You're starting a freelance business in business development. What are the most important things to consider?

When starting a freelance business in business development, the most important things to consider include: Clearly defining your services and target market niche; establishing a strong and unique value proposition; creating an effective marketing strategy to attract clients; setting competitive and realistic pricing structures; building a professional online presence, such as a website and social media profiles; investing in networking and strategic partnerships; and finally, carefully planning your financial management and cash flow.

As you embark on starting a freelance business in business development, prioritize defining your niche, identifying your target market, and establishing a strong brand identity. Develop a clear value proposition that sets you apart from competitors and communicates your expertise to potential clients. Additionally, focus on building a robust network, honing your skills, and delivering exceptional service to foster client trust and loyalty, laying the groundwork for long-term success in your freelance venture.

Business development freelancing involves a clear and purposeful approach when starting a freelance business. First, identify your specialty and audience in order to market and deliver your services in the right way. Create and develop a professional online persona through blogging and social networking. Work the room effectively by meeting people and creating leads. Build a professional portfolio that would demonstrate one’s experience and previous accomplishments. Fix flexible but hard-hitting competitive prices for your business. You selected project management and client communication tools to improve the overall functioning of operations.

Launching a freelance business hinges on identifying your niche, understanding client needs, and demonstrating unique value. Begin by pinpointing sectors where your expertise can solve specific challenges. Building a robust network and cultivating strong, trust-based client relationships are foundational. Success in this realm also demands a commitment to continuous learning and adaptation, staying ahead of industry trends and innovations. The essence of thriving as a freelancer lies not just in the services offered but in becoming an indispensable partner to your clients, ensuring their growth and yours are interlinked. Mutual success is the cornerstone of any successful freelance venture.

Success in freelance business development has only one requirement: Your USPs & skill-set must match with the demand on the targeted market. That is the only way. Therefore, make sure to review & grasp your top skills, find the market for those and sell it!

Your Portfolio / success will talk for you. Pay attention , clients do not always want to let it be known that they are followed by a BD/external consultant, so you will need a written authorisation. However, You can talk and write about your success in events, with proven numbers and tricks. If you are working in one specific industry as STR, normally reputation runs fast!

This can be the hardest part of starting a business. Having the confidence to say "I did this." If you struggle with imposter syndrome it's easy to discount your accomplishments. If you did the work, you can claim the work with pride! When you've done a good job for someone they are typically more than happy to offer a reference or recommendation , so just ask! This one step alone will increase the likelihood that they'll respond. Make it easy by drafting the main point you want emphasized for them, so they don't have to come up with it. Also, leverage the power of the LinkedIn reference. A client may have corporate restrictions on giving a reference, while being able to recommend in LinkedIn.

I use a variety of project management planners. Trello or MS Teams are suitable for this purpose. These products allow you to work with distributed teams all over the world. Projects can be broken down into different tasks and the status of completion can be tracked. Visualisation via Power Bi is very useful tool to enhance productivity.

This isn't just a time management exercise but also one where you need to manage the work you are doing. Business development encompasses the whole spectrum of winning work from early campaign and market assessment, capture and solutioning, to managing the bid or proposal process. The closer to a bid or proposal deadline, the more dedicated time is required. If you are a single person operation, you may want to stay up in the early stages of BD and pass on the bid and proposal work, unless you need the revenue. This is also where you can team up with other freelance bid and proposal types and expand your offering to potential clients. This will also require a little time to set up beforehand so you are not looking late in the game.

Initially, working on a performance basis is the easiest way to attract your first clients, as few will refuse to share revenue that you generate. However, this model becomes less viable with a growing team and payroll obligations.