Golden tips to win a Project as Freelancer

Tip#1:

If you are creating a Gig at Fiverr then be specific to a domain e.g. “I will create an attendance system for a Gym” and market your gig to websites/places where Gym owner’s probability is higher. In this way Gym, related personnel’s will definitely prefer you over other freelancers if they need attendance system for their business. Hence if you need to attract non-technical persons of any domain this is a preferred way. Just try this and share your feedback.

Tip#2:

If you see a project with high price value e.g. 1000$ then use premium bid option for it. It will enhance your chances of getting the project. Let me first tell you what premium bid is. Every freelance market allows you to put a premium bid. Your bid will come in top bids all of a sudden because you pay for it. Why I said that your chances of getting project will increase, it is because employers normally have a psyche that if you are paying for a bid it means you definitely have expertise over it and you have a keen interest in his project. Some freelancing sites like Guru.com will also give you an edge that it will open its PMB messaging window to communicate with the employer directly.

Tip # 3: Behave Professional in project response:

Professionalism is what matters a lot in the freelance market place. What actually a professional behavior mean, some known facts about professionalism may include

·         You are punctual in committed deliverable

·         You complete your work in a fixed time frame

·         You ask related and important questions which could help you in finishing your project

·         You deliver a project on the agreed timeline

But there are some more important rules which we normally ignore while dealing with any client. Let me disclose to you the points which most of us don’t care at the freelance market place.

·         Be courteous: Your courtesy determines whether the employer will read your response or not.

·         Courtesy does not mean to say “Good morning” to your employers in a bid J because it is not compulsory that he will see your request at morning time. This does not show your professionalism and employer may put off without reading the next line. So be soft and selective in choosing words and use humble and energetic words.

·        According to a study, it takes 5 seconds to an employer to grab the attention by a freelancer message so it is very compulsory to be courteous at the very beginning. It determines that an employer will make a deal or break a deal in these five seconds.

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      Stay to the point it is a big demand for professionalism. You have to be spot on with your response.

          Tell the employer about your professional experience. Tell the employer about your work. It could be your portfolio; it could be the industry you worked with, this is the way of getting an employer attention. Your employer at the freelance market place will get a lot of bids so if you mention your professional experience in the related task it may help to get your employer attention.

·         Be courteous till the end with your salutations and greetings. We normally start our dealing with very positive and humble behavior but we don’t bother to end the written communication in a sophisticated way. Be sure to wrap up the conversation in a very humble and determine way.

What employers actually search for in a freelancer?

·         You have to have positive energy

·         You have to be respectful

·         You have to be diligent

These are the energies which attract employers to listen to you. If he doesn’t get the positive energy from you he will definitely move to next freelancer with more energetic feels, more professional behavior, more focused and showing more willingness for the project.

How to recognize fake/scam jobs as a freelancer?

Freelancing is a huge marketplace having millions of billions of freelancers all over the world. Similarly there exist a gigantic group of employers that prefer to hire freelancers to get their work done. But the problem is that like other business markets, the freelance market also has become a victim of fraud in several ways like

·         Fake Employer may wish to get free work from freelancer. They just get work and don’t make payment.

·         Some freelancers may put a scam project over the internet just to understand what other freelancers will bid for this type of work and what type of arguments freelancers will make to convince them.

·         The scammer may simply post a job on a freelance site to collect personal information of others.

     

     So it has become a problem for freelance newbie’s to identify if the employer is a potential client needing your expertise or just a sketchy person in employer disguise.

I will present you some key points to identify the probability of a scam job/scam employer. Well, there is not a hard and fast rule to pinpoint any bad job but yes as you may have heard that “Prevention is better than cure” so be selective while bidding as a freelancer at any website. So let’s start with it. You just have to check some points before bidding a project listed below:

·       Check if the employer payment method is verified or not. Freelance sites normally charge at least 1$ just to check if the account information provided by an employer is correct or not. If they succeed to withdraw amount they mark the employer payment method as verified. Fiverr (a non-conventional freelancing website) provide ESCROW payment method (a third payment authentic organization) which provides more payment security to its clients. Freelancer at Fiverr asks employer to ESCROW payment before starting the job and after they complete their task successfully this payment is transferred to freelancer account in other case payment is transferred back to Employer account.

·      Check if the Employer has already paid any amount for any task like here the employer from the UK have paid $500 prior to this listed task. If this is not the first task of the employer than his probability of a verified employer increased. It shows that the employer is authentic and knows the value of a freelancer knows the importance of closing a deal.

·     Check for client feedback if he has any just to identify employer’s behavior and other freelancer’s response. Actually Freelance market is also dual side marketplace where both freelancer and employer repute mater. Because if the employer will not pay amount and freelancer report it to the freelance site, they will block employer (based on credit card/email address) for rest of his life. 

