What is Freelancing?
Freelancing is the process of doing contracted work for multiple clients and companies. A freelancer’s field of expertise can range from content creation to app development to tutoring, and he or she could also be referred to as an independent contractor or self-employed worker.
Types of Freelancing
Currently, there are lots of jobs that can be done remotely by the freelancers. Thus, not only writers, but even business analytics can be freelanced. Here are the most widespread niches and business you can freelance:
- Administrative
- App and/or Web Development
- Consulting
- Graphic and/or Web Design
- Miscellaneous
- E-Learning
- Photography
- Videography
- Writing
The Pros and Cons of Freelancing
Now, let’s pull the spotlight back and look at freelancing as a whole. Regardless of fit or type of work, there are definite benefits and drawbacks to a career as a freelancer. Let’s look at a few.
Advantages
- You’re the boss.
- You could pay less in taxes.
- You (can) make more money.
- You have a better work-life balance.
Disadvantages
- You’re the boss. — You’re responsible for all the work, including the administrative tasks
- You have to organize your own benefits, taxes, and accounting.
- If you don’t work, you don’t make money.
- Instability can interrupt your work-life balance.
Is Freelancing for You?
As you see freelancing has lots of opportunities on offer as well as downsides. That’s why it’s so important to self-evaluate to understand if freelancing is for you. So, before you get started think about and ask yourself the following questions:
- Why do I want to freelance?
- What do I want to freelance?
- Can I afford to be a freelancer?
- Have I enough management skills for freelancing?
Guide to Freelancing: from Start to Get Paid
So, what exactly do you need to do to become a successful freelancer? Here is a step-by-step instruction on how to get started.
Create a Winning Freelancer Profile
Building a brand is a must-have. That’s why you need to create an outstanding profile with all the skills, talents and job experience you have. You can use tools like Crello for this purpose. This is not only a tool for creating awesome sticker design, it offers a number of useful features to make your profile not just good but excellent with thousands of graphical elements in the assortment.
Here is a check list of must-have elements for your freelancer portfolio:
- Your real name – don’t be tempted to use a made-up name like “A. Writer” or “Best Editor”
- A good profile photo, it’s better to choose a professional one
- A descriptive job title
- Your relevant skills and qualifications (you might have to select only the most pertinent here)
- A portfolio of your previous work
Set a Estimates and Rates for Your Work
Here is how you can estimate and rate your work:
- Cost-Plus Pricing
- Market Rate Pricing
- Value-Based Pricing
Set Your Workspace
Think about where you’re going to work. The physical workspace can massively impact your productivity, focus, and motivation. You can go to the IT-cafe, openspaces or stay at home. Yes, actually, you can create a home office that will work as well. However, it’s vital to find your balance where you can focus on the job, be productive, and happy.
Place Your Portfolio on the Workboards and Freelance Websites
It’s time to find a job but where? Today there are lots of freelance websites where you can fill in the portfolio and link your greatly-designed one to search for work. Such workboards give you the capability to look for the clients by yourself as well as waiting for the clients to find you.
- CloudPeeps
- ProBlogger
- UpWork
- 99Designs
- SimplyHired
- Guru
Final words and advice
There are a lot of opportunities and benefits offered by freelancing. Here you’re free to choose everything from the job, client to the rates, and schedule. However, before starting a freelance career, weigh all the pros and cons to make sure that this workstyle suits you. Just because you need to work hard to make money.
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