The following article continues from Part 1: Freelancing Your Way to Freedom.
Almost anyone can become a freelancer, but it only makes sense for certain people. Freelancing roles generally fall into three broad categories: basic, specialized, and rare. I’ll focus less on the basic category as you’ll see it’s quite straightforward, and focus instead on the more lucrative categories of specialized and rare.
Finding Basic Freelance Roles
Basic roles require no significant experience or technical skills and almost anyone could do them. Temp agencies often staff people to roles like this, such as a receptionist in an office. There are basic roles online too which may involve basic research or sorting of files etc. Sites including Amazon Turk or Freelancer.com often have such roles. The on-demand market of Uber or delivery services also falls in this category. Basic roles are generally low paying since anyone can do them and are usually taken by someone looking for a bit of extra money in their spare time, rather than trying to make a career out of it. They easy to find, but are not a long term solution unless you are happy with the average rate of pay they provide.
Finding Specialized Freelance Roles
Specialized roles require significant knowledge or prior training, and are far more lucrative. These are specialized roles for work a company needs to complete but does not have sufficient capacity or the right skillsets in house. Because of their pressing need and rarity of workers who meet the requirements, businesses will pay a premium when they find the right one. Not anyone can land a specialized role, and hence, not everyone can or should make a career out of freelancing. But if you have an in demand skillset, you can enjoy high pay, greater flexibility, and more vacation time than a corporate role could ever offer you.
Your technical skillset and industry experience will be a big factor in your ability to secure work in specialized roles. Some broader skillsets with strong demand for at the moment, such as mobile app programming, will find it relatively easy to find consistent project work as there is a large demand. However, there is also a large supply with many workers from lower cost overseas locations, so you will often be forced to compete on price. Since the industry is somewhat saturated, you’ll be able to eke out a stable, though not especially lucrative career in a high demand, high supply specialized field like programming. To obtain work in a saturated industry simply requires a diligent and streamlined approach to potential projects. Hundreds of new jobs get posted each week on various sites, you just need to regularly check for new postings, develop a methodology to prioritize which projects you’ll apply, and create a standard template to use for pitches.
Finding Rare Freelance Roles
Some freelance industries often seek hard to find people, hence the term rare. These roles may not become available that often, but require prior industry knowledge and/or highly specialized skillsets. Since these roles are specialized and infrequent, there are few websites dedicated to advertising such roles and they often get lost in the noise of larger aggregate job websites. Some specialized sites may exist that target your particular niche or industry, such as mangement consulting, and if so you should monitor them for opportunities. However, many roles never even make it to a job board, a company will explore its existing network first and only post the job publicly if it still can’t find anyone. Companies with roles like these are usually looking for the “good enough” candidate, rather than the perfect candidate. The company knows it may take months to find a candidate with all the skills they desire, but the need is immediate so they will settle for the first “good enough” person who comes along, instead of a traditional recruiting method that would compare between a pool of qualified applicants and try to find the absolute best fit. Rare roles can be particularly lucrative in terms of pay rate, and rates are usually at least $100/hour and can easily be $300+/hour depending on the role.
Getting work in rare industries requires a very different approach to basic or saturated industries. Here you will invest a lot more time in the sales process and trying to find opportunities. The bulk of your time should go into networking though, not trawling job boards or posting ads. A person who wants to freelance in rare industries need to develop a diverse network of contacts in that industry, and that process should start while you’re still in a full time role at a company. Try to get on good terms with as many of your coworkers as possible. Create relationships with more senior executives, but also with your peers and even those below you. We live in an era of short job tenure and high turnover, so within a few years many of your coworkers will be at different companies doing similar things, and they are your link to hear about potential opportunities before they ever hit a job board.
Networking is not that hard, though it does require some active effort. Networking doesn’t mean you have to go to every social event and booze up with your coworkers, or go to local area networking events. What it does require is staying in occasional contact with those in your network. Maybe send a note to a coworker who left a few months after he starts his new job asking how he’s going. Or if you changed jobs or started freelancing, write an update on your life every six months and send it out to all your old coworkers and anyone else in your network. If you’re looking for work you can mention at the end to “please let me know if you hear of any opportunities at your company that could use my services”. With modern social media in LinkedIn its even easier to stay in touch, so make the effort to not let your connections die.
You may also gain opportunities in rare industries by becoming a thought leader known in the industry. Being a thought leader simply means having a positive reputation as someone knowledgeable of the industry. Writing short articles on topics relevant to your industry is a great way to start. Post these to your LinkedIn, as well as submit them for redistribution to any relevant industry sites that may be interested. Many firms often have an inhouse newsletter or magazine that may be interested in printing it, so be sure to send it to some of your target firms in your industry. You can also become a thought leader through proven success, for example a freelance marketer may engage in a viral marketing stunt for their own brand to demonstrate their effectiveness. None of these methods require you to win any actual awards or bestowed credibility, but you still earn real reputation that can turn into sales through your actions. The freemium model can also work to drive opportunities, and this can work in many different industries. As an example, if you are an expert at Microsoft Excel, you could create some tools designed to help basic an intermediate users and host them on a website. Users may come across your site by googling to help solve their problems. If your tools look well-made and are helpful to them, they may ask you to personally help them with further issues, and you can then charge a high specialized rate for these services.
As rare freelancing roles are just that – rare – I recommend anyone attempting to freelance in this field should also have a backup skill in a more saturated field. That way you have a reliable source of work to fall back on while searching for the next rare opportunity, and can still earn the more lucrative rates once a rare opportunity becomes available. Even better is if you’ve developed a side business of your own with moderate but stable cash flows, that you can supplement by taking high paying rare opportunities on short notice if and when they become available.
Stay tuned for Part 3: Are You A Freelancer Or a Business, which will outline the difference between a freelancer and a business and help you realize the right path for you.