August 25, 2013

Creativity – a freelancer’s path to success

Creativity is an art. The way you project yourselves on the things you handle in everyday life to the tasks you do requires creativity. Its the key criterion to compete and remain successful in freelancing career.

Creativity comes along with experiences. There are many ways to be creative, to get new clients or to make better use of equipment and office space.

Some tips include using a different device like ipad or a computer to split the work you do just watching tv or can be to upgrade an existing system if you can’t afford a new one. Recreate the area where you work, keep changing the screen or paintings rent a different place to work,working along with tour group of friends once in awhile. Marketing yourself also shows how creativity you are. Make variety of cards to let your friends and relatives know the services you offer so that they could depend on a reliable person instead of a stranger.

The options are many, all you need is to try think a bit out of the box.

These examples help you grow as a freelancer.

Having known the inspirational quote of Pablo Picasso,

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.

We should stick to the creativeness we own. At every moment one must remember to be unique. There are many people who can do the same repetitive task with training. To make a difference as a freelancer and to be the first pick for the people outside, the art must be mastered.Never lose the uniqueness.

Give customers gift

To attract customers and to succeed in business you must use creative approaches. One such would be gifting your regular customers.The market trends keep changing with time and is often difficult to meet the customers expectations. Offer free services every now and then. This will help retain your customers for the second and third time.Send them your brochures along with goodies on special occasions . in big companies they have people to monitor and do these but as a freelancer it’s your responsibility to track your customers. When You feel low and when the number of clients are getting less these techniques help you boost your freelancing career.Use your fantasy and implement these things into your business plan. Make customers want to come back and you will have the best possible chance to survive.

Reward!

Own a website or a blog and keep updating your recent work. This will increase the number of readers visiting your site.Giving something extra to the visitors on your website always is a good thing. As a freelance blogger help people with tips that can help them gain more hits. Gift a new member who joins in your portal. Conduct quizzes more often. This helps you get more contacts with the interaction you do.Post some useful suggestions on how are to present a particular information. This will potentially give more clients for you.

Treating your clients

Clients are more valuable for one to be successful. Giving existing customers good offers as mentioned in the previous tip is important. But remember to be service minded.Maintain your limits to satisfy the customers. The attention you pay to the customer is important it will make him feel he is important and make him more loyal. Use positive language when you talk or write to him. Remember to let him know that his feedback is always appreciated. That way you can keep making your services more and more attractive and get happier clients. Don’t forget that existing clients can be the best advertising you ever get!

Feedback

In Order to become a successful freelancer getting feedback is critical. You can ask your friends or family to improve the services you provide.Not only should you have comments enabled on your website for feedback but should remember that you work towards to achieve it. . Most important of all, every time when you have finished your project – ask the client what he thinks.This attitude makes your client feel the client important. Getting someone else’s opinion is always good and this will help you to become even more successful and have a fresh mind.Having a fresh perspective of doing things is always essential to succeed. when your share your thoughts and ideas it will kindle the thoughts of others as well and hence the combined result based on these ideas help you provide a better product.

Steve jobs has given to us a wonderful quote based on this synthesizing which leads to an amazing creative product which is ,

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

Take the time you need!

At the early stage of taking a work, we might be very enthusiastic to execute but as time goes we might lose the interest to perform. Its our responsibility to stay motivated and give a better service to the client as promised. Don’t compromise yourself to postpone any job you take. Its creativity which makes you do things better. When you get a task or commit yourself to take a job make sure you give the timeline to yourself.This not only helps you to complete the work but you will have ample space to think about the task the ways to implement it, the enhancements you can do while working on this.

You need to have a strong impression created that each days work is not dragged to the next.

This is so important, it can’t be mentioned enough. Same as with the tip about learning to say no.

A successful freelancer is one who manages time and handle the project effectively. Reputation matters for a freelancer. Make sure your clients don’t go to anyone else other than you.

Hope these tips helped you to bring back the creativeness!

K Saravana Kumar

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August 24, 2013

Dedication to a project as a freelancer

A freelancer is a person who does work for two relative things, one is to generate money and secondly who has an immense passion to do it.

Taking this in account, what a freelancer should ideally have to succeed is Dedication to his/her work.

Brief note on Dedication:

Dedication is an act of binding yourself to the work no matter how the situations are around you. An individual must take care of the given project as their own and also think about how the users will be benefited by the work they create and produce. While we talk about this, we in turn need to have in mind that the client’s expectations are met and put together a plan.

Steps to stay dedicated

Gathering requirements, creating a plan, setting expectations for yourself and meeting deadline are some key factors which drives you to dedicate to the work. Remember, there are a lot of people out there who has the same talent and have mastered the work as you do but the key to succeed as a freelancer is to perform the job with more perspiration, determination and interest. For instance, Java could be learnt through many websites, blogs, and videos; however the sense of learning involves dedication.

