Freelancers -- where do you find most of your work?

Holly: I second Bruce: nice niche marketing. So good, I may steal it (or you know, something similar). It all comes down to answering our own questions. What sets me apart? (Feel free to get a cup of coffee as Daniel squirms in his chair and writes about himself.) 

Until I create a niche, I'd say it's my breadth of skill.

WRITING: I taught writing and rhetoric for a decade and am published, so I generally come up with interesting scenarios and questions for the learner. And there's no need for anyone to check grammar, spelling. I'm the expert there. (Reminds me of the Big Lebowski scene where they are "fixing the cable" -- Ich bin expert. 

VOICE OVERS/AUDIO EDITING: o.k., o.k., I'm not as good or experienced as Bruce, but my work is serviceable and getting better all the time (thanks, in part, to Bruce). Clients generally dig the voice, and I can get re-records back to them super quick. I can do audio editing as well: edit narration, lay down background tracks, "fix" narration that has been poorly narrated, etc.

GRAPHIC DESIGN: My material generally looks pro, mostly because I'm really interested in graphic design and know the basic principles.

PROCESS: Because I am pretty much a one-stop shop, I have a good feel for the complex process of creating training and generally am good at explaining it to clients, especially those who are new to e-learning. I've been working quite hard at setting their expectations at the beginning of projects. Not doing so has come back to bite me hard in the past.

TEMERITY: I'm not afraid to fail or ask potentially stupid questions. One of my favorite quotes: "Life is like playing the violin in public, and learning the instrument as you go along."  

That's what I'm working with. --Daniel   

Great, just switch your focus from you to your prospective customers and you're there.

Who are your prospective customers (who is your product/service FOR) and what pain are you solving for them (using these skills/attributes). 

Take the WRITING one - if your prospective customers are health care providers, maybe they care about the precision of the writing b/c clear communication saves lives. 

Take the VOICE OVER/AUDIO EDITING one - if your prospective customers are retail banking organizations - maybe they care about reaching employees who are multi-tasking or rolling out new products faster, so you offer engaging voice overs (and add some stats about how it increases learning) or guarantee fast turnaround, to enable them to get to market faster.

GRAPHIC DESIGN - manufacturing - maybe they care about good graphic design as a form of communication b/c they have employees who don't speak or read English as first language, and you demonstrate the effectiveness of your craft.

You get the point, I'm sure. It's not about you, it's about them (your customers/clients). 

Anytime I get preachy, just tell me. The hard part of getting/giving feedback in this kind of forum is I have no idea if anyone's eyes are rolling!

Holly

PS - feel free to steal my niche idea, just make it yours. I wouldn't have posted it in a public forum if I thought it was my secret sauce.

This is a great thread! 

For me, all of the jobs I've gotten in the freelance / sole-proprietor dimension have connected because:

1. The person knew me from my day job, retired and moved on to another one, and wanted to bring me in full time to help them be successful.
2. Someone approached me because of something I'd posted online to help someone else.

100% of the time it's been one of these two situations. I've never advertised. Not once. And I turn down half the work that comes to my doorstep. Granted, most of the time I'm making that choice because I have a full time gig working for "the man". 

I've been thinking about qualification and value quite a bit lately. Bruce hits the nail on the head! So does Holly! So does Kevin! Thread full of win. What you can do technically isn't very interesting until you can put it into the context of value. What problem can you (or are you willing to) solve and how frictionless can you make the engagement? Value is at the heart of it. What value can you bring to the relationship?

Qualification is interesting to me as well. I define qualification as an expression of confidence in one's abilities to provide value. In this sense, people really need to see what you can do, how you respond to challenges, and how you get in front of (prevent, predict, or block) potential problems. I think there is a shift afoot towards "show me what you've got" and away from "show me your papers" in terms of the definition of qualification.

Revisiting my two personal job magnets at the top --

1. Get to know people in areas where you want to work and make sure they see your passion (Holly's story above is a great show of this practice). 
2. Be visibly helpful. Always. You never know who might be watching

Someone once asked me what I do. The question initially seemed daunting to me. There isn't much that I don't do (some things better than others). My response, after a few moments of thought, was "I solve problems. I measure the distance between where we are and where we need to be and I work shorten or eliminate that space."  That's what I do. I think that's what every employee should have at the heart of their job definition. 

