2 posts tagged with "freelance"

Before starting this article, I would like to wish you all a happy new year 2023!

Whether you are entrepreneurs, employees, retirees, housewives or house-husbands, students, whatever your status: Happy New Year and I wish you a good health! 🎉🥂

If you are reading this article, it means that this year you have decided to become freelancer! First of all congratulations! 🥳 It's not easy to take this step, to put their fears aside, to brave the thoughts of their friends or family so for that bravo ! 👏

Becoming freelancers, this idea has been in your head for a while, you have thought about it, asked the "pros and cons". You did not find your place in companies, the market for your activity is very attractive at this time, you want to start a new professional life. The choices to become freelancers are multiple and personal but do not forget becoming independent is not without risk if you do not prepare for it.

The advice I can give you is to surround yourself well: lawyer, accountant, etc. All of these professionals will help you choose the best structure for your business.

Now that you have your professional status, here you are on the entrepreneur market. 🚀 (The rocket emoji is too much in 2023?! 🙊)

Your first step to start as an entrepreneur is to make yourself known to your future customers (we call them prospects) and your suppliers.

There are several methods for this:

• Use your address book
• Make your activity known on your social networks (Instagram, Linkedin, Facebook, TikTok,…)
• Go to fairs related to your activity and meet your future customers
• Join local business associations

Whichever method you choose, the idea remains the same: target your market and meet your future customers.

Once you get started, meetings go by and the difficulty for all new entrepreneurs is to stay in touch with these ephemeral encounters.

How to keep in touch with your prospects?​

On Track, [import] (https://www.track-app.io/docs/manage-contacts/add-a-contact-import) contacts from your address book directly into the app to easily and simply manage your communication with them.

Once your contacts have been added to your Track address book, you can assign activities to your contacts, this will give you an overview of the status of your relationship with the contact in question.

Below is an example of a situation with my contact “Judith PERVENCHE”:

I met Judith on December 2nd at the wedding fair in Troyes. I got his contact details (phone number and email address) which I saved in my Track address book. On December 05, I sent the presentation brochure of my services to Judith. On December 9, Judith, after reading my brochure, asked me for a quote for one of the services offered.

How do I offer a service or product(s) to my prospects?​

Let's stay on the example of Judith PERVENCHE, after asking me by email, I provided her with my quote for the service requested by email.

In parallel, I register in TRACK the ongoing business that I have with Judith.

My business is in "In progress 🚀" status, more exactly in "Quote sent 📤" because the quote for this service was sent to Judith on 09/12. I am waiting for his return to validate this case.

I can add a signature probability: low 🔴, medium 🟠 or high 🟢. In my case, I know that Judith has requested quotes from several competitors, so I'm not sure that she signs my quote.

After several days of waiting, having received no response from Judith, I decide to relaunch it:

Judith replies that she will get back to me before December 23 as soon as all of her group of friends has validated the quote.

On December 19, Judith calls me back and wants to add a 6th person to the workshop and wants to negotiate a new group price. I accept his proposal and send him a new negotiated quote.

I change the status of the current case to “In negotiations 🤝” and I change the probability to “Strong 🟢” because Judith is about to sign.

On December 20, Judith sends me back the signed quote!

I change the status of the current case with her to "Signed 🎉".

This was one of the many examples of how you can use Track.

Track is here to help you organize your relationship with each of your prospects or customers and to organize the follow-up of the business you have with them.

A CRM for freelancers​

Track perfectly meets the needs of a CRM for freelancers, whatever your job:

• Freelancers in Information Technology (IT) whether in the role of consultant, project manager, developer, architect...
• Freelancers in design: UI/UX designer, illustrators, 2D/3D graphic designers
• Freelaners in content management: community managers, copywriters, webmasters...

Your clients ask you for by-day or fixed-price contracts. You need to track your customer requests in an easy-to-use tool. You are solicited by email, by phone but you have very little time to log and take note of your customer requests. Track is made for you.

A CRM for personal services professions​

Personal services, whether self-employed or small businesses, are not exempt from the need for a customers management tool. There are many jobs that need a CRM application like Track:

• Cleaning and ironing lady/man
• Childminder
• Hairdresser at home
• ... All jobs that initially find their clients on jobbing platforms can switch to a CRM like Track once their clientele has been established.

A CRM for coaches​

Professional coaches, whatever their specialty, must make the search of new clients and the follow-up of existing ones a priority. Coaches mainly provide services by the hour and must have enough qualified clients. The different types of coaches who can benefit from a mobile app like Track to manage their clients are:

• Sports coaches (physical preparation, weight loss, freelance at-gym coach, running coach, boxing coach, etc.)
• Personal development coaches (NLP, hypnosis, self-help, etc.)
• The Agile coaches (who can be considered in the IT professions above)

A CRM for beauty professions​

Aesthetics professionals are increasingly independent and use platforms to find their clients. These professions are:

• Eyebrow beautician
• Beautician manicure / pedicure
• Hairdresser at home

Once their clientele is established, these businesses can follow up on their customers with platforms like Track. If their activity were to develop with new partners or employees, the sharing functionality of the Track database will allow all employees to share a common synced database of customers and services/product list.

A CRM for recruiters​

Recruiters do not sell products or services. However, the sourcing (the search) of candidates can be similar to commercial prospecting. Recruiters are looking for a person at a given price (salary). The Track application can be used for this purpose without any problem. The professions concerned are:

• Freelance recruiter
• Head hunter
• Recruiter in agency
• Business manager/developper in a services agency

A CRM for real estate businesses​

Real estate agents, whether in the search for properties or potential buyers, must organize themselves as well as possible so as not to miss any deal. This is the goal of Track, which is perfectly suited to the profession of real estate agents in their prospecting activity. Real estate industry jobs that can benefit from Track are:

• Independent real estate agents
• Independent real estate agents but part of a network
• Goods dealers

A CRM for construction jobs​

The construction jobs are not immune to the gig economy: new workers become freelancers and build up their client base, regular or not.

The concerned professions are:

• House painters
• Carpenters
• Plumbers
• Electricians
• Architects
• Interior designers
• Kitchen designers

The Product functionalities of Track will make it possible to establish a catalog of products and services that the craftsperson can offer to his customers.

A CRM for investors​

Investors (business angels, etc.) are also one of the professions that need a CRM. Between solicitations by email, phone or over a coffee, it is important to miss no deal and to have a deal flow always filled with qualitative opportunities. An application like Track perfectly meets this need. Keeping a list of contacts and interesting projects in terms of investment is essential. They will be able to use the attribution and deal tracking functionalities according to their probability of conversion.

A CRM for sales reps, VDIs, etc.​

Sales representative, door-to-door sales, etc. are the salespeople par excellence. Due to their independence, they may lack specific tools for finding clients. These are the concerned professions:

• Sales reprensentative
• Door-to-door salesperson
• Buyer-reseller, etc.

Everyone can rely on an easy-to-use CRM mobile app like Track to keep track of their business. The reports provided on Track app will allow them to follow their progress towards their turnover objectives.

A CRM for event providers​

Events is a sector with a lot of subcontractors and freelancers. For corporate event, associations events, festivals or simply weddings, it is essential to follow-up on customer requests over time. Especially since the sales cycle is very long on these type of jobs. If you are part of this list of professions, Track can be very useful to you:

• Caterer
• Photographer
• Videographer
• Decorator
• Florist
• Rental of audio-video equipment
• Car rental

Tracking of interactions by customer as well as monitoring of the deals pipeline will allow them to monitor their workload and activity.