How To Start Freelancing & Start Living On Your Own Terms In 2023

Are you wondering how to start freelancing in 2023 and beyond?

If so, you’ve come to the right place.

Starting a new freelancing business is an incredibly difficult, wonderful, rewarding, and confusing endeavor. 

But if you have an existing skill, desire to learn, or inextinguishable passion you’d like to pursue, then freelancing is a great way to get your feet wet with entrepreneurship.

In practice, the process of becoming a freelancer isn’t complicated. There aren’t many huge barriers to entry to get started. However, it does require a lot of dedication, hustle, and perseverance.

This guide aims to eliminate as much confusion around that process as possible. So you can hit the ground running with your freelance business.

Go ahead and take a deep breath, grab a pen and paper, pour your favorite adult beverage, and let’s get started.

We’re going to start with some basic terminology and get on the same page.

What Is Freelancing?

“Freelancing” is when you work for yourself, typically without employees, and take on projects or recurring work for clients.  

Once you become a freelancer you are in charge of making your own hours, deciding where your work gets done, how your work gets done, which tools you use, and what kind of income you make.

When you go from employee to freelancer, you are taking on all aspects of responsibility in regards to how you find work, deliver on work, and operate on a day to day basis.

It’s a massive shift, but can be insanely rewarding when you see it through.

So…What Kind Of Freelance Jobs Are Out There?

Great question. Let’s dive into that. 

There are thousands of different freelance jobs available and in demand these days. So many in fact, that I cannot list them all here. 

That being said, here’s a cheat sheet of some of the most lucrative freelance businesses you can start today:

• Copywriter
• Virtual Assistant
• SEO specialist
• Editor
• Data Entry or Web Researcher
• Video / Audio Content Transcription
• Business Consultant
• Social Media Manager
• Web Designer
• Email Marketing
• Voiceover Support
• Product Support
• Language Instructor or Tutor
• Customer Service Specialist
• Business Development
• Sales Consultant
• Legal Consultation

…and so many more. 

Here’s a much more comprehensive list of freelance businesses that you can start, but ultimately, you should use whatever skill, interest, or talent you have and try to get paid for it. 

The best way to decide which freelance career you want to have is to understand who you are and most importantly, your WHY. 

Consider Your Intentions (Your WHY Is Everything)

Possibly more important than the actual decision to start freelancing, is deciding why you actually WANT to start.

The answers seem obvious at first glance:

• Work from a beach with a sugary drink in hand
• Decide to get to wear pants or not every day
• Become a millionaire in the first 6 months
• Laugh at all the peasants who aren’t in control of their schedule
• Getting to only spend time on your passions everyday

However, many of those expectations are either untrue, take longer than you think, or aren’t actually what you want.

Simply what you THINK you want.

Being a business owner is extremely challenging both mentally and physically.

In the end, it’s not going to be your ability to motivate yourself or always feeling great about your journey that keeps you going.

You’re going to have to dig deeper and come from a place of true passion or dedication that carries you through the difficult times.

So why exactly did you decide that you wanted to start freelancing? That’s the million dollar question. It’s important that you actually stop and take time to consider that deeply.

Unfortunately I can’t help you answer that. Or give you any reasons that would personally benefit you. But if you’re doing it for any of these reasons, you may want to rethink your position:

• You hate your manager
• “All of your friends are doing it”
• You watch a bunch of Gary Vee videos on instagram and follow #entrepreneur life
• Boredom
• You want to become a millionaire overnight

However, on the flip side of that, these are some really awesome reasons:

• You have a deep desire to create something of value for the world
• Your whole life revolves around solving problems for others and eliminating their pain
• You’re extremely talented in one particular area that you’ve dedicated time to
• You desire financial freedom in life and the ability to dictate outcomes in your life

See the difference in those lists?

All of the examples in the first are very shallow. Exciting at first, but will likely fade away as things get tough.

The second list is all about progress, serving others, and a greater inner purpose for yourself, your family, and those around you.

That’s the kind of stuff that never goes away.

If you haven’t considered this question, but are considering taking the leap to start freelancing, go take care of that ASAP.

Moving on.

Don’t Quit Your Day Job Just Yet…

Look, the truth is that it’s perfectly fine and even somewhat common for entrepreneurs to “take a leap of faith”, quit their 9-5, and grind through the process of starting their business on a whim.

