Marketing is one of the key aspects in freelance business. You really have to spend some good amount of time on thinking and planning about how to market your work and skill set. However, many freelancers actually spend their valuable amount of time on marketing in a view to get new clients, and completely overlooking the existing client base.

This article will shed lights on 3 Steps that will lead you to get more work from your existing client base instead of looking for new clients all the time:

Ask for 10/15 minutes of Consultation

The general trend is, most of the time freelancers get clients though referrals. It is the clients who contact the freelancers with a specific job in mind and hands that off to the freelancer. Once the freelancers finish the project, it is handed over to the client and in most cases we will never hear anything from that client until he is faced with a similar kind of projects to be done.

To prevent this from happening, instead just letting the client go, try to discuss about his business and functional mechanism of his business. Just ask politely for 10/15 minutes. Most of them will be more than happy to have a discussion. The main objective is to find out where, and what kind of bottleneck that the client is having and trying to solve them. This can lead to a long term satisfactory relation being develop and you may end up having a continuous steam of work.

Prepare a Questionnaire for The Client

It is the best advice to have an open-ended question for the client during the 10/15 minutes discussion. Questions such as “Is there any service that they used to offer but not offering now because of staff shortage”, can really open up opportunities for you.

Submitting a Proposal

Once you have finished the discussions and though about it, you will be able to figure out which way you can help them, if any. Then it is time to prepare a proposal where you specifically ask for the work. You put forward your idea and method in a simple plain word so that it sounds both lucrative and beneficial to the client; and it really soars up you chances of finally getting the work.

Thus, if we can concentrate a bit on our existing client base, then with a little plan and patience, great benefit can be derived. Take these advice seriously and gain your client base.

This post is summarized from How to Get More Work from Existing Clients?. Photo by NWSD.

When you start a project, among the various side factors, completion of the projects within the stipulated time frame is the one that is prominently on top of all other considerations. Things get harder when you are going through multiple projects at a time. However, there are solutions and workarounds as this article will point out some of these.

SET PRIORITY

When you deal with multiple clients, it is important to prioritise the project and rank it accordingly by assigning them various levels base on requirements. It helps you to start the real work with a clear vision. Following is an example:

On a day, you are feeling a bit off and are not finding any inspiration to work for some reason. However, you still have to work as you need to satisfy, let’s say, two clients. So, you can go through any of the following:

1. You work too hard despite your adverse physical or mental condition, and finish both the projects, making the client satisfied. But, as you have stressed yourself too much, thus your health can break down, forcing you not to work at all for the next 3 or 4 days; which may easily offend the other remaining clients.
2. You decide to complete one project and left the other for the next day, as you know the later client will not be too stressed out and is co-operative, but the former one is not always so co-operative and tends to easily get along if the deadline is not met.

For me, option ‘2’ is much better and suitable for the condition as you are properly evaluating and prioritising the clients according to the merit of their behaviour and the gravity of the projects.

SET YOUR OWN DEADLINE

Before finalising a project, do think about your own ability. If the client asks you to finish 4 articles in 2 days, think first if you can or not. If you are really sure, go ahead, if not, ask for the reduction and try your best to surpass that limit. For example if the client agrees on 3 article in 2 days, finish it and try to finish another 1. This way if you are successful, client will be more than happy, and even if you manage to finish at least 3, you are on the safe side.

WORK IN WEEKDAYS ONLY

Do not work more than 5 days. In any case, do not cross those extra 2 days over, even if you know that you can work. Accept the projects keeping in mind that those 2 days you are not working. In this way, you will always have few extra days for emergencies, chilling outs or sudden events; and more importantly, it is vitally crucial that you take some break in the middle of continuous work.

EVALUATE YOURSELF EVERYDAY

Before packing up for the day, evaluate yourself. Analyse how much work you did against the expected scale. Decide if anything had gone wrong and how to fix that. Also plan how the next day should proceed. You must make this a habit, which will greatly benefit you on becoming a potent performer in your field with time.

KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON SOCIAL OCCASIONS

Social events are part of life and some of them you just can’t miss by any means. However, the problem occurs when you suddenly remember them and then it becomes difficult to adjust with the work you were doing at that time. To avoid this, go through the weekly schedule carefully and properly identify days that will have to be spent on outside events other than work, and schedule your work according to that. This way you will always have a nice balance of work and social life.

Hopefully the aforementioned points will aid you to become a proficient freelancer with effective grip on project deadlines.

