What is freelancing and how to become a freelancer? + Advantages and disadvantages
These days, the economic situation of the country has changed a lot and little by little, many educated young people have turned to freelance or freelancing. Freelancing is a form of temporary, project-based collaboration between a worker and an employer.
Freelance work has many benefits, such as telecommuting and long-term commitment to the employer, but if you, as a freelancer, are irregular and unable to get on with your day-to-day work according to a proper schedule, you can never earn that kind of work. Pay attention.
In this article, we want to tell you exactly what freelancing is and what its advantages and disadvantages are. We will also answer the question of how to become a freelancer and what points we must follow to earn a decent income from this type of job. Stay with us.
What is Freelance?
In Victorian or nineteenth-century England, there were knights who fought for any ruler who paid them more and were not loyal to any ruler or country. These knights were called freelance, which meant freelancer.
The term freelancing is derived from freelance, and freelance work refers to work in which no long-term, full-time contract is signed between the worker and the employer, but the worker receives his work as a project from the employer. And for a certain amount, delivers these works to the employer at an agreed time.
Most freelance jobs are digital and internet jobs. The product of these works are files that the worker can send to the employer via the Internet.
In fact, in freelancing, the worker (hereinafter referred to as the freelancer) has no obligation to the employer other than the timely and quality delivery of the project, and can receive several projects from several different employers at the same time. Completion of the project and receiving his salary from each employer, his obligations to that employer will end.
On the other hand, the employer is only obliged to deliver the agreed amount to the freelancer after receiving each project on time, and there is no need to insure the freelancer and be aware of other legal obligations such as Eid payment, years, children’s rights and so on.
Today, many educated young people are looking for ways to earn money from Instagram, Telegram and other social networks, and try to use the high capacity of the Internet to earn money in any way they can. In addition to blogging and advertising and social media admin, one of these ways to earn money from the Internet is freelancing.
This type of collaboration has advantages and disadvantages for both the freelancer and the employer, which we will examine in the following and then tell you how to become a freelancer.
Advantages and disadvantages of freelance work for employers and freelancers
Freelancing has its own advantages and disadvantages for both the employer and the freelancer. The advantages and disadvantages of this type of cooperation depend on how the parties work, the type of project and the labor market conditions. Below, we will examine these advantages and disadvantages.
Freelancing Benefits for Freelancers
One of the most important features of a freelancer, which is actually the most important advantage of this type of cooperation for a freelancer, is the possibility of telecommuting. A person who receives a project free of charge from a legal organization or a real employer can complete the project and deliver it to the employer at any time and place. In fact, the freelancer does not need to go to the company to do the project and can do the project at home.
As we have said, most freelance jobs are online businesses and other digital businesses that output digital files. Therefore, most freelancers do not need anything other than a high-speed Internet connection and a personal computer to work. In addition, freelancing can be a great way to make money with your phone.
Telecommuting has many advantages for the freelancer. The most important of these benefits is no need for unnecessary travel. Such trips, especially in crowded and large cities like Tehran, can be very costly, tedious and time consuming. Add to all this the risk of traveling and the possibility of contracting infectious diseases such as coronary artery due to your presence in the community.
In addition, working at home can be very comfortable and enjoyable. In freelance work, you do not need to wake up early in the morning, put on work clothes and take a tiring route to work. Instead, you can wake up shortly before work, start your work-free, stress-free work, and enjoy the comfort of your own home. Being with family is also a very important advantage.
Another advantage of freelancing is the very high job flexibility. A freelancer can work on the project at any time of the day or night after receiving it, and it is enough to deliver it to the employer by the deadline. Therefore, he can easily do his personal work without the need for leave. Even some freelancers have a steady job during office hours and freelancing is a second job for them.
Another good thing about freelancing is that in this type of collaboration, you decide for yourself and there is no one to give you orders. You can take on any project whenever you like and do your work wherever you like. Some freelancers even pick up their laptops and indulge in nature, or do their work in a park, a coffee shop or a library.
For the reasons mentioned above, many people ask how to become a freelancer, and today this type of work has become a source of income for teenagers and even educated and unemployed young people, but you should know that freelancing also has its own disadvantages that Below, we will examine them.
Disadvantages of Freelancers for Freelancers
With all the good things that came from working as a freelancer, this job has a lot of problems. First, freelancing is never a full-time job, and a project may not be on your tour for a long time.
