How do I start freelance work?

Hi,

Here's the best advice I know:

http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/heres-why-you-need-an-e-learning-portfolio/

If you want to get into this business as a part-time freelancer, you are competing with those of us who do it as a living, so you will need to put a fair degree of commitment and hard-work into this.

Also, if you have not already done so, I recommend reading this thread end-to-end, several times. It will help prepare you for the realities of freelancing as a fulltime career.

Good luck!

Bruce

Bruce is spot on, as usual. In addition, I suggest building a mini-course of and posting it here. Maybe ten minutes' worth of material. You'll get a lot of helpful feedback from those who do elearning full-time.

Here's an example. Revising Bloated E-learning Prose

One other point - and I do not want this to come over as overly negative, I want it to be helpful.

This forum is one of the best places, in the World (IMHO), not only to find work but be noticed  by potential clients and collaborators. I have been offered many £000's of work from clients looking here.

It helps (IMHO) to have a real name/avatar on the forum unless there's a very good reason not to - it helps people find you in other places you may inhabit online, and it helps people connect.

Just something to think about.

Best of luck.

Bruce

Hi I am working on freelancer platform(http://goo.gl/Avpcv)  really good portal with a lot of useful features. I got a good amount of money there last year. Recommended!!!

In addition to Freelancer, posted by Arsen, there's also Guru and Elance. My experience with these boards for website design has not been good, because a majority of people there are looking for the cheapest possible bids and these jobs usually go to folks in Asia or Eastern Europe who can afford to bid at a much lower rate because of the cost of living differential. I don't know if that's the case with e-learning, however. These boards have premium accounts, which give you more bids per month and/or more cred when you bid. Elance has a set of tests you can take to verify your expertise in certain areas (don't know about the others, I haven't bid on anything on any of them for several years) as well as places to post a profile including a portfolio.

If you haven't already done so, you might want to develop a business plan: a good resource for this is the book "One Page Business Plan for the Professional Consultant", by Jim Horan, available on Amazon.

Let me give you an idea:

Guru, Elance, and Odesk involves small fixed price projects where employers usually posts a project description and accepts bids from workers who are willing complete the project.

Rather than the company posting a project description, the worker posts the project on sites like Fiverr, TaskArmy and PeoplePerHour.

For Full time online jobs, on the other hand, I would suggest Staff.com.

Hello,  "eLearning/mLearning":  I'm coming to this thread late, I apologize, but in case this is still helpful:

• I second Bruce's comment that it's best to be a real "person" (complete with avatar) on this forum, so that you have an identity.  You don't want to be seen as hiding behind a façade when presenting yourself to peers and potential clients.
• You should definitely pursue the idea of creating a portfolio of samples, preferably online.  I have started a modest one, for example, and I add to it when time allows:  http://www.sellonsolutions.com/elearning-samples/
• As to topics, one of the things clients will be looking for is your ability to be creative.  So give that some thought.  Perhaps create samples that speak to you.  Consider who is likely to be your target audience, and consider what topics might speak to them.  If you have a sample that already resonates with their needs, you're that much more likely to have a chance at landing some work.
• Creativity impresses.  And that has to come from your own unique perspective.  Samples are a great opportunity to give your creativity free reign!

I hope this helps.

Andrew

All great advice! I've been reading through the Freelance thread and there's some brilliant information in there. Only 3 pages in and I have plenty of material to read!

Thanks everyone, I'm also starting out as a freelancer and info on this thread is very useful!
Lizzie

I'd start by checking out some freelance websites that would best suit yourself one really good one to check out is by far 5spot  they're the only commission free website in the world. So your full potential can be seen. 

Sexy front-end, however...on the basis that there are no eLearning jobs coming up on search, might be better to look at sites such as eLance and peopleperhour.com.

Looking forward to more useful posts on freelancing Franko, hope to see you around the Boards. Are you a freelancer?

