Today, we live a highly wired world. This wired world has broken geographical barriers between nations and territories. It has also destroyed the barriers of distance and time. Have you ever wondered how people used to communicate between distant places in the not so distant past? Today, all that you need to do to call up a friend or a business associate situated half a planet away is to pick up the phone and dial. A few decades ago, it would have taken about a day to do so.
Developments in telecommunications have also
shrunk the world. It is no longer necessary for someone to have a work done
only locally. When the same services are available from a pool of talent
located in any part of the world, it brings an assortment of skills and a
variety of experiences.
This could bring about a godsent opportunity for
those who can offer services. The advent of our present-day technologies has
opened up doors in hitherto unimagined ways. You could be based in the
Philippines, specialize in being a service provider, and offer it to someone
who lives in Panama City. Wait. Did I say you should specialize? I stand
corrected. You DON’T need to be a specialist to offer your services. You could
be what one calls a general specialist and offer ANY service to ANY one who
needs it.
So, what services can one offer? As I said, these
could be simply anything from writing to graphics and from IT services to
setting up offices in offshore locations. And, all of these can be done without
leaving your chair.
Isn’t this what has been known for a while by the
name, “freelancing”? Yes, it is. One can offer services on an as-needed basis,
which is what freelancing essentially is. Being a freelancer, as one knows,
comes with the enormous advantage of being your own boss, taking up only that
work which interests you, and being able to leverage your time without having
to rush to office at the peak traffic hours.
So much for the advantages of freelancing. But
this profession comes with one major drawback: you would have all the fun of
working what you want to and as much as you would want to, but what would you
do when your projects run dry? After all, the main reason most service seekers
come to freelancers is that they don’t have to commit to the long-term
relationship that hiring a regular employee entails.
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So, where does that leave you? Will you make the
supreme sacrifice of having to forego a regular income for the short term
pleasure of living your lifestyle? It is to help you overcome this limitation
that I want to suggest something that will take away the primary worry of
freelancing. Read on.
Build a
regular income even as you freelance
The purpose of this blog is not really to help you
understand the pluses and minuses of freelancing, but to help you eliminate the
major bottleneck associated with this kind of working style. Let me elaborate
before you start wondering if it is possible.
Now, you have landed a project of let us say,
writing. In normal freelancing terms, what happens is that you are given work,
and when you complete it, the payment is made, and the client washes her hands
off you, so to speak. Now, if you want to create a recurring, consistent income
stream from these services, these are what you can do:
Get the client to sign up a commitment for the
duration of the project. What this means is that while you are essentially
still freelancing, you will have some commitment as to the duration of the
project. If the project runs into something like six months, what you can do is
to come to an agreement where you will ask the client to pay on a monthly basis
for the work you deliver
How is this helpful to the two sides? To you, it
gives the guarantee that you will be paid as you complete parts of the work.
You can get paid in instalments for the piece of work you do, instead of waiting
for the full six months to get paid. This gives you sufficient legroom to plan
your finances for a few months in advance.
As for the client, she is also equally assured
that the work is being carried out according to set milestones. Having a
roadmap for completion of the work works both ways, because it gives you a
timeline to plan and execute the project, and the client is assured that the
schedule is adhered to.
Expand your services, enhance your value
When you are offering this kind of service in
which you are seeking a commitment, you should be prepared to commit, too. One
way of doing this is to commit to the amount of work you will do within the
agreed dates, as we just saw. In addition, you will gain amazing credibility
with your clients by just offering value added services. These are some of the
ways by which you can do this:
If you are offering your writing services, youcould offer the client extra genres of writing, for an example. If you have entered
into a contract for, say, academic writing, you could expand your services and
offer content writing, blog writing, scriptwriting, and so on. The extra bonus
could be that you will offer these auxiliary services at a discount! Isn’t that
smart thinking? You will be charging below the market rates for these
associated services, but you have gained a client.
This is like making a short term sacrifice for a
long-term gain. This is how you make the client stay with you. Once you have
gained her trust and start getting repeated orders, you can jumble your rate
card and charge more for the main work and less for the related ones.
Remember, however, that the prerequisite to making
all this happen is the credibility you build with your clients. This is something
that one has to necessarily invest effort and discipline into, to gain. There
is just no shortcut to cultivating this one quality. This you can gain only
when you have the commitment and the will to succeed in the long run in the
services industry. Success is there to be had. It is possible for you to resort
to the tactics mentioned here to create a steady and consistent, long-term
income stream. But make sure you are motivated and dedicated, and have loads of
integrity to do it.
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