By Ike Okosa

Have you recently decided to go freelance to supplement your current income? Are you looking to build a career out of freelancing? One thing’s for sure – you’re likely to need some help. Depending on what type of work you’ve decided to do, the first thing you’ll need to know is where to find good freelance jobs, and how to get them.

Read to discover valuable insight on how to go about gaining your first freelance jobs.

Know your onion

It doesn’t matter if you’re the most confident person in the world, or if you’re as timid as a church mouse, you have to know how best to sell your services. When applying for jobs on platforms such as eWorker, it’s best to take a fresh/refined approach to each and every job you apply for. Taking the time to submit a tailored proposal for each job, and allowing the customer to see that you’re investing more time and effort than it takes to simply copy and paste a generic proposal is likely to get you more interest. In addition to this, show yourself off. Make sure your profiles are up to date with some of your work showcased in your portfolio. If a client wants an urgent job done, the people whose work they can see without specifically asking for it will likely be hired first.

Offer Incentives

If you’re a newbie freelancer, it’s essential you build a reputation, as freelance jobs don’t come in beds of roses. Offering to work for slightly less, or sending a short sample of your work on your first few jobs will allow you to start building a good reputation, and once you have some great feedback from clients on your profile, you can start increasing the prices you charge for your services.

Follow up on every proposal

Sometimes clients get so busy with their workloads, they simply forget that they’ve not allocated a job, and the first to remind them is often the person who will be get the job. Please take note that I’m not suggesting you send reminder messages every hour, but do send a timely, friendly reminder, perhaps a day or so later, just asking if there’s anything else they need to know about you, or if they’ve had chance to consider your proposal. At all costs, avoid sounding desperate as this will destroy your reputation faster than you can ever imagine.

Use Social Media

To succeed in your freelance business, you must maintain active profiles on social media. If you’re on LinkedIn, or even Facebook or Twitter, it’s worth posting your eWorker profile link, or if you have a blog, you can even pop a “hire-me” widget on there too. The exciting thing about social media is that it only takes one person on your network to like or share your profile, for someone you’ve never heard of to decide you’re just what they need!

It’s not easy to make a break in the freelance market as a first timer, but following the tips above will give you higher chances of getting the first few freelance jobs to kick off your new career.

Hire Toka here – To guest blog for eWorker please contact us at [email protected]