Welcome to the world of Freelancing. You are here just because either you are not satisfied with your current job or you might be wandering to get a job where you have full freedom and control on your own schedule. You are not looking for a job but an independent business that you can run by your own or with a team of professional freelancers. This is the beauty of Freelancing that you can enjoy it either as business or a fully independent job. You never loose any thing either way. So all you need to have is, determination and competency for saying YES to Freelancing.
Why Freelance?
I have been working as a Sales & Marketing professional since 1994. I never been satisfied with the traditional jobs, I have constantly been switching over to the different jobs just because of the issues like Timing, Low Salary, Increasing Expenses, irrelevant jobs, Overtimes, Traffic jams, unscheduled strikes, regular protests in the city and for not giving enough time to my family. these were the basic reasons that enticed me for finding a substitute of the traditional jobs.
Let me say that making money as a freelancer is unique experience to me and as far as I concern, This is the best way to earn a handsome income using your skills and experience for a particular niche. Initially I wanted to join freelance profession just to increase my income along with a traditional job but right after first month I realized that it was time to be changed because I found that this is the way I was looking for to live my life with. Now just after 9 months, I am a successful freelancer and have earned such a great income that I had never before with the total control on my own schedule without any kind of tension that I have mentioned above. Simply amazing, I am home, My computer is my office, I am my own Boss, I make my decisions, I utilize my time, I schedule my timing, I don’t go away, I don’t stuck in traffic jam, I don’t care whether or not is there any strike and protest, I don’t even care if fuel price is getting ups n downs, I don’t need to wait any increment in my income.
How to make money using freelancing?
Well this is a million dollar question for a new Freelancer. I recommend you that don’t think big while you are new to freelancing. Instead of looking for jobs on the different websites or job portals, try to realize your interest and experience first. You need to be patient to get a right path, Otherwise you could lost your way in the line of freelancing. You can become a successful freelancer by learning the way I am going to tell you.
1. Realize your NICHE: Just imagine for a moment, what is you are interested in or which category you want to choose as a professional online service provider? for instance, Are you good in writing, Graphic designing, Web designing, 
Sales & Marketing, Programming, Languages, Administrative jobs, documentations, Legal or in technical & financial matters. Once you analyzed about yourself, you have crossed the half way mark because a significant number of Freelancers fail to become a successful freelancer just because of they don’t actually realize what is the right category to be selected. They try to get the job as soon as possible and this is the main reason why they fail to become a freelancer. So finding your Niche is the most important aspect for becoming a freelancer.
2. Finding the Best platform: Once you have decided the best thing you have, just jump to the internet for finding the best platform that you could use to sell your
skills and experience on. There are a number of platforms that you can registered with but if you go to see the top Freelancers websites, of course freelancer.com should be your first choice. I never seen such a complete platform that provides 
almost all the features you could imagine. Freelancer.com facilitates you to register and manage your account without paying any single penny. This is simply amazing. Easy to navigate, easy to go through the content without getting any complex way, Freelancer.com has attractive and user friendly environment and about more than 3,602,000 freelancers are registered with this website. I love to use Freelancer.com affiliate program to monetize my blog as well. So just go and register with this website so that you could get a way to make money in a respectable and systematic method.
3. Tailoring a strong Profile: After getting registered with freelance website,
the next thing you want to do is, creating a killer profile to market your skills and 
knowledge about any particular category. The profile should be brief and descriptive and you should provide all the information honestly about yourself. Write a brief overview, your categorical expertise and experience with the skills and competency level which helps a potential clients to know each and every thing about you and they could select you based on the information you provided. You should upload a recent professional looking photograph so that Clients could get and idea about your personality. A professional photograph is the most important part of your profile so don’t ignore it at all because it tells the Clients that you are serious in your profession.
4. Write about your Skill & experience: This is the backbone of your profile and you must not ignore this option at all. Write or select only the skills which
you are expert in. Don’t add such skills that you are not expert or have not enough knowledge about. Be honest in designing the portfolio because the potential clients would select you as their project designer only if you have relevant skills and knowledge with enough experience that required by the Clients. Don’t try to fill your profile with the irrelevant things to impress clients, rather you just focus on the relevant category in which you are expert and skilled. Try to describe every sub category that is relevant to your Niche. You should be fair in tailoring your profile to best suit your profession.
