The COVID-19 pandemic noticed a big improve within the progress of the freelance business. In accordance with Web site Planet, there have been about 1.1 billion freelancers worldwide in 2021.
So, what’s driving these professionals to undertake freelancing?
Apart from higher monetary prospects, freedom and suppleness to decide on the kind of work are the principle the explanation why professionals change to freelancing.
Nonetheless, freelancers face their very own share of challenges.
What Are the Challenges Freelancers Face?
Listed here are a couple of obstacles freelancers face when managing their work lives.
- Improper time administration – Freelancing requires an individual to put on a number of hats. They should juggle varied duties and capabilities, from gross sales and advertising to accounting and undertaking administration. Juggling a number of duties can devour a whole lot of effort and time, offered they arrange themselves. That’s the reason having wonderful time administration abilities is a necessary ability within the freelancing world.
- Lack of focus – The thought of multitasking varied initiatives concurrently is thrilling due to the publicity and expertise one will get. Nonetheless, the downside right here is that the freelancer finds it robust to focus or delve deep right into a process assigned. This finally impacts their high quality of labor.
- No motivation – In a office setting, we frequently have colleagues and seniors to problem and push us to realize extra. Nonetheless, freelancers should go on from one process to a different by themselves. Subsequently, they should inspire themselves to realize goals. Sadly, that’s not all the time attainable. Most of the time, freelancers face a dip of their motivation ranges, inflicting their work to endure.
Apart from the factors talked about above, the absence of an organized workflow considerably impacts a freelancer’s motivation and productiveness.
However the gig economic system is right here to remain! Freelancers centered on enhancing their working fashion and boosting their productiveness have perennially trusted technologically superior instruments.
Instruments like buyer relationship administration (CRM) platforms, communication instruments, undertaking administration platforms, and time trackers have helped freelancers overcome varied challenges they face.
As an illustration, expertise has introduced folks throughout all places nearer. This implies freelancers can collaborate with prospects and different stakeholders anyplace across the globe and have simpler entry to alternatives than earlier than.
This globalization is triggered by digital transformation that has enabled freelancers to go for versatile engagement fashions at their comfort. In consequence, freelancers are getting a chance to select desired initiatives based mostly on their experience and regardless of the demographics.
Amongst all of the digital developments which have helped freelancers keep organized, the position of the Kanban strategy has been phenomenal.
Let’s perceive the Kanban strategy and the way it will help freelancers enhance their efficiency.
How Kanban Method Can Assist Streamline Your Freelance Enterprise
Kanban strategy is a workflow administration strategy for outlining, managing and enhancing your processes to ship the most effective to your shoppers. It helps you visualize your processes and your work to maximise its effectivity.
This strategy to undertaking administration helps you determine the potential bottlenecks in your workflow processes and repair them to yield desired outcomes sooner and cost-effectively.
Allow us to now perceive how the Kanban strategy will help you arrange your small business processes successfully.
1. Monitor and Handle Consumer Initiatives
Kanban is the most-used undertaking administration strategy for managing shopper initiatives. Kanban board offers a superb overview of your initiatives. It helps you create and handle duties, set deadlines, and maintain monitor of the undertaking’s progress.
Along with managing duties, you too can set priorities and deadlines in your duties to make sure their well timed completion.
You may as well use Kanban boards to maintain tabs in your shopper conferences, cellphone calls, and different particulars. Utilizing Kanban for shopper work eliminates the necessity for added software program apps as you possibly can arrange a number of initiatives and plan out the supply of duties at your comfort.
With the Kanban strategy, you possibly can invite your shopper to collaborate with you in your board. As well as, some undertaking administration boards like Jira provide role-based permissions to the customers for seamless undertaking administration.
Basecamp, a undertaking administration software, presents a superb chat characteristic (campfire) to talk with shoppers in real-time.
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Equally, the Jira-Slack integration permits customers to talk with their shoppers through Slack.
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Listed here are some suggestions you could comply with to expedite your processes.
- Write a fast undertaking scope doc for each undertaking and share the identical together with your shopper.
- Create electronic mail templates for outreach, gross sales pitch, and different marketing-related duties.
- Use invoicing software program like FreshBooks or Invoicely. Jira additionally comes with a module to create, save, and ship invoices to your shoppers in a couple of clicks.
