The inflation is wreaking havoc with our finances. The cost of living continues to rise, to add to the whammy, our incomes do not rise at the same rate. For example, the price of milk in 2018 was $2.85 per gallon; it shot up to $3.19 per gallon in 2019, an increase of 11.92% in a year! Sadly, salaries do not rise in the same proportion. Many people are struggling with 2 jobs and even then it becomes difficult to survive. If you ask 10 people, how much money they manage to save every month? The answer will surprise you. 7 out of 10 people do not have enough savings.
Even if you are willing to work 30 hours a day, you cannot. We have limited time. We have to make choices. If we take up more jobs, we tend to compromise on family time. The choice is tough. No wonder, the depression rates are shooting up.
If you are managing two jobs, it will help you to increase income, but after some time exhaustion creeps in. You begin to wonder if it is really worth it. The more you work hard, the more frustrated you become. The rewards are not forthcoming. Freelancing as a career can be an attractive option.
What is freelancing?
If you have the talent there is nothing more exciting than a freelance career. You can work with a number of clients. This is refreshing if you are working in a 9-to-5 job. Freelancing is a profession where a person works for a number of clients, while not being recruited by just one organization. In other words, in freelancing a person works with his skills, and experience to help several clients get their projects done. In freelancing a person isn’t bound to just one organization to work with, instead, he can work with a number of clients at the same time.
Freelancing also gives a person the freedom to choose when to do the work (i.e., the work hours), in some cases even where to work (i.e., the work environment), and then a most important one to decide for what value they should work (i.e., the payment they receive once a project is completed). All this makes freelancing exciting than a monotonous job at the office.
Advantages of work from home
In today’s cut-throat competitive world, working from home is not uncommon. Working from home can be a productivity booster in many ways.
Flexible schedule
A flexible schedule lets you have breaks at any time (this is not possible in a regular job), gives you the freedom to work at your own pace (no more bickering from the boss) and complete other tasks at the same time while working (cook pasta while working on your ideas)
Custom Environment
Work from home lets you customize the work environment according to your liking (you can lie down on the couch and punch the keyboard) or You can hear your favorite music and adjust the noise level in a way you want it to be. You can adjust the lighting and distractions according to your preference.
Cozy Clothes
You get to wear whatever you feel like while working from home (even those pajamas that no one knows you own).
Zero Commuting
You do not have to travel hours just to reach the workplace in time and you will not even have to travel back from your workplace to home for hours after an exhausting day at work.
Save Money
You can save some money by not spending on expensive lunch every day outside the home when you can make it on your own even while working. Apart from that, you save a lot of money because you don't have to travel to work and back home every day.
More time with loved ones
You get a little more time every day to take care of your loved ones at home, you get to spend some quality time with them every day.
More time for yourself
You get to spend some more time with yourself every day (how about applying a face mask while writing a proposal). You get time to take care of yourself every day thus keeping high-stress levels at bay.
You get to keep the profit
One of the most miserable feelings in working for a daytime job is that you work hard on an insanely difficult project and you get paid with the same scanty amount of money for all your hard work. While the whopping amount of money that the company makes goes to the upper management of the company.
But this is not the same in freelancing. The money you make from your labor goes all to your bank account.
Fewer meetings
As a freelancer, meetings would not be your thing to do, along with all the company rituals, forgetting the simplest thing done. You don’t need to justify your point with a PowerPoint presentation anymore, trying to convince others.
Control over clients
One of the most interesting things about freelancing is that you get to choose with whom you work, totally opposite from a full-time job where you have no control over the choice of the people you work with.
Exposure
Freelancing opens up people to better work experience for a person on different projects and topics gets to learn more. It provides exposure to different projects in a particular field. This further helps in the growth of the person, freelancing is a way to broaden the areas of your skills.
Unlimited earning potential
Freelancing is a way to make a whopping amount of money by selling your skills. You can decide the intensity of the work you have to do according to your ease and earn accordingly. Thus, freelancers have an unlimited earning potential once they have established themselves.
Getting to turn your passion to your profession
Freelancing provides a golden chance to everyone, so that they can pursue their passion and make themselves better at it with each passing day. A lot of people out there do not get a chance to pursue their passion in life. Freelancing welcomes them all with open arms to pursue their passion, and make a living out of it.
No office politics
As you have to work on your own in the comfort of your home, there isn't any sort of politics involved in it. A freelancer gets the advantage of being safe and unaware of office politics and competition that are experienced in an office environment.
