Being a freelancer has its perks; no one has ever denied that fact. You have the luxury of setting your work hours, making time for a personal life with your family and friends and the big one, of being your own boss.

I can recall many folks from the corporate world daydreaming about the day when they could go off and do their own thing. Generally their musings occurred when there was some sort of friction in the midst at the workplace but every now and then someone would actually take the leap and go for it.

Without all the right components in place, freelancing is not as easy as many think. You can be the best at whatever your skill is, but if you don’t have the “behind the scenes” skills, it can have serious effects on how successful your freelance career will be.

In a corporate setting, they spend a lot of money and a lot of time working out a well thought out structure. Everyone has their assigned responsibility to keep the machine flowing smoothly and everyone is expected to maintain the standards set by the company. When one component of the machine is not meeting the expectations, the whole company can suffer.

When you become a freelancer, you become all the components of the machine. So right off the bat you have multiplied your work load. Along with the skill you at which you are so proficient, you are now in charge of billing, customer service, marketing, book keeping and time management; All needed and necessary parts of any successful business.

Many folks in the corporate world really don’t have much experience in the other avenues of managing the business. They do their thing, and they do it well. That will only get you so far as a freelancer.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received when I became a freelancer was summed up in one word.

Organize.

Make a plan. Get all the tools you need to follow that plan. Follow it.

I know many examples of folks that absolutely shined when it came to their specialty. But so many times I saw their business suffer because they just could not pull everything together. Unfortunately their superior skill was not enough to make up for the missed deadlines, unavailability to clients, or billing errors.

The hard truth of it is, clients have a sense of security when the services they are paying for are under the umbrella of a larger, established business. As a freelancer, you are now operating without that illusion of security the clients see. It is your responsibility to reassure the clients the corporate umbrella is just an illusion. This can only be done by the actions you take and how well you take them.

Here are a few guidelines to help you with your management skills to reassure your clients:

• Use a calendar. It can be an online calendar that you program to send reminders to your cell phone or it can be the old fashioned one that hangs on the office wall. The important thing is make sure you use it.
• Put everything on the calendar. Even your free time. Don’t make clients wait or even worse, miss appointments and deadlines entirely.
• Communicate to your clients. When beginning a project for them, take the needed time to be sure and cover all the details. Know exactly what your client expects of you and be clear and firm about what you can provide. Have all financial/cost conversations at the beginning of the project. Maintain communication throughout the course of the project. Keep the client informed. Remember, they need reassurance that hiring a freelancer without the corporate safety umbrella was a wise choice.
• Put everything in writing. When you have things in writing, it serves both you and the client well in the event there are any problems during the course of the project. Having things in writing is a great way to be proactive in avoiding any problems.
• Take time to breathe. If you feel overwhelmed and pulled in too many directions, it’s a sign that something is not working. Find a spot on your calendar where you can schedule specific time, where there won’t be any distractions, for you to regroup and reorganize. Make this time for yourself as soon as possible before the issues snowball into something less manageable.
• Make a daily To-Do list. Prioritize your list and cross off each item as it is completed. If you aren’t generally a list making person, take a few days and write down everything you do as you do it. You will be surprised at how many things you do each day that you don’t necessarily notice. Be sure to include those types of things in your daily To-Do list. Little things add up and can eat away a significant part of your day, resulting in that overwhelmed feeling you are trying to avoid.
• Be sure and make ‘reflecting’ a part of each time for every project. At the completion of every project, give yourself a review on how well the project went. Did you come in under deadline? Did you stay within budget? Was the finished product what the client expected? Did you keep the client informed during the whole process? What can you do differently?

By creating some structure for yourself and following your structure your freelancing career can be everything you always dreamed it could be.

photo credit: cell105