As a freelancer and small business owner it can be easy to become jaded by your work.
At times it may even feel like you should just give up and go back to full-time employment. Running a freelance business presents a unique set of challenges and pressures that you may not have fully appreciated before you started out.
The issue is often stagnancy — whether that be caused by financial stress, the type of clients you deal with, the work that you do, or something else. Whatever the cause, you feel like your business is going nowhere; you’re not enjoying what you’re doing.
Although this is a far from ideal situation, there are remedies. In fact, objectively assessing the situation and putting markers for action down is possibly all you need to do to turn your business around. In this post I want to explore the three step process I recommend to convert your freelance business from a state of stagnancy into vibrancy.
Step 1: Diagnose the Issue
You know that you’re unhappy with the state of your business, but do you truly understand why? It may not just be about money (or in fact about money at all) — you must consider the reasons for your unhappiness from all angles.
Consider the following questions:
- Do you feel that you are earning enough?
- Do you like the clients you work with? If not, do you dislike working with them all, or just one or two?
- Do you enjoy the work that you do?
- Do you like the structure and format of your day-to-day working life?
- Is there anything else that you dislike about your business?
These are the key questions that can help to determine exactly what is causing stagnancy in your business. And remember, it’s often not just about money. You should be striving to create a business that you enjoy running as much as anything else.
Stagnancy can be as much about losing passion for what you do as it can be about encountering more elementary business problems. Don’t be afraid to look outside of the box in diagnosing the unique problems you face.
Step 2: Create a Plan of Action
Once you have written down the issues you face in your business, the perceived solutions may seem impossible. I like to make things easier with a procession of “Hows.”
The process is simple — you start with the problem and give an answer. Keep asking “How” to each answer until the solution becomes simple enough. That becomes your start point.
Let’s look at an example:
- I’m not earning enough. Earn more.
- How? Charge more.
- How? Increase the perceived value of your service.
- How? Target a specific market and build a reputation.
- How? Overhaul branding, acquire testimonials and samples, edit template pitch, commence outreach program.
For that above example I am referring to a post I wrote a short while ago here on Freelance Mom: How to Get the Right Clients for Your Freelance Business.
You must understand that your situation is unique and that even if your issue is the same as above, the answer may be very different. For instance:
- I’m not earning enough. Earn more.
- How? Negotiate higher rates with existing clients.
As you can see, that plan of action is rather more straightforward. Don’t be afraid of the simple solution. But even if your solution is more complicated, remember that you can use a procession of “Hows” to break it down into simple constituent parts.
So do that and create your plan of action.
Step 3: Execute
In reality you may have known what you needed to do to get yourself out of your rut before you even read this post. Perhaps all you needed was a nudge in the right direction; for someone to tell you that the solution can be as simple as you perceive (at least in theory).
Of course, the solution may well only be acquired through a challenging course of action. You may be looking at something as drastic as re-branding your business or shifting your entire client base — not something to be taken lightly. But the process of building a business that you love will not happen without your input.
At this point you have a choice — you can accept the status quo and continue to run a stagnant business, or you can decide to make changes. It’s ultimately up to you — it is your business after all. However, you cannot bemoan your business’ stagnancy if you are not prepared to do anything about it. Accept your situation or endeavor to change it — those are your only two choices.
Good luck!
Tom Ewer is the founder of Leaving Work Behind and 2013 Problogger “Blogger to Watch.” He quit his job in 2011 and help others realize their own dreams of quitting their jobs and building their own online businesses.
