Freelancing – Can You Build Your Business Using Freelance Platforms?
Freelancing – Can You Build Your Business Using
Freelance Platforms?
There are more freelancers in today's labor force than at any other time in history. A September 2020 study by Upwork, one of the country's leading freelance platforms, indicated that as many as 59 million Americans performed some freelance work in the past year. That represents 36% of the U.S. workforce and an increase of two million freelancers year over year.
What is a freelancer? Essentially, a freelancer is a self-employed, independent contractor that takes on work assignments for organizations and companies rather than being on the company's payroll as an employee.
There are countless benefits of being a freelancer, making it an appealing option for many. Some freelancers just pick up occasional assignments for extra income, while for others, freelancing is their full-time job. Many freelancers are business owners, having their freelance service legally established as a Limited Liability Company (LLC).
One of the most pressing challenges for new freelancers is how to go about growing their freelance business. If you are a freelancer, there are two primary ways you can build a portfolio, find and retain clients, and grow your business: with or without the help of a freelance platform.
There are freelance platforms that connect individuals looking for work to companies or organizations in search of freelancers. Can you build your business using freelance platforms? You certainly can, and many do, especially in the early days as they work to get their freelance businesses off the ground.
Freelancing – the work
Many jobs that you can do as an employee, you can also do as a freelancer. Upwork, one of the top global freelance platforms, has twelve main categories of freelance jobs with a whopping 171 sub-categories: Accounting & Consulting (11), Admin Support (6), Customer Service (2), Data Science & Analytics (12), Design & Creative (31), Engineering & Architecture (34), IT & Engineering (10), Legal (10), Sales & Marketing (15), Translation (6), Web, Mobile & Software Development (24), and Writing (10).
With so many freelance jobs in such a wide variety of fields, nearly everyone has skills they could use to hire themselves out on a contract basis. Why would you do that? Because there are some real advantages to being self-employed as a freelancer.
As a freelancer, you have control over your workload. You can pick up as much or as little work as you desire, you can choose your clients, and you can select only the work you want to do. You have the flexibility to work when and from where you want. If you prefer working late nights or early mornings, you don't have to conform to the traditional 9-to-5 workweek. If you enjoy travel, your office can be wherever the road takes you.
In all of those ways, freelancing is quite different from conventional employment scenarios. Still, working as a self-employed freelancer, whether part-time or full-time, is still a job that you'll need to take seriously and give your best effort if you want to experience success.
Freelancing – the business
There are some challenges with freelancing, too, and most self-employed contractors report that most of the downsides are related to the business end of things. As a freelancer, you are a business owner. You're the one in charge of getting, managing, satisfying, and retaining clients. You'll be responsible for paying self-employment taxes.
You're also the one handling billing and collecting payments. And of course, working for yourself instead of an outside employer means no benefits like health insurance, vacation, sick days, and no company matched 401K.
Most experts concur that, whether you're planning for your freelancing to be your full-time job or just a part-time side hustle, it's best to keep your personal and business finances separate. Forming an LLC (Limited Liability Company) is the most highly recommended way of doing that.
Choosing what you'll do for hire and using your skills to do the work is only part of the picture. The other part is being entirely up to speed on all you'll need to do to run your freelance business well.
Building your business using freelance platforms
Two challenges many freelancers struggle with have to do with finding enough work and earning enough money. In a 2019 article about freelancing pros and cons, FlexJobs, another job search platform that matches freelancers looking for work with companies looking to hire freelancers, reported that 65% of freelancers found finding clients was their biggest challenge.
Finding, pleasing, and retaining clients is crucial to your career as a freelancer and vital to your success in earning enough money to meet your needs. Utilizing the services of one or more freelance platforms to build your business helps with both of these challenges. Through these platforms, you will be exposed to prospective clients worldwide and find plenty of jobs to compete for.
The more jobs you compete for and win, the more you build your portfolio. As you gain more experience and exposure, particularly if you have delighted clients leaving rave reviews about you, you will have more opportunities to make money and increase your rates.
Not all freelance platforms operate the same, but they serve the same purpose: connecting those looking for freelancers with those seeking freelance work. Here are a few popular freelance platforms:
· Upwork
· FlexJobs
· Fiverr
· Toptal
· Guru
· Aquent
Some of these freelance platforms are subscription services, so you pay a flat amount each month to access the job postings. Some have just the fixed monthly fee, and other platforms collect a percentage of your earnings.
Others are commission-based only, so you pay no recurring fee, but the service keeps a percentage of everything you make. Depending on the service or services you use and how you choose to be paid, you might incur additional costs through third-party money transfer services.
After thoughtfully considering the pros and cons of using a freelance service, the overwhelming reason most freelancers give for choosing a platform to build their business is the easy access to clients and the availability of jobs to apply for.
There are thousands of freelance jobs available on these platforms that you wouldn't otherwise be able to find and apply for. For that easy access alone, most freelancers feel it's a great way to build their business.
Building your business independently
There are certainly advantages of building your business apart from freelance platforms, the primary one being the money saved on subscriptions and fees. When you find the job independently, you don't have to worry about a service keeping 5%-25% of what you earn.
As the business owner, drumming up business is one of your responsibilities. You might have contacts and leads to market yourself to as you get your business off the ground. To grow and build your business, you'll need to create a marketing plan to attract new clients and get recurring work from current clients.
Depending upon what types of skills you're hiring yourself out to do, the supply and demand in your area, and the scope of your professional network, you might generate plenty of work without ever needing to use a freelance platform.
Just know that, as a freelancer, there are lots of good options out there should you decide using a freelance service platform is what you need to take your business to the next level.