It’s what I did to get started, and the sink or swim approach forced me to learn what I needed to in order to be successful. It worked because I had rent to pay, student loans, and a girlfriend (now wife) who I wanted to support and not be a financial burden to.

Now, looking back, I don’t regret it one bit. It made me realize how deep I can dig to get through seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

That being said…

I wouldn’t wish what I went through to finally get my agency business off the ground on anyone. It was truly awful for the first 8 – 12 months.

When you quit your job and start your business on a whim, you do gain a lot in personal development, but you also miss out on the opportunity to do a lot of smart things. Such as:

• Creating a proper business plan
• Saving enough money to cover your bills so you can think clearly and not make decisions based on scarcity
• Doing market research and testing your offering before it’s do or die
• Getting mentorship and coaching that will help you start off on the right foot
• Educating yourself and leveling up your skillset to the point where you can position yourself well in the market

As I said before, it’s possible, but not recommended for most of you. 

Instead, consider the following sage advice.

Treat your freelancing business as a side hustle. That’s right, the golden phrase of the 2020s, for good reason.

You aren’t any less of an entrepreneur if you are building your business while you still work a job. In fact, taking this approach comes with a ton of benefits. Not only does it eliminate most of the issues listed above, but you completely take the pressure of having to succeed no matter what.

Many successful bootstrapped businesses that are absolutely crushing it today started off as side hustles.

• Jotform
• Craigslist
• Fubu
• Salesforce
• Spanx

The key for these founders was they were making a living doing another job that gave them either skills, inspiration, or paid the bills while they worked on their business idea. 

Working a day job while building their business wasn’t a detriment, it was one of the primary REASONS why they succeeded.

If you’re thinking to yourself “who does this guy think he is? I already worked myself to death, I can’t work TWO jobs like I am now”, then I’ve got great news for you.

You don’t have to.

That’s right, you’ll learn quickly as you start your own freelance business that being able to adapt quickly to new situations and pivoting are crucial. Same at the start of your journey.

You’ve simply got to put together the right plan. 

Here’s exactly how to do that.

How To Transition To Freelancing On The Side While Keeping Your 9-5

Here are 5 ways you can balance your side hustle while keeping your current 9-5 job:

1. Find remote work if possible

Remote work can offer you WAY more flexibility than having to commute to an office each day. If you’re in good favor with your workplace, you can even choose which hours you work in order to get the job done.

That will allow you to cut down on travel time, pointless meetings, breaks, and other distractions that you would normally get in an office.

All leads towards building your empire.

2. Ask for reduced hours if possible

If you can’t work remotely, you might consider asking your boss to reduce your hours.

I know, I know…

Less money. Tragic.

Don’t let this discourage you though. Keep your eye on the prize. 

Trading of your precious time for dollars is EXACTLY the reason why you want to start freelancing in the first place.

Think of it like an investment in yourself. Temporary loss with the hopes of gaining a lot more in the future.

When you reduce the amount of hours you spend in one area of your life, you have much more time to dedicate to your new side hustle.

3. Cut down on expenses

I can already hear the heavy sighs…

Look, I get it. I love going out for a lovely brunch, driving around in a new car, and going on trips just as much as the next person.

However, the less you spend, the less you need to work at your other job. The less you need to work, the more flexibility you have. All of that extra time and energy can and should be dedicated to your freelance business.

The goal is to make your new freelance gig your main source of income and make the transition as quickly as possible.

4. Ask for a raise or find a higher paying job

It’s okay to ask for more money.

It’s okay to ask for more money.

It’s okay to ask for more money.

If the idea of asking your boss for a raise terrifies you, go and read those three sentences again.

Not only is it fine to ask for a raise, but depending on your performance and the type of person you are, you may even DESERVE it.

Again, this goes back to time. If you’re making more money, spending less, then theoretically, you can work less and dedicate the time to your freelance business.

5. Use The Weekends

Yup. The weekends don’t belong to you anymore.

They belong to your side hustle.They are free and unstructured time where the majority of the world is taking time off.

No emails to deal with, no obligations to go anywhere, it’s perfect.

Use this time to be creative, build up a book of business, learn more about your desired freelance job, reach out to mentors, create!

Now that you’ve got your plan in place, and a bit of breathing room, it’s time to actually get started.

Let’s do this.

How To Start Freelancing

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. 

The moment of truth. 

What you came here for.

Here’s how to go from employee to bad*** freelancer and business owner. All in 9 straightforward and proven steps. 

1. Define your ideal client

This is one of those things that first time founders consistently get wrong and is the biggest reason startup businesses fail. 

