niche, and what you’ll be charging for your services.

Your services

Deciding what services to offer may seem like something you can do quickly, but it’s actually important to consider a few different factors in regards to your offerings. Also, when determining pricing it’s important that you consider going the flat fee route for services as opposed to charging by the hour. Let’s dive into each of these issues.

There are three things any freelance developer should consider when deciding what services they wish to offer. Once these three areas are analyzed, if your potential service offering seems to make sense, you consider the size of the current addressable market. They are:

• your level of interest in a given area
• the extent to which you can scale up the offering, and
• your ability to outsource some of the work.

You then look at the market to see if there is enough available work to turn the offering into a business.

I can’t stress enough that your service offerings should focus around things which interest you. Again, as stated in the section above, you’re likely to burn out and quit if you start engaging in activities that you find uninteresting.

By selecting an area that you are generally excited to learn about and work in, you will be able to view your work as something other than drudgery. This leads to you putting in more hours which, in turn, leads to more of dat sick cash flow. So, again, when deciding what services to offer, ask yourself what you’re actually interested in.

It’s also crucial to consider scaleability when deciding what services to offer. The concept of scale is simple. You want to focus on something where your profit margins actually increase, or at least stay the same as you grow your revenue.

Areas in which you can write, and then re-use, a codebase allow you to achieve this.

Areas in which you are constantly doing things from scratch, and spending a lot of time learning things that won’t apply to more than one or a few clients, will take you in the opposite direction. Always ask yourself “can I scale this up” before diving into an area.

The final thing to consider is the extent to which you’ll be able to outsource the work which needs to be performed. The greater the ability to outsource, then the more you can grow the company by leveraging the labor of others.

In our main business, for example, we subcontract the writing of legal content to attorneys and law students who wish to write as a side hustle. Given that there is a large population of people who have the skills to do this work, and are looking for the opportunity to do so, outsourcing our content needs does not prove to be a problem.

Another example of products which outsource well are those which don’t have complicated codebases. The simpler it is to build a product then the easier it will be to hire/subcontract another developer to assist you. This is because you will not need to bring on an individual with as high of a skill set.

So when deciding what services to offer your niche, you’re looking for a scalable area which interests you and in which you can outsource as much of the work as possible.

Once you find this area, it’s time to weigh it against the actual size of the market. If you have a great offering, but there just aren’t enough available customers, then you’re not going to get anywhere for obvious reasons. If, however, there is an abundance of available customers, then have at it.

Let’s look at how the concepts discussed above work in practice. As an example, a company we recently started is focusing on building simple (often single page) websites for small businesses for a low introductory rate.

We greatly enjoy working with small businesses, and given the simple nature of the websites we’ll be building, we’ll be re-using large amounts of code. Also, since the websites won’t require extensive JavaScript development, or much other development beyond HTML and CSS, this is work we can outsource. So this area would be considered viable under the three factor test I just laid out.

We then have to weigh the idea against the size of the market. Well, as I mentioned in my article on whether one should become a freelance developer , roughly thirty percent of America’s 24 million small businesses didn’t have or needed a new website in 2017. This means that there are roughly 7.2 million potential customers out there for the new company we started (30% * 24 million).

This is certainly a large and addressable market. Since our business idea passed the three tests and will address a large market, we went ahead and launched the service offering.

It’s time to determine your price structure once you’ve decided what services you’re going to offer your niche. It’s important that, as much as possible, you stick with flat fees for a project as opposed to any type of hourly billing. You also want to try to create recurring revenue. Let’s discuss why these things are true.

To the extent possible, you should work for flat rates and avoid “by the hour” work. This leads to greater profits for a few reasons.

First, as your expertise within your niche expands, you’ll be able to complete work in less time.

Suppose you take on a project for $5,000 and get it launched after 50 hours. This equates to $100 an hour. Now suppose that a similar project comes along a few months later. You charge another $5,000.

The second time, however, you don’t have to spend as much time learning about the domain of the business and you can also re-use some of your previous code base. You get the second project done in only thirty hours.

This means that your “per hour rate” just went from $100 to $166. This value of prior experience and code writing is lost when you elect to charge by the hour.

The fact that you are reusing old code, in the example above, in no way means that your second client is receiving less value. In addition to the product you launch for them, they are also receiving the benefit of your gained expertise in their area. They are also gaining the benefit of your experience in building similar applications. This experience means a smoother launch, fewer bugs, etc. So flat fees are a win-win for everyone.

In addition to working for flat fees, you want to develop offerings which can generate recurring revenue. As an example, the company we started which services small businesses also provides ongoing maintenance after we launch a website. We host the customer’s website on our virtual private server and keep everything up to date for the client. We charge $50 per month for this service and it forms a nice piece of recurring revenue.

By offering services with a recurring revenue stream, you help to make your income more consistent.

So, to wrap up, when deciding your pricing it’s important to remember three words: “flat fee” and “recurring.”

Freelance developers need to choose the right business structure when starting up

It’s time to form your business after you’ve selected a niche and narrowed both your service offerings and pricing.

It is generally suggested that you form an LLC through which to run your business. Doing so provides you with liability protection that you won’t receive if you operate as a sole proprietorship. (Disclaimer: this article can’t be construed as legal advice and I am not holding myself out as a legal professional. I suggest that you discuss your individual situation with an attorney).

Generally speaking, this liability protection can help you in the event of a lawsuit and can also help to prevent you from being personally responsible for business debts if your affairs are structured properly. Also, there are tax benefits, which I briefly discuss below, associated with forming an LLC.

Once your LLC is formed then it is important to remember that you and your company are now considered separate legal entities. This means that you must keep separate bank accounts and that you must not run personal expenses through the business.

For a full breakdown of the legal requirements associated with managing an LLC it is, again, a good idea to speak with an attorney.

There are also multiple tax benefits which you can reap by forming an LLC for your business. The specifics of these benefits should be discussed with a tax professional, as I am not licensed to give tax advice.

But to summarize, the benefits of an LLC include, among other things, being exempted from self-employment taxes in regards to the company’s profits. To ensure that you receive this break you need to fill out IRS form 2553 and “elect” to be treated as an S Corp. You will also need to pay yourself a reasonable salary.

To avoid making this part of this guide too long, I break this idea down, in further detail, in this video:

The tax benefits alone are reason enough to go the LLC route. Add in the liability protections and it becomes a no-brainer.

Action items for developers who are preparing to start a freelance business

I can’t stress enough that it is crucial for you to adequately plan your new venture. I’m a very strong believer that the reason for which many small businesses fail is a lack of adequate planning. If you take the time to “do it right” then you can avoid the fate that many small businesses, unfortunately, arrive at.

Your immediate list of needs should include the following:

• Determine how you are going to fund your new venture
• AVOID debt or credit cards as a form of funding
• If necessary, work some type of second job until you have the money needed to get off the ground
• Decide on the niche that your new business is going to serve
• The niche you wish to serve should be in an area you enjoy and/or are interested in
• DO NOT get in the habit of taking work simply because it is available - stay in your niche
• Determine what services you will offer to your niche and determine your pricing
• When determining pricing and services, weigh your ability to scale the service and to outsource work against the size of the addressable market
• Charge flat fees whenever possible and avoid hourly billing
• Make sure you have a model which can build recurring revenue
• Form an LLC for your new company
• Discuss the benefits, and specifics, of doing so with an attorney immediately
• Discuss your tax situation with a professional and consider making the S Corp election (again, after talking to a tax professional)

Getting started with your new freelance development business( back to top )

Once you’ve planned your new business then it’s officially time to hit the ground running. The first step is making sure you have everything you’re going to need in order to start out effectively.

If you don’t have everything you need then it’s going to be like hitting the ground running with no shoes on. That’s why this section of the article will be devoted to things you need to do right away in order to make sure that you’ve got clients coming in and that you’re operating efficiently.

I’m going to look at several points in this part of our discussion. The topics we’re going to dive into include:

• The importance of getting started off on the right foot
• Administrative items which need to be completed
• Marketing items which need to be completed
• The importance of ongoing learning

So…shall we?

Freelance developers must understand the importance of starting their new business off on the right foot

Before I get into how to hit the ground running, it’s important that we discuss the need to start out well-organized and with all of your ducks in a row. It’s crucial for multiple reasons.

First is the fact that there is no easier time than right now to get organized. Think about it - as you get more customers and get busier, it’s only going to get harder to get things done.

Second, if you don’t have the items discussed below taken care of in advance, then they’re only going to get in the way once you’re trying to run full speed ahead.

In other words, starting out in a disorganized fashion will get in the way of trying to get your substantive work done. This, in turn, will interfere with your ability to do a good job for your clients.

A final, and crucial, reason to get organized now is that not doing so will make you work in an inefficient manner. This inefficiency will stem from the fact that you will constantly be interrupting your work to deal with administrative headaches. This leads to massive inefficiencies throughout your workflow. These inefficiencies will compound on one another and you will suffer from decreased profits as a result.

So, choose to get organized now and not later. This organization includes both your administrative needs and your marketing needs.

Developers must get their administrative affairs in order when starting up

One of the biggest challenges to freelancers who are just starting up is dealing with the various administrative tasks involved with running a business. It’s easy to get in the mindset of “I’ll deal with these tasks later.” Such tasks, after all, can seem boring, confusing, and completely irrelevant to the actual work you’re doing.

Neglecting these items now, however, can create massive problems down the road. A little later this article will discuss how to deal with such things on an ongoing basis. For now, let’s look at the items that you need to deal with from the start.

The first item of business is to make sure you properly form a company. As mentioned above, it will often be the best course of action to form an LLC. The specifics of your situation, however, should always be discussed with a lawyer.

In addition to forming the company, it is important that you get any necessary business licenses and that you complete any other documentation required by your Secretary of State as well as your county level or city level governments. Some states will require more of this documentation than others.

Failing to properly obtain your necessary business licenses, or to obtain other necessary records, can result in you not having the legal right to do business. Make sure you’re properly complying with all requirements in this area.

The second item of business is to get your company its own mailing address. It is generally a good idea that your business have an address other than that of your residence.

First, it allows you to list an address on your website that is not your home. Second, doing so can prevent people from looking up the business on a Secretary of State’s website and getting your home address. Third, having a separate business address helps your company to appear more legitimate.

If you’re just starting out, and have few to no customers, then a post-office box may be your best bet. You can also look into shared working spaces (such as WeWork). Such spaces not only give you a place to work, but you will be provided with a mailing address as well.

The third item on the agenda is to open a bank account for the company. It is crucial that you do not intermingle your personal finances with the business finances. This company account is what you will use to pay for business-related expenses, to reimburse yourself for business expenses which you paid out personally, and to accept payments from customers.

Personally, I would suggest using a large national bank (such as Chase, Wells Fargo, and so on). The reason I suggest this is that the largest banks will be the most likely to integrate with various payment options, to have branches in every state, and so on.

Next up is to sign up for different software services as well as other services that you will need to run your business on a day to day basis.

First on this list is a business suite with which you can set up a branded email address, receive cloud storage for the company, and so on. We use G Suite in our company but here are plenty of other options, such as Office 365.

Next is to sign up for a service offering accounting software (I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping good books). There’s more below about how to keep the books in your business, but for now just know that you need to have accounting software set up from the get go.

For most freelancers I’d suggest trying Wave’s accounting software . I suggest Wave because, while not as robust as Quickbooks Online (which many consider to be the gold standard for accounting software), it is much easier for non-accountants (a.k.a. “you”) to use.

Three other reasons to use Wave are,

• it’s free, and

After you’ve signed up for your accounting software you’ll also need to sign up a payment processor so you can accept credit cards and e-checks. Most accounting software options also have an add-on component for payment processing. Personally, I find the option Wave offers to be acceptable and we use it in our company.

While not an exhaustive list, these are some of the services and software offerings which you should sign up for immediately.

It is also critical to have the contracts which you will use with your customers ready from the start. Not having a properly written contract can result in you not getting paid, in you getting paid less than what you thought you had bargained for, or even in you getting sued.

To explain the importance of contracts in some detail, and your options for preparing properly drafted agreements, we are fortunate enough to have this contribution from Cari Ross, an Ohio attorney with Ross Legal Services (the video embedded below is a larger course, but will open directly to the section containing Cari's lecture).

Personally, I would suggest erring on the side of caution and retaining legal representation to review your agreements. Often, you can find an attorney who will review your documents for a one-time fee.

Another thing that I would strongly suggest is that you sign up for professional liability insurance on behalf of your business.

We maintain insurance in our company and it costs us less than $70 per month. If a client were to sue us, claiming that we bungled a product that we built, we would be able to turn the lawsuit over to our insurance company and they would deal with it. Having an insurance policy such as this makes it easier to sleep at night.

The foregoing list shouldn’t be considered as everything you will need to have starting out. These are, however, things which I don’t believe you should consider optional.

Freelance developers should get their marketing infrastructure in place before starting up

Striking out as a freelancer means the opportunity to make money. You are going to need clients to make that money. You need to get your marketing infrastructure set up as soon as possible in order to get those clients.

Let’s go over a list of things which you should get set up from the get go. While some of the items on this list may make you say “duh – I know to set that up,” you’d be surprised at what some people don’t do before getting started.

The first order of business is to build your company website and to include a portfolio of your various projects. A great thing about freeCodeCamp is that you will have built some projects for your coursework even if you don’t have any customers yet.

It’s important to remember that your website is the equivalent of a store front. The level and quality of the work you put into it will go a long way in deciding how seriously your potential customers take you. Your site should highlight work you’ve done, make clear to the layperson what type of work you’re available to do, stress customer service, and make it easy for clients to contact you.

When you're building your website, it's important to consider your audience. All of us (including me) can be guilty of forgetting that most of our customers really don’t care about code or technology. They just want a solution to their problems.

A customer likely doesn’t know what HTML is and they don’t care if you're using Bootstrap, Flexbox, or some other framework to build a responsive page.

If you want people to become your customer then don’t alienate them by talking like a tech head on your website. Instead, present yourself as a problem solver that is ready to assist them.

The next crucial point is to have a branded email. You can take care of this by signing up for a business software suite, which I suggested above. Having a company email is important because you want your customers to take you seriously. And trust me that they won’t take you seriously if your email address is “[email protected]”. You might as well be using “[email protected]” if that’s the case. Get a branded email.

Another important item to get is a dedicated phone number for your business. There are a variety of reasons why you don’t want business calls going to your personal cell phone. These include the fact that clients will then have your personal number, you’ll be putting your personal number on your website, and you’ll have to answer personal calls with a professional sounding greeting (since you won’t know if it’s a potential customer calling).

The best way to deal with the separate number issue is to sign up for Google Voice - which is included with any free Google account. This allows you to add a second VOIP number to your cell phone. You’ll be able to receive calls, make calls, and text from this number. And again, the beautiful part is that it’s free.

If, for some reason, you don’t want to use Google Voice or some other VOIP, you can always get a second cell phone. If you go the second cell phone route, make sure it is signed up under your LLC so that the monthly bill is deductible on your taxes.

A key, key, key, key (key) part to your marketing is going to be to sign up profiles on which clients can leave you positive online reviews. These include your profile on Google My Business, a business page on Facebook, and a Yelp profile for the business.

Many people, even those referred to you, will want to look at your online reviews prior to deciding to hire you. Failing to have a bank of reviews is going to cost you money, and a lot of it. I’ll be speaking more below about how you can actually go about getting those reviews. For this part of this guide, just be aware that you need to sign up and fully fill out these various online profiles.

Another important step is to make sure that your LinkedIn profile is as complete as possible. Make sure your profile makes clear that you are available for freelance work. You’ll want to include your various projects in your profile and make sure you list your various skills.

Also, I’d strongly suggest taking the various LinkedIn tests to gain their coding certifications. These tests only take a few minutes and, for example, your profile can indicate that you are actually certified by LinkedIn in HTML, CSS, Javascript, and so on. These certifications will go a long way towards prompting others to contact you for work.

These are simply some initial “must haves” that you need to get taken care of immediately. I’ll be discussing, in depth, how to actually get clients as you move further through this guide. For now, just be aware that you should have the above items before you dive into the world of trying to hustle up your next project.

Freelance developers must decide to be continuous learners in order to succeed

Yep, perhaps you’ve just learned to code. But before you even get that first customer you should've already decided that you’re going to continue learning about a variety of topics.

In truth, coding only makes up a part of your business. And unless you decide to continuously improve your skills in a variety of other areas, you’re going to have problems. The areas about which you should be learning on an ongoing basis include:

• communication/soft skills
• personal and business finance
• business history (in order to learn from the successes and mistakes of past entrepreneurs)

It’s important to remember that completing freeCodeCamp, and learning to code, is the beginning of a new chapter and not the end of an old one. If you want to succeed, get in the habit of lifelong learning before you even get your first customer. If you don’t want to succeed then, don’t worry, you never have to pick up another book again.

My suggestion would be to set aside some time every morning during which yo improve yourself through learning.

Personally (and this is just what I do), I read for forty-five minutes each morning. My daily routine consists of “wake up,” “eat a quick breakfast,” and then “open a book” for forty-five minutes. Again, this is what works for me.

Some initial readings I suggest include:

• Profit First
• How to win friends and influence people
• The Millionaire Next Door
• Small Time Operator: How to Start Your Own Business, Keep Your Books, Pay Your Taxes, and Stay Out of Trouble
• The Innovators
• The Everything Store

These are just my suggestions. I will say though, that each of these books went a long way in changing my outlook and making me better at business. One of the most common habits among super-successful people is continuous learning - so get to it.

Action items for freelance developers who have just started their own business

Again, it’s important that you have all your ducks in a row before you start taking clients. That’s why I’ve put together this list of “to do” items that should be completed after you’ve formed your business and are preparing to start taking customers.

Your “to do” list for this section includes the following:

• Administrative
• Research the local business and licensing requirements for your new company and make sure you follow these requirements
• Establish a separate address (such as a PO box) for your business
• Open a separate bank account for your business
• Sign up for “administrative software” that you will need
• A business suite
• Accounting software
• Credit card processing
• A payroll service
• Develop/obtain the contracts you will have potential customers sign
• Sign up for professional liability insurance
• Build out your website and online portfolio
• Establish a branded email
• Establish a dedicated phone number for your business
• Sign up the profiles necessary for your business to receive online reviews (Google My Business, Yelp, etc.)
• Build out your LinkedIn profile
• Continuing Education
• Make a plan to become a lifelong learner
• Execute on the plan to become a lifelong learner

Freelance developers need to start finding clients after their business is organized, up, and running ( back to top )

Once your business is planned, formed, and your initial “to do” list is taken care of, there’s something you will need: customers . Hustling up business is going to be crucial for anyone just starting out.

Like anything else there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about getting business. I fully recognize that you will need clients now, in the short term, while you are building your new empire.

It is vital, however, that you don’t make the mistake of focusing only on getting clients in the short term and, as a result, don’t do the things needed to build a venture that is sustainable for the long-term.

In this section of our guide we’ll be discussing the following:

• The importance of building your long term business while still getting clients in the short term
• How to sell yourself to your clients
• Sources of business for the short term
• How to build your company over the long term
• A list of action items to get rolling with immediately

With that said - on to the next section!

Freelance developers must get business in the short term while focusing on their long-term business

Before we get into how to get clients for your new business, it’s important to discuss your strategies over both the short and long term.

In the short term you will be working to hustle up work, to make a few bucks today, while over the long term you’re going to build a brand. The value of having a brand is that you will be able to get more work, with less effort, and will often be able to charge higher prices.

Unfortunately, too many developers get caught in a trap. This trap involves developers putting all of their time and resources into getting clients today in the short term. These developers can never rest easy and know that they’ll have a steady flow of business and, quite often, spend many years working at reduced rates.

By building your brand over the long term you’ll be able to avoid this trap while still making money in the meantime.

The difference between a short term hustle and a durable brand is simple. Short term hustles involve you spending quite a bit of time and money convincing others to let you do work for them. Again, this work will often be at a reduced or mediocre rate.

Having a brand means that people will seek you out, as opposed to the other way around, and you can then charge higher rates. The latter is a path to success while the former will make you feel like you’re stuck on a hamster wheel.

Now let’s figure out how you can avoid getting stuck like this. We’ll start by looking at how you’ll get clients today and then move on to building your brand.

The first part of getting clients today is learning how to sell yourself to potential customers.

Developers can sell themselves to clients by playing the role of a problem solver

It’s impossible to succeed as a freelance developer unless you’re able to effectively sell your services to clients. A big problem for most freelancers, however, is that they don’t go about selling their services in the right way.

This is often because, as developers, we tend to think that we are selling code and products to clients. The fact of the matter, however, is that we are selling solutions to clients' problems. When we see ourselves as “developers,” instead of “problem solvers,” we tend to fail to effectively communicate our value to a client.

The truth, at the end of the day, is that a client won’t hire someone if they don’t see value in the services being provided. By presenting ourselves as solving our clients' problems, we can show how much value we are providing and, in turn, the client will want to hire us.

Consider the following example. Suppose your are called by a local pizza shop that wants to develop a new website. They want to implement online ordering, and they also want to develop a mobile app so that people can order food while on the go.

You go to the pizza shop and explain which language you will build the app in and start speaking technical mumbo jumbo which the shop owner probably doesn’t understand.

After your presentation, the shop owner won’t understand the difference between what you’re going to build and what someone else can build, for less money, in a CMS such as WordPress. They are simply left with your word that your product is “better” without any understanding as to why.

This shop owner is not likely to hire you because all they want, at the end of the day, is something that meets their needs.

Now suppose that you go to the pizza shop and have a conversation with the owner in which you take the time to understand their needs and goals. You then show them how the website and app you are going to build can meet those goals. You’re doing this while using little to no technical jargon.

