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How to grow your freelance business

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedMay 20222 min read

Freelancing is an opportunity to earn a good living while retaining flexibility over your working hours to maintain an ideal work-life balance. But building up your freelance business takes a lot of work, especially in the beginning when you don't have many clients or connections.

It is not just about working hard for the clients you have. It also means working smart to be growing your list of clients constantly. Ultimately, you want your freelance business to reach a stage where you can choose the kind of clients you want to work with. At that point, you can move on from low-paying clients and those who make unreasonable demands and work only with those you enjoy working with.

But how do you reach that point? Here is our guide on how to grow a freelance business, including tried and trusted strategies you can implement right now.

Grow freelance business strategies

We will focus on four freelance business-building strategies you can implement right now to start expanding your scope. These strategies to grow a freelance business are:

upskill or expand your services
grow relationships with existing clients
build your brand
spend time networking

Upskill or expand your services

Expanding your offerings to include complementary or related services is an excellent way to grow your freelance business and increase freelance client satisfaction. You can also take training courses to upskill, enabling you to charge more for freelance services.

Grow existing clients.

Growing your existing clients is similar to expanding your services or upgrading your skills. You already have a working relationship, so explore the possibilities of what else you can do for them. You can also use this strategy to know where to upskill your capabilities.

Build your brand

Developing a professional online presence to build your brand can massively improve the quality of clients you attract. Get a good website with your services and testimonials while maintaining a relevant social media profile. You can also SEO (search engine optimise) your website with localised search terms and long-tail keywords, which are more likely to succeed in the short term.

Always network

You never know when an opportunity to network will arise, so always be ready. You can also attend networking events, especially for PR and marketing. Practice a conversational pitch of your skills and services so you are prepared when you meet a potential client. It can also help to print business cards so you can easily leave your details with an interested party.

Efficient financial admin for freelancers

Being a freelancer should provide you with the freedom to work when and how you want. Still, processing all your financial admin takes up valuable time and is costly. One of the easiest ways to reduce time and costs is to use accounting software and automate payment collection.

GoCardless enables freelance businesses to collect invoice payments directly from their customers' bank accounts.

It saves time and money – businesses can get paid up to twice as fast by accepting GoCardless payments on their online invoices.

GoCardless also integrates seamlessly with 300+ partners, including major invoicing software like Xero and QuickBooks — which puts payment visibility right into the business's workflow.

Perhaps most importantly, it is quick, easy and free to set up. Businesses get advance knowledge of incoming payments and clear visibility on who has or hasn't paid through the GoCardless dashboard.

You can also use Instant Bank Pay and GoCardless’s recurring payments product for UK and DE payments. Instant Bank Pay is the GoCardless solution for collecting one-off payments directly from customers' bank accounts (powered by open banking). It enables greater control for one-off invoice payments where the payer wants to authorise each payment.

We can help

GoCardless is a global payments solution that helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of financial admin your team needs to deal with. Find out how GoCardless can help you with one-off or recurring payments.