As a freelancer, you earn as much as you work, and you have to find work for yourself. However, in a full-time job, no matter how much time you spend with your co-workers, when you spend time on lunch, and in general, no matter how much work you do, a You will have a fixed salary, a vacation and all the legal benefits.
When an organization entrusts a project to a freelancer, it does not insure the freelancer and, apart from the salary agreed with the freelancer, has no obligation to pay other benefits such as Eid, years, children, housing, and so on. Does not have to be a freelancer.
Therefore, the freelancer must insure himself / herself and enjoy all the legal benefits of the job. This type of insurance, called self-employment insurance, is not work experience for a freelancer.
There are other disadvantages to freelance collaboration. Although we have said that telecommuting is the most important advantage of freelance, but this way of working, if not done properly, will have negative consequences on a person’s physical and mental health and even his emotional relationship with his wife.
One of the negative effects of freelancing, from which there is no escape, is the limitation of constructive social relationships due to working at home. A freelancer has no permanent co-workers and rarely leaves the house.
Benefits of Freelancing for Organizations
Freelancing also has benefits for organizations. For example, an organization may have a temporary project that only takes a few months. As a rule, it is not at all smart and economical to hire a specialist with a one-year legal contract and all the legal benefits of the job.
In addition, freelance telecommuting benefits the organization more than it benefits the freelancer himself. Freelancers do not show up for project work on site and, as a result, do not use the organization’s resources, including office space and desks, facilities such as desks and chairs and computers, water, electricity, gas, etc., which is a significant saving. In the revenue of the organization.
Disadvantages of freelance work for organizations
The disadvantages of freelancing for organizations far outweigh the benefits of this type of collaboration. Unfortunately, organizations in our country have a strong tendency to outsource their work and work with freelancers instead of hiring a permanent staff, even for their permanent jobs.
The quality of what a freelancer does is far lower than what a full-time, committed organization does. An organization can never open an account with a freelancer, and every time it settles with it, the freelancer may go to another employer.
Since full-time employment brings more job security and well-being to staff, as a result, the quality of their work is much higher than the quality of work of a freelancer who only thinks about the end of the project.
Organizations can invest in their full-time staff and prepare them for bigger tasks, but this is not possible with freelance collaboration.
After all, organizations can hire full-time and telecommuters to enjoy both telecommuting and full-time benefits. In general, freelancing can be considered the worst type of cooperation for organizations.
How to become a freelancer?
Now that you know how freelancing works and its pros and cons, it’s time to tell you how you can become a freelancer and make good money that way. Join us in this step-by-step tutorial on starting a freelance job.
1- Find the overlap of your skills and interests and market needs
The first thing you need to do to start freelancing is to come up with a business idea and find a job that you want to do as a freelancer. Do you want to become a freelance programmer or a graphic freelancer?
To do this, you need to prepare three different lists:
1- List of your skills and abilities
2- Your favorites list
3- List of current needs of society and labor market
After preparing the above three lists, you should put them together and find their overlaps to finally reach a job in which you are skilled, interested and in a good job market for that job. , There is.
For example, I am interested in biology, writing, sports, philosophy and photography, my most skills are in content production, copywriting and financial market activity, and among my common interests and skills, I have the most market need. Content production.
If you are good at blogging and you are interested in blogging and you can work well on social networks and have a lot of followers, you can even earn money from Amazon through affiliate marketing.
Always choose the right channels for freelancing and online monetization, and remember that, for example, monetizing Rubica, which is an unreliable, unreliable application with very few users, is not a smart thing to do.
2- Marketing and advertising
When choosing a job to work as a freelancer, no one but yourself knows that you are accepting a project in that field. So as much as possible, tell your friends and acquaintances about this and ask them to refer potential customers to you.
Also, you should be a member of all popular social networks, such as Instagram, Telegram and LinkedIn. Ask friends and acquaintances to introduce you on their social networks as a freelancer in the field you have chosen. Do not sit idle yourself and announce on your social networks that you accept the project in that field.
For example, you can share your channel link on social networks to earn money from YouTube, so that your educational videos get a lot of views, and just as easily, customers may come to you.
3- Network
The next step in becoming a freelancer is to connect with people in the relevant job market and, so to speak, link with them. For this purpose, the best social network for this is LinkedIn. You need to have a professional LinkedIn profile and connect with people who are active in your field.
