5 Tips to Start Freelancing 2020 | How to Start Freelancing
If however you already have your freelance business up and running maybe you’re struggling to get clients. I highly recommend checking this link. I do offer courses that help people get clients.
There are three phases to freelance. There is a prepare phase the acquire phase and the retained phase. Today we are going to be covering the prepare phase which means anything that you have to do for your business and your work to get ready to start attracting clients. Let’s get into it.
1. You Need a Skill Set
So the first thing that you want to do is have a skill set. This means you need to know what it is that you are going to offer clients that are then going to pay you for. This could be anything from creative writing software development design Q A Marketing Sales social media management. You could even get released platform-specific on the social media site and just hone into maybe Pinterest management or Instagram management. It’s really up to you on what you think that skillset is. Or if you are somebody who doesn’t necessarily have that skill set. I also have a link to you to me. They’re a great place where people create content and courses that you can buy from. So that would be a great way to start building up that skillset. If you maybe don’t have one quite yet. If you are someone like me that has multiple skill sets or you consider yourself a Jill or jack of all trades you still want to be super-specific. So my background is in marketing and in software development. So when I work with clients it’s usually in one of those two veins but when I first initially talk to a client I normally don’t let on about my other skillset unless it is asked about the reason why that’s so important is you do not want to offer somebody a wide list of things that you do because you are going to overwhelm them and they’re going to think that you are too generalized and you’re not very specific in one particular category.
Here’s an example I worked with a client and they needed a website redesign and rebuild. So that is specifically what they hired me to do while we were going out and scoping out the work. I let them know about SEO and keywords and ranking and all that good stuff. I did tell them NO HEY THAT IS A WHOLE NOTHER fee if you want me to do that as well. They said yes. So what did that do. I already have a contract with them. So we already knew what I was doing. I’d let them know while we were building out the scope that I could do this. That then increased my contract value. So when you’re initially talking to someone make sure that you speak specifically to their needs which would be that skill set that you are offering.
2. Strong Resume
And this brings me to my next point. You need a resumé. I know a lot of times in the world of freelance. You don’t think you need one but you need one more than ever. Because people actually do not know what it is that you’re good at unless you tell them and show them oftentimes if I am seeking out different clients I won’t just give them a regular paper resumé that I would normally submit for job applications based on whatever type of job I’m seeking out or work I’m trying to get I will actually build a custom unique experience for them once they show interest. If this is something you are interested in watching and learning make sure to hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications because of that video on how to build a resumé that’s going to generate freelance clients that is coming out next week. But I’ll keep going on top of that resumé or deck that you build for that client.
3. Strong Portfolio
You also need a portfolio. Oftentimes when you start having a conversation with someone whether that’s on social media through email or even in-person they are going to ask Hey let me see what you did in that vein. Meaning they want to know what you did that is like what they’re wanting. So if you offer website development and maybe you specialize in e-commerce they’re going to want to see e-commerce Web sites that you have designed or built. Same for marketing strategies social media creative writing. Q A design. All that stuff they are going to want to see what you did to help clients reach that goal that is similar to theirs because they as a client want to know what they’re paying for and what they’re getting into before they start working with you. If you are somebody who does not have a any development experience. There are Web sites square space Wicks Go Daddy even. There’s probably a ton more that you can start building a Web site where it’s just drag and drop and you don’t need any coding background to do it. But if you’re a software developer and you specialize in react you may want to build your web site using react and any other library that you say that you are specialized in. The reason being is that can be a conversation starter with that client as you’re sending them a link to your portfolio let them know hey I also built my site in X Y Z which is what I know you’re looking for in your contract. The reason why is it literally gives in that hands on experience right away to see what it is that you can build. So that’s something if you are specific in software something else that you can do on your portfolio site and this is kind of like a freebie tip.
BONUS TIP: Video Explanation
But if you are a software developer or even a designer or even in marketing or anything you can create a custom experience for them through video. So let’s say you built a really amazing site and you or your design decide but you had it built by somebody else. You then the designer or the developer could create a little custom video in the middle or at the top of your site explaining how you built the site and why you built it the way you did. This actually goes are really a long way and this is something I used to do earlier in my career because instantly that person got to understand where it was coming from and why I built the site. I did and secondly and let them know a little bit about me because they could actually see me as I’m talking to them through the camera lens and the for effect kind of plays off that bonus tip is creating content.
4. Creating Content
So many of you may never want to start a YouTube channel or a blog. That’s not your thing but if you are trying to get it into freelance one of the best ways to stand out to people is by creating yourself into the expert and I put this in quotations because I think the word expert can be very subjective depending on which category you’re in but if you start building content around your specific skill set let’s say you’re in marketing you could create a blog post on five ways to increase your MCO or five ways to drive traffic really you know basic C mean titles and concepts but you’re the expert around that so you could probably easily create content around that content would only have to live on your portfolio or your site and you could send that to respective clients. Maybe somebody has an essay question why not send them a link to your blog post where you outline that they’re instantly going to think of you as an expert and be like OK they clearly know what they’re talking about. I then want to hire them to do that for my Web site or whatever skillset it is that you’re offering. On top of that right now there are so many blogging platforms and video platforms for you to create content around your medium to make sure that you look like an expert. It doesn’t have to be something that you set up yourself. If you’re not comfortable doing it you can link out to your medium account. You can link out to your youtube or even a Vimeo whatever you want to do to make sure that you feel comfortable but you’re still showing yourself in the light of being the expert on that subject matter.
5. Social Media
The last thing is social media you want to make sure that you are showing up on these platforms as an expert in whatever feel that is that you are offering for freelance. You can either rebrand your current accounts or you can create totally separate ones that only speak to that particular service or field so it could be web development marketing creative writing social media you fill in the blank on what that is and then you start generating social content around it which can then also feed into your portfolio and the blog post that you write creating this little ecosystem of you being the expert in that field. Another good thing about doing that is it will generate leads for you. I myself have been creating content around software development for several years now and no joke that has actually helped me land six-figure contracts that I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have otherwise landed if it wasn’t for the content that I was creating around its very very specific topics. All right you guys we made it through those five steps and some bonus things in there. I hope you guys enjoyed it and I hope you guys stay tuned for next week’s video as we are going to do an in-depth on resumé and building for freelancers.
Happy coding building and creating my friends!