The Ultimate Guide to Freelancing and Living your Dream

Have you ever wondered that how people make thousands of dollars sitting on computer? How they manage to live their life full of enjoyment along with earning money? How some people can afford new cars, new houses and to go on holidays every couple of months? Well in this article we have the answer to all of your questions.

The answer can be found by the help of some sites, which help them and provide them a platform to earn money online. These websites becomes the medium of connection between freelancer and client; in short, you can get your work done by some of the very skillful and professional personalities at very decent cost, or the freelancers can find some of the very trustworthy and sincere clients to offer them work to earn some money. The sites that we are talking about, if you haven’t guessed by now are freelancing websites.

These sites are great to make an extra income and if you don’t like working for someone and instead would rather work for yourself then this is the route you want to take.

What is Freelancing?

Freelancing is an amazing concept. People can work with people who hire their services. They are generally self-employed. The best thing about being a freelancer is that you do not have to be committed to anyone and you can work from anywhere in the world.

You can do almost any job as a freelancer or independent contractor. Some of the jobs you can do as a freelancer include; photography, writing, programming, web design, copywriting, graphic design, translating, video editing and production. The list is endless on the possibilities of what you can do as a freelancer.

You do not have to go to an office everyday and all you need to become a freelancer is a laptop and an active internet connection. You can live your dream lifestyle. You could work while your sitting on a beach in California.

Do you always have the dream of travelling the world, but you never have the time nor the money? Well with freelancing you will definitely have the time and you will have more than enough money. The more clients you take on the more money you will make.  And the great thing about it is that its up to you how many clients you work with or don’t work with.

How to Start?

There are plenty of freelancing sites like Elance, Guru, Freelance.com and Odesk. However in this article we are going to focus on one of the best and most popular freelancing websites out there, Odesk. Odesk.com is one of the leading freelancers hosting website in the world and provides the best service among all other websites.

Recently two of the worlds top freelancing websites; Elance and Odesk have merged with each other. They got together for many reasons because they both share the same vision and can invest more significantly in new technology. However they still operate as separate companies and websites.

Basics of Odesk:

Like all other website of same type, Odesk asks you to register yourself by signing up an account on the website; the method is pretty simple and free, so it would not take a lot of time. You are supposed to pick your area of expertise by tick marking the option on the site; your jobs will be displayed according to the fields you have selected. There are plenty of options to work with which includes writings, IT professionals, translators, graphics designers, SEOs and many other professions.

There are two basic job types: hourly and fixed price. Hourly job’s wages are selected per hour and it gets insured by the Odesk that the freelancer will get his payment for the work he did regardless the behaviour of clients. Fixed priced jobs are the jobs which have fixed price and client has all the rights to give it to you if he is satisfied with your work, or if he wants you to pay the money he owes.

Profile’s importance

Your profile is very important thing to get more better jobs. Try your best to make your profile unique, compact and professional in such a way that clients find it interesting and read your proposal about the job.

In your profile,  a display picture is one of the most important things to set, so don’t upload a photo of you on the weekend smashed out of your face. Instead upload a photo in which you are having mild smile, looking professional while also looking decent and competent.

The other most important thing is to provide true credentials and true skills. Your skills would be proved in the very first job and if you can’t back up yourself then it can harm your career on Odesk if you do not get good feedback in the very first few jobs.

Make yourself into a personal brand. This is one of the tricks marketers do and will work wonders for your freelancing career. Open social networking accounts with all the top social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ and connect it with your freelancing profile. Consider opening a blog or website where you can show your portfolio off. Doing all this makes it more professional and more personal. People like doing business with an actual person and doing this one step will get you a lot more clients.

First Job – Getting Started

Just like any other field of work, you are supposed to start with small steps, so do not feel hesitation in applying small and low budget jobs as many clients do no give chance to newcomers because of lack of experience and immaturity.

Do what you are passionate about and make sure you do what you love. This way you will like doing your work and enjoy working. Find out what your passion is, whatever it is; whether it is writing, music, journalism, media or anything in between.

So, start with small jobs and try your best to prove your abilities in cover letters; cover letters leaves the first impression on clients mind as it is the first thing which they checks, and it is supposed to be according to his job requirements and your skills.

Try to get a portfolio with variety and a large amount of work into it so you can show it to potential clients. Gather customer testimonials together. The more testimonials you get, the better it is because you will obtain much more credibility.

Brilliant TED Talk on how to discover your passion

Once client gets satisfied with your skills and application and hires you for the job, then you are supposed to give your best to the job and made client as happier as possible. After the job clients leaves a feedback score which displays your track records, and it is very important to get good feedback scores to attract more clients towards you.

The more clients you have the more better it is. Your freelancing career is not just limited to Odesk or Elance or any other freelancing websites in fact. Use social media effectively to secure clients, use search engines like Google to look for clients as well. You can also print out business cards to get more clients. Things to put on your business card could be stuff like your website address, social media accounts, your name and what you do.

Let The Money Flow 

Once you get the basics and start earning money, there would be no turning back after that. You will keep earning more and more as long as you meet the deadlines and client’s expectation. If you think that you are unable to produce quality work, then the best option is to take a break for some days rather than keep working and getting bad feedback scores; it will not only decrease your chances to get work in the future, but also will make your clients vanish in no time.

Getting bad feedback can be really detrimental towards your overall Odesk profile. Make sure you get positive feedback as your feedback score is very, very important in freelancing. Potential clients use feedback score to judge whether the person is a good at their job.

Be consistent, unique and professional in your career to provide your best quality work to your clients.  You can earn pretty handsome amount to keep your economic circle in good flow by working on Odesk.

There are a lot of people out there using freelancing websites like Odesk and Elance who are earning five and six figure incomes which is a lot more than you could or would earn working for someone else.

Motivation

Because there is no-one pushing you or you have no boss screaming at you, at times it can get difficult and you do have to hold yourself accountable. But you have to hang it there and never give up.

Stick to a set routine and set actual working hours for yourself. This way you will know how long to work and how long not to work. It doesn’t have to be 16 hour days everyday either, it can be however long you want! You are your own boss!

You have to set your own deadlines so you can motivate yourself. If you don’t set deadlines for yourself you will find yourself falling behind on work.

Wrapping It Up

Freelancing can be a very rewarding career and if you willing to put in the long hours and the start and like the prospect of working for yourself then go for it!

The good points about freelancing outweigh the negatives and this is truely something you don’t want to miss out on.

Do you have any of your own views on freelancing? If you are currently freelancing, how much are you earning? Drop us a comment, we’d love to hear from you!