5 Ways You Can Grow Your Freelance Business Right Now

As you start your freelancing business, your focus is mainly on getting as many clients as you can so you can pay the bills… you don't have time to think about ways to grow your business. But it's something you should do as soon as your heads above water, otherwise you could face more downtime than you'd planned…

Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t… ~ Unknown

If you want to avoid some fairly lean months, then you need to be growing your business while you're also busy working it. Of course, if you don't mind a bit of stress, then by all means, stop reading right now and continue you on your merry way…

Hate stress? Cool, let's jump straight into five different ways you can grow your business right now.

[feature_box style=”24″ only_advanced=”There%20are%20no%20title%20options%20for%20the%20choosen%20style” alignment=”center”]

Feature Download: Interested in learning another growth strategy using Facebook? Get the free chapter from the book “Outsourced Freelancing Success: 18 Ways to Grow Your Freelancing Business in 30 Days or Less” (Download Now!)

[/feature_box]

Growing Your Freelance Business

There are many ways to grow your business. It's about thinking outside the square, but also using what's already at your disposal.

#1: Use Social Media

Below are some tips you can use to find and land clients via your social media accounts.

Tip 1: Network using social media. This is about connecting your social media networks with your actual work. Connect with others that are in your field and chat with them on a regular basis. The same “old school” networking rules apply here – provide value, answer questions and don’t spam. Twitter.com is by far the best channel to do this on.

Tip 2: Let people know what you’re working on. Social media is all about sharing, so why not share a current project you’re working on? Use social media the way it was designed—share what you’re doing on a daily basis and watch the connections and work start to flow in.

Tip 3: Increase credibility through content curation. When it comes to your public social media profiles, the focus shouldn’t just be all about your own projects and links. You should also be sharing information from others that are in your industry.

Tip 4: Brush up your LinkedIn profile. Like Twitter, LinkedIn.com has much more of a business focus than many of the other social media platforms available. It’s not a place where you’d put up an update about what you got up to on the weekend. Make sure you remember that when you’re sharing via this platform.

A quick tip for mastering LinkedIn networking is to keep an eye on the “who’s viewed my profile” widget on the right hand side of your profile or news feed. Reach out to them via LinkedIn’s internal email system and drop them a quick note, something along the lines of:

Subject line: Were you looking for a freelance xxx?

Hi [name] I see you recently viewed my profile. If you’re in need of a xxx, I have experience in [your industry/niche]. I’d be happy to send you samples or chat more about what you need.Let me know if I can help!

[your signature]

This is a much better way than cold prospecting.

Tip 5: Use a service like Rapleaf (now TowerData). These services allow you to upload your customers’ email addresses and then they will go and find out where those customers are hanging out. You’ll get info back on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, plus any niche social networks they are on.

#2: Become an Affiliate

Are you using products all the time that you're recommending to people? Did you know that a lot of the tools you use on a regular basis inside your freelancing business have affiliate programs?

What's an affiliate program I hear you ask? Here's a quick run-down — basically, you're getting paid for referring someone to use the product or service your recommending.

So for example, if you check out the resources page here on the blog, these are a list of all the tools I recommend and use on a daily basis within my business. The majority of these tools and services have affiliate programs. What this means is that if you click on my link (which has my special referral code embedded in it) and purchase the tool, I'll receive a commission for it.

You don't pay anything extra and the tool or service you're recommended gets their product out to a larger audience. It's a win:win for all.

#3: Implement a Referral System

This strategy is pretty simple. It’s all about asking for referrals.

Over the past three years, I’ve received 90% of new business via referrals. Which is why it’s so important to develop long-term relationships with your clients.

But it’s not just your clients that you should be asking for referrals. You should be asking your network and peers as well.

Let people know what you’re up to regularly and that you’ve got a referral program in place where you’ll offer them a referral fee for any successful clients that sign a contract with you.

Make this a flat fee; it could be $50 or $100, whatever is comfortable for you to choose. It’s a great incentive and it sticks in peoples’ minds when they are asked for recommendations.

Leave some of your business cards with your clients so that they can hand them out to people they know locally.

Keep it simple and easy and you'll have no problem implementing this into your own business.

#4: Write a Book

This is one of my fave strategies, because it’s one I have implemented into my business and see great success with.

If you want to establish yourself as a real expert in a specific industry or niche and increase your credibility at the same time, writing a book and selling it on sites like Amazon, iBooks, Nook or Kobo is one of the best ways to do this.

Let’s look at some examples:

Who comes to mind as an expert when you think about starting a lifestyle business and working for yourself? You’d be spot on if you thought of Tim Ferriss… 4-hour Work Week, anyone? Or Natalie Sisson of The Suitcase Entrepreneur!

Who comes to mind when you think investing? Warren Buffett? Yep.

What about investing in commercial property or building huge hotels? … Donald Trump!

Creating passive income? Robert Kiyosaki.

Self-help and personal transformation? Tony Robbins…

Are you starting to get the picture?

What would it look like for you if you could access even a fifth of what these guys are doing in terms of passive income and credibility? A lot, I can tell you.

I’ve written over 20 books and all of them have been strategically written with a theme in mind. When I set out to write a book, I want to ensure that I can at least write a 3-book series, if not more.

It’s relatively easy to get started, particularly if you’re looking to start on the Amazon platform with a Kindle book and then a paperback book.

The full details of how I did it are outlined in a 3-part blog post I wrote here, which was then followed up by a book I wrote on the topic.

You can read the blog posts here: www.hustleandgroove.com/how-to-publish-a-kindle-book-in-6-weeks-and-reach-1-in-your-category-part-1.

#5: Create a Course

If your freelancing skill is in an area that you have quite a bit of expertise in, then turning it into a course is a great way to make some money up front. If you've written a book, you could also turn this into a course too. Diversification baby!

There are many ways that you can create your course and deliver it.

You can host it on your own website, it could be an email course, or a video course; basically, any medium that allows you to record or teach to people face to face and get paid for it, is a good option.

If you want minimum fuss, opt for sites like Udemy and Guides. Udemy is a large marketplace and it costs you nothing to teach via their platform.

There are some requirements to be able to teach, but it doesn’t take long to be accepted. Video courses work extremely well on this platform.

Here’s some other places you could deliver your course:

• Skillshare.com
• Mindbites.com/sell
• Coursera.org

I'm about to deploy my new course in September, I'll be writing a full blog post on the process and platform I'm using to deliver it, so stay tuned for that!

[feature_box style=”24″ only_advanced=”There%20are%20no%20title%20options%20for%20the%20choosen%20style” alignment=”center”]

Feature Download: Interested in learning another growth strategy using Facebook? Get the free chapter from the book “Outsourced Freelancing Success: 18 Ways to Grow Your Freelancing Business in 30 Days or Less” (Download Now!)

[/feature_box]

Do you have any tips on how to grow a freelance business? Leave your thoughts, tips and suggestions in the comments below!

[arrows style=”arrow-blue-3.png” align=”center”]