10 Reasons you fail as a freelancer

Freelancing is the fastest-growing occupation at the time I’m writing this blog. According to stats, Pakistan is the 4th largest freelance market on the globe. Well, we were on number 5 last time. In case you don’t know what’s freelancing; Let me explain it a little.

A freelancer is a self-employed person who offers services according to certain skill sets. Anybody who has a skill and that he can provide value to someone with that skill, he can start freelancing. The key benefits are:

1. No boss, you’re your boss.
2. Define your schedule.
3. No fixed salary, more work equals more money.
4. No office. You can work from home sitting on a sofa or lying on a bed.

But it’s not the concern we will brag about. The problem most of the newcomer’s face is not getting work. The above stats may attract you, and you suddenly spank your boss with a resignation letter and make mind to work online. I mean who doesn’t want a free workspace, a schedule of his own, and getting rid of that annoying guy always yelling at you. We call him boss by the way. But wait! Just wait for a second! Before doing all that what you imagined, let me tell you what’s surely not going to work if you want a career in freelancing.

So here are 10 reasons newbies can’t establish their career as a freelancer. Also, if you want to freelance, this blog will help you with all dos and don’ts. Let’s jump into it.

Not choosing the right skillset:

Being a freelancer means you’re skilled. And you have skills right? No? Leave this blog, go learn some skills first. Sorry please don’t! You can learn skills after reading this blog. I’ll write a separate blog about where you can learn new skills easily and for free.

While choosing a skillset it’s important to know whether you can do it or not. It’s not that important. The thing is; do you enjoy doing it? Is it something you’re interested in doing? If not, then dude that’s not the right skill for you.
Most of us choose skills that have a high demand. But think about it, more demand means more people going to learn it. The more people learn that certain skill, there will be more freelancers providing the specific skill as a service. Out of these many freelancers, a few will be top rated. They’ll earn more. Do you know why? Because they enjoyed doing that job. They followed their interest, not the demand. Always focus on what you can offer, not what masses need. Because you’ve to prove it your client why he should hire you. If your buyer knows that you love your work. It takes a second to decide you’re the right guy.

Not working with the right buyer:

Talking about employers, it’s important to choose your buyer wisely. Working with a person who knows nothing except arguing on stuff he doesn’t know is worse than working under that annoying boss you spanked earlier. (If you’re the boss, please don’t get angry, hire me, please. I desperately need a job). Well, back to the topic. Before any commitments, make sure the buyer values your skill. If your buyer himself has some knowledge about the job, he’s an ideal one. Also, if your employer respects your opinion, ignores useless argument, wants you to elaborate on what you will do and how it can be done better. Also, you must make your employer comfortable. Be professional, ask questions, sort out all the confusion about tasks, delivery, and budget before starting your work.

Not going for the right project:

The selection of projects is the most important factor you need to understand. Not every project is for every freelancer. Choosing a wrong project and sending a proposal may cause either getting rejected or getting a negative review. How a negative review? If you win the project but you don’t have the required knowledge, experience, expertise to do the tasks, or the deadline is not compatible with your schedule. This may cause poor quality, missing the deadline which ultimately results in a negative review, losing a client, and getting demotivated.

While choosing a project, make sure the project brief answers all your questions, compare your skills with the brief, and find out whether it’s bidding. While bidding if there’s something missed by the client in the brief, ask questions about it.

Not working on the right platform

Everything’s right but still, you’re unable to get your breakthrough. Why not let’s change the platform? There are hundreds of Freelance marketplaces and platforms where you can offer services. Try multiple platforms, invest some time on them and find out which platform is getting you more response. Maybe you’re not compatible with your current platform. Try a new one.

Not staying updated

If you crack those old school elephant-ant jokes in front of millennials, they’ll not laugh on them anymore. The same goes for skill development. Keeping your knowledge limited to what you’ve learned during that certain course or skill development program will surely not get you projects. Always keep updating and upgrading yourself. Follow the trends, bring innovations to your work. If you know HTML/CSS, it’s time to learn bootstrap too.

OK, so now we’ve covered half of our topic. But the question is, what prevents you from winning your first project? So now let’s jump into mistakes that you should avoid as a newbie.

Improper presentation:

The employer judges you from your profile. It’s the first impression that helps buyers decide whether to hire you. If you present yourself beautifully or I’d say professionally, you’ve cleared the first step towards winning the job. How to do it?

1. A formal-looking profile picture with a smile on your face.
2. A short, concise description that tells about you, what you offer, your skills, and your experience.
3. A proper mentioning of your money links. (Your portfolio in case of freelance marketplaces and your website, portfolio, social media in case of Facebook or LinkedIn)

Ignoring the importance of portfolio:

Many budding freelancers stuck at one question: send me your portfolio. Because they don’t have it. Building a portfolio is important to get success. You must have a portfolio website and pdf. Also, it is important to make a resume and prepare samples. Making a portfolio isn’t that difficult, maybe I add a tutorial about how to make a professional portfolio in my future articles. You can use different platforms as if you’re a writer, medium, Tumblr, Quora, your Facebook page, LinkedIn articles, and many other platforms can act as a portfolio. If you’re a developer, GitHub, StackOverflow are good options. For graphic designers, Behance, Pinterest, and Instagram can be a good way to showcase their work. After all, the portfolio is all about showing your work. But if you offer multiple services, it’s difficult to link all of them. So it’s a more professional way to use a website as a portfolio. You need not worry if you can’t afford a domain name & web hosting. Many platforms offer free website building. I suggest Wix.com. Collect all your work on your website, add an about page, followed by the contact page. You can use your website as a resume, portfolio, and even to sell your services.

Unprofessional gigs

Gigs are the jobs you commit to doing; in short, we can call them our more specified services. For example, I’m an SEO, I offer SEO services, my gigs would be:

1. I do an SEO audit
2. I do on-page optimization
3. I do link building.

Making these gigs professionally is important. Especially on Fiverr, your gig is what sells. If it’s carelessly created, it won’t attract the buyers, it won’t rank on Fiverr search, it won’t rank on Google search. This means you’re losing potential buyers because of your laziness. Here’s how to make a professional gig:

1. A catchy title that attracts the buyer. If the title attracts him, he’ll read the description otherwise he’ll pass.
2. Detailed description, add details about your service, the charges, special offers, what your gig includes, answer some common questions about the gig. But don’t add definitions etc i.e. if it’s a social media marketing gig, add what is social media marketing, why Why’d someone do social media marketing. It’s a stupid thing because the client knows it that’s why he wants someone to do it for him.

Not marketing yourself — doing wrong self-promotions:

Freelancing is about selling your services, and we all know to sell something we need marketing. We need to promote ourselves and our work properly. But that’s what most of the newbies do in the wrong way. Don’t spam your profile link, gigs, other promotional material everywhere. Work smart, don’t tell people to hire you, tell them why should they hire you. Here you can break one rule of making a gig, you can educate your audience. Tell your audience what you offer, define it, elaborate it, and tell its importance. Educate them about a certain service. This will give an impression of your knowledge in the field. Also, target specific platforms where your target audience is found.

Lack of confidence & soft skills

So far we’ve discussed what to do and what not to do before the client responds. But many newcomers suffer while doing the job. The reason is a lack of confidence and soft skills. You need a bold and professional attitude, be confident. Work on your communication skills. Also polish your creativity, collaborative, innovative skills, adaptability. Challenge yourself every day to perform tasks out of your comfort zone. Talk to more people. Socialize and communicate with people in your field.

That’s a wrap on today’s article. Share your precious feedback and you can ask your questions too…