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The 5 Most Common Mistakes Freelancers Make



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The 5 Most Common Mistakes Freelancers Make

Most people who's longing for success online starts out with great ambition but it's often common that most of the freelancers have a misleading idea of what freelancing is all about and they see things with dollar signs in their eyes due to all the amazing success stories they've heard. Fortunately I will list 5 of the most common, in my opinion, mistakes new freelancers make.

  1. They do not think things through properly.
    Anyone can become a freelancer, it's super-easy to become one but harder to stay as one. You cannot predict your income and due to the fact that your income probably will change from one month to the next. Some savings to use when you first start out would be great as you still have bills to pay and might end up with nothing the first period of your freelancer career.

  2. They sell themselves too low.
    I understand the reasoning for providing things for extremely low, especially when you're first starting out as you would need to build reputation and credibility. However, it's always easier to lower your costs than increase the price for your services so you should really consider being a bit more expensive but provide excellent quality instead. Once you've gained recurring customers it's easy to putting your services on sale and offer people discounts to attract new clients and to make more sales.

  3. They spend all their income.
    As new freelancers starts to make money they use their income on things they want. New clothes or a new cell phone and other things they want or need in life. I understand the feeling of finally be able to buy that special cell phone you've been longing for. However, it's a difference on revenue and profit. Revenue is the money you earn and profit is the money you keep. Spend only your profits.

  4. They don't get their first clients.
    New freelancers creates their services or products and wait for sales. They wait for the money and that won't happen. Money doesn't come flying into your pockets. You need to market yourself. Advertise. Build relations and build reputation. When you've done that, the orders will come.

  5. They don't treat their freelancing career as a real business.
    Being a freelancer means that you are the boss. You are your own boss and that comes with responsibility. Treat your freelancing career as a real business because it is one. At least, it can be, but that depends on yourself and many new freelancer doesn't take enough responsibility.

Do you agree? Let me hear your thoughts on this.

Best Regards,
hitmeasap

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Beverly
What you said about new freelancers not selling themselves too low is very relevant to me.

I never had any real Freelancing success selling cheap services. On occasion, I had a $1.00 buyer, but mostly that was $1.00 for a sampler service, like 2 forum posts or 2 blog comments, not 200 Youtube likes. Just enough to show quality of service. At some point, I realized they were selling my services for double on an affiliate SEOClerks site. And, so I thought, well if those are actually selling at double, then why am I not earning double? So I doubled my own prices on at least one service and you know what, I got a boost in business.

Now I don't know if that would work for someone in a highly competitive niche such as bookmarking or Facebook likes but it worked very well for manual blog comments and forum posts.

Another benefit of charging more money for my services, it cut out the cheapskates and freebie seekers, AKA difficult customers. I rarely if ever had a bad customer once my prices got doubled and then later on tripled. And possibly the logic being that some buyers who have money don't want to feel like cheapskates and would rather spend it on a higher priced service as they automatically assume that bigger price equals better quality. And, if you can deliver the quality, you are not only going to complete that one order but get many more orders from that buyer in the future.

Now yes, all that is contingent on being able to give the best quality, be the best at whatever you are/do/sell/offer and if you can't don't bother - you won't be a success whether it's a $100 service or just $1.00.

So yeah it boils down to being an expert and then you can name your own price, whatever you want it to be.



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EliteWriter
I agree that many freelancers are so keen to attract buyers when they start out that they set a really low price. Even though this may be viewed as a way to entice buyers to place an order, there are a number of problems. Most buyers will expect that you keep your prices that low. If you try to increase them as you go along and become more popular, they may decide to find someone else. There are also problems relating with how credible and professional you look when you set a very low price. So in my opinion it is better to place more effort on promoting your services rather than setting a really low price.

You could also promote yourself as offering really quick services, such as completing the service within 24 hours. That is a great way to stand out while still charging a fair price. Many sellers who are well known may get lots of orders and may not be able to deliver as promptly as you. So make the most of it! A couple of dollars less than what is normally charged for that service is okay, but not way below that as many beginners tend to do.



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ajlancer
I do agree with above all explainer. Yes those pointed mistake mostly happen to new freelancer. Because most of the freelancer dose not know adjust of everything. That is why they do some mistake. They try to do any job or silly job what job come to way. Even they do not know how to handle them. And they do not know who to contract with client properly. Most common mistake is they do not know what appropriate price for him service and they are charging low. It is completely depend on quality of service. If service very high quality, you can charge high. But new freelancer think, if they charge low they could get more client and can do more sale. And new freelancer does not know how to handle unhappy client and dead line have to set perfectly.

Thanks by ajlancer



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Barida
Selling myself low was the thing that made some clients thought that I can't deliver on works that they wish I should do for them. I mean they always have that doubtful mind on how such works could be done at such a low rate. However, I have learnt by looking at what other freelancers charge and pit my price in between those to feel belonged in the price range.



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Corzhens
When a freelancer doesn't treat his occupation as a real business that goes to show that he is not dead serious with freelancing. I know of some young people who were not serious with their jobs simply because the come from wealthy families. When a freelancer is not serious then he may have a fallback and his freelancing may just be a trial.



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augusta
You really capture the life of the freelancers. Apparently, we really sell our selves very low, receiving peanuts for the tedious jobs we do.The worst part is treating freelancing as no work.In fact we just believe it should be a hobby no seriousness and no passion. we are always looking out for the regular jobs even when we are paid peanuts. Not to talk about not saving at all we just believe we will make more money tomorrow.



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