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Before you take-off

Essential steps before you're ready to start your business

Introduction Tasks Discuss Mark Complete

So you've decided to go freelance!

There are a handful of things you'll need to do before you take the leap and start working in self-employment, which help you get better prepared.

This stage of the Flightplan contains a number of critical and recommended actions to take, before you start officially freelancing.

Take your time to complete each action, and don't forget to use the resources and community to explore each topic further.

Tasks

Work your way through the tasks for this stage, and jump into the community to get further support from your fellows

Task Unread
Start building your budget
Getting clarity of of your financial position is essential to a successful freelancing career - don't start without doing your budgeting.
critical 3-4 days complex
Task Unread
Understand the current market for your skills
Spend some time understanding the current landscape and demand for the skills you're going to be offering.
recommended 3-4 hours easy
Task Unread
Define your offering
Take time to be clear on what services you'll be providing to clients - it'll help you to understand where to focus, and help your clients to understand what value you're offering
recommended 5-6 hours medium
Task Unread
Setting some freelancing goals
Whilst there's a temptation to jump straight into doing work, taking a moment to set your own ambitions and goals is essential to ensure you're making good progress.
critical 3-4 hours medium
Task Unread
Working out your pricing
One of the most common questions freelancers ask: What should I charge? - Don't make it up, base your pricing upon market rates and your financial baselines
critical 2-3 hours medium
Task Unread
Create a porfolio of work and testimonials
Spend some time to gather together a number of examples of the work you've done, so you're ready for conversations with potential customers.
recommended 3-4 days medium
Task Unread
Start warming up your network
Don't delay - start conversations with prospective customers and clients now, even if you're not ready to freelance yet.
critical 6-12 hours easy
Task Unread
Start building your support community
You'll need to surround yourself with fellow freelancers, collaborators, mentors, advisors, specialists and friends who can help you through the process of building your business. There's nothing stopping you from starting that now.
critical ongoing medium
Task Unread
Start creating your own wellbeing plan
Taking care of your mental health and wellbeing is a critical part of being self-employed - after all, if you can't work, you don't have a business.
recommended 6-12 hours medium

Discuss

Jump into the freelancing.support community to discuss this stage, ask questions, share your experiences, and get support from other freelancers.

Open Community Space

Mark complete

Once you've completed all the tasks for this stage, you can mark the stage as complete to move on to the next one.

Mark Complete Next Stage