Freelancing might seem simple, but it’s not. There are many processes to handle. Here is a rough outline of a startup plan of action for novice freelancers. This outline assumes you would like to leverage the web as much as you can, and that you want to use content to that end.
If don't want to deal with content publishing/marketing, fine, but don't think this guide isn't for you too. You may need things to organize yourself and even if those things are content-based, they're not something you'll show anyone, they are private business documents. You should read it because I go over that as well.
The First Quarter
During the three months of the first quarter, one has to start most of the setup-grade business management tasks.
Customer intelligence and business plans must be the first things to prototype, before creating any other document or asset for the business.
We can do a few jobs for friends and family during this phase.
Creation of Containers
All the business materials need a home first. We start by creating the base folder in our computer where all the components of the business will be neatly stored.
Examples of Folders
- Accounting books: for the general, journal and balance ledgers
- Business documents: business plan, brand media, client documents
- Content: content to do, research documents, delivered content
- Routine: workflows, calendars, research, tests, experiments, measurements
For instance, inside the Routine folder, subfolders for each daily process.
Customer Intelligence Documents
- Customer personas
- Persona Topics
- Keyword mining
- Keyword list
Business Back-End Documents
- Business model
- Online value proposition
- Investment plan
- Marketing plan
- Marketing mix
- Monetizations
- New features
- Operating business plan
- Sales plan
- Deals list
- Accounting books
- Organizational spreadsheets (keywords, clients, social tasks,
Brand Media Files
- Banners
- Fonts
- Logos
- Color Palettes
- Icons
- Backgrounds
- Signatures
Client Documents
- Letter of agreement
- Agreement
- Service process document
- FAQ sheet
- In-Depth questionnaire
- Copyright release form
If we are going to use websites (own or third party) to market our services, then it’s a good idea to set up tracking and measuring methods for the sites we are going to use sometime in the first three months. The earlier, the better.
Another thing that is good to have from day one of doing business is up to date, well-done books. This will save us headaches down the road.
It’s not that difficult to learn how to carry accounting books.
For instance, the manual of the accounting application GnuCash teaches the user how to carry books with the program.
That manual not only teaches how to use the software, it also teaches the user basic universal accounting concepts. How to carry books with GnuCash it’s more than enough knowledge for what a freelancer needs.
If we don’t want to have anything to do with the accounting side of the startup, then we always have the choice of hiring an accountant on a project basis to do the books for us each time we must submit our tax forms.
The Second Quarter
This is the creationist phase. If one doesn’t have content assets, this is the time to start making them.
How do we achieve this? We must follow a routine of writing x quantity of words daily.
We can experiment with content pieces of different lengths, but we must respect the daily goal; creating additional pieces if the only one we have for the day is below the daily goal.
Content creating daily like this may be taxing. Or it may not be, but it may become boring. If it does, it’s a good time to start thinking about how to publish our initial content assets.
Are we going to have our site, or are we going to rely on third-party sites where we can host our content?
Enter the web CMS. Having a blog or portfolio on a CMS that we control is a great business tool, because of the advantages of catering to your customer base a web presence brings.
Still, we are going to need content that we wrote for clients, and their permission to include those pieces in the portfolio. If we don’t have at least six such pieces maybe it’s better to start with a blog.
In this quarter we can try our luck searching for projects to work for in online employment venues to begin having a taste of the freelancing daily hustle.
With the knowledge of our target market we gained up to now, we can start outreaching to buyers of the service or product we’re generating and offer ourselves.
- Freelancer management platforms (example: cloudpeeps.com)
- Classified advertisement sites (example: skipthedrive.com)
- Fixed price gig portals (example: fiverr.com)
- Revenue sharers (example: steemit.com)
- Sites that list call for submissions of finished products
The Third Quarter
Half a year went by. We now have a treasure chest of original content.
Time to enhance the networking process. We must develop relationships with players with whom we can exchange favors. Example: guest blog post in blogs in our industry.
Content Management
If we decided to use content to market our services or products, one of the spreadsheets we must have created in the first quarter is content assets.
In that spreadsheet, we entered each substantial piece of content we’ve created. Having stockpiles of content means we can design a content strategy to spread our content and our name.
Website Improvements
Hopefully, we also have our portfolio or blog website, and it’s improved with useful content.
- Landing pages
- Lead pages
- Sales pages
The Fourth Quarter
By this moment in the startup project’s journey, the business site has to be improved with:
- Integrations (example: integrations with our social media profiles)
- Automations (example: autoresponder)
- A constant improvement/investment plan
Investing
Hopefully, we got a cash flow going, and we can start investing considerably to scale.
- If we want the search engines to feature our site on their first pages: SEO services
- If our objective is bringing more qualified traffic to our site: advertising
- If we want to become more hireable in a work platform: paid features of the platform
- If we want to concentrate exclusively on our product or service: outsourcing
Going Legal
It’s month twelve of the startup experiment. If we decide we want to keep working on the freelance business we created, then it’s time to register as a legal business entity.
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