What to Do When Business is Slow
26 Ideas for Freelancers When Business is in Downtime Mode

Freelancers are in a great position in that they have the freedom to work when they want to and they have the choice to take a vacation whenever they are in the mood. With that said, some freelancers are anxious to work day in and day out which may present a problem for them when business is slow. However, there are many things which freelancers can do to bide their time while waiting for new work to come in.

Brainstorm and Doodle

Perhaps one of the most constructive things which freelancers can do while business is slow is to brainstorm. How often do we have a free block of time to just sit there and think? Think about what your goals are for the following year. What will you need to do to meet or beat those goals?

Search for New Jobs

Perhaps one of the most constructive things which freelancers can do while business is slow is to search for new jobs. Depending on the type of freelance work one pursues, this can involve cold calls, searching the Internet for job opportunities, handing out flyers, putting advertisements in the paper or using one's contacts to expand their client base. No matter what the desired route in the pursuit of jobs may be, searching for new jobs is a great way to spend your down time when business is slow.

Organize Your Home Office

Another way to keep yourself busy when business is slow is to organize your home office. Since there is often little time to do so when the days are busy and work is flowing in, tidying up the home office is always a wonderful way to spend your off days. This may involve anything from organizing files and contact lists to purchasing new home office equipment. Whatever it may be, use the time when business is slow to get things in order within your home office setting. Go through all the useless piles of papers, magazines, and other junk that have been getting in your way for as long as you can remember, and get rid of them once and for all. Remember the this organizational mantra: Do it, Ditch it or Delegate it. Your goal is to reorganize your office in a manner that will allow you to find what you need in 60 seconds or less. This will optimize your time when work starts pouring back in.

Get a Head Start on Your Taxes

Quarterly taxes are never too far away. There is no time like the present to get ready for tax season. Use this free time to prepare your tax files so that you can get taxes down it a snap when tax time pops up out of nowhere (as it always does). Some things that you can do are:

• Make sure your books are up to date.
• Go through your expense receipts and categorize them.
• Estimate your last tax payment for the current year.
• Put all digital receipts in a digital folder.
• Make sure all of your payers have your correct information for when they send out 1099s.

Good Will Towards All Clients

Use this extra time on your hands as an excuse to be nice to your past clients and potential clients (companies who almost used your services). If you are out of work around the holidays, send out a holiday card to them (nondenominational card as to not offend them). Even if it isn't around the holidays, you can still take the time to write a personal note to your client (preferably snail mail) in which you thank them for using your services. You can also include a coupon, certificate, or freebie in the envelope. This is a good way to just place yourself in their mind. This way if they do need some work done, they will hopefully hire you to complete it.

Add Services Depending on Your Clients' Needs

During slow business times, you should focus your attention to new ways to make money for your business. This might mean that you learn a new skill or that you start doing work that you don't necessarily enjoy. Once you get your feet back on the ground, you can change your direction and outsource this extra work. But for right now, you need some work and beggers can't be choosers.

Just think about all the business that you are throwing away. Lets say that you are a web designer. Someone who needs a web site might need a web designer, logo designer, writer, web developer, a hosting company, etc. Maybe you are an excellent writer and fantastic at logo design. Why are you throwing away this business? Most server companies offer reseller hosting accounts. This means that you can sell hosting accounts. Look into this and see if you can get some extra work out of it.

Lets say that you don't have the skills or talent to offer those extra services. Well, then I suggest that you join up with some other freelancers who do have these talents. You offer to share your extra work with them that is in their career field if in return they throw business over your way. Networking is the key to the game.

Start Selling Products

I know. I know. You might think that I am pushing it past your boundaries with this idea. But, really, I am not. You are an expert in your career field, aren't you? Some ideas for products are to create an online course or to write an e-book for Your career field.

If You Don't Have a Website, Create One

Your best self promotional tool is the Internet. If you don't have a web site, then you need to find out how to create one or who to hire to create one for you. If you can't afford a website designer, then I suggest using a web template. Templates range from free to very expensive, so shop wisely. If you don't feel that you can handle a web site, then you might be able to get away with just having a blog. You would do much better with your own domain (for SEO purposes), but if you can't handle this than you should pick up a Blogger or WordPress account.

