How To Become a Freelancer
Did you know that one in three American workers are earning their money through freelancing? There are so many worthwhile benefits of having a freelancing career. Think outside the box, learn how to become a freelancer and enjoy all the flexibility that freelancing has to offer.
Key Advantages of A Freelancing Career
When you’re a freelancer, you are your own boss. You are able to do things your own way, within reason of course. There are so many benefits of being a freelancer such as:
- Setting the rate of pay
- Choosing which projects you will do
- Choosing the clients you want to work with
- Being able to develop a workable schedule
Best of all, with the Internet, you can work anywhere and everywhere – be it at home, coffee shop, by the pool, or wherever. While you can work in person as a freelancer, a major benefit is being able to work at home on a flexible schedule.
How Can You Become A Freelancer?
Just getting started is the most difficult part of becoming a freelancer. That’s right! Just starting the process of becoming a freelancer is the most difficult part of all.
Think about how overwhelming it is to clean your house – bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchen, etc. The more you think about what you have to do, the harder it is to get going. Once you do though, you reap the benefits of a cleaner house.
The same thing applies to freelance. You may feel overwhelmed by all the tasks you have to do to get noticed, but the benefit of undertaking the tasks is getting jobs and getting payed for your services. Still, it’s work, and should be treated as such!
Any success you garner is the result of actions you, and you alone, take. The more effort you put into your freelancing career, the more success you see from it.
Do you feel you have the skills to become a freelancer and be successful at it? I’m positive that you do!
Create A Freelance Skills List And Find Your Hidden Talent
While it’s great to know why you should become a freelancer, you still need to sell a service – some kind of skill you are good at, and that other people can use. This may be where you start doubting yourself, but just know that everybody has a skill they are good at. You may not see it right off the bat, but it’s there, and people will want to pay good money for your services.
There are two reasons people hire a freelancer:
- They don’t have the time to do something themselves even if they know how to do it
- They don’t have the knowledge to carry something out
The key here is to market yourself in a way that individuals, with little time or knowledge of your particular skill set, will want to hire you. By doing this, you allow them to focus on the more important tasks of their day.
What Kinds Of Things Do You Know To Become A Freelancer With?
You know a lot more than you think. In fact, you could probably think back to your childhood address and phone number. That’s how much information you have locked away. While these are not skills you’d use as a freelancer, it gives you the idea that you do have skills and knowledge people may want to use.
You need to bring attention to those skills that can help people save themselves time. Of course, before you can sell any skill you have, you must know what is going to sell.
Realize What Your Hard and Soft Skills Are
There are two categories of skills: hard and soft.
Using Hard Skills To Become A Freelancer
Hard skills are measurable skills – ones that show what you have knowledge of. For example, graphic design, content writing, Photoshop, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
Another way to think about hard skills is in terms of a portfolio. Freelancers often will have an online portfolio that they can show to potential customers. Portfolios showcase examples of your work and increase trust with a client, because it visually emphasizes that you know what you’re doing. Think of examples that you will put in your portfolio. These will be your hard skills.
Using Soft Skills To Boost Friendliness
Soft skills are not as easy to measure, but are more a matter of who someone is as a person. These are the inherent skills you have such as reliability, organization, open communication, time management, etc.
Recognize What Your Sell-able Skills Are
Of hard skills and soft skills, hard skills are the ones that people are initially searching for. After all, these are skills people will need for their problems to be solved. For example, a website developer may not have the skills to write content for their blog. Thus, they’ll hire a freelance writer to help them to create content to upload to their site.
Another example is a small business owner hiring a freelancer with bookkeeping experience to manage their books. Or, a company hiring a social media marketing freelancer to help them boost their online presence.
Read “7 Popular Freelance Services You Can Make A Successful Career Of” to get a better idea of freelance skills that sell.
Differentiate Yourself From Competitors
There are many people freelancing out there, so how do you garner a buyers’ attention? Let’s suppose you know how to build a website. That’s a great skill set. But if you know how to build a website and have great communication, that’s even better.
Who do you think a prospective buyer will choose, when it comes to two relatively identical hard skilled freelancers? Is it the one who has the needed hard skills, but is also deadline driven and great at communicating or the other who only promotes their hard skills?
Chances are the buyer is going to go with the freelancer that has both hard and soft skills. Hard skills will initially lure customers in, but soft skills can help put you above other freelancers, and keep customers coming back.
Take The Initial Step To Becoming A Freelancer
One of the first steps to becoming a freelancer is doing research to find which skills are actually selling. Read “7 Popular Freelance Services You Can Make A Successful Career Of” to get a better idea of freelance skills that sell.
Second, make a list of your hard and soft skills. Cross check your skills list with skills that are in demand. Remember that you can make it as a freelancer even if you have just one marketable skill to offer. Yep! That’s all it takes is one marketable skill. If you feel that you need to improve your skillset, you can do it relatively cheaply or better yet free online.
Next, create a website to showcase your skills. You can either take a stab at it and create a website yourself , or go with a seasoned pro, such as myself to create one for you. If you need someone to create a website for you, I’m here to help. Go to my website to see examples of my past projects and what I can do for you.
Also, it always helps to create a LinkedIn profile. Read our article on “LinkedIn Profile Tips” to get started on LinkedIn.
Last but not least, start looking for those freelancing projects. [Put links here on how to find projects].
Career Paths: How To Become a ..., Freelance Jobs, Working From Home Tips
