FreelanceM.ag

What’s keeping you from freelancing success?

Sometimes, lack of opportunity isn’t the culprit. I’ve blogged about how freelancers sabotage themselves before.

The sabotages listed in my earlier post aren’t the only ways that freelancers hold themselves back. There’s another big problem that keeps many freelancers from succeeding. In fact, this problem is so common it deserves at least one post dedicated just to it.

That big problem is FEAR. We’re afraid to succeed. We’re afraid of failure. We’re afraid of taking chances. We’re afraid of rejection. We’re afraid of over committing. The list goes on and on.

So, we stay where we are. Not learning new things. Not taking chances. Playing it safe. Certainly not growing our freelancing business. Paralyzed by fear.

Is fear something you struggle with? If it is, this post is for you. I’ll discuss why we’re afraid and I’ll list four chances worth taking. You can start to overcome your fear of risk-taking today.

“Whew. The famine is over. Someone just asked about my services. Thank goodness. Now I’ll have some work.”

Have you ever felt like this?

If you have, slow down. Not every prospect who contacts you should become your client. While some freelancers feel that they must accept all paying work that comes their way, that’s not a good tactic if you really want to succeed as a freelancer.

One of the most important things you can do as a freelancer is learn to say no.

In this post, I’ll list nine ways that bad projects harm your freelancing business. I’ll also provide more advice about saying no and include an email template.

If you liked this post, you may also like How to Keep Fake Clients from Stealing Your Time and Sapping Your Energy.

What do prospective clients do first when they are considering you for a freelancing gig?

One of the first things a prospective client will do is review your social media accounts. They want to know whether you’re reliable and trustworthy before they take a chance on using you for their freelancing project.

For freelancers whose social media accounts were set up before their professional career, this kind of scrutiny can be a problem. Imagine your prospective client finding an old photo of you drunk with your college buddies. Or perhaps they happen across the angry rant you posted years ago when you broke up with your high school sweetheart.

How embarrassing!

Teens and young adults often don’t think about the future consequences of what they share on social media. And sometimes those social shares come back to haunt them even after they’ve matured and grown into a responsible adult.

You can’t guarantee that what you once posted online will be gone forever. After all, there are Internet archives and someone could have saved an image or share on their computer. Also, the social media site may keep its own archive. However, you can take steps to make sure that what others see on your social media accounts today represents who you are now and not who you were as an immature teenager.

In this post, I’ll explain how you can clean up some common social media accounts. If you liked this post, you may also like 10 Reasons Why Clients Don’t Want to Hire You.

Note: Social media platforms change all the time. These tips worked when I wrote this post, but they may work differently in the future.