What is freelancing? A freelancer is a self-employed person and earns from per-assignment basis,
mostly for short-term work. Advantages of freelancing contain the freedom to work from home or from an unorthodox workplace.
There is an ocean of jobs in freelancing but they are some who have long-term use, following are some main jobs for a freelancer:
- Web designing/development
- Virtual assistant
- Data entry
- Animation
- Graphic design
- Editing
- Search engine optimization
- Online research
In past few years, freelancing has become more popular than ever. In addition, people are freelancing without any need. Many deliberately choose an independent lifestyle. This is not surprising when you consider the profits and liberty of being your own person in charge. part-time, or a full-time job starting an independent business, you have come to the right place.
Here, we review the benefits of being a freelancer at this time.
More freedom
One of the assistance of being a freelancer is that you have a lot more liberty than when you are employed for someone. You actually run your business, and it’s up to you what new customers you take, what your hourly rate is, and how many hours you work.
For example, if a client comes to you with a job that seems complicated and does not pay well, you can turn it down. You are not under obligation to take any projects you do not want.
Improved skill set
Freelancing means you are taking on a variety of projects from many clients. Each project brings something new to the table and offers the opportunity to grow your set of skills. You will probably find yourself learning new things as you travel.
You may feel overwhelmed by the traditional full-time ministry, which may not include learning and developing. Freelancing offers many opportunities for growth as you deal with a variety of projects.
You may also want to improve your own set of skills. As a freelancer, you can choose how and when to do your work. Lots of online courses and opportunities are available, and you have the freedom to make time for this.
Wage(earning) control
As a freelancer, you do not need to ask your supervisor to promote you. You set your own values. You also choose how much work to do. However, prices and value of work are below market strength. You cannot claim star compensation without narrowing down your list of potential customers.
However, many independents find that they can raise their prices over time as they do more work and gain a solid reputation.
Exposure
Many jobs offer a variety of employees; however, working independently unlocks job capabilities across a variety of projects and topics. Working for one company indoors may not provide information on other industries and workplaces. Freelancing is a way to expand horizons. This variety can help create a more relaxed and boring environment.
Adaptability
With such freedom over clients and overwork, the private sector has adapted to the conditions most people dream of.
For example, if you have children, you may choose to do their homework with them before and after bedtime. If you want a leave on Wednesday because the weather is good and you work on Saturday, it’s entirely up to you. Generally, as long as your clients’ work is completed by the agreed deadlines, you can fully control when and how you do it. Freelancer can even travel while working.
The benefits of freelancing are many - better balance of work life, the ability to choose your working hours, customers and unlimited power of income. However, launching a private or public business requires careful planning and preparation. Before you can make a change from a full-time job to a freelance job.
you need to know the pitfalls of freelancing.
Isolation
Working from home can be isolating. As an independent worker, you cannot interact with management, employees or other staff. Networking, involvement in professional organizations and social media can help free you from isolation. Social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are great tools for communicating with other professionals.
Lack of Benefits
As an independent contractor, you do not receive benefits provided such as holiday pay, health insurance and other general benefits. Sick time is also not a thing or legal liability insurance can be very expensive for a freelancer.
If you are self-employed, paid sick or vacation time is not available. You should create a backup plan to help your customers or meet deadlines due to illness, personal emergencies or holidays.
Health insurance can be very expensive for self-employed workers as they are unable to get discounts based on the resources provided by large companies. Existing medical conditions can make finding coverage difficult.
High Responsibility
If you are a freelancer, you run a business. You are in charge of business development, customer acquisition, managing your customers, paying / collecting, and billing taxes. You will have to make a number of decisions — how you will track and receive payments; what programs you need to buy; what marketing tools you need and more.
Not everyone is ready and gifted to handle these responsibilities. You are the master of your product, and you need to run your independent business as a freelancer.
Taxes
Uncle Ben earns a portion of his income whether he is a freelancer or an employee. Freelancers, however, are responsible for paying self-employment taxes and making sure you pay them quarterly. However, the private sector also has a deduction from unqualified employees. Taxes can be the inefficiency of freelancing, so make sure you carefully consider the rules and regulations when setting your prices. You should also keep careful records of all your expenses.
