Over the years, there’s been a major shift from 9 to 5 jobs; many people now prefer to work from home and independently due to the flexibility it offers.
The job vs self employment debate is an ongoing one for ages. However, in the current era, the growing number of entrepreneurs and freelancers have slightly tilted the debate in favour of self-employment. Currently, there are about 1.1 billion freelancers out of the global workforce of 3.5 billion, and the numbers keep increasing. However, it’s important to know that although freelancing comes with tons of benefits, it could also be a bit challenging.
A freelancer’s schedule is very dynamic and filled with several responsibilities, including applying for jobs, creating contracts and proposals, getting projects done, meeting clients’ demands, and many more.
With so many things to do, it can get overwhelming, which may hamper your productivity and efficiency; this is where the need for SaaS Software comes in.
They help you automate and streamline your freelancing activities, so you can focus on doing your job efficiently to expand and grow your career. In this article, we will reveal the top five SaaS software you can employ to enhance your workflow as a freelancer.
Let’s get started.
5 Efficient SaaS tools to facilitate your freelancing journey
If you are looking to start your career as a freelancer, it’s helpful to use the right tools to get started on the right track. These five SaaS software are what you need to begin. Let’s discuss their functions below:
1. Bonsai
When starting your freelance career, one of the first things to put in place is a system that helps you create contracts. Contracts are critical to protecting your business to ensure your clients stick to your agreement and pay you fairly for your services.
However, writing contracts manually can be a lot of work, especially if you have an influx of clients you work with. But this is where a SaaS tool like Bonsai comes in.
Bonsai is an all-in-one freelance management software designed to help you in every aspect of your freelancing career. It enables you to craft contracts and proposals, track clients, send invoices, and efficiently manage your projects and time.
With Bonsai, you won’t have to write proposals every time you have a new client; there are ready-made contract templates you can tweak to suit your needs. For example, you can customize a modelling contract template to work with clients as a freelance model.
Bonsai also comes with other features that make your freelancing career a lot easier. For example, it offers six different templates for you to create proposals for your clients.
In addition, you can manage your contacts by including your clients’ names, phone numbers and email addresses, to track and follow them up on projects and future collaborations.
It also comes with a time-tracking feature that helps you track your time on projects to enhance your productivity.
So, if you are looking for an all-in-one project management software for your freelance business, you should consider incorporating Bonsai to craft contracts and proposals, as well as manage your projects efficiently.
2. Pitch
A major activity that characterizes a freelance routine is trying to win clients over. As a beginner, winning clients over may be more challenging, considering your level of experience in the field and the existing competition to attract and win clients.
Therefore, the way to stand out in the game is to come up with exceptional pitch presentations that show your expertise and captivate your clients, and using a SaaS tool like Pitch is how to make it happen.
Pitch is a SaaS tool that helps you design stunning presentation templates that showcase your services’ value clearly and professionally. It comes with features that make your pitch presentations intriguing and engaging.
In addition, it is easy to use and comes with customizable templates to suit your goals. This means you will never have to start creating your presentations from scratch unless you want to.
The tons of templates available make it easy for you to get your presentations ready in minutes. So, if you are looking for an easy way to always show up prepared and professional with your presentations, Pitch is the SaaS tool to use.
It is how you distinguish yourself from other freelancers competing for your client’s attention. It is also how to convince your clients to believe you are the best person for the job.
3. Calendly
As a freelancer, managing your time effectively is how you improve your productivity and get things done.
However, if you keep going back and forth with clients when selecting a schedule for discussion or fail to create boundaries by letting your clients know when you are available and unavailable, you may fall behind.
Fortunately, a time management tool like Calendly lets you efficiently schedule meetings with your clients, partners, and team.
Rather than go back and forth to find the perfect schedule for a meeting, you can simply include your availability on Calendly, share your link to your client, and choose a time on your available schedule for discussion.
Calendly also sends reminders automatically, so you don’t have to call or send emails to your clients to remind them of meetings or an appointment with you.
Automating these activities gives you enough time to focus on accomplishing projects and making quality, timely deliveries.
So, if you want to take control of your time and improve the process of scheduling meetings with your clients, team, and partners, Calendly is the SaaS tool that would work for you.
4. Boomerang for Gmail
Boomerang for Gmail is another SaaS tool that gives you control of your time and enables you to manage communications with your team and clients efficiently. It helps you schedule emails and sends them to the recipients at a designated time.
For example, if you are to send an email at a specific time; you can create and schedule the message with Boomerang for Gmail to get it sent at that time.
This goes a long way to improve your productivity and efficiency. First, it means you won’t have to miss sending important emails if you are busy at the designated period because you had scheduled the emails ahead.
Second, it helps you schedule emails during your free time to get them sent during your regular working hours. This gives your communication system a structure and ensures you remain professional with your clients consistently, not only during your free time.
Boomerang for Gmail also helps you to track the click rates of your emails. You will know if your recipients have clicked, opened, or read your emails, which will help you know when to send a follow-up email.
It is an effective SaaS software to effectively manage your time, set boundaries, and communicate with your clients by sending timely feedback and follow-ups.
5. Slack
As a freelancer, you will likely work remotely. This means you and the rest of your team will work together from different locations. Therefore, you will need a collaboration tool like Slack to collaborate effectively with your clients and team when working on short or long-term projects.
In addition, it organizes your communication system with your team and clients. So, if you are working on multiple projects, you can have a separate channel to discuss each project. This makes your discussion less over-overwhelming and disorganized, enabling effective communication among your team and clients.
In addition, Slack integrates well with other applications, making it a lot more functional. For example, you can upload files from Google Drive to share with your team and integrate other collaboration tools like Trello.
Why you need SaaS software to manage your freelance business
Working with SaaS software to manage your freelance business comes with various advantages. Let’s discuss some of them below:
- They enable you to create and manage projects easily
SaaS project management software allows you to plan and execute your freelance projects efficiently.
They help you automate many processes, so you don’t have to go through the rigorous and time-consuming process of creating, planning, and executing projects on your own, making freelancing a lot easier for you.
- They allow you to manage your time efficiently
Time management is a critical skill for a freelancer. It determines how productive and successful you will be in your freelancing journey. This is why it’s critical to use SaaS time management software to maximize your time.
You can track the time you spend on projects to know what projects take your time and make improvements to spend less time. You can also automate many tasks to get your projects done faster.
- They promote effective communication
SaaS communication tools allow you to communicate and collaborate better with your clients and team.
You can give reports and carry your clients along every step of the way. They enable your team and clients to give instant feedback so you can work together effectively to achieve optimal results.
Conclusion
SaaS software is a must-have for every freelancer looking to succeed in their career while freelancing. They help improve your workflow, boost efficiency, and promote better collaboration with your clients and team while working remotely.
In this article, we discussed five effective SaaS Software that help to facilitate your activities as a freelancer.
