Maintaining Business Standards As A Freelancer

Freelancing is very different to the majority of other businesses due to its innately personal involvement and attachment to every aspect of the business. Maintaining objectivity and a decisive decision process can be hard as your personal feelings begin to creep into the equation.

As freelancer’s its hard to remain objective. How do you maintain business standards?

Being a freelancer, you have to work hard at not letting your personal feelings and preferences cloud your judgement.  Even the worst type of client can be right, well.. they ARE right if you want to keep them as a client in the long-term. As a freelancer, you have to learn, when the time is right, to put feelings aside and just do what a client wants and what your business needs. Furthermore, this applies to not doing work that does not pay the fee it right deserves, no matter how much you want to be a nice person or help out a friend for free.

As a freelancer, you also cannot forget about the administrative aspects of your business. It can be somewhat difficult to move away in the same day from your preferred creative persona to the clerk and accountant. However, putting off doing your book keeping, your marketing and not accurately tracking your prospects and projects can lead to a whole host of problems such as running out of work! ; forgetting to bill; under billing; late tax returns etc etc

Finally, remember to never take any client for granted, as soon as you do, the relationship you have created begins to erode and all the wonderful little things like repeat business and referrals are lost.Everybody wants to be appreciated and feel like they are top priority. Thus, always return emails and calls as promptly as possible.

The longer we freelance, the easier it is to fall into potentially destructive personal habits! Why get dressed in the morning? Why go after new clients when you are so busy? Why be polite and not dismissive to cheap clients?  The longer we go the more vigilant we need to be to maintain our vigor, professionalism and personal customer service that is a huge part of any freelancer’s success!

Related Posts:

• November 19, 2009 -- Should You Find a Niche To Stand Out From The Pack? (3)
• December 2, 2009 -- Does a successful freelancer have to be a good sales person? (6)
• December 1, 2009 -- General Rules For Doing Free Freelance Work (6)
• November 28, 2009 -- Interview With Will Kay of OddKingdom – Becoming Your Brand (5)
• November 25, 2009 -- Factors To Consider When Pricing For A Project (6)
• November 18, 2009 -- Long Term Freelancing Success – Part 1 – Dedication (8)