Will the real Freelancer please stand up?

TLDR;

Have an end goal and be sincere to it.

Hello, Amigos.

Before I make sense with words, I should tell you that you are reading from a decently reliable source.

I am a marketer for freelancers. My job is to connect freelancers to clients. I organize Freelancers meetup in Bangalore, India. I conduct it every alternate Saturday and you are welcome.

I will share you a few statistics which might increase your curiosity.

• There are more than 1600 members in Freelance Web Developers of Bangalore meetup. Since January 2017, I have been consistently conducting meetups every alternate Saturday.
• In last 7+ months(Jan to mid-Aug) I have collected information of 85+ people for freelancing.

• I haven’t listed all front-end technologies but some of the popular ones and this has been the distribution. Angular and React are still the hot cakes.

• Android is the developer’s choice in Mobile dev

• Though PHP rules the web, people are more interested in NodeJS.

• Illustrator and Photoshop are still good choices

• AWS. The future of the web is definitely cloud.

If you are a freelancer and want freelancing projects emailed to you (Projects are delivered as they are received requirement from the client. Not a subscription.) then please fill up this form.

I know you have questions. Reach out to me or please visit me at the meetup venue. I am sure you will have a good time with not only me but also with other freelancers/developers at the meetup.

But…

I am a little annoyed with freelancers of Bengaluru. OK, “annoyed” is a little harsh word. Maybe I am a little flustered. The point is, I find that people are not clear about “WHY” they want to do freelancing.

Let me clear the definition of “Freelancing”, which is, “self-employed and hired to work for different companies on particular assignments“.

What I understand from this is, if you are a freelancer, consider yourself as the owner of your business, then start selling your services or products.

I have come across different types of people. Hate to categorize them but for the sake of explanation, here are some:

1. The Desperate Fresher
2. The “Know-It-All” (Danning-Kruger)
3. The Jack of All
4. The Almost Entrepreneur
5. The Impatient Gogetter
6. The Freelancer

PS: None of the above categories is to be taken in a condescending way. If possible, take it with a little humour.

1. Desperate Fresher: This is the person who is just starting with their career and does not know a specific skill to a certain depth to be able to sell any services.

• I have received so many Quora messages and emails where people have asked me to provide them with projects.
• They do not understand how I work but they expect me to get them a project. The worst scenario is, they offer to work for free.
• They want to make some quick money. I sympathize.

2. The “Know-It-All”: This person is high on words but lacks experience.

• I am so glad that I have met very few people who are of this character. Typically they boast about how much they know but their work might not reflect their skill
• They want to make it big, maybe a start-up or a Facebook. I just listen to their stories.

3. The Jack of All: These are the people who will have the most promising resume.

• They might have worked on many different platforms, sometimes far too many different technologies that make me a bit sceptical about the depth of their skills. Cannot blame them as they prepared themselves for the job market which is very demanding.
• Usually, they tick all the check boxes and a great choice for intermediate complexity projects.

4. The Almost Entrepreneur: They come with a CV of an ex-startup or a predominant position in a niche or industry and/or almost on the verge of starting something new.

• The advantage with them is they think like a business person. The disadvantage is, probably, they are always looking for the next big thing.
• It becomes a little tough to pass on client projects to them as I understand that they expect a complex problem with a high paying client. Which is not a norm especially in this nascent stage of freelancing as it crawls into the Indian market.

5. The Inpatient Go-getter: They are rare, but you might have met at least one such candidate in your company. They are impatient to achieve success.

• Being impatient, they are at the ends of the spectrum. Either too busy with work or too busy looking out for work.
• The best thing with these people is they are prepared for tough situations yet they keep on working for the work life balance.

6. The Freelancer: Very hard to find the real freelancer. Once you got them, cling on to them.

• The best people to work with, as they know how to work as a freelancer. Yet rare to find such purists.
• Expert in their field with an overall knowledge about most technologies and stuff.

From my understanding, most people do not think themselves as a business owner. They are stuck in the employee mindset.

I am not saying that it is wrong.

If you are in this just to earn a few extra rupees then, by all means, go ahead. I would even ask you to sign up in new start-ups which absorb freelancers. You will feel like a job security but will be paid only for your work.

Just google these names: Indiez, Flexiple, InstaTaskers, PnP Labs. There may be more which I do not know about, but if you are good with your skills then go and give an interview.

But why??…

Why you started in the first place? yes, ask yourself this question.

Why did you ever wanted to be a freelancer?

There may be many reasons like:

• I hate the regular 9-to-6 job.
• I would like to choose the projects I want to work on.
• I want to do something on my own and call my cards, and so on…

What ever be the reason, but are you clear about that goal?

Then start treating yourself as a business.

Go and register the Sole Proprietorship certificate for your business if you are just starting out hoping that some day you can own an LLC licence. Good dream eh!

Treat yourself as a business owner and fill in the three vital roles of a business.

1. Development– the actual work
2. Marketing — spreading the word
3. Growth — Investing back into the business

As an exercise let us take an example.

Say, you are a local sports shoe manufacturer. How will you compete in the market when there are so many big brands?

You are bound to start small, making products for a specific target market. Make limited quantities and sell small retailers. Slowly when your sales pick up then you grow your market base.

Yes, it may take years to establish as a brand but if you are consistent with your quality and services and you persevere all odds, you are bound to succeed (unless something happens inside your company).

In a similar way, you should also treat your freelancing. Build a brand.

I would be the happiest the day when you no longer need me or any third party service to stay afloat.

Take control of your business.

I would further go and say that do not charge similar to market rates. Say, with the same shoe manufacturer analogy, would you change your price tags on your show if all the other shoe shops around you are changing? Think about the value you provide and charge accordingly.

That is why I do not encourage bid wars on freelancing platform but if it works for you, who am I to judge.

The thing with bid wars is that everybody is bidding for the next cheaper rupee or cheaper dollar which is a concept called the race to the bottom.

So, dear freelancers, have an end goal and be sincere to it.

Nurture your goal and protect it.

“Don’t listen to them,” I said. “In fact, don’t ever let anybody tell you that you can’t do something. Not your parents, your teachers. Nobody.”

– Chris Gardner, Start Where You Are: Life Lessons in Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be