Those of you who are interested in freelancing, have been thinking for a long time about starting freelancing but how to get started, whether I will do well in freelancing or not, this blog is basically for them. I will give you some advice from my personal experience, I hope it will be very useful for those who are new.
Introduction
What is my identity! it’s an important part, right!? My name is RI Razu, I have been working online since before my teenage, I’ve earned my first income at the age of 18. I started my professional freelancing life journey at freelancer.com through content writing in 2010. I have worked in Odex (now Upwork) for a long time, but thank God the biggest success of my life comes from Fiverr, I have been working on Fiverr since 2013, still, I am active, but now all the works is managed from my agency. In 2016, I set up my digital agency, ridigital Research, which currently runs all our activities. Ninety percent of our customers are from North America and Europe based, most of the customers have been with us for a long time. There is a lot of peace in working with regular clients. Our agency’s main service is market research and we are also specialized in lead generation. Currently, we have 7 full-time employees.
I am a self-taught person in this world. What I have learned, I have learned in my own effort without any guidelines. I have never been to an education center in my life to learn about my profession. However, I believe that if I had a guideline, I could have learned things much faster, and the pace of my career would have been much better. 11 years of experience and more than eight digits of income, hopefully, I am qualified to give you some advice!.
What is Freelancing?
The idea that many people in our country have about freelancing is that you can just sit at the computer with a keyboard, work sometimes online; becomes a rich person very quickly, this is freelancing. Well, this is a completely wrong idea. Do not start freelancing from this idea, there is a chance you’ll be frustrated within a few days.
There is freelancing in all professions in the world, literally. The basic idea is, you do not work under any particular company or under any particular boss, you will work under contract with anyone at any time and he will pay you, you have no further liability with them. In short, whether you work online or offline, you work on content writing, you work on photography, you work on design, you work on digital marketing – whatever you do; Whenever you do not work for a particular company, you will be considered as a freelancer.
What quality makes a good freelancer?
- You need to be skilled in a certain subject like marketing or web development. It is not possible to do anything well if you don’t have professional-level skills.
- Must have good communication skills in English
- You have to learn time management well
- Dedicated and professional services should be given, no cheating can be done. If you want to do business with a hoax, the chances of a very long run are zero.
Should You Do Freelancing?
First of all, remember that freelancing is an uncertain business. The chances of earning income from here are very low until you are established, there are many who want to do freelancing towards the end of studies, I personally think it is a bit risky. In the reality of our society, if you don’t have a job, you have to face a lot of problems. There will be a lot of trouble from your family, can’t get married !! Your society will try to insult you because this society is a crazy society of doctors/engineers, this decision was made even before you were born, the value of what you want is not in many places. But if you can successfully establish yourself here, I believe you can build a much better future than doing a 9-5 job. Personally, I have never had a job, no desire to get a job. I have been computer crazy since childhood, and I am very happy to be able to build my future here. Having financial freedom at this age is very important for life.
For the last 11 years, I have been working 8 to 11 hours every day. I would never have done it if I didn’t have a love, passion for my work. So, the first question is, are you going to do freelancing just because of money? Or do you love the work? Be honest with yourself, make a plan, give some time and of course you have to work very hard. Remember, the combination of your skills and your hard work will result in your success. Don’t hope it will come very fast because it is very difficult to be established in the freelancing world, millions of boys and girls like you from around the world are trying to do the same thing as you. I will say, work one or two years, do not expect any results, if you really want to do freelancing, then you enter the field by becoming proficient at a professional level in a certain subject, hopefully, you will get success.
Needless to say, I’ve seen a lot of people who want to do graphic design, web development, SEO marketing, and lead generation work !!! It is never possible. If you want to be a specialist in all diseases, then you will not get success in life. It can be written in 100% perseverance. My suggestion is to work on the thing that you can do very well, that you are interested in knowing, that you have passion. This will increase your success rate. It is very difficult to master multiple subjects.
Disadvantages of Freelancing
There are many benefits to freelancing. However, I would like to mention some difficulties at the beginning because if you know the difficulties first then you will understand the problems you are going to face in the future, whether you can actually overcome them.
- It’s a very competitive world. If you want to survive, you have to give time, work hard and it is very difficult to expect one to three years of results. Many people get success very quickly, but normally you need a lot of time.
- Problem number two, social identity crisis. Why don’t you go to any part of the society, first you will be asked, brother, are you studying? What are you doing after studying, government or private job? If you say I am freelancing, their reaction will be very frustrating. Everyone wants you to do a regular job, are you really ready to come to this uncertain world, ignoring the requests of so many people, the hopes and expectations of the family?
- The bitter truth is, most people failed in this business, a small part can survive for a long time. Millions of boys and girls may be doing freelancing but 10% of them may not be able to go to a stage where they can lead a relaxed life. But yes, if you are skilled, there is not much reason to be frustrated. Must have a strategy, must have communication skills, hopefully, there will be no shortage of work.
The major advantages of Freelancing
Freedom – Honestly, you won’t find 100% freedom anywhere in the world. The biggest advantage here is, you can work with anyone, at any time. You can work sitting on the sofa, you can also work sitting at the table. With the exception of Upwork’s Hourly Project, (I personally never do Hourly Project because you have to stay awake in the middle of the night, which is very annoying)
Money – Even if you can be a fair quality freelancer, hopefully, you will never run out of money to run your family, you can live a relaxed life, most of the time the amount of money should be much more than a normal job.
In addition to freelancing, you can run any side business, it will not be a problem. I would say, from the beginning you should try to set up your own online business outside of freelancing, but you can’t do much with freelancing all of your life. Freelancing should not be done for life. I will give some videos and blogs in the future on how to set up your own business or agency.
Summary
So the summary is, if you want to do freelancing, you have to have preparation, you have to have a strategic plan, you will never enter the freelancing business without acquiring professional-level skills in a particular subject. If you can’t work, why would anyone hire you? This is unrealistic. Don’t come into the freelancing business with the idea of achieving success in two-three months, you have to come here with at least one to three years in hand, during which time uncertainty will be your partner. I don’t want to discourage freelancing through this blog, I want you guys not to be disappointed if you come to freelancing with real ideas. Sometimes many people come to freelancing by dropping the job at hand, then it is seen that they do not get success here and lose the job again, then life becomes very difficult. So I would say there is no problem if you want to do freelancing but if you have another source of income then it is much better. Excluding everything, you will get success in just two months by freelancing, never come into this business with this idea. It will cause a lot of damage to you. If you want to do freelancing as a student, don’t skip studies at all, continue working as well as studying.
