How to Grow Your Small Business or Freelance Practice

Curious about what it takes to run a small business? Always wanted to become a successful freelancer? From marketing yourself to working with clients, keeping your accounting straight to paying your taxes, there’s a lot that goes into building your project the right way -- and keeping it operating smoothly for the long haul.

Feeling a little overwhelmed? Don’t worry. We’ve rounded up a few of our best, most practical, easy-to-understand classes to teach you  how to build, brand and maintain a great small business or freelance project. Whether you’ve already taken the leap or are just exploring the idea, these classes will give you a leg up toward long-lasting success.

Brand Strategy: Build a Business that Lasts

How do you create a company or personal brand that rises above the noise, gets people’s attention, and keeps them interested in your product and services over the long haul? Brand Strategist Mark Pollard breaks down how you can build a brand that attracts customers, showcases your work, and outperforms your competition.

The Marketing Lifecycle: Build Systems to Grow Your Brand

So you’ve created a great brand, but now you’re not sure how to grow it. Enter: Chris Boleman, Director of Marketing at Percolate with his class on the Marketing Lifecycle. He shares how he approaches marketing and gives you a solid method to help you assess, plan, execute, and measure the impact of your brand messaging efforts.

Building Great Teams: 8 Attributes for the Modern World | Learn with Atlassian

Whether you’re leading the team behind your small business or working collaboratively on a freelance project, it’s vital to understand how people best work together so you can make the most out of your group effort. In this short, 35-minute class, Atlassian’s Dominic Price breaks down the basic attributes of effective teams and how you can empower your own to be great, too.

Content Marketing: Blogging for Growth

If you work online (or attract clients that way) then chances are, content marketing should be a part of your overall strategy. Eric Siu is an entrepreneur who has harnessed the power of blogging to find audiences, secure new customers, and grow his personal projects into seven-figure businesses. Learn how to find and flesh out compelling ideas, package them correctly, and use them to stay relevant, informative, and interesting to new customers.

SEO Today: Strategies to Earn Trust, Rank High, and Stand Out

In the past few years, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has gone from an interesting idea to a necessary part of your growth strategy. Do you know what it takes to rank highly enough that you stand out, earn trust and drive traffic (and impact) to your website? Rand Fishkin takes you through the basics of what’s effective in SEO, demystifying the jargon to help you reach your goals.

Art of Growth: Sustainably Scale Your Business

If you’ve got a small business up and running but you’re not sure how to take it to the next level, Entrepreneurs Guy Kawasaki and Bill Reichert have the class for you. They use their one-hour course to discuss how to take a business from the humblest beginnings to an industry powerhouse, by focusing on hiring the right people, nurturing the right company culture, and keeping your customers happy over the long haul.

Want more? Skillshare has thousands of creative, tech, and business classes to help you go wherever your curiosity takes you. Start your journey at www.skillshare.com.