Make the Most of Your Skills – Go Freelance
At some point or another all of us will start to wonder if we’re using our skills to their full potential. We might be in a job that we’ve spent year’s skilling up for, only to find that we could have done exactly the same things we’re doing without having to have put in any of the time learning our craft. We’re wasting away and getting nowhere very, very quickly.
For a lot of people that’s as far as it goes, a nice dream, but the thought of doing something about it is too scary a prospect, their thought’s drift back to the job in hand as they get ready to complain about the next thing that doesn’t go their way. Of course it doesn’t have to be like that. In fact there’s a way to test out a possible career shift without even leaving the job you’re in at the moment.
As the internet has increased in popularity it has opened up a world of opportunities for people to make money online. Some people have even started to make a real living online just by being able to sell people their time or expertise, and the freelancers that are doing this can make a name for themselves, and a lot of money if they go about it properly.
As someone just starting out, and probably firmly holding on to your job in the process, you’ll want to just dip your toe in to see what it’s like, and if it’s going to be a serious career move for you. This is probably the best way to get started until you know what it’s all about and what you need to do to be successful at it.
So, having decided that a spot of freelancing might be the long term answer to your problems, why don’t we have a look at some of the things that are available to you through the many freelancing service providers?
Freelance writing: Do you have the knack of being able to write things that other people want to read? If so you could be headed for freelance heaven. The internet revolves around information, despite some of the sites you may accidently have seen on it, and people who are able to provide a good stream of content for sites to use are like gold dust. The search engines have become so sophisticated now that they can weed out sites that have duplicate content, and, because they don’t like the people searching with them to have a bad experience, the search engines will, at best, drop those sites down the rankings – and in the worst cases? Sites have been known to disappear from the search engines completely.
Anyone who has spent their time building up a profitable site is not going to risk that happening, so they’re on the lookout for people who will be able to provide them with good, useful, unique content. Because of the time and effort that can be involved in vetting new writers they will often stick with the ones they find – and pay them well so as to keep them.
Design and media: Have you always had an artistic flair but never thought you’d be able to make it in the industry? Do you tend to be a bit outrageous with your designs and felt they’d never be acceptable in a corporate environment? Well, you may still have a chance to make it big with your designs.
The internet is not restricted to corporate brands and logos, safe and clean designs, monotone pallets and uniform fonts – it’s crying out for people who can bring uniqueness to sites. With millions of new websites created everyday they need to standout from the very start, so someone with finesse can give them the edge they need for their new website, and speaking of which…
Freelance web and programming: Do you like building website? There are plenty of tools out there to build them these days, you no longer need to know anything about html and php etc so as to get a basic site put together, but in most cases that’s just what it’ll be – a basic site. Not everyone will be looking to embed audio or video into their website, but they will be looking for something that’s functional and easy to navigate.
In fact some people don’t even have the time to learn how to put together the most basic of sites. So, with a bit of time and knowledge, you can create a site for them that they’ll be will to pay you a lot of money for.
Admin Support: A vast number of the people out there looking for admin support will be running small to medium sized companies. They may not be in a position to be able to hire fulltime members of staff, but, they still need to get a certain amount of admin work done, so they’ll be inclined to take on freelance admin support staff.
If you’re skilled at general admin work, or you’re a good typist, you should be able to pickup some work that you’ll be able to do for these companies. The work that you can get from them can be quite frequent too if you do a good reliable job for them – good staff are always hard to find, and even harder to keep a hold of.
Sales and marketing: One of the key things for any business, whether it’s online or not, is sales and marketing. There are very few businesses that don’t involve some form of selling or marketing, and if you’re good at either, you could be the lifeline they need so as to keep going.
Those are just a few of the freelance jobs that you’ll be able to bid on at sites like Elance.com, or anyone of the other major freelance job sites.
If you’re just starting out or curious for a look, why not check them out to see what’s available? You’ll be surprised to see how many of the jobs being advertised you could do yourself. You could then try doing a couple of them to see if it’s going to be a viable option for you to do fulltime – and remember, you can still do one or two of them while you’re in your old job.
Stop thinking about how much of your knowledge, skill and experience are going to waste – get out there, become a freelancer and do something about it!
