You may have determined that freelancing is the best method for you to earn a living. You are brimming with confidence and can’t wait to start earning money as your own boss by working on a freelancer employment site. However, while freelancing might be everything you imagined it to be and even provide a solid living, there are some drawbacks. Here are some of the most common mistakes made by new freelancers that you should avoid.
1. Don’t overstretch yourself:
Spreading yourself too thin when trying to develop a portfolio on a freelancer job site is one of the worst things you can do. You will need to find a job when you first start freelancing. This could include placing bids on jobs posted on websites or posting job offers to which people respond.
It’s easy to take on more than you can handle at once. Often, freelance jobs have a deadline, which you should meet. Clients will not appreciate it if you continuously request for deadline extensions, and this is not the way to create a successful freelance job.
If you spread yourself too thin and, by some miracle, manage to juggle the burden, the quality of your work may suffer. When you are rushing and juggling three or four projects at once, you are more likely to make mistakes. When you first start out, take on one job at a time and accomplish it to the best of your ability; don’t be tempted to take on as much work as possible.
2. Don’t quit your full-time work too soon:
You may have decided to quit your full-time work and join a freelancer job site or several of them. However, don’t quit your full-time work too quickly.
When you first start freelancing, it can take some time to get your business up and running. You must begin accepting tasks and establishing a reputation on the freelance platform. Keep in mind that there could be a lot of other people out there doing the same job as you. Buyers have a lot of options, and if there are folks out there who have been working as a freelancer for years and have a solid reputation, you may struggle at first.
Remember that you must continue to pay your expenses. So, keep your old employment while dabbling in freelancing, earn money on the side, and establish a strong reputation.
3. Always be truthful:
When marketing oneself on a freelancer job site or to potential clients, it can be tempting to embellish a little. But I can tell you right now that honesty is the best policy. You might want to guarantee to a potential client that you can complete all of their requests in a very short period of time, but you know full well that this is impossible.
One thing to keep in mind is that clients are humans, not monsters. If you’re asked if you can do or contribute something and you know you can’t, just be honest. Clients will appreciate your honesty far more than you taking on something you know you will struggle with and possibly end up providing subpar work when the time arrives.
4. Maintain regular working hours:
It can be tempting to begin freelancing work with the expectation that you will be able to work when you want, take time off when you want, and take as many breaks as you want during the day. In actuality, some approximation of working hours is required.
Without a routine in place, it can be tempting to take a half-hour break from work to eat lunch, and this half-hour can quickly stretch into an hour or more if you become distracted by something else. Before you know it, the deadline has passed and you still haven’t finished the assignment.
Set a working schedule when you first start on a freelancer employment site, especially if you are working from home. Don’t lie in bed and keep hitting the snooze button, don’t take unnecessary breaks, and finish your task by a particular hour.
When working from home as a freelancer, it is all too easy to become complacent, which is a terrible mistake so do work average work hours per week with efficient schedule. You can be your own employer, but you must be strict with yourself as the boss.
5. Knowing how much to charge:
One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make as a freelancer is how much to charge for your services on a freelancer job site. This is one of the most common blunders made by beginning freelancers. If you price too much, potential clients may overlook you; if you charge too little, potential consumers may believe they will receive bad service. In addition, you may end up working for significantly less than the minimum wage.
When deciding how much to charge for your services, you could look online to see what other freelancers who provide similar services charge. You must also determine whether to charge a flat fee or by the hour. You should also not be scared to revise and change your pricing over time.
6. Be aware of high fees:
When signing up for a freelancing employment site, keep the fees in mind. Some websites charge a monthly or yearly fee to join, while others take a percentage of the money you make for a project, which might vary substantially. Some people are more greedy than others and demand more payments, so always double-check before signing up and joining.
Another common blunder made by new freelancers is failing to read the fine print when signing up for freelance sites. The service may take a part of the money you earn on a project and then charge you additional costs, such as fees to withdraw your earnings to your bank or PayPal account. They may also impose a high limit on the quantity of money you can remove.
If you’re just starting out as a freelancer, it can be disheartening to make your first revenue on a site only to discover that the amount you earned does not reach the minimum withdrawal amount and that your money is held in the site’s bank account until you work on more tasks.
You should also think about PayPal fees if you have a business account with them. Other costs that are frequently charged include exchange fees. For example, if you live in the UK and work on a freelancer job site that pays in US dollars or Euros, you must consider the exchange rates to GBP.
