Freelancing For Beginners: Basic Information For New Freelancers

[Shekinah Brama]

What is freelancing?

Freelancing is a contract-based career in which a person uses his talents and experience to deliver services to a variety of clients rather than being hired by an organization.

Simply said, freelancing is when you use your abilities, knowledge, and experience to work with multiple clients and take on various jobs without committing to a single company. The amount of assignments or tasks that you can accept is limited only by your capacity to complete them as requested.

Freelancing typically entails jobs (known as gigs) that allow you to work from home. However, don’t confuse freelancing with working from home.

Photo by Good Faces on Unsplash

Who is a freelancer?

A freelancer, also known as a freelance worker, is a self-employed individual who earns money by delivering services to a variety of clients. These services are related to the person’s expertise and are not always supplied to corporations.

Freelancers either use third-party platforms like Fiverr, 99designs, and others to gain work, or they leverage their network to get additional work and directly supply services to their clients.

 

PROS AND CONS OF FREELANCING

You must consider the benefits and drawbacks before choosing freelancing as a full-time profession or career path so that you are aware of what you are getting yourself into.

Here are some advantages and disadvantages of freelancing.

What Makes Freelancing So Great?

1. Having the freedom to choose how, where, and when to work: One of the main advantages of being your own boss is not needing anyone’s approval to work from home, start late, or work while on the road. You select your own working locations and set your own business hours. If doing so necessitates sleeping in until noon on Fridays or taking Wednesdays off to visit your great-grandmother, so be it.

 

2. Choosing your clients: You’ll be able to select the clients you genuinely want to deal with once the business is humming along. And what an amazing feeling that is! You can focus your energy on seeking a new gig rather than engaging in ongoing conflict with the customer whenever you feel your personality doesn’t fit with theirs, you don’t like someone’s attitude, or you don’t like the payment terms.

 

3. Keeping all the profits: One of the best aspects of working as a freelancer is that you can see a clear correlation between your efforts and your account balance. Because you keep all of the after-tax profits, you have complete control over how the money is allocated and spent.

     Why You Should Be Wary Of Freelancing 

1. You are on your own: When dealing with clients, receiving a complaint, or facing non-payment, there is no legal or HR help to turn to – and dealing with these difficulties on your own can be exhausting at times. The easiest method to mitigate the impact of these difficulties is to sign a freelancing contract before beginning work with a new customer or to obtain freelancer insurance. Joining a freelancers’ group might also provide you with valuable outside assistance and resources.

 

2. It can be a lonely world: Working at home all the time with minimal interaction with the outside world might soon become lonely. People have the most difficulty when faced with business issues and must hold all of the responsibilities alone. To combat these bad feelings, an increasing number of freelancers are joining co-working spaces in their area, which are (usually) reasonably priced shared workspaces that allow freelancers to escape solitude and separate their home life from their professional life. Networking groups are another option for freelancers to meet like-minded people with varying levels of skill, allowing them to learn, share, and form new business partnerships.

 

3. Irregular payments: Locking in regular payments can be difficult unless you can obtain recurrent monthly revenue. Your monthly income will be totally determined by the amount of work you manage to do as well as the goodwill of your clients.

 

Freelancing is a skill, just like learning to play chess or paint. The more you practice and perfect your techniques, the better you will become. If the thought of becoming freelance makes you nervous, remember that you’re not alone. Rather than waiting for the appropriate (or, let’s be honest, perfect) time to make the leap, focus on doing your homework and figuring out the steps to a successful start – establish your client list early, open a business account, and enter the world of freelancing. There’s no getting around it – you’ll have to work hard to be great at it, but once you do, the payoff will be worth it.

 

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