The 7-step freelance process that helped me quit my job 🤫

freelancing changed my life it has enabled me to gain experience grow my savings eat a lot of croissant buy a house and most recently I was finally able to quit my job but it wasn't easy from the start besides getting clients and learning how to do all these things it's not enough we need an efficient workflow so introducing my highly productive freelance workflow you will learn how to streamline your freelance workflow how to work with clients remotely you'll also get ideas on how I track manage and remember everything using really simple tools let's get to Stage One initial contact the goal at this stage is to get to know the client and decide if this is the right fit this could be via email phone call or video call I start by asking the client introductory questions like these then I introduce myself ask the client what I can help with if it's something that I can help with I'll briefly State the price range of my services so that I don't waste a client's time if it is out of their budget if it's not the right fit refer someone else or direct the client to somewhere useful if it's a right fit I'll then schedule a discovery call with a client to talk about the details of the project before the discovery call happens I'll usually send my website or portfolio to the client I'll also ask the client if there's any questions that they would like me to address during the discovery call itself so that they could have a look before the discovery call if I need to pick a meeting time I'll use this tool here to kind of find a meeting time between different time zones currently I manage my client meetings manually if you prefer you could actually reduce back and forth by picking a tool like plan b or savvycal so that clients can book you based on your available time stage 2 Discovery call the goal of this call is to understand what the client needs and determine if you can help before the call I will usually just research about the client and their industry prepare the answers to the clients questions if they have any a pair of tailored portfolio that is relevant to the client for example if the client wants to build a consumer facing app and they need designs for it I'll prepare all my portfolio that is relevant to that and show it to the client I will also set up a notion workspace it's a client portal it's a note-taking app it's everything where I run my business on and I'll also remind the client one day before the call during the call ensure that the software grants screen sharing permissions to the client dress professionally be in a well-lit environment somewhere bright like this time check don't exceed the agreed meeting time because that shows that you don't respect the client's time during the call remember to find out these things understand the client's needs their business goals their budget timeline target audience design preferences I'll determine if I can help with the project early on during the discovery call so that I don't waste the client's time if it's the right fit it's time to move on to your pitch I'll start off my pitch with social proof and that means that I will just share with my past clients testimonials are quickly walk through my process I don't need to like go into every single detail of the design process but briefly give them an idea of how I kind of work after that I'll just show my tailored portfolio keep it short and sweet I will also State how I could help and my price range I'll also ask them if there's any other questions and concerns that they have so that I could address them during the call itself lastly ask if the client needs a proposal if yes I'll just tell them that I will send them a proposal if it's not the right fit I'll send an email to thank the client for their time refer someone else or direct them to somewhere useful if it's the right fit I'll continue to stage 3 proposal my day-to-day workflow as a designer has been efficient ever since I use the right apps and tools what helped me here is setup an essential toolbox for Mac OS and iOS and among the 240 over premium tools they offer these are my favorite I made it automatically tracks my time while I work whether it's to improve my productivity or track my billable hours for my client I always also love flow it allows you to create UI animations with production ready code and then there is mock-up Studio mock-up Studio allows you to drag and drop visuals into device mockups currently they have thousands of device mockups for you to use I also love Snapper and clean shot X it's basically my favorite screenshot and screen recording tool it makes my life so much easier there's also typeface where I could find organize and preview my fonts you could even compare fonts or remove duplicates without setup I will need to pay for each of these tools separately some of these apps alone cost more than setup subscription so I recommend you to try a setup seven days for free with this link thanks to setup for sponsoring this video stage 3 this is the proposal stage this is the stage where I outline to the client on how I could help them achieve their project goals if the client requires a proposal I'll prepare it and send it over to them I'll usually prepare this in figma in a proposal there will be social proof project Milestones deliverables I also include my past work that is relevant to this project and anything else that you think the client should know once I've done the proposal I'll start drafting my email in the email I'll thank the client for their time I'll attach the proposal every week I'll just follow up with a client to see if it's all good I will also guide them on the next steps if they're happy with the proposal which means going on to like invoicing and contracts it's time to move on to stage four seal the deal this is where I start dropping my invoice on figma I also draft a contract on figma as well I will combine the invoice and contract in one document in figma export it as a PDF and send it to the client it's a great way to streamline your sales cycle instead of sending client multiple documents I just sent one I will usually State my payment methods the maximum number of revisions deliverables the Milestones that I'll work with what is included what is not included for example stock images stock videos sometimes the client may also ask me to sign an NDA which is a non-disclosure agreement if there's no NDA required then I'll just ask for consent to use this project as portfolio on the website now large corporations usually have their own processes I'll usually just follow the corporation's flow unless there's any other specifics that I need to add in into the contract they'll just send me their contract I'll review it sign it and then I will send my invoice over as long as the state of Clauses clearly in your documents you should be safe just read everything before you sign now once I have those contract signing and things sorted out never start work without a deposit so my deposit is always 50 percent of the entire project fee sometimes it depends on the Milestones as well so your initial deposit may be lower than 50 it could be like maybe a 25 or 40 percent but always collect a deposit before you start work once you've collected your money it's time to move on to stage five project starts at the start of a project I'll discuss with a client and decide where Communications are held they could be email slack or Whatsapp I'll request more information from the client for example brand guides brand assets like logos research findings analytics or anything that can help me make better design decisions now the client can send this over using email or invite me to their Analytics tool so that I can get a view access I've also set up a client portal on notion where everything is in one place I will also inform the client of my official project start date tell them when they could expect to see a draft could be a few days to a week when I start designing I'll just show one or two flows to the client initial drop of the project could include user flow and wireframes and try to present disk Solutions as soon as possible when presenting design Solutions you could either set up a call but I prefer to use the asynchronous way most of the time I use a tool like clean shot X to record my screen walking through my design Solutions once I've recorded the videos I could upload to Google Drive and attach the link to the recording in my notion client portal so everything again is in one place only in terms of handling design revisions you could go with versioning duplicating your figma page and just setting like V1 V2 V3 device Professor or you could just use figma's version history feature out of the box I also encourage the client to gather all their feedback instead of shooting me one feedback a day which is not very efficient in case revisions are out of scope I will also negotiate with my client work out the details on whether to charge an extra amount for out-of-scope items once the design is good to go everything is fine clients happy with everything I move on to the next stage welcome to Stage six project wrap up this is a stage where I start handing over all the assets and files to the client scheduling a final call to onboard client to the Hanover files I will just set up a Google Drive and attach all the figma files design assets documents or whatever that the project requires send the Google Drive Link in the client portal so that the client can go on to the portal and check it out I'll also draft the invoice to the client to collect the final payment as well when the freelance project ends reflects on the project update project status on my notion document I'll ask plan for the testimonial and consent to publish it on my site if you have the time I encourage you to also update your website with the portfolio and if possible attach the client's testimonial on your website as well stage 7 reflect and improve refine your workflow until it works for you and your clients even if you follow this workflow things never go as planned every year I'll make it a habit to also offer help or build rapport with a client don't stress out about opening a company or hiring employees and things like that once you have steady freelance projects coming your way you find yourself in a spot where you really enjoy freelancing in the long term then you can think about starting a company or hiring an accountant and things like that I really hope you enjoyed this video you could find out how I manage my time with a full-time job freelance side hustles in this video or you could learn how I built eight income streams in six months so see you in the next video bye

Channel: Rachel How

Views: 50,694

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Id: MHv4wCdrpdw

Length: 9min 54sec (594 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 08 2022