Create a Blog

A blog is just as important as a web site and can be used as your web site if you want. My personal opinion is that a blog is the best marketing item that you can use. Why?

• Blogs get picked up by search engines almost immediately.
• RSS readers also pick up blogs.
• You can ping sites to tell them to pick up your blog.
• Content can be syndicated and shown all over the web.
• People can subscribe to your blog.
• People can comment on each article.
• You don't need to know HTML or how to code.
• Metatags are updated automatically.
• Trackbacks (When you link to another blog, they automatically link back to you).

Create a Form Letter for Potential Customers

Now is a good time to work on a letter that you can send out to potential customers. This letter isn't to be sent out to random people, rather people that you almost made a sale with. This letter will remind them that you are available for work and is simply being sent to see I they are ready to make their decision. A sample letter would be:

Dear Sam (if you are on a first name basis),

It was so nice speaking with you in December. I hope that you had a nice holiday season and that life is treating you well. I am just writing to see if you had started the big project that we spoke of. As you already know, I have 20 years experience working with publication companies, and I know that I could help you achieve your goal within your budget. If you are ready to start your project, I am available for a free hour consultation. Call me any time, day or night.

Ps. I have included our e-zine. I hope you enjoy it.

Sincerely,
Rachel Goldstein
AllFreelance.com
999-999-9999

Review Your Marketing Materials.

You should stop to analyze why you aren't busy with projects. Now is a good time as any to set some time aside to review your marketing materials. Is the design too flashy or outdated? Was your design created with MS Word and printed out on your home printer? If so, I suggest that you have your marketing materials printed out professionally. You will find an increase in business if you step up and have your brochures, business cards, etc. printed out by a commercial printer. You should also look at the copy on your marketing materials. Show your brochure and other marketing materials to family and friends to see what they think. If you have enough money, have a professional copywriter rewrite your copy.

Rethink Your Business and Marketing Plan

Revisiting your business and marketing plan is always tedious and something that you probably aren't going to be too excited about doing. However, if business is slow, you might be going through a slump because the market has changed. Another possibility is that your business focus has changed without you even realizing it. Take the time to analyze your marketing and business plan and hopefully something good will come out of it.

Review and Update Your Website or Blog

If you already have a website or blog, then take some time to update the design and copy on the web site. Make sure there aren't any typos and that your marketing copy is working for you and your business. If you need to, consider hiring a professional copywriter and / or web designer.

Take the Time to Learn Something.

As a freelancer, you are supposed to be an expert in your field. With an overbooked schedule, you probably haven't had the time to keep up with new standards in your industry (especially if you are in a technical field). Now is the best time to jump back into school. There are plenty of online courses that you can take or you can take a course at your local community college. Just remember that you will most likely get a client (or two or three) before you are finished taking your course, so I don't recommend taking more than one course at a time. However, if you can find short classes or classes that you can finish at your own pace, then you can take as many as you please.

Work on Your Financial Records

If you are anything like me, then you put off your bookkeeping tasks until the last minute. Now is the time to work on this tedious task. Find all of your receipts, credit card statements, and bank account statements. Get to work placing all of your revenue and expenses into your bookkeeping system.

Write Articles

As a freelancer, I am sure that you are always looking for ways to promote yourself and your business for free. Well, the best way to do this is to get your name out on the web by writing articles and submitting them to article banks and sites that accept submissions. You can increase your visibility drastically by just submitting one article. However, I recommend writing many quality articles to show your expertise in your field. Make sure that you are referenced in these articles. Something like this works best:

John Smith
Fake Company
Expert Web Designer
http://www.fake-company.com/
fake-company@server.com

Some web sites won't let you have all of this information written as a signature on the article, but they will let you have a summarized version. If not, at least insist on your name and website address being added to the article. In order to utilize this idea to promote yourself with this viral marketing technique, bookmark this page full of article banks and article submission sites so that you will know who accepts articles.

