Freelancing - Some Requirements

In order to succeed you must remember that you are a professional, with a valuable service to offer. Before you can offer that service, you have lots of work to do.

Qualifications. As a freelancer, your experience and portfolio of past projects are the most important qualifications. Academic qualifications are always good to have but not necessary in this profession.

An Entrepreneurial Spirit. It's the key. You need to have that 'I can do it myself' attitude.

Your Self-Discipline and Time Management. A day can slip by pretty easily without you doing even a fraction of the work you need to do. You'll need to develop deft time management skills and a strong work discipline to keep your freelancing career running smoothly, not to mention an extremely long attention span.

You're On Your Own. A freelancing career is a lonely proposition. Without administrators, marketers,and accountants to support you as in the case of an office job, all of these responsibilities fall on your own shoulders.

Get Some Respect. You need to have the attitude that this is not some slipshod operation you run on the side.

Starting Your Freelancing Career

Start with a plan. Here are three steps to get you started.

1. Develop a mission statement. Write a two or three sentence statement that states your mission. Your mission statement is the place to concisely convey what is important to you and your business and how you see yourself in the context of your freelancing career.

2. Lay out a 5-year plan. Determine what your career goals are. Start with a general long-range goal, then formulate the steps you will need to take to reach it.

3. Make a schedule of the time you are willing to commit to your freelancing career. Determine how many hours you will work each day to reach the income level you expect for this first year. If you still have another job, then schedule the amount of time you can realistically devote to your freelancing. It doesn't matter what time of day you work, it just matters that you work the number of hours it will take to meet your goals.

In the beginning, unless you are extraordinarily lucky, much of your scheduled "work" time will be devoted to learning about this new adventure and simply looking for jobs. Just be sure you use each committed hour to further the goals laid out in your 5-year plan.

With these three areas defined, you have a good start on your plan. You will find that your plan will evolve as you learn and gain experience. Update it as your freelance career grows and your goals expand.

Marketing Your Freelance Career

Network. The most basic thing you can do to market yourself as a freelancer is to network. Find sites not only where potential employers are, but others in your industry as well. They might just pass work on to you. A goodplace to start is Ryze, which has both free and paid memberships. Paid is really only worthwhile if you need to search a lot or if you want to start your own network. Your Ryze page tells others about you and your business.

Put Your Name in Print: Business Cards First thing you should do is head to your local print shop and order businesscards. Nothing fancy. You simply need a card that has your name, address, phone, fax (if available), Email and Web address.

A Web Address To start freelancing, you will need to develop a portfolio. This can be a website, printed samples or customer references, depending on your industry. A freelance website designer, of course, must have their own website, as should a graphic designer, but a writer may not need one. You can simply include your pricing info, samples of your work (if you have any) and your Email address.

One advantage to having a website is that employers can quickly see what youhave to offer, so they may come to you, rather than you having to come to them.

Get Ready for Clients. Create an Info Packet Besides your website information, you need a print information packet. Your website and print info packet can even mirror each other. They go hand-in-hand and provide your potential clients with everything they need to evaluate your freelancing skills.

Include pricing information, what you guarantee (if anything), turnaroundtime and your general procedure over several pages. Sure, you really don't have a general procedure just yet. But you will soon and clients need to know how you're going to work with them.

Don't Have Any Work Samples? Even if you don't have one single credit to your name, you can still become afreelancer. Take a look at a print ad in your favorite magazine. If you're looking for copywriting work, rewrite the ad. If you're seeking graphic design projects, create this ad with different graphics. This tells a prospective client you have a creative mind, despite your lack of credits. Plenty of people have made it in this business with nothing but samples in their portfolio prior to their first project.

Be Careful About

The one thing all beginning freelancers have in common is 'either too much work or not enough.'

The sooner you accept this fact, the better. Since you can't change this, you either learn to manage it or you learn to live with the stress. Here are some strategies for living with the uncertain cash flow of the freelance career.

Start with a nest egg. Before you set out on your freelance career, build up a savings account to set aside money for emergencies only. This should be in addition to your start-up money. And once you are on yourown, add to that account-every time you get paid for a project.

Plan for and live a frugal life. In one way, this is part of finding out if you are cut out for the uncertainty of "going it alone.” And if you are really serious about pursuing a freelance career, thiswill be part of the process of proving to yourself that you can make it.

Build a client base--ASAP. Whatever your field of endeavor, you should try to build, maintain and continuously strive to add to, a base of clients. This is the part of your business on which you can depend from month to month. The more of these clients you can attract, the more stable your incomewill be.

Maintain multiple streams of income.This e-business phrase is very appropriate for the freelancer. Your area of passionate interest is the centerpiece of your business, but it may take some time to make it the centerpiece of your income. In the meantime add at least two more sources of income. This can be related to your new career or not. In this case it's the security of the money you are interested in. It can be as simple as a part-time job or turning a hobby into a bit of income. Multiple streams of income will help you weather the ebb and flow of projectcompletion and client tardiness.

Being pro-active and learning to live with these facts of the freelancing will definitely contribute to your emotional and financial well being.