Navigating the Gig Economy: Tips for Finding Freelance Work/

As a finance consultant, building up a pipeline of work requires a portfolio approach to various inbound and outbound options for lead generation. This article delves into the ways to find and manage the workload as a remote finance consultant, including the balance between inbound and outbound leads, branding one’s persona, and building a portfolio to showcase skills and experience.

Lead Generation: Inbound and Outbound

Lead generation for finance consultant work comes from inbound or outbound sources. Inbound refers to clients/work directly approaching you, while outbound refers to you reaching out cold to someone. Maintaining a balance between inbound and outbound leads is important, but over time, inbound proves more scalable and fruitful. Negotiation dynamics are different when someone approaches you to work for them versus when you reach out cold to someone.

Branding Your Persona

To generate leads, professionalizing one’s persona as a finance consultant is necessary. However, this can be difficult for finance professionals since tangible outputs produced from engagements can be challenging to define. To address this, build a portfolio demonstrating what you do and show the story of how this model helped your team/clients. Additionally, build a simple portfolio website to showcase your work using DIY editors like Wix or Squarespace.

Email and Content

Use building a website as an opportunity to swap an old Yahoo email address for one linked to your professional domain. This shows that you are taking your work seriously and separating work from personal life. One big drawback of being an independent financial consultant is that you always have to be “on,” so create mechanisms to mute work and focus on your personal life. Writing content is also an excellent way to put one’s name out there. Clients can learn more about a finance consultant from their writing than from a resume or LinkedIn profile.

Budgeting as a Remote Consultant

The hardest issue to contend with for a freelancer is the variance of income. Being a remote financial consultant may initially appear to have a more erratic earnings trajectory than salaried work, yet it also has infinite earnings potential and absolute autonomy. When managing finances, it’s crucial to get to grips with outgoings and what’s needed each month to keep the lights on. It may seem slightly overwhelming when starting out with no clients, but try conceptualizing the earnings potential into three buckets: mules, geese, and unicorns.

Build Communities

Building a sustainable career as a remote consultant requires the scalable effect of referrals, which requires give and take, both in terms of doing good by clients and helping other consultants out with no strings attached. Build a community in your local area with like-minded professionals to gain more opportunities and enjoy the company of others in the same field.

Conclusion

In conclusion, building up a pipeline of work as a finance consultant requires a portfolio approach to the various inbound and outbound options for lead generation. Additionally, branding one’s persona, building a portfolio to showcase skills and experience, writing content, and building a community of like-minded professionals are important aspects of a successful career as a remote consultant.