Accountability
As an independent contractor, you are the foundation, the success or failure of the business lies with you. You just have to be more discriminating with the help you render toward other people.
Working from home may cause many interruptions to phone calls for children, family, and visitors due to the temptation of refrigeration, television, household chores, and personal chores. You have to be focused, motivated and behave appropriately.
How Corona virus effected freelancing?
In order to adapt to the changes and uncertainties of COVID-19, we have seen many professionals enter this field for the first time.
the vast majority of workers began working freely when the corona-virus pandemic broke out. At the same time, social mobilization methods have led to traditional gig workers reducing workload, according to the annual survey of independent workers.
Due to this diversity of workers, there has been no way that the pandemic has affected freelancing completely. Instead, as other forces have created new opportunities and the need for one type of freelancer, the same power also reduces the need for another.
Summary
As freelancing is the most successful independent work platform it has many benefits like flexibility, workplace independence etc. It also has many drawbacks like all the responsibility of work is on you, even an insurance feels so much load. Due to Covid-19 freelancers are grown by high percentages.
Platforms
There are many platforms for an independent worker to freelance but some of them game many opportunities to independent workers and they tend to go to these platforms and perform their tasks. Some main platforms are discussed below:
Fiver:
It provides a platform for freelancers and companies to sell their services through their gigs. The pricing of gigs depends on how much the seller earns per task. When fiver was first introduced, all gigs were priced at $ 5, but now private retailers can decide to charge more or offer service packages.
Because of their popularity, they are one of the most competitive markets. With more competition comes more pressure to lower your prices, which can make it difficult to charge the prices you might want. But once you get the ball rolling and you get a good review, the stadium encourages you, and clients will continue to come to you.
Upwork:
It is the largest private working place with more than three million jobs posted each year, making it a great place to dive and start finding opportunities quickly.
You can follow many different types of freelancing on Upwork and choose from short to long contracts and fixed or hourly rates.
Overall, Upwork is one of the leading free web sites for beginners and professionals alike due to their endless sequence of opportunities and strengths of long-term work with clients.
Thumbtack:
Like other private forums, Thumbtack provides freelancers and businesses a quick and easy way to connect. Where Thumbtack does it differently, they focus on local communities and small businesses. Whether you are a writer, a graphic designer, or a lawn mower, their forum is set up to help you find work. And it’s totally free for freelancers to join, and they offer a refund and protection to help you if the job doesn’t go well.
Another added bonus to Thumbtack is their custom function pipe. You can access the types of services you want, and clients will reach out to you with jobs that meet your needs.
Behance:
It’s actually a creative platform owned by Adobe, but they have a solid work board for categories such as logo design, photography, graphics, and more. It is also a great place to hold and showcase your portfolio to their 10 million members. but has problems loading the image and compression.
Summary
Many platforms are working are making wealth like fiver, Upwork, Thumbtack and Behance etc. These platforms moving forth in e-commerce, editing, graphic designing and web development etc. And due to easy access of these places people are working as a freelancer more than often now a days.
FAQs:
1. Can you be a freelance writer a teenage?
A: Freelancing has no age limit, so what you can do online or in the real world as a freelancer is unlimited. In the world of freelancing, thinking outside the box is actually a good thing, so don’t limit yourself.
2. Are all independent workers are freelancers?
A: NO! only 38% of independent workers identify themselves as a freelancer.
3. How much can you earn by freelancing?
A : Average salary of a freelancer is $285 (USD).
4. Who invented freelancing?
A: Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, he started freelancing in 1800’s. He paid medieval mercenary(soldiers) for battling.
5. which is the most paid work in freelancing?
A:
- Web development/design
- Graphic design
Conclusion
Freelancing is a platform which is providing work for literally each and every one and this process is leading to a society where unemployment doesn’t seem to be a bad thing. Opportunities for both youngsters and for adults are available but freelancer require some planning which most freelancers don’t focus that is why they fail because complete responsibility of their job is on them and they need a proper planned schedule for their business.