When you start your own business, you don’t have to start a company with employees. Instead, you can simply decide to work for yourself as an independent contractor.
After you’ve worked in a particular field for a long time, you will have acquired specialized knowledge and skills that you can market your services to several clients.
Imagine that you have worked in the pharmaceutical industry as a salesperson for a drug company. Instead of working for a single employer, you can work as an independent contractor for several small drug companies who want to expand their sales force but can’t afford to hire more salespeople. With that scenario in mind, here are five tips that you could use to develop your freelancing business quickly and efficiently:
1 Partially Automate Your Sales Process
You can make potentially make a considerable amount of money as a freelance pharmaceutical rep, but since you will not have the support of a sales team, it might be difficult to get as many sales as you like. Using a healthcare sales platform, such as emerged.com, you can get automated sales support to help you generate leads that you can then close on the phone or in person.
2 Keep Track of Client Hours
Since you will not be working a 9-5 job when you start your own business, and you probably won’t be working from Monday to Friday, you should use a productivity app to keep track of your hours. A shift worker app will help you keep track of how many hours you spend on client’s projects. This way, if you’re paid by the hour rather than on a commission basis, you’ll be able to account for the hours you've spent on a project.
3 Find Apps to Stay Productive
When you don’t work for a company any longer, it's easy to lose track of time on leisure activities. For instance, it’s tempting to slip in some gym time or go for stress-relieving walks in the park when you’re feeling unmotivated about work. But here’s the thing: you must pretend you are not free to do what you want when you want to do it. Instead, put constraints on yourself as if you were still working for someone else. While you don’t have to work a traditional shift, try to regulate your daily workflow. Many productivity apps on your smartphone can help you stay on task throughout the working portion of your day.
4 Join Networking Groups
While you might already have an automated lead generating system in place, such as a Facebook ad that leads to a squeeze page, you should still consider networking essential for your career.
Besides helping you get clients, networking can also help you meet influencers and meet other entrepreneurs. You should network both online and offline: join various social media groups and attend business networking organizations.
5 Take a Freelancing Course
The reason it’s useful to take an online course on freelancing is that you’ll encounter challenges that you never experienced before working at a regular job, such as finding clients, stretches of time with no work, and being totally responsible for managing your own time. An online course will help you to overcome these common problems.
Freelancing: The New Normal
Since the COVID-19 breakout, the United States has relied heavily on digital infrastructure to keep the economy moving. The idea of freelancing and working from home is becoming more realistic and practical. As a result, you will be able to find plenty of clients completely open to working with you as an independent contractor rather than as a full or part-time employee or third-party B2B business.