You gain an international working experience
Freelancing gives you an opportunity to work on an international level, and you can gain top class knowledge from people who excel in their field from all over the world.
You can learn new things every day. You put all your strength and efforts in competing with other freelancers. This in return helps you to have better analytical abilities and enhances your creativity. You become a thorough professional in your field and it also makes you mentally stronger.
Become Independent
You don't have colleagues or the tech team to help you out with your problems every time you face one. So, you got to help yourself by doing it all on your own, hence improving your skills and learning more every day.
It improves your communication skills
Communicating with different people on an international level also improves your communication skills on a large extent. This in turns helps you to become more professional in your field.
You don’t need a degree to be a freelancer
Being a freelancer is all about skills. You don’t need a qualification in order to be a freelancer. You just need some skills. If you have an interest or passion in a certain field, you can just learn those skills (from an online course or something like that) and start hustling to get yourself into the work and establish yourself well as a freelancer.
Disadvantages of freelancing
While there are enormous amounts of advantages of freelancing, there are quite a few disadvantages of the same too.
You’ll need to fight hard for getting a project
Freelancing is a very competitive profession to go for. In freelancing, you have to compete with millions of freelancers from all over the world to win a project.
You’ll have to strive to get paid
Getting paid for your work isn’t as easy as you think of it to be. Directly dealing with clients can sometimes be awful. Some of them will have sincere intentions of paying you but couldn't pay on time because something more important came up. While others will just try to deceive you from the start.
You will have to have too many irons in the fire
While you're offering a specific skill to your clients, you will also have to look after a lot more things. Not only will you have to be responsible for the work that your client has hired you for, but also for the other administrative tasks that are required such as billing, paying invoices, and dealing with other accounting matters.
You have to deal with inconsistent cash flow
As an employee, you can rely on getting a regular paycheck every month, but when you are a freelancer, you have to be lucky enough to get a few clients with regular and consistent work for you, this mostly happens when you have already established yourself well in the field. The cash you'll have due incoming would not ensue in an equitable manner. You have to pay your rent each month, you have to buy food every week. But unfortunately, you can't afford these things because you don't get paid in an equitable manner.
You are responsible for finding work
Unlike an employee who has the luxury to find the work they need to do by others, Freelancers have to find their own work. Every now and then you will hear from a client, especially when you have established yourself in the field. But other than that most of the time it is just you who is responsible for finding work for yourself. You will have to strive hard in order to win a job
Uncertain or unreliable workloads
Regrettably, being a freelancer means that you will have fluctuating and unreliable workloads. On some days when you have a lot of work to be done you’ll have to work for hours, not even making time for anything else. While on other days when you don't have a project, you’ll have nothing to do.
Difficult to take out personal time
As a freelancers, being your own boss and working from home can be quite hectic sometimes. It also means that you would not be able to take out time for your own interest. Most of the time you would work for hours not even knowing that you need some time for yourself.
No Employer benefits
As an employee gets a lot of benefits from its organization, a freelancer does not have this luxury. Starting your own freelance business means you would not get any further paid sick leave or paid vacation time. You would not have the health benefits and several other benefits that an organization offers to its employees. At last each day you do not work becomes a day you would not get paid for.
It can be isolating
Working from home and being self-employed can be very isolating. As a freelancer, you do not have colleagues, team members, staff, or management. Working all alone on your own can be quiet segregating sometimes. In such circumstances, networking or involvement in a professional association can be helpful in relieving the isolation. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-in are a great option to connect with other professionals from all over the world.
24/7 coverage
Nowadays, clients demand 24/7 service. As a freelancer, you should make sure that you provide your client with a round-to-clock service, especially when you’re working with clients in different time zones. You should always be ready to serve your client. No matter if you’re on a vacation, it's a weekend, or it is too late at night you should entertain your client whenever there is a need for you to do so.
Lack of job security
In freelancing, you never have job security. You never know when your business fails or collapses. On the other hand, you won’t even qualify for unemployment even if your business doesn’t succeed in the first place. For the sake of security, you might want to keep your full-time job when starting as a freelancer so as to have a backup even if your freelance job doesn’t turn out to be what you wanted it to be.