You ought to focus on your goal constantly and should aim for it unswervingly. Make sure you set your priorities right and go by it. Try to avoid taking multiple projects at one point of time. A freelancer should always embrace the opportunity given to them and persuade the job. When the opportunity given is realized the positive attitude of an individual is invoked leading to the steps of successes. Consider every chance as a stage where you can refine your skills and produce the best outcome.

Going by the saying

“Don’t ever give up.

Don’t ever give in.

Don’t ever stop trying.

Don’t ever sell out.

And if you find yourself succumbing to one of the above for a brief moment,

Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, whisper a .prayer, and start where you left off.

But never, ever, ever give up.”

One must never slip away from our ways to finish a goal. We must be steadily motivated and focus on the path of completion. This comes with involvement towards your work.

As an owner of the task you do, you need to make sure a complete work structure is maintained which will help you track the projects, budgets, client’s feedback and if possible you can even reuse some important notes. The quality of the work and the service you offer is valued at the top. Make it as a practice to serve the best out of you.

Dedication not only involves work, but also the way that you communicate to clients on time in-spite of the day to day challenges handled. You must make a schedule for the activities you do, and allocate time slot for each so that you remain devoted to what you do.

Do things right on time. make sure the work doesn’t get piled up. For example, if you get 10 jobs to work , and the deadline is two days don’t save it for the last day. Split the work in hours and get it done by one and half days and review the work you done. This kind of dedication is necessary to maintain the quality and the performance of the job.

Take some time in every day or week to organize your to do list. Make sure you sit and complete the work you start with and do not leave it behind. This will then be a burden and you will lose the concentration on the subject.

As a freelancer you take work for short term goals which helps you to keep learning and remain enthusiastic. This is the best opportunity you get to focus on the work. There are several groups which tell about dedicated people and their sacrifices which led them to heights. You must often refer to those and frame your path to succeed. Have belief in your own self.

The universal statement “Practice makes a man perfect”, it says more about hard work, dedication and the work. More you do work with dedication the more you achieve. Having talent but who does not work to put an effort will not be able to prosper, whereas the desire and the devotion you show to learn will boost your career.

Make some simple artwork in your room keeping in mind of the dedicational quotes you have come across. Create your own chart and the rules that you have framed for yourself and pin it. Every day when you feel low, go through them and rediscover your thoughts and approach. Always have in mind the goal to accomplish what you have started with.

At times rewarding ourselves for what you have done for the day helps finding out the gaps that you have missed. You will have the desire to fill in the gaps and learn more new techniques. This way of dedicating yourself to the work and not getting diverted too much makes you a better freelancer.

A popular sportsman Michael Jordan once said, “It’s my standards that make me successful, every day I demand more from myself than anybody else could humanly expect from me. I’m not competing against somebody else; I’m competing with what I am capable of” These amazing lines tells us more about the devotion he has in his oneself

If an individual understands the importance of following this as a continuous process, the progress level will increase and start to feel as an energetic sky rocket. The most important factor in creating an extraordinary quality of work is through dedication. Yet in a time of constant demands, we often neglect what we know is most important. In order to take your life to the next level, it’s crucial to make a commitment to living a more organized life.

K Saravana Kumar

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August 23, 2013

Do You Have It In You To Make It As A Freelancer

To be our own bosses is a dream come true job everybody in the world. Most people see freelancing as a chance of working on their own time, enjoying breaks when they want, billing hours from café while sipping a cup of fresh coffee and working, taking projects which they want, skipping a day without having to apply for leave or taking permissions. But are these perks enough for you to leave your regular job and take up freelancing jobs?

The answer is a straightforward ‘no’. On the surface you might see a freelancer as a master of his/her will but in reality before giving up your full time job or choosing between freelancing and full time job you need to know think carefully about whether you have the qualities and skills needed to make it as a freelancer. There are some things which you will need to give up and some things which need to adapt to succeed as a freelancer. In this post, we will take a look at some of the things, which will help you decide whether you are up to it, or not?

Can you survive with variable income?

A freelancer’s income depends on the type of project he or she has in hand. Some months you will have many projects in hand and earn more than your average but in some months you might not have so many projects in hand and the income might not be so much. Also you will not be paid when you are on vacation or have to leave a project in midway. Therefore, think whether you can manage your finances even in slump.

Also when you are just starting your jobs you might not be paid as much as you want, therefore can you manage in the starting days?

Can you work alone?

As a freelancer you will have to work alone a lot. There will be no time for office gossips or taking help from your friends. Most of the times you will be sitting alone on the desk of your home or rented office space and working. Therefore it will be entirely up to you to make your workplace as conductive as work at you can.

