Freelancing is totally different from what it used to be. This is especially true because of the pandemic; many employment sectors have already adopted work from home policies for their employees.
As many countries have adopted this policy during lockdowns because of the pandemic many of the global employee workers are staying in their homes.
There are many important tasks that still must be done that can be outsourced. So, there is a demand for online freelancers who can do work while staying at home.
In quarantine, people are selling their skills online to new clients. Some of them are exploring new courses to train for a skill so they can do freelancing.
Believe it or not you can find clients who require only having basic skills e.g. data inputting. You will also find employers who want freelancers to do a small task that require minimal retraining.
In 2020, just like coronavirus freelancing is rapidly evolving and spreading. There are many freelancers applying for contracts and the competition is international. It can be difficult to get a start.
But there are different types of clients that want a specific quality and are targeting low budget workers and you may provide them with services which experts are less inclined to do so whether because of the rate or they have a skills mismatch.
There is a lot of articles written about the need for digital skills, here is one interesting article by smartinsights.com: Current and Future Demand for Digital Skills.
Here Are Some of the Tricks Which Will Help You to Dominate in Freelancing:
1. Complete Your Profile
As to be expected, most of the beginner freelancers do not fill out the required data. An incomplete profile will be a great drawback for you in the beginning stage. Who likes to hire a freelancer who has not taken the time to complete their profile?
If you want to win the bidding race, provide attractive details with a professional display of your portfolio. Your level of expertise should be mentioned in a simple and clear way. All the required details should be compulsorily filled.
Completing a freelancing platform test would a bonus for you as the client can see you are serious. Providing any certificate related to your skill will surely boost your chance of getting a client to hire you.
2. Building Your Portfolio
Let me tell you the most important factor in the world of freelancing is to build your portfolio. Initially, without any portfolio, there is less chance of you getting hired.
Your level of experience is judged by your past work mentioned in your portfolio. It is proof of your skills as it shows your expertise. All the detailed work you have done for your client should be noted on your list.
If a person with a certificate and another person with a certificate and a portfolio, then it is likely that the person with the certificate and portfolio will get hired first.
3. Work for Low / Free
Regarding building your portfolio, there is no best way other than working for a low or free budget at first. Working for free may get you a first project to start with. However, many freelancers that have done this have reported that it is a scam and recommend you instead start with a low budget.
In the beginning, there is no way of you getting high budget clients as you do not have any work history. If you manage to find people who need freelancers at low rates than that is a plus to you, you will likely get your first work soon.
In a later topic, I have listed many ways from where you can find low budget clients. Slowly doing low budget work will help you start to build your reputation.
Once you are getting projects regularly you can start to increase your rates gradually. Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is one possibility which you can read about here.
4. Communication
As a freelancer, the restriction of country borders is gone. The clients you will get will be from any part of the world. The most common language in communicating with them will be English.
So, to become a freelancer you should at least know how to read and write in English in a competent manner. The clients are always in a hurry so your response should be spontaneous as possible.
Any miscommunication can lose you a project. It is important to know the right way for approaching and pitching so there will never be a deficiency in that part of your freelancing work.
5. Social Media
Social media is the best platform to get clients if you are a total newbie. There are infinite Facebook groups for every skill where daily tons of people post jobs. LinkedIn is another platform where you are likely to communicate with the potential clients and win good contracts.
Author Bio:
Abhishek Tank is working as a News Writer for Read Us 24×7. He throws spotlights on Latest News which are highly influenced around the globe. Starting from Competitive Business to Entertainment and from Sports to unique Technologies, he briefs them all for you in a readable manner.