You then explain, in layman’s terms, why the person using a CMS won’t meet those goals (for example - you may specifically explain how limited the CMS’ functionality will be when translated into an app).

Now you’ve spoken to the owner in their language and they see value in the service you’re providing. They are now more likely to hire you because you spoke to their needs, through the lens of a problem solver, without using “tech head” speak.

Do you want to close more sales with clients? If so, then it’s simple. Present yourself as a “problem solver” and don’t speak code. Once you start freelancing, you need to stop seeing yourself as a developer and, instead, recognize that your purpose is to solve a client’s problem in the most efficient way possible.

Now that you know how to sell your services to clients, let’s look at how to go about getting business over the short term.

There are several ways for freelance developers to get immediate business

There are several ways to get clients in the short-term. As you will see in the following discussion, these methods do not involve spending large sums of money (or any money for that matter). Let’s take a look at how you can immediately get clients through the following types of resources:

• Leveraging of your existing contacts
• Services such as Upwork and Thumbtack
• Services such as Fiverr
• Free advertising through Craigslist
• Networking groups, such as BNI

Let’s dive into the pros and cons of each of these.

A good place to start getting clients is by simply leveraging your friends and contacts. What I AM NOT saying is for you to simply start telling everyone you know that you are now a freelance coder and you want to build them a project.

Instead you take the approach of telling various individuals that you are embarking on this venture and that you just wanted to let them know of your availability in case they come across anyone who needs your services. Also, make sure that you give them some of your business cards. I wouldn’t suggest bringing it up again after these initial mentions - then you’re just annoying your friends and acquaintances.

I’ll give a personal example of how powerful it can be to simply reach out to your circles.

I recently spun up a separate business which will assist small to medium sized businesses/entities with basic web design. First, I mentioned to one friend that I was starting this service, in the “fyi” fashion I described above. The friend became excited and quickly told me that her mom had founded a church (something I didn’t know) and the church needed a new site designed.

Second, I mentioned that I would be starting the new business to my next door neighbor (who is self employed) and that I would drop him off some business cards just in case he came across any entrepreneurs who needed help. His wife quickly mentioned to me that the parent-teacher organization at the school their child attends wanted to build a new website.

So, two conversations wound up yielding $6,000 worth of work for what are actually very simple projects. And these were just the first two conversations I had. You get the point. So, making your availability known to your immediate circles can be a great way to get started.

The next step is to sign up for services such as Upwork and Thumbtack. These are platforms on which consumers can state what services they need and ask for proposals. You will typically pay for the ability to submit a proposal and these jobs will often be for lower amounts than what you would normally charge.

Is this perfect? Nope. Is it good for someone just getting started? Yep, and especially so when the alternative is to sit around and twiddle your thumbs.

There are a few things to make sure of when signing up for these types of services. First, you need to make sure that you fill out your profile as robustly as possible. Include introductory videos for yourself and your services if the platform allows them.

Also, as you complete projects it is important to ask clients for reviews if you are sure that they will leave you good feedback. As you build up a bank of reviews, you’ll be able to bid on higher priced jobs available through these services.

While these types of services aren’t a good way to get rich, they are a good way to start building up a portfolio of work while getting paid for doing so.

The next option is to set yourself up as a service provider through a company such as Fiverr. If you are unfamiliar with Fiverr, it is a website that essentially allows you to set up a store front and provide services in different categories. The available categories include web and software development.

As with Upwork and Thumbtack, you’ll typically be providing services for a good amount less than your normal “going rate.” With that said, Fiverr simply brings the customers to you and you pay a portion of your fee to the service. You are not paying up front for the leads.

Personally, I prefer this approach over services like Upwork. This is because you are not paying for leads and, perhaps more importantly, you are not putting time into submitting proposals for work that you may or may not get.

As with the other services discussed above, it's important to do a good job for your customers, to provide quality service, and to get good reviews. This will allow you to charge more over time. Again, while not a long term solution, this is a good option for getting started.

Another option that you’ll want to take advantage of is advertising on Craigslist. For reasons which go beyond my understanding, this remains a highly under-utilized option. You can advertise your services on Craigslist at the cost of $5 per post and a post will last up to 30 days.

Depending on how many people are using Craigslist in your area, one post may still be visible, without being pushed to the bottom, for the entire month. In other areas, it may be necessary to post once a day or so.

When creating a Craigslist ad, I’d strongly suggest that you do a few things. First, create a graphic to insert into the post. This should include your name, the services you provide, contact information, and so on. The standard size for a Craigslist graphic is 600 x 450 pixels. Also, you can use a limited amount of HTML when writing the text of your advertisement. So make it look nice.

Right now you may be thinking “Craigslist?” My answer to this is “yep!” People always look at me oddly when I tell them that this is an under-utilized option. Over the years I’ve suggested to various businesses (including attorneys, realtors, and others) that they advertise on the service. The same naysayers are then surprised at the fact that they actually make money doing so. These won’t be high end clients (you’ll typically only be doing very basic web design). But, again, it’s revenue to help you get started.

A final option for those starting out (and an important one at that) is to join a networking group through your local BNI chapter . BNI (short for “Business Networking International”) is a worldwide networking group which focuses on helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses through effective networking (I stress the effective part). I’ll be writing an article in the future on how to network the “right way” (spoiler alert).

In short, BNI is a way to have other business owners refer you business whenever the opportunity arises in exchange for you doing the same. It also allows you to meet entrepreneurs with whom you can form a business synergy.

If, for example, you want to build websites and apps for small businesses then you will likely need a photographer to help companies produce proper photographs of their products. Your local BNI chapter may include a photographer to whom you can refer business. That photographer, in turn, may refer you business whenever they do work for a company which mentions wanting to improve their web presence.

Don’t underestimate the power of networking, when it’s done correctly. BNI really does give you the opportunity to “level up” your networking efforts.

One of the downsides of the networking route is that it can be quite time-consuming. Also, if a referral source ever decides to get out of the game, then you lose your flow of business.

These are just some of the reasons why you can make a few bucks in the beginning through networking, as well as the other methods discussed above, but it remains important to build your brand and long-term business. Let’s talk about how to do so.

Freelance developers must build their brand and company over the long-term

It’s one thing to put time and effort into your business and to get a few bucks back in return. The real power of working for yourself, however, comes from building a brand and an actual company. You will then be able to charge higher rates and customers will seek you out, as opposed to you having to find them.

I’m assuming that you find this type of look acceptable. In order to get there, you need to build something enduring. There are several aspects to and options for doing so. Let’s take a look at the following:

• Why repeat customers, and referrals from former customers, will always be your most important source of business
• The importance of online reviews
• Leveraging a blog
• Leveraging YouTube

Let’s dive into each of these, shall we?

The first point, which I cannot stress enough, is that you have to provide your customers with both high quality service and a high quality product. This makes them want to use you again in the future and, importantly, turns them into a referral source.

Why is this so important? Simple - you can’t succeed otherwise. Think of it like this: Your marketing efforts lead to a phone call from Joe the baker. Joe has you build a basic $2,500 website for his bakery. You do a good job for Joe.

Six months later he refers you his friend, Bob the restaurant owner, who pays another $2,500 for a restaurant website. Then you do a great job for Bob and he later refers you someone.

Do you see what just happened? Your marketing only led to one phone call from Joe, yet that one phone call indirectly turned into two additional phone calls.

The above example relates to a crucial point. You’re not going to make it if you have to generate a marketing related phone call for every eventual customer. Doing so is resource intensive and kills your profit margins (if you’re able to stay in business at all).

If Freelancer “A” earns 10x the revenue of Freelancer “B”, it’s not because A’s marketing yields 10x as many calls. It’s because, while they do get more calls, they make sure that one phone call yields more than one customer.

This is how you grow your business exponentially. Conversely, if growing your revenue by 10x requires you upping your marketing by 10x then…….good luck with that.

So how do you make sure that you’re earning repeat business and referrals?

First, deliver a quality product in the time frame that you promise and DO NOT make excuses.

Second, be timely in responding to phone calls, emails, and other customer communications. Be courteous and simply treat your customer the way you would want to be treated.

In short - provide good service. While this may sound like something that makes you go “duh,” you’d be surprised at how many developers fail in this area.

Another important part of building a brand/enduring business is to consistently get good online reviews from your customers. Even if you're dealing with customers from a wide range of geographical areas, it’s vital that you have a bank of reviews with which potential customers can evaluate whether they want to hire you.

You can also refer potential customers to these reviews for their consideration. The reason I’m stressing this is that good reviews mean that your marketing won’t need to generate as many phone calls for your to make money. Let’s use a hypothetical to explain why this is.

Suppose that every $1,000 devoted to marketing, by Joe Developer, generates two paying customers. Now suppose that each of these customers pays Joe an average of $3,000. This means Joe nets $5,000 for the first $1,000 in marketing [($3k * 2 customers) - $1k of marketing expenses].

Now suppose Joe wants to double his business. He spends $2,000 on marketing this month and nets a total of $10,000 after expenses. This sounds fine and good until you consider the epic story of Jill Developer.

Jill Developer regularly gets good online reviews from customers while Joe doesn’t think that such reviews are important. As a result, people who find Jill online, or via referral, are more likely to hire her. As a result, Jill gets three clients for every $1,000 in marketing as opposed to Joe’s two clients.

So, Jill’s first three clients yield a net profit of $8,000 [($3k * 3 customers) - $1k of marketing expenses). This is sixty percent higher than what Joe gets for his first $1,000 in marketing spend. When Jill doubles her marketing budget, her $8,000 in profit jumps to $16,000.

Do you see how the gap in income is going to continue to grow between her and Joe, even though they are increasing their marketing budgets by the same amount? Getting good online reviews turns more of your marketing dollars into actual revenue. Neglecting the accumulation of reviews will leave you spinning your wheels.

There are a few tips to follow when it comes to reaching out to your customers for good reviews. First, while it may sound obvious, don’t ask for a review unless you’re sure the customer will actually leave a good one (you’d be surprised what some people do).

Second, it’s important to get the reviews on websites which people actually visit (Yelp, Google, Facebook, and so on).

Third, don’t just ask customers to leave you reviews. Simply asking will result in a very low percentage of your clients actually doing so.

Instead, once you’ve completed the project, call your client and thank them for their business. Then make sure they know that if they ever need anything they can give you a call. Ask if there was anything you could have done to improve your services and, if they are happy, ask if they will leave you an online review. Once they say “yes,” thank them and let them know that you will send them an email with review links. That email should look something like this:

Dear [name of customer],

Thank you for allowing us to assist you. As I mentioned, I’m including a few links for online reviews. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to say a few kind words. The links below will take you directly to our review profiles:

If we can ever be of assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Thanks again, [Your name]

The links to your review profiles should go straight to the review section and not the general page. You’ll find that this approach will lead to many more customers who say they are going to leave you a review, actually doing it.

Another tool for building a lasting brand is to develop a blog which speaks to the needs of your customers. This has been a key to our primary business which deals with providing solutions for law firms.

The key to developing a successful blog is to provide information that is, again, useful to your customers and not simply that which you want to write about.

Why do I stress this? Simple: one of the most common blogging mistakes I see is people taking the approach of “I’m going to write on the things I want to write about” as opposed to writing on the topics about which their potential customers are seeking information. Let me give you two examples of what I mean.

I wrote an article on how law firms can use Evernote as a tool for reducing clutter in their office. Over time, my analytics showed that article consistently receiving traffic. Since the article was popular, I wrote a comprehensive series of articles on how law firms can leverage Evernote to make their offices more efficient. Each of the articles in that series went on to generate significant traffic for our website.

Conversely, I also wrote a series of articles on how law firms could improve their cyber security (you would think this would be a big deal to those who handle sensitive information). The thing was, however, that our analytics showed those articles were receiving little to no traffic. In other words, our potential customers simply weren’t looking for the information (maybe that’s why law firm cybersecurity is so bad - but that’s a rant for a later time).

The moral of the story is this - monitor your analytics and write more on the topics that are proving to be popular and stop writing on the topics that are not popular. You’ll be surprised how many potential customers pick up the phone and call you as a result of you providing useful information.

As with a blog, it is also a good step to start a YouTube channel. The steps for integrating YouTube into your brand building are very similar to those involved in building a blog. This means that you should leverage your analytics and do videos on the topics your customers show interest in. Do not devote energy to topics which your customers are clearly not interested in.

Also, it’s important to actually put some effort into your YouTube videos. Do a few takes so you are putting out a quality product. Make sure you have adequate lighting, use a microphone, and do some basic video editing at a minimum (there are a ton of free/low cost and easy to use editors out there).

The one thing I’ll add on YouTube is that it’s natural to be nervous and apprehensive about doing video. Just remember this: the biggest YouTubers didn’t start out big. If you look at their early videos you’ll see a big difference in quality from where they started and where they are today. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all.

The big thing to remember, as we close out this section, is that you can make a few bucks with short-term strategies. Building a brand, however, will give you something which no one can take away and will lead to a far more lucrative business.

Action items for freelance developers who are ready to start bringing in business

The foregoing discussion provided information about how you can bring in business in both the short and long-term. It also discussed the importance of brand building so that you can increase your profits.

The following is a “to do” list which will help you get a stream of customers a flowin’:

• Start to think of yourself as a “problem solver” and not a developer
• Remember that your customers don’t care about code or technology. They only care about getting their needs met.
• Begin brainstorming the potential issues that your customers face, and how you can discuss a solution to those issues in ways that your customers will understand.
• Work on your “active listening” skills so that you can “hear” the needs and concerns which your potential customers are conveying.
• Begin the process of “short-term” business building so you have immediate revenue
• Make everyone you know aware that you are starting up. The goal of these conversations is not to sell your services to your current circles. Instead, it is to turn your current circles into referral sources.
• Complete a robust LinkedIn profile. Your profile should make clear that you are a freelance developer accepting work.
• Create robust profiles for yourself on services such as Upwork and Thumbtack. Consider bidding for jobs through these services.
• Make your services available through Fiverr and begin advertising on Craigslist as well.
• Join BNI or other similar networking groups.
• Begin the process of long-term brand building
• Create profiles for your business on Google My Business, Yelp, and Facebook. Begin getting client reviews on these websites and make the acquisition of reviews an ongoing process.
• Develop a blog which speaks to the needs of your customers. Leverage your analytics over time to ensure that you are writing on topics which interest your customers.
• Develop a YouTube channel which also speaks to the needs of your customers. As with a blog, leverage your analytics to ensure that you’re doing videos on the correct topics. Make sure you put some effort into your video production. This includes considering your scripting, lighting, sound quality, etc.

Freelance developers must develop systems to manage their business on a day-to-day basis ( back to top )

Once you have customers coming in the door then it is vital to ensure that you properly manage your business on a day-to-day basis. Failing to do so will lead to inefficiencies and wasted time. This leads to two horrible things - decreased profits and unhappy customers.

Assuming you want to avoid these things, it’s important that you embrace your new role of business manager in addition to that of being a developer. When managing your business, you should focus on the administrative side of things as well as on the substantive work to be done. Failing to do so will lead to administrative problems which will pop up at bad times. These problems will then get in the way of your substantive work.

So, while administrative tasks may seem boring, it is vital that you give them the attention they deserve.

Too many freelance developers get into the mindset of thinking “I’m a developer, not a businessperson.” Well, if you take this mindset once you start freelancing then you won't have to worry about being a businessperson. Because you’ll go out of business so fast that the problem will simply take care of itself.

If you want to avoid this fate then focus on running all aspects of your business correctly.

This section is going to focus on the following areas when it comes to running your operation:

• Managing your business’s administrative and financial affairs.
• Managing your substantive development work in an efficient and profitable manner.
• An action list meant to help you develop procedures for keeping your business running.

Again, I can’t stress enough the importance of seeing yourself as a “businessperson” and understanding that your business is now development. Think of it this way - if a chef starts a restaurant and makes themselves head cook, they are now a restaurateur and not a “chef.” The same is true for your new business. Now let’s get to it.

Freelance developers must focus on their business’ administrative and financial management

The reason why I’m discussing the management of your administrative affairs before the management of substantive work is simple - this is the area where most freelancers get themselves into trouble.

Neglecting your administrative affairs leads to problems which have to be dealt with immediately. This means having to drop whatever current development task you're working on, telling a customer that there is going to be a delay, and putting out an unnecessary fire.

A simple example, which I’ve seen more than once, is the small business owner who never does their bookkeeping. At the end of the year, those books must be done so that the business can file its tax return. The business’ return must be filed so that the developer can file their individual returns.

Once tax filing deadlines are getting close, the small business owner has to drop everything, run around like crazy, and blow off their substantive work in order to get twelve months worth of bookkeeping figured out.

All of this could have been avoided by spending a small amount of time each week simply doing the books. Such weekly bookkeeping could have been handled in an orderly fashion, planned as part of a workflow, and handled in a way which did not disrupt the business.

The first step in managing your freelance business’ administrative affairs is to develop a monthly budget for the company as well as financial restraints.

Far, far, far, far (far) too many small business owners utilize “bank balance budgeting.” By this I mean that they simply look at their bank balance and they assume that having “X” in the bank means that they have “X” at their disposal. Gee, with an approach like that I can’t imagine why so many people have financial problems.

The crucial first step for your new venture is to set up a financial system. How to do so would be a very lengthy guide in and of itself. So, for the purposes of this guide, I strongly suggest that you read the book Profit First and implement its suggested systems. While there are certainly other possible approaches, I think this book gives a solid framework which will help those who struggle with financial management.

A key thing to remember when running a business is that your company’s bank accounts are not your personal account. You do not get to simply raid the business funds anytime you like.

An issue which I see far too often is when a business owner takes excessive withdrawals from their business account for personal purposes. The business then finds itself short on cash when bills are due and, to make up for this shortfall, the business owner then takes work at a reduced price to generate immediate cash. This reduced price work means there is still not much money in the business account and the owner has a hard time getting their personal bills paid.

This begins a difficult cycle which can be hard to break. By practicing financial restraint, you can avoid this trap.

The next critical point is that you regularly perform your accounting and understand your business’ books. I never understand the small business owners who don’t do their books regularly. Such business owners, as a result of not doing their bookkeeping, never actually know how much money they’re making. This can lead to a belief that you’re doing better or worse than you actually are.

To put it simply, if you’re not going to be regular about doing your books then don’t go into business for yourself.

How to do your books could easily be a course in and of itself. Fortunately, Erin Lehr of KPI Bookkeeping was willing to put together a group of instructional videos meant to get you started when it comes to keeping your books. She also put the slides from her presentation together into two separate documents. You may download her slides on money management here and her sample chart of accounts here .

Again, the following videos are introductory only (Erin's videos are embedded into a larger course, this link will open directly to her section of the video):

Again, and not to beat a dead horse, but it’s crucial that you handle your books regularly. If you need assistance then contact a bookkeeper such as Erin. Don’t neglect this chore.

One last point I’ll make, regarding managing your finances, is that you need to understand the difference between not having any business and not having any money.

I’ve consulted for way too many small businesses who call me freaking out because they have no money in the bank. The freaking out entrepreneur, however, starts these conversations by saying that business is dead. In other words, they assume that the fact that they’re broke is due to business being slow.

Upon talking to such people, however, it turns out that they actually have quite a bit of business. It’s just that they spent the money as fast as it came in, usually on indulgences (including large indulgences such as high end cars).

“Not having any business” would mean that you’re twiddling your thumbs and that you have nothing to be working on. If you’ve got a mountain of work to do, and no money, then it’s probably a sign that you need to practice better financial restraint.

It is vital that you manage your administrative tasks as well as affairs involving your finances. Administrative tasks include timely filing of any necessary documents with the Secretary of State, keeping your business licenses up to date, and so on.

Not keeping these affairs in order could be devastating. You don’t want to be sitting there, in the middle of a coding project, only to find out that you’ve lost your legal right to do business for the time being, all because you didn’t file a piece of paper with a regulatory entity. Know your licensing and regulatory requirements and, if necessary, hire an attorney to help you with these matters.

Freelancers must manage their development in an efficient manner

A freelance developer’s “substantive” work consists of the tasks which they are actually paid to perform. In other words - development work.

If you’ve come this far into this guide then I think it’s fair to assume you’re interested in making money. Assuming that you are on a quest for prosperity, and that you haven’t read this article because there was nothing interesting at the public library, we’ll devote this section to making your substantive work as profitable as possible.

As mentioned above, the key is to identify your high value activities and to ensure that such activities receive a serious and efficient time commitment on your end.

To help you get there, this section will discuss the need to focus on the right tasks, how to make sure you’re putting in the right amount of time, and tips for making sure that you’re using that time efficiently. If you focus on these things, then you’re likely to make more money. If you don’t…then you’re not.

The most important part of getting rich is making sure that you’re focusing your time into higher value activities. This concept is pretty simple: identify the tasks which yield the best results and do more of those tasks !

While that sentence may leave you going “duh,” you’d be surprised at how many entrepreneurs fail to recognize this concept. Let’s look at some specific examples, both in terms of your substantive work and your marketing activities.

Suppose you develop what you consider to be a typical small business website for $3,000. The site includes multiple pages, lots of media, and extra functionality (such as online ordering for a restaurant).

Now say that such a project typically takes you about twenty hours to complete. This means that this type of work yields you $150 per hour ($3k/20 hours).

Now suppose that you can drum up work building one-page “starter websites” for small businesses for $500 a pop. You can typically handle such projects in two hours (given that you’ll likely develop a number of templates to work from). This means these “starter” sites can be completed at a rate of $250 per hour ($500/2 hours).

