If you’re following along to launch your freelance business, here’s AnyWired’s advice
What I didn’t realize was I couldn’t register a domain name for my list of potential business names.
Day Five: Set Up Your Business
Disaster.
My enterprise veered off the rails somewhere between Day Five and Six.
Five is all about setting up your business.
- Set up a business email address and PayPal account.
- Freelancers typically get paid via PayPal according to AnyWired.
So set that up!
And set up a Gmail account with your business name, linked to your new domain name.
What I didn’t realize was I couldn’t register a domain name for my list of potential business names.
Felt like I didn’t pass 1st grade and had to repeat it all over again (though I really, really liked my first grade teacher).
I returned to Days 3 and 3.5 – “Naming My Business”.
So much for my 30-day plan.
Well, maybe it is a total of thirty days, but not necessarily in a row.
A day here and a day there.
Enough about that for now.
Much more to follow.
Full disclosure?
Being the “what if guy”, I followed AnyWired’s 30-day Freelancing steps but applied them to:
- Self-publishing (You should spend at least 1 hour per day just developing your skill) a manuscript with over 500 pages.
- Figuring out how to host a website domain (in my case a network of six enterprises)
- Building a fan base.
But, if you’re following along to launch your own freelance business, here’s AnyWired’s advice:
- Set up a business email address and PayPal account.
- While your friends and family might not mind receiving email from ronny69@hotmail.com, prospective clients might!
- Create an email address.
- Forward it to a free Gmail account, then under your Gmail settings, put your domain email address as your default ‘Send Email As’ address.
- This will allow you to manage your domain email through Gmail, rather than the dubious email UIs provided by most webhosts.
- A good format is @yourdomain.com. This will make it easy to give new people email addresses at your domain if your freelance business expands in the future.
- Next up you should create a PayPal account if PayPal is available in your country.
- Most online freelancing is paid via PayPal and I consider it a must-have. If you dislike the fees, you can build them into your rates.
- If you already have a PayPal account, it might be a good idea to think about changing your address to something linked to your business, i.e. ‘accounts@yourdomain.com’ or ‘paypal@yourdomain.com’.
Day Four: Packages for Producing Profits
Day 3.5: Pink, Pitches and Pixar
Day Three: Brainstorm Your Business Name