Small and medium-sized businesses need some help, not full-time employees to do the work. Here come the freelancers, they help them with their work for a particular time period.
What are the main challenges that a freelancer should face?
Find your Value
The person who is interested in freelance must choose a niche to work with. This will be the value that he/she is providing into the market. Choose a skill and learn the skill and build something, create some projects and share it with the internet.
Communicating your Value
After finding your value and learning the skill, the next step is about Selling it in the market. You need to make a good connection with your client. You should be aware of trending news and global issues or something you and the client are interested in, to make a good conversation and build a relationship.
Deliver you Value
The next step after communicating your value is that you need to know how to deliver it. Say if you are a graphic designer and delivering your value is about making good graphic designs and make the work process easier for your client.
Adoption Bell Curve
Every skill that you see in the market will go through this adoption bell curve
The early stages of a skill or an industry are marked by low awareness about it, but high enthusiasm amongst the early adopters. Next, seeing the excitement amongst the early adopters, many people start to accept it. As many people come to know about it, it obviously becomes a popular thing. People become more aware of it and try to make it simpler, as a result, it becomes a commodity. The simplest way exists, it is then automated by robots.
Two types of platforms
Horizontal Platforms
These are the general kind of platforms. This means the platform has different types of jobs at different levels. You can sell any skill at any level of experience. Some of the examples are Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr.
Vertical Platforms
This platform differs from the horizontal platform on the basis of the type of project you work with, there are separate platforms for designers, writers, and many more. The other factors could also be the scale of the project, budget, client requirements. Some examples of this kind of platform are Crew, TopTal, Gigster, etc.
Making a proposal
- Take time to read and understand the job description/requirement.
- Highlight the value you can provide, it should be relevant to the situation
- Mention a time limit, say you design a website, let the client know how much time you will take to complete the first mockup, and get clear with that.
- Explain if you had any past experience related to the potential job.
- Add some personality to your proposal, just add some interesting news about the skill or some humor.
- Make clients comfortable with the work process, explain to them how are you both gonna work.
Setting up Goals
Your goal must be tangible. For example, make a goal like “ I will learn graphic design and land my 1st project within 2 months.
Break things down to the simplest form, this helps you to structure your daily duties. Write things down in a notebook/your notepad where you can see them often. This gives you the boost to work for it.
Recommended Targets:
Within 3 months: Learn core skills and land 1st client.
Within 6 months: Land up to 4 clients and touch the $25 per hour rate.
Within 1 year: Make $40 an hour and have a regular line of orders.
That's it human. Thank you for spending your time and reading this. Hope it adds value to your freelance life. If you want to learn more about these topics you can read Pyjama Profit by Varun Mayya & Abhinav Chhikara.
