Freelance work - how to find quality work and boost your income

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How To Find Quality Freelance Work And Boost Your Income

The fun part of freelance work is that you can choose which job you take and whom you work for. Or at least many people assume this is the case.

Unfortunately being a freelancer doesn’t always guarantee you that freedom automatically.

There are two big challenges most translators have to deal with:

1)getting more clients and more translation jobs

2)meeting deadlines

You can't be available 24/7 for freelance work, and yet you are trying to turn your hours into dollars as much as possible.

You work around your clients’ schedules.

You sacrifice your holidays for more work, and you don’t have any income when on holidays.

Not to mention you have to undersell yourself sometimes just to get some extra work.

All work and no play is no fun, but all work for little pay and no play is worse! Aparently there’s hardly any freedom if you are stuck in that rut.

The solution?

You need to switch your mindset from a freelancer to an entrepreneur.

What’s the difference between the two?

A freelancer only thinks about doing a job, while an entrepreneur is minding a business.

You may know the industry tactics and have the expertise that people are looking for, but if you are a freelancer you just work from day to day.

An entrepreneur has a business plan. He/she is working towards a vision of the business.

A freelancer often can't find the time to spend on self-improvement, but an entrepreneur knows time is money and that to succeed it is important to invest in future development and the business vision.

A freelancer takes freelance work as a job while an entrepreneur uses it as a base for the business and creates ways to make money beyond trading hours for dollars.

A freelancer might want to grow a client base for future job security, but a solo-preneur realizes he/she has to constantly look for ways to grow the business, attract new clients and take calculated risks.

Do not settle to be just a freelancer, aim for an entrepreneur!

Look beyond freelance work.

Outsource tasks beyond your area of expertise.

Create new ideas to generate revenue.

Make yourself a go-to person in your language combination. Have your clients want to work with you instead of you chasing after them.

Develop at least 5 or more translation or language related services and products to be sold individually as well as bundle them in packages.

Some of these services and products should avoid the dollars for hours model.

You can borrow ideas from other industries and create information products that your clients need.

Try to price these services and products at different levels.

For instance, instead of a flat fee of $0.20/per word or $50/per hour for your services, you can package your sought after knowledge into a useful terminology book or ebook or an e-course at the price of $10 each copy.

There are a lot of people who have specific knowledge of the language and are eager to pick up some professional tips from you that they can use in their daily business dealings.

The benefit of providing such information products is that you showcase your expertise and become a knowledgeable resource in your language specialty area.

At a fraction of your regular service fee, it’s affordable and it is going to reach out to more people. In the long run they will save money, while you make money!

So get as much freelance work as you can handle, but do not stop there!

Think of yourself as an entrepreneur, not just a freelancer!

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