Make Money Online: How to Start a Thriving Freelance Career: Launching a Successful Freelance Business

By Ashley Simpson

Are you looking for a real way to earn serious cash from home on your own terms?

 

Freelancing may be the solution you have been searching for to supplement your income or to replace your full-time income altogether. Almost every industry has been disrupted by the gig economy, so it's time to get to work and start earning!

 

This is the complete series of my Launching a Freelance Career and covers everything you need to start thinking about freelancing all the way to landing your first client.

 

Between these pages, you will learn how to:

 

• Embrace the mindset of a successful freelancer and entrepreneur.
• Prepare your finances for the feast or famine cycle of entrepreneurship.
• Set sustainable rates for a steady income based on your skills and income requirements.
• Prepare for your very first client.
• Start earning for a six-figure business that sustains you.

In the pages of this book, you will learn all of the best freelancing tips to get your business off the ground as quickly as possible. Whether you are still thinking about whether freelancing is right for you or are ready to take on your first client, there is something in here for you.

 

Why wait another day to start freelancing, gain flexibility, and skyrocket your income?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashley Simpson
• Release date: Nov 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223857488

Book preview

Freelance Freedom: Mindset Shifts to Make a Successful Business

Introduction

What would change about your life if you could work on your own terms, harnessing the power of the innate skills you already possess? Even if you had to learn a new skill, the draw of living life on your own terms is appealing to most. It’s why we fall under the spell of writers like Tim Ferriss who claim that we can live our dream life, perched poolside while we work a mere four hours each week. Nomadic lifestyles seem glamorous, allowing you to work from the couch on your RV or a sailboat while you travel the world.

This is the allure of working for yourself, but it may not be the ideal for everyone. Some people simply want to live life to the fullest where they are right now. They want to be there to see their child take his first steps or chaperone a middle school field trip to the aquarium. They want to meet their spouse in the middle of the day for lunch or truly enjoy their weekends, free of the stress and worry of what Monday morning will bring. In other words, you likely crave a life suited your unique lifestyle and what matters to you most. You want to prioritize the things that matter to you, whether that means a good night of sleep, a date night with your partner, or a game night with your closest friends. 

Picture what your work life is like right now. Close your eyes and think back to what your day was like at the office. You spent forty-five minutes on a morning commute, showing up fifteen minutes late to work and already frazzled from the traffic. Your boss gave you yet another unrealistic deadline that will force you to work overtime, missing out on the important moments in the lives of your family and children. The coworker who always complains stopped by your desk on the way to get coffee, burdening you with unpleasant office gossip before the day even truly begins.

If you’re lucky, you manage to work quietly at your desk until lunch time when you feel compelled to play the game of office politics. Who should you sit with? Would it be acceptable or even easier if you just sat by yourself for the afternoon and read a good book? The decision seems too difficult to manage, so you decide to work through lunch with the hopes of heading home early. You eat your cold lunch seated at your desk while you start a mental countdown of the hours left until you can clock out.

The afternoon drags by and you make your way to the communal coffee pot. The dregs of coffee drain into your dirty mug, promising the much-needed boost to work for these last few hours. You sip your bitter coffee (you were out of cream and sugar), trying to stay focused on the task at hand. When the end of the day finally does roll around, you get to look forward to another hour-long commute in rush hour traffic. You race home just in time to throw dinner together, head to the gym, and take a shower before falling into bed exhausted. Your spouse feels neglected because you didn’t have time to say two words to them. If you’re single, you certainly didn’t have an opportunity to head out on the town with friends or on a romantic date night. The chaotic schedule of your nine-to-five prevents you from doing the things you truly want to do.

Does that day sound familiar?

Maybe you worked hard to earn your place on the corporate ladder. Maybe you invested thousands of dollars in getting the best education possible, racking up student loan debt you can barely afford on the salary you were assigned. Maybe you spend hours slaving away at the daily grind for very little compensation in hopes of being noticed as a rising star by your boss or upper management. The rat race feels like the only thing this life has to offer, but what if there was a different way to get what you need from your professional life?

The good news is there might be a solution that works for you: freelancing. Freelancing is a way for you to cultivate a career you can be proud of, one where you can use the skills you already have and build up a stable of clients who pay your bills. Most people already have at least one marketable skill, though some lucky individuals will have multiple skills that the market is ready and willing to pay for. Even if you think you have nothing to contribute to society at large, there are endless resources for you to learn a new skill and start to apply it to real-world problems in exchange for a paycheck.

