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!

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.

How to prevent being cheated in freelancing jobs

Quite often, than not we hear about freelancers being duped out of their money or not being paid for the job that they did. It is not only a financial loss but also diminishes the moral of a freelancer. Freelancers especially newbie free levels often fall prey to the fact that have been duped It is easy to pre vent yourself from falling into such situations H you keep the follow­ing in mind:

There is no such thing as simple work and quick money:

Every now and then, you will see advertisements in the mail and newspapers proclaiming that where the job they are offering gives you a chance of earning quick money by waking on pastime basis or wake hg at your continence. This in the biggest trap to lure wannabe freelancers or cash strapped individuals. There is no such thing as part time jobs with lots of money. These are usually data entry jobs that will take up a lot of your time and pay only peanuts.

Avoid free samples:

I once applied for an article-writing job and the client asked for two free samples of the topics, which he gave. It was purely by chance that I learnt that he had asked for two samples each for eight different people. He hired none of us and got 16 articles for free You have to safeguard yourself against such scams the sure shot way to do this is to not agree to free samples of the client’s choice. You can give previous samples of your work. Ok it there is no way out of it than agree to do a small sample and not the full. The client will be able to figure out your work from the samples that you provide.

Safeguard yourself against no payment:

As a freelancer, you do not have a steady source of income. Therefore in the event of non-payment you can face a financial crunch. The best way to avoid this in to take part payment before starting the job and keep taking payments in parts throughout the job. If the client is not ready to give advance then make sure that you have the verified details of the client. This should include phone number (working and checked) email ids and physical address. In case of non-payment, you can then follow up for payment. There will be clients who will delay making payments by giving excuses. Therefore retain the rights of your, walk till you receive full payments

Accept payments through verified means only:

A way to safeguard yourself against bogus payments is to receive payments through a verified medium such as your bank account or on the credit card, which can be traced easily. Keep a record of the payment that you receive for future purposes.

Read the fine print

Many clients and freelancers prefer to sign a contract before taking a job. These contracts are usually legally binding. When you are signing a contract, make sure that you read the fine print about the payment methods and dates. Terms like ‘payment will be made when work is done’ can be misleading if the amount of work is not described beforehand. Therefore, make sure that you know the work and payment proportion.

There is not harm in asking for payments when the work is done because it is your right. Many freelancers face a problem of asking for payment when the client keeps increasing the work. For example, the client hired you for one assignment and then gave you another without paying of the first one. In such situations, it is always good to come out in clear with the client and discuss things rationally.

Freelance Mystery Shopper

According to Oprah Winfrey, being a mystery shopper is one of the most uniquely satisfying careers ever. It can never go out of style and there is always a demand for mystery shoppers. Freelance mystery shoppers have a lot of potential in their hands to make it really big for themselves. Every organization values independent and unbiased opinions about their services and products to stay about the competition.

Mystery shopper is a person who is hired by a company or independent agencies to literally ‘check out’ the services. Mystery shopping can include tasting food, evaluating customer care services, checking the quality of products etc. A freelance mystery shopper has the freedom to say no for a job. In order to become a successful mystery shopper you need to have the following skills/qualities:

Excellent Memory

As a freelance mystery shopper, you can’t just walk in to a store and start noting down points and observation. You will have to do after you are out of the store and therefore you need to have excellent memory to retain what you saw and observed. Having a good memory will also help you keep in mind the employer guidelines when on a project and this way you will be able to observe better.

Ability to remain Unnamed

A mystery shopper must know how to conceal his/her true identity. You have to remain unnamed and carry out the instructions precisely. There are a number of showrooms that have web cameras, which the employer will use to verify your shopping experience. If you reveal your identity then the whole object of mystery shopping fails.

Great observation skills

Most people have good observations skill but a mystery shopper has to have great observation stills. Being aware of what is going around you when you are on a project is very important. Missing out a single detail can lead to a faulty report.

Writing Skills

Most employers don’t ask for a very good writing skill but you should have basic and good writing skills. Basic knowledge of grammar and punctuation will help a lot on writing a good report. You must also have a basic knowledge of excel sheets to maintain a record.

Availability at all times

Mystery shopping is not a 9 to 5 job. The projects can have various timelines. Sometimes you might have to visit just as the store/service is opening or sometime you have visit during rush hour or sometimes during the closing time. Therefore, you need to be available at all time to take on a job. Another thing to keep in mind that freelance mystery shopping is not a regular job and there are no fixed durations.

Ability to meet deadlines

As we said in the last point mystery shopping assignment, don’t give you much time to complete them. Most service checks or mystery shopping assignments have to be completed in a day or two of assignment. Therefore, you much be committed and reliable in terms of meeting deadlines.

