Steady Customers Can Sustain Your Freelance Business During the Holidays

This week we’re talking about how you can avoid a freelancing drought during the holiday season. After all, this time of year can be a little frustrating when you can’t rely on a regular paycheck, and heaven knows we freelancers don’t have the benefit of a regular paycheck.

The biggest reason that freelancers have so little to do during this time of year is because the people who hire us have other priorities right now.

• They have lives and families of their own, and oftentimes they are distracted during the holidays.
• The budget has run out for the year, so they won’t be back around until next year’s funds have been allocated.
• Their business has also slowed down because of the holidays, so they just don’t have as much freelance work available.

We have found that one of the best ways to get through the season is to have steady clients who are already on a set schedule. For example, we have clients who require a certain number of blog posts a month. December is a month, so they still required those blog posts. Another client sends us a set number of SEO articles each week. This pattern was established before the holidays ever rolled around, so they’re already “trained” to follow through, despite the fact that it might be that weird week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

As with most things that work, having these kinds of steady clients requires preparation, and you have to do a lot of work before the holiday season actually arrives. That way everything’s already in place.

Hmm. Maybe we should repost this whole series next spring…