Think about what you would do if your work schedule was as flexible as you needed it to be. Here is a revised version of what your day might look like if you made the leap into freelancing instead of the grind you’re used to right now: Imagine waking up just as the sun starts to peek through the window. Roll out of bed and make your way to the coffee pot where you can sit and enjoy your java while reading the headlines. You have time in the morning to go for a run that will invigorate you before hopping in the shower and getting ready.

With these important items off your to-do list, you can pack up your laptop and head to the café on the corner where you will work on projects that inspire you and tap into your creative potential. Spend a few hours talking with clients (for a fee) and a few hours tapping away at your keyboard (also for a fee) before heading to lunch with a friend instead of your coworker who does nothing but complain. After lunch, you feel refreshed from your time away and squeeze in an hour or two of work. Maybe you take a few minutes at the end of your work day to edit what you did today, send emails, and proofread your copy before submitting it to your clients for approval and a steady paycheck. Because you worked from home this afternoon, you don’t even have an evening commute to think about so you can start to throw dinner together as soon as the clock strikes five. You have the rest of the evening to spend time with your family and friends and on those pursuits that fill up your creative well.

Wouldn’t it be nice if this could be your reality? Instead of leaving your to-do list to chance or the whims of your boss, you can make your own schedule that allows you to work at a leisurely pace without rushing to complete everything before the end of the day. Scheduling appointments or nights out with friends becomes far more convenient than ever before. In other words, you can prioritize your health, take better care of yourself emotionally and physically, and do it all on a more fluid schedule without sacrificing your sleep. Freelancing can give you all of this and more, allowing you to become your own boss and live life on your own terms. Start dreaming big dreams about what your life could look like because we are about to really shake things up!

How I Started Freelancing

LIKE MANY HIGH SCHOOL graduates, I had very little idea of what I wanted to do when I entered the real world. I never intended for freelancing to be a full-time career move for me. In fact, I didn’t even really know what freelancing was or what that lifestyle would look like. There are no classes on planning for the future in high school. We push kids to pursue higher education and give them very few opportunities to think beyond the parameters of the golden career: a stable nine-to-five routine that pays the bills and has some opportunity to advance up the ranks until you get a corner office. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I knew a corner office was never going to be the right choice for me.

I enrolled in a few college courses because that was the expectation. My fiancée and I moved into our first tiny bungalow and those bills started to really rack up. We both had some semblance of money management skills from paying our own bills in high school, but this was an entirely new world. We had rent, electricity, and all of the incidentals that come with being a couple of college kids living off-campus. Our bank accounts were constantly drained as we tried to make this new life of ours as beautiful as we could. It was an expensive endeavor for a couple of kids, and I ended up working three jobs just to make ends meet.

As a way to pass the time between shifts, I would often wander around the library. Writing was always a passion of mine, and I read lots of books on craft to improve my skills. Apart from majoring in journalism or English, I had no idea people were able to make real money writing. It seemed like the only money-making opportunity in creative writing was to publish a book with one of the big publishing houses. I doubted whether I had the skill and perhaps more importantly, the tenacity to stick with a project long enough to find a literary agent and then a publisher. One day, I was browsing the writing section when I came across a book I had never seen before: The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman.

Out of curiosity, I took it to the front counter to check out and settled into my papasan chair in our tiny rented home to read. The premise of the book was that writing was a legitimate career opportunity if you knew where to look. Freelance writing could take on more forms than I dreamed ranging from copywriting to search engine optimization to academic articles. It wasn’t just about how to write the next Great American Novel. Bowerman advocates for finding local clients who can supplement your writing docket, but I knew there had to be another, more convenient method to find people who were willing to pay. I turned to the internet to scour Craigslist and job posting boards where companies might be willing to take a chance on a young writer who wasn’t yet very accomplished but who had a lot of heart.

After a few hours of research, I stumbled upon a website known as Elance (today, you probably know this website by its new name, Upwork). It was a community where companies and individuals could post a variety of miscellaneous tasks, and freelancers could submit their unique proposals to complete the project. The competition didn’t seem to be as cutthroat as I originally imagined it would be, so I signed up as a writer and compiled my portfolio based on old papers I had written for English classes over the years. Because my portfolio was primarily academic pieces, I tried to pursue these jobs first.