Development of skills and clients
As a freelancer, the biggest challenge you have to face is to constantly upgrade your skills and knowledge, to develop a better skill set, knowledge and work experience. While upgrading your skillset and knowledge you will also have to upgrade your clients from time in order to make the most out of your freelancing career with every project that you sign up for. Apart from this, you will also have to promote yourself very often in order to establish a better career. Marketing your skills and work can be another task of great skill. You can also add it as a skill in the future.
Tax sequel
As an independent freelancer, you are liable to pay the self-employment tax. Since an independent freelancer does not have taxes that are deducted from client checks, you are liable to pay the estimated tax on a quarterly basis.
Freelancing or employment
While freelancing is a field with quite a few amounts of both pros and cons. You will just have to decide if you are willing to take the risk. Freelancing is a means of professional freedom, but it also has instability and a great risk of failure. Maybe that’s not something you want in your professional life. But in case if you are willing to risk your stability to get a little more out of your professional goals than a traditional job, you will have the opportunity to build your name and establish yourself as a professional.
Deciding on any one among freelancing and employment can be quite confusing. If you’re ready to take the risk that comes with freelancing then you should go for it, else if you’re afraid of the risks that freelancing brings in, then maybe freelancing isn’t a thing for you.
Freelancing skills
If you’ve decided to take the leap and take a risk in order to establish yourself, then your dedication and passion towards it might take you to a better platform every the time you upgrade yourself. So, here are some freelancing skills to help you out to decide what interests you the most and what field should you pursue in freelancing.
1. User Experience Design:
The user experience design is a promising career. The ultimate goal of every website is to convert its users into customers. A bad user experience can mean the death knell for the business. UX designers make it their goal to achieve these by creating products that can be easily used and enhanced for a better experience for the visitors.
2. ASP Development:
The world wide web is growing and it will continue to grow in the coming years. More businesses will be online than ever. The demand for web developers is going to increase or maintain at the current rate. Thus, if you have web development skills, you must capitalize on the freelancing opportunities.
3. English Proofreading:
Let’s face it. There is a huge chunk of the population that doesn’t understand or have difficulty writing English. The demand for a proofreader is here to stay as people require them to make sure there aren’t any spelling or grammatical or typographical errors.
4. SEO/Content Writing:
SEO is indispensable for websites. They drive traffic, and without traffic, a website has zero value. The demand for good SEO specialists is going to increase from here. If you are an SEO specialist, freelancing can be highly rewarding.
5. Animation:
The video marketing has suddenly made animators precious. A good animation goes a long way in making the content interesting and engaging. Games, films, commercials are expected to see huge demand going forward. Freelancing a career as an animator can be highly rewarding.
6. Virtual Assistant:
Small businesses prefer virtual assistants. They are cheaper than hiring full-time employees. Virtual assistants can multi-task which is highly cost-effective. Businesses are taking advantage of the digital economy and becoming more efficient. A freelance career as a virtual assistant can be highly rewarding.
7. Lead Generation:
Lead generation is becoming indispensable for business especially if one is an online business. Leads are the lifeline of the business. It helps to drive massive amounts of traffic on the website. More traffic means more conversions. This is a must-acquire skill for a freelancer.
8. Data Mining:
The most popular job of the 21st century, a Data scientist analyzes big data in order to spot trends.
9. Social Media Marketing:
Brands and companies are searching for people who can launch strong social media campaigns for their products and services. They know the importance of a strong social media presence to help uplift their brands and companies.
10. Video Editing:
In this job people look for errors, add audio and graphics to make sure that the story matches the storyline. There are a huge number of brands wanting to develop video content.
11. AngularJS Development:
You can extend HTML vocabulary to build mobile and desktop web applications. This framework is in great demand these days and in the coming future.
12. Coding:
In this modern era of the digital world, the world is in great need of coders of all useful languages. Coders need to make all the applications we use these days' work.
13. Translating:
Translating from one language to another is also a job that is always in great demand.
14. Graphic designing:
In the freelancer’s world out there, there is an unlimited number of gigs in the graphic designing field.
15. Web development:
Web development is one of the most popular and highest-paying jobs in the field of freelancing.
16. Blog Writing:
In this field of writing online as a freelancer you will need some relevant skills to get the best work done for your client. Practicing very often will only make you better at work with each passing day.
17. Android development:
People who develop apps for android have a great opportunity in the freelancing career as it is a field that is growing very rapidly.
18. iOS development:
As in the android development field, people who are involved in iOS development also have a great opportunity in the freelancing world. This is also a field that is growing rapidly with each passing day.
