Freelancing
There is no faster way to earn real money online, than offering your services as a freelancer, through a platform like Fiverr or Freelancer.com.
So even if this isn’t something you’d want to do long-term… if you’re starting to have a few ideas of the business you’d like to build but you’re going to need some extra cash to get started, this is a sure-fire way to get it.
It’s an approach I’ve used myself to generate some extra cash in the past, but it’s also one I’m happy to have left behind. It’s just not my ideal model for a long-term business… because you only earn when you work… But as a means to an end, you cannot beat it.
It’s also of a stepping stone to a more sustainable business I want to share with you next…
So please take a minute now to see how this works, and consider what skills you currently have that could be put to work this way.
And we’ll take it to a whole other level tomorrow!
OK, today we’re talking about Freelancing Gigs.
This is where you perform any number of services, for any number of clients, through some of the freelancer platforms you’ll find online.
Services can include things like writing, creating artwork, recording videos, writing code, setting up websites, posting to social media sites, etc.
Now some of those will require some specific skills or training, but you can get started offering virtually any service you can think of…
And for raw beginners, there’s any number of grunt-work jobs that people just don’t have the time to do themselves.
Think about directory submissions, social media posting, blog commenting etc.
What can be even better though, is if you have software to do these jobs…
- You offer that as a service and your work will be to set the software to run each campaign.
- Sell a few campaigns and use your profits to buy another piece of software for another service…
- Rinse and repeat, adding better software so you can charge more and do less!
First, How Do You Find Clients?
There are dozens of freelancer sites on the internet… Fiverr, Upwork, Odesk, Freelance.com and many more.
Fiverr was originally a marketplace where every job was $5, but that’s definitely changed now… many freelancers won’t have any tasks under $50-$100.
Some of the other sites are connecting freelancers with clients for jobs that are worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars each. If you have those skills… or are prepared to get them, that can be very lucrative.
(I’ve got a friend who decided to use the lockdown to learn to code for the blockchain, and just over a month into that he scored his first freelance gig… worth just under $1000!)
The thing to remember is, you don’t need to be an expert to get many of these jobs…
You just need to know the basics to get started, and know where to look to find out the rest!
As long as you get the job done, you can build up your reputation on the platform and keep expanding your services… and increasing your prices.
How to get started as a Freelancer?
You’ll want to spend some time on each platform, looking what services other people are offering that you could do…
Once you have a few ideas for what you can offer, find a few freelancers who are doing the same… pick some who have solid reputation points and have had lots of satisfied Clients… so you can model their success.
Study how they promote their various services:
- the way they describe the service
- how they manage delivery
- what and how they charge
- what other services they offer
And above all, work out how you can improve on all that!
Then it’s just a matter of joining a site and listing your chosen services…
At sites like Fiverr that’s it, people will come to you. At others like Freelancer, you’ll be notified of new projects that match your profile, so you can submit a proposal for any that interest you.
As a new Freelancer, you’ll probably have to discount a bit to get your first job, but make sure you keep increasing your prices with every gig after that, until you’re at a similar level to other freelancers.
You will find a lot of Clients will avoid anyone who is too cheap… it makes them nervous!
You’ll also find a lot of the ‘pain-in-the-neck‘ Clients will go straight for the cheapest Freelancer…
So use those gigs to launch your business, but step it up as quickly as you can… because they’ll drive you nuts!!
Beyond all that, you just need to get the job done!
On platforms like Fiverr you’ll get a notification that you’ve got the gig. You do it, deliver it to the Clients through Fiverr, and you’ll get paid as soon as they accept it.
On the bigger platforms there might be a bit of back-and-forth while you agree to the work required and the terms for doing it.
Either way, the payment goes into escrow when you accept the gig, so as long as you can demonstrate that you completed the job as agreed, you will always get paid.
So give this one some thought and see what you come up with?
At the very least, if you’ve been thinking you don’t have the cash to start a business just yet, this might even be a useful way to supplement your income while you grow your preferred business?
Either way, the next business model I want to cover will take this broad approach and turn it into an entirely different business…
Just before we do that though…
When I did this last, I used a $30 piece of software to submit press releases to about 30 directories. That used to be a popular strategy for getting better search engine rankings.
So lots of people wanted it done and they’d happily pay for that.
I charged about $20 on Fiverr and got about 5-10 gigs a week for several months. It took all of 2-3 minutes to load the job into the software and hit submit. When it was done, I saved the report, posted that to Fiverr and got paid.
Soon after I also added a gig to write the press releases as well. The client would provide all the info and I’d slot it into a template and just tidy it up a bit. I charged $30 for that and never spent more than about 10-15 minutes on it.
I did this off and on for a couple of years… disabling hte gigs when I was busy with other things, re-enabling them when I needed a bit of extra cash.
I eventually stopped because my software stopped working with all the press release websites. in a crunch though, I’m pretty certain I could find an alternative, or a submission site, and start up again in less than 24 hours!
And if I was starting over today?
I’d probably be looking through the PLR and Reseller sites for some cheap social media submission software…
Or maybe a cheap SAAS platform where I could do this kind of thing… one gig a month to cover my costs and the rest are profit?
Though now I think about it, if I looked through my downloads archive, I’ve probably bought 20-30 items that I could gig out… video creators, video promo tools, logo creators, graphic design tools, dozens of social sharing & submission tools…
Or probably best of all, I know I’ve got all kinds of local marketing tools I barely use… but to be honest, selling those services as a gig would be a major wasted opportunity.
Offering Local Marketing Services
