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How to Freelance: Take These 2 Steps to Take to Turn Your Expertise into a New, Fulltime Career

By: Yuwanda Black

Many think of freelancing as an unstable, unpredictable, no-benefits career. And it can be. But when you think about it, the global economy is making what was once so-called stable jobs (eg, car manufacturing, Wall Street banking jobs, etc.) into a myth. One could argue that the newest form of job stability is freelancing.

If you've ever wanted to learn how to freelance, ie, how to make money with skills and knowledge you already have, following are two steps steps you can take today to start down this path.

How to "Freelance Shop" Your Skills: Step 1 -- Investigate the Need

Just because you're an expert at something doesn't meant that there's a market need for it. So the first step is to do some research to see if the skill set you have is something potential clients are willing to pay for.

For example, in 2011, social media is all the rage. If you're a social media marketing manager for a firm, all you have to so is look at major job boards to see that this is a skill that is easily marketable. Many social media marketing experts command $100-$300 per hour -- and that's on the low end.

How to Freelance Researching Skill Tip: When looking at your skill set, see if you need to upgrade. For example, if you're a social media specialist but your firm mainly uses Facebook, you may need to upgrade to become versed in Twitter and LinkedIn also, as these two round out the Top 3 social media sites.

How to "Freelance Shop" Your Skills: Step 2 -- Research Rates

When first learning how to freelance, many newbies make the mistake of severely under pricing their services. In many cases, it's because they don't know how to put a dollar value on "time," which, by the way, is your number one asset as a freelancer.

Intangibles to Figure In Your Rate When You're Working Freelance

It's easy to put a price on tangible goods, eg, laptop, cell phone, internet connection, etc. But, what about things like: client consultations (for jobs that may never materialize); research (to write proposals); preparing proposals (for, again, jobs that may never come to fruition); fixing the virus hat got on your computer that took two hours -- remember, there is no tech department to call when you freelance; preparing invoices (and following up to ensure payment); etc.

These are intangibles that, until you've been freelancing for a while, it can be hard to put a "rate" on. So when you research rates, be sure to include these in your hourly rate. While it may be difficult at first, once you learn more about how to freelance (usually after you've been doing it for six months to a year), you can adjust your rates accordingly.

One way to get really good insight into this is to reach out to more experienced freelancers on social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Ask them the guidelines they use to set their rates. Peruse their websites to see how much they charge (some will list rates, many won't).

After perusing 5 or 10 sites, you should start to see some patterns -- eg, highs, lows and in betweens -- that will give you some idea about how to set your rates.

Article Source: http://articles.tiptopweb.info

Learn more about how to freelance -- and the signs to look for that signal it's time to quit your job to go about it fulltime at inkwelleditorial.com/when-to-quit-job-to-freelance-fulltime.

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How to Freelance: Take These 2 Steps to Take to Turn Your Expertise into a New, Fulltime Career