Can you push yourself out of bed even when you have nowhere to go?

Most of the newbie freelancers fail because of they cannot push themselves to get out of bed because they have nowhere to go. Think about it hard whether you can pull yourself out of the bed and fix a working time for yourself when you have nowhere to go.

Can you take criticism and failure?

As a freelancer you will not get every job that you will apply for. Also sometimes it might also happen that the client will reject your work or criticize it rather harshly. You will have to take the flak alone and might have to meet very tight deadlines. Therefore ask yourself how well you can handle criticism and failure. You can take the help of your family and friends and they will be truly able to help you figure out your this nature.

Can you deal with difficult clients?

Each freelance project that you will be getting will have a different requirement and every client needs to be handled differently. Do you have any experience in handing difficult clients and do you have the ability to self-market yourself to even the pickiest of clients? These are the two questions, which you need to ask yourself before starting out as a freelancer. Remember everything including marketing, gathering the required equipment, doing research and delivering the project to the client will have to be handled by you and you alone.

K Saravana Kumar

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August 22, 2013

How to be an expert freelance Web designer

A web designer is a person who puts the dreams and vision of people in to reality on the Web. Ever since the advent of Internet , the demand of qualified and good Web designers has skyrocketed. There are many individuals as well as companies who offer various types of web designing services. In fact, each page that you open on the Internet has been ‘web designed’ by somebody. Therefore as a freelance Web designer, the opportunities in front of you are limitless. However, we all know that the best jobs go to people who know what they are talking about.

So what does it take to be an expert freelance Web designer? In this post, we will touch upon the ingredients needed to make you the expert and then in subsequent posts we will elaborate on each of these points.

Learn how websites work

As a freelance web designer, it is expected that you know about how different websites work. You need to know what the different types of websites are and what makes them work. You should be an expert in one programing language, Java script, databases, content management systems, RSS and mailing lists, and integrating social media.

Know how to troubleshoot problems

There is no such thing as a perfect website. As you work towards integrating the client demands you will face glitches therefore you should have a determined outlook towards troubleshooting problems. Sometimes you can work around them and sometimes you will just have to find a solution.

Keep searching for what is new in the web world

As a freelance web designer your search for what is the latest in the designing world should never end. You have to work hard towards keeping yourself updated to what is the latest your world. You can also check out the magazine and newspaper layouts to know what the client wants.

Work towards improving your communication skills

You cannot justify your skills if you don’t know how to communicate with the client. Since most of the freelancing work takes place online therefore you need be very concise in your communications. Also communication is a two way street therefore if you don’t understand what a client wants in the early stages, you will end up wasting a lot of time in correction and changes later on.

Be clear on the expectations

When negotiating for a project be clear about your expectations from the beginning. Let them know what payment you expect. This will help you in winning the client confidence and prevent any problems on the later stage. As to figuring out how much you can charge you will have to work that out by checking out the competition and doing a honest analysis of your skills.

Don’t say you can do it and then learn later on

The biggest mistake that a freelance web designer can make is to commit for something which they don’t know about and think that they can always learn it in the due course of the project. This is a big no-no. If you don’t know it then say that you don’t know it. It is very easy to detect a novice’s work and an expert’s work.

If you have messed up own it

In the course of your work, it is natural that you will make mistakes. The bigger mistake will be when you don’t own up to it. If you have made a mistake then accept it and do whatever you can to rectify it without wasting any time. Don’t wait for your clients to call you out, take the first step.

K Saravana Kumar

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August 21, 2013

How to defeat desolation as a freelancer

Freelancer’s life is a puzzle. Each day an individual will have to go through surprises, joy, learning, pain, disappointment, growth and the list goes on. Staying motivated and energetic is a tip to solve this. Naturally you ought to develop best practices to reach your benchmark.

Beginning with everyday schedule of a freelancer, it’s certain that his calendar is blocked for the whole day. Human nature is that someone has to keep pushing to do a task, while working as a freelancer from home; you will not have managers or leaders to control you and help you manage the work you do. This sits as a load on the top of the day to day activities and remains a burden. Know that, it’s your responsibility to plan and implement it right. You must maintain a clean slate and reorder your work every time it’s complete.

To help you tackle the solitude, here are some basic rules:

Maintain a work routine:

Make it as a habit to wake up soon daily. We tend to be lazy as we need not report our work and no one watches us. However its important we need to stick to healthy habits, start working as soon as you can. The longer break you take the lesser is the quality you provide to the clients.

Divide the tasks and put them in timeslots. Give yourself a buffer time and finish the task ahead and do a check on the work. When you do work in an orderly manner you will be well engaged and will not know the difficulty of being alone.