Understanding who you want to serve (your target buyer persona) and how you can best serve them is the cornerstone of any great business. 

When you think through who you want to serve or can best serve given your current skill set, ask yourself the following:

• Where do the work?
• What do they do there?
• What are there day to day frustrations? 
• What keeps them up at night?
• What is the biggest pain they experience professionally? 
• What excites them on a day to day basis?
• What seems to be missing from similar providers in your industry? 
• what one thing would they ask for if they had a magic wand?

Do you see where I’m going with these? 

Diving deep into the pain of your target audience is imperative for putting together a valuable offer because once you have a deep understanding of their pain, you will know EXACTLY how to solve it. 

Here is an excellent tool for building out a persona so you know EXACTLY who to build out your service for. 

When you are working through this exercise, remember to take your own experience, skillset, and desires into account for what kind of person or organization you can serve quickly and effectively.

It should be a blend of ideal and pragmatic.

2. Create the perfect offer

This step is important to your future self and type of work you ended up doing for your customers. 

While it can be tempting to just “put yourself out there” and accept any time of freelance work that someone requests of you to earn a few extra $s, it’s extremely important that you wrap your head around the actual service offering prior to our first job. 

Obviously, you won’t create the perfect service or product on the first guess. No company can claim that and it’s actually wise to listen closely to customer feedback and modify what you offer based on what their common needs are. 

But before you begin you’ll have to make some structural assumptions. 

My favorite way to organize this is in a simple google sheet. Create columns for:

• Name of service
• All deliverables associated
• Amount of each deliverable 
• Link to deliverable template
• Price
• Length of time it takes to complete
• Who will be responsible for getting it done (you, a freelance partner you hire, software, etc)

Here is a sheet template I made that you can use to get started. Go to “file” > “make a copy” to start creating your own!  

The benefit of this is that you can not only be sure that you will quickly and effectively solve the needs of your target customer, but during the project, you won’t feel the need to keep adding to your deliverables and doing more work than was promised. 

That’s called “scope creep” and it means absolute death to your margins and cash flow. 

Once you have your sheet, it’s time to populate it. 

Here are some starting questions to help you think through what a good book of services would be to offer:

• What am I good at that I can advise on?
• What resources, templates, videos, tools, have I already used or mastered that I can use for others?
• What can I do in a few hours that would disproportionately benefit my clients?
• What are other leaders in my industry offering that I want to be like in 2-3 years?
• How can I help businesses increase revenue, leads, or reduce wasted spend on expenses?

Also, for those of you who are obsessed with a formal business plan, check out the lean canvas exercise. 

It’s Like a business plan but takes a wonderfully small fraction of the time and gives you clarity to move forward and focus on more important and execution focused items instead.

3. Price yourself correctly

Pricing is something that no one ever teaches you how to do, where there is no one size fits all strategy, but that can completely ruin or cause you to succeed. 

How you price yourself and your services are directly linked to how you will be perceived. 

Before you take a single freelancing job, it’s imperative that you have your own pricing figured out. 

A great way to figure out how to set your prices initially is to look at some examples of what people are willing to pay. 

A quick way to do this is by going to a site like freelancer or upwork. 

1. Do a search for your type of freelance work
2. Find the median range of pricing examples
3. Filter list of freelancer by people with similar experience levels as yourself

In the beginning you might  feel bad charging money for a service you’re just starting out with, but you need to reject this feeling. 

As long as you’re committed to helping your client, actually know how to do what you claim to do, and provide phenomenal service, you deserve their money. 

Don’t take on work for free or try to compete with the bottom of the barrel companies in order to get work. 

That is a horrible setup for your psyche and will provide a terrible baseline for starting your business. 

Instead, try to think of an offer so jam packed with value and customer service, that you feel like your client is stealing from you at the price you’re charging. 

A good rule of thumb is that whatever you initially come up with to charge when you start out freelancing, is that you can comfortably double that amount. IF you have the ideal client for the service you are providing. 

4. Build your brand on a budget

Pay attention very closely, this is a topic that most startups get wrong. 

I’m only going to say this once…

When you are starting your freelance business, you should NOT spend a bunch of time, money, or effort on your branding materials. 

Your entire focus should be on learning more about what your clients want, acquiring new clients, and providing outstanding work. 

That’s it. 

All of those things speak WAY louder than brand in the beginning because you don’t even have a true brand yet. 

