How to Become a Freelancer? An Ultimate Guide!
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With the boom in the digital world, the demand for freelancers in the market has increased. Companies and entrepreneurs are looking for part-time freelancers for their projects and companies. They prefer a freelancer to a full-time employee for their industry.
In such a case, what is stopping you from becoming a freelancer?
Freelancing gives you hundreds of dollars from the comfort of your home. It makes you a boss of your own and lets you explore your skills and talents. It can help you to achieve your dream life. So, start freelancing at this instant!
But wait?
How to start freelancing? How to become a freelancer? What should be the strategy to become a successful freelancer?
I bet you have these questions in your mind! So, let's explore the answer.
Become a Freelancer:
We are going to learn the steps which will help you build a strategy and make you a successful freelancer.
Define your goals for freelancing:
Why do you want to start freelancing? Will it be your side business or full-time employment? What are your earning goals for freelancing?
You can't be motivated or consistent in your work without any clear goal or destination. You can't drive a car unless you know your goal. You can't achieve any success if you don't have a clear idea.
For it, think about your goals and needs. If you want to start freelancing as a part-time job, its purpose can be to enhance your lifestyle or to achieve a certain thing in your life.
If it is a full-time job, calculate your whole expenses and set a specific amount of money as your goal. Maybe you will not be able to achieve it in your first month, but if you remain consistent and your goal will be in your mind, you will be able to achieve it quickly.
So, in the first step, set your income destination and strive hard to achieve it.
Choose your skill:
The second and crucial step is to choose your skills. In freelancing, you can work on more than one skill, but for beginners, you should focus on only one skill. It will help you to start freelancing and earning money immediately.
Your skill can be related to your education, your hobbies or interests.
For example, if you are an English Language student, there is a possibility that your writing skills are polished. So, you can step into writing services.
Maybe, your hobby is drawing and painting. So, you can start graphic designing. Maybe you are a lover of reading books, so you can start writing book reviews, editing or proofreading. You are a student of Education so you can start online teaching.
If you are an employee or have done any job before, you must have those skills too. You can convert it into the online world and can earn money from it.
Narrow Down your Skills:
Take a paper and pen and write down your skills, hobbies and interests.
After that, search for the services about it on Upwork, Fiverr or other freelance platforms.
Check whether people are getting orders or earning money from that skill. If people are not earning much from that skill, there is no scope for it, so don't waste your time on it.
If your first skill has no scope, try the second one. Check which of your skills has the scope and go for it.
Learn about Freelancing services:
In freelancing, skills and giving services are two different things.
For example, designing a post is a skill and doing social media marketing is a service.
Writing is a skill and delivering SEO-optimized articles is a service.
Your freelance services are a bit different from your skills, so you need to learn the technicalities of it.
You need to create a package of your service which will provide a solution to your audience. For it, you have to polish your skill and have to learn about the value you can add to your client's business.
To learn to freelance, you can go for online courses and YouTube. You can learn for free from YouTube and can join any free online course too.
Give one or two months to learn about your service.
Identify your client:
It is imperative to identify your client to give a valuable service.
There are a lot of freelancers who don't know about their target clients. This caused them to take every type of order and deliver low quality.
Or, they are always afraid of taking any order. They are unable to grow in the freelancing world because they don't know the expectations of their clients and what they should deliver.
To avoid this scenario, identify your ideal client.
In the beginning, take small orders from small businesses. Identify the pain points of your client and give solutions to their pain points. Through it, you will be able to deliver quality content. It will also help you in learning new things.
For example, if you are a copywriter, then you should target small businesses in the beginning. Find out what their target is and how you will help them in achieving that target. It will start making things clear to you.
Do remember that every skill has certain limitations too. For example, I am a blogger and content writer. At this moment, I am only able to provide SEO Optimized and informative blogs and articles to my clients. I am not a copywriter, so I can't take on projects which are related to creating a copy.
You should also know the limitations of your skill and avoid those clients and projects which are not within the span of your skill.
Create your Portfolio:
After identifying the skills and your target client, it is time to create a strong portfolio.
There are certain apps, websites and ways where you can create your portfolio.
For example, there are certain websites for "writing skill" portfolios that you can create. If you are a social media marketer, then you can either give free services to someone or can create your business profiles to showcase your talents. If you are a web developer, you can create dummy websites for your portfolio.
In short, every skill and field has its way of creating a portfolio. You can identify your way and can start working on it.
Create four to five different types of samples to make a strong portfolio.
Showcase your Portfolio:
Don't just create the portfolio, but spread words about it on different social media accounts.
For it, LinkedIn is the best place to showcase your portfolio. You can create posts about your portfolio and let other people know about your expertise.
You can also publish them on Facebook Groups, Instagram and other social media accounts.
When you spread the word about your expertise, you will be able to get clients.
Create accounts on Freelancing platforms:
Now, the time has come to create accounts on freelancing platforms.
Fiverr, Upwork, Guru, Freelancer and various other freelancing platforms are waiting for your presence.
Create gigs on Fiverr, bid on Upwork projects, create Upwork Catalogues and create your profiles on other freelancing platforms.
For it, you should know how to deal with the client and how to write attractive requests.
In it, you should address your client's problem and provide a solution to it. You should have a professional tone and a solid strategy to solve your client's issues. Develop your communication skills to earn clients.
Always understand your client's problem and provide a valid and strong solution to his problem.
In this step, you should complete your profile and start bidding on different projects. Keep your patience level high and be consistent.
Start making Connections:
Instagram, Linkedin and Facebook Groups are full of different freelancers. There are senior and junior freelancers with whom you can connect.
These connections will help you in your time of difficulty. You can rely on them, can make brilliant connections and can get new opportunities to grow. These connections will teach you, will help you and can give you a chance to grow.
So, start making friendly connections with other freelancers in your field. Offer your help and take help whenever there is a need.
Build your team:
Tap in your previous connections and team up with different freelancers. The team will help you in exploring the freelance world and will let you work more and more.
How to work in a team?
You can divide duties among your team members which will let you work in a better way. For example, you can give social media marketing duty to a person, can take blogging duty yourself, or one person to deal with clients.
Or, you can take multiple orders at one time and divide them among your team members. In the end, you can pay them for their work after taking a commission on each project.
When do I need a team?
You need the team when you will be able to gain some projects and succeed in developing some credibility in the freelance world.
It can happen within three to four months if you will follow all these nine steps.
So, go ahead and start your freelance journey! Stop procrastinating! Take out a pen and pencil and start defining your goals. After it, pen down your skills and find out which one is valuable. Identify your client to create a strong portfolio. Publish your portfolio, create an account on freelancing platforms and land on your first project. Do friendship with social media to develop connections.
And boom, you have become a successful freelancer!
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