5 Tips for Being a Freelance Corporate Trainer

• Being a freelancer is a fantastic way to make a living. It affords you many benefits that you will not normally get when working for someone else.

  You can, of course, choose your own work hours and days. You can also work from anywhere and that might mean in a hut on a beach in the Caribbean or from a hotel in Bangkok. The choice is yours.

  There are though some things to consider when planning to become a freelancer and so here are 5 tips below for becoming a freelancer.

  1. Focus, focus, and focus

  I think you can see what I am going to talk about here first. Focus is one of the biggest issues that many of us freelancers suffer from.

  Whilst searching online for freelance opportunities, how easy is it to get drawn into checking Facebook or Instagram and then finding that half-an-hour has slipped by?

  To be a successful freelancer I recommend having a strategy to manage your time effectively. To do this some tips I have, include:

  a) Make a list of 5 bullet points each evening for what you plan to achieve the following day. This will enable you to wake up each morning with a clear focus.

  b) If you get drawn into social media then allocate a certain time of the day when you are allowed to do so. Or make it a reward for achieving your 5 bullet points each day! Incentivize yourself.

  2. Networking Can Be A Powerful tool

  You might have already heard the concept before that one of the very best forms of marketing is word-of-mouth. This is certainly the case with most of the work that I have got in the past from freelancing.

  I started off by spending money on advertising in the early days and this produced little business for me.

  As I gained more experience though it was by doing each job well and building trust with clients that really enabled me to develop my business

  Valeria of Symonds Training developed her business almost exclusively by networking as a core strategy. It was through networking that Valeria built a rapport with freelance trainers and started getting her first sales.

  Networking as a freelancer can be so good for building a business that at first, I would not even worry so much about what you charge. Put a certain focus also on just doing a fantastic and professional job and getting great feedback and recommendations!

  3. Keep a Careful Record of Your Costs and Income

  Now it might seem obvious perhaps that keeping track of your income and costs is important when freelancing, but it is one of the biggest issues for many self-employed freelancers. Why? Well, it’s not the most interesting thing to have to do accounts work I know.

  One of the very first things I recommend is to at least have a spreadsheet or some other way of knowing exactly what you have earned and what you have spent.

  If you are using a platform such as freelancer.com for all of the work you get then the keeping track of your income is quite easy as you can use the reports from within freelancer.com

  4. Do Not Undersell Yourself

  Whilst you might want to keep your costs low at the start as you build trust with clients and develop a footing, things change as you build your freelance business.

  As a social media freelancer, Paul of Promarketing now charges clients triple what he did when starting off. Once clients love what you dom the professional finish and touch you provide, they are almost always willing to pay more.

  Most clients do not mind paying a fair cost for high-quality work!

  5. Be Persistent and Believe in Yourself

  It is not easy being a freelancer and you need to learn to be patient, persistent and to have self-belief.

  Even the most successful business people in the world have had to sweat at some point, especially when starting off.

  Anyone can be freelance and it means being able to take control of your own life and it can be the best decision you ever made.

John writes about employee training and works with human resources departments and companies for employee onboarding and staff retention.