This article has been contributed by Naomi Phillips.

If you’re seeking business success in the freelancing world, there’s no getting away from taking risks and making bold decisions.

Gutsy decision-making comes with the territory, and as you’re your own boss, the buck starts and stops with you.

No matter what sector you look at, you’ll find that the competition is not only rife, it’s fierce as well. In that kind of environment, there’s no getting ahead if you play it safe.

The same goes for freelancing. You need to stand out, create a lasting impression, and ensure that clients want to work with you. Fitting in and fading into the background simply isn’t an option, or a smart tactic.

When you know how to take risks and make bold decisions, you can break the mold and give your small business the edge. Let’s explore our top business tips for freelancers.

Survive & Thrive: Business Tips For Freelancers

1. Do Your Research

The first of our business tips for freelancers – and possibly the most important – is to do your due diligence.

Research is the difference between making an uninformed mistake and a properly considered plan.

Regardless of how risky the decisions you face could be for you and your freelancing business, every decision has an element of uncertainty. Research is one of the best ways to reduce that uncertainty and to improve the outcomes.

You can’t find new opportunities, enumerate the challenges posed by competitors, or enhance your businesses practices effectively without doing research.

Knowing how to conduct and apply research is an important skill when limited resources expose your business to potentially greater risks if the outcome is not favorable.

Use the steps offered by Simon Sarkissian in small business publication Chron to guide your research process:

a.   Identify the Problem

Your first step is to identify the opportunity or issue that requires attention. Put time and effort into pinpointing the exact issue, as you’ll find it easier to address or resolve when you’ve defined it clearly.

b.  Define Your Business Objectives

Your definition of the problem or opportunity, and the decision you face making, are what determine the research objectives.

c.   Find Alternatives

It seldom happens that there’s only one solution to the issue or problem. Your objective-guided research should yield several different solutions.

It’s important to remember that the shortest, fastest route isn’t always the best route. A longer route that could see you accomplish other goals or reach other landmarks along the way ultimately could be the better, more sustainable solution for your small business.

d. Conduct Your Research & Analyze the Data

When you have collected as much data as is helpful, analyze it and then use your findings in the decision-making process. Don’t feel tempted to treat data as an optional extra.

Instead, as you’ll see in the next pointer on how to take risks and make bold decisions for small businesses, it’s something on which you should rely.

2. Depend on Data

The second of our business tips for freelancers is to levarage data to your advantage. Data is a veritable goldmine for making decisions. Tap into your network and back up your ideas with hard facts.

A growing number of small businesses are using big data analytics to better understand their processes and operations, their customers, and competitors.

According to the University of San Diego School of Business, big data refers to the huge amount of information collected at incredible speed.

But don’t think that it’s only about quantity. The school’s blog quoted Twin Cities Business in explaining that volume is only one of the three V’s, the other two being variety and velocity.

You don’t need to hire data scientists or specialists to make sense of it all. Various analytics tools suitable for freelancers and small businesses are available, and there are analytics techniques that you can apply.

There are machine learning tools that analyze structured, transactional data stored in conventional databases. Plus, they can give you valuable insights from unstructured data like social media posts, emails, and other media.

According to Business.com, some of the best sources of data that’s relevant to your decision making and risk taking are in easy reach. They include:

• Sales records
• Analyses of email marketing
• Website analytics and statistics
• Social media feeds

We cannot overemphasize the usefulness of data for small owner-run businesses.

The insights you can gain from it can lead to more efficient operations with less investment in training or new technology, and to better sales.

Some of big data analytics’ most common small business applications include:

a.   Customer Insights

You can leverage big data for natural language processing (NLP) and text mining to transform unstructured data into structured data. You then can analyze patterns and trends that offer insights into who your customers are and what they want.

b.  Geo-Targeting Customers

The location data you can collect from mobile devices enables you to market particular services and/or products based on customers’ physical locations.

c.   Risk Analysis

Use accessible, simple yet powerful data visualization tools to do risk analysis on various business practices.

d.  Routine Task Automation

Some routine tasks, such as scanning and analyzing various reports to make comparisons and find patterns, are carried out more efficiently and effectively by automating them.

e.   Tapping Social Media Data Streams

Develop personalized offers for your customers by integrating the data gained from social media with marketing data. Tapping social media data streams also gives you the opportunity to find and respond to customer commendations and complaints.

f.    Operations Enhancement

Analyze the data generated by your business processes to find ways in which you can improve or enhance them.

Even as a freelancer this is important, as you may fall short in some areas you’re not even aware of.

g.  Trendspotting

Identifying trends and other insights into customer behavior is one of the biggest benefits of big data analysis. The information empowers you to connect with your target market more effectively.

According to Forbes, you can predict the circumstances, such as time and place, that are most likely to generate purchases. You can also create marketing campaigns that are more effective, as they’re more closely aligned to the demographic groups that are likely to engage with those campaigns.