While the latter may pay less in total than the former, it actually pays more per unit of input. A developer who actually wants to make money would focus on doing more “starter” sites and less on the larger projects I mentioned.

While the math I just laid out may seem obvious, you would be shocked at how many developers (and small business owners for that matter) fail to focus on the work which yields the most per unit of input. This can be due to not keeping track of the inputs (i.e. not tracking how much time you’re putting into something) or simply focusing on the price tag as opposed to the hourly profit.

Whatever the reason, those who fail to identify their most profitable activities, and focus on them, are making a big mistake.

Mark Cuban is on record as saying that diversification is “for idiots” and Warren Buffett is on record as referring to diversification as “madness.”

This is also true when it comes to the activities you are engaging in as a freelancer. If you identify an activity as being more profitable than any others then it makes NO sense to engage in other activities. Instead, you should be trying to drum up as much of that profitable activity as possible.

This is true in terms of your substantive work, your marketing activities, and pretty much anything else. In short - focus on high value activities.

Once you identify your high value activities then it is vital that you put a lot of time into them. Think about how much you need to work should as a function of efficiency and time (a few speeches from Elon Musk really opened my eyes to this).

Consider it in these terms: Jill and Joe perform similar tasks as freelance developers. Jill, however, works twenty-five percent more efficiently than Joe, meaning that Jill can get twenty-five percent more done in an hour.

You might think that Jill is going to make more money than Joe, right? The problem, however, is that Jill only works thirty hours a week and thinks her increased efficiency makes up for any lost time. Joe, by contrast, works forty hours every week. At the end of the week, Jill’s thirty hours of work will produce the same amount that Joe would produce in 37.5 hours (30 hours worked by Jill * 1.25 of Joe’s efficiency).

Since Joe works forty hours each week, he’s going to get more done than Jill. Since Joe produces more than Jill, due to his better work ethic, he will make more as a freelance developer. If Jill had just worked forty hours, like Joe, then one week would yield an amount of production that would have taken Joe fifty hours (40 hours * 1.25 Joe’s production = 50).

What you can take from the epic story of Jill and Joe is that you have to put in the hours while working as efficiently as possible .

The foregoing concept is why I put a minimum of 43.3 hours into my business each week. My hourly requirement of 43.3 hours is based on a simple formula: if I’m working at the same level of efficiency as some hypothetical person, and that individual only works forty hours a week, then by putting in 3.3 extra hours per week I add one working month to my year.

In other words, someone working at the same level of efficiency as myself, who is only putting in forty hours a week, will take thirteen months to equal the level of production I reach in twelve months.

It’s important to stress that the average of 43.3 hours a week is a minimum that I put in. If there is additional work which must get done due to some type of deadline, then I put in extra time. Any extra time that I put in can then be taken off from a later week.

When working efficiently, however, it isn’t too often that I have to go over my 43.3 hours. By adding an extra working month to my year, using this method, I feel my production greatly increases.

The point of putting in your hours is so important that I’m going to rant about it for just another moment. An overhyped belief is that it is important to work “smarter not harder.” To this idea I say WRONG .

It is, instead, important to work smart and hard. I deal with plenty of self-employed individuals who put in many of hours and manage to get nothing done. This is because they work in an extremely inefficient manner. You can put in sixty hours a week, but if you’re only working at fifty percent efficiency, then the average Joe will equal your production in just thirty hours a week.

At the same time, the math shown above in the hypothetical about Jill and Joe shows that you do need to put in the time. This is why the amount you produce, which largely dictates how much you make, is a function of both working efficiently and putting in the time. There can be no compromise on either.

Here’s an important tip, which I cannot stress enough, for working as efficiently as possible: always assume that you’re operating inefficiently.

I work with way, way, way (way) too many people that are convinced that they are operating in an efficient manner. After going through how they do things, however, it quickly becomes obvious that improvements can be made.

My approach to my business is to assume that I am inefficient and to be in a constant state of trying to do things better. Remember that no matter how well you think you are doing, there is always room to do better.

Now that we’ve gone over the importance of identifying high value activities and putting time into them, let’s give some specifics on how you can run your business more efficiently.

Again, it’s vital that you streamline your operations. It’s too easy, after all, to work all day, not get anything done, and then go home feeling like you’ve actually accomplished something simply because you put in time.

The tips below (which by no means should be considered an exhaustive list) will help you eliminate “noise” which causes unnecessary distractions, eliminate unnecessary work, and avoid self-inflicted extra tasks. Let’s get to it.

How to work more efficiently:

The first step for working efficiently is to develop the Only Handle It Once (O.H.I.O.) method. This is a straightforward time-saving idea which too many entrepreneurs fail at.

The idea is simple. Do not deal with an item unless you are prepared to take action on it at the time you deal with it. Consider how often the following occurs. Joe receives an email from a customer. He skims it and says to himself “I’ll deal with this later.” When “later” comes, Joe then has to read the email a second time before dealing with it. In other words, Joe to take the time to read the email twice instead of just reading it once and dealing with it.

Now multiply the wasted time of one extra reading by every email received in the course of a year. The time lost quickly becomes mind-boggling. Instead of making this mistake, Joe should not even open the email until he is prepared to deal with it. This will save him the time of a second reading.

The O.H.I.O. method can be applied to a number of different contexts. Imagine every piece of administrative paperwork you receive (notices from the Secretary of State, forms you have to fill out, and so on). As with the email example above, it’s easy to look at such a document and put it off to the side for later handling. Again, when the task is completed this means you will have reviewed the document twice.

The idea of Only Handle It Once means just what it says - do not open an email, pick up a piece of paper, or start a task unless you are prepared to actually deal with it. The time savings that come out of this method can be extreme.

The next step for working more efficiently is to adopt the mindset that you’re not going to start on something until you finish it. In other words, don’t spend a little time each day working on numerous projects. Finish one project and move on to the next one. Failing to do this means that you never get into a groove with your work.

Let me explain this by way of personal example. A big part of our primary business is adding blog posts to our client’s websites. Also, we recently switched our virtual private server from the company we were using to Siteground. As a result of this switch, we had to migrate all of the websites we manage from one server to another (this was a lengthy process).

In regards to adding client content, and migrating websites, we could have taken the approach of adding content to a few sites each day and migrating a few sites each day. This would mean constantly switching tasks, however. So, instead, we set aside time where we weren’t going to add content and were going to devote ourselves to site migration until it was finished.

Once that was done, we devoted ourselves to adding content to the websites until that project was completed. In other words, we finished one thing before we moved on to the next.

The benefit of this is extreme: when you switch tasks it takes time to get into a groove with the task you just switched to. This “lost groove time” greatly reduces your efficiency. It is, therefore, important to finish one task before moving on to another. Don’t keep jumping back and forth between partially completed projects.

When taking on new freelance projects, I take a “one at a time approach.” If I’m building something out for customer One, and I know it’s going to take me a week, then I let potential customer Two know that I won’t be starting their project for a week. I also adjust my proposed delivery date accordingly.

Manage your workflow so that you’re working on one thing at a time, but so that you have a stream of work lined up.

It is common for us to have multiple projects lined up and under contract. We, however, always finish one before moving on to the next. We do not jump back and forth between projects. This allows us to get more done, in less time, and we make more money as a result.

The third step to increasing your efficiency is to deal with problems as soon as they arise. And when I say “as soon as they arise,” I mean immediately. Not doing so will simply allow the problem to swell and become larger.

Here’s a simple example - my business partner pointed out to me the other day that the app we use for syncing contacts between everyone’s email accounts wasn’t working. I immediately stopped what I was doing to fix it.

It would have been easy to say “I’ll deal with this later.” In between that moment and later, however, people in our organization would have needed to make notes about customers, to pull up contact info, and so on. The app not syncing would have created problems in others’ workflow. This would result in a small problem (the app not working) compounding into larger issues.

Not dealing with inefficiencies immediately can compound in other ways. Consider this real world example: I was once talking to a customer on the phone while they were heading to their office. Once they got to their office, it took them extra time to get in the door. This was due to the fact that the customer had an excessive number of keys on their keychain and she said “I don’t even know what most of these keys are for” while we were talking. When I talked to the customer again, about a year later, they made the same comment.

Now consider this - the customer probably loses thirty seconds a day fumbling through keys that didn’t even need to be on her key ring. That’s 2.5 minutes lost per week. Over the course of the year that works out to roughly two full hours that are lost. 2.5 hours of substantive work likely works out to several hundred dollars. If this customer had taken a time out to take unnecessary keys off of their key chain immediately after realizing it was a problem, they would be making several hundred dollars more a year.

The foregoing story of the key ring may seem silly to some. It proves the point, however, of dealing with issues as soon as they arise. Failing to do so results in ongoing lost production. Taking the approach of “I’ll deal with this minor annoyance later” will result in you losing many hours over time in order to save a minute today. Don’t sacrifice hours to save a minute.

The fourth, and one of the biggest steps towards increased efficiency, is to improve your management of communications. Communications are one of the biggest ways you can lose time, for completely unproductive purposes, while feeling like you’re getting work done. Let’s look at the need to completely avoid real time communications and to better manage email.

One of the biggest problems in many tech companies (and businesses in general for that matter) is the use of real time messaging platforms such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, and others.

The problem with these platforms is twofold. First, they result in people sending a large number of small messages as opposed to requiring that they put all of their thoughts into one message. This means that the reader of these short messages has work in a constant state of distraction. The individual gets far less done as a result.

Second, and perhaps worse, is the fact that these platforms lead to co-workers/employees/partners sharing random thoughts that don’t really have anything to do with the project at hand as well as the sharing of messages essentially saying how much one liked the last message.

These types of interruptions contain no actionable information and, instead, just lead to the reader being bombarded by extra noise. It is far more efficient to read one comprehensive message, which is why we avoid these types of platforms.

Many developers could also improve how they manage email. It is a mistake to read emails as soon as they come in. Instead, you should completely deal with your email inbox during one to two set times per day, and avoid it for the rest of the time.

There are several reasons for this. First, as stated above, you shouldn’t read an email unless you are prepared to act on it. Second, it is important to consider how people tend to use email. Way too many people fire off a message as soon as a thought enters their head.

It’s not uncommon for me to open my inbox in the afternoon and have multiple emails from the same customer. By waiting to deal with emails until a set time, I can then read all of their emails and write one consolidated response. This is opposed to writing separate responses, which would take more time.

Also, you actually create more email for yourself to read if you respond to messages immediately. Suppose Joe Client sends you a random thought and you respond. Now suppose that Joe does this several more times, and you respond, during the day. Joe is likely to respond back to each of your responses (creating a large number of emails to read). By writing Joe a consolidated response, at a set time of the day, Joe will only have one email from you to respond to. The net result is far fewer messages hitting your inbox. This saves a great deal of time.

After reading the prior paragraph on email management, you may be saying to yourself “but my clients want to hear from me right away.” If you go through your inbox at least once a day, then they’re never going more than about 24 hours without a response.

If something is so important that someone can’t wait 24 hours for a response then they should be calling you on the phone as opposed to shooting you an email.

I never go through my email more than twice a day and our customers feel that we give good service. Save yourself time and only respond to emails during set time blocks each day.

When you put all of the above-mentioned concepts together you will greatly improve your efficiency.

By using the O.H.I.O method you will reduce the amount of time you spend reading email, reviewing documents, and so on.

Only starting projects when you are prepared to finish them, and working on one thing at a time, reduces distractions and allows you to stay in a groove.

Dealing with problems as soon as they arise will result in you losing minutes today, but saving hours over time.

Finally by improving/reducing your communications, you will avoid distractions and actually have fewer messages to respond to. Put these things together with actually putting in the hours and you have a recipe for success.

Suppose the foregoing efficiency tips make you twenty percent more efficient than the average developer. Also, suppose you average a minimum of 43.3 hours worked per week (the reason why I use this number was explained above). Finally, suppose your competitors average forty hours a week at average efficiency.

You will achieve in one year what it takes your competitors roughly 15.5 months to achieve. If you focus all of this production on high value activities, then your bank account will grow quickly.

Action items for freelance developers who wish to better manage their business on a day to day basis

Freelance developers can greatly increase their net income by better managing all aspects of their day-to-day operations. The following is a list of “action items” which can help you to immediately increase profits:

• Properly manage your financial and administrative affairs.
• Read Profit First and adopt its suggested financial plan for your business. Alternatively, develop your own financial plan and stick to it. Sign up for accounting/bookkeeping software and get in the habit of doing your books regularly.
• Research and learn about administrative requirements you must meet (i.e. filing for a business license). This will vary by state and locale. Your local Secretary of State’s Office may be able to assist with this information.
• Manage your development work in an efficient manner and identify your “high value” work opportunities.
• This is the work that pays the most per hour of labor, not necessarily the most in total.
• Make a plan to focus your business on these high value activities and maintain a narrow focus in regards to the type of work you take.
• Decide on a minimum number of hours that you will commit to the business each week. Make sure you hit this hour requirement on a weekly basis.
• Adopt the Only Handle It Once (O.H.I.O.) method.
• Adopt the habit of not starting on something until you are prepared to finish it.
• Adopt the habit of dealing with problems as soon as they arise.
• Improve your management of communications.
• Avoid “real-time” communication platforms such as Slack or Microsoft Teams.
• Set aside time each day in which you will deal with email. Do not deal with email outside of these designated time periods.

In no way is this guide meant to tell you every last thing you need to know about running your own business. Sticking with these tips, however, will help you to get out ahead of your competition.

Keep in mind that being successful in business requires effort in all of the areas described above. You’re never going to be better than the area you are weakest in. Because of this, I can't stress enough that you need need to be striving for constant improvement in all aspects of your business.

I am a web developer who maintains websites and other software on behalf of law firms through SEO For Lawyers . I am also a co-founder of Modern Website Design . I enjoy writing on issues related to small business and entrepreneurship.

Luke Ciciliano is a web developer who writes on issues relevant to freelancers and other developers starting their own business.

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How to start your own successful freelance business (+ ideas)

Ready to be your own boss? Check out our guide on creating a freelance business, including tips to get you started.

Build completely custom, production-ready websites — or ultra-high-fidelity prototypes — without writing a line of code. Only with Webflow.

Working for yourself is appealing — you set your hours and avoid the pains of micromanagement. The increase in virtual businesses makes freelancing more accessible than ever.

Since more and more Americans work remotely , companies can hire freelancers who work from home from across the globe. This accessibility means freelance businesses are more valuable — and successful — than ever.

According to Upwork’s 2022 Freelance Forward survey, the U.S. houses 60 million freelancers contributing over $1.35 trillion to the economy. Freelancing is at an all-time high — and freelancers are loving it. Upwork found that 68% of freelancers say they’re happier working for themselves than they were working a traditional job. Now’s the perfect time to join them.

What does it mean to be a freelancer?

Being a freelancer means you provide products and services to others but ultimately work for yourself. You set your own rates, start and stop working with clients whenever you want, and work on multiple projects at a time (unless you’ve signed a contract that says otherwise). Clients of all types — individuals, large corporations, startups — employ freelancers. You’ll work full or part time depending on what you choose to take on; work through contracts, by project, or hourly; and file your taxes as a self-employed worker. This flexibility is attractive. But starting a freelance business has some drawbacks. Unless otherwise stated in your contract with a company, you won’t receive any benefits like paid time off or health insurance. You might also lose some financial stability if your income depends on ebbing and flowing projects.

Still, a successful freelance business can enjoy income stability with returning clients and use their revenue to pay for any necessary benefits. And, if you want a slower month, you can turn down a contract or two to lighten your workload or pick up extra work to increase your cash flow.

Freelance business ideas

A freelance business is anything you do independently to make money (so the neighborhood kid selling lemonade is technically a freelancer). But some positions are more manageable than others — and more scalable. Here are a few excellent choices for freelance work:

• Web designer: These professionals use coding or no-code development platforms to design websites. You need an eye for color and composition, design chops, adaptation skills to accommodate varying client requests, and knowledge of basic search engine optimization (SEO) practices to create competitive, engaging sites.
• Photographer: If you’re handy with a camera, you could start a photography business freelancing for several clients or selling your images to stock photo sites like Getty Images or Shutterstock.
• Video editor: Video is one of the most effective and popular forms of marketing , so video editors are always in demand. You only need a powerful graphics card, some basic editing knowledge, and an eye for storytelling and flow.
• Graphic designer: These professionals typically use programs like Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create graphics for various projects, like logos and background images or billboards and physical mail-in ads.
• Copywriter: Copywriters create the text for virtual and physical promotional material, like SEO-focused articles, UX content , social media posts, and email campaigns.
• Data analyst: These freelancers organize and analyze data for clients in every industry. The data analyzed could be anything — click-throughs on a website, finances, or quarterly key performance indicators set out by the company.
• SEO consultant: Optimizing content to rank higher in Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) is complex work requiring a smart strategy and frequent improvements, and not all marketing teams have SEO experts on hand.
• Artist: For a more hands-on approach, you could sell your crafts — paintings, jewelry, wooden kids’ toys — through online markets like Etsy, Amazon Handmade, and Society6 or at farmers markets or fairs.

Design and build a custom portfolio website, visually, within 21 days.

How to start a freelance business: 8 steps

If you’re ready to begin your freelance career, start strong by following these eight steps:

1. Define your area of expertise

It’s time to pick an idea. Ask yourself: What product or service do I want to offer? This might mean picking up new skills or completing formal training before you’re ready to meet your clients’ needs.

2. Determine what you want from your business

Consider your values and what you hope to gain from your freelance business. You might want a part-time hustle that supplements your current job, or maybe you’d love to start a six-figure design agency after gaining some experience. Freelancers can also sign full-time contracts with larger organizations that offer stability but tie them down to strict working schedules. If you want more flexibility, you might prioritize being paid hourly and taking on multiple, smaller-scale contracts.

3. Define your target audience

You can learn more about what clients want and what you have to offer by filling out portfolios on freelance finder websites like Upwork and Fiverr. You don’t have to take any work from the sites, but looking at wanted ads and creating profiles helps you understand what potential clients need.

4. Set realistic and measurable goals

Don’t expect to get rich overnight — from upskilling to marketing, becoming a successful freelancer takes a lot of work. Make the workload manageable by creating SMART goals : specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. You’ll break down larger tasks like “market my business” into more digestible items like “create an Instagram account” or “draft a week’s worth of Facebook posts” so the entire process feels less overwhelming.

5. Determine your prices

The marketplace for freelancers constantly fluctuates, and freelancer rates vary depending on their experience and the quality of work. While setting your own wages can be daunting, you can use online tools or research other freelancers in your area with the same offering to help determine your prices.

6. Build a fantastic web portfolio

A great way to show off your skills is with a portfolio website that you link to on social platforms and share with potential clients through email or ad marketing campaigns. This landing page is a hub showcasing your talent so visitors understand what you do and why you’re great at it.

7. Market your services

Once your portfolio website is live and you’ve set up your social profiles, it’s time to market your services. Network with your personal and professional community to spread the word about your offering, and regularly add content to your blog and social accounts to build brand awareness and increase visibility.

8. Strategically choose your first client

To build your skills and portfolio, consider working on simulated projects (build a website for a pretend beauty brand, for example) or providing your services to friends and family for free. This way, you can get your bearings and gain experience before working for clients like large organizations with complicated projects.

Tips to improve your freelance business

One of the most challenging parts of freelancing is gaining visibility to grow your business. Securing new clients can be just as time-consuming as doing the actual work. Here are some tips to help you share your fantastic product or service:

• Make your portfolio stand out: Because freelance businesses are booming, potential clients have many options. Make your portfolio stand out by using unique and engaging templates .
• Network, network, network: Part of growing a freelance business is constant self-marketing — and that means telling people about your business. Go to events, bring up your services at dinner parties, and post online often to draw new customers to your site.
• Keep learning: Just as you’re responsible for your business’s visibility, you’re responsible for your professional development. You’ll only be able to raise prices or gain higher-paying clients if you can deliver better work than when you started. Keep up with industry trends, take courses to improve your skills , and develop a growth mindset to scale your business.
• Consider being an LLC: Registering as a limited liability company (LLC) makes paying taxes more straightforward and protects you from some liability risks.

Start your freelance career with a great website

Potential clients head to your website to learn more about your offering and find your contact information. Make it stand out and increase conversions by building it in Webflow, a visual web development platform that offers templates, analytics, and customer relationship management (CRM) features. Get started today .

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Guide to Building a Successful Freelance Business

Having a freelance business can afford you the freedom, choice, income, and independence you need to live a fuller and a more satisfying life. To help you get there, we've put together this go-to guide to building a successful freelance business online. We'll talk all about freelancing , from finding your niche to taxes and business options. Before you take the plunge into freelancing full time, ask yourself the following questions:

What are your motivations to go freelance?

Motivation is different for everybody, but some of the more common reasons are:

• You want to escape the mundane 9-5 rat race
• You need more flexibility in your daily schedule
• You want to have a better work/life balance
• You want control of your finances and career options
• You need the freedom a remote working environment affords

What's your motivation to freelance?

Are you making a considered decision or not?

So you've been not getting along with your boss, or you didn't win a particular account--both of those are unfortunate scenarios, but they aren't solid reasons to quit your steady job and decide to freelance. Think about it: becoming a freelancer isn't a decision to be taken lightly—we're talking about your career here. Remember, this is your long-term future and your personal finances, so a snap decision based on a few bad days or general job dissatisfaction isn't a smart move. Freelancing is very rewarding, but getting started is a lot of work, so it's important your motivation is strong enough to hold you steady while you get started. 

Whatever your motivation, take the time to think things through:

Create a brainstorming board with wants, needs, pros, and cons, and find out whether freelancing is really what you want, or whether your needs might better be served by another strategy entirely. If being a freelancer is the right path for you, then read on.

