Freelancing can be a quick way to get money especially if you’re already an experienced professional. But for beginners without many freelancing portfolio, getting first freelance job is a quite challenging journey.
Beginners have to compete with already established freelancers with a lot of good reviews. If you bid a popular job with lots of bids, your application most likely be overlooked because top freelancers on the platform will apply to the job. To overcome that, you need a strategy to kick start your freelancing career.
Why did I choose “first $1,000 USD in this post title”? Well, I want to show you that you can work full time being a freelance. $1,000 USD a month is quite big amount of money and in many countries and it’s sufficient for comfortable living. Many top freelances even make more than that in a month.
Here is a screenshot of my Upwork profile page:
So what is the strategy to kick start your freelancing career? Here are some tips I gather from my experiences:
1. Strengthen Your Mindset
Mindset is the most important thing to succeed other than skill and behavior. Starting your freelancing career can be hard, especially after some rejected applications. You’ll start to doubt yourself and if you’re not strong, you will give up.
Know that you’ll definitely get your first job using the right strategy. Be patient and keep grinding.
2. Focus On One Freelancing Platform
When starting out, you can feel overwhelmed due to many freelancing platform available. If you google “freelancing website” you’ll find many blog posts talking about “Top 15 Freelancing Websites” and similar topics. Do your research about different platforms and stick to one after picking the most suitable one for your skill.
Find the one that has many jobs with your particular skill with lots of verified job publishers. If you find a platform that is specific for your skill, that may work as well for you. For me who is looking for software developer jobs, Upwork is great for me.
3. Create A Website With Portfolio And Contact Form
Aside from freelancing platforms, your own website is a great asset to get freelancing jobs. You won’t believe how often you’ll be contacted via your website contact form once you have an established website and it’s been around for a while. Potential clients like to know you first before hiring you.
Creating a blog or a simple portfolio with a contact form should be enough for starter. Showcase your past works on the website. If you’re graphic designer, put your past watermarked designs. If you’re software developer, put your github profile and descriptions of software you’ve developed. If you’re writer, put sample articles or links to your published articles, and so on. Here is my portfolio page for reference.
Create a free product and put in your community platform. Then, put your website link in your product and the platform profile. For example, in my case I developed free WordPress plugins and add my website link (yudhistiramauris.com) in profile page and plugin description. If you’re a graphic designer, put your designs on dribbble and put your website link in the profile page.
To build a website, you can get a hosting, domain name and use WordPress to start up your website as quickly as possible. Alternatively, I can help you set it up today.
If you want a blazing fast and converting website like this website, feel free to contact me.
4. Build A Simple Yet Good Profile Page On Your Freelancing Platform
Moving back to freelancing platform, good profile page is a great place to convince your potential clients when bidding on jobs. You can write anything on your profile as long as it’s related to your skill.
Write any related skills you have. Put your past best works. Add your past employments. Put your past clients’ testimonials and reviews.
For me I like to keep it simple and straightforward like this:
5. Only Bid On Projects You’re Good At
At the beginning, it’s better to be a good in a specific niche rather than broad topic. For example in programming, if you’re good with PHP, you’re not necessarily good in other language such as Python even if you know the basic. Make sure you only bid on PHP projects that you’re confident with. Later after building great reviews and platform trust, and after improving your Python skill, you can also bid on Python projects.
6. Bid on Quick Small Fixed Price Jobs
When starting off, you don’t want to bid on $1,000 or $10,000 jobs or big hourly contracts immediately unless you’re already a seasoned freelance with great portfolio. Your application most likely be overlooked because on most freelance platforms, your past project previews and performance will be visible to project owners.
When project owners see your application with no previous work on the platform, they will filter out your application unless you can write very convincing cover letter.
Instead, bid on small fixed price projects. The amount may vary from $0 – $100 USD. The projects are usually simple and can be finished quickly. For now, your goal is not to land big projects. It’s to build up great reviews from your clients and trust in the platform.
7. Place Bid Amount Slightly Less Than Project Budget
If the project you want to bid on has $100 budget, bid $90. If it has $50 budget, bid $45 or $40. This will increase your chance to get the job because most competing freelances will bid the full amount or more.
8. Write Personal Cover Letter When Submitting Bids
Many freelances use the same template for each project bidding cover letter. I don’t recommend this as it won’t help your application getting project owners’ attention. Usually they can feel whether a cover letter is a generic template or a thoughtful cover letter. They sometimes include a secrete question in project description so they know that you really pay attention to project details.
Read project description carefully. Plan how you will accomplish the project goal and write it down in your cover letter. Give an estimate when it will be completed. You can also give personal taste by calling project publisher’s name if available in your cover letter.
Here is a sample of cover letter of a recent job I got on Upwork:
Hello {client name},
My name is Mauris, a senior WordPress developer.
From your project details, it requires custom development to create a solution that will periodically sync a course progress data to another course progress data.
Since course progress is attached to course, we need to develop a system that allows you to select which course is synced to which course. Then we look for/filter similar lessons/data that we can sync.
Would you like to discuss it in more details?
Best regards,
Mauris
9. Be Honest In Interviews
If your application is considered, potential clients will contact you with more questions or details. This is your chance to convince them to hire you. Answer their questions honestly and don’t try to make things up.
Give your best estimate on project completion date and budget. If the project details turn out growing bigger than the initial project details so that it exceeds the budget significantly, tell the clients straightaway.
10. Complete The Job and Build Up Great Reviews
After getting jobs, make sure you deliver your promise. If possible over deliver and over communicate. Communication is an important key in freelancing since you’ll do everything over the internet without any physical meeting. Keep the clients updated on what you’re working on. Ask for their feedback after you complete certain task so you can revise it as soon as possible if necessary. Make sure you do a great job on the project.
Over-communicating doesn’t mean communicating everything; it means communicating the right things effectively.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/03/why-you-need-to-over-communicate/
After project completion, ask the clients for reviews about your work. Reviews are important in freelance platform so you can get platform trust, hence leads to more work opportunities.
That’s all the tips I can share for my ultimate guide to get your first $1,000 USD from freelancing. If you have any additional tips and information, please feel free to post it in the comments below ⬇️.
Leave your comments below!