Attributes of a successful freelancer
1. Self-confidence:
Self-confidence is an important attribute in the development of the career of a freelancer. A person should always be confident in his capabilities and work.
2. Professional attitude:
Having a professional attitude while being a freelancer is very important. As you don't have anyone else but just you to look after your freelance business, so there is a very strong need for you to be professional while being a freelancer.
3. Perfectionism:
As a freelancer you need your work to be perfect in all aspects. Your perfectionism will only help you grow your freelance business by fetching you more quality projects based on your previous work records.
4. Having eminent communication skills:
Having an eminent communication skill is a very important attribute for being a successful freelancer. Freelancing involves getting involved with a lot of clients on a regular basis. You should have good communication skills in order to impress your clients and convince him to hire you for his project. Having good communication skills can help you a lot by making your journey as a freelancer easier.
5. A mature attitude:
You should have a mature attitude in order to handle your freelance business in a very swift manner. A mature person always makes it to his goals no matter what the circumstances are.
6. Courage:
Having courage to take up a freelance career is very important. The leap that people take while opting for a freelance career is very huge. You need the courage to take up gigs that you think you will never make it there.
7. Positivity:
While taking up a freelance career, there are millions of thoughts that come along with the decision you make. At times your mind will try to invoke you to not do what you want to do. At times you will feel that you can not make it. At times like these, you need to stay positive and have a good belief in your own self and your capabilities.
8. A genius in problem-solving:
With different projects in a freelancer's career there come along different problems in your ways that you need to solve. Thus, having a genius in problem-solving is an important attribute for a freelancer to have.
9. Ambition:
Having an ambition or goal is the key to a successful freelancing career. Having an ambition set makes it easier for you to work. You know what you want and how much you need to work in order to make it to your goal successfully.
Preparing for the change
Preparing for the change that you’re making in your life is an important step to be taken. Planning ahead of time is key to success in every field. Planning on how to make this freelancing career work for you is an important and crucial step in making your career.
A person who plans his career ahead of implementing it goes way longer in his career as compared to a person who has just started with his freelancing career without planning out his way through it.
There are a lot of things that you need to decide before jumping into the sea of freelancing to support you swim through it.
1. Deciding how far to set a goal
Taking up freelancing as a career can be of two types - freelancing as a side-hustle or freelancing as a full-time career. There are pros and cons of both these situations; you will have to weigh these up in order to figure out if you want to take it as a full-time career option or as a side job.
2. Establish goals and milestones
Write down some simple goals that you want to achieve and then define some milestones. This will help you boost your freelancing career in an unbelievable way. High achievers in every field always put an impressive amount of time in establishing goals and milestones. This will help you to blur out all the distractions that will come on your way and make you more focused on the things that you’ve decided in your head to achieve.
3. Consider a business structure
While setting up a business of your own, you should consider all the consequences of different business structures, and hence choose wisely according to your own needs, requirements, and views.
Ask for advice
Working as a freelancer brings a disadvantage of being and working in isolation. You don’t have colleagues or a team around you to help you out or advise you about the goods and bad, or on the problem that you’re facing anytime you need. Sometimes, you will even feel like you are the last person on earth.
It would be obvious when you realize you don’t have someone who would be there to give you advice whenever you need one.
To overcome this loneliness, you should look through all your contacts to see if there is someone who would be willing to help you out and be your informal mentor. It will surprise you when you will see there are a huge number of people out there who are willing to help and could provide you with a helping hand.
If you don’t find anyone who would be a good fit to give you advice, then you should prefer starting with networking and building contacts with people who can help you out of this. Start joining discussion forums and networks, or even start your own group. Developing contacts with a mentor who has been freelancing for quite a few years now can make a huge difference to your career by becoming an information source for you.
Determining your rates
Determining your rates decide a lot about your freelancing career. In order to determine your rates, you need to calculate your minimum hourly rate. No matter if you are charging hourly or at a fixed rate. Either way, you should neither underprice or overprice your services. Underpricing your services might lead to the degradation of your work in the market while overpricing will make it harder for you to sell your services in the freelance market.
Planning your home office space
As most freelancers you might be planning to work from home. Working from home is an incredible advantage to have. But to get your work done well and on time, you will need an office. Building your own home office might be a great option for you.
Choose a quiet and a work-friendly environment to transform it into your own home office. Make sure that you have the facility of closing a door while choosing a space for this purpose, as it would help you block out the distractions that you might have at home.
