Week 3

To be successful, you must be:

• Attentive
• Bold
• Dependable
• Determined
• Enduring
• Enthusiastic
• Takes initiative
• Orderly
• Resourceful
• Thorough
• Truthful
• Wise
• Trustworthy

There’s a lot that goes into starting up your own freelancing side hustle. I knew it was going to be a lot of work and effort, but the more research I do, the more items I never would have thought of are being added to the to-do list.

So far, I have three lists – one for each week I’ve been doing this thing. Each one has completed items, but each one has uncompleted items as well. It’s taking longer than anticipated to read about and make final decisions on some of these things…

Some remaining items include:

• Developing a contract template.
• Developing a personal rate sheet.
• Gathering work samples for my online portfolio.
• Opening a business checking/savings account.
• Developing a full business plan that includes goals, outline of type of work I’ll do, financial results to achieve, personal marketing plan, and an overcoming obstacles plan.
• Sharing my blog on my social media sites (which believe it or not, I’m nervous to do).
• Developing a business FAQ sheet.
• Setting up a meeting with a small business attorney to talk about setting up an S-corp or LLC, tax implications, and other considerations that I don’t know about. (I’m not sure exactly what this means yet, or what it entails. TBD.)

In addition to working through my lengthy to-do lists, I’ve been working hard to develop content for my personal professional blog. I’ve been focusing on content and social media marketing, which are the main focuses of my freelancing jobs. The more content I have, the more SEO optimized the blog is, and also the more professional and industry expert I appear to be. I published five this week – not a ton, but a solid start.

I also officially logged my first week of hours and submitted my first article to my first freelance client. While I had to spend more time on it than I liked, I wanted to make sure the tone, voice, style, and information was up to the client’s standards. My goal was minimal revisions.

I got the first round of revisions back the other day. Mostly style and tone suggestions, which will take time to prefect anyway. Overall I was pleased with revisions they felt they had to make.

Submitting my first article and logging my first time also means working through what it actually means to be an employed freelancer. I found that with only one article for the client, it was impossible to log the hours outlined in the contract. I also had to adjust my personal way of working in order to fit the client’s needs and style. While this was a tad difficult for me, I think it’s a critical skill for a freelancer.

During Week 4 I’ll be working to add more content to “The Industry” tab of the site, check off items on my to-do list, and hopefully close out my first article assignment for my client. I also submitted four more proposals this week, so I’m looking forward to hearing someone and starting a second contract.

Advice: Keep pressing on. It’s overwhelming and scary. Make the to-do lists, work through them one task at a time, and ask for help when you need it. Do the research. Put in the time and effort. It’s still the beginning!