I applied for a few jobs and celebrated when I got a message back from my first potential client. Despite my lack of experience and social proof, she was willing to take a chance on me. The project consisted of writing 500-word articles on the health effects of smoking. I carefully did the research required for each topic, added hyperlinks to academic sources, and wrote feverishly as if it were going to be published in a medical journal. For someone who had no background in science or health, it was a tall order that required serious time and dedication. Still, I had the intense determination to make a few extra dollars to put toward our bills at the end of the month. Writing this way was a flexible outlet I could pursue in the mornings between my classes and in the evenings when I was done with my more typical workday.

Unfortunately, I had no concept of how to price my services and I drastically underbid for the project. In hindsight, this was likely the reason she was willing to take a chance on me. I had solid writing skills at the time, but my shining accomplishment was likely that I was the cheapest bidder on the project. I made a meager $5 per article and spent at least an hour on each one. Even if you aren’t good at math, it should be clear I was making less than minimum wage. I kept at it because a little bit of extra money coming in meant so much to us in those early days. The small reward of cold hard cash at the end of each project was enough to cement the idea in my mind: freelancing was the right career move for me.

I decided to go all in on freelancing.

I thought about all of the things I was able to do because of the flexibility in my schedule. If I stuck with freelancing and honed my skills, I would be able to work a flexible schedule on my own terms, which meant I would have more time for my fiancée and family. I took a position with a small independent publishing company as a ghostwriter, my first major freelancing contract that paid the sort of money I always thought I needed a college degree to obtain. I started to charge money for my work without jeopardizing the incoming projects which helped me rapidly gain new experiences as a writer.

Years passed, and I pursued other career opportunities, but I always came back to freelance writing. When we made the decision to become foster parents, we quickly realized that something had to give with the new schedule of our growing family. We made it through grueling training and long interviews but receiving our first placement radically rocked our world. I found myself taking more and more time off from what was now my nine-to-five gig and realized that I needed to get back to a place where I could balance my new responsibilities as a parent with a far more flexible work schedule. I turned back to freelancing.

Instead of searching for another job, I got serious about finding recurring jobs that would allow me to stay home with our kids, take them to the necessary appointments, and still manage all of the minutiae of running a household. I bumped up my rates and started to prove to myself and my family that I could make just as much money working from home as I did at my office job. As my client list continued to grow, I found tat the logical solution was to make the switch to full-time freelancing.

I loved the freedom and flexibility. When my son was home from school, I could be fully present with him. I still needed to get work done, but I could do it during times when he was busy with other things. My husband still held a traditional day job at the time, and he was able to show up more fully for his coworkers without taking excessive time off to accommodate our kids’ needs. Freelancing was the answer to many prayers about what was best for our family, and my husband and I both now freelance full-time. It was an outlet we truly didn’t foresee. Who knew we could make a decent living staying home with our family and using the skills that interested us?

Over the past twelve years, my writing business has grown tremendously alongside my skills. I feel confident in what I have to offer the marketplace and the value provided to my clients. If it hadn’t been for that fateful day in the county library, I might never have tapped into the beauty of a freelancing career. Maybe I took a roundabout way to get to this point, but I’m happy to say that I love what I do now. I think the same could be true for you.

If you’re eager to find a path that allows you to spend more time with your family, work fewer hours while earning more income, or simply have a flexible schedule to pursue other interests, then it’s time for you to take a closer look at what freelancing could offer. Talent is just a small portion of what freelancing requires for successful outcomes. You need a willingness to hustle and be persistent until you find the jobs that are the right fit for you. Starting down this career trajectory involves a lot of hard work, but the skills can be learned with dedication to your craft – whatever that might be. When you’re ready to hustle, here is what you need to know about freelancing.

What is Freelancing?

FREELANCING CAN SOMETIMES be a nebulous idea that rattles around in your mind. Before you can determine whether freelancing is the right fit for you, let’s outline a basic definition of what it is and how you can use it to bolster your net income. Freelancing is the act of working for a client to provide a service they truly need. This service can be almost anything. I’m a writer, but my husband designs board games and provides art for trading card companies. Other freelancers might specialize in website design, logo design, writing white papers, or contributing to medical journals based on someone else’s original research. If you have a skill, chances are you can find a market for it.

