How to Start a Freelance Business: A Guide to Making $5K Monthly

Some who learned how to start a freelance business currently working outdoor

Freelance work is a great way to make money while working on your own terms. But to transition into this lifestyle and make the high earnings you desire, can be challenging.

To start a freelance business, it is important to focus only on what matters and ignore the rest.

In this post I will show you how to start a freelance business and make $5K monthly.

So put the horse blinders on and let’s get started.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

Why is there a freelance business boom?

The boom in freelance businesses is a result of many factors.

The current economy has caused many people to reconsider their career choices and reevaluate how they envision their future.

Everyday more and more companies are seeing value in hiring freelance workers instead of full-time employees because they can work with fewer pitfalls and offer more flexibility.

It may be easier for you as a freelancer, to find freelance clients, than to get an actual job.

And all this made people consider learning how to start a freelance business.

Benefits of freelance work

Freelance work provides an opportunity to explore your passions and earn a salary.

It also has many benefits, such as flexible hours, the ability to work from anywhere, and the freedom to do what you love.

But some people might be hesitant about starting their own freelance business, because they’re not sure how it’s going to turn out for them.

In order for freelancing to pay off, you need to know what type of services are in demand and do what you can, to provide them.

What Skills Does a Freelancer Need?

A freelancer can work in many fields, but often they choose working in creative fields.

These include writing and editing abilities, experience with social media, and being able to create nicely designed deliverables.

When I started as a freelancer, I decided to focus on social media marketing.

Therefore I invested time and energy to improve my skills and learn as much as I could, around the digital marketing industry.

Social media marketing services were at that time and continue to be very in demand.

Some might choose specializing in Google Ads, some in Sales Funnels or Facebook Ads. Some choose Web Design.

There are so many services you can offer within this market.

However, I encourage you to find something that you’re passionate about and something you do not get frustrated or exhausted by.

When work comes in big volumes, passion and interest are what will keep you going.

If you’re already specialized or skilled in a particular field, then build your freelance business around it.

Otherwise it is time for you to spend some time training yourself and learning new skills through some online courses.

Where to learn the skills needed for your freelance business

If you want to start a freelance business, you will have to learn how to do it.

There are many resources and websites that offer training videos for people who want to learn skills around a particular field.

I personally use Fiverr Learn, Skillshare and Coursera to learn new skills and improve or update my existing ones.

A lot of courses have good reviews, so to understand if a course is the right one for me, I would even go and read the few negative reviews they had.

A great idea would also be to look at courses offered by successful people, teaching what they’ve learned.

But you need to make sure that their case studies are authentic and their success is real.

Just like in this blog, for example, I teach about my personal experience with freelancing and Fiverr. I first went through Fiverr myself and then I helped my fiancee become a Top Rated Seller on Fiverr.

If you want to learn how to be successful on Fiverr, I wrote about it in another article that you can read here.

finding clients for your freelance business

To find clients for your freelance business, you want to target the people who need your services.

From building prospect lists, to reaching out to them and getting them on the phone to close the sale, it can all be done from your laptop.

It takes less time and it helps you focus on what really matters, which is getting clients.

If you want to know more about how to get clients organically, I talked about it more in detail here.

Otherwise if you want to join a marketplace and get traffic by the platform’s algorithm itself, I suggest Fiverr.

Another platform I can name is Upwork. If you want to know the difference betweenyou may want to check out my article about the differences between Upwork Vs Fiverr.

What do i need to Start A Freelance Business

An internet connection and a laptop is everything you need.

Once you have them, you will only need to focus on three things: Niche, offer and the results you will need to provide for your clients.

For example, if you’re good at graphic design, you could work for blogs or businesses that need social media post designs. They might need to put out content frequently and that’s where you come in!

If you’re interested in this specific type of freelance business, I wrote an article about how to become a content creator. Feel free to check that out.

On the legal side of things, make sure to talk to a financial advisor and get all the information you need to register your freelance business.

A consultation with an expert before applying for your EIN, is always the right thing to do.

How To Make $5K Monthly With your Freelance Business

To make $5K a month, you will need to sell a specific service with a specific price, to a specific number of clients.

Example: if you’re selling logos for $500, you will need to be able to sell and design within 30 days, 10 logos for 10 clients.

This is where everything starts to take shape and the abstract starts turning into reality.

To turn the unknown into numbers, I use reverse engineering.

So if you’re willling to get clients organically, here is how I do it:

GOAL: $5,000

10 Sales x $500 each

10 Sales Calls Closed

At this point you need to define your conversion rate.

Which means, how many calls do you need to make, in order to close 1 sale.

From my own experience and for this example we will consider that rate to be 10% . So in 10 calls, 9 prospects will say “No” and 1 will say “Yes”.

So let’s continue reverse engineering this as much as we can:

10 Sales Calls Closed

Make 100 Calls

150 Call Bookings (Consider 50 prospects not showing in the meeting call)

Reach out to 300 Prospects (Email, Linkedin, Or Facebook)

Send 10 messages a day for 30 days to 10 different potential clients

Here is how I do it, and here is how you can too!

Of course the numbers may differ, according to what you’re selling or how long it takes you to deliver one single client.

But you can always rely on outsourcing some of the work, to speed up the deliveries.

And if you have a price lower than $500, then you need to make more than 10 sales.

But at least once we can figure out the numbers, the ‘impossible’ starts to become ‘possible’.

Conclusion

Freelance work is one of the fastest-growing occupations in America.

Starting a freelance business is not as challenging as it may seem.

If you are willing to dedicate time and energy into learning how to start your freelance business, the hard work will pay off.

The best way to start a freelance business is to figure out what services you’re going to offer and then find clients who need those services.

As a freelancer, you can work for companies, or for your clients directly.

The best part about a freelance business is that it allows you to set your own hours and take as much time off as you’d like.

You can go from making $5K to $100K depending on how much time and effort you put into it.

Eugen Prendi