This is the Number One Mistake Freelancers Make that Costs Them Money
How to make a long-term income on a short schedule.
The wave of new freelancers
2020 saw the loss of thousands of jobs and the rise in the freelancer market. With job insecurity on the rise along with the cost of living, many people turned to freelancing to acquire a new source of income.
As usual, when there’s a gap in the market, content creators and writers will find a way to fill it. You could find endless videos and articles on how to makes thousands (even tens of thousands) in one week on popular freelance marketplaces like Upwork and Fiverr. While some of these videos are incredibly helpful and worth listening to, others are effectively useless.
Many content creators aren’t active Upwork users. They have no idea how the website works in the long or short term, so they can’t give effective advice. And honestly, the promise of instant wealth using these platforms borders on fiction.
A freelancing career is a long and sometimes exhausting road. Quick tips and tricks wont do what you want it to. Simply joining these websites and looking for jobs doesn’t guarantee you one, and you have to be prepared for disappointment.
However, this doesn’t mean you wont be able to make it as a freelancer. I myself have been able to do pretty well within my first couple of months on the site, but it wasn’t simply by joining the sites and applying to any and every job. Here’s how I steered clear of the content creator traps.
You’re making a big mistake in your freelancing career…
When you’re first starting out, it’s pretty easy to apply to any and every job you see. While this may land with you getting a client, it will more than likely end with you getting a lot of rejections.
DO NOT apply to a low paying long term job. Let me repeat, DO NOT apply to a low paying long term job. This will lock you in to a long term commitment where you’ll be paid very little. Plus, hourly jobs on sites like Upwork only allow you to get reviews after 30 days.
On the other hand applying to high paying jobs as a beginner with no reviews is likely to get you ignored, wasting connections in the process. This can be incredibly frustrating and demoralizing, especially when you’re confident in your skills.
So what should you do?
When starting your writing career, especially on Upwork, you should focus on doing a couple low paying, short term jobs that’ll gain you reviews. Only after a few of these do I advise you raise your rates and start picking up higher paying jobs, however, the key isn’t in the short term jobs.
The key to a successful freelancing career is to pick up well-paying longterm jobs and clients. This way, you have a repeated stream of income to support yourself on and a long-term relationship with your client.
Though I advise you continue to pick up one off jobs, you should also keep up with your long term clients. Longterm clients+one off jobs= a successful freelancing career.
The secret to a successful career
I wish someone would have told me this when I first started, so I’m sharing it with you: a big part of a successful freelancing career is strategy. If you follow those steps, you’ll have an easier time at gaining new freelancing jobs and clients.
I’ll always advocate for sharing your knowledge on freelance writing, but please, take everything content creators say about it with a grain of salt.
Thanks so much for reading. I hope that I helped you guys learn a little something about gaining new clients on Upwork or other platforms. If you liked this article, feel free to buy me a coffee.
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