What Services Can You Offer?

As a freelancer, you aren’t locked into one role or position. While some choose to specialize in one field, or even one niche of one field, such as travel writing, others use their multi-passionate natures to freelance in several fields. There are so many types of freelance jobs online, that you'll be spoiled for choice. Consider freelance roles in: 

• Graphics and Design
• Web and Mobile Design
• Digital Marketing
• Writing and Translation
• Video and Animation
• Music and Audio
• Programming and Tech
• Business Services

Perhaps you are good with Adobe Photoshop , have a beautiful voice that would be good for voice-overs , and you can also create an amazing presentation in Powerpoint . There are so many options for freelancers looking to do business online that you can build a career with plenty of variety, whatever your skills.

How to Uncover your Freelance Potential

Analyze competitive offerings.

Let's say that you're a designer looking to get your freelance design business off the ground. The first thing you should do is look at others with successful freelance design businesses to gather insights into their competitive offerings. Take, for example, these Fiverr marketplace listing for designers.

You can see, even from this small sample, that there's a lot of variety in the services freelancers offer. From the insights you gain from your competitor research, you can establish what services you can offer, and if you can compete or carve out your own niche within the freelance marketplace.

List Your Skills

Start by listing all of your current skills. Write it all down. Don't obsess over making it perfect or only writing what you consider to be marketable. Answer the following: 

• What do you do, or have you previously done, for work? 
• Break down your current and previous roles. As part of your current job, do you find yourself writing reports? 
• Does your job require you to edit other people's work? 
• Do you run meetings? Organize schedules? 
• Were you involved with sales? What are your work-related skills? 

However insignificant they may seem, write them down. Next, list everything you're good at outside of work. Do you like to program simple applications or WordPress plugins in your free time? Do you edit photos? Make videos? Design digital art? Are you a calligrapher? A fitness fanatic?

Once you've got your list, eliminate any of the items that you really did not enjoy and would not want to do on a regular basis. While it's important for a freelancer to make a livable income, it's difficult to thrive doing things you really dislike - it'll quickly take the shine off freelancing. 

How to Be a Freelancer: 105 Tips to Achieve Success

Defining your skills helps you “zero in” on what you’re truly good at, and what can really help you thrive in the freelance world. (read article), research your marketable skills.

Now get down to research. Which of the remaining skills are marketable? The key is to find the "sweet spot" between what you're good at and what makes you the amount of money you need to live comfortably. Your time is valuable, so you need to establish which skills are worth pursuing. Eliminate the ones that you don't feel pay enough to be worth your time. 

Now you should have a nice defined list of items that fall into that "sweet spot". These are the core skills you can use to start your freelance business. From here, you should be able to start building services or packages to offer potential clients.

Key Takeaway: Do your research if you want to become a freelancer.

• List all of your skills (both from work experience and hobbies or interests)
• Eliminate all those skills you don't really want to do for work
• Start researching to establish which skills are marketable
• Establish which skills pay well enough to help you build the income level you need and eliminate the others
• Take the remaining skills as the foundation from which to build your freelance business

Study Up: Get Additional Education and Certifications

Whether you want to hone existing skills or learn new ones, self-education is perfect for those who want to freelance. It's not just about the skills you gain - although that's obviously the key factor, it also shows potential clients that you're serious. Serious enough to have invested time and resources into your continued professional development. If a client is considering who to hire between you and another freelancer, and everything else is equal, they're going to choose the candidate that demonstrates they're committed and invested in their freelance career. And, given that we're in the Digital Age, you don't even have to go to school to gain those skills. 

Fiverr, for example, has a section dedicated to freelancer education with all types of training courses, ranging from storytelling to technical SEO audits. Here’s an example course from Jon Youshaei about, “ Stories That Sell: 7 Secrets To Create Killer Content. ”

With Fiverr's courses, you aren't locked into a monthly subscription. Each course is a single purchase, and you retain lifetime access to it, so you can revisit and refresh your skills whenever you need.

Key Takeaway: Invest in yourself and your freelance business by honing existing skills and learning new ones.

• Look at the skills you'd like to learn, and prioritize them
• Take a relevant course in the one new skill that you identified as your highest priority
• Add the skill to your freelance profile and start practicing that skill, building your experience and portfolio in that area

Building and Testing Your Idea

Its time to formulate a clear plan to freelance success . 

Scope and Price Your Projects

Start with one or two services that you can excel at. Flesh out what you're prepared to offer and at what price. Keep your offering simple, but make sure you are very clear about the scope of what you're offering. Don't leave any room for misunderstanding. If you're building a content writing business model, for example, you may decide you want to offer a blog article service . 

• How much are you charging? Review competitive price points, and do your research on what you should be charging. 
• How many revisions are you prepared to do?
• How many days will it take you to deliver?

Identify what the scope of work, and budget range is that you are willing to work within.  You want to make sure that you are comfortable the that range.

 Test Your Project

Before you dive in, you should test your freelance project ideas. Don't just rely on a single test - run several with different people. Here are some simple ways to test your ideas:

• Offer free services to friends and family.
• Offer heavily discounted rates for your first 5-10 projects, or do the work at cost.
• Donate your service to a non-profit or cause of your choice to get started. 

You get a few other benefits from the multi-test approach, aside from finding out if your service works:

• You get samples for your portfolio
• You get on-the-job experience
• You find out how long it really takes for you to complete the job to the best of your ability.

Identify and Locate Your Target Clients

If you're wondering how to get freelance work, the answer is simple: It's knowing who your clients are and where to find them. One of the most challenging aspects of your freelance startup will be finding clients. But not just any clients. You need the right clients.  

It's time to put together your primary client persona - that's the ideal person who wants your service. This way, you can narrow down and only focus on clients who fit your buyer persona. 

The persona should include as much information as possible, such as:

• Pain points/needs
• The solutions you can offer to solve those needs
• Where they do business
• Online presence

Whether you're doing client outreach or listing your services on Fiverr, make sure you keep your customer persona right at the front of your mind. 

Key Takeaway: Finding new clients is challenging for freelancers, but you can make it easier.

• Create a customer persona for each of your services
• Establish how best to make contact with that persona, and do it
• Make sure you have a robust Fiverr account with strong service packages and upsells
• Do plenty of competitor research using tools like SimilarWeb
• Use FollowerWonk and email finders to reach out to prospects directly

Create a Strategy for Your Freelance Startup

It doesn't matter whether you're starting to freelance on the side while working your regular job or jumping in feet-first and aiming to go full-time right out of the gate - you still need a rock-solid strategy. Assuming you're following the steps in this freelance guide you are off to a good start. You already have the answers to some of the key components of your strategy.

Strategy Foundations

A good freelance business strategy will start with the foundation and basics of your business model. So far you should have documented:

• Service offering overviews
• Pricing of your services
• Test project results and insights
• Your buyer personas for each service

Resource Planning

Now it's time to add those components to your freelance business plan and round it out with the other essential factors, which include answering questions such as:

• What timeframe are you looking to become a freelancer within?
• How much do you need to earn per month or year to comfortably meet your financial needs? How many gigs or hours of billable work does that require? Can you be competitive?
• How many orders can you comfortably accommodate in a week or a month?

Key takeaways:

• Establish a foundation of your business (personas, pricing, project overviews)
• Establish long-term goals for your business (timeline to becoming full-time, incoming revenue goals, etc.)

Keeping Yourself on Track

Productivity is a crucial element to success in your freelance business, so you need to incorporate it into your overall strategy. It's easy to get lost in the minutiae of being a freelancer or in all the little distractions that occur when you start to work from home. You can lose focus or have so much to do that you dither and procrastinate and end up achieving very little. 

Set Working Hours

Get yourself on a tight schedule, just as if you were going to work at a brick and mortar job. Set strict working hours, whether that's 9 to 5 or 6 to 10, then 2 to 8. Make sure it's a realistic and achievable schedule. 

Then, within that schedule, pencil in specific times for particular tasks. For example, set aside an hour on Mondays and Thursdays for checking and responding to emails. You know you need to network on a regular basis, so maybe set aside two hours on a Tuesday morning just for that. Punch in the times you'll be working on client gigs, the time you'll be spending researching new potential clients, and time for learning. Obviously leave some room for flexibility, as the most successful freelancers are agile as well as well-organized. Using a calendar and strict timetable will help you stay on track and help you avoid overwhelm. 

Use Project Management Tools

Another great freelance tip to avoid overwhelm is to use project management tools and systems to keep yourself on track. You might prefer a whiteboard, or a pen and paper journal. There are also a number of great project management tools digitally to tap into for digital to-do list creation such as Asana, or Trello.

Include Break time

Don't forget to schedule in breaks. It's all too easy as a freelancer just to burn right through the whole day, but that isn't healthy for your body or mind. When you're setting up your timetable, make sure you include regular breaks to get away from your desk, get up and walk around, get outside, or just to go make a drink and some food. You need to get up and move around regularly throughout the day, and your eyes and brain need regular digital breaks.

Start Your Freelance Business

So now you've got a solid plan. You've identified your goals and established how you're going to get there. Now the real work begins - starting your freelance business. Building your brand as a freelance startup is crucial, just like any business. 

Yes, you can build a freelance website, as it's a great branding tool, but it's costly and time-consuming, particularly if you don't know how. That's one of the reasons Fiverr is a great place to start freelancing. You don't need any coding or web development skills - all you need to do is  sign up and create your seller profile . Then you can create your first gig and start selling. See our how to start selling on Fiverr help article for more info.

A freelance marketplace like Fiverr makes freelancing easier for beginners are career-long professionals in a number of ways:

• Clients come to you, specifically looking for your service
• Reduces the cold pitching you need to do
• Lets you showcase your best work
• Lets you set a clear scope of work up front, right in your service offering, so there's no misunderstandings later
• Allows clear upsells
• Shows verified reviews and feedback to establish trust
• Lets you send custom offers
• Lets you easily add video to your gig

And that's not all. In 2018, Fiverr acquired And Co to help freelancers manage the administrative side of their businesses. Services and features include time tracking, invoicing and payments, customizable proposals, contracts, expense tracking, income reports, and more. This helps you free up valuable time that you can invest in securing more gigs, engaging with clients, and learning new skills.

Do I Need an LLC to Freelance?

Whether a freelancer should form an LLC (Limited Liability Company) or not is a personal choice. The biggest benefit is that it may limit your risk to the amount of capital you've invested in your business. Sole proprietors have unlimited liability, you are your business, and your personal assets and funds may be at risk if you encounter legal trouble. If you decide you do want to form an LLC, remember to factor the state fees and filing fees into account when pricing your services. You'll also need to keep different and more thorough business records.

Key Takeaway: There's a lot to think about when you launch your freelance business.

• Building a freelance website is a secondary consideration, given the marketplace options available
• Make it easy on yourself to establish yourself and find clients by signing up as a seller on Fiverr
• Set up your Fiverr seller profile
• Create your first Fiverr gig and start selling
• Sign up to And Co to help run the administrative side of your freelance business
• Decide whether you need to form an LLC or whether you want to wait until you're more established

How to Win  Freelance Work

There are a few different strategies you can employ to help you win your first clients. 

1. Really work on your Unique Seling Point

Your unique selling point is how you differ and/or offer more value than your competitors. Don't drop your prices - you've already established how much you need to charge to meet your needs. 

Instead, focus on what you can offer that other people don't. Maybe you can include two images in your blog post offering. Perhaps you could do a time-limited offer of an infographic with a blog post. How about a free printable calendar? If you're bilingual, you could offer a free translation of your blog post. A free upgrade to a higher-quality image file? A free content health analysis with your SEO service? Or perhaps your USP is your demonstrable expertise in your field. Perhaps you only work on one project at a time, so your client gets your absolute, laser-focused attention. 

Whatever your unique values are, emphasize them when you sell. 

2. Leverage Your Social Networks

You may be surprised at how many people in your existing social network need your skills, so it's a great place to start to attract clients. And you can ask family and friends to share, too. This kind of self-promotion is invaluable, whether you're just starting to freelance or you've been doing it for decades. 

On LinkedIn, for example, make sure you create a strong profile that showcases your skills and get involved with relevant groups and conversations. And don't forget to use Fiverr's social sharing functionality to showcase your available gigs. 

3. Win Clients With Your Knowledge

You can show you have industry expertise, help people at the same time, and expand your brand trust and reach. The easiest way is to use sites like Reddit and Quora to answer questions in your niche. Just make sure your answers are accurate and offer real value, otherwise, you'll get yourself a bad reputation instead of a good one. Read our guide to freelance marketing with Quora for more info

4. Use Paid Ads

If you have the budget, you can drive targeted traffic to your freelance offerings with paid ads. Choose from social ads like those for Facebook or LinkedIn, or go with search engine ads. Just remember to make sure you target your ads specifically to your primary customer personas, or you'll be throwing away your money.

Key Takeaway: Winning your first freelance gigs isn't as difficult as it may seem.

• Define your unique selling point and use it
• Leverage your social networks
• Showcase your knowledge on sites like Quora and JustAnswer
• Use paid ads if your budget allows
• Bring existing customers to Fiverr to expose them to your other services

Find more strategies and tips on how to succeed on Fiverr as a seller with this free ebook.

Deciding to become a freelancer may one of the biggest decisions you ever make. It takes dedication and commitment to achieve success. There's an awful lot to wrap your head around as you get started, too, from trying to decide what services you can offer to taxes and retirement plans. This guide breaks down what can seem like a gargantuan task into manageable chunks, guiding you through the process. We've included plenty of actionable insights and useful freelance tips to get you started the right way. At Fiverr, we love to help freelancers win, so you'll find lots of other help on our blog .

The best option is having options.

Freelance Social Media services. Built for teams.

• Understanding freelancing
• Skills assessment
• Niche selection
• Business planning
• Legal and formalities
• Client Management
• Financial management
• Time management
• Stress management
• Tools and resources
• Accessories and Furniture
• Marketing strategies
• Client acquisition
• Client retention
• Portfolio expansion
• Improve skills

Why Every Freelancer Needs a Business Plan: A Comprehensive Guide

Why Freelancers Need a Business Plan

How to create a business plan, business planning for freelancers: faqs.

As a seasoned freelancer with over two decades of experience, I’ve seen firsthand the critical role a solid business plan plays in achieving long-term success . It’s a common misconception among many freelancers that a business plan is an unnecessary formality, a paperwork exercise more suited to traditional businesses than their own flexible, creative endeavors. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

A business plan functions as a roadmap , guiding freelancers toward their professional objectives and aspirations. It sets the direction, detailing not just where you want to go, but also how you intend to get there. This plan helps freelancers navigate the often unpredictable terrain of self-employment, making it easier to anticipate potential challenges and obstacles along the way.

Moreover, a business plan does more than just outline your trajectory ; it also clarifies your broader goals. It prompts you to think about what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve it, and what you’re willing to do to reach those milestones. This process of reflection and articulation can provide a much-needed sense of purpose and direction, particularly when you’re navigating the freelance world solo.

But a business plan isn’t just an abstract concept or a motivational tool; it’s also a practical guide . It highlights the operational aspects of your freelance business, such as your target market, pricing strategy, marketing approach, necessary tools and software, and financial goals. By addressing these factors, your business plan can offer invaluable insights into the practicalities of running a successful freelance operation.

In this article, we will delve deeper into why every freelancer needs a business plan . We’ll explore each component of a robust business plan, providing you with the knowledge and tools to create your own. Whether you’re a seasoned freelancer or just starting, the importance of a business plan cannot be overstated. So, let’s embark on this journey together, demystifying the process of creating a business plan and setting the foundation for your freelance success.

Many people tend to associate business plans with traditional businesses or startups seeking investment. However, as a freelancer, having a business plan can be just as beneficial and can indeed be the catalyst that propels your freelance career to new heights ( Collective ).

A business plan lays out all of your goals for your freelance business for the next three to five years . It provides you with clear direction for achieving your goals so you can grow and succeed over time ( Make a Living Writing ).

Not only does it offer a clear line of sight for your target, but it also helps in setting priorities . Having a solid freelance business plan is crucial for achieving long-term success. It’s a roadmap outlining your goals, target audience, and financial projections ( Invoice Owl ).

Even if a freelancer may not have the same traditional structure as a brick-and-mortar business, this plan is essential ( Freelancermap ).

Firstly, a business plan helps set clear goals and objectives . As a freelancer, you are your own boss, which means you’re responsible for setting your path. A business plan acts as a roadmap, guiding you towards your ultimate professional destination. It forces you to sit down and clearly articulate what you want to achieve in your freelance career, whether it’s expanding your client base, increasing your income, or branching out into new areas of expertise. Having these goals written down in a structured format can provide a sense of direction and keep you focused when distractions or challenges arise.

Secondly, a business plan allows you to identify potential roadblocks and challenges ahead of time . Freelancing is not without its difficulties, and it’s much easier to navigate these obstacles if you’ve prepared for them in advance. Whether it’s market competition, fluctuating demand, or financial management, a business plan can help you foresee these issues and develop strategies to mitigate them before they become significant problems. This proactive approach can save you a lot of stress and uncertainty in the long run.

Lastly, a business plan isn’t just for your personal use – it can also be a powerful tool for securing funding, partnerships, and clients . A well-crafted business plan showcases your vision, professionalism, and commitment to your freelance career. It demonstrates that you take your work seriously and have a clear plan for success. Whether you’re pitching to potential clients, negotiating partnerships, or applying for grants or loans, having a solid business plan can give you an edge over other freelancers and instill confidence in those considering investing in your services.

A business plan is an essential tool for any freelancer . It provides a roadmap for success, prepares you for potential challenges, and enhances your professional credibility. Armed with a comprehensive business plan, you’ll be well-equipped to navigate the freelance landscape and steer your career towards success.

Understanding your target market is the next crucial step . A thorough audience analysis will help you understand your potential customers’ needs, preferences, and behaviors, enabling you to tailor your products or services to meet their demands effectively.

Once you’ve identified your target market, it’s time to detail the services you offer . Clearly defining what you’re selling will not only help potential clients understand your business but also help you focus your marketing efforts.

The next step involves developing a pricing strategy . Your prices need to be competitive yet profitable, which requires a careful analysis of the market and your costs.

Your marketing approach follows closely behind . This encompasses how you plan to promote your business and attract customers. It could include tactics like social media marketing, SEO, or traditional marketing methods.

Operational requirements come next and refer to the resources you’ll need to run your business. These might include personnel, equipment, or software, among others.

Finally, your business plan should include your financial goals and projections . This section gives potential investors an idea of your business’s profitability and financial health, making it a critical component of any business plan. By carefully crafting each of these sections, you’ll create a comprehensive business plan that provides a clear path forward for your business.

Company Summary and Purpose

This foundational element sets the tone for the rest of your plan and serves as a reference point for all subsequent decisions.

To define your freelance business, you need to conduct a thorough self-assessment . This includes identifying your strengths and weaknesses as a freelancer. Are you an exceptional communicator, do you have a knack for problem-solving, or perhaps you possess a unique skill set that sets you apart from others in your field? These are your strengths, and they form the core of your freelance business. On the other hand, recognizing your weaknesses is equally important. Perhaps you struggle with time management or aren’t as tech-savvy as you’d like to be. Acknowledging these areas for improvement can help you devise strategies to overcome these challenges, ensuring they don’t hinder your success.

Next, consider your unique selling points (USPs) . Your USPs are the characteristics or qualities that differentiate you from your competitors. Maybe it’s your extensive experience, your specialized knowledge, or your commitment to customer service. Whatever it is, your USPs should be highlighted prominently in your business plan, as they’re key to attracting and retaining clients.

Once you’ve assessed your abilities and identified your USPs, it’s time to define your business’s purpose . Why does your freelance business exist beyond making money? What value do you bring to your clients? Your purpose should reflect the impact you aim to have on your clients or the industry. It should resonate with your target audience and align with their needs and values.

Your vision statement, on the other hand, is a forward-looking declaration of your business’s goals and aspirations . It outlines where you see your freelance business heading in the future and sets a clear direction for growth and development. Your vision statement should be ambitious yet achievable, inspiring yet grounded in reality.

Defining your freelance business, its purpose, and vision statement is not just an academic exercise . It helps establish your brand and shapes your messaging, making it easier to communicate with potential clients. It enables you to convey what you stand for, what you offer, and how you’re different from other freelancers in a clear and compelling manner. This clarity can set you apart in a crowded marketplace and attract clients who align with your values and appreciate your unique offerings.

Target Market/Audience Analysis

This process involves more than just figuring out who might pay for your services; it requires a deep understanding of their needs, preferences, and behaviors.

To start, you need to identify who your ideal client is . This can be based on numerous factors such as industry, company size, job title, geographic location, or any other criteria that are relevant to your freelancing services. The more specific you can be, the better. This will allow you to focus your efforts on the clients most likely to hire you and benefit from your services.

Once you have a clear picture of who your target clients are, you need to understand their needs . What problems are they facing that your services can solve? What goals do they have that you can help them achieve? This understanding will allow you to tailor your services to meet their specific needs, increasing the value you provide and making you a more attractive choice than your competitors.

Understanding your audience also plays a vital role in crafting effective messaging and marketing materials . Knowing your target clients’ needs, challenges, and aspirations will allow you to speak directly to these points in your marketing materials. This will make your messaging more engaging and persuasive, increasing the likelihood of attracting new clients.

Additionally, a deep understanding of your target audience can inform your pricing strategy . Knowing what your clients value and what they’re willing to pay for can help you set prices that are both competitive and profitable. This balance is key to maintaining a sustainable freelancing business.

