5 Critical Newbie Freelancer Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

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Career Trends: December 20, 2022

Curated by the Knowledge Team of  ICS Career GPS

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Content Credit:

• Article by Sergio Valasquez published on makeuseof.com. Original article link.

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For some, being a freelancer is a lifestyle choice. Maybe you like the adventure of “being your own boss” or the thrill of taking on a new project. Regardless of why you’re freelancing, there is a lot of work that goes into being successful. There are a lot of missteps that can happen, too.

As a fresher, it is natural to make mistakes and in a way, mistakes are important too. They help us narrow down the options we shouldn’t go for and encourage further trial and error to come up with the most suitable ways to go about your work.

There are some mistakes you can make while freelancing. We have listed some steps to avoid torpedoing your career. The most important thing is that you work and improve every day. Eventually, you’ll feel like you know what you’re doing and create your own brand.

Here are some critical mistakes you can make while working as a freelancer and what you can do to avoid them.

1. Create A Plan Before Starting

Freelancing is a booming industry. Before you officially join the freelancing ranks, however, you need to study your market and plan how you will make some money.

You need to know:

• What you’re selling.
• What the cost of your product or service should be.
• Your competition, along with your weaknesses as a business.
• Your strengths and your assets.
• How to delegate your initial start-up costs, and
• What sort of marketing do you need to do to get the word out.

Be cautious about how you approach your field, and be logical.

2. Focus On Your Client

• As a freelancer, you need to focus on the most important aspect of your business: the client.
• Sometimes it’s not about what you’ll get from your gig but how the client will feel after you deliver your work.
• That doesn’t mean you should do whatever your clients want without asking any questions, but if you want to get recurring clients and recommendations, you need to put your client’s needs first.
• You can start by providing a lot of value with all your work and maybe even delivering your work ahead of schedule.

3. Don’t Advertise With A Mediocre Website Design

• Sometimes all you need is a bio page, a contact form, and maybe a few testimonials.
• However, if you don’t have a basic website—it can really affect the ability of others to contact you.
• Fortunately, you can follow some basic steps to build a great website you can follow.
• After you build your website, get feedback on it before it goes live, too.

4. Be Available And Easy To Contact

You need to think about how people will hire you when you’re a freelancer. Specifically, you need to think about how they will reach out.

When freelancing, you need to have your contact details square and center. They should include:

• Your name.
• Email address.
• Your phone number (if applicable).
• Some sort of social handle, so clients can check out your profile to see samples of your work.

The downside to online freelancing is that there is more competition: a hell of a lot more. Instead of competing on a regional scale, you’re now competing globally.

5. Make Time Management A Priority

• Just because you are working from home doesn’t mean you can treat your “workspace” the way you would your bedroom.
• Sure, you can set your schedule so you can start later in the day, and you don’t have to commute, but working from home can bring a lot of distractions.
• You’ll get distracted by chores or watching TV, and you’ll get distracted by your phone or running errands.
• This is a surefire way to destroy your productivity.
• There are many ways to manage your time properly as a freelancer.
• First, you can try the Pomodoro technique to get ahead.
• With this method, you’ll work in (usually) 25-minute intervals and with five minutes break, which will help you break down big tasks and get the work done faster.

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Have you checked out yesterday’s blog yet?

How Skills Assessments Matter In Tech?

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(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article mentioned above are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of ICS Career GPS or its staff.)

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