Do not forget the telegram channels either. Subscribe to telegram channels and groups related to your field of expertise and increase your communication as much as possible.
4- Start your work
The most difficult step in starting a freelance job is getting started. Since you do not yet have a portfolio and no one knows you in the job market, you can only use the following methods to find a project:
Subscribe to freelancing sites like Pushina, Nevishes and…
Find a customer through communication with friends and acquaintances
Find a customer on social media
Sooner or later, the first customer will come to you. You need to take a lot of time from him and offer him the best possible price. Then, focus all your time and energy on the project to deliver the best possible work to the client ahead of time. Your first work should always be your highest quality work because the satisfaction of the first customers will create a wide network of customers for you. If you offer high quality at a reasonable price, your customers will also send their friends and acquaintances to you.
5- Strengthen your current skills and learn new skills
The next step in becoming a successful freelancer is to strengthen your current skills and acquire new ones. If you have more skills, you are much less likely to be unemployed and not have a project on your tour. Strengthening current skills will also attract more customers and provide them with better quality work, and finally, after a year or two, you can build an extensive network of customers and develop it with a business strategy. Give.
If you’ve already learned how to make money from Instagram, rest assured that there are always new things to learn, and always keep yourself up to date with the latest changes to Instagram’s algorithm. Also, you need to learn how to make money from Telegram so as not to limit your job market to Instagram.
The most important points that you should pay attention to in freelance
So far we have answered the question of how to become a freelancer. You can start a job as a freelancer by following the steps above. However, earning a decent income from this business requires you to become a professional freelancer. Here are some tips to help you become a professional freelancer.
1- Be regular and on schedule
One of the biggest mistakes many freelancers make when it comes to getting started is disorganization. Job flexibility in freelance work does not necessarily mean that you can wake up whenever you want and not work whenever you like.
A successful freelancer has a daily schedule and routine. Your bedtime and wake-up time should be clear, and you should not disrupt your schedule unless you have to, for reasons such as personal and family chores. Your bedtime, exercise, and meal times should be clear. You should also make time for rest, recreation and training.
You can only consider freelance work as a substitute for a full-time job if you stick to your daily routine. A cluttered freelancer will not make much money, will deliver poor quality work, and will not even be able to deliver low quality work on time, and as a result, will soon lose customers and network. , Will not succeed.
2- Do not work too much
Some other freelancers, on the other hand, fall on the roof and become addicted to work. You have to define working hours for yourself like a full-time job. Some freelancers also set a goal for the day. If you reach that goal earlier than your work time, do not work the rest of the day, but rest and have fun to reward yourself. If you miss your daily goal, punish yourself by reducing your leisure time. This kind of planning and commitment makes you always motivated to work.
3- Take care of your health
One of the most important features of a freelancer is telecommuting, which can have a huge impact on your lifestyle and personal life. You should not lock yourself in a house and you should spend part of your day and night outside.
Avoiding sunlight can cause problems such as vitamin D deficiency and osteoporosis and make you depressed. Therefore, it is better to get some sun in the morning. Long hours of working behind a desk and looking at a computer screen can also cause a lot of physical damage. Therefore, you should exercise regularly and take care of your eyes. Drink plenty of water and every five hours, stay away from your desk for five minutes, rest and stare into the distance so that your eyes do not hurt.
4- Maintain your social connections
Another thing to keep in mind when working as a freelancer is keeping in touch with family and friends. Since you are telecommuting, you do not have social workplace connections in your life. Therefore, it is very important to keep your friends and keep them close to you.
5. Create a professional work environment for yourself
The characteristics of a professional work environment for freelance work are as follows:
Standard computer chairs and desks
Proper lighting
Clean, tidy and beautiful space
Avoid distractions like TV
Use plants to maintain the freshness and freshness of the environment
Conclusion
In this article, we told you what freelancing is and what its advantages and disadvantages are. As you can see, the most important advantage of freelancing, both for freelancers and for the organization, is telecommuting. However, freelancing has disadvantages such as low job security and lack of job benefits such as insurance for the freelancer and poor quality of work for the employer.
In the second part of the article, we answered the question of how to become a freelancer. To become a freelancer, you need to find the right career, network, customer focus and hone your skills. Finally, we said that for professional freelancing, you should be regular and on schedule, not addicted to work, take care of your health, maintain your social connections, and have a suitable and professional work environment for “freelance” work.
