2016-09-24

After reading this blog on maximizing freelance income, readers asked several questions. While I answered specific questions, many readers asked a pertinent question, the answer to which will require an entire blog post.

Through this blog, I will answer “How one can freelance without having a technical skill set or a specific domain knowledge?”

Although I answer each and every question through social media, emails or in person, I request you to post questions in comments so that other readers can also benefit from the answers.

Before I proceed, let me explain the kind of services I provided as a freelancer and why I chose them.

In my last job, I handled digital marketing for the organization. And therefore, digital marketing services were the natural choice for me. I registered my profile as a digital marketing freelancer. However, in 2013, Google updated its search engine algorithm that gave more preference to high-quality content in search engine rankings. This led to a flood of content writing projects on every freelancing site. Since I was in the experimenting mode on the website, I placed few bids on content writing projects and finally won the first project. As I had no formal training or experience in professional writing, I had to work almost 10-12 hours to research and write a four-page content that was worth $10. The client was delighted with work and came up with next set of projects. Over a period, I gained confidence in professional writing, and it became a great complement to digital marketing services.

Until this time, I didn’t know that content writing could also be a business. I didn’t limit myself to just content and digital marketing, but continued learning whatever came on the way.

I will write a dedicated post on learning professional writing later.

For now, let us discuss the main question: How should you choose an area of freelancing, especially when you are not an expert in any one particular field?

Based on my experience, I can only say that start with any one niche and keep learning new (but related) skills to expand the range of services. To become a successful freelancer, you don’t need to be an ‘expert’ in any one field. Rather, you have to be sincere and need to have the full commitment towards the projects that you undertake. Also, you shouldn’t just leave a non-technical project offer simply because you don’t have prior knowledge of the field. The Internet has plenty of free resources that will be useful in learning the required skills quickly. However, for this, you must have commitment and patience to work without being discouraged or dissatisfied at the monetary value of the first few projects. Remember that freelancing demands time and sincere efforts on your part. So, you should choose the kind of work that you are passionate about and love doing it. Something which, if required, you can do for 12-14 hours a day without getting bored, tired, or frustrated.

Here is a comprehensive list of skills that you can choose to begin your freelancing career.

Non-Technical Skills

No or little experience needed

You can become better and efficient at anything you do consistently. So, with experience you may become an expert in Google Search. However, to start a project in searching something on Google, you don’t need to have an experience or a particular educational background. Here is a list of similar tasks that you can choose to work on when you don’t have profound knowledge about anything. If you wish to start freelancing right now, choose any of these skills and start bidding.

Click here to see the list of skills

Article Submission

Bookkeeping

Call Center

Customer Service

General Office

Helpdesk

Data Entry

Data Processing

Desktop Support

Email Handling

Order Processing

Phone Support

Procurement Research

Telephone Handling

Time Management

Transcription

Video Upload

Virtual Assistant

Web Search

Classifieds Posting

eBay

Internet Research

Article Rewriting

Copy Typing

Forum Posting

Newsletters

PDF to Word/Excel/PowerPoint

Product Descriptions

Reviews

Some Prior Experience/Knowledge Needed

Skills that require some prior experience/knowledge, however, can be learned in 3-6 months of self-study. If you are passionate about jobs that involves following skills, it is better do spend some time for self study.

Click here to check the list

Some Prior Experience/Knowledge Needed

BPO

Customer Support

Excel

Microsoft Office

Microsoft Outlook

Technical Support

CRM

Etsy

Facebook Marketing

Google Adsense

Internet Marketing

Market Research

General Marketing

Sales

Social Media Marketing

Telemarketing

Visual Merchandising

Entrepreneurship

ERP

Recruitment

Legal Research

Legal Writing

Academic Writing

Blog Writing

Content Writing

Financial Research

Ghostwriting

PowerPoint Presentation

Press Releases

Report Writing

Resumes

Short Stories

Technical Writing

3. Significant Experience/Expertise Needed

To complete projects that require any of the following skills, you should possess extensive knowledge or skills. If you want to to work on project related to following skills, you first need to learn and apply the concepts in low-risk environment. You may consider working as an intern or offering free services to validate your skills  and acquire some experience before selling your services to serious buyers.

