Hi friends, hope you all are fantastic and doing extremely well.
In my previous sections, I have discussed different types of MSI systems and how can you choose your favourite one and build up your own MSI ecosystem.
Today, I will discuss how can you start working as a freelancer and how to make money from freelancing and can become a financially independent person.
But before entering the topic, let me share with you some important statistics.
Currently, there are 57.3 million people who are working as freelancers and making $715 billion by doing these freelancing jobs.
What Is Freelancing?
Freelancing means people have some specific jobs apart from that they started doing freelancing jobs for a better lifestyle.
There are some categories where you can start making money by freelancing
1. Writer:
You can start working as a freelance writer and can earn nearly $58-82 per blog. The content of the blog is nearly 1000-1500 words.
2. Designer:
You can even work as a freelance designer and can make money nearly $52-90 per hour.
3. Programmer:
You can start as a digital programmer and earn nearly $63-180 per hour.
4. Marketing Guys:
You can even start as a marketing guy and can fetch around $43-50 per hour.
5. Online Teacher:
You can also start freelance teaching through online mediums and can earn $20-28 per hour.
6. Social Media Manager:
You can manage other people’s social media account by working as a freelance social media manager and can earn nearly $20-25 per hour.
So, these are some areas where you can start working as a freelancer.
What Are The Pros And Cons Of Working As A Freelancer?
Pros Of Freelancing.
1. You Are Your Own Boss:
In freelancing, you are your own boss. Because you are going to decide the type of work and the time of the work as per your convenience.
Based on your capacity, you can choose your workstyle and time period.
This means you can enjoy your life wholeheartedly without any binding.
2. You Can Earn Some Extra Money:
People always love extra things.
Though you have a job, still, working by 1-2 hours per day, you can make a good amount of money for your lifestyle.
You can utilize this money either by improving your lifestyle or by investing it in somewhere.
You don’t need to work 100% as a freelancer, but you can take this job as a part-time basis.
3. Easily Maintain Your Work-Life Balance:
Many people work more than 12 hrs in their offices, but they are neither happy nor healthy.
Because it’s very difficult for them to maintain the balance between their lives and works.
But if you do a 9-5 job and then start freelancing for 1-2 hr per day, you will not only earn extra money but also it will help you to maintain the perfect balance between your life and work.
These are some upsides that you should know if you are planning to start working as a freelancer.
But it is also true that there are some downsides or cons which you can’t ignore at all.
Cons Of Freelancing.
There Is No Job Security:
If you started working as a freelancer, it won’t give you job security.
Because in some months, you have ample of work but sometimes, there is also no work for you.
This means there is no consistency in this segment.
That’s why I always recommend doing a freelancing job with your regular job.
Don’t go for a 100 % freelancing job because there is no job security.
You can start freelancing as a part of your MSI system to enhance your financial strength.
This is the main downside of freelancing that you should consider before plunging into this sector.
Now, the question is how can you earn or win a project?
Because there are so many people who are bidding projects
How Could You Survive In This Competitive Era?
1. You Need To Brand Yourself:
In this steep competitive era, without branding yourself as an expert, you can’t get quality projects or can’t get good clients.
How to do branding?
For branding, you need to choose your targeted audience or niche.
Suppose, you want to work in the fashion sector or in the travel industry, then you should brand yourself on that particular industry.
You can go for a photo shoot, make yourself look professional, choose a professional logo and also do personal branding.
Because personal branding is more powerful than a company branding.
Most people usually hide behind the company or the logo, but you should come front and tell your audiences what you are going to offer them.
This will make you more trustworthy from your customers point of view and gradually, you will get more projects.
So, work on your logo first.
2. You Should Have A Website:
You need to make a digital hub or a website to gain attention from your clients. Display your work and share them with your targeted group. If required, take some work at free of cost and display them on your website. So, make a website to display your work.
3. Make A Good Portfolio:
Make a good and professional portfolio which will help you to earn more projects in future.
These are some ways by which you can earn projects.
How Do You Charge When You Work As A Freelancer?
1. Do Market Research:
I always suggest doing market research first before charging anything.
Because either you can’t charge too much, or you can’t charge the below standard.
You need to optimize your price so that you can get work.
Also, check the qualities what other people are offering.
