Freelancing or working from home is a dream job for many people, especially introverts. In the freelance world, you’ll be a small fish in a big pond and without proper guidance, you can easily get lost or lose motivation. Introverts prefer staying in their rabbit hole and avoiding any human interactions. Which is why freelancing or working from home is perfect for such individuals and plays a big role in helping them live a happy life.
Many people believe that freelancing is tough and very competitive. I won’t deny that finding good clients on the internet can be a problem for many people when starting out from scratch. But once you have gained the confidence of a couple of good clients, it only gets easier afterward.
Choose a platform
The first step would be to choose a platform. There are plenty out there, every one of them has its own pros and cons. Some are leading in one category while others are jack of all trades. Let’s look at some of the popular ones:
- Toptal
- Upwork (formally known as E-lance)
- Fiverr
- Freelancer
Here’s some more information about each platform to help you decide:
Upwork
- Popular, hence easier to find clients
- Good for ongoing projects
- Option for Hourly and Fixed Price Jobs
- A broad selection of skills
- Somewhat beginner-friendly
- Easier to land your first job if you have the right skill
- Good for everyone (Developers, Writers, Designers, or VAs)
- Upwork takes 20%, 10%, and 5% service charges for projects under $500, $5000, and on wards respectively.
Freelancer
- A broad selection of skills
- Can apply for about 8 jobs a month without membership
- Very competitive
- Good for everyone (Developers, Writers, Designers, or VAs)
- Freelancer charges 10% or $5.00 — whichever is greater — for fixed price projects.
- The fee for hourly projects is flat 10%.
Fiverr
- Small projects (mostly ranging from $5 -$500)
- Easy and quick jobs
- Beginner-friendly
- Good for Graphic Designers, Small Websites and even Copywriters
- Very competitive
Toptal
- Good for Software Developers
- Higher pay but expects you to be an expert
- Good for experts
- Large Projects (mostly $1000+)
Equip Yourself
Once you’ve chosen the platform, it’s time to equip yourself with a skill that’s in demand. You can search on the platform of your choice to see what sort of word is available.
For instance, if you have good writing skills, you could search for writing jobs and see what’s popular. Similarly, if you’re good at computers, you might want to look into web development jobs and see what clients are looking for.
Enhance your skills to meet the clients’ requirements. For practice, you could try doing the tasks mentioned in posted jobs for yourself and showcase them on your profile or during an interview.
YouTube, Udemy, and Skillshare are filled with courses from all niches. If you’re looking for basics, YouTube will cover it all for you but if you want to learn advanced concepts, consider purchasing courses on Udemy or subscribe to Skillshare.
Some popular and in-demand freelance skills are:
- Graphic Design
- Website Development
- Writing
- SEO
- Virtual Assistant/Data Entry
- Photography
- Project Management
Your time’s worth
At this point, you should be asking yourself how much should you charge hourly?
When starting, I would suggest charging near minimum wage because of the high competition from all over the world and once you have finished a few jobs, start raising it. When a client is satisfied with your work, they would not want to lose you. They would rather pay you more than hire a new freelancer and explain all the things to the new person, considering you’re charging fairly.
Upwork has a pretty good guide for setting up your freelance rate
Managing Time
After you’ve got a few clients, you’ll realize that managing time is quite challenging. Most clients are won’t cause any trouble but there are always some meanies out there. Communicate with your clients and ask them for their expectations and deadlines for the tasks.
If you’re working for a fixed price, communicated the approximate date of completion at the start of the project. For hourly base projects, make sure to let the client know how many hours would it take to finish the project to avoid any mishaps in the future.
Platforms like Upwork handle the dispute on their platform.
Get out there
You’re not going to get anything done if you just doubt yourself and are scared of competitors. Yes, you’ll indeed be competing against freelancers from underdeveloped countries, who’ll offer the services that you’re offering 10 or more times cheaper. But many freelancers from these countries lack communication skills and are often not well trained. If you have good skills in your niche and can speak good English, you’ll stand out from the crowd.
Procrastination will not get you anywhere, taking action will.
Conclusion
As an introvert freelance web developer on Upwork, I’m grateful that freelancing exists. Yes, I have to attend meetings and have to deal with clients, but for me, it’s much much better than having an office job. I have the privilege to work whenever and wherever I want.
