Freelancing
Looking for a way to start making money online through building a business yet can’t find the time? You want to get out of the 9 to 5 grind but don’t know where to start? There is a solution and that solution is freelancing. A freelancer is defined by Webster’s dictionary as “a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer”. This essentially means you take on employment from a number of different organisations or individuals while acting independently. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages towards working as a freelancer, which will be covered in this chapter. It is important to understand, working as a freelancer is no different from building a business from the ground up. The brand you are investing in is yourself and in freelancing, your reputation is your most valuable asset.
Where To Begin
There are many avenues you can take when looking to start operating as a freelancer. In today’s market, you can start earning money as a freelancer almost immediately and have the advantages of working anywhere on the world. While there are a number of sites available to set up a freelancing account, it is best not to single out just one but rather establish yourself across a number of sites. This way you have a higher chance of being contracted, more jobs to choose from and you will find what works best for you depending on the work you are doing. So what are the sites that are best for freelancers to get started?
Upwork.com
Now one of the largest freelance websites on the Internet, Upwork is a platform for just about every job that can be done. This is a great place to start and figure out where to start your freelance journey. Upwork has well over 1.5 million clients and was previously known as oDesk. Whether you want to take small jobs to help yourself through college or if you are looking to build a long time career through freelancing, Upwork has a number of options ranging from per project work, hourly and has options for entry level to expert level jobs meaning it can be easy to get started and build your portfolio.
Guru.com
Originally known as eMoonlighter, Guru.com is one of the earliest freelance marketplaces available on the Internet. Originally intended for high tech workers, Guru now encompasses a wide range of tasks available to get started in Freelancing. Whether this is for creative pursuits such as Art, multimedia and design or more technologically focused tasks such as web development and IT.
Fiverr
The original concept of fiverr was to price freelance jobs at just $5, with jobs such as logo design and small tasks making up the entire marketplace. Fiverr has since moved on to become a more comprehensive eLancing site, with the base price on jobs being set by those who are offering them. Fiverr has grown over the last few years to become one of the most popular sites online and is not only incredibly easy to use and get started with, you can practically offer anything on there people are willing to purchase.
Freelancer.com
Freelancer is quite similar to Upwork in that jobs are offered and freelancers place their bids and proposals to land the jobs. Personally Freelancer.com is not ideal for beginners as it can be quite competitive and many additional qualifications such as English language test require payment whereas Upwork offers these free of charge. Many freelancers who work on this site tend to offer very low bids meaning it can be difficult to break into the market and stand out from the crowd.
Peopleperhour.com
Much smaller than the other sites I have listed here, PeoplePerHour similar to other freelance websites however many of the jobs are one time tasks as opposed to longer-term contracts. The site is growing fast so if you plan on taking your freelance career further it may be useful to get on board and see how it progresses. Otherwise if you are looking to supplement some of your income, PeoplePerHour is a useful site to do so.
There are a great number of freelancer websites available online, however when you are just starting out it is best to focus on the more well known sites to allow you to get a feel for the freelancing lifestyle as well and to provide you with as much support as possible while you are on the journey to earning a full time income through freelancing.
It is recommended when you are getting started to create an account on each of these sites, you will want to find a username you can use across each website and have a profile similar to each one to remain consistent and help you be recognised to further your reputation.
What Works for You?
With a number of websites at your disposal, now it is time to decide what area you would like to work in. Now this may be easy for you if you have a particular skill or passion, which stands out for you. For example if you come from an engineering background, you want to transfer these skills over and start using them on a freelance basis. There are a number of skills, which you might need significant experience or further qualifications before getting started. Since this book is all about making money online, I will run with the assumption that this isn’t the kind of work you are looking for and instead will go into more details on the kind of work that just about anyone can pick up without having any industry background, skill or experience. Instead all you will need to start these jobs is just passion and determination.
As mentioned before Fiverr is a great place to start if you are unsure of what skills you would have that might be useful. If you have a look around through some of the categories, you will find that there is a category for literally anything and if you have an idea that doesn’t fit into any of these categories, there is a current for “other” or even “fun and bizarre”. So if you are thinking out of the box, there are still plenty of opportunities for you to get freelancing!