Exercises & break time

It’s always a good practice to freshen up mind and body to get new ideas. When you concentrate on a particular subject, sometimes you enter the level of saturation and will not be able to focus. The stress level builds up as you are not in the office oriented environment where people work together with you. It’s obvious that you need some break at that point of time.

Follow some exercises and keep your body fit to rejuvenate your ideas. Take a small walk, make yourself a cup of coffee, and hear some music. This will help clear your mind and reduce stress.

Create a stop line for yourself

Some of the tasks we do might extend late than expected to drive business. It’s because we would not have arrived at the best results. However it’s wise to know when we should really stop working on it. While you spend more time on it, you will lose focus and accumulate stress.

You must always have free time for you to enjoy rest of the things. You need to recover and get your mind filled with other things or you will get burned out and ruin the beautiful things for yourself. The more hours you work at once, the less productive you get. Remember to follow the timeslots created and your own rules on when to start and stop the day at work.

Keep your environment lively

Like i mentioned, the environment is a critical factor affecting one’s mood and the actions caused out of it.

While you work in Office you will have an entire team to take care of yourself and assist you in the job if you are stuck, whereas at home you are the master and the creator of your work. There are a wide range of forums which can guide you solve this. Join in a forum where people of your interest are present. Post your queries and you will get a quick fix.

One of the other reasons of isolation as a freelancer is we keep working from one place. To get a good productivity and be an efficient freelancer you must be able to handle this by,

Often changing the place where you work. Get some fresh air in the mornings and sit on a balcony. Change sceneries in your room to not get bored. Play some mild music and feel fresh. You have the advantage of visiting different states as you can work from home. Make use of the benefits and tackle desolation.

Stay communicated with the loop

You can create your own team of people and can stay connected. You can be relieved to know how far the rest of the people have progressed, what new trends comes in, how people manage their work. This motivation will drive you to work smarter and handle the competitive world.

Spend your leisure time with this group of people you have formed. Meet them for lunch and share your ideas. You can organize events of your own and keep in touch. You will not only support yourselves but all the contributors who undergo the same.

Manage projects you take:

You ought to manage your assignments as they come in. Do not take too many and get cornered to work. As much as staying productive is important, sometimes you just can’t. Taking multiple projects is one of them. This will lower down your spirits and leaves you alone making you to finish the job.

Opportunity keeps knocking for those who can do a neat job. Keep it light and simple so that you have the time to enjoy what you do. It will provoke the passion in you. Building up work will make you stick on it as a result will smash your schedule.

Focus on your personal life

After the long day that you have, do not get influenced to extend more. The bareness of being alone will prolong and make everything incomplete. Remind yourself to breathe and relax. At times like this playing games, working on your hobbies and spending time with your family and friends will polish and make you set for the following day!

The famous poet Wordsworth’s lines come to my mind “I wandered lonely as a cloud… “

When you can find a silver lining by assisting yourself and following some best practices there’s none who will have to survive alone in this world. It’s our perception of looking into things and managing them effectively.

Keep working smart and stay cheerful to develop new products each day..

K Saravana Kumar

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August 20, 2013

Knowledge sharing

There are many ways to learn…One such way of learning for a freelancer is by sharing knowledge. Few of us restrict ourselves to share the knowledge that we gained. May be at a few cases its valid but not always.

An individual must possess the nature of being curious and in the motive of getting inclined to improve oneself and use the full potential of the tools. It is important that a freelancer is aware of his environment to be able to act effectively.

Pros of Passing knowledge

The invention and the discoveries of many things in the world are known to us only because an individual has shared it. The base to know anything is by sharing it. You will not get emptied when you share it, you will have wide opportunities then.

When you tell someone about what you have learnt, none will agree to it in the first go. Millions of questions might arise, through which you will have the possibility of exploring more. The loop followed is infinite once shared.

Same way a Freelancer gets the chance to work in many sectors and technologies as his goals are short term. He gains more knowledge and if not shared it will go waste. He/she can’t hold remembering it for years and next time they will have to dig it again and might not find the desired results then.

It’s a good practice to pin down any new thing done and share. We now got many tools these days such as blogs, forums, portals, social networking sites and others to accomplish this. After learning a new advancement, make a video or take a screenshot write few notes about it and post. The comments that you get in as a response to it will make you a better person.

For instance, if the code developed for software weren’t shared on the Internet every organization had to work from the scratch and when they are done with it, the delivery time would be nearing. This wouldn’t have let us do any new inventions and have resulted in sitting idle working on the same technology.

One must understand the reason behind sharing. It reduces the amount of time one will take to work on the task. The stress will be reduced leading to better results.

We will be one among the individuals who has stepped forward to develop the technology, or anything for that matter.

For Freelancers who work on hiring people

Let’s now put things in a different perspective. Freelancers not only do work on codes, blogs but there are many volunteered to hire people. Why not we concentrate on collecting the materials, white papers published for that specific job and provide to individuals who has a passion in improving in that specific field. Give them a timeline to go through stuff that you have shared and employ them. This will result in having quality freelancers for your organization.