At maximum, I would say that your brand assets should take you no longer than 2 weeks and shouldn’t be more than $500-$1000 to start (mine was way less). 

Here are the core assets you’ll need to make a good impression and get started, but not break the bank:

• Logo & colors. Technology has enabled humans to do almost everything way more effectively and efficiently. Same with branding. You can use free tools like Adobe Color or Logo Makr  on your own. Getting those up and running yourself shouldn’t take more than a few hours. Or you can hire someone on fiverr to design your logo and color palette for you.
• Website. This does not require a developer or a designer at this stage. This is simply so you have something to point to when people ask you that looks official. An about page, services page, contact page, and homepage are all you need. If you have case studies, include a page for those as well. Use services like WordPress or Squarespace to get a simple templated website up in no time. 
• Business cards. Again, no need to go crazy here. You can take that logo / color palette that you made, and use it to upload to a business card service like Vistaprint Business who will ship it to you quickly and cheaply. 
• Social media. Take 2 hours to find a professional photo of yourself, write out your responses on a separate doc so you can have them ready, then copy and paste.  Create a business profile on Facebook and Linkedin to start.

Once you’ve got these branding basics down, it’s time to move on.

5. Decide if you need to incorporate

First things first, I am not a legal professional. This is not formal legal advice, but I’ve done my fair share of research, been advised by an attorney, and have gone through this process myself. 

That being said, you don’t legally have to incorporate to start your freelancing business and make money from it. 

And in fact, when and how you incorporate depends entirely on how serious you are with your business in the beginning stages and how much you are planning on making. 

Freelancer’s union has a good broad rule of thumb. If freelancing takes up 25% or more of your time and income, it’s time to incorporate. 

They also stress the importance of incorporating early if possible and as soon as you can afford it. Honestly, the benefits of incorporating far out way any costs or initially spent. 

There are many major benefits, but the ones you need to know about are as follows:

• Partner and client preferences. Some partners or job boards might require it. It also shows that you’re serious about this new venture, rather than it being a passing hobby. 
• Liability. Without incorporating your business, you could be held personally liable for any legal action another company or person takes against you. That means if you get sued, you might have to give up your assets, rather than the assets that your freelance business owns. 
• Taxes. If you don’t incorporate your freelance business you will be taxed as a sole proprietorship. This dramatically limits how you pay taxes and at a certain income level, you can be paying more taxes than you might need to. 

If you do decide that formally organizing your business is necessary, these are some invaluable resources to do so:

• General Legal Advice
• Business Incorporation Services
• Incorporation Guide For Startups and Small Businesses

6. Find Your First Client

Time to get down to business. You need to find your first client to officially call yourself a freelancer. 

The first is always the most daunting, difficult, and exhilarating part of starting any new business. 

It’s also the difference between a dream you’ve been spending time and money on (a hobby) into an actual business. 

Looking for new clients actively is known as prospecting. These are the most effective avenues you can take when looking for new business leads. 

Tap into your personal network

No, i’m not talking about going to 18 different networking meetups per week, slingin’ business cards like a nightclub promoter. 

I’m talking about sitting down, taking a deep breath, and answering the following question:

“Who do I know, that I can genuinely help or who personally knows someone they could connect me with?”

These people will all make great candidates for your list:

• Friends who are small business owners
• Family that manage companies or who have spouses or close relationships with others who do
• Neighbors who drive luxurious cars
• Social media network connections

The goal would be to identify 10-15 really high impact opportunities where you know you could serve the person, and reaching out to them sincerely and honestly about the business you just started.

Here is an easy to follow and low pressure outreach template that you can send to your brainstormed list:

 “Hey [name], I know that you have a X business or I know that your company is involved with Y. 

Recently I started a [type] business and have an introductory offer that can [eliminate their biggest pain].

Looking for feedback on the offer and to really go the extra mile for a few companies to start.

Do you know of anyone in our network that might find this valuable?”

…and then you rinse and repeat until you get your first yes. 

If you go through your initial list without a positive response, or start to get discouraged, remember that the first client is always the most difficult. 

The key to sales is consistency, following up (once or twice, don’t annoy people), and persistence. Eventually someone will respond with a yes. 

Also don’t be afraid to ask for feedback on your pitch so that you can use that information to develop a better proposal system.

Cold outreach approach

Cold outreach is the process of reaching out to someone you don’t know for the first time with the hopes of getting their attention, forming a relationship, and ultimately doing business with them. 