5. Find the relevant Project: once you have all set, just browse the jobs by selecting your relevant category. By default every new member has 10 ten Free “bids” that means you can enjoy free bidding on ten projects that match your skill set. But remember if you want to have more privilege for your account, you need to upgrade it. I recommend you to not bidding on every project rather just analyze the close one that matches your profile. Moreover, go through the job descriptions at least thrice so that you could understand deeply that what exactly the client wants to see in the results. Try to understand each and every point and query that Client wants to be addressed. Once you have analyzed and understood every thing, Just go on to prepare a brief attractive and point to point proposal for the particular project.
6. Craft a descriptive yet attractive proposal. If you have decided to bid on the particular project, just be ready to free your mind with every thing that is not related to the job. Just concentrate on the description that you have to address in your proposal. First thing first, you need to write down all the points that you are 
going to address so that you could focus on every point individually and that makes thing more clear. Start the proposal with the Client’s name. Don’t use the words “Dear Sir / Madam” or “Hi there” and something like similar instead of addressing by his name (if provided) for example if the Client name is “Mark” or something like ID ” Mark-012″, Just call him with the name ” Mark” or if you see any other words instead of NAME then type the ID with the exact words. Just try to be personal with the client because Freelancing is totally different from the traditional trends. Simply, try to be Client’s project insider with the feel that you are sincere with the client even both of you are not familiar but you are going to be his professional online adviser and service provider and that’s the reason why the Client has opted-in for the project over the Internet.
- Start your proposal with the feel of being personalized with the client.
- Type “I have read and understood the job requirements and would love to provide the same with the best of my knowledge and expertise” or something similar at the top of your proposal to grab the immediate attention of the client to your proposal.
- Don’t try to start with your introduction like ” I am expert and professional and I am Master or something like that”. Instead always start the proposal with the project overview describing in your own words so that Client could understand that you have deep interest and knowledge about his project. So always prefer the project and then provide the overview about how you would go to provide the best solution that the Client wants to get.
- Try to give enough suggestions and briefly describe the reason why do you recommend that.
- Provide references and/or examples if you already done the similar jobs.
- Now provide an overview about yourself to entice Client for selecting you as the contractor. Try to use simple words so that Client could understand your expertise and skills to match the project demand.
- Try to elaborate why should client select you as the project insider?
- If you have relevant samples or demos, provide references.
- Write your complete contact details including email id, real time chat software ID like Skype, Phone number and your location. Don’t forget to mention your Timing so that Client could have an idea about which would be the better time to communicate with you.
- Try to close your proposal with the words that are useful to make Client’s mind. For example, “I know your are the person who loves to provide the job to the experienced and skilled professional and so I am looking forward to hearing from you”.
7. Project Costing & time frame: Finally we are at the last stage where you 
should be extremely focused on the exact evaluation for the job. I recommend you that not to demand high price for the job specially when you are new to freelancing. Instead, try to build trust and good relationship with the Clients so that they could consider and invite you whenever they need to launch any project.
- Don’t evaluate the cost by looking at the other contractors or freelancers bids for the project. Instead, try to be lower in costing so that you could get a certain chances to be selected in case the Client has low budget for that particular job. This is a very effective way to get the job in your starting and learning period.
- A majority of the Clients try to find cheap solution that is the reason why they use freelance platform because they realize that this is the forum where they can get cheap, reliable and fast turn around than a traditional job posting.
- So the success is with lowest in costing. This is globally proved formula.
- Always give one two days latter in the delivery time sheet because you could have any unexpected problem like Electricity, unavailability of Internet connection , Computer hardware failure or something similar that could be happened unexpectedly. Remember that providing a fast turn around within the time limit increases the Clients trust in you and they would think to use you for their future projects.
8. Review the proposal to make it Error Free: After preparing a sound proposal to bid on the selected job, Just go through the proposal couple of times to see whether or not is there any spelling or grammatical mistake. Make sure you have used simple language rather than industry jargon. Don’t try to impress Clients such a technical terms that might be beyond their knowledge or Education. Simpler is better.
So these are the simple rules to follow for becoming a successful freelancer over Freelancer.com. I hope you would consider each and every thing to start your freelance career to make easy and constant income resource online by using your skills and experience. Good luck !
