It is possible for you to earn some nice sums of money by freelancing. But there is one particular question we tend to encounter rather frequently, from folks who are seriously considering becoming freelance service providers. That is the question on how to get started as a freelancer. Whereas many folks don’t dispute the fact that it is possible to make tidy sums of money by freelancing, they tend to have concerns on how to get started in the whole venture.
Introduction To Freelance Marketplace Sites
It is true that in days gone by, it would have been extremely hard for the average person in any part of the world to get started as a freelancer. This was at a time when anyone keen on becoming a freelancer would have to contact clients directly, and try to market his or her services to them as individuals. But things have become considerably easier with the advent of freelance market sites (like PeoplePerHour, Freelancer.com, Guru and UpWork). These sites serve a rather simple – but very crucial role – of bringing together people who need various services, and those who offer the services. So, in this day and age, all you have to do to get started as a freelancer is to join one of the freelancing sites in question. The process of joining the freelance marketplace sites involves several steps, namely:
– Accessing the sites (by entering their respective web addresses into your browser or searching them via search engines).
-Reading through the respective sites’ terms and conditions, help sections, knowledge base sections and so on in order to understand how they work.
-Creating profiles on the respective sites.
-Bidding for projects on the sites.
Once you bid for projects (and if your bids are persuasive enough), you get clients for whom you proceed to do various tasks, in order to earn money. The whole process is one that can be said to be quite straightforward. We may mention that many of these sites nowadays have schemes where freelancers have to take certain exams, before being allowed to start bidding for projects. But these are usually simple ‘common sense’ exams, and in any event, answers to the questions asked can be found on the sites’ help sections, knowledge base sections and so on.
Acquiring Skills To Work With
As we have already mentioned, all you need to do, in order to get started as a freelancer is to access a freelance market site, create a profile and start bidding for projects. But then, the nature of things here is such that you must have some skills, in order to bid for projects. If, for instance, you are to bid for web development projects, you need to have web development skills. If you are to bid for writing projects, you need to have writing skills. A question arises, as to how you can acquire these skills, in order to get started as a freelancer. In that regard, we come to learn that you can:
-Take courses in local colleges (and other local institutions), with the intention of eventually using the skills hence acquired in freelance work.
-Take online courses.
-Leverage on skills you may have acquired earlier, while in school, college or university.
The most important thing you need to take note of is the fact that the clients you will be dealing with as a freelancer are unlike conventional employers in one important way. The clients are less impressed/less concerned with the paper qualifications/certifications you have, and more impressed with/more concerned with what you can actually do, at a practical level.
