Q5 Do You Have The Skills or Abilities You Need to Be a Freelancer?

idealmike Level X³

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August 8, 2016, 9:50 pm

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Q5 Do You Have The Skills or Abilities You Need to Be a Freelancer?

This is Question 5 of my 10 part series on 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Becoming a Full Time Freelancer.

Freelancing and pitching new clients (employers) can be very much like going for a job interview. You'll need to have the skills and abilities that they're after in order to get hired by them. This could be from anything such as some skills/experience you have with a certain software tool. Or some data entry, office administrative skills that sort of thing. And unless you have these skills/abilities you'll find it hard to actually get hired and promote yourself and your services!

Plus you may sometimes need to show clients past samples of your work. If you already have these along with even a portfolio site of your skills, talents and past clients etc then that can help! But if you're starting out you might not have these. Some people fake doing this as well. Like literally lie about their skills and that and their past work etc. Then then outsource that work for cheaper somewhere else.

NEVER do this! Cheap work is never high quality work and your client(s) wont be happy and wont use you again. But what you should do, is only sell services you're able to do yourself or know you can get it done guaranteed and it's good work. Basically, you want to either have some skills you can turn into cash or learn something that you can do to make money with.

You should do some research first to make sure that the skills you have are in high demand. Otherwise even if you are very skilled in it and there isn't a demand for it you could end up flogging a dead horse and you wont survive long. There are several good ways of doing demand research. You can check on freelance sites by searching it for the skills you have and see what comes up.

You could even use Google's Keyword Planner Tool or Google's Trends Tool to search for it using keywords related to your skills. Doing this will show you just how many times those things are searched in the Google Search Engine every month. But be advised: Google's Keyword Planner Tool results are not 100% accurate and should only be used as a guide.

Search Buyer Wants on the Seocheckout WTB Page

Go to the seocheckout WTB Page and search in the search field for things that you can do. Literally searching using the words that you have skills in. Find people that are asking for things that you can do and place a bid on their WTB. Make the bid look appealing and stand out. Boast your skills a little and put a fair price. Make sure to set it so that anyone can order and order in multiple quantities. That way other people searching through the WTB section for the same thing can hire you too!


Using the WTB section of Seocheckout is a very good way to find work. There are constantly new WTB's created by people every day and many freelancers here are finding lots of work by bidding on WTB's that people want to buy and need doing.

Just remember to follow some "WTB Etiquette" and learn How to Properly Bid on People's WTB's and WTT's Be Hired and Get Work as a Freelancer.

And of course ask yourself; do I have the skills and abilities to be a freelancer for someone? And can I learn them fast enoug to do so?

What about you? When you started freelancing, did you have the skills for the job or did you wing it and learn as you went?

Comments

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Lynne

Hi Mike, thank you I just learned something.

A while ago I was wondering what services I might be able to offer here and I never thought to check the WTB's! This might work really well for me because I don't want to be tied down to offering services as I already have a lot on my plate... however I might just like to place a bid on a WTB I find that I might like to do.

0 8 years ago

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Cristian

I didn't have the skills when I landed my first freelance job. It was some form of content writing for a forum and my English was terrible. Took me like a full day to finish a task worth a couple of bucks.

Thing is, even though that was my first gig and I didn't have a good written English, I remember giving all I had. I researched a lot and did my best to be accurate. I think that's a very important aspect to take into consideration, how much effort you have to put into your work, especially at first! Remember you are still learning and your first clients are very important to satisfy.

0 8 years ago

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vinaya

skills and abilities can be developed over the time. When I began writing online, I wrote for the article Helium market place. I earned $4 for writing an article of 400 words, It took me 4-5 hours to write a single article. However, over the years, my writing skills developed. In my 10 years of freelance writing, I have not only developed my language skills but also improved my writing skills. If you want to earn better, you need better skills. You also should not keep to one area, rather pursue other areas as well. If you are a writer, you also have to learn graphic designing, web designing, and web programming. If you want to earn as a blogger you need these skills as well.

0 7 years ago

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Corzhens

I am still a work in progress and I consider myself a greenhorn in writing. But in fairness to me, I have improved much since I started in 2014 and I am hoping that in another year, I can do freelancing comfortably. Right now, I have a full time job in a bank so I am not pressured to go freelancing soon.

0 7 years ago

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augusta

I'm still in my teething stage of freelancing, learning how to write an article properly without hassles of grammatical errors, plagiarism and short of words but I know I will get there someday.I know all I need is to develop my passion, be focused and determined to succeed against all odds.

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