You work long hours each week helping someone else achieve financial wealth and yet your paycheck barely supports your family. Many people who are tired of working for others decide to leave their employment behind and venture out on their own as a freelancer. Before leaving your day job, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons carefully, to make sure that freelancing is a good fit for you.
Being Your Own Boss
One of the biggest benefits of being a freelancer is that you answer to you. Since you are self-employed you won’t have a boss breathing over your shoulder and you create your own work schedule, which you can improvise as needed. It also allows you to spend more time with your family and lose the morning commute.
Can I Make Money?
The most important thing you must ask yourself is “can I make money?” While there are many jobs posted on various trusted websites daily for freelancers, having the qualifications and landing a job out of possibly hundreds of others looking for the same piece of real estate could prove challenging. However, if you do the work ahead of time by promoting your abilities, yes, you can make money.
You’re On Your Own
Basically, what you have to realize is that you will ultimately decide your destiny. If you are ambitious, resourceful, a self-starter and disciplined, you can make a good living as a freelancer. However, if you need someone to motivate you or give direction and you lack focus and resolve, self-employment may not be the best choice.
Who Hires Freelancers?
Large and small companies, as well as government agencies and yes, even freelancers, outsource some of their work to free up time best put to other uses. For instance, if you currently work in a doctor’s office and handle the patient files, the business probably outsources the audio and video files regarding information received on many of their patient’s. In this case, the doctor’s office would outsource these audio files to a medical transcription services company to put the information into text form. Lawyers also use legal transcription services to do the same thing. Companies large or small also need writers to provide content for their blog or website.
Promoting Business
Since the world of the freelancer is growing at a rapid pace you need to find ways to put your name out ahead of the competition. One way to achieve this is to create a presence on social media. These sites attract millions of people each day and even if a very small percentage view your work or see your ad and go to your blog or website you can gain credibility and recognition quickly.
Create a Blog
Many people in the freelance world still don’t understand the importance of having a blog. For example, say you’re a writer and you do many articles weekly for other people that they post on their websites or blogs. You can use this exposure to your benefit by posting articles previously written and for whom. Then people can read them, and if they are a blogger or a company in need of content they may, as a result, hire you as their writer.
Not Always Sunny
While working for yourself has many benefits, there are some drawbacks to self-employment. First, you will need to work harder, especially until you gain a steady following of companies that want you to work for them. Secondly, you will have to work independently and learn how to juggle different assignments and place them in order of urgency. You will also need to balance your work and your family, so that the decision to work from home benefits everyone.
While self-employment does have many advantages, it’s not for everyone. The best way to find out if it’s a good fit for you is to ease into it while still employed. This way if you can’t make enough money, you can remain employed.