It was one of the best decisions that I have made in my life. Nothing in life has given me more growth than my design business. It is scalable, well paying, and something that I really love doing and teaching. It is fun being a freelancer and earning some extra bucks as a side hustle or doing it full time but man the freedom it gives you being an entrepreneur is great and the way it makes you feel is totally different that you can never feel as a freelancer.
So there are a couple of steps that you need to take to make that transition from a freelancer to an entrepreneur. First of all, you need to build an online presence within your niche and register your business to stay safe legally. Start expanding your services a little so that your clients can connect with you for long term projects. Start hiring people rather than doing all the work yourself, it will make your mind free from all the work and you can think about expanding your business. Consider hiring people with the skills that you don’t have, this one is the most important advice which makes the entrepreneurs different from all other people. Now let’s dive into the detail of each topic.
1. Register your business
There are several things that you should keep in mind before getting into the business world. You need to register your name, business under the right business structure. This will also keep you safeguarding the brand that you are building with time. This step will help you protect yourself.
A lot of times what happens with the businesses is, you choose a name and you build your audience/customer base and you keep on doing good work. After you have made your name you go to the lawyer asking him to register the name and do everything to make it legit, the lawyer says this name wouldn’t be available. Now you would have to kill a lot of hard work that you have done to bring that name in the minds of your customers. There are a lot of benefits that you do not know yet. So it is better to contact a lawyer or in some cases a CA to get your business registered.
In my case, I had a friend who is a CA and did all the filing work for me. I did pay him for the services that he provided and for the help but it took a lot of burden off of me, just think I do not know a thing about registering your business or anything, It might have taken me double or more amount of time to do it.
Better do it and get it off from your checklist to convert your freelance services into a legit business.
Here are some ways of registering your business
-Use DBA (Doing Business As):
This is a fictitious name or trademark name under which you register your company, and this name can be different from the legal name of the company. You need to make sure that no other business is using the same name as yours. There is a small fee for filing at least in my country it might vary I have no idea about that. You should check with the lawyer to get a better understanding of it.
In many cases when you are using your legal name as your business name you do not need to register it, to make sure that this is valid in your country you should check with a lawyer, I am no legal authority who would know for sure what goes in your state.
If you want to open a bank account in your business’s name, bank people are going to ask for this filing.
-Register a Trademark:
Another way is to trademark your business name, once you trademark your business name it gives you right and protection against anyone else to use that name and do any kind of business activity within your state. To do so you need to submit an application to the patent and trademark office. You need to make sure before deciding a name whether someone else might be using that name or not. In many cases, if the representative in the trademark office can help you with that. That person might check their database whether the name that you have in mind is being used by any other business.
There will be a certain fee involved to trademark the name so make sure your name will be unique otherwise your application might get rejected and you would have to do everything all over again.
-Create a Business Structure:
Creating a formal business structure is the most common path to registering a business. All you need to do is creating an LLC. or a Corporation, and it also allows you to register your name while offering you certain protections and benefits.
Filing your articles of incorporation or the articles of organization registers your name with the government. In this also you need to make sure that no one else has the same name as you are intending to use.
2. Build Online presence
This will help you get clients and customers to reach you. The better your online presence will be the larger will be your audience base. This is the most important step to turn your freelance into a business. You are going to hire people to get the work done, and to pay them I really don’t think the amount of work which you have been getting would be enough. You ought to make more, I am not a man who would say keep your expenses low. You might have to do it for a bit until you get more clients but try to have a good quality of life. Otherwise, what’s the purpose if you are not having a good time. You need to reward yourself too but do it wisely.
For me when It happened not because I planned it but when It got a bit out of control I thought of hiring designers who can do the job for me, and then all of the sudden I got into a situation of just giving clear instructions, talking to the client and just presenting it. Because obviously I cannot let the person whom I have hired to present the work, The client has trust on me not on that person and also I have learned it pretty well how to handle clients, sometimes it can get really messy when the situation gets a bit out of hand, that you will understand through your experience.
So build a good looking website, to showcase your work, present yourself and to engage those clients of yours. It will really help you to stand out better.
Use Social media, marketing, advertising & promotion, etc to boost this process. These are the days when it can be done really quickly. You just need to swipe your card, run a campaign and boom, traffic coming to where you desire if you do it right.
3. Expand your Services
If you are providing some service that needs just one-time engagement then you have got yourself into a game which is a little hard and very competitive. You would have to get new clients every time you want to make a sale or earn, you should better add up some services to your arsenal which through which you can stay connected to your customers and provide some value that can be done for a longer period of time rather than one-time engagement.
It will let you find new customers while you already having your customers who are paying you in exchange for your services. This will make it a lot easier for you to survive your entrepreneurial journey.
4. Start hiring
As a new entrepreneur, you might not want to share your income with other people and you want to do everything by yourself. But trust me you are doing it the wrong way if you want to be free and you want to get sorted financially without you having to work the whole day.
You need to hire people for the skills that you don’t have, obviously you cannot do everything in the best way. And only do things that you are good at, hire someone who is good at others. That is like the rule number one of being a great entrepreneur. That’s what every millionaire do basically. You have a very limited amount of time, you should spend it wisely which can be really productive, start buying time by hiring people to work for you.
5. Be a good leader
To be a good entrepreneur and get people to work efficiently, you need to be a good leader, it doesn’t just mean to make people work by giving orders. But it also means to make people feel safe working for you, make them passionate, help them align the vision with the vision of the company. And it won’t happen until and unless you are helping them grow themselves.
They should feel that they are progressing, intellectually, by their skill level, and financially. The atmosphere should not be like they are just there for the client to serve them but they should also feel there is someone who is looking after them only then they would be able to be dedicated and do work diligently without someone looking over there shoulder.
Being a leader is to understand people and to understand their needs. If you understand people you would what makes them tick and what inspires them, what can be good for them, etc, Don’t push people to do good work but bring them together with you to work passionately and always be proud of them.
That’s it, for now, guys, I will share some other helpful things related to design business, freelancing, branding, etc. If you loved it just write a comment and let me know. And all the very best for your business.