First I read Daniel's skills description and thought: 'That's great!'.

Then, Holly said something that's key: 'talk about your customers, not yourself'.

And I found the 2nd non told characteristic of these winners we've the luck to have here: they're focus ontheir actual and potential clients.

So we have:

1)    Believe in yourself and in what you can do

2)    Focuson your clients

Daniel, I think that you are for sure agood writer, and in your words I feel you're trying to convince yourself, whileI saw it clear when I visited your website. It seems to be your main strength.

To have another example and not take advantage of Daniel's story alone, I'll talk about mine.

I’ve been an e-learning project manager for 2 years in e-learning consulting companies, a post that in fact included ID and script writing, translating, etc. But I used to visit lots of clients todefine the project, set times, costs and goals.

Since February I’m in a much smaller company so I’ve started using Articulate to produce my courses. Before, I used to have a whole team of designers, writers, voice pros, etc. That’s why I found so interesting that most of you seem to put voice in your courses, while I still hire professionals.

So now I’m the one-man band and I’m learning a lot, a lot, reading all the community offers here.

I’m also good at writing (in Spanish), have also published and still have projects to be published. I’m a certified life coach and have been a trainer for years. I really like and enjoy ID and always try to create a demo of my own with what I read/see here. But e-learning is not my strength –it’s writing.

The thing is that I don’t know who the client is. I don’t know whose problem I can solve. I’ve written kind of a self-helpbook and people are attracted to it, but don’t know why, who, where to find them. I can do many different things and it seems that each is addressed to adifferent public.

Regarding e-learning, I feel that Ishould translate my courses into English, or I’ll do nothing. In Spain, my English is really good, but I cannot compete with native English speakers IDs in Elance or oDesk.

What do you think?

Belén

Ohhhh.... you mean it's not all about me and my needs? (he writes with sarcasm) Seriously, I like that angle: how do your strenghts solve their problems.

I take your into account for any moment an opportunity arises .

In the while, I think that your last post is key: how our perceived strenghts solve customers problems.

To know that, you have to know who your customers can be.

I've defined 3 clusters:

1. Big companies: an e-learning consulting company could hire me as a freelance for big projects in THEIR customers.
2. Medium and small companies: enterpreneurs could need courses for themselves or their staff.
3. Private citizens: they could look for training courses to develop themselves.

Do you use these clusters? Which are your preferred?

Belén

Belen, what is the possibility of creating e-learning for Spanish-speaking people? One would think there is opportunity. I know there is a need to translate English courses into Spanish. Perhaps that could be a specialty? Very few of the people on the forum could do that, but you can. --Daniel

Not sure if this is appropriate to post here, but the company I work for needs to hire three or four ISDs/e-learning developers ASAP for a recently-expanded project for the U.S. Army. Full-time temp work from July 9 through the end of September. We've had an extremely hard time finding people who actually have the skills they say they have, particularly in Articulate Presenter & Storyline, so I'm hoping some of the freelancers in this community might be interested! Ideal candidates will be in the Washington DC/Northern Virginia area, but exceptional remote candidates can be considered.

To learn more, shoot me an email and resume at sblake@afsc-usa.com.

Daniel, you opened my eyes, really!  

I think that I can provide that service, and do it really well, as it combines my e-learning skills with my Spanish writting skills.

So, definitely, yes! What I need to do know is to offer it. Till now, I was only addressing my webs to the local market, but with this cool proposal, I think I can really give value at an international level.

I start working RIGHT NOW!

Belén

Belen: I believe there is a large market for translating course into Spanish. In the U.S. job seekers who speak Spanish are quite coveted. You are the person to translate these courses. You might begin a search on US companies that employ many Spanish-speaking people. Perhaps start in select southern states: Texas, Arizona, California.

Perhaps an even better idea is to translate part of a course into Spanish and post it here and other appropriate places. That's probably where I'd start actually. --Daniel