Copy Paper Items into Digitized Format

Do you have a rolodex that is busting at its' seams? Do you have phone numbers all over pieces of paper and sticky notes covering your desk? Are you a chronic note taker (but on paper)? Now is a great time to put your paper items into digital format. You might want to consider getting a PDA or an iPhone to reduce your paper clutter.

Look for Ways to Cut Costs

Now that you have some free time on your hands, you can take the extra time to research more economical options to your business practices. Some things that you can take a look at are:

• Look at other Internet Service Providers in your area to make sure that there isn't a plan available from another company that better suits your needs and your pockets.
• Look at your telephone plan. I pay a ton less, now that I use my cable company as my phone plan. They gave me a low price for TV cable, phone service, and cable modem service.
• Don't forget about your cell phone plan. Are there lower plans out there?
• Office supplies costs much less online because you can sort by lowest price. And I love that Staples ships for free.
• You can buy toner and ink to refill your printer cartridges. This is much cheaper than buying new cartridges and much better for the environment.

Survey Your Clients and Potential Clients

How else are you to know what your clients want unless you ask them? Write up a survey. Start by asking them how they would want to keep in touch and work your way up to what additional services can they could use? Also ask about how satisfied they have been with your services and how you could have improved. Keep it brief and make it easy to respond. You should offer those who fill out the survey in full a discount on one future order, a free gift, or a gift certificate to a business like Amazon.com or other store. You'll learn some very valuable information on how to adjust your business offerings or operations to keep -- and maybe even gain -- customers. Then you can compile all of the questions and answers. You can use these questions and answers on your web site.

You can also ask your clients what questions they would want answered. These would be questions that probably most potential clients would want to know to. You could answer your clients' questions and then also use your answer as an article for your newsletter, blog, or web site.

Brainstorm Ways to Obtain New Clients

In addition to searching for new jobs, freelancers should also take this slow business period to brainstorm about ways to gain the most amount of new clients in a short period of time. This may involve reconsidering one's advertising methods, checking the available finances to see what resources they can use to gain more clients through advertising and looking over the current offerings to see if the business can offer more valuable services.

Network and Make Business Connections

This is the best time to make more connections for your business. This can take the form of exchanging links, posting on forums, joining community sites, posting your articles to article banks, using social networking sites, etc. Here is an article I wrote on Successful Viral Marketing. It is a must-read article if you are interested in viral marketing and networking successfully.

Make Money on the Side

There are plenty of ways to make money both online and offline. A few ways to do this are:

• Write articles for sites that pay for them.
• Sell used things on eBay for a profit.
• Fill out surveys for money.
• Place Google Ads on your website or blog.
• Place affiliate marketing ads on your website or blog.
• Sell products on CafePress by coming up with unique items.
• Take pictures and sell them to Stock Photography sites.
• Here are ideas for web designers and graphic designers.
• Blog daily and put Google Ads on your blog"¦believe me the money will come in.

Take a Vacation with the Family

Since many freelancers work seven days a week, vacations are usually few and far between. When business is slow, this is the optimal time to get away for a little while and reconnect with the family. Since freelancers are never too far from their "office" as they usually work out of their home, getting away from it all in the way of a vacation is the perfect thing to do. Due to the fact that business is slow, there are no excuses with regard to being unable to get away from the office for a vacation.

Take the Time to Have Some Fun

If you don't have the time or cash for a vacation, then at least allow yourself to have a little break from work. Use this free time to take a walk, go to the park, walk around in the mall, go out with some friends, go to the spa, or whatever floats your boat. Soon you will have more work than you can handle, so why not take advantage of this free time.

Take Care of Household Duties

For those who do freelance work out of their homes, it is often easy to overlook household duties and tasks, especially in the height of the work season. During the time when business is slow, use this time to take care of household duties whether it be something as simple as cleaning the bathrooms to something more extreme such as cleaning out the garage.

Links to Similar Articles on the Net

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