How To Start Freelancing?

Freelancing is a way for the common man to hire someone to help him with a chore. It is a way for developers to make good money and get out of the 9–5 job mindset. Seems good right?

Although, even though it has several benefits, freelancing can be really hard for you if you are not disciplined or if you do not know how to freelance. Starting as a junior freelancer is something which is really tough, because most of the offers which you will see on freelancing websites are going to want you to have good reviews from clients, and you do not have any prior clients. So, this article is going to address that problem on how to start freelancing.

When you apply for a freelancing job as a beginner, you cannot be trusted with a big project because the clients do not have any proof of you actually being a good developer and not just any scammer who says that he knows coding. They will rather hire someone who has some testimonials and who has been reviewed as a good freelancer. So, this puts you at a disadvantage, and the best way to fight this is by standing out in the crowd. How do you do that?

1. Have An Amazing Portfolio: It is really important that you have a portfolio website/resume which you can show to a person and they go “Wow”. It is important that you only include the projects which you are most proud of in your portfolio, and you include the linked site so that they do not think that you are just faking everything. An amazing portfolio can really set you out and bring the wow factor in the client’s face.
2. Document the journey: This is something on which several people do not emphasize enough, but this is huge in terms of your profile. If you have a completely green GitHub index and if you have some amazing repositories, and if you show that to your employer, they will definitely think as if you are extremely passionate about coding. Also, what you can do is start blogging about code, and show them that you blog about it on a regular basis, this also shows them that you are passionate about coding. It is important to think of yourself to be the employer when you apply for a freelancing job, and frame whatever you say in such a way that you would hire yourself. Think about a situation where you have to hire a person. Tell me whom would you choose? A person who has some testimonials and a degree to show, and another person who has a completely green GitHub profile, who blogs about code, who is so passionate that he/she can not do a day without coding and pushing something to GitHub? I personally would choose the second one.
3. Set Up An Amazing Instagram Profile: This is also a part of documenting the journey, although it is so powerful that it deserved a part of itself. Literally, you can find clients who randomly text you and the next thing you know, you are already hired, without yourself doing anything. If you keep posting content on your Instagram related to what you do, then take my word, any client will think of you to be their best bet. Share the small and the big wins! for example, you made a project, say a clone. Do not forget to share that on your Instagram, because this will be proof that you made the project. Keep providing value to the people for free, and then you will land paid clients sooner or later. remember a key point: Money Follows Value. The more value you can provide to someone, the more you are worth. Money actually does not mean much, it is just an indicator of your skill level.

The second thing which I see people asking about is where to go to start freelancing. You will hear people say that Upwork is a good place to start off from, but the competition level at Upwork is really high, and even if you do land a client, I can almost guarantee you that it will be for 10–15$ per hour or less. This is absurd, because you are doing something that is worth well over 50$ per hour and you are getting paid a quarter of that. Instead, what I recommend you doing is set up a profile on fiverr.com and start from there. Initially, you will face a little trouble although later on, you are gonna be making some really good cash.

The last thing that I wanna address today, which is by far the most important part of the entire blog, is going to be soft skills. Soft Skills is a really important part of your web development journey. Programming is a teams sport, always remember that. If you cannot communicate well with your team, you will not be able to land good clients. If you walk in a room and be like “Hey, I am an expert at everything”, then I can guarantee you that most of the times you will not be hired, simply because people do not want to hire overconfident and arrogant people, although on the other hand if you walk in a room and if you are positive and if you do not talk about the money, rather you talk more about how the company can improve the way how things work, and stuff like that, I am more than sure that you will be hired because you are way beyond money now, and you have already started to provide value to the company. This is important, and there are several tips and tricks to learn this, and I cannot recommend this book enough to you, its called soft skills by john sonmez. It is amazing in every aspect, and you should definitely read it. so many people have landed jobs through this book, its unbelievable. Invest in this book, it will hardly cost you 20$, and this will revolutionize your life.

Thank you! I hope that you found value from this article!