Start freelancing
You know what you can do. You'd like to do it for yourself. In between, there's the legal status, the offer, the rate, the first clients, the website, and the feeling that everything has to be ready before you start.
Everything comes at once
The status, the offer, the rate, the website, the name, the logo, the first clients. Every topic opens three more, and none of them seems able to wait. So you start with the most pleasant one, usually the logo, and stop there.
You also imagine you have to be "ready": the website live, the brochure done. First clients usually come from people who already know you, and they ask for none of that.
The real issue is the order. The first thing, then the next. The logo can wait.
An example of the path
Here's what this project can look like once it's broken down. Yours starts from your answers, beginning with what you already have and what's holding you back. It will come out different, and that's on purpose.
- Milestone 1
Define my offer
- Write in three lines what I offer, and to whomDone
- List three people who have exactly this need
- Set a first rate, even if it changes later
- Say my offer out loud to someone, and write down their question
- Milestone 2
Set up the basics
The status, and what it takes to invoice. Not exciting, but done once and for all.
≈ 6 steps planned, detailed when you get there - Milestone 3
Make the offer visible
An up-to-date profile and a simple page, with two examples of what I do. The perfect website can wait.
≈ 5 steps planned, detailed when you get there - Milestone 4
Land my first three clients
Through my network first, then further. The first is the hardest, the third proves it works.
≈ 7 steps planned, detailed when you get there - Milestone 5
Keep the pace
A little prospecting every week, and a referral asked for after every job delivered.
≈ 4 steps planned, detailed when you get there
Your first step, tonight
Write in three lines what I offer, and to whom
Twenty minutes. Three imperfect lines beat a perfect positioning in six months.
How the path adapts to you
You say all of this in the opening questions, and you can change it later.
- Already have a legal status? Put it under "What you already have": the admin milestone shrinks to what's missing.
- Picking "A bit every day"? The steps get smaller, and there's one almost every day.
- Already have one client? Say so too: the plan starts from the second.
Your project has waited long enough.
Name your goal. It starts here.
In a few minutes, you'll know exactly where to start. The first step takes less time than thinking about it again.
Start this project