Failing to understand your target clients can have serious consequences for your business . It can lead to ineffective marketing, mispriced services, and a lack of competitive edge. On the other hand, a clear understanding of your target clients and their needs can inform every aspect of your business strategy, from service development to marketing and pricing. This understanding is key to standing out in a crowded market and driving the success of your freelancing business.

Services Offered

Therefore, it’s crucial to detail these services in a way that not only clearly defines what you do but also illustrates how what you do meets the needs of your target clients.

To start, you need to clearly delineate each service you offer . This could range from specific tasks, like graphic design or content creation, to more comprehensive packages, like full marketing strategy development or project management. Be as specific as possible, as this will help potential clients understand exactly what they’re getting when they hire you.

Next, align your services with your unique selling points (USPs) and the needs of your target audience . If you’ve identified that your USP is your extensive experience in a particular industry, for example, you’ll want to emphasize how your services leverage this experience to deliver superior results. If your target clients are small businesses looking for cost-effective solutions, you might highlight how your services provide excellent value for money.

This alignment does more than just make your services attractive to potential clients; it also helps you stand out from your competitors . By focusing on what makes you different – whether it’s specialized skills, innovative offerings, or exceptional customer service – you can position yourself as a unique solution to your clients’ needs. This differentiation is key to winning clients in a competitive marketplace.

Remember, your services are not just a list of tasks you can perform ; they’re solutions to your clients’ problems. By detailing your services in relation to your USPs and your clients’ needs, you can present your freelance business as a valuable partner, capable of delivering the results your clients are looking for. This approach will not only help you attract more clients but also build stronger, more profitable relationships with them.

Pricing Strategy

The right pricing strategy not only influences your income but also impacts how potential clients perceive the value of your work.

Setting competitive and profitable prices for your services is essential for the sustainability of your freelance business . Your prices need to be competitive enough to attract clients, but they also need to be profitable enough to cover your business expenses and provide a decent income.

To set effective prices, several factors should be taken into consideration . First, consider the market demand for your services and the location in which you operate. These factors can influence how much clients are willing to pay. For example, if you’re offering a service that’s in high demand or operating in a location with a high cost of living, you may be able to charge higher rates.

Next, take a look at what your competitors are charging . While you don’t want to base your prices solely on what others are charging, understanding the going rate for similar services can give you a good starting point. You can then adjust your prices based on your unique value proposition and experience level.

Your value proposition – that is, the unique value you bring to your clients – should also play a significant role in your pricing strategy. If you offer specialized skills, years of experience, or exceptional customer service, for instance, these are all reasons you might justify charging higher rates than your competitors.

While it may be tempting for freelancers to underprice their services in an attempt to attract more clients, this approach can ultimately harm your business . Charging too little can make it difficult to cover your business expenses or invest in growth opportunities. It can also undervalue your services, leading clients to question the quality of your work.

Remember, pricing is more than just a number; it’s a reflection of the value you provide . By setting competitive and profitable prices, you can ensure the sustainability of your freelance business and attract clients who appreciate the value of your work.

Marketing Approach

As a freelancer, you are your own brand, and it’s through marketing that you communicate your brand’s value to potential clients. From building awareness and attracting new clients to nurturing relationships and driving growth, effective marketing strategies can be a game-changer for freelancers.

One of the most potent tools in a freelancer’s marketing arsenal is a strong online presence . In today’s digital age, the first place potential clients often look when they need a service is the internet. Having a professional, easy-to-navigate website that showcases your portfolio, highlights your services, and provides clear contact information can significantly increase your visibility and help attract new clients. Regularly updating your website with fresh content can also improve your search engine rankings, making it easier for potential clients to find you.

Social media platforms are another powerful marketing tool . They offer a way to reach a large audience at relatively low cost. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or a combination of these, social media can be used to share your work, engage with your audience, and build your brand identity. By posting regularly and engaging with followers, you can use social media to establish yourself as an expert in your field and attract new clients.

Content marketing is another effective strategy . This could involve creating blog posts, videos, podcasts, or infographics that provide valuable information to your target audience. By providing useful content, you not only demonstrate your expertise but also build trust with potential clients. Plus, high-quality content can boost your SEO, driving more traffic to your website.

Email marketing campaigns can also be highly effective . Whether you’re sending out a regular newsletter, promoting a new service, or sharing your latest blog post, email allows you to directly reach people who have expressed interest in your services. It’s a great way to nurture relationships with existing clients and keep your brand top of mind for potential clients.

Networking, both online and offline, is another crucial element of a freelancer’s marketing plan . Joining industry groups, attending relevant events, or participating in online communities can help you connect with potential clients, learn about new opportunities, and stay abreast of industry trends.

Marketing is a necessary component for any freelancer aiming for success . By leveraging a range of strategies—from maintaining a strong online presence and utilizing social media to implementing content marketing and email campaigns—freelancers can effectively attract clients, build their brand, and ultimately grow their business.

Operational Requirements

Using effective project management and invoicing tools can streamline these processes, which not only increases efficiency but also contributes to a more professional image.

Firstly, project management tools are essential for keeping track of tasks, deadlines, and communication with clients . These tools can help you organize your workload, prioritize tasks, and ensure that nothing slips through the cracks. They provide a central hub where you can manage all aspects of your projects, from initial planning to final deliverables. This can be particularly useful for freelancers juggling multiple projects or clients at once.

Using project management tools can also improve your communication with clients . They often include features such as shared task lists, progress tracking, and messaging platforms, which can help clarify expectations and keep clients informed about the status of their projects. This transparency can enhance client satisfaction and lead to more positive working relationships.

On the other hand, invoicing software is crucial for managing your freelance finances . These tools can automate the process of creating, sending, and tracking invoices, saving you valuable time and reducing the risk of errors. Many invoicing tools also offer features like automatic reminders for overdue payments, which can help ensure you get paid on time.

Professional invoicing not only makes your life easier but also contributes to a more professional image . It shows clients that you take your business seriously and have systems in place to ensure smooth financial transactions. This can increase clients’ trust in your services and make them more likely to hire you again in the future.

Lastly, both project management and invoicing tools can be invaluable for freelancers working remotely . They allow you to manage your business from anywhere, providing the flexibility that is often one of the main attractions of freelancing.

To succeed in the competitive world of freelancing, it’s not enough to just be good at what you do . You also need to manage your projects and finances effectively. By leveraging the right tools, you can increase your efficiency, present a more professional image, and ultimately drive the success of your freelance business.

Financial Goals and Projections

Setting achievable financial goals is essential for ensuring the sustainability and growth of your freelance business.

Firstly, being aware of your income and expenses is crucial . As a freelancer, your income may fluctify based on the number and size of the projects you undertake. Therefore, it’s important to track your income accurately. Additionally, understanding your expenses – both business expenses like software subscriptions, marketing costs, and taxes, as well as personal expenses – is key to managing your finances effectively.

Once you have a clear picture of your income and expenses, you can start setting financial goals . These might include income targets, savings goals, or debt repayment plans. When setting these goals, it’s important to be realistic. While it’s good to aim high, setting unachievable goals can lead to disappointment and demotivation. On the other hand, setting goals that are challenging yet achievable can drive you to improve your performance and grow your business.

Building financial projections is a useful tool in this process . By projecting your future income and expenses, you can establish targets and measure your progress towards them. This can help you stay focused and motivated, as well as identify potential issues before they become major problems.

Planning for taxes is another critical aspect of financial management for freelancers . Unlike traditional employees who have their taxes automatically deducted from their paychecks, freelancers are responsible for calculating and paying their own taxes. This can be a complex process, as tax obligations can vary significantly depending on factors like your income level, location, and business structure. Therefore, it’s important to plan for taxes as part of your financial goals to avoid surprises come tax season.

Setting achievable financial goals is a crucial component of freelancing success . By maintaining a clear understanding of your income and expenses, setting realistic goals, and planning for taxes, you can ensure the financial health of your freelance business.

A business plan is not just a tool for securing funding or attracting investors; it’s a roadmap that guides your freelancing journey . It outlines your business strategy, sets clear objectives, and provides a framework for making decisions. Whether you’re just starting out as a freelancer or looking to take your business to the next level, a comprehensive business plan is an invaluable asset.

The first component of a business plan is a summary of your company and its purpose . This should include a clear statement of what you do, who you do it for, and why you do it. It’s your chance to define your brand and convey your passion and expertise. This section sets the tone for the rest of your business plan and can be instrumental in engaging potential clients or investors.

Next, your business plan should include an analysis of your target market or audience . Understanding who your potential clients are and what they need is crucial for developing effective strategies and offerings. This section should detail your ideal client profile, the problems they face, and how your services can solve those problems.

A detailed description of the services you offer is another essential component of your business plan . This section should clearly outline what you provide, how it benefits your clients, and how it sets you apart from your competitors. It’s your opportunity to show potential clients why they should choose you over other freelancers.

Your pricing strategy should also be included in your business plan . This should detail how much you charge for your services, how you arrived at these prices, and how they compare to the competition. A well-thought-out pricing strategy can demonstrate your value proposition and reassure potential clients that your services are worth the investment.

Your marketing approach is another key element of your business plan . This section should outline how you plan to attract and retain clients, including the marketing channels you’ll use, the messages you’ll convey, and the tactics you’ll employ to engage your audience.

Operational requirements are another important aspect to consider . This could include the tools and software you use, your workflow processes, or any other operational aspects that contribute to your ability to deliver your services effectively.

Lastly, your business plan should include your financial goals and projections . This section should outline your income targets, expense forecasts, and financial milestones. It serves as a benchmark for measuring your success and helps ensure that your business remains financially sustainable.

In conclusion, every freelancer needs a business plan . It’s more than just a document; it’s a strategic tool that guides your business decisions, communicates your value, and propels your freelancing career forward. By taking the time to create a comprehensive business plan, you’re taking the first step towards achieving your freelancing goals.

How do I write a freelance business plan?

Writing a freelance business plan involves several key steps. Start by defining your company’s summary and purpose, which includes what you do, who you serve, and why you do it. Next, analyze your target market or audience to understand their needs and how your services can meet them. Then, clearly outline the services you offer and how they benefit your clients. Your pricing strategy should detail how much you charge and how these prices compare to your competitors. Include a marketing approach that outlines how you will attract and retain clients. Lastly, establish your financial goals and projections to ensure your business remains financially sustainable. Remember, your business plan is a strategic tool that guides your decisions, so take time to create it thoughtfully.

Does a freelancer need a business plan?

Yes, a freelancer does need a business plan. A business plan serves as a roadmap for your freelancing journey. It outlines your business strategy, sets clear objectives, and provides a framework for decision-making. Key components include company summary, target market analysis, services offered, pricing strategy, marketing approach, operational requirements, and financial goals. A well-structured business plan can help avoid chaos and promote strategic growth. It helps set long-term goals, break them into achievable steps, and manage financial aspects. Remember, as a freelancer, you’re not just a service provider but a business owner.

Can you pay someone to write a business plan for you?

Yes, you can hire a professional business plan writer or a consultancy to write a business plan for you. These professionals bring expertise and an outside perspective to your business concept. They can help articulate your ideas, conduct market research, develop strategies, and create financial projections. However, while hiring someone can save time, it can also be costly. Plus, no one understands your business as well as you do. Whether you choose to hire a professional or write it yourself, being actively involved in the process is crucial.

How do freelancers get first clients?

Freelancers can secure their first clients through various strategies. Building connections with businesses and individuals you admire is a good starting point. You can reach out to potential clients directly or wait for them to request your services. It’s also beneficial to develop referral partnerships and offer your skills as a service. Defining your ideal client or market is another crucial step. Getting better at what you do and seeking feedback from clients, colleagues, and experts can also help. Additionally, using your social media wisely can aid in growing your business. Lastly, don’t hesitate to ask family and friends for help in finding your first few jobs. Remember, the process may be challenging, but perseverance and a strategic approach can lead to success.

Can I write a business plan myself?

Absolutely, you can write a business plan yourself. In fact, doing so can be beneficial because it gives you a deep understanding of every aspect of your business. The process involves researching and reflecting on your business concept, target market, competition, operational structure, and financial projections. There are plenty of resources available online, including templates and guides, to help you through the process. Remember, a business plan is not a one-time document but a living guide that should evolve as your business grows and changes. Writing your own business plan can be a valuable learning experience and a great way to take ownership of your business’s future.

How do I write my first business plan?

Writing a business plan involves summarizing your business, describing its operations, analyzing the market, detailing your service or product, outlining your marketing strategy, and presenting financial projections. It’s a vital document that guides your business’s growth and can attract potential investors.

Do freelancers write their own contracts?

Yes, freelancers often write their own contracts. These contracts outline the terms of the project, including the scope of work, payment terms, deadlines, and any other relevant details. Writing your own contract allows you to ensure that your interests are protected. However, it’s always a good idea to have a lawyer review your contract to make sure it’s legally sound. There are also templates and tools available online that can help freelancers create their own contracts.

Do I need a logo as a freelancer?

As a freelancer, having a logo can be beneficial for your branding strategy. A well-designed logo can help to differentiate you from others in your field, add credibility and professionalism to your freelance business, and can be a deciding factor for potential clients choosing between you and your competition. It tells potential clients who you are, what you do, and how that benefits them. Furthermore, a logo can communicate to people with no prior knowledge or experience with your business that you do great work. However, remember that a logo is just one part of your overall brand identity.

What are examples of business plan?

There are many examples of business plans available online. For instance, Shopify offers seven business plan examples that include elements such as an executive summary, company description, market analysis, products and services, a marketing plan, logistics and operations plan, and financial plan. Similarly, Hubspot provides a list of sample business plans to inspire entrepreneurs on their journey. Sites like Bplans.com offer over 500 free business plan examples and templates . Furthermore, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) provides guidance on writing your business plan, including examples.

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Options and Tips for Creating a Web Design Business Plan

Don’t get too intimidated by writing a web design business plan, a lot of it just means getting down onto paper things you likely have been considering anyway. According to Entrepreneur “Writing…

Estimated Read Time:   40 minutes

Don’t get too intimidated by writing a web design business plan , a lot of it just means getting down onto paper things you likely have been considering anyway. According to Entrepreneur “Writing out your business plan forces you to review everything at once: your value proposition, marketing assumptions, operations plan, financial plan and staffing plan.”

If I can do it – and go from 1 to 10 people in three years, you can too 😉 My wife will tell you… I’m no genius.

Table of Contents

Main Points in a Web Design Business Plan Outline:

1. business concept –.

What is the web design industry like in your immediate area and region? What are the high-level possibilities for the success of your web design business? What are the prime differentiating factors and how you will set yourself apart from the competition?

2. Who is the market for your web design firm?

Who are your customers? Are you serving only mid-sized businesses? Only editorial publications? Churches? Non-profits? Teenie tiny mom and pop shops? Fortune 500 companies? What niche are you looking to serve? What is the demand like for the service? And this leads us into our next question.. What does your pricing need to look like to serve these customers? And it’s not always getting your price down into affordability; maybe you need to price higher so that your company seems more professional and that you can offer above and beyond service. “Price high and justify.”

3. Income and Cash Flow Statement, Balance Sheet etc.

“Start by estimating the revenues generated by an average sale. Then subtract the costs that change with each transaction, like sales commissions and costs of producing the products sold. The result is your “unit contribution.” Next, predict your monthly overhead, or expenses that don’t vary directly with sales volume, such as rent, salaries, utilities, legal fees, and accounting expenses. Finally, divide your monthly overhead by your unit contribution. That number will tell you how many transactions you’ll need per month to break-even.” From this article on Inc. of The Basics of a Business Plan by the Numbers.

Get started with this One Page Web Design Business Plan

General Principles for writing a Web Design Business Plan:

1. Keep your business plan short and simple.

Go for it right now with this One Page Web Design Business Plan .

2. Use visual charts to quickly show key numbers.

3. Do what you do best, and make it look professional.

4. Ask key questions like what will be it’s annual revenue in a year, and in 5 years.

5. What things can I delegate? Sales, Technical or others? How will you attract these people to help, and what will be your key differentiators of process and culture?

6. Is the business plan going to help you raise money? 

7. How much of an initial investment will the business need?

Tools for Creating a Business Plan:

1. LivePlan.com – Visual planning tool, helpful if you really don’t know where to start. It will give you the sections and the template is already there.

2. The Art of The Start 2.0 (Book by Guy Kawasaki) – “It’s most relevant for technology or IT companies, but he has a way of writing that’s very clear, very to the point. There’s not a lot of pedantic info that you’ll find in textbooks.”

3. Score – Business Planning Templates –  Quickly assess your marketing plan, Free business listing list for search engine optimization, Marketing must haves etc.

Thank you for reading! Share the love. 🙂

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Other Links related to Web Design Plans:

• Web Design Sample Business Plan – Executive Summary
• 9 Steps to starting your freelance web design business – Business Tuts
• Plan a Web Development Business Part Two- BPlans
• How to Make a Business Plan for a Website Development Startup – Color Whistle

Getting Your First Web Design Clients

My first web design client was my future mother-in-law, a real doozie. A non-profit, I was paid $500 and an iPad. I’ve also been paid as little as – negative $ for making a website, because I was so eager for real world experience. Do you want a website? I want to give you one.. just let me pay for your hosting and I’ll make the website out of the salt from the sweat of my children.

Don’t sell yourself short. Charge a decent amount.

So the first real website I sold was a couple months later. I was just learning WordPress and I sold a site for 10 monthly payments of $250 dollars. Because it was a fairly simple marketing website and didn’t have a ton of custom features on it, this was actually a pretty solid deal for a starting out web designer.

The first half of selling yourself as a web designer is evidence. Let’s see the goods.

Make sure you have a decent portfolio out there, that you made yourself..

I don’t care if it’s on WordPress, straight HTML, or Ruby on Rails. Get that thing out in the open, give it the best you got and make sure it shows the best of your best work. Code up a non-profit’s website for free if you have to, and show as many real projects as you possibly can. I iterated on my website 3 times, with 2 live at my domain before I ever got my first real set of clients. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to exist.

Here’s my site I made in 2012 (click here to see it in the Internet Wayback Machine):

Here’s the site in 2013 (click here to see it in the Internet Wayback Machine):

Yes.. I agree my portfolio was a little weak at this point, but guess what? I was getting clients. I wasn’t by any means, raking them in, but people I knew were coming to me and asking if I could help with their website or help them make a new website. I was eager to be of service, and make enough money to stop bussing tables.

Let the world know you’re making websites now.

Change your job on Facebook to ‘Self Employed Web Designer’, change your LinkedIn –  don’t put Aspiring Web Designer in your Twitter profile, put Web Designer. You’re a big boy (or girl) now. I personally took a good hard running jump at web design, and with one client and one month covered in expenses jumped out into the market as a web designer. No more restaurant job (which for me didn’t pay THAT well anyways.) When people hear that’s what you do, and you take a friendly and helpful attitude when they reach out, or you offer your services you can quickly earn some awareness around the new service you offer.

Don’t wait until you have it perfected, just go for it.

I’m not suggesting you make the new 3M website, or try to sell yourself as a ten year veteran of website design. You can, however, say you will go above and beyond for a client as you are starting out fresh and will do everything in your power to make them an excellent website. If you’ve created a couple of examples, then that can help adjust expectations and although you may need to put ungodly amounts of time into your first couple websites you will earn your chops in the struggle. You’ll figure out how to z-index a logo over the top of overlapping nav div.

In defense of the designer-developer.

Yes, I’m suggesting you will have to write code. Can you sell a website for $2,500 dollars and give half of it away to a front-end developer when you’re starting out? Perhaps, perhaps not. I personally couldn’t, and so… I learned to code. Basics at first, how to modify WordPress themes ever so slightly with CSS. Then cutting and splicing bits of PHP, then eventually writing my own themes from scratch. This is why I suggest having a couple of websites under your belt before really having someone pay you for your web design services; you can find the rhythm that works for you. If you are an epic visual designer who can confidently charge $5,000 for your first website you could potentially find the right person to develop it for you and you can pay them adequately to make it good. It’s really to each is own, because I preach design/development, and you have an equally right  person 2 doors down who wouldn’t touch a CMS to save his life. Literally … my old neighbor above me would sell sites for 7-8k and I thought he was an internet god. He would write the HTML, CSS, and Javascript (In Dreamweaver, hello throwback,) and then outsource custom Content Management System development for 2k. I just wanted to learn how to not pay that 2k .

Other ways to promote your new web design business

• Look for ways to trade your services for advertising : I sold my services in an auction by a Minneapolis newspaper  in exchange for adspace in their lifestyle magazine VitaMN.
• Get every viable social media handle/url under the name you’re using to freelance , promote yourself vigorously on TWO of these, and understand you’re not going to do ALL of them well .
• Make a list of all the acquaintances who have small businesses, and that could use a website. Send them a quick note, and always be of the mind that you’re there to be of service – not sell.
• Go old school and create a flyer : I put boots on the ground and peddled my wares (a one page services sheet – without pricing on it) around every business that I could open the door to in my area of Uptown Minnesota. I focused on what I did that was different. Alot of times this is personal service, since you likely have less clients and more time and attention than alot of web design shops in town. – To be perfectly honest, this didn’t get me a client. Maybe what I’m really suggesting here is hustling your ass off and being as present as possible… take every opportunity to share what you do until you gain momentum.
• Put out content on a blog on your website and promote it on social media : Don’t sell dude. Don’t do it. You can still see my oldest posts on this blog that are salesy… it’s not going to kill your blog, but it’s really boring and no-one wants to read those. Just give as much value as you can, share your experiences and focus on the ONE SERVICE you are really trying to sell and things you’re learning in that discipline. Use it as an opportunity to dig deeper into your craft, and to share as you go.

