Freelancers are as busy and profitable as they make it themselves.
For example, seasoned freelancers who have more experience can do more than inexperienced freelancers for the same job.
If you feel like you can do more and want to scale your business sustainably to avoid burnout, we have some great advice for you.
1. Increase your prices
A quick way to scale your business is to either improve or rely on your expertise.
When you’re good at your job and have a tangible way to prove whether it’s a degree or certification, use it to earn more for the same job.
In the same way, you can use your previous work to collect higher fees. Your time is as valuable as you make it.
For example, if you’re a freelance writer with a degree in writing or with certifications in certain types of writing, you can put your skills to the test for a more competitive price tag.
As you increase your rates, you can better spend money on other projects and initiatives to better scale your business too.
2. Narrow down your niche
If you’re having trouble increasing your rates or justifying a rate hike, try narrowing down your niche.
The product or service that you offer should be narrowed down to a specific group or topic.
This will help you narrow down the type of work and research you need to do for your job and will help the right clients find you.
[[nid:510594]]]
This can also help you find the industry or industry that you want to specialize in and get certifications.
After you find your niche, you can grow within the industry or branch.
For example, if you’re a freelance writer targeting everyone, this can be very limiting.
However, it could be more profitable if you spin around and become a writer with more focus on an industry that suits your interests.
If you’re interested in the technology industry, customers who need to work in this industry know where to go.
You can go further and highlight specific areas such as software as a service (Saas), semiconductors, and environmental technology.
This can help you increase the rates.
3. Form a team
Essentially, you want to scale your business to earn more and do more work.
To avoid burnout, you may need to be open to having other people with you.
This can help you offer better results to your customers. That way, you will have faster sustainable growth in the long run.
[[nid:514622]]]
You can set it up as equal team members or let these new employees work among themselves.
Whichever path you choose, remember that you need to be able to justify the amount of work you assign to them and the percentage they get out of the project.
For example, if you’re a freelance graphic designer helping with a project or presentation, you can take on more of the project with someone else to work with you.
If that person has a different specialization than you, you can offer to take on two parts of the whole project and ask for a lot more.
If you’re looking to form a team, it might be wise to take out a small business loan to get you started.
4. Outsource your work to others
If you don’t want to take on a team, then you can simply outsource the work to other skilled freelancers you trust.
If clients have very large projects that you find very attractive and that can make you a solid amount of money, you might as well be transparent and let clients know your plan for outsourcing the work.
We also encourage you to speak to the other freelancers beforehand.
Then you can pay them market prices for the specific work they are doing.
[[nid:522396]]]
In this way you strengthen your credibility as a freelancer and leader with customers and expand your network with other freelancers.
This is a great way to grow your business.
Once your part is done, you can work on different projects with other clients while your outsourced work is completed.
This will also help you avoid burnout as you are not taking on more than you can handle at one time.
It is important to note that you are responsible for the work of the other freelancers.
Hence, you need to make sure that their work is as expected.
This article was first published in ValueChampion.
