When a few months or years ago, you decided to quit your job to become your own boss, you fell in love with the possibilities of the freelancing life. You carefully established and grew your client base, developed the best offering for your target audience, and increased your revenues. Now, it’s the moment you’ve been waiting for since you became a freelancer: It’s time to grow your activities and become an entrepreneur. Yes, you’ve read it right: Now is time to launch your first business. Are you ready for this new challenge? Here’s what it takes to make it work.
Establish a professional brand
As a freelancer, you need to establish your brand from an early start, especially if you want your business to be the natural extension of your freelancing activities. In other words, you need a professional-looking and recognizable identity. That’s precisely why even freelancers need to consider their choice of logo carefully and create a tagline that embodies your business vision. Additionally, you need to keep it consistent across all media, from social media presence to your business cards. It will be easier for your existing customers to come back to you if you maintain the same identity once you’ve established your business.
Change your financing strategy
Freelancers are self-employed individuals who don’t have access to commercial loans to grow their professional presence. Instead, you need to use your personal savings and credit cards to build up your professional gear. So, it’s not uncommon to struggle with personal debts as a freelancer, and even need the advice of experts like debtconsolidation.loans to make it through. Companies might have debts too, but theirs are separated from your individual accounts. Additionally, as an entrepreneur, you can more easily get in touch with investors to find new financing options. In short, creating a company means a whole new financing strategy.
Hire an A-team
It will be your first time hiring a team and consequently dealing with new challenges. According to entrepreneur.com the first step is to define your requirements without being too rigid about the specific specifications. For example, Steve Jobs, hired a creative artist who had never worked with IT, Susan Kare, to design the easy-to-use onscreen visuals of Apple, because her intuitive flair was more important than technical knowledge. Additionally, keep your mind open to new possibilities, as you might find the perfect team outside of the traditional hiring methods. After all, networking events and conferences could get you to meet talented people you’d want on your team!
Get offices to die for
Are you ready for the big move? You’re an entrepreneur now, and you’ve got a team. Consequently, you need to find the best possible location for your business offices. Consider the budget and tax requirements, as these can be different from an area to another. Do you need parking facilities and a shopping street next to your offices, or should you aim for a quieter area? Should you be in the vicinity of your direct competitors? The questions are designed to help you find the best office for your needs.
In conclusion, moving out of your home office and starting your own company is a challenge that will force you to juggle with new offices, a new team, new financing strategies but still the same professional identity you created as a freelancer.