Price High and Justify

After you promote the living shit out of yourself on social media, talk to your long lost friend with a supplement or house painting business, and make a few mistakes it’s time to price high and justify . You have to charge what people will pay, but as soon as you can push that number up as high as it can reasonably go. Why? If you have high prices it means you can make more excellent work! Justify the price with above and beyond service and you’ll feel great about what you do. Your work will mean more profitable businesses that benefit from the excellent websites you make. It feels good to help people feed their families by helping them get the word out about what makes their business special. And in the end, that’s what it boils down to for me.

Make Sure Your Process Differentiates You from Competitors

It’s important to recognize what your business’s competitive advantage is, and unless you want to build a business that depends upon what’s special about YOU as an individual you have to draw out and nurture the special things about your process. To focus on your own unique specialties alone builds a prison fortress around you, and if you ever want to hire or contract out parts of the business you’re stuck with a business that only works with you sweating away at the center of it; the wizard behind the curtain, slowly getting too tired to perform at the same level.

So for me the key pieces of my web design process as I am learning to define them are:

1. responsiveness to changes that clients need..

– Example: Client asks for a lighter color scheme in development, instead of fretting we work hard to satisfy the request and push back when appropriate to keep within a reasonable budget.

Key to fulfilling: Web design services should not be dirt cheap, and if they are they aren’t taking into consideration the time it takes to build something fully customized for the business’s needs. Templated solutions get generic unfulfilling results. (However, I still feel that for some customers templated solutions such as Squarespace.com and WordPress Themes from Themeforest without custom code can occasionally fulfill their needs and suggest that they try those routes if their budget doesn’t allow to really hire someone to do it right.)

2. Examining the overall market for the client and tailoring the content on the site to the scenarios that could be useful to their favorite kinds of clients.

– Example: Your site is serving people who just suffered hail damage to their home, we assess that a key to surprising and delighting these types of customers is serving up content that is about how to buff out hail damage on their car.

Key to fulfilling: It’s crucial we think about the psychology of the people coming into the site. This is the number one question we ask when making a website: “how can we serve your ideal customer with this content, this imagery, the messages we’re sharing and the story we’re telling.”

3. Building out the main service pages of the website in the hope that the content will attract new customers, making key items like ‘contact us’ and ‘buy now’ super easy to access on the main promos, sidebars, and at the end of content.

– Example: Adding bigger content pieces after key visual blocks on service pages so that the service page is indexable by Google and people who want to really dig into what you have that option. Big old juicy buttons that say “Contact us now” or “Request a quote” are super obvious and surrounded by trust factors such as positive testimonials, industry badges, a phone number, or 3 key differentiating features in bullet points.

Keys to fulfilling: It’s important not only to think about how people are going to perceive this site when they get there but how they are going to get there in the first place. By thinking about big content pieces that could provide big value for the client during the design process, the website can be built in a way that emphasizes and makes those big content pieces that are serving a real need available and to the forefront of the site with menu structure, and other pieces of navigation and structure.

4. Imagery is outside the box, and elicits a positive emotional response from key individuals your business is targeting.

– Example: A Death to Stock Photo image that feels less stock photo-esque and more candid than most stock photos.

Even better, you and your storefront, your set of tools. An ACTUAL satisfied client, smiling and holding your product or enjoying your work.

Keys to fulfilling: Often this involves imagining what a positive interaction between your business and your client will look like. Is it you sitting with them, them smiling, and a chart of upward momentum on the computer screen in front of you? Is it freshly cut grass without them lifting a finger, so they get to smile and sip fresh lemonade on their porch? This is the story we want to display. We want the imagery to feel candid, real and maybe even a bit unusual. But a visitor should be able to see it and think to themselves, I want to be there. They should be able to imagine themselves in the place of the person pictured on the site.

5. The copy is written in a way that quickly explains the core benefit/value from your product or service, invites the visitor to participate, and explains why it will be awesome for them.

– Example: A moving company could say “Your back will thank you, call us for a custom quote today.” A remodeling company could say, “You’ll feel as good as your home will look.” with a call to action button that says, “Get a quote for a fresh look.”

Keys to fulfilling: Never be generic! Shake out the cobwebs in your marketing brain right now. Seriously, every single product or service has a unique and special story behind it, and the customers you serve need to know why anyone would choose you . Why have they in the past? I speak to the business owners and people representing businesses in their marketing teams, and I ask: “Tell me the story of positive customer experience, that you’re aware of.” What does that look like. Tell that story on the site. The more you get curious about these stories and the core benefit a product or service is providing, very few things are truly boring. The more you get interested in the story of the product or service, and tell that positive experience story the more you’ll see that almost anything can be interesting.

And the moral of the story is:

As you can see, the key differentiating features of this design process is a personal connection, customizing the solution to the industry and those specific businesses prime differentiating features, and enthusiasm. That enthusiasm through every piece of the puzzle is crucial. It’s important to note at every step of the process that this is for a business composed of REAL PEOPLE, whose food and shelter depends on telling the story to the world, and REAL PEOPLE who benefit from the product or service being served. This is the real end value. So anyone I work with, or for feels that: the enthusiasm and the genuine intent to provide value. This is key to this design process. 

How to Speak About Design to Establish Trust

“I thought you might like the flourishes in the header, it has that bohemian, natural feeling you were talking about when we first met up to discuss the project.” = FIRE ME . “Thought you might like,” “Going for that feeling,” and “I was inspired to take a fun direction,” all scream of whimsical dainty little artist types who could literally die from the harsh realities of designing for real economic pressures. The real economic reality is that families food and shelter depends on the success of a business, and a key component of how a business does is how that business presents itself to the world through design.

I’m not saying you can’t feel a feeling and apply it to your work in design, but design isn’t art. It is meant to solve real world problems. So instead of focusing on your feelings while presenting to the client, focus on design principles, web design best practices, and the persona’s and scenario’s you established during your discovery phase. Focus the conversation around:

• Design Principles
• Web Design best practices
• Persona’s and scenario’s

Why do design principles even matter?

I’ve had a couple situations lately, where someone seems to be questioning why a font choice even matters. They rolled their eyes when I mentioned a study that called Baskerville the most trusted font. It got me thinking. How am I presenting this wrong? Because I know in my heart of hearts that design matters. <- FIRE ME,  but I can’t seem to always make it dead obvious to people I’m presenting work to.

I want to show them two ads side by side, one with high quality fonts that were chosen with serious intention and one with quickly chosen free fonts , and ask them which of them makes the product they represent seem more expensive, or which one makes the product seem more quality. Because good design does indeed represent products and services in a better light, and makes them seem more high quality. You know that, and I know that, but:

But how do we make the value of design dead obvious?

1. Resolve to help them find solutions to pain points. – Your website looks like shit on mobile, let’s fix that. Your logo has gradients and shadows in it to the point it’s hard to use on shirts and in other simple ways. Let’s address those and work from there how design can help solve problems you’re aware of now. Maybe it expands from there; as a designer, you’re a problem solver and the more you can identify and come up with creative and solid solutions for, the more design solutions you get to get paid for.

2. Dive into their world and become aware of what they value. – For web design you might realize the client cares more about looking cool than contact form submissions. You might realize they value their relationship with their family deeply, that a certain type of customer is their favorite . Once we realize what they care about deeply… pause pause pause …we can help them communicate those values through the design.  By diving in, visiting their shop, asking a lot of questions, and being present we can then better let them know how good design will help them do that.

3. Focus on the things they do understand like ‘Trust factors’, ‘color psychology’ and ‘telling the story.’ – ‘We have to tell the story of your business better,’ is going to resonate with some people better than my fascination with the font Baskerville. Even though I deeply care about typography, it’s just not always as accessible of a topic, or as interesting to clients. What they do understand is how adding a Better Business Bureau badge next to the contact form will help increase the likelihood of people contacting them, and how blue is associated with trust and how green get’s associated with natural, fresh, or innovative. This really depends on the particular client, as some clients can go deep without a lot of prep.

Let’s circle back for a bit and make sure you’re working with the right kind of client:

The client defines the value and the designer discovers it. Ask the client what their business or organization does and why is it important to their target audience. If they don’t give you a quick comprehensible answer they are not ready to work with a designer or an agency. If they do answer the question you should next ask them what success looks like and what their goals are. DO NOT lead them toward what you think success might be. Let them define it.

When you get their feedback, dig deeper. A good way to do this is by asking who their target audience is and what their target audience needs are. If they can’t answer this they are not ready for the value a designer or an agency will provide. The client needs to have experience communicating with their target audience in order to set proper goals. If there’s no goal, how will you know whether or not a project is successful? Here are some red flags to look out for in the beginning stages of communicating with a potential client. I asked a fellow designer, Brenna French to share some thoughts on this issue:

“You sit down at a coffee shop excited to talk to a potential client about the project and the first thing they say is, I want to build a website how much would that be? This is a red flag because this means their mindset is already focused on getting a deal and not on the value you can provide for their business or their target audience.

This goes both ways in the relationship by the way, you never want to position the project or conversation around money. If you talk about money right away this shows the client that you are money hungry or desperate for work. Remember you are a professional and you are serious about your work and the value you can provide. Positioning the conversation around value sets the tone for the whole relationship in a positive way.

Say you get past that money conversation and everything is going well so far so you start talking about the project. The client starts to explain that they are wanting a one-page website design and they also want the main colors to be blue and orange because to them those are beautiful colors, oh yeah they also want a picture of themselves in the main header. This is a red flag because they have too many ideas of what they are visually wanting the end product to look like.

As a design professional, I don’t want to execute the client’s wants in mind. I design the best possible solution for the client’s target audience so the client will reach their business goals. From my experience, a client that has a specific visual direction is difficult to work with. Position the conversation around value. By the end of the conversation, you both are excited to get started. You set clear expectations and attracted the client by positioning the conversation around value.”

– Brenna French

Ask these questions of new possible clients: Is the client sure of their target audience?

Is the client aware of their target audience’s needs?

Are they able to answer right away, what is it that you do and why is it important to your target audience?

Do they start talking about their budget right away? (If they do it might be a red flag – try to change the conversation to talk about value that you’ll provide, not an arbitrary number you come with on the fly without fully understanding the project.)

Do they give off the impression that they understand you’re the expert, that they understand that are only responsible for Content – and Business Goals?

Do they have alot of ideas already about how the website should look? – A possible red flag.

That last one is challenging, and occasionally working for small businesses it’s important to kindly educate your clients on what is your responsibility and what is yours. But needless to say, if they come out of the gate giving strong layout suggestions and explaining their specific vision for look and feel you’re being pigeon-holed into the position of technician implementing someone else’s design, not the dynamic problem-solving designer.

Ways to talk and words to use

Talk confidently and make sure to include examples of previous work where you solved a specific goal-oriented problem. Now is the time to ask what their primary objective is, and to set up a metric for the design you’re working on currently. 100 e-mail list subscriptions, 15 contact form submissions by legitimate prospects, 20 sales the first three months of launch. Make specific goals have a date attached to them. Gathering this information after the design should be part of what you’re being paid to do, and part of what you’re selling.

Do user testing on the old site when they come in, if it’s worth testing. Talk about testing critical things. Words and phrases to use: research, effective, goals, trust-worthy, tell your story, appeal to your core demographic. Always do research on their industry before getting into the site design. Their competitors, and brand positioning. By doing this you better understand what they are up against and you position yourself as the expert with a unique understanding of their dilemma. This is another reason to hold off giving a price for the work until you fully understand the problem at hand.

Share research. You don’t always have to have it on hand when you are discussing a particular issue. But you should do your due diligence, if they want a pop-up newsletter subscription box then you should be able to go find the research on which way of doing that is most effective (right away, timed, or exit intent,) or general tips on making a pop-up effective. I find it especially effective to share these bits of research right before you show the design at all. Come up with three pieces of research to support points that might be contentious or that push their comfort level on the design. Share them briefly before going over the design.

When you get into showing the design, avoid the real estate tour; ‘here’s the logo,’ ‘here’s the nav,’ etc. Go straight for the heart of why the design serves their goals. Talk about flow and conversions, and especially focus on how the design presents their story in a unique and compelling way to appeal to their core demographic. Never ask for feedback, ask if they have any questions. In this way, you can further ingrain yourself in their mind as an expert. I think of it as a bit of swagger. Humble swagger, but you have to have some swagger in this industry.

Content Strategy for Web Designers to Attract Ideal Customers

Devising a workable and effective content strategy can be difficult for any company or brand, as the needs and desires of readers, clients, and businesses always vary from individual to individual, and from day to day. With a bit of work and the following content strategy guide to get you started, you should be well on your way to developing a stellar web design content strategy ! The most important part is that you start, and these practical and actionable strategies will help you get your ass in gear.

Begin with an Introspective Evaluation

Before taking that first step down the road of content creation, the best tactic is to initially spend some time to evaluate where your company, your content, and your brand currently stand. Begin this evaluation by honestly answering a few simple questions:

How is our brand currently perceived in the marketplace?

What are good and bad aspects of the brand’s existing content?

What content-related goals would we like to achieve?

How does our brand match up to other web design competitors?

With these basic questions answered about your brand and where your company currently stands, you can move onto an overall content strategy design by answering “The Five Ws”:

Who is the audience of our content?

When should particular content be available?

Where (in which channels) should the content exist?

Why is the content relevant (or) why will the audience care?

What is the message or purpose of the content?

For example, throughout this article I’ll illustrate examples with a fictional up-and-coming web design firm called Green Lemon Design. The Green Lemon team — who are looking to establish themselves in the web design market as a talented, young, and energetic choice for lower to mid-tier web designs — might answer these questions in the following (simplified) form:

Potential clients: Users seeking low- to mid-range website design and consultation services.

Existing clients: Users who have worked with us in the past.

Most content on the website should be available 24/7, while content that is time-sensitive (such as a month-long new client special deal) can be temporary.

Onsite, Blog, Email, Twitter, Facebook

The audience should be seeking professional and affordable web design services that we can offer (for potential customers) or additional customer support and services (for existing clients).

To inform and educate our audience on the skills and capabilities of our brand, to impress with our past successes and portfolio, and to establish good rapport and relationships with both potential and existing clients.

Establishing Brand, Voice, and Tone Guidelines

With the basic questions answered that inform you of a need to change your content strategy , now is a good time to evaluate the brand, voice, and tone guidelines you’ll utilize throughout the content.

Brand guidelines can cover logo design to color pallette and everything in between. For content strategy , the best places to start are:

Fonts and typefaces : What fonts will be used throughout the content? How about sizes for various elements (paragraphs, headers, testimonials, etc)?

Colors and palettes : What colors best suit your brand or company and can be utilized throughout the content? – Example above includes a distinctive color palette that could be applied to other elements.

Images and logos : Which particular static images or logos should be prominent throughout the content? – It’s useful to repeat symbols such as the ‘greenish lemon’ throughout this piece. This may be particular to the content you put out on your site in general, or a particular blog post or content hub.

Videos and animations : As above, are there any video clips that should be frequent or readily available somewhere in the content?

Voice & Tone

Determine early in the process what kind of voice and tone you wish to attach to your content and thus associate with your brand. This can be difficult at first, particularly without much in the way of experienced writers on staff, but finding an appropriate voice can be a huge boon to your content strategy as a whole.

For example, Green Lemon Web Design may elect to take on a very informal, even humorous tone throughout their content. As a young and fresh company, they may feel most comfortable keeping their tone light-hearted and fun, to attract the business and clientele of smaller, younger companies like themselves.

Onsite Content: The Bread of Your Content Strategy Sandwich

Time to get down to the real core of your content strategy by first devising the outline of content that should exist onsite. Remember, anything  that exists on the company or brand website (with the exception of the blog) is considered onsite content and should be under your complete control.

For our fictitious Green Lemon Web Design, the outline for onsite content strategy might include the following sections:

Voice & Tone : Errors/alerts, testimonials, FAQ, portfolio should have a fun and humorous tone, while a more serious, business tone is necessary for transactional and billing-related messages.

Images : In addition to the logo and color palette established previously, we’d like some professional photography to splash through the core onsite pages (about us, contact us, etc), but with a refreshing twist: Each photo should contain a small green lemon strategically placed and tucked somewhere in the graphic, to bring a branded element into the design for brand awareness and maximum impact.

Portfolio : A list of clients we’ve assisted in the past with small testimonials from business partners from each when relevant.

About Us : Details about how Green Lemon came to be, including headshots of all employees with short, fun bios from each. Employees must provide a quote (think high school graduation yearbook quote, or ask a curious question to get your team showing their true colors.) In my experience looking at analytics for a lot of sites, people visit these pages more than you might initially think. It make sense, because we want to know about the people in your business. Tell us more, give us the inside scoop, tell your story.

Contact Us/Get a Quote : Standard form with name, email, and (optional) telephone fields for potential clients to get in touch. Should we include our company promise to establish return correspondence within 4 hours?

FAQ : Answer basic questions, primarily focused at potential customers. What is our typical turnaround time? What post-design support can we offer? Include a handful of fun and humorous questions at the end as well.

Services : Describe all services we offer, broken into categories (consultation, marketing, technology, industries, etc).

Errors & Alerts : 404 error should be squeezed green lemon with one final drop of juice falling out. Logged in clients with unread messages or invoices should see amusing flash message on each screen until dismissed. Little alerts and responses to contact form inquiries can be an opportunity to show a bit of the companies friendly, human character as well as display being adept with technology and attention to detail.

Blog Posts: That’s the Good Stuff

While strong onsite content is of course critical to the success of any strategy, very often the real meat and potatoes of your online presence is contained within the blog. The blog offers an avenue for expressing ideas and sharing content that is timely, relevant, and inspirational for the audience.

A blog is also a more appropriate channel to take risks — even slight ones — with the content your brand produces. Blog content can be anything from industry news and competitor-vs.-self comparisons to tutorials and how-to guides.

A successful blog is a channel for content that relates to the brand or company, but then extends well beyond the purview of the brand to provide relevant and interesting content for the audience to consume.

Don’t get caught in the old-school idea of a blog, where one or a handful of curators post personal stories and anecdotes. While that type of content is certainly acceptable and sometimes appropriate to a modern blog, try to expand the content well outside the bounds of that traditionally small umbrella.

For example, Green Lemon might highlight some potential blog ideas for their new web designer content strategy :

Leveraging Influencers

A post discussing highly influential creatives in the design space and how they have inspired Green Lemon and other designers. We should emphasize the great projects these creatives have worked on over the years to entice our readers by illustrating how Green Lemon understands the industry and that our team (or freelancer) strives to meet the same standards of excellence.

Discuss the importance of social media contact, even amongst these influences, by tagging them on Twitter with a link to the blog post. An ideal tactic is not to directly ask a question of the power user in question, but to ask a question of our general Twitter audience (e.g. “Designers: How has @Influencer inspired you in your own projects? #GreenLemonDreaming”).

Content Hub Posts

Posts that emphasize a highly-curated and relevant series of links and posts found elsewhere that relate to a particular topic, such as web design. Since a popular group of articles gathered in this singular “content hub”-style post will drive a lot of SEO traffic and referral linkbacks to our site, we can be confident that the effort in putting together these posts is worthwhile and will generate a great deal of buzz and traffic for Green Lemon.

Emphasizing Keywords

As a relatively new company, we cannot be afraid to try emphasizing localized keywords to drive interest and traffic to Green Lemon and bring in potential clients.

A great technique is to create a series of blog posts that highlight particular keywords and heavily focus the relevant aspects of the content on those keywords.

To drive localized traffic we can start with “Web Design in Minneapolis” and “Web Design in Minnesota,” which should feature some location-specific content mixed into the standard information. This can be as simple as pictures or mentions of local attractions in the city or state that residents of these areas who read the article will relate to.

Conversely, we’ll need more broad language and images to accompany our post about “WordPress Web Design,” which should shy away from localized content but instead contain information solely about the techniques and technologies (CMS organization, colors/typefaces, content release schedule, etc).

Inactivity is a Death Sentence

While the initial questions and answers when getting started in the content strategy process as seen above might seem at first to provide only a very rudimentary insight the steps to implement a strategy, there is one key lesson to learn when it comes to anything related to content: Don’t get bogged down by the minutiae and thus never take action .

The biggest mistake anyone can make when it comes to content strategy is to be too passive, to over-assess and over-plan to the point of inaction. Particularly in the online space — where content moves at the speed of light (both figuratively and literally) — failing to act at all on a new content strategy is far worse than taking action and modifying or adjusting the content strategy plan as you learn and grow along the way.

That’s not to say planning and strategy are not important, but in many situations for both companies and clients alike, it is far more important to just “get out there” with the content so the audience can begin to interact with the content or brand than it is to delay far too long with nothing to show for it from a public perspective.

Maintaining Your Flexibility

Content strategies come in all shapes and sizes and should not be solely thought of as a brand-wide, all-inclusive methodology for every piece of content the brand creates.

Instead, content strategies can and should be developed in a modular fashion. Similar to a well-crafted website, an interchangeable content strategy allows for flexibility throughout the process over time, as variables change and the success (or failure) of a particular strategy evolves over time.

This technique should most commonly be used to distinguish between the various channels in which your content resides. A strategy module that suits email campaigns is likely not as well suited for handling social media interactions on Twitter, just as the static onsite content used throughout the site will differ significantly from the content posted on a blog.

Embrace these differences and freely develop multiple modules of your content strategy to fit each appropriate channel. You can and should still maintain an overall parent strategy that infuses elements into every child strategy below that (fonts, colors, common logos/images, etc), but much of the content beyond that will shift as the medium changes.

The Necessity of Taking Risks

A very useful tool when first developing a content strategy is to evaluate the various levels of “risk” involved in any given style or example of content. That is, when a reader or user engages with that content, how likely are they to expect it versus how likely are they to be pleasantly surprised? Additionally as the content creator, how likely is a piece of content to feel standard and safe versus something risky that could fail or be taken poorly, but provide benefit if successful?

