One of the biggest complaints about freelancing is that it’s difficult to scale a freelance business. Freelancing usually requires the freelancer to do most of the work and trade their hours for dollars. Eventually, there’s a cap on how much money they can earn because they are at maximum capacity.
This is technically true, but only if you continue to yourself as a freelancer instead of a business owner. The reality is that freelancers who make the shift into business owner can scale a freelance business in multiple ways.
What Is Scalability
Scalability is the act of being able to grow your business in a way that doesn’t require you to do everything or trade your time for dollars. For example, a book is scalable because you write it once but you can sell it over and over again. Building a team is also another form of adding scalability to a business because the owner is no longer doing everything by him or herself.
Over time, learning how to scale your business leads to more revenue because either more work can be done or more products can be sold.
Build Other Scalable Streams of Income
There is no first step when you are trying to scale a freelance business, but this is one of the first things I did from the get-go.
When I quit my job to freelance full-time I knew I would need to build in other sources to make money. I also wanted to build sources that wouldn’t necessarily require me to trade my time for dollars, meaning these forms of income would be more passive and as such more scalable.
The first thing I did was launch my book that ended up being an Amazon best-seller. Did it rake in thousands of dollars? No. But it does allow me to make some extra money each month without having to think too much about it. It also serves as a fantastic client magnet.
I actually launched my book before I even hired my first assistant. When the work coming in as a result of my book launch was too much for me to handle on my own, that’s when I hired my assistant.
Hire Support Staff
Hiring support staff like a virtual assistant or accountant can go a long way when starting to scale your freelance business. By taking all of these things off your plate, you have more time to focus on the tasks that actually make you money. These people support you in being able to take on more paying work and they become an important part of your team over time.
Another example of support staff is to hire someone who can do the research required for your work for you. For example, writers can hire someone to find sources and pull up research for their articles. This alone is a massive time saver for many freelancers and an easy way to start scaling.
Sub-contract
Another way some freelancers begin to scale their freelance business is to sub-contract some of the work to other writers. This could look like having them come up with a draft or an outline and then giving them a cut of the revenue.
Just note that if you go this route, you’ll have to let your clients know that you sub-contract some of your work. It’s not fair to them if they think you’re doing all the writing. If they have an issue with it simply assure them that you look over all the work before submitting.
Final Thoughts
Beginning to scale your freelance business doesn’t need to be terribly difficult. The internet actually makes it easier to find support staff and sub-contractors. There’s also more opportunity than ever before to create other sources of income that may be more scalable and provide more revenue over time.