·       Check employer belongs to which country. This point is just to identify that if the employer belongs to a third world country but he is willing to pay very high for a project than the project actually deserve than he could be a scam.

·      The next important step is to read the description of the project. E.g. if you are a developer then you probably know better about your domain and can identify if the project brief looks original or fake. Let me mention one thing there are always chances that the employer is new in freelance market and yet he did not verify his payment method but if his project descriptions are appropriate e.g. he mentioned that abc.com is his website address and he wants to change his logo, he belongs to this country etc. so in-short if his description is at such a level that you feel inclined than you should go for it. 

·      If the employer is trying to get your personal information at very start then he can be a scam.

Summary:

In short, if the employer has verified payment method, he already has worked with any other freelancer and has paid him, his project description looks original and his proposed budget for the project is appropriate then there is a huge probability that the project is not fake.

What skills I should learn to become a successful Freelancer?

If you new to freelancing and don’t have any skill. If you are confuse which skill you should learn. Which skills are in demand. I am here to list you some most in-demand skills of freelance market. Let me first make it clear that freelance market trend changes across years that’s why it’s better to keep on learning things day by day. Upwork and other freelance giants often publish their most in-demand skills for freelancing. 

According to freelancing guru the following skills will stay longer in freelance market

·        Adobe in-design (for publishing and book compiling)

·        3D design (Maya, 3DS Max) for cartoon movies

·        Creative design

·        HTML 5

·        WordPress (Woo Commerce)

·        Website Management

·        Branding

·        Angular.js

·        Business Cards

·        React.js

·        Block chain

·        Augmented Reality

·        Machine Learning/ IoT (internet of things)

The top 20 fastest-growing skills at upwork: (the highlighted skills are more in demand for technical people at upwork)

·         Blockchain

·         Tensorflow

·         Amazon DynamoDB

·         Computer vision

·         Microsoft Power BI

·         Augmented reality

·          Information security

·         Scala development

·         Instagram API

·         Chatbot development

·         React native

·         Media buying

·         Voice over

·         Subtitling

·         Art direction

·         Content strategy

·         Go development

·         Adobe Premiere

·         Machine learning

·         AngularJS development

An American business magazine “Forbes” also published four most in-demand skills of

freelance market:

·         Robotics and internet of things (IoT)

·         AI and machine learning

·         Blockchain technology

·         Data science

Quora platform experts identify following skills

·         Machine Learning/Deep Learning/Artificial Intelligence

·         Internet of Things (IoT)

·         BlockChain

·         Amazon Services

·         Augmented Reality

·         Computer Vision

Fiverr has also mentioned some highly paid freelancing skills listed below:

·         Video and animation marketing, $300-$18,000

·         Website building, $100-$3,000

·         Mobile app development, $300-$3,000

·         Search and display marketing, $100-$2,000

·         Chatbot development, $10-$2,000

·         Graphic design, $100-$3,000

·         3D and 2D models, $100-$2,000

·         Business copy-writing, $100-$2,000

A survey has been conducted at time.com for 20 highly paid job skills in freelancing:

·         Network analysis ($200)

·         Computer vision ($145)

·         Chef.io ($140)

·         Neural networks ($140)

·         Firmware engineering ($130)

·         Hardware prototyping ($130)

·         Cloud computing ($125)

·         Intellectual property law ($120)

·         Trade law ($115)

·         Privacy law ($115)

·         Spatial analysis ($110)

·         Apple Watch ($110)

·         NetSuite development ($110)

·         Acquisition strategy ($110)

·         Algorithm development ($100)

·         Software debugging ($100)

·         Digital signal processing ($100)

·         Ad lyrics writing ($100)

·         Natural language processing ($100)

·         Data processing ($100)

Do’s and Don’ts of freelancing for a New Freelancer:

If you are a newbie in freelancing and don’t know how you can proceed properly in freelancing domain then you are at the right place. I will tell you freelancing “Do’s and Don’ts”. (All the material has been collected from many hours’ mentoring sessions of freelancing tycoons. So please read all points carefully)

Do Point 1: Explore freelancing sites to check if your skill has any scope in freelancing market 

The very first thing for you is to identify your skill. If are still unaware about your skill just don’t worry. Find out your passion; think about fields which attract you e.g. development / content writing / graphic designing or any of the fields of your interest.

Once you identify your passion now it’s mandatory to explore freelancing market place (open and explore freelancing sites e.g. Fiverr / Freelancers / Upwork etc) and identify if your field of interest have any available projects in it or not. If there is no scope of your interest field in these freelancing sites then don’t waste time in getting expertise in that skill because it will not pay you in freelance market.

Make a list of all skills offered on freelance market places which attracts you. Start learning these skills one by one. Watch introductory videos / tutorials / Google search for some time and you will get idea if this specific skill is your cup of cake or not. Go through every skill tutorials one by one and definitely you will find your desired skill. Some time it happens that you don’t like a work e.g. you don’t like content writing but once you dive into it you may start getting interest in this field. So just don’t lose hope and find the field that is for you.