So what are the best areas to get started?
Graphics & Design
If you are the creative type and enjoy dabbling in art, you can put your skills to the test by taking on some graphics and design jobs. These can be anything from a simple logo design to drawing characters of people. Designers are in quite high demand and fortunately the marketplace isn’t overly saturated with budding designers so it can still be quite easy to get started.
Writing & Translation
If you are a skilled writer there are a number of avenues you can take to refine your craft. Whether you decide to write for business copywriting through sales pages, blogs or press releases or even you would to take the creative route, there are always a good number of clients in demand for someone to help them with writing. Writing can be very easy to get started in since you don’t need any extra software to get started.
Programming
Now more than ever, programming is becoming a very in demand skill. While there are a lot of competitors also bidding on available jobs, there are more jobs available than any other freelance area. Learning to program can easily be done and there are many avenues to take which can both are extremely profitable and useful for yourself in building a portfolio and developing your own brand.
Video & Multimedia
Video content is fast becoming one of the most sought after media online. Anything from explainer videos, editing, sales videos, music videos and even animation is extremely useful to many businesses and individuals online and also can be great fun if you are handy with video programs.
Setting Prices
Now that you have a fair idea of what you would like to do to get your freelance career started, it is time to decide how much you should be charging. It can be helpful to look around at more successful freelancers to see what they are charging for their services and adjust these fees to your skill level. Of course as you are starting out, you want to gain as much traction as possible to further your reputation and gain some positive reviews. For this reason it is recommended that you do price your services a little lower but remember that this is merely to help you gain more customers. At the lower end of the scale many of your clients will be on a budget and will likely have a lower expectations, allowing you to get a feel for the jobs you have coming through.
Once you have gained some positive reviews and added some samples to your portfolio, never be afraid to start raising your prices. Many people can fall into the trap of keeping their prices low in the fear that they will start to lose clients when charging higher rates. While this might be true in a sense, keep in mind with higher rates you are effectively doing less work for the same or more pay. You might be charging $10 per hour doing design work, dealing with 10 clients each week. You raise your price to $20 per hour and suddenly you find you are only making contact with 5 clients each week. You might be working fewer hours but you are earning the same and have the potential to add additional clients once you start building your reputation and when the time is right, it is time to raise your price once again. Never undervalue your own work, there is always a buyer out there as long as you provide the value they are seeking. As you put your prices up, you will also find that the quality of your clients will improve. This could mean they provide more detailed, specific jobs or maybe they are more passionate about their work and they are seeking a freelancer who holds the same value.
Handling Clients and Writing Proposals
When you are first getting into the freelance game you will need to learn how to write proposals. This is undoubtedly one of the most important skills to have, as it will determine the chances you have for landing a job and developing your own sales skills. So how do you write an effective proposal? First of all, what is a proposal? You might have already guessed a proposal or bid is when you apply for a posted job, demonstrate your skills and let the client know you are the right freelancer for the job. The reason this is extremely useful is if you can write a great proposal you can land just about any job as well as outshine your competitors on jobs that they might even have more experience on or came in with a lower bid. Meaning you cannot only get a better price; you are also building up your own profile by using effective communication skills.
The first step towards writing a job-winning proposal is to make sure you are applying for the right kind of project. This means you want to seek out jobs that have a much lower count of other freelancers apply, ideally anything under 10 and definitely anything under 20. The reason for this is, with so many freelancers you might be simply wasting your time trying to get noticed and when you are starting out, the last thing you want is to be sending out proposals into a void.
In addition to this, you will also want to be selecting jobs that provide more details on what kind of work the client is seeking. This means you will want to avoid job descriptions that are one or two sentences. The reason for this will become clear when you start writing your proposal, but it is also an example of how your client treats their work and if they can’t put in much effort into their own work, they might be a client that is simply not worth working with.
It took me a long time to write this article. Hope it really adds value to you :)