As 2019 comes to an end, I wanted to reflect on everything I learned in this past year. I started this freelance business in early April and I have grown and learned a lot since then! As a new entrepreneur, I knew NOTHING about running a sustainable and profitable freelance business. I had to find my niche, learn who my ideal client was, and grow my mindset. You can’t grow your business without growing yourself first.
I created a roundup of some of my biggest mistakes I’ve made this past year and what I will not be repeating this coming year!
1. Working with Clients Who Don’t Align with my Overall Vision
It’s always hard to turn away a potential client because you feel like you’re leaving money on the table. But the truth is, if it isn’t an ideal client it will never work for you in the long run. Mentally you’ll have a block up and you won’t be happy as an entrepreneur. The whole point of starting your business and working for yourself is to do the work you love with clients who you love. Follow your dreams and work with soul mate clients and cut anyone out who doesn’t bring you joy.
2. Lack of Consistency
Consistency of social media, blogs and everyday activities that will grow your business, and gain visibility to your ideal clients is important. When you have a hundred things on your plate, smaller tasks like social media posting and networking will sometimes get knocked back and overlooked. I’ve been consciously trying to make sure that I regularly post on my social media channels and provide value to my ideal clients on a weekly basis to attract my ideal audience.
3. Dropping my Prices, Accepting Low Paying Clients & Doing Work I Don’t Like
This ties into the first principal where I wasn’t working with my ideal clients just for the sake of money and not because they were right for me or giving me work that I loved.
There were a few times where I decided to take on a client, or took a discovery call with a potential client that I knew had a budget way below what I wanted to work with or wanted me to perform a service I literally never do. I knew they weren’t ready to pay what I wanted to charge and that I should speak up for myself and explain that we probably weren’t a good fit for each other, and then refer them to someone else. But, I still entertained them and the job. I still took the call, wrote the proposal and essentially wasted my time preparing for a client and work that I didn’t love and was below my pay grade. In 2020, I am making sure that I screen potential clients before I speak with them, that the budget aligns with what I want and that the work is what I love to do.
4. Not Streamlining my Tasks to Save Time
As a business owner, your time is precious. When you’re first starting out it’s easy to get caught up with a ton of different tasks that need to be done in order to run a business efficiently. These tasks take you away from performing income gaining tasks that are more important and will actually bring you clients. Streamlining your smaller menial tasks like contract writing, invoicing, call scheduling/screening can help you free up some of your time. Let technology take care of those things using a system like Dubsado or Honeybook so that you don’t even have to think about them and can instead focus on bigger and better things.
5. Not Investing in Myself More
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve invested a lot in myself and in my business this past year BUT I haven’t always been intentional with my investing. There have been a few things that I shouldn’t have spent money on because it was something that I didn’t need or ultimately didn’t help me where I need to go in my business. In 2020, I need to make a plan to make sure my spending is intentional and that every investment has a purpose to accomplish my main goal. Stop buying useless courses and programs just because they are on sale or might be helpful in the future. Only buy and invest in what you need.