2. Collect Content material Concepts
The Kanban strategy is usually a good medium to brainstorm, verify, and plan your content material earlier than they’re despatched to your editorial calendar. Gather content material concepts in your freelance enterprise by conducting devoted brainstorming periods, doing market analysis, and conserving monitor of content material requests out of your viewers.
You need to use a Kanban board to save lots of all concepts for future blogs, articles, eBooks, and different kinds of content material items with out disturbing your ongoing work. By following this strategy, you’ll by no means lose out on content material concepts in your head.
RescueTime, a productiveness and time monitoring app, makes use of the Kanban strategy for managing content material concepts for his or her weblog. This concept board is a centralized repository of content material concepts for his or her future weblog posts.
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3. Construct and Handle Your Editorial Calendar
Take out the struggles of content material publishing by having a devoted editorial calendar in your freelance enterprise. From matter concepts and drafts to completed content material, you possibly can monitor your entire lifecycle of your content material items and handle every part seamlessly with the assistance of the Kanban strategy.
With the assistance of Kanban playing cards, you possibly can retailer content material particulars just like the key phrases, useful resource hyperlinks, reference hyperlinks, and different particulars in your process immediately. You may as well create customized checklists in your content material items to make sure you don’t miss any step of the content material creation course of.
Buffer, a social media submit scheduling software, makes use of Trello to handle their editorial calendar.
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Their easy workflow consists of six phases – Content material Concepts, Pipeline, In Progress, Modifying, Able to Ship, and Shipped. The Buffer workforce tracks the duty standing as they transfer throughout this workflow.
4. Handle a Social Media Calendar
Hold a pulse in your social media advertising initiatives by following a Kanban strategy. Strategize, arrange, and submit branded content material in your social media pages with out breaking a sweat.
You may plan out your social media technique in small actionable steps. You may create duties for –
- Brainstorming submit concepts
- Creating content material for the posts
- Designing belongings for the posts
- Publish scheduling
- Monitoring the efficiency of the posts
- Participating together with your viewers
Listed here are some fast suggestions for managing your social content material higher.
- Leverage design instruments like Canva for designing your social posts. Canva presents over 400K+ design templates for varied social media channels.
- Use on-line cloud storage, akin to Google Drive, OneDrive, or DropBox, to retailer media information, particularly pictures, movies, and infographics.
- Join a social media scheduling app like Hootsuite or Later and take away the pains of manually posting content material on each social web page.
Kanban for social media advertising can arrange your social campaigns and guarantee posting on social accounts is finished promptly.
5. Monitor Outsourced Work
Managing and monitoring outsourced work is a trouble for many freelance companies. There may be usually a spot in collaboration, communication, and data sharing. A Kanban strategy to such conditions can scale back this hole considerably.
A easy Kanban board will help you monitor the duties and maintain a whole maintain over the undertaking progress. Share duties with a well-written description explaining the work expectations, set a precedence and deadline, and different info, if wanted. This may make sure the outsourced workforce will probably be in sync with you.
It is possible for you to to see who’s doing what and determine the challenges you can face. Kanban board additionally eliminates the necessity for a number of software program apps because it presents you every part you must handle your outsourced work.
Listed here are efficient techniques that can show you how to with outsourced workforce administration.
- Signal your contracts, proposals, invoices, and paperwork utilizing a digital signature. This may considerably quicken the signing course of and assist save each time and price.
- Talk with the outsourced workforce regularly. Conduct common standups and weekly conferences to debate the progress of your initiatives.
- Share the required belongings – writing tips, design tips, undertaking scope, and different details about your organization and the initiatives with the workforce earlier than beginning the work.
6. Share a Public Roadmap
Listening to your audiences and offering an answer to their ache factors contributes considerably to strengthening your model picture. Likewise, viewers suggestions can also be a powerful issue that shouldn’t be ignored.
Having a Kanban board to seize your buyer’s suggestions and requests is essentially the most useful strategy. You may additional make this board public and provides your prospects entry to allow them to drop of their feedback or ideas seamlessly.
Trello, the well-known undertaking administration software program, has a devoted board for managing characteristic requests from its prospects.
Conclusion
To enhance productiveness and streamline their processes, freelancers ought to deal with making their workflow seamless. A technique of reaching that is by utilizing the Kanban strategy.
In case you are a freelancer seeking to streamline your small business, this strategy will show you how to pace up your work supply. It’s going to set the suitable steadiness between precedence and deliverables at hand. So, go forward and use the Kanban strategy to remain organized and increase your productiveness and income. Blissful freelancing!
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