By Ike Okosa

Starting off as a freelancer can be quite challenging, especially if you know other freelancers that struggle to find regular work. Even the most professional of people, experienced in their field, can face difficulties when it comes to getting jobs if they haven’t planned on how to gain regular work. However, there are many freelancers who have built (myself included) a profitable, regular stream of work, and there are a wide variety of tips and tricks to achieve this.

In this article, we will take a look at some of the most effective ways to build your freelance revenue stream that should see you through your freelance career.

Pitch for work
It’s no use putting up a profile on eWorker.co, or building a website and hoping the work will just come to you. The beauty of pitching for work is that you can select the jobs you prefer do, that will fit in with your schedule and earn you what you feel you deserve. However, you should always tailor your pitch to the job you’re bidding for. Buyers on eWorker, and elsewhere, are likely to recognise a generic pitch when they see one, and this tends to make you look lazy and reduce your chances of getting hired. Just like tailoring a cover letter for an white collar job, make sure your proposal tell the buyer exactly what you can offer them for their specific needs.

Use one or more Quickies
This is a great way of getting regular business, as well as one off jobs. In fact, my Quickies have brought me a solid revenue stream right from the start. Based on your skillset, you can offer any number of Quickies that will likely attract prospective buyers. Ensure you include relevant keywords in describing your Quicky, and you’ll show up in search results, getting you in the face of clients you would never have met otherwise. Your Quickies are a permanent advertisement for your services, so make sure you update them regularly, tweak them if necessary as things change, or you can think of add-ons to offer.

Teach (if you can)
Would you like to help others and make money at the same time? Then consider passing on your skillset to others by offering training as one of your Quickies! If you’re an experienced Photoshop expert for instance, you could offer to show buyers how to remove backgrounds from pictures for a one off training fee. Do not think that you would be cutting off your income stream by doing so. You can usually charge more than you would for one off background removals, and you’ll be showing your expertise to clients, so they may be more likely to call on you if they need something much more complicated done.

Another way to use your experience and expertise to generate regular income through training is by commencing a regular course. Taking the Photoshop expert as an example again, you could set up a weekly training session for a period of 3 months, where you teach buyers different aspects of Photoshop that they’re likely to need to know. You can command a good fee for training, and you may find this leads to a new offshoot for your freelance career.

Don’t be discouraged by others who haven’t had their freelance breakthroughs. As with other careers, your success in freelancing depends most importantly on your determination to succeed. As long as you think carefully about how to build a regular stream of income, and use some of the tips I’ve shared above, there’s absolutely no reason you can’t have a profitable freelance career of your own.

A huge thanks to Ike for sharing his inside secrets to a regular, consistent and profitable revenue stream. Ike is an Entrepreneur and founder of eWorker, you can view his profile HERE.