How to make money on freelancing?

Are you planning to change your career and become a freelancer? You might be looking to change the way of your life and start living in a more flexible way. I know you also thought about fulfilling your travel goals while not being required to report to work onsite. After all, that's what we all want after working hard to make a living, right?. Believe it or not, it is something that you can achieve. You just have to put in a little effort and investment.

I started freelancing in the year 2020, that was the time when almost all of the businesses around the world were put on pause because of Covid. The Philippine economy has drastically dropped and the majority of the population of our local workers has lost their jobs. That includes me. However, we've got to continue and adapt to the situation - and I can't be living a life waiting for the situation to turn around before I move on. After a little research, I was able to find jobs that I can actually do at home and get paid after. So how did I manage? I trained myself first. Of course, that's always the first step. I went to different online platforms and little by little learned new skills, I spent most of my time during the first quarter of the year 2020 doing research about freelancing and virtual assistance jobs. Tools and systems that clients are using for their business, interview questions and answers - and so on. I was curious whether it's similar to BPO jobs, How much pay should I expect for a skill that I will offer? What kind of business are currently on-trend? Sure I listed some tips that helped me in my work-from-home journey.

Focused on your strengths to find your niche - if you are a jack of all trades, master of none, for me you won’t make much money on freelancing, and on the other hand, if you are an expert on your niche, you can demand a higher rate to your clients. In my case, I have been in the call centre industry for almost 7 years. So I started with jobs that mainly require phone communication skills and customer handling. I was a cold caller, appointment setter, and customer service agent.

Here are other niches that you can use as a reference to help you find which are you would excel at:

• Marketing

• Social Media Management & Content Creation

• Writing & Editing

• Graphic Design

• Web Design and Development

• Accountancy and Bookkeeping

• Customer Service, Sales Agent

• Appointment Setting, Cold Calling

Seek out clients that offer a long-term partnership - I am not saying that working on a short-term project or start-up business is not a bad thing. I believe that there is always a good opportunity to work with those types of clients in terms of experience and career growth. In the end, it is a two-way effort between you and your client in making the business stronger and more stable. However every time you start working with a new client, you’ll have to spend time getting to know the client, process, the ins and outs of the business, and spend time in training to meet their expectations from you. With long-term clients, you’ll have a more steady income and can even negotiate a higher rate down the road.

These websites focus on hiring Filipino freelancers:

• MyOutDesk PH

• OnlineJobs PH

• Freelancer PH

• Rarejob PH

• Remote Staff PH

• Virtual Assistant Talent, LLC

• Virtual Coworker

• Writers PH

Stand out as a freelancer - Yes! It means making yourself look credible to your clients. Build your profile where your clients and network can find you and then highlight your strengths. Gather good feedback from your clients about past projects that you have accomplished. This will improve your rating as a freelancer thus can make you look like an expert on what you are doing or offering. Once you established your profile, it would be easy for you then to negotiate about your pay.

I hope this helps!