Tips to Be a Rockstar Freelancer

The breaks can be tough freelancing, and staying ahead requires some serious management. These basic rules should help you to get and keep clients, manage their expectations, deliver on time and (above all) make sure you get paid at the end of it.

Go hunting. Don’t wait for work to come to you — beat your competition to the mark by going out to find it. Potential employers will avoid having to headhunt for freelance talent if they can, so make yourself their first choice. Drop them a line to put yourself front and center and you’ll be their first call when they need someone.

Stay connected. Once you’ve picked up a new client, make it your mission to stay in touch with them even once the job is done. Your chance of being engaged again by an already satisfied customer is quadruple that of picking up new business so don’t let connections wane once you’ve made them.

Slow down. Clients will want to see work from the moment they send a brief, but beware of a too fast turn around. Sometimes it’s possible to deliver within the hour, but other times it’s not, and once you’ve set a precedent for speedy deadlines it can be hard to break the expectation. Clients won’t necessarily understand why some things take longer than others so even if it’s only a few hours, it pays to sit on a job if you’ve set a new record for timely turn-around, as it will help you manage expectations later on.

Leave a trail. There can be a lot of exchanges over the course of a freelance job, with information often coming from multiple sources. It pays to keep track of these for your own posterity. It might seem pointless, but getting clients to confirm authorizations and instructions via email rather than just verbally avoids any discrepancies about what’s being delivered as you’ll both have it recorded in an easy to track paper trail.

Become a librarian. When working freelance, especially with multiple clients, make sure you archive, label and store EVERYTHING. You’re your own project manager so if anything falls through the gaps it’s your bad. Set up new files for each new job and save and date drafts as you go. This is also essential for properly quoting revisions and changes, because you literally can’t afford not to.