How to Start Freelancing Work

I have published two detailed articles related to freelancing, and now I am writing around how to start freelancing work in any part of the world. If I were you, I won’t wait for anyone to tell me that the available jobs are fewer than the numbers of applicants. We read it in the news that millions of people are looking for jobs each day. To be sincere, no single person can solve the unemployment crisis in the world, we’ve got to struggle for life and do something that can help us succeed without hunting for the “unavailable” jobs. If you’re reasoning with me, you would want to join the freelancing market. This article is exactly the thing you need in order for you to start your freelancing career.

What the hell freelancing is?

I have defined some basic freelancing terms in one of the previous articles, however for the sake of togetherness; I will quickly go over some of them in this article. Freelancing can be referred to as being self-employed. It is really that simple. You are not employed by anyone. As a freelancer, everything that you do to make money solely depends on you. If you choose to be more serious with your freelancing business, you can grow your business larger and become an employer of labor. Anyway, that’s not the topic for today. You can read up the major requirements for freelancing so that you can know more about the industry.

How do I start freelancing?

Let me start by telling you little things about my freelancing journey. I started freelancing by joining some of the major freelancing platforms. Before I join one of the platforms, I took time to learn more about the platform and how things work. I didn’t learn by doing random Google search, I actually purchased a training course from one of the top online marketers. In the training videos, I was able to understand many things about freelancing and online business generally. So if you want to start working online as a freelancer, the first thing you need to do is to LEARN.

Learning to become a freelancer

One of the mistakes most beginners make is that they don’t want to learn the basics of freelancing. Most of them join freelancing platforms without understanding how they operate. They believe that the major thing is to click the register button and fill the registration form. If this is what you think, you’re wrong. The first thing you need to do before joining a freelancing platform is to learn more about it. Try to understand the processes, the conditions and the payment methods. One of the interesting things is that you can learn many things for free. Highlighted below are some of the places you can learn for free.

• YouTube – Google has not started charging people to watch videos as at the time of writing this article. What this means is that you can watch any YouTube videos absolutely for free. There are thousands of quality videos on YouTube that can help you learn for free. If learning by video is your thing, simply go to YouTube and start watching video tutorials.
• Udemy – Another great learning platform is udemy.com. Udemy has free and paid training courses. If you know you can afford to pay some money to learn, try to look for premium videos in your niche.
• Lynda – I have learnt so many things on lynda.com. Unfortunately, Lynda is not a free educational platform. You need to subscribe for a monthly, quarterly or yearly package. If you have the money, I would recommend for you to join Lynda.com.

Apart from these platforms, you can also learn from other educational sites such as www.video2brain.com, www.vimeo.com, www.vine.com and the rest.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=”optin_1″] Conducting research

You can learn everything about freelancing and still have problems making money with it. This is one of the reasons why most people say bad things about certain training programs. The truth is that you still need to conduct research and learn more on your own. Conducting research will help you to understand what people are looking to get. One of the best places to conduct research is Google. It is free.

Getting the right tools

Skills are some of the things you need in order to succeed as a freelancer. I have talked about it in one of the previous articles, and you can read it HERE. If you have learnt the basic things and acquire the right skills, the next thing would be for you to get the right tools. If you’re a graphics designer, you need to get the right tools needed for your work. Some of the top graphics design tools are Adobe Photoshop, In-Design, Illustrator, After Effects, CorelDraw, etc. For services like SEO, email marketing, web traffic, and social media marketing, you need to conduct research and find out the best tools at the moment.

Join some freelancing platforms

Obviously, you can offer your freelancing services without joining a freelance platform. However, if you want to quickly build your portfolio and learn from other providers, you might consider joining some popular freelance websites. My favorite freelance websites are listed below.

• Freelancer – this is undoubtedly one of the oldest freelance websites. It is the right place to offer your professional services or hire some professionals to work for you. One of the things I hate about freelancer.com is the complexity. If you’re a beginner, you need to spend some time studying the website. Another thing about www.freelancer.com is that you need to improve your profile by completing some skills tests.
• Fiverr – is my favorite micro job site. It is the cheapest and easiest freelance platform to join. You can join fiverr and get everything running within few minutes. Fiverr makes it extremely easy for freelancers to make money online. One of the greatest things about fiverr is that you don’t need to pay for membership upgrade or skills test. Of course, things might change in the future.
• Upwork – is similar to freelancer.com. It also requires skills test and profile upgrade.

These three platforms are great places for you to start your freelancing career. All the best!