7 common mistakes new freelancers are making

Starting your freelancing career can be challenging and filled with mistakes that may lead to lose clients, waste time and affect your income. Every freelance could face problems and make mistakes, even the pros, you can't prevent yourself from making mistakes and in some cases you need to learn the lesson by yourself.

Below are some common mistakes you can avoid at the start of your freelancing career.

1. Set too low or too high rates for yourself
At the start of your freelancer career, you may become desperate to get new clients but setting too low rates for yourself is not the answer, in fact, it will have a negative impact on you and your clients may not trust your skills, however setting too high rates may cause loose the clients too. You need to know what the others are doing and how much freelancers and agencies are charging in your area.

2. Not quoting work accurately
As a new freelancer, you may don't know how to estimate your work, your early quotes may be not that accurate, but as you keep getting projects, you will be able to know how much each task or project may cost. Check this article for details about how to estimate your creative work.

3. Don't have signed contract before start working
Not having a signed contract with your clients is a big mistake you should avoid from day one. The signed contract will guarantee to have a serious client and make sure you will get paid for all your work.

4. Not having clear terms for working with your clients
Not having clear terms may cause a lot of issues regarding payments and workflow, you can't work under your clients' terms, but you need to have your own terms that your client should accept and follow. By doing so you will guarantee a smooth work and delivery of your project.

5. Not managing your finances right from the very start
You need to manage your financial from the very start of your freelancing career, like managing your invoicing and keep track of customer payment. Also, you need to record your expenses to make it easier for you at the taxable time. The best way to manage your finances is to use accounting software that will help you to take care of all these complicated tasks.

6. Don't ask for recommendation and referrals
Don't miss an effective and free marketing tool by getting embarrassing to ask for recommendations or referrals.

7. Being too available
You may be eager to work with new clients and have new projects, being too available, your client may less respect you and less value your work. Even if you have one client try to be less available to your client.

We hope this article will help you to improve you freelancing career.

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