Bad habits that can kill your freelance career

Beverly Level X³

May 31, 2014, 1:44 am

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Bad habits that can kill your freelance career

Some bad habits that can kill any good freelance career include poor time management; charging too little money for work; spending too much time on one project (which causes you to lose out on more lucrative projects) and bad social networking skills. You should be able to network yourself on Facebook; Google+ and forums to gain exposure of your freelance skills and gigs.

Talk about other bad habits you are struggling with as a freelancer.

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Jolie

Jolie

Expecting too much out of a freelance career can be a big mistake as not many earn a full time living from it. It could take many years to fully establish yourself in your field and gain a solid base of repeat customers.

11 years ago

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Forrest

Forrest

If you don't treat a freelancer job as a real job, then you might do less than your best. You need to produce as quality results as if you were employed on a regular full time job, even if the pay is not the same.

11 years ago

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NaturalWriter

NaturalWriter

Expecting too much out of a freelance career can be a big mistake as not many earn a full time living from it. It could take many years to fully establish yourself in your field and gain a solid base of repeat customers.

Completely agree with you! There are so many people who take on a Freelancing career, which in turn they don't realize just how hard it is, and how long it can take. They either give up too soon, or they are completely misguided and spend a ridiculous amount of money without having the education first. Time and dedication is the key to success, and for some they think online work is instant...

Why is that?

11 years ago

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augusta

augusta

one bad habit is laziness, some freelancers are just plain lazy leaving jobs bare until there are cancel by the requester.

Another is doing shabbily job and expecting to be paid well.

Not keeping to the timeframe hereby the job get terminated by the requester.

I don't care attitude of some freelancers.

7 years ago

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SyedBahadurShah

SyedBahadurShah

Fully Agree!

- Syed Bahadur Shah

11 years ago

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angie828

angie828

Expecting too much out of a freelance career can be a big mistake as not many earn a full time living from it. It could take many years to fully establish yourself in your field and gain a solid base of repeat customers.

Yes you are correct on this. I could never make enough to support my family in just freelancing and I have been doing it for 5 or more years.

11 years ago

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chetaseo

chetaseo

procrastination is also a very bad habit in free lancing. once you have gotten an order, do it as quick as possible to free yourself for other tasks.

10 years ago

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LifetimeDibs

LifetimeDibs

I think the biggest bad habits are as follows:

Delivering poor quality services
Delivering late or not at all
Not being able to properly communicate with your customers
Not being able to properly promote your services off site
Giving up when times are tough

10 years ago

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chetaseo

chetaseo

i also go with you of what you have posted above. though i try as possible to avoid them. thanks.

10 years ago

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angie828

angie828

procrastination is also a very bad habit in free lancing. once you have gotten an order, do it as quick as possible to free yourself for other tasks.

Yes this is true. If you procrastinate, then you are only hurting yourself and might not get as much done as you could if you strived to get it done faster.

10 years ago

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chetaseo

chetaseo

angie, thanks for your corroboration. it is a very bad thing that can kill business fast.

10 years ago

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topclassseo

topclassseo

Time management and lack of advertisement is the main factor.

10 years ago

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chetaseo

chetaseo

you dont have to be struggling that much, just do your research to know where to advertise at the right places [promotion]. first you must start from somewhere and get to a higher level to make potential buyers have trust in you. or better still you can permanently feature your gig.

10 years ago

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Topseoservice

Topseoservice

You need to enjoy what you are doing. If you are not enjoying freelancing, you need alternate career option.

10 years ago

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Beverly

Beverly

Yes this is true. If you procrastinate, then you are only hurting yourself and might not get as much done as you could if you strived to get it done faster.

Not thinking long term income, such as with residual income is another issue with freelancers.

It's easy to get wrapped up in the day to day work of freelancing where you do one job after another.

But during slow work times, what do you have to fall back on?

That's when your residual income should still be giving you money. For instance, there are sites that will pay you for content, long after it's published, based on ad revenue generated.

These sites help me to have money even when my other work is slow.

10 years ago

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Liisa

Liisa

Another situation is where you could cap out on possible services that you can offer. For instance, if you are able to write one article in three hours, from start to finish in three hours, then you might only be able to produce two or three articles a day.

If you are only charging $5.00 per article, you are capped out at $10 to $15 earnings daily. And, you have to decide if that is enough money to live on.

10 years ago

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Avellana

Avellana

You will go out of business quickly if you undercharge for your services or assume the customer can't or won't pay what you are worth.

10 years ago

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Justin

Justin

Another situation is where you could cap out on possible services that you can offer. For instance, if you are able to write one article in three hours, from start to finish in three hours, then you might only be able to produce two or three articles a day.

If you are only charging $5.00 per article, you are capped out at $10 to $15 earnings daily. And, you have to decide if that is enough money to live on.

Maybe if your services were just done on a part time basis, then this would be enough money. Possibly you could subcontract out the article writing and just resell services by other sellers. Then you wouldn't really be the one putting out the effort to earn a little money. Would that idea work for you?

10 years ago

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Damita

Damita

Some bad habits that can kill any good freelance career include poor time management; charging too little money for work; spending too much time on one project (which causes you to lose out on more lucrative projects) and bad social networking skills. You should be able to network yourself on Facebook; Google+ and forums to gain exposure of your freelance skills and gigs.

Talk about other bad habits you are struggling with as a freelancer.

Producing sloppy, low quality work and relying on second rate services to earn money will not get you very far.

You will need to have a high quality skill to earn money as a freelancer.

10 years ago

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Amidala

Amidala

If you stop promoting and advertising your services, that can cause your business to go into a slump.

This is true whether you have a freelance or offline business. The promotion side of freelancing is just as important as doing the work once you get it. Otherwise you won't have a customer base and you won't earn money.

10 years ago

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meldwelling

meldwelling

1. Poor People Skills
2. Not Setting Boundaries With Clients
3. Complacency
4. Laziness
5. Procrastination
6. Copying Other Designers
7. Doing Spec Work
8. Casualness
9. Workaholism
10. Shyness

9 years ago

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cognizant

cognizant

Copying another seller rather than being yourself is also one thing that can kill your freelance career.

9 years ago

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topclassseo

topclassseo

The main thing is how to deal with the buyers if you are doing good with this than definitely you will get success.

9 years ago

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pacospain

pacospain

If you stop promoting and advertising your services, that can cause your business to go into a slump.

This is true whether you have a freelance or offline business. The promotion side of freelancing is just as important as doing the work once you get it. Otherwise you won't have a customer base and you won't earn money.

well for the last months i do not promote and get more orders than ever even bigger orders, i mean i never really promoted here and i am 2 weeks member or so made almost a $100

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

This is just my opinion and doesn't necessarily mean me. Procrastination is one bad habit that afflicts many people in my circle. In fact, my assistant in the office is stagnating, no promotion for a long time, because he is a procrastinator. That bad habit most often results in missed deadlines. And that's like a death sentence for a freelancer.

7 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

In my opinion, procrastination is the worst habit that can kill your freelance career. If you procrastinate, you will not be able to submit your work in time, even if you submit, you will squander your time until the last minute and hurry to complete your work which produces low quality work. Low quality work will kill your profession. When you procrastinate, you will not get too many works because you don't complete jobs in time.

7 years ago

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