Commission is never in my experience an issue. We all just factor it into our costs and quotes.

I'm looking at a SharePoint 2010 development project on guru.com, hourly rate open, 6 months' duration, 10-30hrs/week.  And a fixed price project I found on freelancer .com for a video streaming website is listed in the range $10,000 to $25,000 USD (average bid so far is over $16,000). I'm also seeing long-range development jobs on Odesk for Drupal.  So these sites are not restricted to small fixed price projects. It depends on the kind of job you're looking for ... but when I searched for "elearning" on Odesk, the second item that popped up was an elearning content creation gig, 1 to 3 months, 30+ hours per week.

This advice may seem pedestrian compared to what others have already offered, and it certainly comes from a different perspective, but here it is:

A very wise person once said "You have to fish where the fish are."

So in addition to cultivating relationships in forums like this (which is an awesome place to be, by the way), you need to also start scoping out industry-specific forums where you feel confident you can ply your trade effectively.  In other words, if you're just starting out: play to your strengths.

If, for example, you're an antique car enthusiast, and know many things about automobile restoration, (bad example, I'm sure, but stick with me...) you might want to find forums (and they're out there, I'm sure) that deal with that subject matter. Join one. Poke around. Get to know people. Make no pretense about who you are, or what you do (your profile is great for this--you don't even have to mention it "in public"), but don't beat people over the head with it. Talk to people in the language they understand. Watch the forum for "hot button topics". If one strikes your fancy, and you're confident in your knowledge, make a quick eLearning module for it, and present it as a "freebie" to the group as a whole. You'll be sure to impress people, be seen as an "expert", and certainly be appreciated for passing on what you've learned.

Even if no one "bites" on the implied offer, you will have made an impression. And you never know. These things can lead to other things down the road.

Social media isn't just about "HIRE ME HIRE ME HIRE ME". It's about cultivating relationships, building trust, and at the same time offering the experience, knowledge, and skills you bring to the party without ever making it seem like that's the only reason you're there. The best part: "win" or "lose", your takeaways are going to far exceed your investment, financial or not.

Best of luck!

Andy

@Andy - spot on.

Hi,

Vasily is right, there are a lot of chip projects in freelancer, Elance, ODesk platforms but good freelancers can make a relations and career in this platforms. There are a lot of clients, that want to realize theirs project ideas there. I have a friend who meet an outsourcer in freelancer, and founded a good shaped company that are working in a project that is used for highly rated companies like Ford.

I am agree, it is very difficult to get the first project there, project owners usually give projects to more rated users. And I didn't expect to earn more money for my first few projects.

Here are a brief road-map on freelancer

I was ready to finish my first few project even for free. I look for projects that took 2-3 hours for me to finish, and sent a bid with 80% done project demo. The most important part here is to finish in time, and to get valuable review from clients. After finishing few of this projects, I start to pretend higher projects. Currently I have few clients, and don't even enter the portal to bid. They come back to me when they want something to be done.

Elance has some good tutorials and guidelines that will help the newbie land the first project, and there's a community forum where people exchange tips and ask questions. Don't know if Freelancer or ODesk have similar help for the newcomer.

The best way I know to get your first work on these boards is to do some work OUTSIDE the boards, and then, (as some do), get reviews for non-board work. Either that, or get a portfolio that you can point people to.

hi arsen great name by the way

i checked out the site you provided the link to, however i could not find elearning, or ID.. can you please point me in the right direction..

As a start-up e-learning development company, we decided to check out Elance to see if we could increase our client base. Despite having a good deal of experience and, what I consider, a decent portfolio, we have yet to land that "first" Elance job. I did some research on the jobs I submitted proposals to and found that only about 15 percent are filled. Many of those to "Elancers" with rates we just cannot compete with.

We have yet to try marketing via LinkedIn and other social sites but are certainly looking into that option. There are some valuable ideas shared in this thread and we will certainly investigate some of them.

Good discussion!