Have a runway
As Chris Do (look him up) would say, have a runway. A runway is the sum of money that you will need to run your business for a specific amount of time even without the business making any money. Ideally, you should have a 3-6months runway to pay off your expenses as you concentrate on setting up shop and acquiring a solid customer base.
You’ll have to keep learning and reinventing yourself
A lot of times when starting out, freelancers have to learn multiple skills to run their businesses. You may have to be an accountant, marketer, customer experience specialist so you may need to learn all these skills before your business is able to support employees/consultants who will take over these roles.
Have a clear marketing strategy
Have you identified your target audience? How will you reach them? Identifying this key group well help you reach out to the people who are interested in your products/services and are more likely to purchase from you.
It will take time
Building a business takes time. So chill and breathe. A lot of times you will feel like you are not moving fast enough, don’t lose sight of your goal. Keep learning, keep growing and keep producing.
People may take time to warm up to you
You expect people will notice greatness when they see it but alas! 🙂 Remember there’s a lot of content out there that people have access to and a lot of times, your work is compared to international trends/content so work hard to make your work top notch. Keep producing good work and put it out there.
Get ready to manage all sorts of clients
Dealing with clients is no walk in the park. You will meet lots of clients who like good work but don’t believe in paying for it. Stick to your guns and learn to negotiate, also educate your clients on the value you’re offering them. Appreciate your good clients.
Always deliver
One of the fastest ways to kill your business is by not delivering. You will have enough unsatisfied people who will never give you repeat business and will discourage everyone they know from engaging with you. If you deliver, your initial customers will build a network on your behalf. If you can’t deliver within the agreed timeframe, communicate with your client to ask for more time and give progressive feedback.
Work on personal projects.
Personal projects mean you are free to experiment in whatever creative projects you want to pursue without having to worry about a set of rules to adhere to. This will keep you sharp and creative.
These are some of the things we have learned on our journey. Some of these things we are still working on; it’s an ongoing process. The key thing to note is, we wouldn’t have learnt all these things without starting so go ahead and start.