Freelancing has gained a lot of popularity these days. You might be considering taking the leap and starting your own freelance business, but you don’t have the time to quit your job and focus on your new business full-time. You’re not alone. Many people are choosing to become freelancers for themselves while still keeping their current jobs.
To become a freelancer, I was constantly on the lookout for ways to increase my income. I considered starting a side business in the past, but I’ve never leaped because I’m worried about losing my job. I’m happy with my current situation and I don’t want to risk my income by leaving my job to start a business. But I’ve always been curious about the idea of starting a side business while working full-time. Today, I’m going to share my process for starting a freelance business while still working full-time or part-time employment. As someone who has done both, I can tell you that you can build a successful freelancing activity on the side — even if you have a full-time job.
Step 1: Get The Right Equipment
When you are in a desperate situation, you tend to make horrible decisions. That is absolutely why I consistently suggest against starting a freelance business to get quick money. In actuality, it took me 4 years to establish a reliable freelancing income. Freelancers frequently ask me if there is any work they can accomplish with just a smartphone. The short answer is no, as smartphone apps have few functions. To execute the software needed for completing the job correctly and producing excellent results, you need a laptop/computer. Therefore, purchasing a laptop or an outdated computer would work just as well before you consider working online.
Step 2: Choose A Valuable Skill
The second stage is to find a skill you offer as a service. The services can vary from simplest tasks to complicated ones such as transcribing a podcast or developing a mobile application. Finding a skill that you are proficient in and that is in high demand in the market, whatever it may be, is the key to succeeding as a freelancer. You can search a freelance marketplace like UpWork or Freelancer and check if there are jobs in demand for the skills you are good at, then you have hit gold.
Step 3: Improve your skills
As soon as you identify a marketable skill, confirm that you can provide a service using it. Simply put, to be rewarded for what you do, you must be extremely good at it. Let’s take the example of wanting to write for health and wellness blogs as a freelancer. Demand for this category is strong. You’ve written about it before in college or at school. That does not, however, imply that you may create blog posts for internet readers. Writing an article format is considerably different across blogs and online magazines. primarily to draw in a broad audience. You must now acquire the skills necessary to compose blog posts for online readers. Learn WordPress usage techniques. the best way to create graphics for articles. plus more. The same holds for any other freelance expertise available.
Step 4: Develop Your Credibility
Being able to prove your skills and work will determine whether you’ll be a successful freelancer or not.
Clients won’t hire you if you can’t demonstrate your expertise in your skill set. If you’re an essayist, you ought to have articles distributed on well-known sites. On the off chance that you’re a visual planner, you ought to have the option to highlight a brand and say you planned their logo.
Step 5: Make A Portfolio
A portfolio can be a site or a page where you grandstand all your work. If you’re a visual planner, for example, you may create a portfolio page on a website like Behance to display all of your plans. Like that, while you’re contacting a client, you can just give them the connection to your portfolio to look at your abilities. Try to remember your best work for the portfolio as it were.
Step 6: Take a stab at Freelancing Part-Time
Everyone is not cut out for freelancing. It might be overwhelming to market yourself, sell your services, and interact with customers. Try freelancing part-time if you’re unsure of whether it’s the proper career route for you. Every day, put in a few hours focusing on minor freelance projects. Choosing whether to quit your day job or go full-time as a freelancer depends on when you feel prepared to take on larger jobs.
Step 7: Search for the Best Platform for Freelancing
This step plays a crucial part in how easily jobs could be hunted. A mistake most beginning freelancers make is to search for the most popular freelance marketplace and join to get started. Like Freelancer.com or UpWork, there are already millions of freelancers on these websites from all over the world. They also compete for jobs by engaging in price wars as a result of the competition. They will consistently lower their prices to win the job. Additionally, it has no purpose. The ideal strategy, and the strategy that worked best for me, is to choose a market that is still relatively undeveloped and enter it. There won’t be as many freelancers, thus there won’t be as much rivalry. Additionally, it will improve your employment prospects.
Step 8: Set the appropriate price
It can be difficult to set the appropriate pricing for your services. Because they won’t even consider hiring you if you ask for the wrong price. The simplest strategy to establish the proper pricing at first is to visit well-known freelance marketplaces and check out the rates that other freelancers in your specialty or business are charging.
It’s unfair to charge the same rates as seasoned freelancers given your inexperience. Instead, you should strive to find a middle ground where you may charge less than those seasoned freelancers while still coming out as reasonable.
Step 9: Submit Your Initial Proposal
Writing a proposal for a client requires considerable effort. It differs from writing a standard email or a social media post. You need to give it some serious thought and determine how to convince your client to hire you rather than any of the other freelancers. When drafting a successful proposal, there are a few tricks and strategies you can apply. Since I am unable to cover everything in detail here, please click on the links to learn more.
Step 10: Delivering Far and Beyond
Once you were awarded a job, the second stage is to make sure that you deliver the project just as the client has asked. Or, in this case, I want you to deliver the job by going above and beyond the client’s expectations. For example, in the early days of my freelancing career, I used to get jobs for writing blog articles with a fixed word count of 1,000 words. I wrote the essay to be between 1100 and 1200 words long, and when I delivered it, I also included a special header image for the blog post. without adding a premium. The customers were consistently pleased with my work. and provided 5-star reviews. So, find a way to go above and above in your employment. and become adept at standing out from the crowd. The only way to establish a successful freelancing career is to do just that.
Best Freelancing skills in trend
The following are some of the most in-demand freelance skills:
- Canva Freelancer
- Copywriting Jobs
- Website Designing
- Graphic Designing
- Freelance Blogging
- Freelance Blockchain Developer
- Content Writing
Best freelancing websites to start freelancing:
The following are some of the greatest freelancing websites that are also excellent for beginners: