What Does the Future Look Like for Home Businesses?

Some takeaways from the 2022 Freelance Professional Skills Report.

Freelance University has released their 2022 Freelance Professional Skills Report. (It’s an interesting read for home business owners, particularly those who provide services like consultants, virtual assistants, etc. It gives insight into many different aspects of freelancing like the effects of the global pandemic and the most common reason that people start their businesses. It also gives a pretty good picture of how freelancers are feeling about the future of their businesses. 

Here are a few takeaways from the report.

The majority of those asked started their businesses for increased flexibility. People are tired of being locked into the traditional 9-5 work days with no flexibility that will allow them to have a robust family or personal life.  If you’ve been subscribed to this newsletter for a while, you know that one of the things I’ve stressed in several issues is the need to keep that flexibility, even though it’s super easy to fall into old work behavior patterns. Doing things like making sure you find ways to enjoy summer vacation or setting work/life boundaries is important in helping your business grow and thrive.

Respondents overall feel confident in the continued growth of freelance opportunities and in the possibilities for the growth of their own businesses. This is encouraging in light of the current economic climate. So if you’ve been waiting to launch your home business, now is the perfect time to stop procrastinating and take the leap.

The most effective way to get clients is through professional connections, followed closely by social networks and online groups. Sometimes it’s tempting to just wash your hands of your previous work experiences when you start your own business, but this statistic proves that it’s wiser to maintain some of those work connections. 

When asked which social network was most important to their businesses right now, the number one answer was LinkedIn, which pushed Facebook into the #2 position. I always recommend not relying too heavily on one particular social platform, and this is one of those reasons. Facebook has been coming in at #1 for a few years now, so a lot of people (myself included) hadn’t been paying much attention to LinkedIn. But there it is, suddenly at the top of the heap. If you had asked me, I probably would have said it would be TikTok that unseated Facebook, so I was pretty surprised to see LinkedIn in the number one spot. This goes to show even me that keeping tabs on multiple social networks is a wise business choice.

I was also shocked to see that over 26% of respondents don’t have a website. We’ve discovered the importance of having a website in a previous issue. The fact that this many freelance business owners don’t have one is concerning. It would be interesting to dig a bit deeper into the numbers here to see if those without websites are also individuals who haven’t been in business very long. Since the largest number of respondents have been in business less than one year, I’d be willing to bet that has a lot to do with it. The chances of them surviving to the 10+ years in business category are slim if they don’t recognize the importance of having a website for their businesses.

It was also interesting to see that the top five requested services for 2022 were:

• Content Creation (e.g. digital content, legal documents, training materials)
• Writing (e.g. website copywriting, SEO writing, blogs, articles, sales pages, grants, health articles,
• newsletters, ebooks, short-form articles and notes, case studies)
• Editing/Proofreading (e.g. websites, blogs, articles, PDF manuals)
• Content Management (e.g. newsletters, blogs)
• Course Creation / Course Launch Management and Marketing

There were of course more takeaways from the report. Things like the most popular project management tools and how they structured their services (hourly rates or service packages/retainers). While the information gleaned from things like this report is interesting and can give some insight, it’s also important to remember that your home business is unique. Just because LinkedIn is working for a majority of those responding to FreelanceU’s survey, it doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for your business. And the same goes for the rest of the findings.

Reports like these can help you feel less alone and give you some food for thought when it comes to running your home business. Just remember that every business is different and what works for some, doesn’t work for others. It’s more important to know the purpose and goals of your own business and make your decisions based on that.

If you’d like to see the complete report, you can get your own copy here.

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