There are numerous risk strategies out there, but a solid standard for content strategy used by Portent, Inc. is the 70-20-10 rule .

This rule effectively states that 70% of your content should be safe and expected, 20% should be moderately risky and challenges the standard 70% of your content, and the last 10% should be very risky , such that it is entirely unexpected content or may horribly fail in some way (but will offer large benefits if successful).

For the fictitious Green Lemon Web Design, they have elected to disperse their content using the 70-20-10 rule in roughly this manner:

70%: Most onsite stuff, such as About Us, FAQ, Services, Contact Us/Get a Quote, etc.

20%: Most blog posts that relate to the industry; those that provide assistance to clients, potential customers, or casual readers.

10%: A handful of blog posts that go against the normal, such as emphasizing the great work our competitors have been doing in the past few months or a post about a seemingly unrelated topic to drive traffic and user interest (books, gaming, fishing, etc). We’d also like to add a comparison chart of services and pricing between Green Lemon and popular competitors, which may include features we are weaker at than others but may ingratiate readers to us for our honesty.

Whatever the exact risk assessment is that your own brand settles on, it is vital to not be too afraid of taking risks from time to time. Being a little out there or edgy with your content will make a lasting, memorable impression instead of the countless other examples that are boring and forgotten after a short glance.

A Handful of Content Examples

Below you’ll find a list of example content titles that a new web design firm like Green Lemon — or even you — might find useful to pursue, roughly categorized by intended audience and/or creators.

For Web Designers

Web-for-All: Accessibility for Modern Web Design

Why Improved Design Cannot Solve Content Issues

Content Optimization for Mobile Platforms

Why Email Requires a Responsive Design

And Dash of That..: How A/B Testing Dramatically Improves User Experience

A Bridge Too Far: When Additional Feature Requests Should Be Ignored

This Ain’t Your Granddad’s Pixel: How Modern Displays Are Changing Web Design

Creating Beautiful Graphics and Logos in Pure CSS

The Homepage: When Automation Must Take a Back Seat to Human Control

For Web Marketers

Identifying Your Audience and Content to Meet User Demands

Community is Everything: Why Building a Community is Critical to Content Strategy

Risk vs. Reward: Why Safe is Often the Least Safe

Cultivating Client Relationships

I Like You: Spreading Your Content via Third Party Services

Localization, Love, and Liberation: Why i18n is Critical to Content Strategy

For Clients

Miniature Adults: How Children Utilize the Web and Interact with Your Site

Stay Awhile and Listen: How to Genuinely Engage with Readers

Establishing a Content Strategy for Personal Websites

Online Trapdom: Why Free Services Rarely Are

Just You Being You: How Social Media Encourages a False Sense of Self

Look At All My Resources!

While this article should provide a great starting point to establishing your own web marketer content strategy , there are multitudes of resources online with great information to boost your knowledge and get you down the right path toward content nirvana.

Below are a handful of prime resources to chew through at your leisure, so please enjoy!

Creating a Content Compass : Explores the diverging content strategy of a particular web project across the entirety of a brand’s content universe.

The Magic Content Marketing Ratio: Email Conversion Rate

4 Keys to Capturing a New Audience for Your Content Marketing

Being Real Builds Trust : Discusses why trust with users and clients is among the most vital components of strong marketing content strategy .

Help Your Content Go Anywhere With a Mobile Content Strategy

Future-Ready Content : Developing a web design content strategy that is as future-proof as possible, not just technically but in the manner in which content is created.

Contently Comic: Sponsored Insanity : Explores the pitfalls and trouble that can come from unnecessary sponsored content.

The Most Important Audience for Your Content Marketing : Your Own Employees : How brand and businesses should ensure employees fully understand and adhere to the marketing content strategy .

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Freelance web developer: How to launch and grow your business in 5 steps

So you want to be a freelance web developer? With the gig economy growing rapidly and global events creating uncertainty in traditional full-time employment, more and more developers are opting to launch freelance businesses.

There’s good reason for that—when done well, freelancing can offer uncapped earning potential and total freedom over the work you do, and when and how you do it.

But building a successful business as a freelance web developer involves a lot. You’re not alone if you find yourself unsure of where to start. That’s why we created this extensive guide to launching and growing a freelance business as a web developer.

Below, we explain in detail how to decide if freelance life is right for you, followed by 5 steps you can take to get the ball rolling.

Is freelance life for you?

Before you dive into building a freelance web development business from the ground up, there’s a crucial first step that many people miss: making sure freelancing is the right path for them.

There are a lot of benefits that come with working for yourself and building something from scratch. But there are also trade-offs and challenges that come with freelance life. It’s important to understand those trade-offs and what they mean to you, before you invest time and money into your new career.

Benefits and trade-offs of freelancing

The benefits of becoming a freelance web developer:

• The freedom to design your own schedule and workload
• Ultimate control over the work and projects you do (and don’t do)
• The flexibility to work at home and/or remotely (long after COVID-19 pandemic office closures end)
• The opportunity to work on more varied project for a variety of clients in myriad industries
• More direct control over your earnings—the sky’s the limit
• The chance to step outside traditional office bureaucracy, politics, and rigid paths for advancement.

The trade-offs:

• The responsibility and challenges of being your own boss—the buck stops with you, always
• Income fluctuations can lead to added stress and, potentially, cash flow issues
• You have to pay self-employment tax on top of your existing income tax
• You won’t get any employer-provided benefits like health insurance, paid time off (PTO), retirement and 401k matching, etc.
• It’s easy to feel isolated when you work remotely and primarily alone
• There’s potential for stagnation in your career and skills (if you aren’t proactive about it) without a clear path for promotions and advancement

If you read through those two lists and thought ‘Bring it on’, you’re in the right place!

How much money can you make as a freelance web developer?

One of the biggest concerns that new and aspiring freelance developers may have centers around income: how much can you expect to earn as a freelance web developer? And how can you expect to grow your income as you gain more experience?

Those are difficult questions to answer simply because there’s such wide variation in earnings for freelance developers. Everything from location to niche to experience can alter expected earnings, sometimes drastically. That said, several companies make a point of gathering data from thousands of freelancers to come up with baseline estimates.

Glassdoor is one such company—according to them, the average freelance web developer pulls in a little over $75k per year (as of March 2021). Here’s what their reported distribution looks like:

That’s a good baseline for planning purposes, but Arc (formerly CodementorX) takes it a step further by taking location, experience, and niche into account to see how each affects the distribution of hourly rates among freelance web developers.

According to their data, the average hourly rate for web developers in North America—across all experience levels—falls between $81 – $100 per hour, with the median slightly lower at $61 – $80 per hour.

There’s no way to know for sure how much you will earn as a freelance web developer, but it’s safe to consider the above estimates as a solid reference point for what you should charge and how much you can expect to bring in.

What it takes to be a successful freelance web developer

On top of concrete factors like your experience level and your niche, the biggest determinant of your earning potential as a freelance web developer is you. Freelancing requires that you play an active role in finding clients, building relationships, and securing well-paying work. In other words, how much money you can make as a freelance web developer largely depends on how well you convert new clients and turn them into longer term projects and referrals.

That requires a certain skill set and level of comfort with marketing and selling yourself. It also takes a commitment to reliably providing top-notch work, on time.

So, in addition to the web development skills you need, building a successful freelance career also requires you to be:

• Communicative
• Independent
• A self-starter

Plus, you need to cultivate the soft skills to build client relationships for the long term.

If that sounds like you, great! You’re still in the right place.

How do I become a freelance web developer?

If you’re still here, it’s time to get into the good stuff—how can you become a freelance web developer?

The short answer is that there’s no cut-and-dry path to go from newbie to wildly successful freelance developer. With that said, there are some clear steps you can take to get your new freelance career off the ground and prepare your business for success.

Below, we’ll walk you through the 5 steps you can take to launch and grow your new business.

• Cultivate the right skills and knowledge
• Get your business set up
• Set (and raise) your freelance rates
• Secure your first projects and clients
• Build for the long term

Step 1: Cultivate the right skills and knowledge

If you’ve been a web developer for some time, you can probably skip straight to Step 2.

But if you’re new to web development or just a little rusty, cultivating the skills and knowledge that clients are looking for today is a vital first step.

On top of the characteristics and skills required to be a successful freelancer, there are some additional skills web developers, in particular, need to possess. Those include:

• Creative problem-solving skills
• A detail-oriented vision
• Code testing, debugging, and iteration skills
• A curious outlook and general love of learning to help you keep up with an industry that constantly changes
• The most obvious: a deep knowledge of the programming languages that apply to your niche (i.e. front end, back end, full stack, software, mobile app, etc.)
• A working knowledge of additional programming languages is also beneficial

Programming languages

Speaking of programming languages, there are a ton of them, and more developing and gaining popularity with each passing year. It’s nearly impossible to keep pace with every programming language—you’re better off focusing on the most popular ones, along with the frameworks that apply most to your niche as a developer. Those are the languages clients are looking for.

Here are the most in-demand programming languages as of 2021.

JavaScript has been the number one most popular programming language in Stack Overflow’s Developer Survey for the past 8 years. It’s widely used and extremely flexible, both of which factor into its popularity. It’s historically been used primarily for front-end development, allowing developers to create interactive and dynamic websites. More recently, it’s also gained popularity for back-end development, along with more frequent use in gaming and Internet of Things (IoT) development.

JavaScript’s prevalence combines with its versatility across various frameworks and contributes to the high demand for JavaScript across the industry. Aspiring freelance web developers would be well-suited to gain familiarity with JavaScript.

Python is also an incredibly popular and versatile language. It contains a number of libraries that enable developers to use Python code for tons of different builds, from web development and software applications to emerging technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

The simplicity of Python makes it easy and quick for developers to learn, and it’s nearly as flexible as the much-loved JavaScript. That’s a big part of why it’s become a popular choice for both developers and clients. The language is particularly beloved by younger programmers, explaining the rapid growth and increase in demand for Python during recent years.

An acronym for “structured query language,” SQL is built for managing, querying, and analyzing data. The huge growth of data warehouses and business intelligence (BI) tools over the last decade has turned SQL into a very in-demand programming language. Where data warehouses and BI tools aggregate mountains of data, developers are able to organize, analyze, and make sense of all that information via SQL queries.

As data grows in importance and accessibility, the demand for SQL programmers will likely continue to grow in the coming years.

On the more niche side of things, Swift is the go-to programming language for developing macOS and iOS applications. It was developed by Apple specifically for use in their operating systems, which explains its popularity in the space.

The majority of apps available on the App Store today are built with Swift code, largely because it was built with that purpose in mind. Swift code is uniquely equipped for the realities and needs of iOS and macOS development, meaning it’s often the easiest and best-suited choice for developers in that niche.

Another emerging language developed by a tech industry heavyweight, Go (also called Golang) was developed by Google. The idea was to create a programming language that combined all the functionality and quick run-time of the more complex C and C++ languages, without the complexity.

As a result, Go code is much simpler and easier for developers to learn, making it a popular choice among newer web developers. It’s also ranked among the most profitable languages for freelance developers, so it’s a good skill to add to your toolkit.

Unlike many of the popular programming languages above, Java has been around for a long time. Regardless of new languages and frameworks that emerge, Java has maintained popularity and sustained demand for years—it’s far and away one of the longest tenured on popularity lists like Stack Overflow’s.

Part of that comes down to the code’s central motto: “write once; run anywhere.” The resulting stability and ubiquity of the framework allow it to easily run across both mobile and web platforms. It’s a popular choice for developers building server-side applications, Android applications, and web development.

Web developer skills and knowledge required by niche

• For back-end developers → Python, Java, SQL, NoSQL, and Git, along with knowledge of accessibility and security compliance, some knowledge of front end languages, and database skills.
• For front-end developers → HTML, CSS, JavaScript, along with an understanding of general design principles, APIs, version control software (like Git), and responsible and mobile design skills.
• For full-stack developers → All of the above

How to build up your skills

If you’re not familiar with the programming languages and other skills listed above, don’t fret. You can always build up your knowledge and web development skills. There are a few ways to approach that:

• Secure a traditional college degree in a field like computer science or IT
• Enroll in ad hoc online courses or programs to fill gaps in your expertise
• Work on personal and passion projects to boost your familiarity and experience

You can also opt for any combination of those options.

In our experience, online courses are one of the most popular and most effective ways to build up your skills as a developer—and they can be something you lean on for the rest of your career to stay current and grow your skill set.

We put together a more extensive list of specific online courses and programs for beginner web developers that you can reference. For our purposes here, we’ll give you the gist of that resource.

A myriad of developer-specific courses and programs are available through Khan Academy , Codecademy , Launch School , Techdegree , and web.dev (Google’s resource for web developers), among others. These can help with everything from learning a particular new programming language to more practical guidance on building a career as a web developer.

Beyond educational resources designed for the web dev community, there are also tons of courses available on more subject-agnostic online course websites, including Udemy , Coursera , and LinkedIn Learning , among others.

Step 2: Get your business set up

Now that you’re prepared to bring a ton of value to clients with your skills and expertise, it’s time to shift gears into more logistical planning for your new business. Before you start working with clients, there are a handful of things you need to do.

Register your business

• Set up bank accounts for your business
• Outline your services

Get your business tools in order

Build your portfolio.

Registering your business with the proper governmental authorities ensures your business is recognized as just that—a business—for tax and other legal purposes.

To start, you’ll need to decide how to structure your business. For most freelancers, that’s sole proprietorship. That means the business is, according to Investopedia , “an unincorporated business that has just one owner who pays personal income tax on profits earned from the business.”

Registration requirements for sole proprietors are limited. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) offers great resources on state and local registration requirements.

Some freelancers opt to form a limited liability company (LLC), which offers business owners the flexibility and tax benefits of being a sole proprietor with additional liability protection. A lot goes into deciding on your business’ legal structure, so we recommend referencing our comprehensive guide on how to register your small business for more details.

Set up separate business bank accounts

One of the most important parts of operating a successful freelance business is to keep your business finances separate from your personal ones. That makes it easier to stay organized for tax season , track and forecast your freelance income, manage business expenses, and more.

It doesn’t have to be complicated—simply open up new accounts that are strictly for business finances and keep them that way. We recommend opening both a checking and savings account for your business.

Beyond a bank account and a tax ID, your freelance business will also require a number of other tools and software to manage and streamline various aspects of the business. Those may include, among other things:

• Hardware, like a computer and the rest of your home office setup
• Project management software
• Proposal software
• A business email address
• Cloud storage
• Accounting and bookkeeping software
• Invoicing software

Getting your stack in place before you move on to finding your first clients means you’ll be able to hit the ground running when your first projects start coming in.

Most of those tools are pretty straightforward, but as for contracts, it’s often worth the one-time investment to have a lawyer draw one up for you. If that feels out of reach, there are also templates available online (some free, some for a small fee) that you can customize to your business. Either way, be sure it includes:

• Responsibilities and deliverables you’re responsible for as the freelancer
• A clause stating you’re an independent contractor, not an employee
• Agreed upon rates and payment terms
• Provisions for terminating the contract
• A clause on copyright and ownership

Arc offers a more in-depth guide on contracts for freelance web developers, including templates and services you can use to create your own.

Note: At Wave, we offer accounting , bookkeeping, and invoicing software—all in one place, built for freelancers and small businesses, and 100% free.

Onto more exciting aspects of preparing your freelance web development business—in this case, building your portfolio.

This process is largely personal. You can build a full custom website from scratch or add work samples to a portfolio platform. Whichever option you choose, every top-notch web developer portfolio should include a handful of elements:

• A simple, concise explanation of what you do
• Samples of your past work
• Social proof and results you’ve produced for clients
• A clear and quick option for contacting you
• Clean, professional design
• Quick load time

Beyond that, your portfolio can be anything you want it to be. Just remember to keep your clients, and the image you’re projecting, in mind.

For example, choose the work you include on your portfolio strategically, highlighting the clients and projects you want to work with most. And remember, as a freelance web developer, your portfolio itself is a sample of your work—so add some personality and treat your portfolio with the same professionalism and creativity you bring to client projects.

Step 3: Set your freelance rates

Now that your business is set up for success from a logistics perspective, it’s time to think about the financial side of things. While the prospect of making money is usually more fun than registering your business with the IRS, setting freelance rates can often be an overwhelming and fraught process. Particularly as a beginner, it can be really hard to get a sense of where to start and what kind of rates are even reasonable for you to charge.

So in short, there’s no straight answer we can provide as to what your rates should be—but! Understanding the elements you need to factor into your rates and looking at benchmarks for what other freelance web developers charge, can make the process a whole lot easier.

Let’s start with the factors you need to take into consideration when setting freelance rates:

• Your experience level as a web developer
• How you’ll price—hourly, per project, or something else
• The value projects offer to clients
• Your expenses and overhead
• Related: your location
• Industry and niche benchmarks

We’ll get into benchmarks and hourly versus project pricing in a minute. First, let’s talk about understanding the value clients get from your work—because that value underpins everything as a freelancer.

If you’ve been an in-house web developer, you may already have a sense of the value of certain development projects. If not, you can get a lot of this information from your first few clients.

For your first several projects (at least!), ask clients to share key results with you. For example, if your first project is to rebuild an ecommerce store’s website, ask them to let you in on how the new website impacted sales. Not every client will be willing to share those numbers, but the ones who do make it much easier to conceptualize the value of your work.

Freelance web development rates and benchmarks

Rates for working with a freelance web developer can vary a lot. All of the factors we mentioned above can alter what freelance developers charge—sometimes drastically. That makes it hard to come up with concrete rate benchmarks that transcend the industry. But it’s not impossible.

Arc (formerly CodementorX) does a great job of compiling tons of data into useful benchmarks for the hourly rates freelance web developers charge. Using their Freelance Developer Rate Explorer , you can view the distribution of rates for individual web dev niches like full stack, iOS, Python, web, and more. You can also filter the data to see how region and experience level affect those benchmarks.

For our purposes here, let’s look at the median hourly rates for different experience levels across North America:

• Junior developer: $41 – $60 per hour
• Mid-level developer: $61 – $80 per hour
• Senior developer: $101 – $120 per hour

And let’s look at average rates across a handful of common developer categories:

• Full stack developer: $81 – $100 per hour
• Front end developer: $61 – $80 per hour
• Back end developer: $61 – $80 per hour
• Mobile developer: $61 – $80 per hour
• Software developer: $81 – $100 per hour

Benchmarks for project-based freelance rates are a bit harder to come by, given they’re often quoted based on the specifics of each individual project. That said, Thumbtack took a stab at benchmarking the cost of a basic website build. According to their data, a project like that could fall around $6,760.

Hourly vs. project pricing

You may have noticed above that how you’ll price—whether hourly or by project—was one of the key factors you need to consider when setting your freelance rates . And you might be wondering by now, ‘Should I charge hourly or project-based rates?’

Both are common, reasonable options in the web dev industry, but they each come with their own pros and cons. Let’s take a look at those:

Hourly rates

• PRO: Hourly rates are more comparable across the industry, making it easier to use benchmarks to find a rate that makes sense for your experience level, location, and niche.
• PRO: Hourly rates ensure you get paid for the time you spend on a project—all the time. That’s particularly beneficial in the case of scope creep.
• CON: Hourly rates often don’t correlate directly with the value of the end project, meaning you may earn notably less than the value your client’s enjoy from the project.
• CON: Charging hourly limits your potential income—because you can only work so many hours in a given week.
• CON: As you get faster and more efficient at your job, per hour rates actually penalize that. It doesn’t make sense for you to earn less for the same project if it takes you 30 hours instead of 50.
• CON: When you charge hourly rates, you need to track all the time you spend working on different projects meticulously.

Project rates

• PRO: Project-based rates ensure your business gets more profitable as you gain more experience and learn to work more quickly and efficiently.
• PRO: Charging by project enables you to easily create rate tiers for different types of work. You can charge a higher rate for projects you have expert-level experience with, regardless of the amount of time you spend on them.
• PRO: Without project pricing, you’re locked into the cycle of selling your time. Instead, you should be selling your expertise, your skill, and the final product you create—a more profitable strategy for you and a better correlation to the value you create for clients.
• CON: Though both pricing strategies are common in the industry, charging per hour is slightly more popular. That can make it a harder sell to get clients to agree on project-based rates.
• CON: Project rates are harder to set—because of all the factors they take into account, they can vary widely and be a little ambiguous. If you’re new to freelancing, that can make landing on the right project rate more difficult than setting an hourly rate.

We recommend project-based pricing

Given the benefits and limitations of each, we recommend project-based pricing a vast majority of the time. In our view, the typical freelance web developer should opt for that route.

If you’re already charging hourly, or setting a project-based rate feels out of reach right now, that’s okay. Even if you’re charging per hour now or you decide to start with hourly pricing, you can always shift to project rates down the line. Doing so will make it easier to grow your income and ensure you’re earning more as your experience and skill level grow.

How and when to raise your rates

If you’re thinking, “I just set my rates and launched my business. Why are you talking about raising them?” we hear you.

However, your ability to grow as a freelance web developer depends on knowing when and how to raise your rates—and putting a strategy in place to ensure it actually happens. At a certain point you can’t (or don’t want to) work more hours than you are. When that happens, raising your rates is the only way to continue growing your business. And no one is going to go to bat for your value and income if you don’t.

In our experience working with freelancers, the how and the when are the biggest challenges for raising rates. As for the when, here are some subtle (and not-so-subtle) clues for when your rates are ready to rise:

It’s a new year. Regardless of anything else going on in your freelance business, you should increase your rates at least once every year. January is as good a time as any to implement rate changes.

