Though the economy is currently facing uncertain times, The Great Reshuffle is shedding light on the benefits of freelancing more than ever before.

In fact, 78% of businesses are choosing to hire freelancers over full-time employees amid the looming recession. 

Whether you’re currently freelancing as a side hustle or have been running a freelance business for a while, you’re in a great position to market yourself to companies who are looking to hire during these uncertain economic times. 

Here’s how freelancers can lean into the Great Reshuffle and position themselves in front of potential clients.

Refine your offering

Before you can market yourself to companies who are ready to hire, you have to get clear on what you offer. 

If you’re new to freelancing or still navigating the types of services you want to provide as a freelancer, you typically have two options when it comes to refining your offering: niching down or expanding your services.

Honing in on a niche can be beneficial because it ultimately means you have a specialization that clients will go to you for. This means you can position yourself as an expert in a certain type of service or industry and build your business off of your expertise and credibility. 

On the flip side, expanding your services is best for those who are ready to build a team. Building a team of independents who offer complementary services allows you to go after larger scopes of work with bigger clients. 

Either way, if you want to position your freelance business as the best alternative to hiring a full-time employee, you need to have a refined offering and a clear scope of work that helps companies understand exactly how you can help them.

Identify target clients

Just like you need to have a refined offering, you also need to hone in on the type of clients you want to work with. Do you want to work with service-based entrepreneurs? Nonprofits? Tech startups? 

Knowing who you want to work with can help you tailor your messaging and marketing to what would resonate most with that client. 

Not only does honing in on your target clients help you better position your business for them, but it also helps you identify who isn’t a good fit for you. Freelancers are in high demand — there’s no need to take on projects with clients you don’t want to work with.

Communicate the value

As we mentioned above, hiring trends point to more and more companies seeing the value in working with freelancers. But it’s still on you to be able to communicate the value you bring as a freelancer. 

Traditionally, companies have viewed freelancers as contract employees or temporary hires rather than vendors who bring their own expertise, processes, and pricing to the table. 

Communicate the value of your expertise, the skills you bring to the project, and how the project will positively impact the company’s greater business goals. 

It’s also important to communicate the value of your pricing, especially in relation to a full-time employee. Hiring a full-time employee comes with a salary, benefits, and, not to mention, the added costs of onboarding and training. As a freelancer, you already have your own processes, pricing and systems, so the only thing the company is paying for is your project or retainer fee. 

During a time when companies are cutting costs, this is invaluable.

Start small

Ongoing projects or retainer work is every freelancer’s dream scenario. But times are uncertain and companies may be hesitant to sign on for a six-month contract when they can’t even predict how things are going to go one month from now. 

If you want to secure new clients during The Great Reshuffle, it could be beneficial to start small. Offer to do one project that provides the client with a preview of what it’s like to work with you. 

Using Wethos, you can build your scope of work with phases. For example, if you’re a website designer, phase one could be to design a landing page and phase two could be a full website redesign. 

This is an excellent way to turn a one-time project into ongoing work and secure revenue for your freelance business for many months to come.