home interior jobs
- chances are you've heardof these freelance job sites like upwork, elance,freelancers, 99design, fiverr, and even craigslist. and if you're just starting out or struggling with findingconsistent freelance work, these are gonna look very appealing, but are they worth it for you even if you're really struggling with making money freelancing?
(light music) from the outside looking in, these job sites are gonnalook very appealing. i mean look at all those potential clients that you could be working with. but reality check, these freelance sites are really gonna hinderyour freelance business especially if you're just starting out. look, i get it.
freelancing is hard, andespecially if you're looking to build that initial client base, so when work is slow, why not turn to a marketplacefull of potential work? i thought the exact same thing when i started freelancing. back in high school, i signed up for these sites,pretty much all of them. i created profiles, and i started bidding
for project after project. so eventually, i didland my first project, and after completing it, i made a very little amount of money in a pretty reasonable amount of time, and i felt pretty great, so i just had to stick with it and turn this into a steadyflow of income, right? wrong, was i so wrong.
by spending so much time on these sites, i essentially put on the brakes on growing as a freelancer. sure i was gaining some sort of experience from these real projects, but in the end, i wasjust wasting more time than anything else. i mean i spent weeks,possibly even months, trying to find the right site for me,
setting up a profile, and reaching a 100%, taking skill tests to tryto prove my experience, and gaining reviews, andthe list of this garbage goes on and on, and of course, the icing on the cake is these sites take a percentage of all of your earnings,and that's only logical. i completely get that, and it's expected.
so you can wave buy to that $10 off of that $100 logo you just did, but here's the worst part. in the end, these clientsaren't even yours. they're customers to the website. these people know that it'san overpopulated website full of unqualified freelancers trying to underbid each other. so should freelancers usethese job bidding websites?
should you use these job bidding websites? absolutely not, not if you want to build a thriving creative career for yourself. there's maybe 1% of people that are actually makingsome sort of living off of these websites, and those people are gonna say that thesewebsites are gold mines, but would you be proud of being a 1% of running a profile onanother company's website?
if so, then this video'snot gonna be for you, but if you're in this for the long game, if you're ready to be taken seriously as a graphic designer,and you want to build a freelance business thatyou could be proud of, then yeah, this video's gonna be for you. so what can you do with your time instead of spending it on these job sites? well, the sooner you startbuilding an actual business
around your design skillsand start promoting yourself as a professional, the sooneryou're gonna have clients knocking at your door. again, your goals shouldbe to build a business around what you like to do. if you want to build afulfilling career as a creative, then you need to avoid these job sites, and you need to startinvesting all of your time into yourself and in buildingreal client relationships.
focus on building a brand around yourself, and if you're strugglingwith standing out online as a freelance graphic designer, then i already did a video about that. check it out right here. find the one or two thingsthat you enjoy doing and what you can actually help people with and start creating content around that, just some form of content,
and then clients will start noticing you, and if you need some ideas, you can create case studies with the work you've already done, you can share your process and detail, you can share tips on what you know and do tutorials, you cantalk about your experiences on your blog, or even better, in a video, or you can just simplywrite about the challenges
that you've overcome. just be human. the possibilities are really endless. running a successful freelancegraphic design business isn't about landing asmany projects as you can. it's about landing the right projects. the type of projectsthat really excite you and get you motivatedto wake up every day, the ones that will help yougrow in the right direction.
at least that should be your end goal. creating content and buildinga brand around yourself is certainly going totake a lot more time, but who said this is ever gonna be easy? who said doing what you love and making a living off of it was gonna be a breeze? by making a name for yourself and putting yourself out there,
you're making your own luck. you're buildingopportunities for yourself, and the projects and the timeyou invest in yourself today can be what brings in client work tomorrow and for years to come. not to mention, you'll getpaid a heck of a lot more, so would you rather be bidding for peanuts or doing work that you enjoy and that you can be proud of?
so that is my thoughts,my own personal thoughts from my experiences with using freelance job bidding websites. i do honestly believe thatyou'll be tremendously better off if you invest in yourself rather than some other company's website i hope this video can help you stay strong and not invest your timeinto the wrong things because your time is precious.
you can't get that backonce you've spent it. your time is your life. it's your greatest asset,so spend it wisely. what's your take on freelance job sites? have you ever used them? leave a comment below and let me know yourthoughts and experiences. if you got anythinggood out of this video, click that thumbs up button
and consider subscribing. it's completely free, andit doesn't go unappreciated. thank you for investingyour time here with me. you're awesome. now, let's get back to work.