In many occasions, the freelancers, especially the newbie freelancers are under the cloud of a false impression that basically all of their earnings will make to their bank accounts. However, this is not true at all. We are showing some of the avenues that will end up having a share in your income.

Freelance Job Sites

To be a successful bidder, you have to register with some freelance websites (e.g. GoFreelance.com, IamFreelancer.com, etc)  that let you ask for projects. In many of them you can register yourself as a free member. But the problem is, if you are a free member, your profiles will be buried down under thousands of other people.

The only way to consistently be on top range of the list is to be a paid member. Thus, the clients can have an easy access to your profile. In this case, not only you have to pay a membership every year, but for every successful bid, the broker may charge you a percentage of the deal. The incurring more cost from your part.

Workable Hours and Billable Hours

The natural trend is to charge the client only for the hours that is put into operation in carrying out the project work only but not the long negotiating hours communicating with the clients or keeping him abreast about the latest development. This extra tasks when provided to multiple clients, can add up to some significant extra job. The logical way out should be to charge the client for these communication and negotiation sittings. Many individual in other profession do that already as trend.

Accessories Charges

To do a successful business, you have to spend some extra bucks on various other helpful entities, though this shouldn’t be considered as “Hidden Cost”, but many freelancers often forget this. Thee extras probably will be Software, Educational eBooks, faster international connection, backup medias etc.

Outsourcing

You have to outsource some part of your job at some point or another, which again entails an extra cost. Outsourcing actually can benefit you more but in any case, you can not evade the charges.

As you can see from the above, not all of your income will go under your credit, as there are many other side-expenses.

Working as a freelance professional gives you great freedom over your own work and as such you can really excel if you put efforts. But before diving straight in, you should bear the following points in mind, which can really help you to have a smooth startup:

Do Not Stop Your Regular Job So Soon

It is always better to start off with a well calculated plan and expectation. Thus if you are really confident that leaving your 9-5 day job will not hurt your initial stagers of freelance career, you may chose to do so. However, if you have any doubt or uncertainty, it is better to continue working for couple of months. Then leave when you have really understood the mechanism of freelancing and started to generate good sustainable revenues.

Prepare Yourself to Work Hard

Freelance job gives you many amenities but it is also true that you really have to work hard and often more than then usual regular job. Thus don’t be taken a back when the workload is more than you expect and of varying category such as marketer, accountant, writer etc.

Time Management

Time management is something that is challenging to every freelancer. In the world of freelancing, time management is the single most crucial aspect. It is better that you plan everyday ahead of time and try to stick to that schedule as far as you can. However, there will be many distractions which can make thing harder, thus take necessary amount of free leisure too.

Avoid Procrastination

Do not get over confident and maintain a calmness and self-discipline in your work and everyday life. As in the end of the day, you still have to deal with Client’s project.

Spend Wisely

It is better that you be careful with money matters in the initial days of your freelance career. As you need to have money to invest in your business and to do marketing.

Networking

Having a strong network of clients and friends is the basis of getting continuous work. Thus you should really focus on building a strong and long term relationship with fellow freelancers, clients and blog readers. Try to make friendship with other freelancers, distribute your business card, send emails, read blogs and comment on blogs and do anything you deem will help you to spread words about your work and skills.

First Project

First project is always important and you should complete it with good effect and given project deadline. This will surely impress client and an admirable testimonial from him will surely help to get more clients in the future. Perhaps, the same client will give you more freelance jobs in the future.

Do Not Stress Yourself

This is vitally important to remember that you do not stress yourself buy working overtime in a continuous manner. As the saying goes, “Health is Wealth”, and thus you should never really compromise on your health issues as at the end it may cost you a lot in terms of money and reputation.

Enhance yourself

Always keep on enhancing your skill sets. This really opens up many other opportunities and helps you deliver quality product.

Forget Useless Stuffs

As you progress along, you will see many things are different than what you have though. So be prepared to unlearn those stuffs and move along with the ones that benefit you the most.

Thus before taking off, every freelancer should have a thought about these points and make decision accordingly.

This post is summarized from 10 Things To Keep In Mind When Starting Out As A Freelancer.

When you start a project, among the various side factors, completion of the projects within the stipulated time frame is the one that is prominently on top of all other considerations. Things get harder when you are going through multiple projects at a time. However, there are solutions and workarounds as this article will point out some of these.

SET PRIORITY

When you deal with multiple clients, it is important to prioritise the project and rank it accordingly by assigning them various levels base on requirements. It helps you to start the real work with a clear vision. Following is an example:

On a day, you are feeling a bit off and are not finding any inspiration to work for some reason. However, you still have to work as you need to satisfy, let’s say, two clients. So, you can go through any of the following:

1. You work too hard despite your adverse physical or mental condition, and finish both the projects, making the client satisfied. But, as you have stressed yourself too much, thus your health can break down, forcing you not to work at all for the next 3 or 4 days; which may easily offend the other remaining clients.
2. You decide to complete one project and left the other for the next day, as you know the later client will not be too stressed out and is co-operative, but the former one is not always so co-operative and tends to easily get along if the deadline is not met.

For me, option ‘2’ is much better and suitable for the condition as you are properly evaluating and prioritising the clients according to the merit of their behaviour and the gravity of the projects.

