The FREELANCER Guide to Making More Money

Most freelancers cannot generate enough income and enjoy a decent living because they undervalue their work, serve cheap clients, and lack a profitable business model.

As a freelancer, you shouldn’t think of yourself as an employee; instead, think of yourself as an agency or a business that offers top-notch service at a premium price.

The first step to making more money as a freelancer is to specialize your expertise and focus on a smaller group of customers with specific needs; you are not a supermarket; you are an expert and a brand.

It’s challenging to be good at different skills or for people to recognize you as the expert for solving multiple problems; specialization gives you focus, improves the quality of your work, and builds a brand around your name.

A business that needs to design excellent packaging for their new products and invested tons of money in research and production will not look for a random freelancer who creates social media posters.

Instead, they look for the best packaging designers in the market.

The next step is to get out of the commodity market; many people nowadays can generate mockups, write a short article, or do keyword research, because there are tools for that.

Competing on quality is extremely difficult since most clients won’t value your effort.

Focus on more challenging tasks that others can’t rely on tools to generate solid results.

Third, gradually upgrade your client's base; if you head to Fiverr and check for logo design, then head to Behance and compare both works, you can easily find that the designers on Fiverr don’t have the skills to produce work at a top-level.

And that’s why they seldom can work on extensive projects and earn big bucks; they are lazy, inexperienced, or not knowledgeable about the industry standard.

A top-notch client looking for a freelancer will not head to Fiverr and pay twenty dollars for a logo design; they need to make sure they can find a designer on a professional platform. They expect the designer to ask for a high price.

Those customers have no big problem with money as long as you can produce decent work. They look for the wow effect and level of professionalism in presentation.

They rarely understand your solution in terms of details or negotiate a lot, as long as you can deliver the best outcomes that drive results in terms of brand image, performance, productivity, or sales.

Focus on upgrading your skills and the level of presentation of your service, be it layout, visual appeal, or formatting.

This step will allow you to raise your price significantly because you deliver more value than the average freelancer.

Pricing is crucial for freelancers; in most scenarios, you pay taxes and overhead expenses, not including your hourly rate; before you give a price, estimate the price of your services by splitting your costs into thirds — 1/3 for taxes, 1/3 for overheads, 1/3 for yourself.

Choosing your client is essential for asking for a big buck for your effort.

Blogging for a real-estate or investment websites or businesses can pay you a lot more than writing for a small boutique shop because, with a single sale, they can make a massive return easily.

Focus on working with businesses that have no problem paying you good money as long as you can deliver decent returns and value.

Your next step is to decide whether you want to streamline your process or make it highly customized; choose one, but not both.

Streamlining allows you to serve more clients at a lower price because you don’t offer flexibility; the other approach is to provide highly customized offers but at a higher price point because you can only serve a smaller group of clients.

Fifth, offer a collection of services, starting from a low entry offer for the client to test your skills and service to high-end services, subscriptions, or packages.

This group of services allows you to up-sell and cross-sell existing customers and make more money; you should also collaborate with other freelancers to cross-sell services and take a commission on each sale you refer.

Your next step is to develop a social presence and contribute to forums that help clients solve problems.

Many creators create content for other creators, not keeping in mind that their clients have a different set of problems to solve, so instead of creating a YouTube channel talking about writing or design.

Create a blog or a YouTube channel that educates clients about the benefits of great copywriting or graphic design to improve their business brand image and efficiency, make more sales and boost the bottom line of their business.

Sixth, deliver a professional customer service and experience; clients are professionals.

They pay money to get decent work on time, keep them updated with the project progress, offer data-driven insights, make your contracts professional, and keep your language polite.

As a freelancer, the food on your table depends on them; be gentle with your approach and satisfy their needs.

Working with high-paying clients is always about the experience and the level of service; you want them to always come back to you and ask you for more work.

Seventh, build a network of connectors; most freelancers get work by referral; I used to ask all my friends if they have projects or could refer marketing projects for a 25% commission.

This commission will motivate them to refer to my service as long I can produce high-quality work.

Eighth, work with agencies; a freelancer doesn’t have to work for themselves all time, there are plenty of agencies looking to hire freelancers as part-time jobs, and you can mix your projects with other agencies’ projects to make more money.

And last, if you want to make the most money as a freelancer, don’t do any of the work; instead, focus on promoting other people’s work, get projects, and let other freelancers do the work while you take a cut of the profit.

That’s it on my side; if by any chance you have more tips and strategies for making more money as a freelancer, please share them in the comment section; I would love to hear your insight!

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