When you’re a freelancer, your success depends totally on you. So, you must educate and train yourself to be the best professional you can be and to improve your abilities, skills, and knowledge constantly.
Being an independent learner and a versatile worker and allowing yourself to experiment in several areas puts you ahead of the average freelancer. You should always aspire to be better than you already are, although you should appreciate and evaluate your current performance. Constant improvement is one of the essential components of success.
Improving and educating yourself doesn’t mean you have to study three careers and have tons of degrees. You can do that if you want to. But we suggest you cultivate several skills that will give you an advantage and help you succeed in the freelancing business.
Here is when the hard skills come in.
Hard skills are usually related to technical knowledge or abilities gained through education or training, like using certain software or tools or running a specific machine or process. Your hard skills are those you gained from your career, studies, or other work experiences: how to use a point-of-sale, speak another language fluently, or use video editing software. Any technical skill you have.
We researched the most helpful and valuable skills every freelancer should have to thrive, and here they are!
Accounting and Finance
As a freelancer, you are your accountant: You decide where to invest to improve your business, keep up with your taxes, and dedicate yourself to your job at the same time.
So, familiarizing yourself with the financial framework would help since you’ll have to do that work yourself. It also gives you the ability to offer that service as a virtual assistant for a client, apart from your career of choice.
Marketing
When you’re a freelancer, apart from your services, you must know how to self-promote your work, so you should learn about the current marketing techniques and what’s trendy these days.
Be present on social media and constant in your posting, always keeping it organized and sticking to the image you want to project. This way, you can start creating your brand, and clients will be able to know you and contact you.
We suggest you sign in on LinkedIn, create a professional profile, and (or) start a blog or other social media account that allows you to expose yourself and interact directly with future clients and the public. Learn about SEO practices, marketing trends, and management. This will always be helpful while freelancing.
Languages
While freelancing, you can work from any place for people anywhere in the world, so it could be beneficial for you to boost your work chances and learn other languages apart from your native language. English works as a bridge between many people from many cultures, but still, it will give you lots of opportunities to speak another language; some we recommend you learn are:
Arabic
The economy in the Middle East is growing, and so are the opportunities. Very few people from the West know how to speak Arabic, so speaking this language will open many job positions for you. The demand for people fluent in Arabic is high, so many businesses require them.
Mandarin Chinese
This is one of the most intelligent decisions you can make for business since Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language globally, with 14% of the global population speaking it, not only in China but in Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, etc.
This means that if you speak Mandarin, you’ll have many job opportunities in all these countries. On the other hand, learning Mandarin is easier than you might think since it has no verbs, plurals, tenses, or conjugations. Yes, it’s still one of the most challenging languages in the world, but it is worth it.
German
German is only officially spoken in six countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein), but Germany has the largest economy in Europe and the fourth largest globally. Twelve of the world’s biggest companies are German or Swiss, so speaking this language opens several doors for you.
Design
Even if you’re not a graphic designer, and your services are far from that area, knowing the basics of creating good graphic content will put you ahead of the competition. You’ll be able to promote yourself efficiently and design content that attracts possible clients’ attention, among many other benefits.
Humans are visual beings and are inevitably attracted to what’s striking. Maybe you should learn to use some design software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop and experiment with your artistic side.
Content Writing
Good SEO content is vital to a brand’s success, but not everything is about using keywords and working alongside algorithms. Creating quality content is mixing technical, organizational, or business information with emotional, intellectual, or other social value elements in your writing, causing your readers to connect with you and want to buy your services.
We recommend that every freelancer start practicing reader-engaging writing and SEO content, apply this skill to their work, and improve their professional development.
Having at least one of these hard skills puts you ahead of the competition, and there’s plenty. But, as we always say, it’s essential to keep improving. The freelance business is continually growing, and every day, you’ll have at least one hundred people with the same abilities as you running for those opportunities you want.
Even if you shouldn’t push yourself too hard, don’t get all comfortable either. Keep learning and growing, and never stop improving your skills and job performance.
See more articles by Andrea Corona.