Why fear to lose

Freelancing is not always for earnings and investment. It’s more valuable than one might think. Have in mind that when you have a question there will be loads of people who come forward to help you.

These days there are a lot of sources from where information could be gained. In an evolution such as this one might not have the need to depend on an individual… The search engines are well advanced and they will be able to help you find out what’s required in fraction of secondly. However this will not last long, one must keep gaining knowledge and make sharing as a practice. It can take different forms.

Always two heads are better than one. If you are not willing to share knowledge to an entire group share it among people of your interest. Form a group of individuals who has the same like as yours. It’s always good to process the information through different number of people to get better inputs. This is because that individual would have undergone various situations where the application was used likewise with the other person. This type of collective thoughts put together and a new product is developed. All the members of the group should be involved in the learning process but also the transmission of knowledge, without which its integration is useless.

Recognition received

As you are the master of the work you do, many people come and approach you. More than you getting to know many advanced techniques from them your recognition is spread across.

The individual you trained might became a popular person one day but know that if you are not given the initial education and knowledge you will not be the person you are today.

Create your own blog space and share knowledge. You will have a greater audience and people will be waiting to get your inputs. The satisfaction you gain out of it is enormous. There’s enough room for everyone to grow.

Make learning interesting

Knowledge sharing not only helps you grow but sharpens your brain by sharing your thoughts to others. Make the way you learn interesting. While you learn, prepare some slides and put the knowledge gained in points. You should also look at innovative approaches to showcase your learning. None wants to read a lengthy document nowadays as the people wants the work done as soon as possible.

People’s expectation is high and so is the demand. Unless we share great content, our thoughts won’t be valid and will suffer because we are in the era of content marketing.

This allows accelerated decision-making in business situations. It also brings different competitive advantages, either internally, or towards a client. You will be considered as the leader of the market strategy with the way you project your inputs. This will give a better industry exposure. The more complex the requirement is more we gain out of it .

These types of approach greatly contribute to building a strong freelancing culture, allowing great people to stick to a great human adventure!

K Saravana Kumar

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August 19, 2013

Stay Updated to survive

A freelancer’s life is most of the time prone to danger as there is a wide competition. There are a lot of new graduates passing out of the college every day and they all come to work life knowing better technology and are advanced. The technology changes might not be very diverse and immediate but the ideas to approach the tasks might take different forms. It doesn’t strike our mind when we work on the same thing; we need to keep our minds open to all the upcoming trends.

The difficult part of staying up to date is trying to learn everything that’s new. That’s when an individual tries to make a mistake.

Tips to stay updated:

You need to focus on one particular objective. Decide what’s best for you, what your passion is all about. How the market trend is rising and the benefits you gain out of it. Once you have streamlined your goals you can concentrate learning about that specific phenomenon.

Make sure you focus on the path to accomplish the goal every time you tend to get diverted. Dig to the core part where you feel the trends get changed on the technology you have in mind, and subscribe to it. This helps you filter out all the other noises from super Internet gateway. This type of subscription also reminds you, the times you get switched to other diversions.

Most of us would be aware:

“In Order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different” – Coco Chanel

Give yourself a deadline to learn some topics, try implementing them so that you can always remember what you have done. Stay committed, you can make use of the time you allocate to the Coffee breaks, while you commute and the list goes on.

Take some small projects and work on it till you have the confidence to work independent. Initially it wouldn’t be interesting and you might feel lazy and lagging behind but after all that one day you can be sure that you are going to shine.

Keep trading knowledge. You can achieve this by archiving the notes you collect while browsing, saving your favorite links and going through them when you find your leisure time, taking a look at some reputed blogs, videos and social networking sites such as LinkedIn where you find the topic of your interest and get together with people of that group. To keep up with the progress in the field, it’s always best to identify the sources to use. It’s effective to attend conferences, trainings related to your objective which will kindle your thoughts and gives you fresh ideas. Talk to your colleagues or in forums where you think you can find people of your interest. Sharing your knowledge and gaining from them is the best exercise for attaining your focused objective.

Always have in mind the scope is global with many talented people and the comparison is huge. The intense of attraction by the clients towards you will be more when you stay current and updated. Make sure your resumes are updated when you are looking for projects. They speak for you and help you get more chances.

Interests of individuals keep changing with time. For example , An individual does business for about 20 years now and he has not updated enough to survive in the market it not only affects his growth but the entire network gets affected. He will not be able to pay the employees nor satisfy his own benefits he enjoyed earlier.

People get easily bored of the most common stuffs we see every day.