List of skills that requires significant experience or expertise

Investment Research

Conversion Rate Optimisation

Email Marketing

Google Adwords

Lead Generation

Search Engine Marketing

Viral Marketing

Accounting

Business Analysis

Business Plans

Compliance

Event Planning

Finance

Financial Analysis

Inventory Management

Personal Development

Project Management

Risk Management

Book Writing

Business Writing

Catch Phrases

Copywriting

Creative Writing

eBooks Writing

Editing

Medical Writing

Proofreading

Proposal/Bid Writing

Slogans

Speech Writing

Translation Services

Data Science

Specialized/Niche Skill

Although you don’t need to have a technical background to learn these skills, you must work on specific software/platforms to get acquainted. The list can go on and on. However, I have tried to list the skills for which freelance jobs are readily available across the internet. If you want to learn any of these platforms/applications, it is better to use trial versions and practice it before offering freelance services.

Click here to check the list

Journalist

Mailchimp

Mailwizz

Periscope

WooCommerce

Translation Services

3D Printing

Buyer Sourcing

Logistics & Shipping

Manufacturing

Product Design

Product Sourcing

Supplier Sourcing

Attorney

Audit

Autotask

Contracts

Crystal Reports

Employment Law

Fundraising

Intuit QuickBooks

ISO9001

Legal

Linnworks Order Management

MYOB

Nintex Forms

Nintex Workflow

Patents

Payroll

PeopleSoft

Property Law

Public Relations

Salesforce

SAS

Tax

Tax Law

Unit4 Business World

Visa / Immigration

Xero

Grant Writing

LaTeX

Wikipedia

Brain Storming

Business Coaching

Technical Skills

You can even choose to work on technical projects. However, you need to learn specific skills before venturing into the technical freelancing world. The best part is you can learn those skills easily by enrolling on any online training websites. These pieces of training are as good as or sometimes better than offline training provided by local institutes in your area. Some of the popular online training sites are Lynda, Udemy, CourseEra, etc. There are some open source technologies like WordPress etc. that you can learn by self study and its practical application. You can choose the skills based on your interest and decide a future course of action.

IT, Website & Web Applications

Freelancing job opportunities related to  hundreds of programming languages are readily available across internet. You simply need to master any programming language and get started your freelance career.

