Q6 Do You Have Enough Adequate Experience to Be a Successful Freelancer?

idealmike Level X³

August 8, 2016, 10:00 pm

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Q6 Do You Have Enough Adequate Experience to Be a Successful Freelancer?

This is Question 6 of my 10 part series on 10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Becoming a Full Time Freelancer.

Similar to asking yourself if you have any skills that you can turn into cash as a freelancer. You will want to ask yourself if you also have enough experience.

I'm talking about experience in whatever marketable skills it is that you have. If you've been using some software for many years such as some accounting software or some graphic design software or even some SEO software tool that you've been using on your own site for years and are well versed in it. Then this will really help you to get a good head start in the freelancing game of thrones. Having the experience in something first as well as the skills, means you'll be much better equipped to do the things you need to do with it for your clients without having to seek help or look it up online and learn as you go!

Even with the skills, without the experience you may find it tougher to get clients because people always prefer to buy from someone who has experience over skills most times! You wont find an Internship available in freelancing. So if you don't have the experience, you'll need to borrow time and earn it and learn all you can about it using the skills that you already have to make you someone that would most likely get hired!

And when it comes to experience. It's like wisdom. And when it comes to wisdom my son. Wisdom is what's found at the bottom of the bottle. Not what's written on the side! So you'll have to drink it first before you can gain real experience you can use!

Not having the experience can men that you might not have the skills as well to be able to hook that client or might not even be able to do what it is they're asking even though you may think you can because you don't have enough experience to know for sure.

One way to know if you have enough experience to be a successful freelancer in your niche is to look at how well you know the skill or skills you have. If you are very skilled in it than that can count towards having a lot of experience and only usually really comes about after you do have a lot of experience in it too!

Basically, the more experience you have, the better you'll do it at it. And the better chances there are of you going on to be a successful freelancer.

Do you feel you have enough experience in your skills to become one?

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anwebservices

anwebservices

it's hard to determine how much experience if enough. From my experience there is always something new and more to learn for those freelancers who want to keep up good work and stay in current trend.

8 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

I think this is really important Mike. I had an experience once where I wanted to buy a service from someone (not here or SEO related actually). The reason I wanted to buy this service as because although I had enough experience to maybe struggle along and learn a bit to do the task I didn't want to do that. I wanted to pay someone to do it quicker and faster and more efficiently than I knew I would be able to do it.
However after asking a few questions I figured out that I probably knew more than she did!

I have come across this a few times in my life where people just take a chance because they are desperate to get their foot in the door.

Offer what you know you can do and do well, otherwise you are just heading for disaster.

Learning is great and trying new things is going to get you far, but practice in your own time not on someone else's and at their expense!

8 years ago

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Everett

Everett

I think I have enough experience to continue what I am doing now. I mean I have been staring at code almost everyday since I was about 15/16, and I'm 23 now. That is over 7 years of experience coding with PHP. So since I have been staring at code since I was 15/16, and writing it I better be good at it otherwise I have been making a fool of myself, and wasting all that time for nothing! I hate to waste time, however I have learned a lot during those years and wouldn't trade them for anything.

8 years ago

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augusta

augusta

Well,I will believe that I'm doing well for myself in terms of learning very fast to make something out of freelancing. I have learnt from tutorials,attend offline courses and seminars and also learned what it entails on my own so summing up all of these it a good way of preparing myself for all the freelancing tasks ahead which will help me succeed.

7 years ago

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CryptoGuru

CryptoGuru

I feel like at times in free lance you tend to learn new things a lot . Free lance is an ever changing type of work field and you can't really base it off of how much experience you got starting off, I understand what you mean about starting off going into things with a certain skill set , but i also understand that when you venture off to figure things out by your self you have to understand that comes with learning the do's and the don'ts and how well you pick things up as you go which doesn't always involve experience

8 years ago

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Pixie06

Pixie06

I recently got a new job as an online tutor mostly because I have some previous teaching experience. If you don't have the required experience then it will be very difficult for you to actually find the right jobs online. If you have the required experience you can also negotiate for higher pay.

7 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

I am a freelance writer. I think I have adequate experience to call myself a freelance writer. I have attended one year course on writing. The course included article writing, writing for special group (children, women etc.), advertising writing, media writing (radio, TV, film etc.) I have also done six months intensive course on online writing, SEO, SMO, SEM, SMM etc. I have enough training on writing.
I also have a long experience of writing. I have been writing on a newspaper since 2001 and I began writing online in 2006.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

Although it's been 3 years since I started venturing in the internet, I still lack the needed experience to make freelancing my livelihood. Writing is my main line and the short time I spend every day in forum posting yields me little income. But I am proud to say that I have been learning many things especially in ways and means to earn.

7 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

Experience is required to become successful, however, more than experience, you need skills. If you do not have skills, you will never succeed as a freelancer. Writing is a common freelancing job, however, writing is also the least paid job. Therefore, in order to excel as a freelance writer, you need other skills like SEO and digital marketing.

7 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Kakashi2020

An old Boss of mine gave me some words of wisdom years ago, he told me to

"Stick to what you know, what you're good at, what you can do, what you like doing and youll be successful".

What it means is concentrate on things that your familiar with including things which you have passion for.

6 years ago

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