At the beginning of the year, I vowed to invest resources in order to grow my freelancing business. Here is a list of the most successful in terms of return on investment.

“Recurring Revenue for Consultants” Bootcamp

Cost: $1,400

Hosted by Brennan Dunn and Patrick McKenzie, this contained around 6 hours of fabulous advice from two recognised experts in the field. I’ve wanted to diversify my income so that I was not so reliant on one-off client engagements. This bootcamp has helped to shape my product and service plans for the next year and inspired me to launch FreelanceDevLeads.

Link: Recurring Revenue for Consultants

CopyHackers “The Great Value Proposition Test”

Cost: $48.99

Any of the other CopyHackers books are worth owning, but I found this one particularly valuable. It helps you answer the question “how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors?”

Written in a clear, friendly style, it takes quite a dry subject and makes it compelling by focusing on real-life examples. It can be applied as much to products as it can to your own freelancing business.

Link: The Great Value Proposition Test e-book

FreeAgent

Cost: £150

FreeAgent makes accounting almost fun. At a general level, it has enabled me to keep an eye on my cash flow and make invoicing clients hassle-free.

Link: FreeAgent

Freelancer’s Weekly

Cost: Free

Great actionable advice from freelancing guru Brennan Dunn, someone who has been there and done it (and also written several books about it). More value-per-email than any other list that I’m subscribed to.

Link: Freelancer’s Weekly

Virtual Assistant

Cost: £1,000

This year I’ve worked hard to document the different systems and processes within my business, so outsourcing some of these tasks was the next step. I use my VA for tasks such as research, lead generation and data entry.

PCG Membership

Cost: £120

Joining a professional organisation such as PCG is worthwhile to have support from other like-minded individuals. One of the perks of joining was a free consulting contract template. Considering the cost of lawyers, this was worth the price of membership alone.

Link: PCG

E-Myth Revisited

Cost: £6.67

This book really sold me on the idea of creating systems within my business to make it more valuable. If you take yourself out of the equation, your freelancing business is unlikely to be worth much unless you have some repeatable processes in place. (Oh, and try to ignore the cringe-worthy “Sarah’s Pies” anecdotes.)

Link: E-Myth Revisited on Amazon

I’d love to hear about your own successful investments. Add a comment below, or send me an e-mail.