You can use data analysis of social media posts that mention your small business, whether those mentions be positive, negative, or neutral, to make better decisions that ultimately could lead to more sales.

3. Don’t Let Fear Make You Indecisive

Fear can be paralyzing, and it can lead to half-hearted attempts and poor decisions. Don’t let it stop you from doing a proper job.

Some people are natural risk takers, and others aren’t. Freelancers tend to veer towards being the more natural risk takers, as going on your own is riskier than opting for full time employment.

However, if you’re in the second category, you may need to take a few steps to overcome your fear of taking risks and making bold decisions.

A good place to start is to understand how fear works.

In moments of fear, your brain triggers an adaptive survival strategy known as loss aversion to protect you from harm. In that state, your brain becomes hyper-analytical. One effect is that your brain recalls memories of past failures, and it identifies all the things that could go wrong.

Even though loss aversion should protect you, as Entrepreneurial Instinct author Monica Mehta explained, it can demotivate you to the point of inaction.

However, she also says that the reward pathway system in your brain – which triggers the release of endorphins that make you feel good when you do something exciting – can override loss aversion.

This means that focusing on the positive aspects of risk can help you overcome your fear of that risk. Here are three ways you can do that.

a.   Spend Time in the Company of Risk-Takers

You’ll become more comfortable with risk if you’re exposed to it. Surround yourself with people who take risks not only within the business realm but also in your social circle.

Whether you mix with other freelancers, entrepreneurs, or those who enjoy extreme sports, tap into the same mindset and adopt the same attitude.

According to Mehta, doing this can encourage you to take risks — and to take other risks even if you fail the first time.

b.  Set a Lot of Small Goals

Another way of becoming comfortable with risk is to set a series of small, manageable goals that you can accomplish relatively quickly.

Those apparently small successes – each of which will trigger your brain to release feel-good chemicals and reinforce the reward pathway – can inspire you to set and to work toward larger, more risky goals.

c.   Don’t Weigh Up the Pros & Cons

Focusing on the pros and cons could reinforce loss aversion, which is not what you need when faced with making a bold decision or taking risks as a freelancer.

As Mehta said, research and gut instinct can be far more helpful than feeding the fear by listing what could go wrong (even if you try to balance it with the pros).

4. Get A Business Mentor

Get a second opinion — and a third and fourth one, too. Speak to other freelancers, SME professionals, and trusted advisors and gauge their reactions.

Whether you’re changing the way you showcase your work, pitching for a client using a fresh approach, or keen on learning new skills to enhance your portfolio, talk about it.

Being a freelancer doesn’t mean that you must make decisions alone. If you face making a bold decision for your business, ask others for their input on the matter.

This is where one or more business mentors and advisors, as well as other freelancers who have more experience than you do, can be particularly helpful.

A few of the benefits of having a business mentor include:

• Access to expert advice – They’ve been there and done that, and they can offer you the wisdom they gained from experience.
• Fresh perspectives – Many of us get stuck in a particular way of thinking, and mentors can offer new perspectives on an issue that we may never have seen.
• Developing skills – A mentor can help you develop the skills you need to overcome a particular issue.
• Networking opportunities – An experienced mentor is likely to have all sorts of industry connections, and they can present you with opportunities to network with those people.

5. Weigh Up the Worse-Case Scenario

What’s the worst that could happen? Weigh up the worst-case scenario and determine what it would cost you, should it happen.

Not dwelling on the pros and cons doesn’t mean making yourself ignorant of what could happen if your decision results in success or failure.

Ensure you weigh up the worst-case scenario when analyzing the risk of any decision and do it in terms of success and failure. Both could lead to a scenario that results in a huge loss.

If the potential costs are too high, or the risk of failure is significant, it’s probably best to put that decision on the back burner for a while.

It’s important to acknowledge that failure is inevitable, which is not to say you will fail as a freelancer.

Rather, some risks you take and the decisions you make will fail, just as other risks and decisions will succeed. Accept failure as part of the experience of being a freelancer.

6. Be Confident

Confidence counts. If you’re sure that your decision is the right one, you’ll gain the trust of your clients. And in freelancing, trust is everything, making this our sixth and final of our business tips for freelancers.

Writing for Forbes, executive coach John Baldoni explained that confidence has its roots in accomplishment. Like a muscle in your body, it needs developing and exercising.

You do this by taking risks that force you to move beyond your comfort zone. He added that defeat or failure also can help you develop your confidence.

This can happen if you analyze what went right and what went wrong.

In doing so, you know what to repeat, what to avoid, and what to do differently in the future. Learning from your mistakes means the experience wasn’t wasted.

In Closing

You need to take risks and make bold decisions if you want to thrive as a freelancer. Let our business tips for freelancers empower you to do just that, and you’ll grow your brand and business in the right way.

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About the author: Naomi Phillips is a content writer who’s always on a mission to keep on learning. Thanks to her curious brain and extraordinary ink-slinging, she has written articles covering a broad range of topics, including brand strategies, entrepreneurship and design.