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Freelancing business has many forms and shapes. Each has its own dimension and each individual freelancer find different issues to be their main obstacle in their way of success. This article will illustrate some of the common challenges that the freelance designers of these days have to tackle with:-

Looking for Client

Initially, it is a challenge for many freelancers as they are new and naive in this field. The effective way to tackle this problem is an aggressive self-promotion.

Networking

To get a really good client base, the freelancers often has to have a strong network of people who can both be taken as client and people who can hire clients. This network of people will grow steadily as the freelancer goes through his job with success. Always keep your portfolio shine.

Marketing

Marketing is another big hurdle for newbies. The knowledge of marketing is as essential as the ability in doing the work. Without effective marketing, no one will figure out your service and you will not be able to grow your client base.

Managing Clients

It is really challenging to manage all types of clients in design projects as clients will ask for basically anything that comes into their mind regarding project at any point of time. But for the freelancer, it may become very difficult to effectively handle all the requests. Failing to do so brings the profit margin down and also offends the clients.

Pricing

Pricing is of great confusion to many freelancers. How to evaluate the project or how to set the price standard are something that puts many freelancers into a state of total ambivalence. However, the best to set the price according to your skill level.

Maintaining Workload

Sometimes the pressure of work can be too much to handle and easily the freelancers can lose their time track, which may affect their other jobs in hand and personal affairs. The effective solution is to draw a plan of time-frame and stick to that plan at any cost. Read more about How to Balance Your Freelance Life?

These are some of the obstacles that a freelance designers have to face in a consistence basis. But it differs person to person which one is their biggest nemesis for them. For example, one designer can find the ‘Pricing’ to be the foremost problem, but for a newbie designer, ‘Getting the clients’ can be the hardest challenge. All in all, with effective plan and execution, all these can be neutralized.

Last week, we received a request from Siddhartha as below:

"I want to know about the organisation called GoFreelance.com which is earlier known as freelanceworkexchange.com.Is it a fraud or genuine
organisation?" from Siddhartha.

We sent our fraud Investigation Team to review it. Here is the Report:

GoFreelance.com (Previously known as "Freelance Work Exchange") - Launched in 1998, it’s a freelance job search portal for freelancers. It is running by an effective group of freelancers by themselves. Companies requiring work done in the area of graphic design, programming, data entry, web development, article writing, copywriting or other freelance areas can easily find the right person for their work with great ease and in a very cost-effective way.

To start off, you need to be a member of the site. Membership fee is $2.95 and you end up getting a bunch of other free stuffs as well. To get an instant feel, you can go through the Job Search Page and can find out how many job postings are there on your chosen area of expertise. It has a whole section dedicated to writers about the immediate writing prospects and also postings from other clients.

Besides the regular contents, the web portal has good articles and some job pointers on how to initiate a home business, work at home trends, telecommuting, photography, videos and engineering.

For people who want to post jobs, it is free for them. What needed is few minutes to post a job and wait for the freelancers to pick up the offer. However, the client can always cancel the project if she/he is not satisfied with the freelancers proposed criteria.

Normally the freelancer’s base is extremely huge and extends to all form of freelance works. The client can easily go through the list of freelancers available and check out their particulars such as experience, expertise, minimum rate of payment etc.

It has quite a detailed section dedicated to customer queries and questions. In fact the common customer problems have already been discussed quite nicely in its Help section. You have to gain a ticket to get the full customer support.

Overall this web resource is a fantastic one-stop shop for clients looking to get their work done and a great platform for freelancers all over to find the project of his choice in a great number. Up to this point, this site is as genuine as AsiaPartTime. You should give a try.

The one and only pillar to captivate client interest and intrigue them to such a scale that they continue to keep coming back with new projects, is to entertain all those previous assignments with all your aces. This is a market strategy that will not fail and doesn’t fail. However, you are not a programmed machine, as a soul with flesh and blood, your desires in exchange of your work must commensurate with proper rewards, or in simple declaration.

The client also must reflect generously, so that your inner-self becomes suffonsified, sharpening and streamlining your talent to deal with more and more projects with constant proficiency. Below are a catalogue of 28 (25 from FreelanceSwitch + 3 from AsiaPartTime) genre of repayments you should ask from your client:

Asks from AsiaPartTime

1. KNOW THE CHAIN: Ask the client how did they came to know you, from where they’ve heard about you and your work, this helps to select more marketing options and fortifying the ones you’ve now.
2. ARRANGE THE PAPERS PROPERLY: You should write a formal contract paper where it must be stated that if they retreat from payment then what should be done, make it signed and stamped.
3. EXPORT THE EXPERIENCE WITH YOU: Ask the client to share the experience working with you to his friends and other contacts, they will remember and when they will need, they’ll contact you.

