Becoming a successful freelancer in the virtual workplace can be a rollercoaster. Before starting, the picture looks like a fairytale with an “and they lived happily ever after” ending. Still, upon beholding the reality, it begins to look more like a complicated love story entangled with lines of heartbreaks and disappointments.
Freelancing is a lucrative source of income. There are creatives earning much more than some employees in the physical workplace. However, success in any endeavour requires research, planning, and action steps. Freelancing is not an exception.
Whether as a virtual assistant, a graphics designer, a digital marketer, a data analyst, or a software engineer, you need to consider a list of factors and disappointments that are natural to the freelancing business. These factors, once understood, can be manipulated for a thriving career.
More critical than diagnosing the problems in freelancing is developing a healthy way to deal with the realities and heartbreaks it presents. Stress and disheartening experiences can alter your mental health, affecting the overall quality of your services and life.
Common Freelancing Problems
- Not Getting Jobs
- Lack of Job Security
- Difficult Clients
- Work-Life Imbalance
- Low Pay
Not Getting Jobs
As a new freelancer trying to break out in the virtual workspace, the first disappointment you will most likely encounter is not getting any jobs. In the early days and sometimes along the way, though not for all, you will either send proposals or create gigs without landing a job. Many have been there, and many have come out of it. You will too, and it gets better with every proposal you send out.
Lack of job security
One difference between freelancing and regular employment is job security. An employee has a sense of job security that the average freelancer does not have. You, as a freelancer, work based on clients and contracts. There is no certainty of retaining a client after the contract expires. It is important to note that an employee can also work remotely; a remote worker is not always a freelancer.
Difficult Clients
One challenge that comes with freelancing is working with demanding clients. This is an experience many freelancers have at least once in their freelancing journey. Having clients make absurd demands and offer to pay little for your services is a common problem freelancers have with some clients.
Thankfully, not all clients are terrible. Some are understanding and willing to negotiate with you. Others need extra patience to work with them. Remember always to retain your professionalism, no matter what kind of client you are dealing with. It projects your brand in a good light.
Work-Life Imbalance
Although freelancing offers flexibility, getting caught up in the promise of abundant time and streams of ongoing projects is easy. After all, you have control over how much you take on. This results in an imbalance between your work and life, especially when you are not disciplined with how much of your time goes into work and lack clear contracts.
It is very easy to get carried away by the job’s demands and drift away from loved ones as well as rest and recreational activities.
Low Pay
If you’re a freelancer and have never encountered a low-paying job, then you’re one lucky freelancer. Many creatives have to take low-paying jobs because they do not have the experience that will give them the boldness to demand more.
How to Deal With These Freelancing Heartbreaks
- Upskill
- Gain Experience
- Build Credibility
- Strike a Work-Life Balance
- Get Your Pricing Right
Upskill
No one suddenly appears to take a job without being equipped with the necessary skills and expecting to get the job. Emphasis on necessary skills. Except in rare cases of favours, an internship, or a graduate trainee program, you’ll most likely need a skillset to get a job and function appropriately on it.
As an intending or established freelancer, there are skill sets you’re required to have to provide adequate service to your clients. You need soft skills to have a smooth working relationship with your clients and prospects and hard skills to perform your tasks. Combined, they make you more appealing, reliable, and capable of meeting demands as a freelancer.
Soft skills you need should include communication, integrity, attention to detail, willingness to learn, and lots more. Some hard skills you’ll need include but are not limited to internet research, data entry, scheduling, travel booking, calendar management, social media management, etc.
With soft skills, you can manage your relationship with your clients, no matter how difficult they are. You will be equipped with the emotional intelligence required for effective communication.
Even after learning the essential hard skills needed to get a job, you’ll need to continuously upskill to remain relevant and keep up with the ever-changing industry. The more you can learn new skills and upgrade old ones, the more clients love you, the more jobs you get, and the more zeroes you add to your monthly cheque.
Gain Valuable Experience
More than accumulating skills and certificates is having experiential knowledge in your professed skills. Experience gives you an edge over someone who has theoretical knowledge with little or no experience.
As an experienced freelancer, you’ll have practical know-how related to your clients’ needs. You’ll be trusted more than an entry-level freelancer who only has skills and certificates.
For someone who is just starting or transitioning into freelancing, you may be disappointed with the level of experience a project you desire requires. Thankfully, you can gain experience by practising the tools your job demands. Whether working for your personal needs, volunteering for others, or interning with a company, each task can qualify for experience relevant to jobs.
Build Credibility
Building credibility with clients is vital to success in the virtual workspace. Like any other business or company, you need a personal brand that influences clients’ perceptions of you and your services.
The surest way of doing this is by first delivering timely, top-quality services with integrity to your clients. This enables you to clinch referrals and great recommendations that will quickly help convince prospective clients to hire you.
Strike a Work-Life Balance
The totality of life is more significant than just working to earn money and climbing up the career ladder. While work is needed to earn money and live a quality life, it is wiser and more critical to spend time building and maintaining quality relationships and doing the things you love doing. Hence, the importance of a work-life balance.
You should rest and attend to other areas of your life, too. Friends, family, and your health are what will remain after that job is gone. You should know how to organise your time as a freelancer to achieve a work-life balance.
Get Your Pricing Right
A lot of freelancers either shortchange themselves or request compensation that is excessive when it comes to pricing. There are variables to consider in pricing.
Pricing is determined by your efforts, the resources you put into it, and the results you can deliver to your client. It is also necessary to research the trends in your industry and note how other freelancers price their services.
As a starter, it may be difficult to find well-paying jobs. You should know what is fair enough to take up and what is below your services at the beginning of your journey to the top.
Freelancers have many success and horror stories. As I have said earlier, it is a rollercoaster, but you can always make it to the top as a freelancer. Don’t let your freelancing jobs get you worked up and frustrated. I shared a bit of my story on freelancing mistakes and why I started the freelancers’ finishing school, The Creatives Advisory, to help others not repeat my mistakes while freelancing.
If you want one-on-one coaching on being a successful freelancer, sign up at The Creatives Advisory for freelancing guidance. Remember, learning the business of freelancing is not an impossible feat.
Bye for now,
Alexis.