This post is summarized from 5 Sure-Fire Ways to Meet Deadlines For Freelancers & Web Workers. Photo by JupiterImages.

To be an effective freelancer, it is vitally important to continuously produce work of high quality. However, humans are not machines and the pressure of producing and performing can be hectic at times. It may resulting in the loss of attention and focus, unprofitable change in direction, or shortcuts being applied to just get the work through anyhow.

This article will show some of the ways to a relaxing stress-less freelancing lifestyle:

DEAL AT PRESENT

May be at present you have a average car, average PC and house. But don’t grieve over not being able to achieve the highest standard of life at one shot. Instead, deal with what you have, and try to do best with those, fix your target for a life of top level, but just don’t mourn over it day and night, forgetting the work in hand. Work for it with what you have, enjoy with what you have got at current day.  Don’t be too much materialistic.

REMOVE THE NON-ESSENTIALS

Try to figure out what is actually needed in your life which will benefit you in some way. If you can think of something that is not relevant, ditch it, both in your digital warehouse and materialistic possessions. This will considerably free you up from unnecessary complicity and thus will gain you a lot more free dimensions to relax a bit.

SIMPLIFY THE WORKLOAD

Think of everyday works that you don’t enjoy at all but are having to do. Once you have decided, delegate the work to someone else or find some other way around, if it costs you money, then it is also a worthy investment, as it will relieve you of some torrid mental pressure. For example, if you do not like cooking, hire a maid to do it for you. Though you will have some expenditure, but the return will be a lot more profitable.

SEE OFF SMALLER TASKS

Tasks that doesn’t require a lot of time, you should finish it then and there, do not add it to your TO-DO list. Anything that entail for 5-10 minutes of your time, just go through it and see it off.

GOALS ARE IMPORTANT

It is vitally essential that you set a goal within a definite time- frame. Do not pass month after months aimlessly. Set a target, it may be a part of some bigger target and work for it. Without a sound and achievable aim, you will go nowhere.

By following these steps, a happy and enjoyable freelance lifestyle can be lead, with more profit and client satisfaction.

This post is summarized from Lead a More Relaxing Freelance Lifestyle. Photo by Here.Vi.

This post is guest blogged by Asif Karim.

Balancing Study and Work While Maintaining fun in life:
The best & the most enrapturing fraction of our entire life is, needless to say, the teenage and the early adulthood. Everyone goes through it, everyone craves to make the most out of it, and as true as it is, this is indeed the exact and the most apposite passage to take off!

BUT, here comes the catch, a catch that lies behind a layer of almost undetectable yet omnipresent weight of significance. That is, this teen and early youth is also the time to DECIDE what is that you really want to be in life, what is that makes you satisfied. There are many open fields out there, many professions of great reverence and intrigue.

Different people are flourished through different ways of life, for which they are mostly suited, which comes naturally to them. And almost in any case, whatever the profession you decide to take up as your life’s destiny, you must become well-versed and expert at it. That itself entails the fact that you must pay enough attention to your studies in your chosen field. Cause only knowledge and good standings in academic stations will bring laurels for you once you enter into the planet of real jobs.

So, in any case, you can not really be lax at your studies and expect a solid platform is building up out of nothing. But one thing to clarify is that you actually don’t need to become a typical nerd or bookworm sort of a character, there is time for everything, besides self-study, do enjoy and relax when the opportunity arises out of situations, or when have grown hackneyed over things then take a traveling tour somewhere nice, I can bet that it will most certainly perk up your life.

Now what about that part time work you dream of so ardently? What about that extra bunch of cash that’ll make your friend circle outing more shining, that’ll able you to present your loved ones those small tokens of gift that lift up their faces ? Ya, don’t worry, if you are really smart at proceeding with your life in a certain fashion, and is able to project a clear long term vision, you can also churn out times out of your ever-constrained schedule of assignments and dating, that you will need to make those extra cash in hand. Alongside you can also keep up the higher grades in your academic venture in proper place.

For me I found the following technique most effectual:

As promise on the previous post, I am going to tell some tips of becoming a successful Freelance Blogger.

What is freelance blogger?

A writer who write blog instead of writing normal article for traditional media such as newspaper or magazine.

What is the Required Skill?

• Online Marketing - Know a bit of knowledge on SEO.
• Web Design - At least know some basis knowledge on CSS and XHTML.
• Consistency - A good habit to update blog regularly.

What is the rule and guideline to follow?