Keep Your Eyes And Ears Open As A Freelancer!

This is very good advice that you need to take into account at all times. We are faced with a really tough “job” when our main goal is to work as a freelancer. There are various opportunities that are basically missed because of the fact that we are not attentive to what happens around us. In the beginning I missed out on so many different opportunities because I was focused on getting jobs on ODesk and Freelancer.com. I kept bidding and bidding and I particularly remember one opportunity that I totally missed out on Facebook. A friend was looking for someone to write some SEO articles for a gaming site. I love games and I would have loved that task. When I talked with him it was too late as the position was already filled. I will never forget what he said:

“Man! WTF? I would have hired you in a sec and would have paid more than I do this guy now!”

Some of the best jobs that we can get as freelancers are right near us. They are those jobs that are offered by friends, friends of friends and acquaintances. I firmly believe in networking and the power of making a good impression in basically everything that we do from a professional point of view.

Yesterday I received an email from an acquaintance. We are not best friends or anything like that. It was an offer to quickly tweak out a WordPress template that was not showing properly. I quickly looked at the coding and the problem was a missing

tag. I quickly solved it in 5 minutes and when asked how much I want, I said that I wanted a beer. The guy laughed and asked me what the medium amount was for a day of work for me. I said $50, which is about right. Sometimes I make more, sometimes less. I was completely honest and the guy quickly wired me $50, even though he knew that I did the work in just a few minutes.

You never know what doors can open for you if you just keep your eyes open. Never make the mistake of assuming that all that you will do will be done through Odesk or Freelancer, Elance or any other job board out there. Do set up your own business site and do try to do all that you can in order to make a good impression with all people that you meet. That does not mean that you have to suck up to them. It just means staying honest.

You will most likely not get to see many opportunities at first but you will notice that people will call you eventually as they realize that you do know what you are doing. Being a freelancer is all about opportunities and making the client happy with what you did. You never know when the client gets back with a new job as he/she was satisfied with what you did.

“You never know!”