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 constantly improve your abilities, skills, and knowledge.
Being an independent learner and a versatile worker and allowing yourself to experiment in several areas takes you way ahead of the average freelancer, and you should always aspire to be better than you already are, although appreciating and evaluating 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 what we mean is you must cultivate in yourself 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 how to use certain software or tools, or how to run 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, how to speak another language fluently, or how to use video editing software. Any technical skill you have.
We did some research on which are the most helpful and useful skills every freelancer should have to thrive, and here they are!
Accounting and Finance
As a freelancer, you are your accountant: You have to decide where you should invest to improve your business, keep up with your taxes, and dedicate yourself to doing your job at the same time.
So, it would help if you were familiarized with the financial framework since you’ll have to do that work for yourself. And also gives you the ability to offer that service, too, as a virtual assistant for a client, apart from your career of choice.
Marketing
When you’re a freelancer, apart from the services you offer, 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 be 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 the 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 go out and expose yourself, and interact directly with future clients and the public. Learn about SEO practices, as well as 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 very helpful for you to boost your work chances, and to learn other languages apart from your native one. 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 with it, so are the opportunities. There are very few people from the West who 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, and so many businesses require them.
Mandarin Chinese
This is one of the smartest decisions you can make for business, since Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world, 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 lots of job opportunities from all of these countries. On the other hand, learning Mandarin is easier than you might think since it has no verbs, no plurals, no tenses, and no conjugations. Yes, it’s still one of the most difficult 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 in the world. 12 out 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 the services you offer are far from that area, knowing the basics about how to create 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 a lot of other benefits.
Humans are visual beings and are inevitably attracted to what’s striking. Maybe you should learn how to use some Design software such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop and experiment with the artistic side of yourself.
Content Writing
Creating good SEO content is key to a brand’s success, but not everything is about using keywords and working alongside algorithms. Creating quality content is about knowing how to mix technical, organizational, or business information, with emotional, intellectual, or other elements of social value in your writing, causing your readers to connect with you and want to buy your services.
We recommend every freelancer to start practicing reader-engaging writing and SEO content, to start applying this skill to their work, and to 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.
And 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 your job performance.
See more articles by Andrea Corona.
