If you’re a freelancer, you’ll probably already be used to variable income. One month you can do great and the other you can be way down in the dumps. It can be pretty stressful when you have to manage your finances with that level of unpredictability. That’s why you should always be doing whatever you can to boost your income and increase it when you get the chance to.
Rather than waiting for your income to grow organically, you should get out there and take steps towards higher earnings. You have your destiny in your hands and when you’re a freelancer, no matter what kind of freelancer you might be, no one’s going to do it for you. If you want to take your career to new heights and boost your earning potential, only you can make it happen.
Read on to find out more about some of the things you can do to start earning more money right away and for a long time to come.
Review Your Rates Regularly
First of all, you should make sure that you take the time to look at your rates from time to time and think about how you might change them. By reducing them when times are tough, you might be able to tempt in more customers and make more money. But when your services are in demand, you certainly shouldn’t undersell them because you’ll be selling yourself short and not getting the money you could get if you were to put your prices up a little. So keep an eye on this.
Make Sure You Chase Up Payments or Get Paid Upfront
This is a major source of financial pressure for many freelancers. When you complete work, you deserve to be paid for it in a timely manner. After all, you’re not doing charity work here. Be sure to follow up on payments and don’t feel bad about demanding at least some of your payment up front if you think that’s appropriate. So many freelancers miss out on money because clients simply never pay them and then fall through the net. Don’t let that happen to you.
Branch Out by Collaborating with Others
You can expand your offer to clients by collaborating with other people. If you’re currently doing one type of work and you know other people who are doing similar work, you can join forces and work together to ensure you’re both benefiting from the arrangement. It can be a good way to reduce your risk and find new kinds of opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise been open to you. There’s nothing wrong with branching out into new areas sometimes.
Offer Additional Services
You don’t necessarily have to team up with other people in order to branch out though. One great way to expand your earning potential is to offer additional services that simply weren’t part of your offer before. By doing this, you’ll be able to ensure you’re offering something to more people and that increases the chances of finding regular paid work if that’s something that you’ve been struggling with up to now. There are probably many ways in which you can branch out.
Schedule Your Work to Fit More Into Your Working Hours
By taking the time to properly schedule your work, you’ll be able to fit more into your day and this should allow you to start earning more money as well. That’s the way it should be and what everyone should be aiming for as a freelancer. Software like https://getsling.com/work-schedule/ can definitely help with the task of scheduling your work better and staying on top of your workload each and every day, so you should definitely give it a try if you haven’t done so already.
Explore Consulting and Advisory Services
Exploring consulting and advisory work could be one way in which you offer something new and different to clients. If you have plenty of working experience and knowledge, it makes sense to monetize that expertise in some way. There are lots of companies and individuals out there who would benefit from your understanding and be more than willing to pay for it if you have something important and insightful to offer.
Encourage Happy Customers to Spread the Word
When you deal with a client who you can tell is very happy with the work that you’ve done for them, you should encourage them to tell people about the experience they’ve had with you. This is important because you want your existing base of customers to spread the word as far and wide as possible. Gaining customers via word of mouth is really important for freelancers in most sectors and it’s something that definitely should not be overlooked in terms of importance.
Market Yourself Better
The way in which you market yourself will have a huge impact on the amount of money you’re able to make each day. That might sound like a big statement but it’s absolutely true. If you market yourself well and show the world your best side and best qualities, you’ll get to where you want to be much faster because more people will know about you, understand what you’re offering and hire you to complete work for them. It’s as simple as that.
Nail Down Your Niche
We’ve already talked about branching out and offering more, but another way to boost your income as a freelancer is to really nail down your niche. When you go out of your way to find a niche that works for you and really focuses on it, you’ll become an authority on that niche topic and people will come to you when they want help with it or want to work with someone who really knows what they’re talking about.
Aim Higher
You should never stop aiming higher in your freelance career. There’s always new heights to scale and new possibilities to embrace. You don’t have to keep your sights limited to your existing horizons. Sometimes taking things further and doing more is exactly what you need in order to take things to the next level and to start earning more money in your career. A little ambition can go a very long way after all.
If Clients Become a Drag, Ditch Them
When a client starts to become a drag on you and they’re wasting a lot of your time and you don’t feel like you’re getting enough in return from them, it’s pretty simple. You should ditch them and look to more productive work. There are plenty more clients in the sea and you don’t have to waste your time on clients that are doing nothing for you. Sometimes, you just have to cut them loose.
Remove Distractions and Boost Daily Productivity
If you feel like you’re lagging behind a little in your career, you should try to remove distractions and boost your daily productivity. This should help you to get more work done and in turn, you should start earning more money as a result. And that’s obviously exactly what you want as a freelancer. It’s pretty simple; stop wasting time!
As a freelancer facing tough times, there’s never been a better moment to start thinking about how you might boost your income and how you might go about doing that. The ideas above will help you to do that and you should never underestimate the power of asserting yourself as a freelancer because it’ll make a real difference.
