Thinking about becoming your own boss and embarking on the wonderful and rewarding journey of freelancing? The Principles of Successful Freelancing is for you. In this easy-to follow guide you’ll learn what’s important in transforming your skills into a booming freelance business.
This book leads you through the entire process, from getting started, through to winning and keeping loyal clients. Running a successful freelance business is easy, and with the information in this book, you’ll confidently turn your freelancing dream into a profitable reality.
- Learn how to make a smooth transition into freelancing
- Understand how to effectively manage your money
- Ensure you spend your time on the right activities
- Discover why a work/life balance is important
- Learn how your network can support you and your business
- Overcome your fear of selling
- And much more …
The 12 Principles Of Successful Freelancing
- Get Organized
Keep your workspace tidy and plan ahead (short- and long-term). - Control Stress
Remain calm and work through issues to avoid early burnout.. - Research
Spend quality time researching your proposed business-it’s more than a five minute web surf. - Be Passionate
Love your work! You should enjoy what you do for a living. - Budget
Save for a rainy day rather than spend every cent as it comes in. - Value your Health
Bad health stops you from working. Take time to exercise and maintain a nutritious diet. - Embrace Selling
Enjoy the sales challenge-it’s easier than you think! - Satisfy Customers
Don’t do average work-exceed their expectations and make them need you. - Grow Your Network
Value family and friends’ support, and meet new people all the time. - Maintain Cashflow
It’s what is in the bank that counts, not what you are billing-understand the difference. - Continually Learn
Keep acquiring new skills and knowledge, every week. Let it slip and you could be left behind. - Achieve a Work/Life Balance
Your life should be more than work-maintain a good balance for health and success.
Real Practical Freelance Advice Being a freelancer is the new black. It’s just a crazy fun loving world where nothing can go wrong. Well as a crusty old freelancer I can tell you that’s far from the truth.Well Miles Burke in his new book The Principles of Successful Freelancing discusses just that. Miles is no stranger to making the leap into world of freelancing having done it three times.When I first picked up this book, I’ll be honest, I was a little skeptical. But I found this is a good book. It’s well written with an entertaining layback style all it’s own. I can just imagine Miles sitting back in a cafe or coffee shop chatting about freelancing. You could easily read this book on 4-5 hour plane flight.This book is squarely aimed at the person who is considering getting into freelancing or has just started. It covers off all aspects of the freelancers life cycle, such as: * From starting out and a hard look at oneself, are you cut out to be a freelancer. * Preparing for the transition from regular work to freelancing, and all the things you really need to think about (but don’t). * Finances, making sure you really do stay in business and keep a positive cash flow. * Productivity, time tracking, getting into that productivity zone and not being distracted. * Selling, winning work and understanding how to sell. Something all freelances fear at some stage. * Customer service, or keeping the client, project management made simple, and dealing with difficult clients. * Lifestyle, work habits, life balance are discussed, this is huge area that I know freelancers cut corners on. * Expansion, life beyond freelancing, the final stepping stone on the way for a freelancer, be that back into employment, or expansion using outsourcing or your own staff.You know what’s really good and annoying too (well for me) with this book; it is just full of all those tips and tricks that I just wish some freelancing mentor had told me all those years ago in the previous century when I started freelancing.I enjoyed this book to the point that I found myself nodding and smiling as Miles waxed on with another aspect of freelancing, pointing out the pitfalls along the way. And sometimes I was wincing as I realised that after 14 years in the game I’ve still got a few things even I can improve on.The one thing I didn’t like, and this was just me, is it was it had a few too many lists in places. It made me think I was checking off my freelancing skills all the time. But really that was a very minor point.Overall, highly recommended, if you are a new freelancer, or old one, or maybe just considering freelancing, get this book, read it. Act on it, it’s a great reference source, then later on, reread it.But you know with this book, it’s now a little bit easier.
I’m very glad I read this book, it was useful, informative, and well done. In the past, I have worked for others. More recently, I have run my own business. A few months ago, I closed that business and moved back to the U.S.A. and am currently doing a little bit of freelance work, writing mostly, just until I begin my grad school program.My experience with freelancing has been mixed, primarily because I have discovered that I have some gaps in my knowledge.To see if I could get some help, I picked up this book. While the book is focused on working as a website designer, the main principles should apply to most fields. That is good. I have done some website design, but the bulk of my freelance work has been writing for books and magazines, or consulting.I have enjoyed reading this book. In short, the content is about 20% pep talk, 20% reality check, with the remaining 60% being great advice and useful information.Obviously, no book will ensure that anyone will be a success at freelancing, but I could have used the information in this book a long time ago, before I started my last business. That business was successful, but I would have benefited greatly from the insights in this book, and in retrospect, I would have done several things differently.The Principles of Successful Freelancing gives great advice about what is really needed to be successful working for yourself. It starts by having you ask yourself the right questions to determine your attitude, your capabilities, and to make sure your perspective and expectations of the process are realistic. It then moves into practical steps of preparing for the transition from employee to self-employed, managing your finances, preparing your work space, finding and keeping clients, and so on. It even has a great chapter about learning how to find and maintain a healthy work and life balance as well as advice for making the transition in reverse, if you find this isn’t the life for you.At my current stage of life, I don’t expect freelance work to be much more than a side project. That doesn’t mean I will never go back to working for myself, or starting a business with a partner or two, but for the moment I am content to do a bit of writing here and there to earn some extra income and prepare to do something else as my main source of money. This book has many good tips for freelancing part time as well, and has been well worth the time I spent reading it.