Freelance business plan: making it rain and other career goals for 2020
The death of the year approaches! As December slinks up in all its gaudy glory, it might be cool to start thinking about your freelance career plan for 2020, so you can get your shit together well in advance. No one wants to be kicked in the balls by January.
Here are some of the ways I like to plot my freelance business plan each year, and simple tricks I use to make sure I stick to it.
Because plotting makes me feel like an evil genius. And that’s awesome.
Let’s do this.
1) Put your freelance business and your career goals under the microscope
The best place to start is where you already are. Go back and look at how much revenue you made this year, the projects you worked on, the clients you won and how your brand developed.
This’ll give you a good feel for whether things are going in the right direction or whether course-corrections are needed for you to grow and hit your personal goals.
2. Get specific
Okay, now you know where you are and where you’d like to be. You’ve almost cracked it, fella. The next step is to write that shit down in a very specific way.
There’s no point setting goals like ‘grow my client base’ or ‘earn more revenue’. That shit ain’t helpful. What you want is a specific metric to hit: ‘grow my revenue by 5% YOY’ or ‘get three new clients by June’.
The more specific, the better.
3. Use active, positive language
It’s not enough to get specific when you’re writing your goals, you also need to think about the language you’re using. Y’all gotta get active. For example:
I will get three new clients by December 2020
Not…
I want to try to get three new clients by December 2020.
You get me? Trying isn’t doing, my friend. Language is important!
4. Break it down
Right, so we’ve got our career goals. Sick. Now we need to actually plan how we’re going to get from A to B, otherwise we might not even bother with the journey. Because, like, it sounds hard.
So, if I want 3 new clients by the end of the year, what’s my plan? I might decide to start setting aside time each week to research prospects. Then I might want to make sure I’m pitching at least 5 people a month. It’s your call man!
5. Give yourself deadlines
Without set deadlines, you could easily find yourself slipping into cruise control. Suddenly it’s July and you’ve done fuck all. Help shit along by setting ‘due dates’ for each stage of your plan. Write them in your calendar or diary, otherwise you might wriggle out of the commitment you’ve made to yourself.
6. Hold yourself accountable
You’ve got goals, a plan, and deadlines for each stage of the plan. Mint. Now you need to push your own buttons to make sure you stay accountable — what’s going to spur you on? Maybe you need to publish that shit to the world on Twitter or LinkedIn? Maybe you need to announce it to the freelancers in your mastermind group or get a friend to hold you to your word. Whatever works, bro.
7. Remember to check in
Remember those deadlines you set? They’re gonna pop up and bite you in the ass, which is exactly what we want. Use them as a prompt to check your own progress. Maybe even block out a monthly rundown to see if you’re on track and to plan your assault on the month ahead.
8. Be kind and be flexible
I can’t count the number of times I have to remind myself of this. Goals are flexible — something you felt was important in December 2019 might be obsolete by December 2020, and that’s cool.
Priorities change, bro.
Remember to log your successes anyway so when you look back, you can still see the growth. Okay, so I didn’t manage to grow my revenue by 5% but my brand and my engagement exploded. I didn’t score three new clients, but I did score three awesome jobs from one amazing new client.
It’s all swings and roundabouts. Don’t be a dick to yourself.
Happy planning, bishes!