Starting Freelance

2021 was probably the toughest year for me so far. I was studying Honours so I had a thesis to complete. Then I got and lost a job in 3 months due to the company closing down so I had to look for a new job while continuing my study. But the toughest part of last year was dealing with toxic flatmates. They constantly talked behind my back, nitpick me on the smallest things I did and if anything went wrong, they placed that blame on me. So, I was desperate to get a job and find my own apartment.

Then finding a job became difficult when there was the second wave of COVID-19. That's when I found out about online freelancing.

After looking into different ways to freelance, I found that Fiverr is a beginner-friendly platform. It's completely free to set up, there is already a large amount of traffic to the platform (but it also meant greater competition) and the platform handles transactions which was something I really liked about it.

It's been about 6 months since I started freelancing, I have a few customers who continuously order from my gigs on Fiverr. I had plenty of opportunities to learn new document formatting styles and learnt about many different topics from different jobs I took. So I wanted to share how I started getting sales in freelancing since the process may not be obvious to everyone. But first of all, I want to point out that I'm only looking to continue freelancing on the side so if you want to freelance full-time, this article will be only useful for starting your freelance work.

1st thing I did: Understand my skill sets and research what others are freelancing

Before you decide what you want to freelance, understand what you're good at, what you're bad at, and what you have experience with. For example, I grew up in a mix raced family so I have been bilingual from a very young age. I also liked and have been good at writing stories and articles. I also did some translations for hobby/personal projects so I had a portfolio for English and Japanese translations as well. Because of this, I thought translation would be a good job to start with.

Like my translation job, you want to look for something that overlaps between what you're good at and what you have a portfolio for; and ideally what you enjoy doing as well. However, that is easier said than done.

Another thing to consider is the possibility that there might be a freelancing job that you are good at and enjoy that you didn't know about. So the first thing you should do is list out things you're good at, list out things you have a portfolio for then go to one of the freelancing platforms and see what other people are offering. If you find something that fits those categories then that is a good place for you to start.

2nd thing I did: Research different platforms

Once you decided on what you want to freelance, the next question is how to start selling.

There are a lot of different platforms where you can freelance so research them to see which one suits you the best. For example, Fiverr is a large platform that already has a large number of users. Since there are a lot of users, there are a lot of tutorials on YouTube on how to best set up your profiles. They also have plenty of videos explaining how you can use the tools on the platform to market your services. However, since there are a lot of users, it does mean that you will be competing against a lot of sellers.

On the other hand, if you choose a smaller platform, you might have fewer competition. But you also have less potential clients and less information regarding how to use the different tools on the platform.

Finally, there's an option for not using a platform and marketing your services entirely off your own website. I personally haven't tried this but I still wanted to include it in the list as an option for anyone interested.

Again, knowing what you're good at and bad at will help you with this too. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. So there is no one answer on which method is the best. Research each option thoroughly, look at the resources that are available to you, and decide which method of freelancing would be best for you.

For me, since I have no knowledge or experience in marketing, invoicing, or web developing, I decided to go with using a larger platform like Fiverr.

Results at the time:

I had no sales for the first few months so I spent that time looking into how other people on that platform marketed themselves and what resources on the platform I can use.

Breakthrough:

While I was studying how other people got started in freelancing, I came across a Facebook group called Freelance Mentorship With Alexandra Fasulo. The group included anyone from new freelancers to long-time freelancers and you were free to post any questions or comments relating to freelancing. So I joined the group and posted one of my gigs and asked how I could improve my profile to start getting sales.

A few days later I get a message from one of the long-time sellers. He was looking to add a new copywriting package where he offered graphic designs and custom images along with the blog posts he writes. So after seeing my graphic design gig (which was another freelance job I decided to do), he asked me if I wanted to work with him for that particular project.

Not having any other commissions, I took the offer and I got my first sale and review on the platform.

Because I was able to get a 5-star review on my first job few people have started to message me on different gigs and it just snowballed from there.

Since then I had the opportunity to work on small projects like designing wedding invitations to translating subtitles for a Japanese YouTuber who I didn't know about but my mum was a huge fan of.

Currently, I had my personal record in sales last month. I have learnt a lot of new formatting styles and subjects I wasn't aware of before accepting different jobs. I have also gotten much better at communicating with people in a professional yet approachable tone. So if you're interested in freelancing, I say just give it a go and see how it turns out. There are a lot of resources online where you can start freelancing for free.

If you are thinking of freelancing on Fiverr and want to look at my profile as an example, I have left a link below.

Hope your freelancing journey turns out well!

Link to my profile: https://www.fiverr.com/kurehadurant?up_rollout=true