Traditional employees are expensive for companies to hire and retain, especially if they only have a limited amount of work that needs to be done. Hiring an employee on a contract basis, as they would with a freelancer, allows the business to get the help it needs without the lengthy and sometimes costly process of onboarding a new employee. A company that hires a freelancer doesn’t have to think about the cultural fit, the initial training, or even desk space for a new person in the office. Even though you aren’t an official member of the team, they may still continue to do recurring work with you if you provide great value in a timely manner for the right price – and that doesn’t necessarily mean the cheapest price.

Why would a business prefer to hire a freelancer to a full-time employee? The first and maybe the most obvious answer is it saves money on payment. An employee on the payroll requires an employer to pay payroll taxes, vacation time, and sick leave. A generous business may even have a matching program for retirement savings which could cost them an additional three percent of whatever they pay the employee. All of these less obvious expenses add up over time, but they are nonexistent when the company opts to hire a freelancer instead. They can pay more per project or on an hourly basis because these other expenses aren’t lurking just around the corner. Freelancers will be required to pay their own self-employment taxes (covered in my Finances for Freelancers book), but this doesn’t impact the business at all.

There is also the added challenge of ensuring that your workers have something to occupy their hours at all times. A new employee expects to be brought on staff as either a part-time or full-time basis, depending on the position. They rely on those hours to bring in the money they need to pay their bills, and the company has an obligation to provide them with the promised hours. This means companies may have to scrounge to find twenty hours of work each week, at a minimum. What happens if the business only needs five to ten hours of work in any given week? An employee is likely to leave if a company can’t guarantee their paycheck, which leads to higher rates of attrition, more expense in advertising the vacant position, the cost of the onboarding process, and lost time between the announced vacancy and the time when it becomes filled once again.

What happens if a business only needs five to ten hours of work per week? It can be hard to find an employee who is happy to work for this minimal pay, but a freelancer is often happy to add in a new client on this very part-time basis. Most freelancers have multiple clients to spread out their income and minimize the risk of losing all their revenue when one project ends. A freelancer isn’t always guaranteed a certain number of hours, making this a more scalable solution for a growing company. They are only paid for the time they spend working or for the completion of the project. Companies may even pay more money for a freelancer who has tons of experience and is okay with working minimal hours only when needed. They understand the cost savings of hiring an independent contractor or freelancer over hiring a traditional employee.

Freelancing also gives businesses access to individuals who specialize in a particular area. Think about the typical project of a nine-to-five business: it likely includes a little bit of writing for the ad copy, some graphic design for the flyer, and a marketing professional to manage the ad on popular platforms like Google. The odds of finding one full-time worker who has expertise in all of these areas are slim to none. Instead, they can hire multiple freelancers who work together to create an ad campaign that the company is thrilled with in the end. Workers with specialties are much easier to find on a freelancing platform like Upwork instead of searching for a hidden gem in the local job market who can work full-time. Companies can tap into the specialized experience of a freelancer without needing to develop training tools, making it a convenient and cost-effective option for the bottom line.

The pool of potential talent is wide and varied when searching on popular freelancing sites (of which there are many). Because businesses no longer have to be tied to a specific geographic location, a world of opportunity is open to them – and to you, as a freelancer. The pandemic forced us to make radical shifts in the way we think about work. Many companies no longer have physical locations, preferring the flexibility of work-from-home positions, making their staff happier and more productive. A world of opportunity presents itself to businesses and freelancers alike. Hiring can take place nationwide or even globally if you don’t mind accounting for the differences in time zones.

Companies prefer working with freelancers because hiring is a simpler process. They can post a job and allow a bevy of freelancers to come to them without having to lift a finger. They can review the profile of any freelancer who stands out from the competition until they find someone with the specialized knowledge they need who can start right away. The interview process is quick and painless, often taking place just a few days after the posting goes live. Freelancers are flexible and nimble. They can be the perfect solution for companies who need to hire in a hurry to make it through a long list of pending projects, even if they might have to pay a rush fee to get the work done.

High-quality work is the hallmark of a successful freelancer. When you have a specialized skill or knowledge, you stand out from a sea of competition. A traditional full-time employee may not be able to pivot as much as you can in the same role. Keep in mind businesses do have the right and responsibility to vet anyone who wants to work with them. To this end, they can look at your past job performance, check for reasonable rates, and even have video interviews to determine if a potential freelance candidate is going to be the right fit for the job. You might find the world of freelancing to be more competitive these days than it was when I got started as a college freshman, but you can set yourself apart as a skilled worker if you know what you need to do when it comes to crafting a proposal and communicating clearly with clients.