This technique has a much lower success rate than all of the others, but in the beginning when you’re starting out, you only need one or two successes for it to be worth it and jump start your new business.

Here’s how to do proper cold outreach:

• Create a list of prospects based on your target client profile. You can use Linkedin Sales Navigator, search on Google maps, or find companies looking for work or job boards. Work hard on building out a list of 50 to start. 
• Put them into a spreadsheet. You can find a good prospecting campaign template here. Go to “file” > “make a copy” to start creating your own!
• Create a resource for them that offers value. The best cold outreach is 100% focused on your prospect, their biggest needs, and what they can get out of the interaction. This is the time to offer them something. Some examples are: an already prepared audit of their business with suggestions to improve, a free eBook, a loom video of a new industry standard technique they can take advantage of, or even doughnuts. The point is to know what their biggest pain is, and remove it as quickly as possible. 
• Find out 1 or two unique facts and interests of the person you’re reaching out to in the company, be sure to start out with this in the email or subject line. It shows you took the time to understand their situation. 
• Write an extremely short, choppy, and to the point email. The first email is 100% focused on providing them value and getting a response. Not getting a sale. This is an excellent resource for an outreach template. 
• Be sure to follow up once with a simple and polite email to see if it missed their inbox. Happens all the time, but don’t bother them every day until the end of time. There are many more emails to send and companies out there to talk to. 

Freelance job platforms 

This is a great place to start for getting your first client, especially if you don’t have sales experience and don’t mind taking a few non ideal jobs to get started. 

My best picks for these kinds of platforms are Toptal, Upwork, and Freelancer.

These three offer the quickest start for a beginner and have plenty of jobs for you to sort and pitch to. However, here’s a complete breakdown of these tools compared to some other popular freelance sites. 

One last thing…make sure to get paid (invoicing and online payment tools)

Those platforms mentioned above all have ways for you to get paid directly into your bank account. But you hopefully won’t be dependent on those platforms for work forever. 

You will also need to have a system of invoicing and payment setup in order to bill future clients and receive payment. 

Here’s a great resource on invoicing, but a few crowd favorites are:

• Paypal
• Stripe

• Invoicely
• Freshbooks

Remember to always set clear expectations when billing clients or customers. When they will be invoiced, how you expect them to pay, how long they have to pay, and what happens if they skip payment or are late. 

Don’t be shy or feel like you owe them something. It’s your business, your hard work, and you deserve to get paid accordingly and on time.

Speaking of on time…let’s talk about managing yours during each project you take on. 

7. Standardize Deliverables & Project Management

A key mistake to avoid when starting out your freelance business is not creating repeatable processes around what you deliver to clients and how you manage your workflow throughout the entire client relationship. 

You will quickly find out that just winging it and changing the way you work from one project to the next will end up hurting cash flow and margins over time. 

That’s bad for business and your mental health. 

Instead, you want to create SOPs (standardized operating procedures for everything you do. In the beginning it will seem tedious to jot down everything you already know how to do, because it will seem like it’s slowing you down. But in the future it will save you a tremendous amount of time. 

Creating SOPS will remove any errors you might make from project to project, makes you increase your rate of success (so you can charge more and deliver quality work more consistently, and allows you to train any future team members more easily as well.)

Here are a few quick and easy wins in regards to making SOPS:

• Onboarding. Whenever you onboard a new customer or client, it should be done in the same way every time. This is for their benefit to remove any friction from the process and to show them you’re a professional. 

Templates to make: Welcome email template, Onboarding form template, Invoice template, Contract template, Google Drive project folder.

• Project management. Your offers should be repeatable to the point where you can use the same kind of templates in your project management. 

Templates to make: Project template in your project management tool of choice, Client file or folder structure, All of your standard naming conventions, Client view in your internal communication tool, Deliverables.

• Reporting and delivery. No matter what you offer, you’re going to have to give your customer or client a report of some kind. Whether that’s monthly, a one time deliverable update, or otherwise. 

Templates to make: Overall folder containing assets, sheet or document containing explanation of deliverables, analytics or performance reports. 

• Resources and checklists. When you go through a process to create a deliverable, or have to explain something to a client or customer, you should create a resource on how to do that. This can be a checklist of steps, a loom video recording explaining how to use a recommended tool, etc. Do this whenever possible and watch yourself start to develop amazingly effective and repeatable systems. 

