Why Freelancing Isn’t As Easy As It Sounds

Since the creation of the Internet, freelancing has provided many opportunities in the gig economy to make a decent income as well as making good on-the-side money as a part time job. Many believed that a great number of people would be able to sustain a healthy income by purely freelancing on the web and while for some that has been the case, for others it is a distant reality. In this article, my intent is to help you better understand the issues and difficulties of freelancing that I have experienced throughout my short journey attempting to create an online business. For me personally, there are three main reasons for either your success or downfall as a freelancer. Fiverr published a statistic saying that by 2021 over 43 percent of the work force would be free lancers. Knowing that, there is a lot of money to be made in this industry. Before beginning your process and including these tips into your business plan can truly make an impact in your profit and ultimately your success.

There are three main tips I want to discuss in this article and they are the following:

• Narrow down your specialty as specifically as possible.

• No matter your specialty, you must know how to market yourself.

• Do what you say you are going to do.

It is important to remember these tips as you are launching or about to begin launching your product or service. Upon our initial launch, we immediately realized how vastly competitive the industry we entered was. The service we offered was too replaceable and comparable to almost all of the other in our industry. We had to differentiate ourselves from our competitors despite having the ability to provide essentially the same services as them. So remember to narrow down your specialty as specifically as possible although you can offer a variety of services. This will help those in search of what you do specifically easier and also give you the option to gain market share.

Secondly, many who enter the freelancing market are perfectly confident in their abilities to do what they do very well. What many of these skilled workers do not realize is that just because you have the greatest skillset does not mean you will succeed against the competition. While qualifications can and do matter, a 12 year old can just as easily steal the job from a professional with multiple years of experience. It truly comes down to how well you can market your product/service, and ultimately yourself. The biggest challenge on Fiverr is honestly making your first sale that doesn’t come from a close friend or your mom. Without that first sale there is no real reliability coming from your account that says you will do what you are promising to do. You must be able to convince the customer to confide in your ability to do what you do and then actually do it. Little did you know, that when you stepped into freelancing you were also launching yourself as your own personal brand manager. So remember, no matter your specialty you must know how to market yourself.

Lastly, the last thing and the most important thing is to do what you are saying you are going to do. The worst thing that can happen to any freelancer wanting to create a reliable customer base is to keep your promises. That means, do not try to bait a customer by offering ludicrous amounts of work for a ridiculously low price. That also means you shouldn’t offer services that you are not capable of providing well. The freelancer lives off of reviews of customers and if you do not providing a five star service, it is very difficult that a customer will want to continue to do business with you. Especially for young college students with not much experience to back up their abilities, you must make your upmost best effort to not screw up your customer’s demands.

These are just three tips that I have to offer based on my previous experience dealing with a startup in the gig economy on Fiverr. The soundest piece of advice I can offer along with that is to be honest about your product and who you are. You are not only selling a product to your customer, but you are selling yourself.

Helen Lamb