SET YOUR OWN DEADLINE

Before finalising a project, do think about your own ability. If the client asks you to finish 4 articles in 2 days, think first if you can or not. If you are really sure, go ahead, if not, ask for the reduction and try your best to surpass that limit. For example if the client agrees on 3 article in 2 days, finish it and try to finish another 1. This way if you are successful, client will be more than happy, and even if you manage to finish at least 3, you are on the safe side.

WORK IN WEEKDAYS ONLY

Do not work more than 5 days. In any case, do not cross those extra 2 days over, even if you know that you can work. Accept the projects keeping in mind that those 2 days you are not working. In this way, you will always have few extra days for emergencies, chilling outs or sudden events; and more importantly, it is vitally crucial that you take some break in the middle of continuous work.

EVALUATE YOURSELF EVERYDAY

Before packing up for the day, evaluate yourself. Analyse how much work you did against the expected scale. Decide if anything had gone wrong and how to fix that. Also plan how the next day should proceed. You must make this a habit, which will greatly benefit you on becoming a potent performer in your field with time.

KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON SOCIAL OCCASIONS

Social events are part of life and some of them you just can’t miss by any means. However, the problem occurs when you suddenly remember them and then it becomes difficult to adjust with the work you were doing at that time. To avoid this, go through the weekly schedule carefully and properly identify days that will have to be spent on outside events other than work, and schedule your work according to that. This way you will always have a nice balance of work and social life.

Hopefully the aforementioned points will aid you to become a proficient freelancer with effective grip on project deadlines.

This post is summarized from 5 Sure-Fire Ways to Meet Deadlines For Freelancers & Web Workers. Photo by JupiterImages.

Becoming a successful freelancer takes time and effort. It is practically impossible to have a full-time scale income stream right at the inception.  Therefore, anyone who has an interest in earning a really good cash-flow out of his freelance career, must be willing to struggle a bit at the start and must be patient.

This characteristic of this work calls for unwanted events cropping up to inflict suffering to the individual. The worst of all can be inconsistency at getting the proper freelance job thus directly hurting the cash flow. Therefore, it is vitally essential to carefully plan before any attempt is taken in this field of work.

This article will shed light on one of this precautions, a cardinal one, that is, to develop a habit of saving money in case of extremity ever pops out. Here are some tips:

Invest in Liquid Asset

Your imminently required money should all be placed into some kind of “Online Saving Account”. Carefully read through the terms and conditions of each financial company, and choose the logically and practically sound one.

Draw up a long term plan

To keep yourself sufficiently afloat through number pf possible debacle. Hoard for keeping long time plan in mind, so that it is sufficient for saving your day in number of successive occasions, till you become a known player of the field.

Open a Separate Bank Account

Use a separate account for your tax paying channels (income and property).

Use a Safe Internet Connection

As a freelancer, you will always need to use Internet at any moment of the day.Thus, it is important that the channel of information is secure and is obviously not set up for any eavesdropping. Public Wi-Fis are still not that secure thus by operating portals like PayPal or your bank pages can invoke disaster.

Accept From Yourself

Though it may seem kind of a unnatural, but you should also pay to yourself at least a small amount each week or two, that keeps your mind fresh and prevent any unconscious attempt to germinate tiredness towards the actual work.

Open up a Spreadsheet for Financial Transaction

It also helps to keep a nice log of actual savings and expenses. Remember to update it in a regular basis. This can substantially help you to centrally moderate what is going on and in which area you are spending too much.

If you are able to follow through these tips, with time your savings will grow up pretty nicely and your earnings will be better spent.

This post is summarized from the How to Save: A Short Guide for Freelancers . Photo by GameRandy.com.

Last week, I received a review invitation from Wei Tat, the co-founder of Soskod.com. We always happily to share the new source of freelance jobs with the community. Here is our review:-

Freelancing has become a great boom to many individuals who has the zeal and capacity to go along with this fast-paced mode of independent occupation. The Internet has also become a real powerhouse to back this freelancing flourish and as such many freelancing web portal has stepped on the scene till now. Soskod.com is a recent addition in this ongoing trend.

It’s a Malaysian based online freelance portal dedicated to all kinds of IT related freelancing jobs opportunities such as Programming, Software, Framework and API, Multimedia, Technical Writing etc. Besides all these you can find other non-IT areas of freelancing such as Accounting, Legal Advice, Quality Assurance, Advertising, Surveying, Data Management, Copywriting, Blogging, Proof Reading, Translation etc.

Though the design and the colour scheme of the web portal is not so attractive at the first look, but content-wise the portal is very deep. Moreover, there is no chance of scamming, as there is no service fee associated to either post jobs or become a member as a freelancer.

However, Soskod.com will not guarantee the quality of service as it claims just to be a platform between the client and the service provider. If the client and the service-provider (the freelancer) are happy, Soskod.com urges them to help spread the name all around. Signing up requires a valid email address and in fact the member gets a free copy of an eBook called “PC protection Guide”.

The FAQ section is generally quite detailed and contains all the major customer queries. It has a mini news section that includes all the latest churn-outs regarding online marketing and freelance issues.

The portal has partnered with different other freelance sites such as Webbies Resources, Career Site Links, Free PHP Scripts to name a few. If any member of Client breaches the terms of uses the account, their account will be deleted. Moreover, all the other partners of Soskod.com will be informed about the particulars of the perpetrator’s account.

Though the Web portal is a recent annexation and yet to take off for the league of big players in the field of freelancing work providers. As a partially competitor for them, AsiaPartTime wish them all the best and have a success in this freelance industry.