Pro Tip: Use a VA to create them for you based off the explainer video you create

When it comes to the actual tools for project management, I strongly recommend my three favorite tools Asana, Slack, and good old Google Drive.

Here’s why these are the only three project management tools you need to start: 

Asana. The first major reason why Asana is great is because it’s such a robust tool but has a forever free plan. 

It allows you to set up tasks, due dates, assign things to your team (or other freelancers that you hire), store files, keep track of your deliverable history, and so much more. 

Slack. Slack is insanely good for keeping track of communications between your team members, partners, clients, and anyone else. Everything is in chronological order, searchable, able to be segmented by channel, topic, and connects with most other apps as well.

Google Drive. If you’re not using drive to create documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations and organize files, then I feel bad for you. This solution allows you to replace about 12 other tools, collaborate in real time on every document, and best of all, it’s completely free. 

A well organized organization is a profitable one. The sooner you treat yourself and your freelance gig as a big business, the sooner it will become one. 

Developing repeatable processes for your client management, project management, bookkeeping/accounting, and deliverables is key to your growth.

Your clients will respect you more and really feel like you are the expert when you have clear things for them to do, and when they know what you’re going to be doing. 

Also, the more you standardize how you create and deliver your offers, the more efficient you’ll get at putting them together. This is the key to scaling, the repeatability factor.  

8. Client Retention

It is significantly easier to keep your current clients happy and paying you than regularly acquiring new ones. 

Increasing customers who stick around by just 5% can return you between 25-95% profit increases. 

Not only that, but mastering client retention will also lead to an increase in referral business and your own knowledge of your craft. 

Instead of churning and burning client and after client, you’ll have the time to get to know each one, their needs, and develop a laser target and great fit service for them. 

So how do you retain clients?

There are 3 main areas that you must master in order to keep clients around long term.

Let’s dive in. 

Focus on providing value long term.

Instead of writing a blog post for them randomly. Offer to do a “competitive gap analysis of their competitors’ content. Then propose a monthly blogging plan that bridges that gap. 

This does 2 things. 

1. It positions you as an expert who is going to lead them to the promised land. They are going to get an actual strategy with you and be led in the right direction, instead of paying you for some random work. 
2. It secures more predictable income for yourself into the future and allows you to more effectively map out what resources you’ll need to do a killer job for them. 

Communicate with them regularly and openly.

Clients don’t always disengage with you for the reasons you might think. 

It could be any number of things both rational or irrational. The best way to combat that?

Staying in touch with them. 

When you’re working on a monthly retainer or a 3 month campaign, make it clear to them from the start when and how you’ll be checking in. 

Share what’s going well, what you need to look into, and what you need from them to make the partnership successful. And more importantly, ask them if they have any questions or concerns. 

This is crucial. 

You can’t be afraid of their feedback or making mistakes. When you hide a mistake or poor results, you break the trust of your customers.

They aren’t only hiring you for your skill, clients also want to work with you for peace of mind. When they hire you, it’s one more thing they don’t have to work  with. 

So communicate often and do it as transparently as possible.

Focus on the right type of clients.

As soon as you possibly can (yes, your first few clients aren’t going to be 100% ideal from the start), focus on only working with your ideal client. 

This is that person / organization / type of work that you defined earlier. 

This client appreciates your exact skillset, needs what you do, you enjoy working with them, and you are extremely confident that you can help them reach their goals. 

The more ideal clients you can have, the better the end product and results you can produce for them. That will keep them on longer, and attract more of the same type of clients long term. 

As soon as you can, practice saying no to clients who are asking you for services that you aren’t great at or aren’t excited about. Your future self will be happy that you did. 

9. Dealing With Unexpected Challenges

Problem resolution and solving as a business owner requires a huge mentality shift from an employee mindset.

First of all, when something goes wrong, it’s 110% your fault as a freelance business owner. Even if someone else, a software, or you had a medical emergency, it doesn’t matter. 

It’s your fault and the best thing you can do for yourself, is when an unforeseen problem arises, is to take extreme ownership of it. 

Admit what’s wrong, give yourself time to analyze why the problem occurred, what part you played in it directly, and what you can immediately do to help the situation.

Then, decide on how you can work to ensure that the same mistake doesn’t happen again and what you can do to correct the issue long term. 

And most importantly, don’t let it break you. Seriously. 

Failure happens when you give up, not when something goes wrong. Stick to your goal  as long as you possibly can and see it through to the absolute end.

And that’s it. 

You’re officially a freelancer now. 

Now go crush it.