Jovan Cicmil's Blog - Freelancing
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 ...
How to Write Follow-up Messages That Generate Clients and Close Deals
August 18, 2021
Following up with prospective clients is tricky business. There’s a fine line between a confident, entrepreneurial message and a spammy ping notification that serves no purpose other than to irritate the person on the other end.
During my decade of freelance experience, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to experiment with different approaches to communication.
I’ve also had the ...
Why You Should Hire Freelance Workers for Your Startup
July 16, 2021
Those of you who have been reading my work know that I’m a freelancer, entrepreneur, and writer. But did you know that I’ve also hired over 20 freelancers on various platforms over the course of the last decade?
Hiring remote talent can be a daunting prospect. Many still shy away from it because a simple Google search can reveal a hundred hellish experiences suffered by other would-be ...
Why So Many Freelancers Fail To Achieve Independence
July 8, 2021
Many people go into freelancing with great expectations. They envision themselves sitting on a tropical beach, laptop and all, with an exotic cocktail in one hand and a coconut in the other, while an endless stream of money flows relentlessly into their bank account. Half of their laptop screen is devoted to the job, and the other half to an itinerary for their upcoming trip to Machu ...
The Best Ways To Find Freelance Clients in 2021
June 9, 2021
The freelance landscape is a constantly shifting one. This is a wonderful thing for adaptable, entrepreneurial people — and freelancers are nothing if not adaptable and entrepreneurial.
Still, some dangers lurk in the mists of this landscape. For instance, it is not beyond imagination that you might find yourself looking for freelance work in an ecosystem that clients have migrated away ...
Pricing Freelance Projects: Everything You Need To Know
April 11, 2021
Building a freelance career is unique in that each year can require new skills and new adaptations. One thing that remains constant is the necessity of good pricing.
During almost a decade of freelance work, I have encountered every kind of project — from shifting a website menu item slightly to the left to building a browser-based strategy game. Here are some takeaways that should help you ...
How I Used Outsourcing To Increase My Freelance Income
February 27, 2021
When you begin working as a freelancer, you can find yourself increasing your earnings steadily every month. However, growth inevitably slows down after some time and, eventually, earnings plateau.
How can a freelancer keep increasing their earnings after they’ve filled up their entire schedule and raised their hourly rate as far as it will go? There are several possibilities, including ...
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