How to Start Freelancing [Guide]

You are creative. You have an entrepreneurial spirit. You have a skill you want to pursue. It’s easy to combine these traits and start freelancing either on the side or as a career. However, where freelancing is an enticing prospect, it does require serious contemplation, dedication and a plan of action. Having said this, it can be difficult to know where exactly to start. Here are the steps that you can follow to enter and achieve success in the world of freelancing:

Choose Your Skill

You may already know the primary skill you want to pursue as a freelancing opportunity. However, don’t disregard your secondary skills. Whether you are writer, a marketer, designer or a web developer, you never know whether one of the outsourced tasks fits your skill set. Online freelancing sites, like ‘Elance’, have skill tests to help you determine where your strengths lie, and you can use the opportunity to not only pin point your talents, but discover those which are latent.

Make a Brand for Yourself

It is important to know that you are your brand; your skills, your personality and your abilities all make up who you are as professional, and people will come to know of this through your website, blog or a social media account. While interacting on these, you need to come across as an expert in your field i.e. there is a dire need to set yourself apart from the rest. However, complement this with face to face meetings to convince people that you are worth the investment, and that you are good at what you do.

Create a Portfolio

In the world of freelancing, experience carries more influence than qualifications, as your clients need to analyze whether you are the right choice for them. Your portfolio is an instrument of marketing, and if you have several quality samples of the services you wish to sell, substantiated by client testimonials, you have a better chance at success.

If you don’t have these at hand, create them by either generating samples in your free time or offer to work for free. This will help you strengthen your roots i.e. your portfolio, as the structure of your freelancing career will stand upon it. A strong portfolio helps mitigate the risk of failure – the stronger your portfolio is, the better chances you have to land a client.

Create Contacts

It is not necessary to fully launch your career in freelancing in order to land a client or a project. Potential clients can be made through referrals. The best way to achieve that is to make name for yourself online through your quality of work, even if you do it for free. If you manage to impress your present client, you will be in a better position to create more contacts through word of mouth. The most important thing to remember is that every single job is important.

Use Online Freelancing Sites

While it is important to create contacts on and off social media in order to land a client or a project, online freelancing sites are the best places to search for freelance jobs relevant to your specialization. One example is ‘Upwork’ which not only provides the opportunity to create a freelancer profile to showcase your skills, but also provides information regarding potential clients who are looking for someone with your skill set. You can then send the client an application which represents your strengths to impress them into offering you the project.

How to Land a Project

Apart from the importance of your history of success, make sure that before you land a project, you know that you are the right fit, by understanding the job and having knowledge of the client. Second, you need to make your profile stand out, sell your skills in a manner that makes your client realize that you can assist them in achieving their goals. Third, your cover letter needs to grab the reader’s attention rather than being vague and generic.

Most important of all, once you do land a client; try to complete the task before the given deadline so that you receive testimonials which can complement your portfolio. Thus, once you have made a name for your skills and efficiency, future projects will be easier to get.

Apart from following these steps, it is important to believe in yourself and have the confidence that you can do it. The more clients you impress, the more likely you are to find more work. The key is: confidence, consistency and creating a history of success which speaks louder than words.