Jovan Cicmil's Blog - Freelancing
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
Freelance Writing vs Freelance Software Development
July 14, 2022
I’ve been a freelance web developer since 2011. In 2020, I started freelance writing on the side as well. I started unintentionally when a startup approached me to write for them, having been impressed with a piece I wrote here on Medium.
Since then, I have found writing to be both a welcome change of pace from coding and a lucrative business.
After two years, here’s how freelance ...
How I Reduced My Earnings by 14% With a Single Email
June 24, 2022
Tired of stories about how people got crazy returns from a single brilliant move? They’re everywhere these days. There were probably a couple on the page where you clicked on this article.
Not to worry — I’ve got you covered. Here’s an (arguably more instructive) story about how I cheated myself out of thousands of dollars with a single wiseguy move.
On being far-sighted…
In ...
The Top Five Traits of a Successful Freelancer
May 18, 2022
How do you imagine the freelance lifestyle? If you’re like most people, you think it’s a frantic life full of project-hopping, pitching, meeting deadlines, and oversleeping team meetings because you got drunk on a beach in Bali the previous night. The stereotypical freelancer is chaotic and makes up for his ...
How I Landed a $100k Freelance Client
February 2, 2022
Freelance success rarely comes easy. If it did, a lot more people would be writing blog posts like this one.
I spent a lot of time in the trenches before I started getting quality freelance work.
Starting in 2011, I spent about a year on Freelancer.com doing mainly small Javascript/CSS projects. Then I switched to Upwork in September 2012 because the opportunities were much better there. ...
How To Find the Best Clients on Upwork in Three Steps
January 25, 2022
A lot of people complain about the quality of projects available on Upwork these days. Cheap clients , ridiculous requests, impossible projects — you name it, it’s there.
Well, I’ve got some news for you.
First of all, none of this is new. Upwork (and every other freelance platform, for that ...
How To Deal With Difficult Freelance Clients
December 20, 2021
Most of my clients over the last decade have been wonderful and easy to work with. I attribute this partly to luck and partly to my ever-growing standards.
However, I’ve had my share of difficult clients, particularly in the first couple of years of my freelance career.
Here are five types of freelance clients that are difficult to work with and how to handle each one.
How to handle ...
5 Ways To Transform Your Freelance Work Into a Scalable Business
October 27, 2021
One of the most common questions up-and-coming freelancers ask is: where can I take my career once I’m a successful freelancer ?
In the corporate world, career-building is a predictable pursuit. Do great at your job, climb up the ladder, do great at that job, climb further up the ladder, and so on. For freelancers, it’s a ...
I Published the Same Course on Udemy, Skillshare, and Gumroad — What I Learned
October 19, 2021
About a year ago, I decided to challenge myself to compress ten years of my professional experience into a 2-hour course.
While I leave it to you to judge how well I’ve succeeded, I’ve learned a lot about the online course business and I can at the very least share that knowledge with my readers.
Since first publishing the course, I’ve had ups and downs in traffic and conversion ...
Connect with me:
