I'm a total noob when it comes to freelancing and how and where to get started.
I'm doing a pretty good 9-5 job but intrested in staring a 5-9 freelancing.
Any ideas on how to to get started?
Thanks
Freelancing is generally quite hard if you are not in cheap countries.
If you are in Pakistan you can enjoy an income multiple times higher than what you could earn locally with basic HTML/CSS/JS/PHP work. A modest $30 an hour goes a looong way in those locations.
If you are in London ... it's a different story.
In expensive countries it can work if you have skills that are not low barrier and flooded like Wordpress work, or location-dependent work like photography and shooting video.
Or if you are senior and have a large existing network and reputation and so on.
Otherwise it turns into a bit of a never ending losing battle.
differentiate. brand yourself. and learn to tell your story aka “sell” yourself.
how can you help? what problem can you solve?
as long as there are consulting services companies there will forever be work.
keep learning!
2. Start a blog and have a post per week on a consistent schedule: This will get you some visibility.
3. Bid on jobs on Upwork and other freelancing websites with a low rate: This will get you your first experience with freelancing. Having an initial lower rate will make you more favorable for a job. Also, this is the hardest. You may have to do a 100 bids before you get your first offer. Also, keep tuning your bids, the wording and the content of your messages matter. Think about the person reading your bid and why they would select you over the 100 other bidders.
4. After a few gigs, increase your rate to a proper doable rate.
Also, look out for people asking for resources on twitter, slack channels etc, those tend to have a higher probability of converting. You should look at online communities where people who are working on your stack loiter.
first, get yourself a skill that's "hot" in the industry . Looking how hard people in your company have it trying to recruit for some job might give you a clue.
try to do week end missions by helping friends out or people you know ( try to have people pay for it, even if it's symbolic, to get the feel of what it's like to have customer yourself) that'll help you grow your network.
save some cash (enough to live for 6 months), because you may need it when you begin.
never be in bad term with previous employer. it may become your client one day.
spread the word that you're considering becoming a freelance. people may come back at you with their projects and this way you'll start with something to do immediately.
As a technician, this is going to be completely different than what you are used to. Sales is a fuzzy, messy, asymmetric process that requires a great deal more EQ than IQ to get right. Focus on establishing relationships and the clients will follow.