This is How To Start Freelancing, And How I Got My First Client as a Freelance Writer.
First I will start by thanking god for his blessings and his generosity.
If you’re just starting out on this amazing journey of freelancing and freedom, I encourage you to continue on this path and don’t be discourage if you haven’t made any money yet, and I hope that my story will give you the boost and motivation you need to continue on this journey.
Perspective-Changing Stage:
If you’re aspiring to become a freelancer or an entrepreneur you most definitely have been through this awakening phase, you relished that the 9 to 5 (for some the 8 to 4) life is the opposite of freedom and a waste of potential, so you start to look for a way out and that quest for freedom lead you to freelance writing, Congratulation you’re on the write path.
But this stage is where most of us get stuck for months and some (like me) get held here for years, we keep consuming more and more content and not passing to actions, and there is no amount of content that will get you the experience and the education you get from taking actions even if you fail at first you will learn things and most importantly you acquire a set of skills that you could never get by sitting home watching YouTube videos.
Executing Stage:
After obtaining the knowledge you need to get started you should pass immediately to action.
1-The first step you have to take as a freelance writer is not to sell your services but rather to hone your writing skills and to create some good samples to show to your future clients. I recommend starting your own blog, and the best place you could do that is on medium and that’s because on medium you already have access to a massive audience , and it’s the best place to interact with other successful and beginner freelance writers.
2-The second step is promoting your services and getting your first client, I personally started on Upwork, There’s a lot of influencers out there who will tell you that Upwork and Fiverr and basically all freelancing platforms are bad and there’s so much competition…etc., this is true to some extent but I’m here to tell you that there’s no better place for you to start selling your services than these platforms, Especially on Upwork why?
Because on Upwork clients post jobs and you will be the one to send proposals to these clients and this is where you differentiate yourself from competion and get ahead of the masses. I can’t emphasize this enough a good proposal is your ticket to lending clients.
After setting up your account and making sure you have a good profile description and a professional looking picture of yourself. You start applying to jobs, Your proposal has to be authentic and not generic and you have to to convince the client that you have what it takes to deliver high quality work, and that you will work hard and dedicate your time and energy to this project and make sure to include samples with your proposal.
3-Secuiring a job: When you get your first job (took me only a few days to get my first job) make sure to give it your best and make sure to ask your client for a good review.
Now that you have successfully completed few jobs and have gotten couple of positive 5 star reviews it should get easier from this point forward you will start to have more clients approaching you and you will start charging more for your services.
4-Becoming an expert: If you’re wondering should I stay on Upwork for the rest of my life? The answer to that is really up to you. Once you become an expert you could have your own website or start your own content writing agency …etc., the sky’s the limit.
Instead of searching for clients on the first day of entering the world of freelancing start working on your skills and making sure that you can deliver high quality work.
There’s a lot of steps and tips that i didn’t mention in this article because one article is not enough to share everything but stay tuned for my future articles where I will be sharing more tips and secrets in order to help you become a freelancer not just as a writer but a freelancer in general me personally I started my freelancing journey as a Virtual assistant then I moved to writing and I did translation too, So whatever that is you want to do stick around for more articles like this to help you get started.
You can check my Upwork profile here: Upwork Profile
