Show Notes:
There’s been a 36% (more or less) increase of people working from home. Also a bigger increase with people working as a freelancer, meaning they are not employed with anyone. Rather they can work for multiple clients (or employers). So, what does it take to work as a freelancer? Find out more and send me any comments or questions. Please rate our podcast. Thank you.
Episode 47
Transcript
[Music intro]
The 8th Level Podcast is about being self-employed, entrepreneurship, and managing our online business. It’s also about connecting to our souls, having the right mindset, and self-care. My name is Lourdes, and I am the host of this show. Thank you for listening to this episode today!
Hello, I am back again. And today, I’m gonna talk about freelancing and offering your services as a freelancer. But before that, I wanted to let you know what I do. I’ve been in business since 2014, I work from home since then, and part of the reason I wanna talk about freelancer is because, as a business owner myself, I’ve hired virtual assistants from around the globe to do some tasks here and there, and this is why I wanted to talk about what is expected from a freelancer working for a client.
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Well, you might wanna listen to this episode, because today I’m gonna talk about what is expected of you if you’re working from home or remotely as a freelancer, so here we go. So today, November 2022, more people are working from home and they want to offer services either as a freelancer or being hired by a company, but they wanna work from home or remotely. So, these tips work for both as long as you’re working from home or remotely, either as a freelancer or as an employee. And these are great practices to have if you’re going to be doing work from home.
And do you know why I wanna talk about this? It’s because I’ve hired people from Upwork. A lot of them were not really up to par. SO they said they had the skill, and then when I hired them, they did not really have that skill. And then there were other people from Upwork that I’ve hired that worked out fantastically. So you kinda need to do your homework if you’re an employer or an individual looking to hire someone as a freelancer or somebody you might eventually hire. So I’m gonna talk about tips that freelancers or people who are thinking of working from home should practice.
And before I get into that, there are different types of freelancers. There are freelancers that work as independent contractors. These people are registered in their county or state, and as an independent contractor can be forming an LLC, or Limited Liability Company, or else they’re Doing Business As, or a DBA. They call themselves sole proprietor, or they might even partner with a friend and still be an LLC. Then there are people that are just freelancers, they’ll work on a gig for someone temporarily, maybe here and there, or they might even be moonshining if they’re working for someone else as an employee.
Okay, so now let’s get into one of the most important skills you should have as a freelancer working remotely. Anyone can guess? Do you give up? Do you know what that important skill is? Okay, lemme tell you. It is communication. And you know why? Because you’re sitting at home or in a different location than the person you’re working for. So in order for you guys to communicate, if you’re local maybe you just pick up the phone and you can call each other or text each other. But what if you were working for someone across the globe? The one thing that I notice that everybody uses is e-mail. So my first tip is to please check your e-mail. Check it 3 times a day, and if not, every two days. Because that’s one thing that irks most people is that if you’re giving assignments to a freelancer, and the freelancer does not answer you, does not communicate, does not acknowledge that you received an e-mail. Well, I dunno about you, but if it was for me, I’d be very frustrated not hearing from someone that I hired to work on something for me. So please, check your e-mail at least, the most to wait on is two days.
Okay, the next thing: If you are hired by the hour, is to keep track of your time. There’s so many apps you can use that are free. I used to use one that’s called Toggl, https://toggl.com/ that’s free. I think there’s My Hours, there’s Time Keeper, or TimefyMe, or Clockify Me, something like that. You can keep track that way, or just take a notebook, write down the date, the time you start, and the time you stop working. You would also need to put down what you did for that time being. So for example, e-mail marketing. Like you’re using Mail Chimp, you want to break down exactly what you did, and if needed, how much time was spent per task. So if you wrote the e-mail, write in there you spent time writing an e-mail for 30 minutes. Add the detailed task you did in Mail Chimp, such as research for images, download a CSV file, write a newsletter, maybe proofread and testing for delivery methods, formatting the newsletter, etc. So keep track of details too; don’t just put down “I worked 8 hours on Mail Chimp.” That’s not good. I guess I could say if you are hired as a freelancer doing project-based task, again you should include all the details like I just mentioned. Even though the person that hired you knows what they gave you to do, write it down anyways. You might have even come up with a couple of things in there that you thought of and perhaps improved on.
Moving on to the next tip. How about questions? Do you ask questions? So, one time I hired this girl, and we spent I think 30 minutes in Zoom. I explained and showed her what to do, and I thought okay great. But when I got the work back about a week later, oh my gosh, it was so messed up! And so, we discussed it, and I asked her why there were so many errors, and apparently she did not understand everything. So my tip is to ask questions. If you don’t understand, cause a lot of times when we are shown what to do online, it makes sense. But then when you hang up the phone or you get offline off of Zoom, you forget some of those things. So ask questions if you aren’t sure of how to do a specific task, because trust me. Most of us will not pay you to correct the mistakes. So let’s get it right the first time. Ask questions. I don’t mind, we don’t mind, ask questions and get it right.
Alright, and are you really ready to be a freelancer? And the reason I ask that is because can you meet deadlines? Are you too busy in your personal life or your other life that you won’t be able to meet deadlines? A lot of employers or individuals that hire freelancers, they might give you a deadline of let’s say a week or two weeks. Can you meet those deadlines? Then the other thing is ask for training. If you don’t know how to use specific things, let’s say the freelancer is hired to do many things, and let’s say 9/10 you can do those things, but that 10th task you might need extra help in, training from the boss. Or, ask your boss if you can get training, a lot of them will pay you for your training. And then, how committed are you? Do you have that time to be committed to this project? If you’re a mom with young kids, does your kids take up a lot of your time or interrupt you way too much more that you may not be able to meet the deadline, or you have to quit because you’re feeling overwhelmed? So think about that, is how much commitment can you provide the person that’s hiring you to be able to complete the project and the task?
Okay then, the other one would be honesty and integrity. So, your boss has put trust in you when they hired you to do the work. So practice confidentiality, and be honest with the work produced. Just as they trust you to do the work for them, and you trust them that they will pay you for the work that you’ve done, please be trustworthy and work with integrity. Because trust works both ways.
Lastly, can you be reliable and independent? Which means that when someone hires you to do the work, that you’re able to take on the project, commit yourself to it, be trustable and dependable, and that you can finish the work on time. If you start to feel overwhelmed with the work, let them know right away. Maybe they can hire somebody to help you and split that task up. And if you really can’t do the work because something else came up, just let them know. Don’t let the employer wonder what happened to you, you dropped off the face of the Earth and leave the employer hanging. Remember, if you had already started doing the work and you formed a relationship with the employer, by being honest and just say you can’t do this particular task because something came up, that keeps the relationship and the trust and the rapport going, so that if a smaller project comes up in the future, your employer can contact you and have you in mind for a smaller project.
And that’s it really. These are just the basics of working as a freelancer or doing some temporary work, work from home as a virtual assistant, or a gig worker. Practice the honesty, have ethics, and building relationships that could help you get more work in the future, and also referrals to yourself and your business.
And now, a word from our sponsor.
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[Music outro]
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About the Host
Lourdes is passionate about helping spiritual men and women with digital marketing and bringing their practices into the online, world. She’s also a Reiki II Practitioner, Certified BreathWork Coach and a Certified Coach. She provides step-by-step guidance and strategies for business, personal as well as spiritual lifestyle without compromising your faith, your soul’s mission or your life’s purpose.
If you need clarity, or defining your life’s purpose, visit her business website: click here for her website at: BlueLarimarCoach.com
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