Our 8 hot tips for consistent growth
Small businesses have become big business.
There are more of them than ever.
And within that, the number of self-employed individuals is on the rise.
There was an increase of over 150,000 new sole proprietorships between 2024 and 2025.
In fact, three quarters of private-sector businesses don’t have any employees besides the owner.
Working freelance can offer numerous benefits. Flexibility and freedom are chief among these, since you are often able to set your own hours, choose projects that interest you, and explore new niches.
You also enjoy greater potential to grow your income, since it is not bounded by what an employer will pay you. It can also be a way to travel the world, meet new people, and hone your skills.
Potential downsides include the unpredictable and unstructured nature of the work and your income. It can also be isolated, and you may struggle to handle all the different tasks that running a business requires. Maybe no one told you that you needed to do your own tax returns!
But overall, it seems that more and more people are embracing the challenge and finding ways to turn their interests and passions into careers. If you’re one of those people, how can you set yourself up for success?
This article will walk you through our 8 favourite tips to help you give your freelance business the best chance of success.
Set clear goals
As with any endeavour, setting objectives first is a great way to get your priorities in order and commit to a plan for clarity and accountability. Write down where you want your business to be at various points in the future and map out how you might get there.
An income target can be a good starting place for this plan. What is the salary you’d like to achieve and what is a realistic timeframe to reach that goal?
Network within your target market
Getting to know potential customers on a deeper level will help you understand their pain points and market to those more effectively. It also increases your visibility as a business and is an easy way to get your name out there.
Unsure of where to start? Consider what a typical customer looks like and consider the places and events where that sort of person might gather with other like-minded individuals. Sometimes that will be simple, and sometimes a little trickier. Editors will want to frequent writers’ workshops, while translators will want to seek out businesses with multinational communication needs!
Advertise your services
It’s no good being the best in the business if no one knows to come find you when they need what you offer. Advertising is key and while it may cost money to do so, good advertising will bring you much more back in income.
The best channel for you to advertise your business will depend on the audience you’re trying to reach, so take the time to understand where they spend time, how they receive information, and what platforms they use regularly.
For instance, if you’re looking to reach men of a certain age, Facebook could be the right choice. It has many more male users than female and the 25-34 bracket is particularly well represented.
Instagram has a somewhat similar demographic but with smaller gender disparity and a skew towards younger users: over half of Instagram’s users are 34 or under.
Develop your skills
Don’t rest on your laurels and assume that your current skill set will continue to be enough for your business. It’s important to find ways to continuously upskill and look for opportunities to continue your learning and development.
Whether that’s training courses or different projects that will test your capabilities, if you keep growing as an individual, your business is likely to do so as well. Sites like Khan Academy, MasterClass, and Coursera all have offerings that could be of interest to freelancers.
Streamline your processes
There are a lot of extra bits about running your own business. It’s not just doing whatever it is you’re great at. There’s tracking expenses, producing and sending invoices, filing taxes, maintaining customer details, and much more.
If you let it, all this additional admin can easily cut into your productive, fee-earning time, shrinking your income. Be sure to find ways to save time with your processes without compromising on quality.
That may be outsourcing some of these tasks to a professional who will be able to do it far quicker than you could. You can use the time you save this way to get more work done, justifying the cost of their services.
Ask for referrals
When you have a base of satisfied customers, there’s huge potential to find new ones easily. Simply ask those you’ve worked with before if they know of anyone else who could use your expertise. Referrals often generate conversion rates 3-5 times higher than other marketing methods, making it a profitable way to drum up more business.
Review your rates
It’s important to not let your business stagnate, charging the same flat rate year after year as the cost of everything else in the world goes up. Your money is effectively shrinking if you allow that to happen.
Instead, regular rate increases ensure you keep pace with the cost of living and your ever-developing skills. Some people worry that raising their rates will scare off customers, but done sensibly, it is actually more likely to create space for new, higher-paying gigs.
Build long-term relationships
Successful businesses can count on the stability provided by working with customers over an extended period of time. You get to know each other’s ways of working and can tailor your approach to suit.
You also avoid the additional costs associated with finding new clients, from advertising to the additional admin burden in onboarding them, as well as any teething errors in the new job. Aim to please your clients again and again to secure their custom for years to come.