In case you are a freelancer, there are hardly any jobs that would meet your abilities. Most people prefer working as a freelancer as it not only offers you freedom but also at the same time tends to offer you a level of satisfaction as well happiness. Usually, people work as freelancers because of one of the two reasons. One is that they want some extra income along with their salaries.
The other reason is that they don’t want to work, or I should rather say that they can’t work under someone as tolerating a bossy behavior is something which is not their cup of tea. They want to be their own boss, and they would prefer working only for themselves instead of working for someone else. This makes them happy, and they feel free and sorted. There are a lot of online portals which are now offering people a choice to work from home and earn a constant income depending upon the level of hard work they can put in.
One such place is freelancer.com. This site tends to offer freelancers with a chance to work in the file of content writing, designing, development or any other job profile that a person might be interested in working. The best part is that you get to decide what work do you want to do, bid for the same and hence will be able to get the job based on the qualifications you possess.
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6 Steps For Make Money as a Freelancer
So, let’s dive in a little deeper and see what steps you need to follow to earn a decent amount of income.
1 Create an Effective Profile
Yes, this is definitely a task which is a big pain in the head. You have created a profile on LinkedIn, Twitter and God Knows on how many other platforms, but you need to create the same on this portal as well. But, this is required as this is what will distinguish you from all the others present out there. Fill in your details, your education, your work experience and the most important your profile picture. Try and make sure that you make an effective profile and get yourself verified too. Your profile should create a picture of a genuine person in the mind of anyone who looks at it for the first time. You should be very particular about the description of your skills that you are mentioning.
2 Choose the Area of Specialisation
Yes, this is the area which will help you earn some income. You need to decide upon the task in which you are good at, and should be able to showcase that in your profile. Your mere word of mouth won’t be enough for getting you some work. You will need to convince the customer that yes you are the best suited for the job.
You will undoubtedly receive a higher price as well as work in case you have an experience in the field you mention yourself to be good in. An imperative thing to be kept in mind is that you need to focus on a particular field in which, you think, you expertise in. Entering the whole ocean of skills will not help you getting the project, rather, it is a negative thing. Customers search for people who are expertise in particular skills.
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3 Bid Often and Pay Up
One thing that you should try and go for is frequent bidding. Try and set aside some time for sending bidding applications to the customer. The more you bid, higher your chances of getting a project are.
Also, customers prefer freelancers with a higher starred rating as well as good previous feedbacks. Therefore, while in the initial phase of freelancing, try and bid lower than all other people on a particular project. This portal allows you to see the total project cost as well as the average bidding cost. Hence, use these as a guide and bid lower than this as well as pay an extra amount of money for keeping your bid on the top. Initially, you will have to bear some expenses to get your first project. Once, you will get an excellent rating; it would become a bit easy to get projects further.
4Read the description of the project carefully
Most of the customers feel very irritated when they receive cover letters from freelancers who haven’t actually read the project requirement and description. Before sending these letters, take a moment and read what the project is about and include a keyword in your bid to help the customer realize that you actually read their description very cautiously.
5Sending in Cover Letter
Now this is again one of the most important steps of bidding on a particular project. There are cover letters for writers, designers and for every other profession. Write down a solid cover letter followed by why you should be hired for this project. Don’t just send same cover letters to all the employers as this reduces your chances of being selected.
Include a quality that you think would help you stand out from the rest. For example, in the case of writing tasks, you can say that you are a native speaker of that language, and hence, it would give you an edge over others. Include as many links to your work as you can, and also provide a specific link to any task you have done which is similar to the one you are applying for. Also, include your qualities and do not be over-descriptive as the employer can read your profile for any other information.
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6 Be Specific, Be Precise, Be Punctual
If you get a message from the employer, who is hesitant to provide you the job, give him contact details of any previous employer you have worked for. However, don’t offer a sample of your work if it is a one-time deal. If it is a long and expensive project then providing the sample is fine.
Also, once you get the project from the employer ask him to set up clear sets of milestones as you don’t want yourself to be not paid for the work you have done. Do not start with something without having a clear idea of what the customer requires. Talk to him and settle on the terms that may be agreeable upon for both of you. As, if you won’t do that, disputes might occur in future, and you will be in trouble. Problems like not getting paid for the work done, an increment in the modules decided to be done; all such are problems are likely to occur.
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Also, avoid any unnecessary Skype chats or other forms of communications as this is simply a waste of your time.
Try and underbid a few times after which you can set up your hourly rates. Also, look for people who offer a precise and crisp requirement description as these people are fun to work with. There are some employers who don’t know what they precisely want and some, who are quite painful, stay away from such people even if they are offering massive projects.
Deliver what you have been hired for on time, ask them for a release of milestones, try and be courteous and even ask the employer whether he wants to hire you for any other projects.
Delivering work with perfection and within the time deadline is the most important thing you need to take care of. As this will not only enhance your rating but will also give you a client base who would directly talk to you whenever they would want any project to be done related to your skills.
