Smart Ways To Survive As Self-Employed or Freelancer

How do you survive as self-employed or freelancer in a competitive market environment? Yes, entrepreneurship is great, however, the fact is that entrepreneurship is not meant to work for everyone.

Nowadays, anybody can aspire to be an entrepreneur, however, have you got the right attitudes and resources to succeed as an entrepreneur? I meant, can you really survive in self-employment?

The obvious fact is that there is a huge difference between engaging in side-hustling and being in full-time self-employment. Things might look great while side-hustling but life in self-employment is completely different.

In fact, your first few weeks of self-employment might look great, however, that doesn’t mean it will be like that forever. It’s now left for you to devise means through which you will survive as a self-employed person.

Self-employment means you are in control

One of the main reasons why people go into entrepreneurship nowadays is because of the fact that you are your own boss. This means you’re the captain of the ship; you are in charge of everything that has to do with being self-employed.

In other words, working for yourself means you’re classed as a sole trader. However, there is more to self-employment than you probably think.

If you’re considering to become self-employed, there are several hidden costs of self-employment you have to incorporate to help you plan your finances. Below are some of the smart ways to survive as self-employed or freelancer:

#1]. Set a goal, plan and schedule your activities

Self-employment is sometimes one of the best steps to take to make yourself a better person. However, self-employment comes with all kinds of pressures since the primary source of income is coming from your business.

As a self-employed person, this is one of the reasons why you have to set a goal, plan and schedule your activities. When self-employed, you have to set your own schedule because you are in charge of your destiny.

When plan and schedule your activities, it means that you will not be affected by procrastination and overwork. The fact is that procrastination is one of those bad habits that young entrepreneurs should break away from to in order to be more productive.

This is why you should set a daily or weekly schedule so that you can have some consistency in your day. Hear this, if you are new to self-employment, setting goals, planning and scheduling your activities might be somehow foreign to you. However, the fact is that you won’t be as productive as possible if you failed to plan your activities.

#2]. Network and keep connected

Running a business is somehow hard, especially, when you are all alone and doing it yourself. It means you will have to put in more efforts to get things done. Also when you are in self-employment, you have to do such stuff like marketing by yourself.

As a self-employed person, you have to devise means through which you can get your messages to potential clients. This is usually because of the limited financial resources and of course, time. Limited resources apart, working from home or having an online business have its own disadvantages.

At times, some people in self-employment don’t see any reason to leave the house, especially when working from home. This is why you should start building your tribe or base through networking and social engagement.

Networking is great for you as it opens a window of opportunity for you to meet people and keep your social skills fresh. It’s one of the best ways not only to market yourself but also to build connections that can lead to new business opportunities.

One of the best ways to network is to engage in local business and social events. It will give you the opportunity to build new B2B relationships with other small business owners. Also, you can join online groups on social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, etc and online community.

#3]. Get spending in check

As self-employed, you will be tempted to spend money on probably unnecessary stuff. By this, I meant some stuff you probably don’t need – stuff you can do without. This is why you need to learn how to budget when self-employed.

You have to be very watchful of your spending and rather save your money than spending it on stuff you probably can do without. Even if you have a consistent stream of income from your self-employment, you still have to control your shopping expenses and stop buying on impulse.

Also, you have to learn how to become a smarter money manager so that you can be able to save money for a rainy day. This is very important because self-employment is not as easy as eating cake. There will be days when you will struggle to generate income as self-employed.

#4]. Engage in more marketing and promotions

Marketing your business has no expiry day and this is why you should continue doing it every opportunity you have. You have to make sure that you use all the available online resources such as social media platforms to market yourself.

Pitch your business to everyone because you don’t know where exactly you might acquire new clients. Even if your schedule is full of clients and engagements, don’t stop marketing yourself. This is the best way to ensure you continue to get consistent clients.

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