Smartphones and laptops are forming a solid duo with their fast internet access and productivity-focused apps. With the advanced tools for designing, coding, and writing, many can do more than their daily jobs. That is why freelancing is highly popular nowadays. Everyone wants to get some freelance jobs to gain a few extra bucks. This high volume of supply leads to a harsh competition for virtually any kind of freelance jobs. If you want to get a step ahead in the freelancer world, you need to follow these seven rules.

Don't ever skip meetings

Whether face-to-face or online, meetings are great opportunities to inform your customers about your works and highlight the importance of it. Not all freelance jobs include meetings, but if there are any within your business plan, consider it as a session in which you have the chance of presenting the added value you provide for your customers.

Even if it seems insignificant to you, it is not the same with your customers. People would like to be informed about the business they invested in.

Therefore, do not see meetings as loss of time, consider them as an investment made for the permanence of business and make them your priority.

Wake up early

Communication is of great importance for every freelancer. Responding to e-mails and answering calls are very crucial for the continuity of your business. Your customer may have an urgent need at any moment. In they can't reach you at that moment; someone who they can reach may cause you to lose the job. Unless the services you offer as a freelancer are in a different time zone or require night work, it would be good for you to wake up early. This way, your day will begin in sync with your customers.

Apart from all of this, waking up early is the right choice for your biological clock. Late mornings are followed by late nights. This kind of regime will affect both your health and your productivity negatively.

Be proactive

A good freelancer would not be content with only fulfilling the demands of customers but would lead customers within the profession to ask for right orders.

Is there a significant event in which your customer attends every year? While no one has thought of it, working on this upcoming summit and presenting it to your customer will vastly enhance your credibility.

Similarly, if you plan for a practical solution that would simplify the works of your customer and benefit him a lot, do not wait for the next billing period. From the point of firms, getting tips such as these from freelancers is essential. You may consider these as little bonuses you provide for free to maintain your job's continuity.

Master when to say no

Greed is your enemy if you are a freelancer. Though it is important not to turn back the demands of your customers, you always have to consider your workload. Doing all the work in the relevant market is impossible.

Missing deadlines or doing a lousy job is worse scenarios than declining the task in the first place. That is why you need to stick to your business plan, choose your priorities cleverly, and make sure you deliver the work due date with first-class quality. Speaking of a business plan...

Plan everything

When you are an employee on salary, most of your tasks come to you pre-planned. The moment you sit on your desk each Monday, what you are going to do the whole week is more or less decided. However, if you are a freelancer, you have to organize yourself. The reason for not fulfilling a duty before its deadline (unless you have not been lazy) is another duty you were dealing with for the firm. However, when you start working with multiple clients, the delay occurred because of a customer's work is not the business of the other's. All customers are unique customers.

To not to get lost within this busy schedule, you have to organize not only your work but also your life. Making daily, weekly, and monthly work plans and following them should be a part of your job. Also, your breaks and resting days will be under your initiative. If you make a busier plan than you can handle, it is possible that you will face a complete burnout within a couple of weeks and be able to do nothing. Welcome to the freelance world.

Enlarge your network

As American marketing expert, Porter Gale wrote in her book, "Your network is your net worth," in the freelance world, this is two times more important. Inform your network, friends and business colleagues, that you are open for business. As a freelancer, your best marketing campaign is word of mouth. Moreover, your best agents are your happy clients. Use them both cleverly to gain more customers.

Specialize in your niche

In a world where nearly everyone works as a freelancer or plans to work as one within the next 10 years, it will not be easy for you to shine out in the midst of this intense competition. That is why you have to find yourself a niche field and make an effort to be the best within that space. There are many new and popular business branches such as Industry 4.0, FinTech, artificial intelligence, autonomous cars, virtual reality, and much more are on the way. It does not matter if it is design, content, consultancy or software work; the most important thing to gain success as a freelancer is to prove yourself in a niche field. Then, you will enjoy the steady growth along with your niche.