How to start your Freelancing Journey
It can be scary to consider quitting your job and starting your own freelance business. There are many questions to wade through at the beginning, from dealing with a changing financial setup to figuring out how much to charge.
We'll dig deeper into effective ways on how you can start freelancing without fear to ensure you're off on the right foot. Would you like to be your own boss and enjoy the freedom that comes with it?
Will it Free you Financially?
Well, you should know that it’ll be a little difficult and its success won’t be guaranteed right away. It will take time (a lot of it) and patience to get your freelancing game up and actually start making money out of it.
Here are a few steps to help you start and get that money.
Brand Yourself (& be Confident About it)
What makes you different than all the other influencers out there? It’s your very own personal branding.
For freelancers, what mostly gets you projects/clients is how you brand yourself. You might offer good quality services like other freelancers, but it's your brand that will attract clients and make them happy to pay more. Having an authentic/strong brand will help you gain new clients and retain the best ones for the long run.
Step 1: What Are People Going to Call You?
You can either Create A Brand Name (With Its Persona)
If you´re the kind of person who likes to separate between the “real” and “professional” you, create a name for your personal brand that people recognize you by.
OR Use Your Own Name as A Trademark
Which is the easiest way in personal branding. However, choosing this option means that everything you do will be linked to your professional image. So just be ware of your online activity and what you say, because it’ll automatically be linked to you professionally.
Step 2: Create your Brand Identity
A brand identity includes the following:
- Visual Identity: Logo + color palette + Brand visuals and all aesthetic elements. (Some websites to create your identity solo are SaaS Landing Pages & Looka)
- Tone of Voice: how you’re going to interact with people and the vibe you give off to them.
- Brand strengths and value proposition.
- Maybe even create your very own tagline that represents you in a nutshell?
Step 3: Create A Powerful Bio
Having the perfect bio is super important to for your freelancing business and getting noticed. And since there are millions of freelancers that clients rummage through, your bio (specifically the first line in it) needs to grab attentions.
Your bio should explain your accomplishments and achievements, then quickly move on to how you help your clients reach their goals and what you can do to help the reader. To seal the deal, link your best projects in your bio.
Fine-tune your Resume & Portfolio
You need to consider and plan carefully when creating a portfolio of your best work and a resume of your experience.
You might ask why resume? You should know that for some business hiring practices, some companies and clients require up-to-date resumes to give a quick snapshot of your freelance experience & qualifications.
Your best work should be gathered in an online link (ex: Google Docs) or PDF so clients can easily access it. Make sure your portfolio is easily updated with your latest projects and get it customized to your clients’ needs.
Your portfolio should include:
- Your specialty or expertise
- Samples of your work
- Testimonials on your work (if you can provide that)
- Your contact info
Websites to Build your CV/Resume
Here are a few websites to help you build killer CVs/ Resumes and get your freelancing career to take off.
1- Zety Resume Builder: A free online resume builder, Zety offers over 15 blank resume templates along with other features to make writing easier.
2- Resume Genius: The Resume Genius tool provides ATS-friendly templates, which means they are passable by software and will not crash when submitted to recruiters.
3- LiveCareer: There are more than 25 resume templates on LiveCareer, a resume builder online that caters to everyone from creatives to mathematicians to traditionalists.
Websites to Create Your Portfolio
Having a great portfolio will help you get your work seen by the right people and make you look good in the process.
1- Dribbble: Creatives working in the visual space like designers, photographers, and illustrators can share their work through Dribbble.
2- Canva: offering hundreds of templates that cater to most industry portfolios, you can have fun and be creative at the same time with their cool templates.
3- Cargo: There is nothing complicated about Cargo, but don't be fooled by its simplicity. Cargo creates stunning portfolios that can be customized easily.
Get online
The world-wide web is where you’ll likely find most of your potential clients, so it’s important to invest a good chunk of your time building and sustaining your online presence.
Instagram, linked, Behance, Facebook are great platforms to find, and get found by, clients. You’ll be able to put your work on display for clients, and even link with fellow freelancers and business owners.
Don’t be shy to text/email the business you want to offer your services to and strike a conversation. You’d be surprised how many clients get back to you to set a deal.
What to say to clients?
First, it’s wise to find business that are suffering from a pain that you’ll be able to help them resolve.
- Start by introducing yourself and stating that you have the solution for the problem they have.
- Provide examples of previous work you’ve done which’s similar to their pain.
- Talk about how you strategically thought about this solution to this problem, they’ll love to know how you think.
Referrals are Gold (For Freelancers)
Most self-employed professionals built their success using with the help of referrals or word of mouth from happy clients.
Clients love getting asked for referrals from others about the great work they got done. Make sure you do your work splendidly so that people ask about it and your name gets thrown around here and there.
Some Freelance Websites to Find Work
It is easier to earn money online through freelancing websites if you are a rookie. With these platforms, it's easy to search for jobs that match your skills and browse through them.
To kickstart, we present to you some of the best freelancing websites.
Founded in 2010, Toptal has a variety of industries like healthcare, e-commerce, banking, and more. It connects professionals with big projects from companies.
Project types: software development, financial consulting, interim management.
This platform connects freelancers with business owners and opens doors of potential sales, since there are 3.42 million active clients looking for freelancers to help them.
Project types: digital marketing, web development, social media.
The platform connects clients and freelancers from across the globe. Freelancers and clients can connect in multiple ways - clients can post jobs and hire talent or purchase a service from a catalog of projects. Freelancers can take advantage of the job board by offering their services.
Project types: brand marketing, programming, website design.
This search engine for job vacancies aggregates data from 140,000+ sources worldwide; this number includes corporate websites, online job boards, freelancing platforms, social networks, and classifieds.
Project types: writing, graphic design, data entry.
The SimplyHired job board allows companies to post free job openings. As well as collecting job offers from all over the internet, it also combines them into one place. Users can browse jobs by category on the site thanks to its clean user interface.
Project types: human resources, finance, data entry.
Freelancer.com allows professionals and companies to collaborate on various projects across the world. Experts of all types can be found easily due to the wide range of expertise available.
Project types: content translation, web development, social media marketing.
Thousands of top-rated freelancers & remote employees are on Elharefa because it offers freelance & remote work opportunities. Elharefa simplifies the process of posting a job (for FREE) and getting proposals for it.
Project types: web developing, graphic design, digital marketing, finance, human resources.
Talents looking to live a freelancing lifestyle will find Freelance Yard a great place to start. Freelance Yard ensures the best of qualities for all businesses and smooth processes for its freelancers.
Project types: Education & coaching, project management, law & legalities.
It’s Time to Be Your Own Boss
Being a freelancer has many great benefits over having a full-time job, including better work-life balance and the ability to work on projects you enjoy and are good at.
do take ay freelancing opportunity that crosses your path. Keep on updating your work, developing your experience and qualifications, and raise your rates when you feel the time is right.