Freelancers are often valued because they exist outside of the daily grind of the office. If a company has the same core team of people attending every meeting, it might be blind to new approaches that can benefit the bottom line and increase profits. Instead, freelancers can provide unique insight and perspective to a project that seems like it continues to drag on and on. If you see a new way to approach a project, some companies are open to giving you a little bit of creative license as long as you pitch it to them first. If you don’t want to be swept under the rug in an office job, then freelancing might give you the open door you need to get creative and refine your skills as a marketer, writer, or artist.

Think about all of the ways you can provide real value to a business that needs an expert in a skill you already have. Understanding the value you offer to the team is essential if you want to land more jobs. The why behind what you do matters, and it should be obvious to all of your clients why you do the work you do. People will be more likely to flock to your services when you have a compelling reason for them to choose you over other freelancers or even traditional employees. We’ll talk more about mindset as a freelancer in a later chapter. For right now, think about why you want to be a freelancer and how it can benefit more than just your bank account. What do you bring to the table that can help other companies complete their latest project? This will become a core component to making your proposal that much stronger, leading to an influx of work with the companies you dream about working with and for.

Benefits of Freelancing

WHEN I FIRST MADE THE transition back to working for myself as a writer full-time, I was surprised at just how advantageous this lifestyle truly was. By making the shift to freelancing, I was making a conscious decision to invest more of my time and myself back into my family. Just a few short months after transitioning back from my office job to freelancing, I found out I was expecting our son which gave me a new perspective and appreciation for what this business had to offer. Opening the doors to a new business venture is a scary prospect, no matter what type of creative work you might accomplish. You never know how successful your venture will be until you put it to the test. Running your own business isn’t for the faint of heart.

A creative lifestyle has some serious benefits, whether you decide to pursue it full-time or as a lucrative side hustle. Consider tapping into some of these benefits before we tackle the mindset you need to open the door to this type of opportunity. Keep in mind this isn’t free money that will come your way. You will have to work to take advantage of these benefits and put food on the table for your family. However, this is a great place to find your reason for why you want to tap into the benefits of freelancing for yourself or your family.

Flexible Schedule

PERHAPS THE FIRST AND most obvious reason to consider freelancing is the flexible schedule it offers. You set your own hours and then work within those parameters. Morning people can wake up at the crack of dawn and get three hours in before their kids wake up at seven. Night owls can burn the midnight oil until two in the morning, especially if this is the only time when the house is quiet and conducive to creative work. In other words, you can tailor your work hours to the time of day that suits you best and allows you to work at your optimal levels of productivity. Flexibility is one of the greatest benefits of running your own business, especially if you don’t maintain a brick-and-mortar location. Working from a home office or a couch allows you to work when the muse strikes.

That being said, there’s a downside to a flexible schedule as well. Some people find it more challenging to motivate themselves to put in the hours necessary to yield results for their clients and the bottom line of their business. Flexibility can sometimes translate into an endless list of reasons why now isn’t the right time to get started on that next blog, logo design, or translation. It might not be the perfect time to respond to messages and communicate with clients if you have tons of other things around the home vying for your attention. These external factors might tell you that you don’t have time to squeeze in a little bit of work, but you’ll need to find a way around these challenges. It does require dedication and perseverance to continue doing the work that leads to a hefty paycheck at the end of the week or month. This is part of the mindset required to become a successful freelancer.

The best thing to keep in mind right now is that freelancing can be flexible. If you want to attend a field trip at your child’s school or volunteer in their classroom, you should feel free to take two hours out of your schedule to go apple picking. Those lost hours can be made up for over the course of a longer evening, on the weekend, or on another day when your workload is just a little bit lighter than usual. You might have to get creative with how you make up those hours, but it’s more than possible to do everything calling to you while still accomplishing the work that you set out to do.

Freedom of Location

THE AVERAGE MORNING commute to an office job takes anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes. Of course, if you live in a congested city where traffic is heavier, you might spend closer to an hour doing nothing but driving. Multiply it by two for your morning and evening commute, and you’ve wasted a significant portion of your day. Even if you listen to podcasts or audiobooks on the way to and from work, this is still a waste of time for many people.

Imagine what you could do with an extra hour in your day. Some people might finally take the first steps toward their