When it comes to being a freelancer, most people fall into two different categories.  There are those who can make a living doing it and there are those that just cannot seem to make money working independently. Making money as a freelancer is not as hard as some might think.  The trouble with working as a freelancer is it is hard to stay in it for a while if you find yourself without immediate income.  Should you be aspiring to become a freelancer, you need to be able to answer an important question:  Why do you want to become one?  Another question you could answer is:  How can I continue to make a living doing freelance work.

The answers to these questions have many factors . The one that is most evident is having devotion.  After meeting with several freelancers, it is obvious that almost all of them think they have plenty of time left to finish something for a client, and easily lose track of that time and find themselves working through the nights to finish a job.  If you feel the need to spend half of the time you work losing focus and messing around, then you are certainly not ready to make a decent living freelancing.  Even though you have no boss and you can pretty much make your own hours, you still need to be accountable to yourself for your own actions. Not staying regimented will lead to your demise.

Success as a freelancer will mean plenty of marketing.  If you do not make the public aware of your services, then nobody will magically discover you.  Ultimately you will lose out on contracts that could have otherwise been perfect for you. You need to be as creative in your marketing as possible, to show the prospective clients the type of freelance ingeniousness you possess. YOU NEED TO GET NOTICED. You can do this through the traditional way of posting articles with links, or blogging, but there is one avenue that most freelancers neglect……Social Network Sites.  These sites provide a way for a freelancer to make friends and help prospective clients feel comfortable with them.  On these social networking type of sites, you have a chance to make a tremendous presentation of your work.  You can upload your portfolio, tell about what you do in your profile and make tons of new friends, who also become a referral service for you.  This is Social Commerce at its very root level.

Remember, there is someone on the opposite side of the world who will always be able to offer your services cheaper and more quickly then you.  The only way to keep repeat business is by always providing quality work, and delivering what you promised, in the time frame you promised.