10 Skills All Successful Freelancers Have — How Do You Stack Up?
Learn if you have what it takes to live the freelance life.
Freelancers already make up 34% of the U.S. workforce. By 2020, that number’s expected to spike to 50%.
You might already have your sights set on becoming a freelancer and being your own boss. Or maybe you’ll be forced into freelancing as the gig economy continues to grow and the way we work evolves further.
Do you have what it takes to succeed as a freelancer?
Successful freelancers possess the following 10 traits:
1. Talent
First things first: You won’t land too many freelance gigs unless you’ve got some raw talent.
Nobody wants to work with a graphic designer who’s teaching themselves Photoshop on the fly. Nobody wants to work with a writer who turns in clunky copy that needs several rounds of editing. Nobody wants to work with a developer whose code is always riddled with errors.
The reason successful freelancers are able to thrive in their self-employment is because they’re very good at what they do.
Are your skills where they need to be for you to succeed as a freelancer?
If not, it’s time to start sharpening them to become better at your craft. Embrace a growth mindset and learn as many new things as you can. Never stop improving.
2. Optimism
Anyone who says the life of a freelancer is nothing but happiness, leisure and freedom is lying.
Even the best freelancers deal with rejection over and over again. It’s not uncommon to apply to 10, 20 or even more gigs only to be told no repeatedly — and that’s assuming you hear back in the first place.
Successful freelancers understand that rejection comes with the job description. They keep their chin up and don’t let setbacks deter them from continuing to pursue new opportunities.
3. Persistence
Maintaining optimism in the face of rejection requires persistence.
You might develop an amazing relationship with a company over an extended period of time. Unfortunately, that client’s needs might shift overnight — leaving you without a lucrative gig.
Freelancers persist in spite of whatever obstacles are thrown their way. No matter how hard it gets, they continue searching for and applying to new freelance positions.
4. Initiative
As a freelancer, you don’t have a boss ordering you around. You aren’t expected to show up to an office every day during a certain set of hours.
Successful freelancers have initiative. They’re self-motivated. They are able to succeed in self-employment because they act as both the boss of themselves and the employee who’s tasked with producing deliverables.
If you have to be told time and again what needs to be done — and you’re routinely asked where you stand on every project you work on — the freelance life might not be for you.
5. Determination
The best freelancers are determined to succeed.
Some of this determination is used to persist and remain optimistic in the face of rejection.
It’s also used to motivate one’s self to do the best work of their lives — which, in turn, leads to longer relationships with clients.
Successful freelancers are determined to prove everyone who’s ever told them to get a real job wrong.
6. Hustle
If you are wealthy and don’t need money, that’s great.
But assuming you’re like most people, you’re probably not going to be able to subsist on a handful of small-time clients. More likely than not, you’re going to have to manage upwards of 10 or 15 clients at any single time to make sure you can live comfortably and even better.
Which means you have to hustle. You need to ship content or code sooner than later — always. To do that, you have to keep your plate as clean as possible at all times.
If your default setting is drowning in work, you won’t be agile enough to capitalize on the next awesome opportunity that suddenly comes your way.
Procrastinators need not apply.
7. Organization
When you’re dealing with so many clients — and you’re sending pitches to so many gigs — you need to stay on top of everything in order to make it all work. This requires exceptional organizational skills.
For example, you can create labels in your Gmail account for each client. Label every email that comes in and it’s that much easier to find the client-specific information you need.
You can also use modern tools designed specifically to make the freelance life an easier one to manage. Platforms that help organize your projects and pitches can be particularly helpful.
8. Reliability
One of the major gripes companies have about working with freelancers is that they can be unreliable.
Successful freelancers are the exact opposite. When an assignment is due next Tuesday, clients can expect it to be submitted by then — if not ahead of time — always.
The more reliable a freelancer proves themselves to be, the more comfortable a client will be with continuing the working relationship.
9. Responsiveness
The best freelancers are extremely quick to respond to client inquiries. When their inbox lights up with a new message from someone they’re working with, they treat that message as a priority and get back to their client right away.
Even though freelancers are usually not working on-site with their clients, they understand that they are an extension of the teams they work with — and, as such, need to be as responsive as an employee would be with their immediate boss (within reason, of course).
I’ll get to it when I get to it workers need not apply, either.
10. Flexibility
Clients’ needs might shift overnight.
Maybe you’ve grown accustomed to a certain volume of work from a particular client over the last year only to find out, all of a sudden, that your workload is shrinking significantly.
Or maybe you just submitted a project that you were extremely proud of only to hear from your client that a complete redo is in order.
No two days are the same when you’re living the freelance life.
To this end, successful freelancers are as flexible as possible. They roll with the punches when clients no longer have a ton of work to send their way. And they’re more than happy to rework something because they understand their job is to make their clients happy.
So — how do you stack up?
If you don’t have all 10 of these skills, it’s not the end of the world. You have the ability to change your behavior.
If you’re not the most responsive person in the world, for example, you can start conditioning yourself to answer emails faster. And if you’re not the most optimistic person, you can change the way you view things and turn rejection and setbacks into learning experiences and opportunities.
If you’re not a particularly organized person but think you have what it takes to live your own freelance life, Lancelot can help. Sign up here to learn how you can use the modern freelancing platform to keep your work organized.
And if you found this article helpful, please click the clap button so other people will see it, too. Did we leave anything out of this top-10 list? Let us know in the comment section below!