Make sure that the temperature and the noise level in there makes you feel comfortable and focussed on your work.
Break up life and work
Having clear boundaries between your work and life might seem an easy task but might end up becoming a challenge for the fresher in the field of freelancing who are way too excited and end up taking whatever project that comes their way. You should practice the separation of work and life since the starting of your freelance career. At times you might feel the pressure to work for long hours and stay awake all night, but the lack of rest and relaxation time might end up making you less productive in the long run of time.
Division of the time for work and life will lead you to be mentally healthy, happy, and also focused on your work in the long run. If you start with this habit right from the start of your freelancing career, you might end up making yourself look more mature and professional on the outside, while it will make you more productive with the time passing by. You will achieve a happy and healthy experience in the journey of your freelancing career.
You might have to work an extra few hours every day due to deadlines and a few other similar reasons, but that is fine only if you reward yourself with some breaks. But you should also keep in mind that doing unnecessary stuff in these crucial times would not help you reduce these hours.
Determining your productivity
There is a huge difference between being productive and being busy. Sitting on your desk all day long might not always be very productive.
Track your time
Tracking the time that is taken by you to complete a task might help you figure out how much time you need to complete a project in the future. As a result, you would never under-quote the time required for a project to be done.
Making a to-do list
Keeping a to-do list is invaluable. It helps you focus on the works that you need to get done. It also emphasizes the importance and urgency of a work to be done. Thus having a to-do list helps you get your tasks done on time and keeps your tasks and time schedule organized.
Create a time schedule
Creating a time schedule will help you go swift in the work you are doing. Creating a time schedule and sticking to it is a very challenging task. But once you get your hands on it, you will have a major part of your work well managed.
Keep an eye on your competitors
Freelancing is a career that has an abundance of competition. Being aware of what your competitors are offering and updating your skills accordingly is quite an intimidating task. But as time passes by you will get better at it.
With all this information, you will be able to figure out what others are doing good and at what things they are having some loopholes.
Ask satisfied clients for Referrals
Working with all your heart and soul for a project might help you get your project done in an incredible manner. When dealing with a client who is satisfied with your work, you can get a referral, when asked for in the right way.
This is a fantastic way for your promotion when you are not good at marketing your skills. A happy client will never have a problem in referring you to other people who might be in need of your services.
Never forget to thank anyone who refers to others and you end up getting a project because of that referral.
Saving yourself from skill rot
Skill rot is a very concerning problem for freelancers. Skill rot happens when your skills remain the same while the skills expected from you keeps increasing.
The only way to survive to freelance is to keep on updating your skills from time to time. Learning new skills from time to time, sharpening your skills and applying them on your latest projects is a great initiative.
Secure some clients
Secure some regular and consistent clients. Build a good relationship with your clients, so that they would count on you when they are in need of a project to be done. These good relationships with your client would help you have a better future in the field of freelancing.
Choose a client with whom you can connect with. You need to build a partnership, and not just do jobs.
Build a portfolio
The best way to launch yourself in the freelancing market is by having a good experience in providing the services you have mentioned. Ensure that you have made enough samples before you start selling your services so that they can be used to determine the quality of services you are providing.
You need to get quite a few numbers of samples in your portfolio, so that you can show off your skills and get your hands on some projects as soon as possible. You can offer your services for free at first as a sample so as to kick start your freelancing career.
Conclusion
Remember, life is a learning experience. So, keep learning new things constantly. Always have a craving to learn more- buy books, read blogs, articles, and magazines, ask for advice, get into discussions, and gather other people's opinions.
- Have self-confidence
- Remain calm and focused.
- Be responsible.
- Have good support of your loved ones.
- Be passionate about your career.
- Keep hustling all-day and night.
- Manifest in planning beforehand.
- Acknowledge the payments you receive.
- Research well.
- Possess a professional attitude.
- Be a perfectionist.
- Develop excellent communication skills.
- Have a mature attitude.
- Develop a genius in problem-solving.
- Have an ambition.
- Be ready for the change.
- Turn down rude and toxic clients.
- Ask for advice.
- Determine your rates.
- Plan and build your workspace.
- Break up life and work.
- Determine your productivity.
- Keep an eye on your competitors.
- Upgrade your skills constantly.
- Ask for referrals.
- Secure some consistent and regular clients.
- Build a portfolio.
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