Tips for a beginner freelancer
A great many people think about becoming a freelancer. Being the master of your own time, doing only the work you like, and earning good money while at it. All of this is achievable, but only if you are ready to put in a considerable amount of time and effort to reach such a goal.
The freelance job market is filled to roughly 60%, which means great prospects for finding work. However, things are not so simple here. In this sector, reputation and portfolio play a major role. And if you have neither one nor the other, finding well-paid projects will be a real problem.
So how do you avoid ending up in a deep, unpleasant spot?
You should stick to certain rules.
The main tips for a beginner freelancer
By settling your position on each of these points, you will definitely be able to work successfully on the freelance principle:
1. Analyze the types of activity. You should determine what you do best. These should not be 10 completely different skills with no connection to one another. You may know only one "topic", but at the same time be a specialist in it, and that is very important. And after choosing your main niche, you should analyze as many freelance sites as possible in order to understand how much it costs. Without knowing the average prices, in 99.9% of cases you will get the price wrong (either too low or too high). Now you should determine how much work there is in your niche. How many orders a month you can take on. This will give you a rough understanding of your monthly income. Of course, you need to consider both the optimistic and the pessimistic scenario. And if in both scenarios the amount is satisfactory, then all that remains is to act methodically.
2. Do not rush headlong into it. This means that if you have a main job from which you receive money every month, you should not quit it right away. At the initial stage you will not earn enough to cover all your wishes anyway. Besides, to some extent you will have to invest in your freelancing, either in additional training or in a subscription. Work on your reputation, and the cost of your services will grow. And when it becomes large enough, you will be able to write a resignation letter and stop dragging yourself up in the morning with the alarm clock.
3. Look only for work that will get you paid. At the moment there is a large number of scammers. Doing big orders without a guarantee of payment is tantamount to suicide. Use marketplaces with escrow of funds, verified clients, look up information and reviews about clients, and check blacklists.
4. Focus on large orders and long-term cooperation. At the initial stage it is quite difficult to find a permanent client, however small orders will wear you out, and you will not get decent pay. The time spent searching is not paid for, so you should aim for steady work or large projects. Having several constant sources of new projects, you will be insured and able to reach your desired result every month.
5. Work on your offer. The person you are going to offer your services to should clearly understand why exactly you are the one to choose. Make a beautiful portfolio, a commercial proposal. Lay this out in a few pages of pdf and you will definitely make them pay attention to you. A letter with such an attachment is one you want to read. There is no need to overload it with information, just briefly describe your work and attach examples.
6. Tasks should be done according to the technical brief. This is correct standard practice, however, far from everyone uses it. Competently put together the paragraphs of the technical brief, which the client can simply fill in and get exactly what they need as the result. Any client will have a more favorable attitude toward such a working approach.
7. Know how to save. It is very important to set aside part of your income. If you have been setting aside, for example, 10% of your income every month, then you have an insurance fund for the time when there are no orders at all. Such a situation can happen to anyone. Usually this is the summer period, when most legal entities take unofficial vacations and reduce the activity of their work.
These 7 easy rules will let you get ahead of many other freelancers who act blindly. It is important to always strive for high quality in your work, and this will surely pay off.
Of course, no rules will insure you 100% against mistakes, but they will definitely help you make them as rarely as possible.
