Becoming a freelancer can be an excellent move for your career and your work/life balance, but the competition is beginning to get fierce. More and more people are turning to freelance, especially now that they’ve had a taste of the working from home lifestyle. While this can be great for the industry, it does mean that you might need to work harder to attract and retain your clients, which requires a bit of self-promotion and a lot of hard work.

Make sure you sell yourself as a freelancer to bring in the clients with the help of the following tips.

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Create a professional brand for yourself

As a freelancer, you’re not only competing with other freelancers, but with established companies and agencies too. It’s important to create a brand for your freelance business that looks professional and helps others to take you seriously. Once you’ve developed a logo and got your website up and running, things will begin to look a little less amateur and much more legitimate in the eyes of potential clients.

Keep your personal life separate

It’s easy for your personal affairs to get mixed in with your business, but this can cause some confusion around privacy and even your finances, making things easily confused. You should make sure you have a separate bank account for your business finances and even consider hiring an accountant to help make things easier for you. 

A virtual headquarters can also be worthwhile to provide separate contact details, and ensure that all of your calls and correspondence are handled professionally. It’s ideal for keeping your personal information from clients too when you run your business from home.

Show off your previous work

Clients like to see examples of previous work, as well as testimonials, when it comes to finding the right person for the job. Your website can be an easy way to showcase all of your previous work and help you attract more clients too.

If your website is underperforming, you might want to take a look at why you’re attracting visitors, but gaining no leads to help you make some key improvements.

Develop strong client relationships

Word of mouth is important for any business, but for freelancers, it’s especially important to help you build up a strong reputation. Initial meetings with clients can help you get off to a great start, while progress and follow up meetings are chances to establish better relationships. A successful partnership can help you secure ongoing work too, ideal for planning out your workload and establishing some security for your business. 

When you work for yourself, there’s nobody else to fall back on – which is why it’s important to establish a strong reputation for yourself and work hard to attract clients to your business. Soon it will become second nature to sell yourself and your work, and you’ll soon blow the competition out of the water by showcasing your talents.