    Do Point 2: List of traditional freelancing sites

There are a number of freelancing site over internet but I have listed some of the giants of freelancing market place.

    upwork.com  

    freelancer.com

    Guru.com

    peopleperhour.com

    9designs.com

    toptal.com 

  
    Do Point 3: Prepare your environment:

Your environment is more powerful than your will power. So build your environment for productive working. Identify at which time you can learn better, from which source you learn better audio / video / text. Let me make it clear that each and everything count in your environment including your thinking, your family, friends and social-media. So focus on your environment and adjust it for learning perspective. Join those networks where people motivate you and push you towards your goal.

Do Point 4: Prepare your skills

At start instead of thinking about generating revenue your first goal should be to buildup skills. Because if you have skills then in future you will ultimately get revenue because your skills are the only source which could generate revenue for you.

   You can only get benefit out of an opportunity if you are fully prepared.

Read out tutorials or take video lectures to enhance your skill level. Visit freelancing sites and search which type of tasks are there; get ready for those tasks while learning. Hard-work and determination are basic elements of getting success until and unless you have solid skills which can help you to generate revenue after that think about to start business/ freelancing.

   Do Point 5: Improve your communication skills

Like other businesses freelancing is also a market where you have to sell your skill (as product). So focus on the art of selling. Strengthen your communication. Currently “English” has become a medium of communication so it’s mandatory to remove the language barrier and polish your communication skills. Remember if you have skills and you don’t know how to convince employers about your services about your product then you cannot get benefit out of your skill.  

   Do Point 5: Volunteer your skills at a platform (Strategic give-away) 

You can search for particular people at all platforms to offer volunteer services. E.g. use hashtag to search people who need your skills “http://facebook.com/hashtag/contentwriter” if you are a content writer then you can search people using mentioned URL. In general you can search http://facebook.com/hashtag/yourskill. You will get lots of people who are searching for this service or giving this service. These are the ideal target persons waiting for you to come and solve their service.  Offer your free services to them e.g. say them “I can help you out free because I want to solve your problem” or just solve their issues and let them know that here is your problem solution.

Give your free services at those platforms or to those persons/ offices where you understand you can get something back in near future e.g. participate in free-competitions because if you win then your chances of getting paid tasks increase a lot in other case you will at-least understand the level of your skill set.

Instead of worrying about money just focus on approaching people and try to work with them either paid or as volunteer.

   Do Step 6: Improve your skills (very important)

With every day you have to improve your skills no mater you are facing financial crises in your business/freelancing or not. So with the passage of time you will learn all related skills and your income will definitely increase with skills set.

   Do Point 7: Competitors as your potential resource

If you know you will not be able to provide that good quality work which client is demanding then instead of providing cheap/unsatisfactory service to your client just search for a good resource in your circle that can do this work efficiently let him do that quality work and get your commission out of it. The real successful people just support each other to get a rise. Consider other freelancer as your potential resourceful person or helpful person at the time of need.

   Do Point 8: Make friendship with failures:

Moving towards failures, just do friendship with failures. It will lead you towards your success. Because every failure will give you some lesson and you can only fail if you put an effort towards your goal. It will just put you one step more towards your goal.

   Do Point 9: Learn to appreciate yourself: (Most important)

Positive mindset and positive attitude is very important. Learn how to appreciate yourself. There is whole world there that will be always available to demotivate you. So be strong and be confident that you can do anything. Even if you fail still you have courage to do your task in next effort.

    Save yourself from negative persons and negative personalities.

    Do Point 10: Communicate with employer Loyalty:

Tell your employer that you are new and if I will not be able to deliver according to your satisfaction I will return your money.

Don’ts of Freelancing:

   
  Don’t Point 1: Don’t make social media business accounts with fake names: 

Use your real name in freelance market and at facebook. Don’t use hidden names. Just face your fear and challenges. It will provide you strength to remain at appropriate track and will motivate you, give you strength to put your 100% while doing any task because using real name is directly attached with your repute. If you are using hidden names then you cannot take your career as serious and cannot put your 100%.

If you are working business purpose then buildup professional profile.  

Don’t Point 2: Do not do political discussion on your social media profile.

Don’t Point 3:  There is no need to become a 24/7 hr active member of any social media group. No need to like or comment all posts you will not get any award by doing this activity. Just define a time of 30minutes to 1hr for social media. The more you are active in the group the lazier and more unproductive you are. Use social media wisely. Be focused.

Don’t Point 4: just identity your potential time of work at which you actually can learn. Identify at which place and at which time and along with people your learning and working capability increases. Don’t just waste your time by sitting 12 unproductive hours its just wastage of time and nothing more.