As a freelancer staying updated, can make you fit into the market changes anytime. The opportunities keep growing and you will be able to sustain for a long period of time. The advantage of being in this field is you will be able to work on multiple tasks and get a wide exposure. You will be able to make better decisions and you will be the first to grab when any opportunity comes. Having said, you might also have a chance of owning a complete project having peers to complete the job, just because you have mastered the skill well before others. You will earn the respect of others being a leader.

Stated by the naturalists already:

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” ― Charles Darwin, We must be flexible enough to learn and approach the path to our desire. The passion in us must keep growing and inspire us to finish what we have started with. It must be hand in hand and without them we might tend to lose the string where we holding on to.

While we wake up, the dreams in us should push us to stay excited boosting us to learn more and more. Learning will take you very less time than searching for clients to approach you. You ought to be wise to pick up the best choices to get rewarded out of it.

There’s a greater probability of finding jobs when you have prolonged connectivity to the work group you know. As the market trends are changing every day, it’s always wise to stay updated. To specify, a blogger can’t always write about one topic and stick on it. He/ She might lose readers then. For the first few instances it will stream praise-worthy but later on the comments and the views will reduce. The conception of projecting a particular thing must change with time. An individual’s creativity also plays a role in it. Not all bloggers get the most number of readers.

It’s not about being updated, but also projecting ourselves to the crowd outside. If there seem to be new possibilities sticking to your ideas people will rely on you. The Survival of the fittest always is applauded and gets plenty of shots. Hence as a Freelancer one must have in mind the set of rules they must make for themselves.

K Saravana Kumar

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August 18, 2013

Top 10 reasons why Freelancing is fun

Freelancing life has a lot of benefits. It’s not the same as the software engineer’s life or a business man life. You get all the freedom to work independently without anyone controlling you… While you have the liberty to work you also enjoy the money that you earn all by yourself. Work can be done anytime as you control it, being a freelancer and you make the schedule. The dependency is reduced; this is one of the major advantages of being a freelancer.

Some other reasons why freelancing is fun:

Sharing and its benefits

Sharing is taught at a very early stage to a person. For a freelancer sharing is a basic criterion to succeed. The way to achieve this comes with the knowledge you have and your experience. The more you share the more chances you get to interact with people. This helps to stay updated of the current happenings in the industry. Being a freelancer and working from home helps to get to know more contacts than people in business.

The work a freelancer gets is discrete and smaller in quantity. Hence the opportunity increases proportionately.

Freedom and no need to quit your day job

By choosing freelancing as a career path, people enjoy more freedom and they need not report to any senior authorities on the work they do. This benefits many workers and they have the flexibility to do work when they can.

Freelancers also get to continue the day job and work in their free time. This gives double income and helps when the need could not be satisfied. You might not be occupied all the hours at work so when you find time in your breaks or when you travel to your day work, you can do your assignments or meet people.

Owning

Owning is a gift. Not all get the chance to own something. A freelancer is gifted with this chance. It makes the individual feel as an entrepreneur and he takes it serious and puts all the effort he can to make it a success. A freelancer never has to rely on someone to give work. Owning your own business in turn allows you to create and contribute, which gives you personal satisfaction. You can participate in every step of the decision-making process, or you can hire competent people to make decisions in the best interest.Productivity, pricing and marketing plans are all under your control, and the income you earn relates to those activities.

Passion

Any individual can be a freelancer either by necessity or by passion. Many of them who wanted to develop their career and who has a passion to do a specific take up freelancing. The more passion you have the interest is high and belter quality work you deliver.

You tend to search and collect a lot of new things by which new products are developed.

Group fun

You can work individually or with a group of people based on your convenience. Some people are forced to work alone because of the household hurdles in that case an individual can take ownership of forming groups in that particular area or particular subject where they work. This type of like-minded people being together increases the integrity and the interest. While you do this kind of get together meetings not only you get introduced to many people but will make you feel fresh. The ideas in you will get cultivated and thoughts will be invoked. You can help out each other to find clients or share work in critical situations.

Level of exposure

Freelancers have the benefit to work in different assignments. The assignments might be small or large but to do a specific work on a platform a person has to have a good knowledge on the subject. With this the person is technically improved and as he gets the chance to deal with various people the exposure is huge.

No commute

For a freelancer travel time is completely not present. This adds extra time for you to do work. As a freelancer the expenses can be completely avoided for travel, fuel and other maintenance. The stress involved while traveling is no more present for freelancers. The virtual world internet has helped people sort out these issues.

Credit you receive

You own the entire credit for what you do when you are a freelancer whereas other individuals will not be able to enjoy this benefit. The work and the money you get out of it is entirely yours.

Many people who are recognized around the world are successful in the freelancing industry. The exposure you get makes you reach enormous heights.

