Being a freelancer often presents a lot of different challenges. When you’re working by yourself, it can often feel like you lack the clout of a bigger company. It will be hard to get your name out into the world, maintain professional relationships with customers, and some people may even miss their chance to grow. Of course, though, when larger companies are already achieving these goals, you can use them as a tool for learning. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring some of the key lessons a large organisation can pass down to a freelancer, giving you the power to control your path.

Branding/Marketing: Working by yourself is never an excuse to have a shoddy brand. People naturally trust companies with strong logos, well-picked colours, and materials which look professional a lot more than a freelancer without them. While it will take a little bit of investment, the amount of money this could make you going into the future could make it well worth it. There are loads of graphic designers around the web working on a freelance basis. By using their skills, you can have a brand built from scratch which will capture the essence of your work. Of course, if you can do this for yourself, it will be much cheaper.

Avoiding Trust: It can be easy to fall into the trap of being too trusting when you’re first starting out in the world of business. As a freelancer, the people you’re working with will usually be looking for the best possible deal, and won’t mind giving you an unfair bargain. Tools like Netverify can provide a reliable way for businesses to verify a customer’s identify, enabling you to make sure people are who they say they are before you work with them. Along with this, you will also have to stand your ground, refusing to buckle under the pressure when they want you to accept an agreement. Big businesses will never go into a transaction which is based on trust.

Build To Last: Creating a business which will last long into the future is easier said than done. To achieve this sort of goal, you often have to look at how big businesses go to where they are, rather than their current state. In most cases, you will find that scalability will be a common theme. When you start as a freelancer, the idea of having employees can be worth having on your mind. This gives you good reason to set up smart processes before you need them, while also working to make sure that the services you use can be applied to a larger company.

With all of this in mind, you should be feeling ready to take your freelancer learning by the horns. Taking this sort of approach is a great way to make sure that you’re using tried and tested methods, using the mistakes which larger companies have made to fuel your own success. Of course, this can take a bit of work, but will be worth it in the end.

Photo by: icedsoul

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