Freelancing, it’s a real job! A day in the life of a freelancer means waking up in the morning, and preparing for another day of selling yourself in a very competitive market by blogging, sending newsletters and email campaigns, printing brochures and flyers for networking events and trade shows, building and updating your website, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and other social media marketing. A market chock full of low-ballers from other countries and here in the US as well. Those folks that make earning the value of the project virtually impossible, which means you’re left calculating much lower hourly rates and set number of working hours. This happens in every industry, as everyone with an interest and any relate-able skill attempts to break into the market.
It is the hustle and bustle of an almost typical office administration job or similar
You prepare your profiles on a variety of platforms, you upload your best works, you send proposals to jobs you qualify for, and get inquiries from potential clients as well. If you using freelance to reach a larger client base, add to your revenue, or rapid turn-around individual projects, these platforms are a great way to assist with brand recognition and word of mouth referrals.
You also complete tasks that are on your daily To-Do List of client projects. Since your clients are your priority, it can take away from your available time to keep up with your own marketing. This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, while you’re dedicating time to clients as a means of reaching the goals and objectives of the project, you may be damaging your other followers. You may also either gain sufficient additional exposure through their word of mouth advertising, or lose potential income.
You commit to producing the highest quality work you possibly can, in order to grow your online reputation within each platform, in order to gain more assignments against similarly skilled competitors, bidding on projects, and stating why you feel you would be the “perfect fit.” Sometimes you have only a handful of competitors, other times you have millions!
If you don’t have a commitment to hard work, a dedication to growth, and the motivation to pull it off by managing your time and projects effectively, then perhaps you should consider outsourcing your marketing, or not freelancing. It would also not be of benefit to you to take on more projects than you can handle with precision, as you will receive negative feedback and be less likely to obtain additional opportunities.