Honesty and Professionalism

When you submit your report as a mystery writer it will be read by the location which you have visited therefore you must at all times keep your report professional at all times. Offensive comments and works are unnecessary. Be honest at all times and don’t try to fib in your report. Many mystery shoppers tend to make the mistake of lying on the report or being biased in their opinion in order to appear good. This kind of practice is to be avoided at all times.

Mystery shopping can be a lot of fun and highly satisfying if you do it by the book.

20 Must Have Skills As A Freelancer

There has been a rise in the number of people who are opting to work as a freelancer. One of the biggest advantages that many people see is the flexibility in working that they can avail. Freelancing basically means that that you work independently on short and long-term projects for a fixed payment. However, with so many people opting for the freelancing jobs the competition has increased an in order to make sure that you stay on the top you have to have the extra edge over others.

Here is a list of the top must have skills as a freelancer that you need to keep in mind and implement:

1.    Learn the tricks of the trade: Nobody wants to hire a freelancer who does not know the tricks of his/her trade. If you are a freelance salesperson then you must know all about the product you are selling. You must also develop your skill as a salesperson i.e. develops the interpersonal skills.

2.    Be adaptive: As a freelancer, you must learn to be adaptive. You will have to mold your work according to client requirements. You might even have to adjust your timings and workdays according to the client’s need.

3.    Be patient: Another important skill that a freelancer must possess is to be patient at all times. When you are working with somebody on a contractual basis, you have to be very patient in understanding the needs. Also patience is a virtue, which will come in handy when you are applying for jobs.

4.    Be confident: As a freelancer one of your biggest assets is your confidence. You will need to be confident when you are interacting with new clients so that they believe in your work.

5.    Learn the importance of time: The most important skill that every freelancer must cultivate and follow is the art of being punctual. If you cannot deliver the right product on time then you will easily lose the client trust and mar your reputation forever.

6.    Be competitive: The key to being successful in freelancing is that you remain competitive at all times. If you are competitive you will remain in limelight always and clients will pay attention to you.

7.    Be firm: Most of the freelancers lose their credibility when they are not firm with the conditions of the job. If you have agreed to paint a mural on a particular wall then make sure that that is the wall, you work on and give it your best.

8.    Learn to Observe: A good freelancer learns how to observe thing around them and take inspiration from them.  This skill helps them keep up with the latest things and further their career as a successful freelancer.

9.    Self-Motivation: Another important skill that you must develop is self-motivation. In a regular office there will be somebody standing on your head to get the work done. But as a freelancer you have to be self-motivated to deliver your work.

10.    Reliability: To convince a client that you are worthy of more jobs from them you have to prove that you are reliable at all times. Being reliable is one of the skills, which is a combination of self-motivation and respect for timing.

11.    Discipline: Maintaining discipline at all time is not an easy task but being disciplined at all times is a skill, which you would need to stick to at all, times.

12.    Organization:  A freelancer should have excellent organizational skills. This will help keep track of work, get new work and balance the payments. It will also help you save a lot of time.

13.    Communication: As a freelancer you will be working independently and therefore your communication skill (both written and verbal) should be top notch. This skill will not only help you land new jobs but also convince your clients that you are on the job.

14.    Willing to learn new skills: The list of skills is never ending and in order to broaden your horizons you should be willing to learn new skills at all the times. This will show the clients that you are committed to the job.

15.    Recognize the flaws: Be prepared to admit and recognize your flaws. This will help you in avoiding mistakes and pitfalls and help increase your strengths.

16.    Learn to handle failure and criticism: Being thorough with your work and applying many jobs does not mean that you will get every job you apply for and every job that you submit will turn out to be perfect. Therefore, learn how to handle failure and criticism so that you can recover quickly and move on.

17.    Idea generation: Another skill, which is an asset to a freelancer, is idea generation. New ideas regarding the ways of doing work or increasing efficiency will be always welcome with everybody.

18.    Open to try new things: A freelancer should be open to try new things at all times because no two jobs are ever the same.

19.    Email skills: Keeping up with simple technological skills such as writing engaging emails is a skill that will come in handy to every freelancer. The world is fast moving to a paperless office and you need to keep pace with it.

20.    Versatility: Versatility is a skill that many freelancers tend to ignore. But in fact it is a skill, which will help you a lot if you are looking for a long-term career as a freelancer. As the famous saying goes ‘Don’t put all your money at a single place’, it goes true for freelancing jobs. For example as a freelance writer don’t limit yourself to blog writing only but also try out website content, article writing etc.