Job security

Even when the market is low and when many people are forced to leave out of their jobs a freelancer has no worry about it. The market trend does not hugely affect the freelance contributors. With many contacts they have and the regular clients they meet, freelancers continuously get assignments. The job security is maximum in this case.

A freelancer also has the credit of changing clients every time they are not comfortable. While they can work on a particular job they also can search.

Industrial politics

This field also doesn’t involve politics. None is present to form groups or compete with each other to showcase better. Of course there’s competition but here it’s smooth and it’s based on an individual to compete or not. The forceful work and team politics is null. Meetings and business trips are non-existent for freelancers.

Having said about all the benefits of a freelancer one must be now proud of the career path they have chosen as a freelancer. It’s us who has to decide how interesting we could make our life to be. The more you focus on the goals to succeed the more interest you will tend to show on the job.

Remember, its happiness and the feeling you get when helping others which makes you stick to the freelancing industry.

K Saravana Kumar

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August 17, 2013

Why want to-be freelancers quit early!

Hearing good stories on how a Freelancer earns a lot of money being at home and the benefits enjoyed many get the desire of becoming one. Freelancer’s life might seem to be luxurious as (he) does work as a passion in his own leisure time and (she) could manage the family and need not depend on any other individual for income and support. This might not be the same for rest of the world. There are various views one might have working as a freelancer.

Being in a good day job already and looking to earn more money or joining the path of a freelancer due to comparisons with your colleagues might not help. You must be strongly driven by yourself. You must have the desire to succeed, willingness to learn and adapt to this life.

Expectations should be set based on how far you can coordinate with the job. Taking many tasks in the initial stages might not work as effective as you may think. The ability to take work comes with experience.

At the early stages one might be tempted to take more projects and learn more, but making it as a practice to work on it every day takes time. Freelancing might sound interesting but it has its own cons. You must be patient and learn slowly to get better results.

Ways to survive

A key criterion to succeed and compete in the freelancing world is starting to work.

Taking a simple scenario:

A lady who has a day job and desire to work as a Freelancer has received a considerable amount of work from a client, and she’s been given a deadline. Having taken the work with lot of enthusiasm, the will to improve and thriving to provide a quality job, all of a sudden gets personal problems and her boss at work wants her to extend and finish a project. Her deadline for the freelancing work is getting close and she hasn’t started with it, as she knew it wasn’t a big task and had the overconfidence of completing it. She’s now stuck between the jobs.

To avoid this kind of situations, one must start working from Day 1 and slowly show progress on it. Make sure you push yourself to do the work before you get diverted. Make sure freelancing is one among your top priorities in day to day activities. However when i mention this, i will not mean to project people being Workaholic but to give importance and spare some quality time.

Treat it as your own business

Focus on the goal to finish what you have started with. As you have the liberty and the flexibility to work by yourself don’t give a chance to misuse it. Stay in the right path. You need make your mind that the job given to you is entirely dependent on you, so never let it loose.

Think ahead before you build the job. Spend some time to think how a business owner would react to situations when a new project comes in and the methods he would construct to implement it. You need to make sure your signature is created by itself in the way that you present it. You can do this by making use of the latest trends in your work. Feel energetic and motivated this can help you to survive

Lack of experience

Experience comes along with the work we do. None can be perfect at the very beginning. You must have the patience and overcome the fear of failure. The least feedback you might get from your first client might be to re-do your work again and again. But don’t lose hope.

Like how John Keats mentioned,

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced–even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.

You must have the confidence to cope up from the stones thrown and you will be molded as a better person.

Keep a practice of learning while you work. While you work on a specific task don’t just find out what it is and implement try to learn the related things as well and this will be reflected in your growth.

Client relationship:

A freelancer generally quit when pressured by client and the way they are handled. Don’t let your emotions overrule you. Always remember to maintain professionalism. Keep your work and speech to the point. Sharing your personal life events may bring many other hidden problems.

Some clients might be harsh and some might be friendly. Make sure you can balance both the kinds of people. Be affirmative, keep the client informed on the progress of work every few days once, but this again depends on how your client wants you to be.

Have in mind the client will never know what you are working on and what he’s going to receive from you. Its certain that you must respond to your client as soon as possible, if the work is not complete sent a receipt of the mail received.

Avoid fear

One among the demotivating factors of quitting early is developing fear. This might be because you have just graduated and took the work or just beginning life as a freelancer.

Know that there are many students who are successful taking their part time jobs working as a contributor. It won’t be picture perfect but slowly you could see greenness at barren days.

You must have the courage to handle, face it more and more to get used to it. Do one thing each day which fears you to build yourself to face the world.

A French poet once wrote,

“Come to the edge, He said.

They said: We are afraid.

Come to the edge, He said.

They came. He pushed them,

And they flew . . .”