Asks from FreelanceSwitch.com:

ASK FOR A DOWN PAYMENT: No paucity of fraudulent clients in the venture of haunting down freelance figures and their privation. So, be smart, arrange a down payment and refund papers in case you fail to comply. This way, you save yourself from a probable debacle, and in any case, genuine clients will not voice any grievance. Normally, we request 50% of the total project cost as down payment.

ASK FOR EXTENSION OF DEADLINE IF REQUIRED: Sometimes you can get overboard with the assignments, thus declining your performance. If that happens, then take a break, do something fun, but do not lax too much, least you miss the deadline, but in any case if you do, then do not hesitate to ask for an extension, keeping yourself perked up is as important as dong the work itself.

CLARIFY THE REQUIREMENTS: You must be able to glean the exact expectations from the client. Client may not always be able to express it clearly, but aid him, assist him by asking things that may not seem obvious to him at first the place. This is a vital step of basically any project.

ASK FOR REGULAR EXPECTATION: To client, the product may seem ground-breaking some day and average the other day. But if you believe your work is consistent, then ask your client to have a consistent expectation. But ensure that you have some kind of quality measurement installment installed in place.

ASK FOR RECOGNITION : When the client is really over the moon with your performance, ask for some kind of recommendation letter, this will indeed help you in the future to get more assignments.

SEEK FOR REFERRALS: Ask your clients if they know anyone who could utilize your service, and ask if you are permitted to contact with them and introduce yourself.

SEEK FOR TESTIMONIALS: If you have a black and white proof of your work, from your satisfied client, then it boost your chances of getting more work, some good words written in a mere paper do hold a lot of strength. Please you like our community, please do give us a testimonial as well.

ASK FOR ANY SUGGESION: Develop a friendly relation with the client, feel free to ask for if anything he deems worth changing or enhancing.

CHURN OUT EXCLUSIVE TIME ZONE: If the client is always sticking like glue, then you may feel constrained and thus may not perform optimally, do not lay back, tell your client that you too need some time alone.

UTILIZE CLIENT’S BUSINESS: You can do freelance works in exchange of not only money, but also you can trade your skills with their own business or service they provide.

FEEDBACK IN THE FORM OF SURVEY: One great way to get feedback from client about your work is to prepare a survey and get it completed, and you also preserve it for later comparison. Here is some online survey templates you may try out.

CLEAR PAYMENT ISSUES: Do not keep those important payments for your work pending for too long. The client may have been forgotten, in that case it is your duty to remind him in an amicable manner.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: This is as important as normal life networking, create a profile in few popular social networking sites, and send its link to your clients who already have this kind of profile, then you’ll get to know people in a much quicker rate and vice versa. This is a much cogent way to get and manage contract outside your current country.

ASK FOR BONUS: Ask for a bonus of your work which you think you can do it in a very very professional diction with splendid offshoot. And obviously in a tactical manner.

TRY TO TIE UP A CONCRETE CONTACT: If your work is grand, client is satisfied to the brim, ask if you can also be taken as the permanent choice for that specific skill.

KNOW CLIENT’S EMAIL: Always good to have a way to communicate other than phone, and in modern days, any professional person do hold an email address. I would recommend you to use a CRM tools to keep track all your customer information. One of the best CRM tool are Zoho-CRM. It is a free CRM tool and it is comparable to SalesForce.com.

ASK FOR REFERENCES: Before hitting a deal with client, ask them if they’ve worked with other freelancers before or not. If you see a long list and most of them unhappy ending, then you better think twice before running into any paperwork.

ASK FOR A SHOUT-OUT: If the client already have any kind of blog site or ezine article, then ask them to put a shout-out on behalf of you.

LOOK FOR TIPS: If your client runs a successful business ask for tips from them, try to get more knowledge about how things flow.

ARRANGE A PROPER DEADLINE: Fix the deadline with enough time on hand, do not pressurize yourself, that may hamper work quality.

ASK FOR BUSINESS CARD : Don’t hesitate to ask for their business card, it’ll project what is the actual occupation of the client and will also show professionalism.

GET PHONE NUMBER: It is important that you hold on to client’s both office and personal contact number.

ASK FOR RECONSIDERATION: If the requirements look to gaudy and convoluted and the final objective can be achieved through a much simpler form of design of requirement, then approach the customer with your idea.

CLARIFY THE REQUIREMENTS: How much obfuscate may be the client’s idea seem, clear first.

LOOK FOR COMMENTS: If you run a blog or participate in social networking sites, ask the clients to leave a positive comment about your work if they are satisfied.

Following these steps can bring the best of performances out of you, and out of your client too.