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This is a guest post from Phillip over at The Lazy Pixel. Phillip is not only a creative 20-something blogger, he is also an entrepreneur who runs his own his own IT businessInvisibility.net.

My previous post, How to Deal with Clients, highlighted an external factor in your business, i.e. the client. What do you do about that stage of your business when you are still trying to get clients? What do you do when you feel that you are wasting more hours in the day than you are invoicing for?

The answer is simple. You keep working hard at what you do and you diversify.

Diversify your business.

I have two key areas of work: IT and engineering.

You can do one thing, and do it really well. There will be times though when you can’t rely on that one thing to pay all the bills. What pays the bills might not even be the thing you do best. IT services may provide my bread and butter, but what I’m really after is more work producing high-tech innovative solutions.

If I can get a bit of income out of my music technology background, my PhD research, or my writing then I will, but realistically I have two key areas that are the focus of my business – IT and engineering solutions.

Over at Abella Media, Amanda provides not only writing and copy editing services but also a translation service.

You may have a preferred aspect of your business that you want to focus on, but until you’ve reach a stage where you have more work than you can handle, you cannot afford to put all your hopes and dreams into one product or service.

Develop and maintain your contacts.

Digital presence is critical. I have my professional website, personal blog, twitter and linkedin. My work contacts include Scotprint, TygerPR, 27-Stars, RTSixty and MaGa Coaching who can all be found online. A well-designed website is a minimum requirement whether you are running a company or freelancing from your bedroom. As you start building connections it is useful to open twitter and facebook accounts too.

Amanda has her professional website, and two blogs in gradmeetsworld and Ecobellus. She also has twitter, linkedin and a facebook page.

I’ve often heard people say that “but nobody is interested in my…” when I’ve talked about developing relationships with other companies. Well, that’s probably right. First, you have to be interested in what the other person is doing, and secondly nobody will take any notice of what you are talking about, but what you are actually doing.

What you are doing isn’t just limited to your work. Take up a new hobby. I’d recommend a form of exercise. The benefits of exercise outweigh the time spent doing it. Jessica over at minimalstudent runs. Amanda does yoga. I’m currently boxing and also kickboxing at CARISMA kickboxing club, which is run by Massimo from MaGa Coaching. Doing exercise gives you something non-work related to talk about and helps you meet and connect with more people. It’s a great way to develop new contacts.

So, how do you maintain your contacts? Have a look at how many links there are in the above paragraphs. You maintain contacts not only by talking to them but also by giving something back to them.

Giving things away? You can’t do that! Well yes, you can and should. Sometimes you might lose a day’s work giving something away, other times you might find you’ve gained some invaluable insight, or a new, and paying, client.

There are times when it’s not even clear who is giving what? Am I giving this guest post to gradmeetsworld? Or is gradmeetsworld giving me the chance to talk about what I do? Everything you do can be turned into a positive. Even if you give something away you can still benefit from it, be it a new piece for your portfolio, from something learnt, or just making a connection with someone new and interesting.

Work hard.

Actually, working hard isn’t enough. This is something I’ve discovered recently. You have to be seen to be working hard.

If you look at the work Amanda puts into what she does then even if you aren’t buying her services you can’t help but hope she succeeds.

Likewise, I’ve never met anyone who works as hard as Hilary over at Scotprint. Last year the only time over the Christmas period that she didn’t talk business was Christmas day, even then I’m not so sure that was a day off.

Sometimes you come across people who are just infectious in their enthusiasm for what they do. People who put everything into their work, and the work they do for their clients. When coming across those people it’s natural to want them to do well. It is these people that build up networks of good people to help them achieve their goals and who have clients who will forgive the occasional mistake. It may take them time to get to where they want to go, but you become convinced that they’ll make it.

It can take years to build up a good portfolio of work. It takes time to foster contacts in areas of expertise relevant to your field. Even then, people who are often nothing to do with your field can prove to be the most useful.

Building up your business and client base can take a long time. In those bleak moments of no work but many bills you can wonder whether it is all worth it. It takes a certain mental fortitude to be self-employed. There will be times when you struggle.

I think the thing that really sets apart those who go on to be successful in self-employment and those who end up returning to cubicle-world is down to the work done between jobs. You can sit back and wait for the odd job to come in, you can hope that word of mouth or an advert in the paper will help you, or you can go out there and build something. You can meet like-minded people who will work with you to achieve mutual goals. You can find clients who never knew how much they needed you. It’s up to you to go out and do it though.

If you are passionate about what you do, you work hard, and can do a couple of things really well then I believe you will always be able to find work.

Amanda Abella

Amanda Abella is a freelance writer and language instructor based out of Miami, Florida. She has been writing professionally since 2009 and holds a degree in English Literature from Ave Maria University. Amanda Abella is available for freelance work, why not hire her?

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• Intro to Freelancing Part 3: How to Deal With Clients
• 7 Tips for Starting Your Own Freelance Business
• Intro to Freelancing Part 1: 10 Things You Need to Know Before Starting a Freelancing Career (and a free template!)