Because you always need to explain your client’s what kind of products, they can except you against the amount.
There are three different ways to quote your price.
2. Hourly Basis:
You can charge per hour basis based on your work.
You can charge $10 per hour based on the types of works.
Philippians is very competitive as they usually charge $5-$10 so you should charge at least $ 10 per hour at the initial phase.
You can start working as a social media manager, SEO, SEM, and other digital space work and get this much of amount.
If you are a content writer, you can charge per word basis.
We have a set of freelance content writers whom we usually offer Rs.1-5 per word.
If you are a content writer, it would be a prudent decision for you if you bid on the word basis.
If you are a programmer or designer, you always go for hourly basis pricing because there is no limitation of the hour.
3. Charge On A Project Basis:
You can even charge on a project basis.
If required, take 20% or 30% upfront before starting the project.
Don’t take the entire payment after the completion of the project.
Because not all clients are the same and there are many fraudulent people in this world.
How Do You Market Yourself To Get The Clients?
1. Case Study:
You should have case studies if you want to fetch clients for your business.
Case studies are basically success stories.
Success stories are basically how do you make a business from zero to some amount.
Though success stories are small stories, still, you need to represent them in such a way that it looks bigger.
2. Testimonials:
Try to get testimonials from your happy customers who were pleased with your services.
3. Networking:
Networking is one of the best aspects if you want to establish your freelance business.
You can join LinkedIn and start taking participation in different groups or discussion, try to answer the questions of your niche that are posted, and so on.
You can even go to Quora and answer all the questions related to your field.
While answering the questions always portray yourself as an expert so that people can understand your value.
Try to get them back to your website where you have displayed your portfolio or profile.
Once they have come to your website, they will understand your work in a better way and then, it would be easier for you to convert them to your loyal customers.
These all are time-consuming tasks because you can’t get quick money from them.
You need to invest your time, energy, and effort.
You can even run an advertisement based on the free consultation.
You can set up your own funnel-like video funnel, or e-book funnel or free consultation funnel where you can run an ad and ask your customers to get a free consultation.
Always try to understand what issues they are facing in their business and try to provide them with the best solutions to fix that issue or problem.
These are some marketing tricks or trends that you can do to enhance your sell.
How Do You Find Work If You Don’t Want To Go For Advertising Or Branding?
There is a chunk of websites who offer various types of works.
These websites work as mediators between the clients and the freelancers.
Freelancers.com, Upwork, 99designs, Fiverr, etc. are some websites where you can register yourself as an expert and start bidding for the projects.
Now, you won a project, what to do next?
Certainly, you need to work for your clients.
But there are two things that bother the most
1. Most of the clients don’t know what they want
2. They don’t have a clear idea of their desire.
In freelancing, it is a big issue that most of the clients don’t know what they are going to expect from you.
In most of the cases, it has been found that you delivered something while the client is looking for something else.
To avoid any confusion, you should always tell your clients to mention everything in a “contract paper” so that you can show them that these things they demanded from you and you delivered the same things at the end of the project.
How Do You Get Paid In Freelancing?
If you are working through the websites like Fiverr or Upwork, you will get a job, but the site charges a commission from both you and the client.
So, I suggest first get a project through these sites and now, try to build up a healthy relationship with the clients so that he can contact you directly.
Because, in this way, neither he needs to pay the site, nor you need to pay the site.
1. If you are working for a foreign client, you can get the payment through a PayPal account.
2. If you are working with the Indian clients, you can get payment through Paytm or you ask them to transfer to your bank directly.
These are some freelancing ways by which you can build up your own MSI ecosystem.
In the earlier days of my career, I started working as a freelancer.
These are some issues that I have faced while working as a freelancer.
So, I put down all these issues and shared with you with the solutions.
So, that’s it for today.
Hope, this article (How to make money from freelancing) will help you to build up your own MSI set up.
I am doing webinars on every Tuesday at 7 p.m. on various MSI system.
So, you can either join askvipin.com to ask any questions in this section (how to make money from freelancing) or in other sections too.
Type MSI or you can go to vipinnayar.com/MSI and register yourself for the webinar.
You will get an invitation link once you have completed your registration.
You will also get notified once I will be on live.
Thanks for reading the post and all my previous posts.
Hope will see you in my webinar.
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