List of IT, Web & Software Skills

.NET

AJAX

Amazon Web Services

Analytics

Android Wear SDK

Angular.js

Apache

App Developer

ASP

Asterisk PBX

Augmented Reality

Azure

backbone.js

Big Data

BigCommerce

Bitcoin

C Programming

C# Programming

C++ Programming

CakePHP

Cisco

CLIPS

Cloud Computing

CMS

Cocoa

Codeigniter

Coding

Database Administration

Database Development

Database Programming

Debian

Delphi

Django

DNS

DOS

Drupal

Dynamics

eCommerce

Game Development

Google Analytics

Google App Engine

Google Chrome

Google Maps

Google Plus

Google Web Toolkit

Google Webmaster Tools

Google Website Optimizer

Hadoop

HTML

HTML5

Instagram

Internet Security

Interspire

Ionic Framework

Java

Javascript

Joomla

jQuery / Prototype

JSON

Kinect

Knockout.js

Laravel

LESS/Sass/SCSS

Linkedin

Linux

Mac OS

Magento

Metatrader

Microsoft

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft SQL Server

Mobile App Testing

MySQL

Network Administration

Nginx

node.js

NoSQL Couch & Mongo

OAuth

Objective C

OCR

Odoo

Open Cart

Oracle

OSCommerce

PayPal API

Perl

PhoneGap

PHP

Pinterest

Plesk

PostgreSQL

Prestashop

Python

Ruby

Ruby on Rails

Sharepoint

Shell Script

Shopify

Shopping Carts

Smarty PHP

Social Networking

Software Architecture

Software Development

Software Testing

Splunk

SQL

SQLite

Squarespace

Stripe

System Admin

Twitter

Ubuntu

Umbraco

Unity 3D

UNIX

User Interface / IA

VB.NET

Virtuemart

Visual Basic

VMware

VoIP

Volusion

VPS

vTiger

Vuforia

Web Hosting

Web Scraping

Web Security

Web Services

Website Management

Website Testing

Weebly

WHMCS

Windows

Windows API

Windows Desktop

Windows Server

Wix

WordPress

WPF

XML

YouTube

Zen Cart

Zend

Zendesk

Zoho

Mobile Development Technology

Mobile technology is rapidly changing the entire technology ecosystem. There are thousands of freelance jobs available for mobile technology experts. You can launch your freelance career in mobile technology by mastering any of the following skills.

List of Skills related to Mobile Development

Amazon Fire

Amazon Kindle

Android (956)

Android Honeycomb

Appcelerator Titanium

Apple Watch

Geolocation

iPad

iPhone

J2ME

Metro

WebOS

Windows CE

Windows

Designing & Multimedia

There are thousands of designers available on freelancing sites. However, the demand for quality (creative) designers still exceeds the supply. So if you have a creative bend of mind, you will do very well in design and multimedia field. All you need to do is, learn a related technology and practice it for 1-3 months. Good designers will always be in demand from all type of business from across the world.

Click here to see complete list of skills related to Designing & Multimedia

3D Animation

3D Design

3D Modelling

3D Rendering

3ds Max

Adobe Dreamweaver

Adobe Fireworks

Adobe Flash

Adobe InDesign

Adobe Lightroom

Adobe LiveCycle Designer

Advertisement Design

After Effects

Animation

App Designer

Apple Compressor

Apple Logic Pro

Apple Motion

Audio Services

Autodesk Inventor

Autodesk Revit

Axure

Bootstrap

Building Architecture

Capture NX2

CGI

Cinema 4D

Covers & Packaging

CSS

Design

eLearning Designer

Fashion Design

Fashion Modeling

Filmmaking

Final Cut Pro

Flash 3D

Google SketchUp

Graphic Design

Illustrator

Maya

Motion Graphics

Photo Editing

Photography

Photoshop Design

Presentations

Prezi

PSD to HTML

PSD2CMS

QuarkXPress

Stationery Design

Sticker Design

T-Shirts

Tattoo Design

Templates

Typography

User Experience Design

User Interface Design

Vectorization

Video Editing

Video Production

Website Design

Wireframes

Local Jobs (Mostly requires your physical presence at the clients’ location)

Following job requires you to be physically present in clients’ location. You shouldn’t look for these kind of jobs on freelance marketplaces like Freelancer or Upwork. Rather, you should get a premium listing on top local classified site in your area. In 3-6 months you should get decent number of leads from sites like JustDial, CraigList, Locanto, OLX etc.

See the complete list here

Appliance Installation

Appliance Repair

Bathroom

Bricklaying

Building Consultants

Building Designer

Building Surveyors

Computer Help

Courses

Decking

Decoration

Drafting

Event Staffing

Furniture Assembly

Gardening

Gas Fitting

Hair Styles

Home Automation

Home Organization

IKEA Installation

Installation

Interiors

Landscape Design

Landscaping

Landscaping & Gardening

Lighting

Make Up

Painting

Weddings

Conclusion

While choosing a skill set, the interest and passion should be preferred over anything else. Don’t just jump into something because it has a lot of potential. Of course, the potential is crucial while considering the options. However, freelancing requires a lot of efforts and hard work, and if you are not passionate about the work, it can be a never ending nightmare. Depending on the time you have, you can learn any of the skills in 3-6 months. To apply theoretical learnings in real life, you may offer your services at a minimal cost. After working with a few clients, you will not only gain confidence and charge competitive rates but also help your customers achieve their goals. The critical point is, the short term hiccups and conflicts with clients shouldn’t deflect you from the long term goal. If you can manage this, the success will be entirely yours.

The post Everyone can do freelancing without initial investment or training! appeared first on SixPL.

Show more