Jovan Cicmil's Blog
Seven Pieces of Freelancing Advice I Wish Someone Gave Me When I Was Starting Out
April 26, 2023
I got a lot of things right in my decade-long freelance career: I found a bunch of great clients, helped others transition to freelancing, bootstrapped a successful startup, and did the digital nomad thing for a while.
But, it wasn’t perfect. When I was starting out in 2011, I didn’t know a single freelancer, let alone a more experienced one. So, I had to learn on the job and adapt ...
Should You Quit Your Job and Become a Freelancer?
April 19, 2023
I’ve written a lot about finding freelance clients, writing great proposals, and scaling freelance businesses.
Somehow, I don’t think I’ve ever answered the fundamental question: should you go down this road in the first place?
Leaving 9-to-5 employment to become a freelancer is a major decision that can change your life trajectory forever. It’s important to know exactly what ...
How To Promote Your Freelance Services the Right Way
April 12, 2023
Freelancers often shy away from self-promotion. It can feel awkward, cheap, and untasteful.
When I started freelancing in 2011, I felt the same way. It took close to a decade to change my mind. If you think of freelancing as a business, self-promotion is nothing but marketing for that business.
The trick is to do it in a way that matches your personality. You need to promote what you offer ...
How To Make Money on Upwork With No Experience
April 5, 2023
I’ve been freelancing since 2011. From 2012 to around 2018, I used Upwork as my primary way to get freelance clients.
Since then, I have helped many freelancers find their first projects. The one question that always comes up is: how can I make money on Upwork with no experience? Is it even possible?
The ...
Crafting Freelance Offers: Charge So Much That It Makes You Uncomfortable
March 29, 2023
Let’s perform an experiment. For this experiment, you will need an account with a freelance platform, but the results will be universally applicable. I’ll take Upwork here as an example.
Go to Upwork.
Find 10 projects with a maximum budget of $5,000 (on Upwork, this is a common budget because it’s one of the default options for fixed-price projects). Make sure you ...
How To Avoid Burnout as a Freelancer: The 70-30 Rule
March 22, 2023
Have you ever pushed yourself so hard for so long that you woke up one morning and found yourself unable to work?
If the answer is yes, you’ve experienced burnout - something that many live through, but far too few talk about. The consequences of burning out can be dire. To name a few horrifying ones: sleep disorders, aimlessness, depression, social isolation, and even diminished ...
The Only Certain Way To Never Be Replaced by AI
March 15, 2023
How worried are you about AI replacing you?
Many people are worried about losing their livelihoods to the fast-approaching robot invasion. Many people are right to be worried.
However, there’s a way to be robot-resistant. You can prosper in the age of AI - assuming you take this advice seriously.
Is this article genuine?
First of all, most advice on this topic is written by people ...
How To Avoid Getting Cheated by Freelance Clients
March 8, 2023
One of the most common questions I get asked is: how do I avoid scams?
Beginner freelancers are deathly afraid of being cheated by clients. This fear is often valid.
There are malicious clients out there scheming for ways to wrangle free work out of you. Some disappear when you send an invoice. Some try to ...
A Recession Is the Best Time To Start Freelancing
March 1, 2023
Are we in a recession or aren’t we?
I leave the speculation (and arguments about semantics) to economists and TV panels. What I know is that the situation is complicated for the working person: companies are firing people wholesale, inflation is brutal, essential goods are painfully expensive, and debt is a huge burden.
For many people, it’s hard to find silver linings. But, it is often ...
Why I Chose Not To Start a Web Development Agency
February 22, 2023
Is freelancing the end goal? Or is it an intermediary step on the path to something else?
To me, the answer is: both. I’ve been a freelancer for 11 years and I’ve never found it boring. I have, however, leveraged it to do other things: write a book, start a couple of companies (and sell one), and write this blog.
What I haven’t done is incidentally the most popular way to scale a ...
90% of My Freelance Work Comes From Recurring Clients and Referrals
February 15, 2023
Most freelancers dread the process of looking for new clients. It can be frustrating and time-consuming. Worse still, it can take away our focus from what matters most: delivering superb results for our existing clients.
The first several years of my freelance career were a constant tightrope walk between working and finding more work.
However, in the last 3 years, this changed. During this ...
How To Effectively Use Twitter as a Freelancer
February 8, 2023
Social media is notoriously bad for your focus, your productivity, and, ultimately, your mental health.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Used properly, social media can be a valuable tool in your arsenal.
Freelancers who master their social media presence rarely lack work. Their problem changes from “how do I find clients” to “how do I scale my business to keep up with ...
How I Write Proposals That Win As Many Freelance Clients As I Want
February 1, 2023
What if I told you that you could get as many freelance clients as you want by following a few straightforward principles? Finding freelance clients can be more simple than you think.
Note that I said “simple”, not “easy”.
Writing great proposals to prospects is something most freelancers never master. I have over a decade of freelance experience and I’m still learning. Here’s ...
I Wrote My First Book 18 Months Ago — 3 Things I Would Do Differently Today
December 16, 2022
Who would have thought that writing a book would be a learning experience more than a teaching experience?
Not me.
I thought I had all the answers and all I had to do was organize them into chapters and do a bit of promotion.
Far from it. A year and a half after publishing The Unstoppable Freelancer , I am still ...
The Time a Guy Spent $600 in 5 Minutes on My Freemium App
November 17, 2022
I used to run a fantasy football (soccer for Americans) game that I built myself.
I learned many different things from that experience, from bootstrapping a company to negotiating an exit.
This morning, I remembered an interesting tidbit that I’ve never written about — the time a guy logged in and proceeded to spend $600 on upgrades for their fantasy team.
Context
About 97% of my ...
Should You Use Upwork or Cold Email as a Freelancer?
October 26, 2022
Freelancers face the same dilemma all the time — should you sign up for a freelance marketplace like Upwork or Fiverr, or make your own way by directly contacting business owners and offering your services?
Some freelance teachers swear by one approach. Some swear by the other.
I swear I will help you understand both approaches so you can make an informed decision.
Is the Upwork fee ...
I Published the Same Book on Amazon, Gumroad, and Draft2Digital — Here’s What I Learned
September 24, 2022
In June 2021, I published The Unstoppable Freelancer — a book about freelance success, work-life balance, and everything in between.
I published it on Gumroad first, then jumped through Amazon’s hoops to make it available through Amazon’s KDP, and then put it on ...
I Self-Published a Book One Year Ago — What I Learned
September 13, 2022
In the 90s, unsigned musicians used to print their own CDs and sell them on street corners. It was a way to step around the music industry and its exploitative contracts.
Since then, the proliferation of the internet has improved the prospects of artists of all kinds. Now we have many platforms to choose from when publishing our work. Writers are, perhaps, the primary beneficiaries of this ...
How To Hire the Best Freelancers
September 3, 2022
Hiring is an art form. Large corporations often implement complex processes with the sole aim of weeding out candidates.
If you’re a small business or startup, things are even trickier. You don’t have a massive infrastructure to guide your hiring decisions. You don’t get to delegate that responsibility to an internal team of experts.
And, most ominously, you have much less room for ...
The Main Reasons Not To Hire Freelancers
August 25, 2022
In over a decade of freelancing, I’ve had clients tell me a lot of stories about their businesses. Some of these stories were about the bad experiences they had previously had with freelancers.
They weren’t discouraged by those setbacks, but many others are dissuaded from hiring freelancers when they hear the horror stories.
My aim today is twofold:
To explain why the most common ...
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