Before we begin any new work and make a final decision to start freelancing or not, we surely need to think what are the advantages and disadvantages of working as a freelancer. Or what are the pros and cons of freelance business?
It is important to weigh out both things before coming to a conclusion. There is a possibility that you may feel discouraged to do it after knowing the disadvantages, but it is necessary if you want to have sound planning and execution.
Many times people get influenced by the advantages of freelancing and step into this field. They think about leaving their regular job for full-time freelancing before knowing about its disadvantages.
Friends, I am not saying that you shouldn’t start freelancing. Even on this website, you will learn how to become a successful freelancer. But I’m just trying to say that you should know about the positives and negatives so that you can make an informed decision and completely understand every aspect of it.
Advantages of working as a Freelancer: –
1. While working as a Freelancer you can make more money:
The primary reason why so many people become freelancers is because of the fact that you can earn more income by entering into the field of freelancing. For an hour’s work, you can expect to earn from $5 to $100 per hour or as per your service price and the value that you provide.
Personally, I have earned $120 per week on Upwork while working only 3 hours in some years. While I was also working on my business in the remaining time.
If fortune is in your favor, you can even earn a minimum of $100 in a single day’s work. On the contrary, you won’t find these kinds of amazing opportunities to earn like this in the offline world.
You have fixed work timings from 9 to 6 and have a fixed salary that you get after 30 days.
You have to make a living within that 20-30000 Rupees and many times people end up wasting time in the office. For these reasons, freelancing is most suitable for getting the right price for your skills and time. And most importantly the value of your time.
2. You get international-level working experiences and knowledge:
The second biggest reason for working as a freelancer is that you can explore the international level and you gain access to top-class knowledge from people who are experts in their field. And many times they are clients or owners, CEO-level person those earning himself 10x or even higher than us. Working with such people enhances your own capacity and skills.
3. You become competent and strong in your career and profession:
For example when you apply or bid for projects, you have to compete with other freelancers and need to convince the client to hire you. So you interact with different types of clients and freelancers from all over the world. These kinds of activities help to bring out your capabilities to their best extent.
You get to learn new things each day from your clients. You put all your strength and effort into bidding for projects when you compete with other freelancers.
These sharpen your mind to give you good analytical abilities and your creativity is also enhanced. You become a thorough professional and mentally much stronger.
4. Your Communication skills get improved:
Communicating with different types of people on an international level also improves your communication skills and your mindset. You become highly professional within a short time while freelancing online. This can also be achieved offline but it can take many years to reach that kind of point of view while working in traditional offline companies.
While communicating with clients you have to listen and understand. You also have to communicate effectively from point to point. And your communication always will be on the spot. Because when your communication skills are good then you can be able to work with any type of client online and offline.
5. Working as a Freelancer provides you freedom and flexibility:
This is one of the most important advantages of freelancing is the freedom to work. A freelancer can work at any time of the day or night once the number of days assigned to a project is agreed upon.
He has the freedom to decide his work timings as per his wish and he can choose what type of work he wants to do and in what order. He can decide how much to charge for a particular project and which client to work for.
A freelancer is dependent upon himself for his success or failure. If he constantly updates his skills and becomes an expert in his work, then he will benefit from it very soon.
Apart from this, he can work for any duration; 4 hours, 10 hours, or 16 hours, it’s in his hands. A freelancer has the freedom to work from any location, anyway, he wants. The client is only concerned about the work being done with quality and speed. So being able to earn more, learn more, and have the freedom to work is the biggest advantage of the freelancing field.
Related: Ultimate tips that help beginners to become successful freelancers
Disadvantages of working as a freelancer:
1. It’s not easy, it’s hard to get regular freelance projects even for experts:
Freelancing is purely a competitive business system/environment. Every freelancer is an independent business entity so he has to work extra hard to manage everything on his own. Becoming a freelancer means he has to continuously look for new clients and projects and this is not an easy thing to do. He must be very skillful and mentally strong if he has to survive to freelance so that he is prepared and inspired for the hard work required.
2. It’s hard to be innovative, creative, and enthusiastic all the time, especially when working alone:
A freelancer’s job is not easy because he has to constantly keep learning new things to remain updated with the skills of his field. He has to imagine new ways to convince different types of clients to hire him. He needs to stay relevant to market interests and demands by molding himself into the perfect role for a specific job.
So that his skills and knowledge remain updated and prove to be useful for a client. All of this is not easy to accomplish. To keep up the spirit of learning every day along with the changes that are happening each day and the growing competition can be extremely difficult. It takes tremendous mental strength and it takes time. This is why so many people either don’t try freelancing at all or even if they try they give up after 1 or 2 years or after 1-2 projects to try something else.
3. You will not get a stable income like a salary each month:
The third disadvantage of entering the freelancing field is the presence of almost unfair rules and regulations on freelancing sites. These terms and conditions keep changing frequently and many times there are 50-100 people bidding for the same project due to poor mismanagement by the websites.
Finding work on a regular basis can become a difficult task, it takes a lot of attempts to land a project and this does not translate into a permanent or steady income source. Unlike a regular offline job where you have the security of earning a fixed amount each month no matter what happens. Sometimes you will earn more and sometimes nothing. In freelancing, sometimes you will have money other times you won’t have any.
So the freelancer has to struggle for a regular income source. But with few strategies or money management skills, this is possible to manage.
After knowing about the disadvantages we can say that it is not for everyone.
Not everyone will be able to do what is needed to become a successful freelancer.
It is not easy to just leave a standard office job and start freelancing all of a sudden. It is a transition that takes time and I still believe that freelancing is an excellent way to earn extra income.
Despite the disadvantages, freelancing can be started as a part-time activity and slowly turned into a full-time profession as you gain experience and knowledge. Freelancing is totally like a business and you have to treat it like a business in order to excel.
There are a lot of methods mentioned in this website category that you must read which can help you to become a successful freelancer in spite of all the disadvantages.
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Related: What to do if you’re not getting work from freelancing websites