You’re drowning in requests for work. It’s simple supply and demand—when your availability is scarce, that’s a really good sign that your work is more valuable than the rate you’re charging for it.

You’ve built stellar results for your clients. We talked about asking clients about results before, and that practice will continue to benefit your business and your pricing strategy. Did your website design increase a client’s conversion rate by 10 percent? Raise your rates. Did the ebook you designed bring in 300 new leads? Raise your rates. Great results are a clear sign that you’re creating value for clients, and your rates should reflect that.

You’ve added a new skill. Whenever you take a new course, master another design software, or add a new programming language to your repertoire, it’s time to bump up your rates.

You’re an expert in your niche. One of the biggest things clients pay for is your expertise. Whether you’ve gained general web dev experience or established yourself as an expert in your niche, that adds to the value you bring to every project.

You’ve made working with you even easier for clients. The experience of working with you is as much a part of the value you offer clients as your creative work. Your professionalism and the tools and processes you put in place add to the value clients pay for. So when you invest in making that process better for clients, your rates need to reflect that.

Knowing it’s time to raise your rates and actually implementing a rate increase are two very different things. Money conversations can be fraught and uncomfortable, especially when you’re telling clients they need to pay you more. You might worry about losing current clients or second-guess whether your work is actually worth the increased rate.

We’re here to tell you: it is.

Here are a few tips to help make conversations around raising your rates a little easier and less scary.

• Be proactive and over-communicate about rate changes with clients. That first invoice with your new rate should never surprise clients.
• Draw a connection between the increased rate and the added value you create for clients.
• If you want, you can allow repeat clients to stay at the old, legacy rate—while you increase rates for new clients.
• Make sure clients know your rate increases aren’t willy-nilly. Assure them you won’t be raising your rate after every project. You can also offer clients a guarantee that the new rate is locked in for a set period of time (say, 6 months) to help put them at ease.
• Be willing to be flexible. If a new rate is outside your client’s budget, plain and simple (but you don’t want to walk away) you can always offer to meet them in the middle.
• BUT you should also be ready to walk away from clients once you’ve outgrown them. As you gain experience and skill, not everyone will be able to afford your work—and that’s okay.

Step 4: Secure your first freelance projects and clients

Phew—now that you’ve done (nearly) all the prep work to start your business, it’s time to—well—start! In other words, let’s get down to landing your first project and client as a freelance web developer.

Your next step is to begin looking into where and how you’ll find clients.

Define your niche

We recommend starting this process by defining your niche as a freelance web developer. What do you do? Who do you do it for? Laying this out from the beginning makes it easier to narrow down where you’ll look for clients and the kind of project you’ll take on.

Make note of the answers to these questions, among others you may think of:

• Do you work with a specific programming language or framework?
• Do you build a specific type of project? For example, iOS mobile apps or data pipelines?
• Do you work for brands in a particular industry? Ecommerce, for example, or gaming?
• Are there projects you definitely don’t do?

Leverage your own network first

Once you know who you work for and what you do, the best place to start finding clients is within your own existing network. Whether you’ve worked in web dev for a while or you’re brand new to the industry, you probably have a broader professional network than you may think.

When you work within your existing network to find your first freelance development projects, you start with a foot in the door already. That means you’re spending time talking to potential clients that are more likely to close, instead of selling yourself to total strangers. Whether you have a previous relationship with someone looking for a freelance web developer or you get a referral, working within your network makes it easier to land jobs.

And this process doesn’t have to look like insurance sales. Let your colleagues, friends, and family know that you’re launching a freelance web development business. Tell them you’re actively looking for freelance projects, and you’d love any referrals they can offer. It’s as simple (and non-spammy) as that. Don’t forget to make sure you include a link to your portfolio as well as information for how interested parties can contact you.

Note: Your network isn’t just valuable at the outset of your business. As you grow as a freelancer, your network will grow, too—and it can be an even more useful channel for securing referrals and new freelance jobs .

Find where your clients look for web developers

After you’ve looked to your existing network, it’s time to find out where else your ideal clients are, and—more importantly—where they go to look for freelance web developers. That’s a long list, with clients listing freelance jobs and searching for web developers in a number of different places. Some of the best options for finding clients include:

• Job boards and marketplaces (those specific to freelancers or web development and more general sites)
• Web developer forums and communities
• Industry events (both IRL and online)

Let’s take a look at each of those places and find out which ones might wield your first freelance job.

Freelance and web development job boards and matching services

If you’re like many new freelancers, job boards and marketplaces may have been your first thought for finding freelance projects. There’s a good reason for that—many job boards offer a centralized place where you can find a lot of people hiring for web development jobs all in one location.

Job boards also offer one of the simplest ways to narrow down your search, offering filtering options like the job type, front end vs. back end vs. full stack, programming language or framework, rates, and more. Plus, you can often share your contact information and get alerts about new jobs that match your searches.

Some options for freelance web developers include:

• Authentic Jobs
• RemoteLeads

Freelance web developer forums and communities

There’s a whole bunch of communities, forums, and social media groups dedicated to web developers online. From GitHub to Women Who Code, there’s something for just about every freelance web developer working in any and every niche—from front end development and UI design to full stack.

Online forums and communities offer all the same relationship- and authority-building opportunities of broader social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn, but their focus on the web dev industry makes them particularly useful for finding freelance work.

Not to mention, many developer forums have their own dedicated job boards right on the site.

If you’re not sure where to start, here are a few forums and communities to check out:

• Stack Overflow
• Ruby on Rails
• Hacker News
• Front-End Developers
• SitePoint Community
• Women Who Code

You can also find tons of great contacts and potential clients by frequenting web development conversations and groups on the bigger social networks and forums—specifically Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit.

Industry events

There’s no shortage of programming and web dev events happening in a normal year, from large conferences and summits to smaller scale happy hours, code events, and more. Attending these events—and even speaking at them—is a great way to get your name out in the industry and build up your personal brand in your particular niche.

Plus, when you attend industry events, you can squeeze a ton of networking into a relatively small block of time.

Many events, like happy hours, are even designed specifically for networking. Plus, most conferences and larger-scale events schedule time and even mini-events to help attendees network and find jobs, too.

There are hundreds of events happening across the globe each year, so we won’t bother listing them here. A good resource for keeping track of them all is the dev.events list , which lists events by date, categorizes them by niche, and allows you to filter by region.

How pitch your freelance development services to potential clients

No matter where you find potential clients—be it from your own network or a total stranger at a web dev conference—you need to know how to sell yourself and your services. Even the warmest leads and referrals will expect you to be able to defend your skills, your rates, and why you’re the best person for the job.

There are a few likely scenarios when you’ll find yourself having to pitch your services:

• In response to freelance job listings on job boards
• In response to social media or community requests for pitches
• Cold pitches

Pitching is a more uncomfortable process for some of us than others, but it’s a necessity for freelancers to be able to sell themselves. And the good news is it doesn’t have to feel weird or spammy or braggy. In fact, the best freelance pitches are straightforward, concise, and offer genuine value to the recipient—they aren’t about you.

Pitching best practices

Your pitch will vary widely depending on the context, whether it’s cold or warm, and the details of the project. That said, there are a few guidelines every pitch should follow. For one, keep things short and simple—especially if you’re contacting someone cold. If you’re responding to a job listing you’ve seen, be sure to tailor your pitch to the details of the listing, and avoid sending anything that reads as a formulaic template.

Make your pitches human. They shouldn’t sound like a sanitized template, devoid of personality and humor. Be yourself, and recognize that a human will be reading the pitch on the other end.

One of the biggest mistakes freelancers make when pitching is to talk about themselves, and only themselves. It’s counterintuitive, but your pitch isn’t about you—it’s about the person you’re sending it to. Your pitch should reflect that. In a paragraph or two, weave together a narrative that focuses on the challenge(s) facing the company, how you can solve that challenge, and, crucially, how solving that challenge will affect the person you’re pitching.

Lastly, remember to always give the recipient a next step—a way to contact you, for example, or a link to your portfolio where they can view samples of your work.

3 steps to an effective pitch

• Do your research: Identify companies that can truly benefit from some web development help. Look into specific details around how you’d approach working with them and what you might do for the company. Then, identify the right person to contact. LinkedIn is a useful tool for finding people with a particular role or title in the company.
• Craft and send your pitch: Using the best practices above, write up your pitch. If you want, you can templatize the pitch afterward, but we recommend writing the first pitch with one recipient in mind. This makes it easier to write in a personal, human way.
• Follow up: Always follow up on pitches that haven’t gotten a response. It can feel like you’re annoying the recipient, but it’s also really easy for your pitch to get buried in someone’s inbox. Following up once or twice after your initial message helps ensure that isn’t the case.

Step 5: Build a long term, sustainable business

Now that you have your first project (or a few) under your belt, it’s time to work toward building a sustainable, growing business. A lot goes into building and growing a freelance business, but creating value for your clients underpins everything else you do. If you regularly do work that creates value for clients, and you make it easy to work with you, you’re well on your way to becoming a successful freelance web developer.

In other words, do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it, with a good attitude. That’s the tweet.

Turn first projects into long term business

As a freelance web developer, you’re never done prospecting and bringing in new business—it’s a constant process. However, there are several ways you can turn that process into something that gets a little less manual as you go. By building strategically, you can give your business the momentum it needs to continue growing organically.

Asking for referrals

As a freelance web developer, you’re never done prospecting and bringing in new business—it’s a constant process. Referrals from past and current clients are a huge part of that for a vast majority of successful freelancers. When clients routinely refer other companies to you, your business benefits from a steady stream of warm leads.

• Potential clients and leads trust referrals from colleagues, friends, and family
• When cultivated right, referred leads are pre-qualified
• Referred leads are easier to close, accelerating client acquisition

Here’s how to ask for referrals from clients you’ve worked with:

Step 0, before you make the ask, is to ensure you’re doing your part. Delight your clients first—be professional and reliable, create great work for them, and focus on building long-term relationships.

Next, follow up whenever you complete a project and ask for feedback from your clients. Ask them how you did and whether there’s anything else you can do to make working with you even better. Here’s a sample note to get you inspired:

When clients respond with positive feedback, thank them and ask for a referral. Your ask can be as simple as something like this:

The other side of asking for referrals is making sure it’s super easy for clients to refer work—good work—to you. In clear terms, let clients know what kind of clients and projects you’re looking for. Make sure they know where to send those referrals—to your email, for example, or your website or portfolio.

Note: When clients do offer a referral, make sure to thank them. You can even offer a small gift as an additional thank you and incentive to send more referrals your way. A charitable gift card is a nice touch, for example, or even some swag for your business, if you have it.

As powerful as referrals are, they tend to work on a small scale—one client might send a few others your way. To extend the reach of your happy clients, collect testimonials from them, too. Research shows that most people trust reviews and testimonials just as much as referrals from trusted friends and family. So collecting testimonials from your clients enables their goodwill to reach beyond their own network.

You can ask clients to write a testimonial for your services using the same basic format as above. Once you have glowing testimonials in hand, use them everywhere:

• Your portfolio and/or website
• In your proposals
• On your LinkedIn profile
• Other social media

Building your portfolio strategically

Now, we already talked about building your portfolio. But as your business grows and matures, your portfolio should evolve, too. By taking a strategic approach, you can turn your portfolio into an even more valuable asset as you go.

As you build up work experience and completed projects, you can display prominent client logos on your website. If there are big name players in your niche, having their logo on your website can lend a ton of credibility to your work. Given the value of working with clients like that, you can work strategically to secure them as a client. This is one situation where it sometimes makes sense to offer a lower rate—because you’re getting more than monetary value out of working with them.

Another huge authority-builder for your portfolio is cold, hard numbers. We talked before about asking clients to share the results your work produces. With their permission, you can add those results to your portfolio website. By showcasing concrete results on your portfolio (and elsewhere), you offer potential new clients a window into the kind of results your work can produce for them.

Lastly, be sure to think strategically about the kind of work you highlight on your website. Far from a repository for every project you’ve ever worked on, the work samples you provide should emulate the types of projects, and the types of clients, you want to work with in the future.

Building community as a freelancer

Lastly, it’s important to prioritize building a community with other freelancers. That can feel counterintuitive—other developers are your competition, aren’t they? But it’s vital for long-term freelance success.

• Fellow freelancers can be just as great a source of referrals as your clients
• Freelance peers can serve as someone to bounce ideas off of or provide guidance
• They may subcontract work out to you and you can subcontract work out to them when the time comes
• Cultivating a community of other freelance developers can help mitigate feelings of isolation that sometimes come with freelance life

There’s no extensive how-to for this one. Stay active in freelance developer communities online, be friendly, and always be willing to help fellow freelancers out.

Streamline your freelance business

Once your freelance business is cranking, it’s important to optimize and streamline your operations to be as efficient as possible. Doing so frees you up to do more of the work you love to do… which is also the work you actually get paid for.

Put a client onboarding process in place

Bringing new clients up to speed on your processes and getting the information you need from them can be time-consuming. Develop a system for this process as early in the life of your business as possible.

• Define the information you need from clients in order to get started on a new project
• Create a document that explains your process and policies, including rates, payment terms, accepted payment methods, timelines, and more
• Create email templates to streamline things down the line

Outsource non-core tasks

As your business grows, you might find yourself in a familiar situation: you go from having more time than money, to having more money than time. When that happens, it’s time to start paying for more time—by outsourcing non-core tasks. Doing so allows you to spend less time on activities that don’t generate revenue for your business, and more time on those that do.

Work to identify what those tasks are for your business and then outsource them to someone else. Administrative tasks like answering emails and following up on invoices, for example, are common tasks that can easily be outsourced to a virtual assistant (VA).

Wrapping up

There’s a reason the gig economy is growing so rapidly, especially in the web dev world: Freelancing offers the promise of ultimate independence, freedom, and a great income. It takes commitment to build a successful business as a freelance web developer, but with the step-by-step guidance above, you’re ready to take the leap.

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The Ultimate 2023 Freelance Business Plan

By jena kroeker.

Creating a freelance business plan for 2023 is like planning a trip with an uncertain itinerary. Even if you know where you want to go, the journey could be full of twists and turns.

But you may remember the encouragement we offered in last year’s blog post titled “ How to Prepare Your Business for Your Best Year Yet ”:

“While we can’t predict exactly what 2022 will be like, the future is bright for freelancers. You can take comfort in the fact you’ve made a great choice of career.”

And the same is true now. Although the world is full of economic challenges and uncertainty, we’re part of a growing freelance and virtual assistant industry that’s demonstrated resilience and adaptability. For example, in his article, “ The Freelance Revolution Is Ahead Of Schedule ,” Jon Younger shares the following statistics:

“40% of full-time employees in the US have a side-gig. 90% plus of corporate leaders in a recent global survey said they utilize freelancers and say they will increase their reliance. During the current recessionary period, almost 80% of employers say they are increasing their use of freelancers as they suspend full-time hires.”

So, let’s face 2023 with confidence and optimism!

Creating a Freelance Business Plan

In our Business Planning Success workshop , Freelance University co-founder and instructor Craig Cannings unpacked a “10-Step Freelance Business Plan.”

These 10 steps are all part of the journey you’ll be taking next year. And as you prepare for this winding road, don’t forget you’re armed with experience and potential. However the year unfolds, you can keep adapting and building skills to help you navigate it.

In particular, you’ll benefit from developing your soft skills. As Craig explained in a recent Facebook Friday event on the “ Top Soft Skills for 2023 ,” both technical (hard) skills and non-technical (soft) skills contribute to your long-term success.

While the hard skills help you perform marketing and service-specific tasks, the soft skills enhance your client relationships and your business planning. And, as you’ll see below, they help you create the ultimate freelance business plan.

Are you ready? Okay, imagine you’re going on a trip and need to organize five important elements before departing.

Preparing for the Year’s Journey

1. your destination.

Although you’re traveling through uncharted territory, you can create a map of where you want to go. In other words, determining your destination involves defining the vision and goals for your business.

As Craig Cannings explains in the workshop above , it’s important to start with a “Big Why Statement”:

“I would like to build a Freelance Business so that I can _____________________.”

Next, spark your imagination by envisioning what you’d like to accomplish, and then turn those visions into specific goals to reach at specific times in 2023.

For example, in her article, “ Steal My Freelance Writing Business Plan ,” Elna Cain recommends deciding what you’d like to accomplish by the end of December. Then, break your goals down into quarters (groupings of three months at a time), starting in January. She says, “Knowing what you want to accomplish during a three-month period will help you determine what you should be working on each month!”

Important soft skills for this step :

• Creativity to imagine the possibilities for you and your business • Adaptability to changing circumstances

According to Craig, “The willingness to change is a superpower for any virtual assistant or freelancer .” As times are changing, you may need to adapt to new circumstances and adjust your goals along the way.

2. Your Budget

Since all journeys require funding, financial goals are a crucial part of your freelance business plan. To plan your budget, start by asking yourself three questions:

• What are your desired annual/monthly revenues? • What is the specific monthly income you need to make ASAP? • What are your current (or potential) monthly business expenses?

In this time of economic uncertainty and rising prices, you may need to adjust your budget at certain intervals. But for now, outline your one-time and recurring expenses, including fixed costs and monthly costs.

Decide when you’ll revisit your budget to check whether the numbers are still lining up. For instance, you could examine it at the beginning of each quarter when you reevaluate your overall business goals.

• Attention to detail as you calculate your income and expenses • Adaptability in the face of a changing economy

3. Your Transportation

Instead of planes, trains, and automobiles, your freelance business plan relies on your niche and pricing to move it forward. These two elements are the vehicles that help transport your business toward fulfillment and sustainability. Fortunately, you can adjust them to suit your preferences and increase your speed as you navigate the road ahead.

Specifically, it’s important to plan both your audience niche (Who will you serve?) and your service niche (What will you offer?). For example, maybe you’ve decided to serve fitness professionals by offering them social media services.

Once you’ve determined your niche, plan your pricing by asking yourself these three questions:

• Are you clear on how to price your services and packages? • Are you comfortable with your current rates or will you consider a price increase for the new year? • Any service packages to add or remove?

To ensure your pricing transports your business effectively, try to avoid going too high or too low.

An article titled “ 7 Freelancers Mistakes to Avoid ” warns,

“Think about the adage: ‘Pay peanuts, get monkeys’. Yes, clients generally are on the lookout for affordable, good-value products and services, but this doesn’t mean that you should undervalue what you can provide. “Particularly, very low fees might make a potential client feel suspicious of you. They might wonder whether you do, in fact, have the right experience or expertise, and whether you will be able to return a timely and professional project.”

It also recommends including sick pay, maternity or paternity leave, healthcare benefits, and vacation allowance in your fees, amounts that are normally included in an employee salary.

• Empathy toward your clients’ circumstances • Clear communication with clients • Exceptional service • Proactivity to anticipate necessary changes • Collaboration/teamwork skills to enhance your services

4. Your Accommodations

Now consider the online accommodations that house your business presence and make it visible to your target audience of potential clients. For example, imagine you have a main house (your website) and a number of mobile homes or motorhome RVs (your social media, freelance profiles, digital content, and email).

As you create your freelance business plan, ask yourself the following questions about each accommodation:

• Website : What are your plans to create or optimize your website? • Social media : How can you optimize your social media presence? • Freelance profiles : Will you set up profiles in other platforms (e.g. FreeU, Upwork)? • Digital content : What content will you create to attract your audience (e.g. blog, podcast, YouTube video)? • Email : What lead magnets will you create to build your email list?

• Creativity as you think of new ideas to enhance your business presence • Proactivity to anticipate necessary changes

5. Your Supplies and Resources

The remaining parts of your freelance business plan are essential supplies and resources that will power your journey through 2023. Here’s what you need to include in your plan:

• Business systems (e.g. email inbox system, bookkeeping system, etc.) • Technology (e.g. web platform and host, project management tool, etc.) • Marketing (e.g. plans to reach your audience via referral marketing, content marketing, and other channels) • Learning plan (e.g. courses and learning time so you can develop necessary skills heading into the new year) • Productivity (e.g. efficient use of time so you can accomplish priority tasks and track your progress)

Forgetting some of these supplies can cause inconvenience or discomfort. For instance, project management is cumbersome if you lack the proper technology to streamline it. But forgetting other elements can threaten to derail your business. Consider this advice from the article above regarding productivity and time management:

“Think about it: when you were working for a company, you probably had days when your workload was very low, which meant you might have done nothing, or very little, for a whole day. “Still, at the end of the month, you would get your salary and all your benefits, and that would likely remain unchanged. However, things are different as a freelancer. Generally speaking, if a freelancer doesn’t work, they don’t earn.”

Therefore, make sure you pack all the above supplies and resources as you get ready to travel through 2023.

• Project management so you can manage your plan and resources • Organization so you can balance your personal and professional life by blocking out time for clients, marketing, and learning

Final Thoughts and Encouragement

How do you feel now? More equipped to face the new year with confidence and optimism? As you can see, the ultimate freelance business plan for 2023 includes space to move and adapt to the road ahead.

As the article above  says when describing a freelance writer ’s business plan,

“Nothing is set in stone, especially when it comes to business writing and coming up with a plan. You should be prepared to make changes as necessary to help you reach your goals.”

So, pack your suitcase, head out the door, and look forward to a year of learning and growing!

And now we’d love to hear from you. How’s your freelance business planning going? Do certain parts of your plan need special attention or further development? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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If you are planning to start a new web design company, the first thing you will need is a business plan. Use our sample web design business plan created using upmetrics business plan software to start writing your business plan in no time.

Before you start writing your business plan for your new web design firm, spend as much time as you can reading through some examples of software and mobile app-related business plans.

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Web Design Business Plan Outline

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