Drive yourself to the work you have we never done to explore the possibilities.

Having in mind these ground rules, let’s survive and face the Freelancing world.

K Saravana Kumar

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August 16, 2013

Women as freelancer

Need of a women to work

Women from the ancient times did not think on the other side of home. They always concentrated on family and its betterments. With necessity came the intention to work. This kept growing as the society provided numerous benefits for the women kind.

As everyone agrees to the fact that women manage work effectively and has the patience and work towards the goal organizations focus more on hiring women employees.

To make them sustain, policies and benefits are put forth. One of its kinds is working as a Freelancer.

Women handle work and home

As freelancing women enjoy more rights compared to men. Men work as a freelancer generally to improve their skill and enjoy their passion. Whereas women has many reasons to work as a freelance contributor.

While she works from home she can take care of her family and as well work. She achieves this by splitting up her work based on the relaxed time she gets. As the work is not for a long term she doesn’t fall under any huge commitments and can plan to finish that particular job before she takes up the next assignment.

Women get together with other people quite fast and hence she can survive in the freelancing world with friends of her interest and keep developing talent. The trend of freelancing is spread and many individuals take this up because the stress levels depend on the amount of work we take and its purely based on our need.

Women are more attracted towards self employment than men. They have the freedom to work and manage. It usually diverts a women from the routine things she does everyday.

Doing a work of her interest makes her feel good and keeps her motivated the entire day.

Going by the reports published every year after the survey, we have a strong evidence that the growth of women freelancers is increasing.When a woman is married and if she could not meet the family requirements she gets an extra paid income out of freelancing.

Online career advantages for a woman freelancer:

Women are more successful in online career and have achieved. Some tips as below

  • Freelancing jobs help female employees manage their schedule appropriately. This gives them more fresh ideas and helps increase in quality of work and productivity
  • Women find herself independent and feels motivated as they handle the tasks by oneself. As online freelancing doesn’t affect their career growth and it’s not time bounded women are interested in taking these kind of flexible jobs
  • In a virtual world such as internet, women find themselves optimistic about their future success in technology and make them feel they are competitive enough to challenge racial discrimination that is a strong perception about women’s jobs in the job market.
  • With the increasing number of tools available online women are able to develop their skill and stay competitive. The chances of improving and learning are high. like stated, Women has amazing skill of doing multitasking; a research states that around 70% of women say online job has enabled them to easily manage their personal and professional lives. Jobs available on the internet have helped them balance their personal and professional roles simultaneously.
  • As every women has to satisfy the family commitment and has various responsibilities freelancing jobs helps them and provides an ease to work without a strong burden.

There’s a new growing field where women have taken a dominating position over their male counterparts: the freelance sector.At first instance, the benefits and the improvements may not seem to be convincing. But as time passes you will have a strong focus working when you can and not. Though some people have issues working from home there are many successful female freelancers who feel they face new challenging opportunities and have improved their skills. The level of personal improvement and career orientation has highly improved for the freelancing women.

Expectations for more contract work for women remain high. Most of the women are optimistic about the future success of women in technology. This is a good sign as the momentum is building for even more gains for women in the freelance sector.

Travel issues

With the challenging work environment and the clients being distributed across continents, women are unable to travel losing her commitments and responsibilities.Freelancing solves this.It helps women to get rid of the major problem travel. The work can be done sitting just at her home. She gets more time to concentrate and lesser running around time.

Quoting, Margaret Thatcher,

Freelancing is not a last resort for failures; it’s a career choice for many

Most of the people outside think that people who end up with failures take freelancing to succeed.

But its the other way around. People earn a lot of money and skill. Its the smartness and the level of passion you show towards a work you do.

Freelancing can be your career by choice and not by fate.Its you who are willing to take it up so anytime a women who work as a freelancer should have it in mind. This will boost the level of interest.You must have the attitude to project yourself as a successful women in freelancing.

Women are strongly determined and don’t easily give up. Freelancing women also has the satisfaction of the work performed. They need not worry about the project stress, reporting to managers or lay-off. The freedom to work resides on their hands and the will to succeed.

Some tips for Women to achieve more:
1. Take center stage

Project yourself as a leader. Sign up for meetings and take the chances to speak, host sessions or conduct workshops. Of course, you’re there to help others and teach them, but an advantage that you’re showing yourself and your company to a new audience. Every person in the crowd is a potential customer, and your inputs are recognised.

2. Form groups of people with similar interest as yours

Organise a lunch/ dinner outing. Create yourself a network through social groups, business associations. While conversing get the knowledge and resources from people who are willing to share. Make some simple notes and try implementing.

3.Never give up.

At hard times, don’t lose interest.Keep yourself updated. Work on some innovative projects and keep applying.

Hope this article helped you rejuvenate.

K Saravana Kumar

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