Freelancing opportunities are varied, with one seeming more lucrative than the next. Freelancers often err in casting too wide of a net and taking on any job or client that comes their way. On the surface, such actions may seem like increasing your odds of landing a job but, they can be counterproductive.
Starting out, you may try out a variety of freelance jobs. However, bidding for work you have inadequate skills for can lead to some clients not considering your future applications. In some cases, you can land a job you are incompetent to do.
Consider establishing a niche as a freelancer that best fits your qualifications and experiences. You can determine your expert field by identifying your interests, researching your market, discerning your goals, and engaging the audience.
Table of Contents
Identify Your Interests
One of the critical elements of succeeding as a freelancer is doing jobs that match your interests. In this way, the assignments are less likely to seem monotonous, motivating you in each undertaking. Before venturing into freelancing, determine what your interests and disinterests are. Discerning the two will help you prioritize jobs to bid.
To establish your interests, make a list of five work things you enjoy doing. Maybe it’s a specific type of project or a particular type of client. From there, you can better see what interests you and attracts you as a freelancer. From your disinterest list, you will also know the type of assignments to keep away from because they are stress triggers and you are unlikely to succeed in them.
When looking for jobs, always start with your best options. Sometimes you will discover that you lack some qualifications for the jobs that represent your preferred fields. Such a discovery should not discourage you but help you identify your skill development needs to acquire and sharpen your competency.
Research Your Market
There is always new information streaming in all fields so, you can never know enough. To be a successful freelancer, you should always research your industry and market to keep abreast of any new development. If you are looking to find a niche, researching the market is critical. The search will provide you with insights for value addition in client assignments.
Explore what exists in the market that attracts you or matches your preferred fields. By researching, you can identify a gap in the industry that you are uniquely poised to fill. Many sectors have features that experts struggle with, and competency in closing such gaps gives you a competitive advantage.
Researching also arms you with the analytical capabilities of providing solutions to a particular industry. You can see what works in the market and what does not, diagnosing and prescribing solutions to clients. When clients detect that you are in touch with their sector issues, you become a treasure trove they are unwilling to let go of soon.
Establish Your Goals
Freelancing is a business, and like any venture, goals are critical to set the pace and measure success. Establish some goals for yourself as a freelancer. The objectives can be financial, an industry you want to break into, or a type of client you want to attract. The goals should not be too ambitious to demotivate you or too lenient to inhibit you from reaching your full potential.
You can define your goals based on the niche you identified that suits you best. Ask yourself questions like how much you can achieve with the available resources and how much you want to penetrate your market. Your objectives should be time-bound to enable you to assess them periodically.
If there are particular elements of self-development you need to improve your freelancing capabilities, add them to your goals. In this way, you work as you develop competency in being a better freelancer.
Engage the Audience
You need to know your audience, then determine how to best engage with them. As a freelancer, your audience is your client and the consumer they serve. Client knowledge will help you develop a pitch that they can relate to in the proposal. The consumer is the engine oil that revs up the client business.
Understanding the customer issues helps you develop a proposition that will get the client’s attention. You need to demonstrate that your solution impacts the consumer to benefit their organization. The ease with which you engage with your audience can also help you identify your niche.
If there is a particular audience base you are in sync with, that could be your niche. If there is a specific audience you do not understand or engage well with, perhaps that is not your niche. Developing pitches should be exciting, even when challenging but, it should never be an exercise of splitting hairs.
Identify your Freelance Niche and Excel
When you identify a niche that fits you perfectly as a freelancer, you find your workflow. You need to work on the best approaches to mining it to derive the best medal. Freelancing can turn out to be a pleasurable experience that makes you money. You will also soon be confident enough to negotiate for yourself the best compensation for what your work is worth and avoid the pitfalls of underpayment common with some freelancers.
