Tired of your job? Want to travel more? Or just need a change of pace? You might have heard of this digital nomad thing, but where to even start? And what if you’re no good at anything these online people might want from you?
A niche
If you have a niche, something you’re really good at, that would be a great place to start. You might be an expert in pilates or at writing complex business plans, or great at programming, all of these are niches you can get paid for online. A great way to find out if there is a market for your services would be to go onto a freelancing platform like Fiverr, and search for your expertise as if you were a potential client. This would give you an immediate idea if the market exists, its size and what you can charge for your services.
No niche? No problem
Don’t have a niche? Don’t stress it. I while back I saw a post about a tiktok model selling her farts online at $1,000 a pop! No shit. This girl claims she has made over $200,000 selling her farts online. Read about it here – https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/fart-jar-tiktok-stephanie-matto-interview-1280395/
The point? You can literally sell just about anything online. I myself have a niche in that I am a WiX programmer and have created a very well-paying online business out of my expertise, making hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last 6 years. At a point, I started to feel really proud of myself until one day when I needed a professional logo design. Boring right? So I went on Fiverr, found someone with good reviews and paid my $50. As it turns out, this young lady from Ukraine was kicking my ass up and down earnings street with her $50 logos, having over 4,000 reviews at the time of writing this article. Basic math will tell you that she has made well over $200,000.., selling logos. Yes, logos. Who would’ve thought! See her profile here: https://www.fiverr.com/valeriiaty
But I don’t know how to design logo’s?!
Now let’s hone in on this. You might be thinking “wow! but I don’t have any design experience, this won’t apply to me”. You would be wrong. There are heaps of online logo design software platforms out there that you could either use for inspiration or to do your actual logo designs for a small fee, leaving you with the bulk of the profit when you on-sell these logos to clients. You don’t even need any prior design knowledge! There are about just as many platforms out there that offer free vector images, all of which provide inspiration and assets that could be useful in logo design. And that’s just one field, I guarantee you that it’s not even the most lucrative one out there.
But how do I get clients..?
This is really the only hard part of it all. There are a number of freelancing platforms out there, from Fiverr to Upwork to Freelancer, and about a hundred more that I’ve never heard of. Chances are that there are already quite a bit of people offering your chosen service, so why would anyone choose you?
Let’s focus on the two biggest freelancer platforms currently in the market, Upwork and Fiverr.
Upwork
These two platforms are both very good, but fundamentally work in different ways. In Upwork’s case, businesses or even just normal people with an idea will go on to Upwork and post their job spec. Sellers can then go and make a pitch for the job, with the buyer choosing the best fit for his project and proceeding. The problem I’ve found with Upwork is that, as a buyer, you rarely ever need to work past the first 10 candidates before finding a suitable match, so if you see a posting that already has more than 50 applications, you’re already too late. https://www.upwork.com
Fiverr
Fiverr is my preferred platform. It works quite differently to Upwork in the sense that, as a seller, you would go and create a profile, then create your gigs and then potential buyers can find you by searching for their desired service. This completely turns the Upwork model on its head where buyers contact you, meaning you don’t have to pitch for projects, one by one, which in turn frees up a lot of time to get the actual work done. The downside? Well, if you go to https://www.fiverr.com/ and search for ‘logo design’, you will see almost 200,000 results. Yes, 200,000! That’s 200,000 people you need to compete with for business, so how on earth do you do that?
There is a strategy, but it will require some initial investment from your side. Not in terms of money, but in terms of time and effort spent. Where you want to be is on the first page of the search results in your chosen field on Fiverr. As a new seller, Fiverr will initially highlight you on occasions on the first page between all the Level 2 and Top Rated Sellers, and this is your opportunity. A top Rated Seller has already proven themselves, they normally have hundreds if not thousands of 5-star reviews and can charge what they are worth, where as a new seller like yourself still needs to build a rapport.
The Strategy
Using your ‘New Seller’ placement perks amongst the A-listers, you need to essentially go and do the work for the minimum of $5. While it might not be worth your time to work for such small amounts, what it will do is start getting you orders and in turn, if your deliveries are of a high standard, good reviews. The more good reviews you get, the higher your placement starts to be in search results, and the more return customers you have, the better the algorithms will start to rank you.
After a short while, you will be a Level 1 Seller with some reviews under your belt, but don’t stop just yet. You need to get to at least Level 2 status before you can start slowly upping your prices, and from here on you need to slowly work yourself up to a Top Rated seller level. While this will take some time, it’s worth the investment as it will regularly get you prime placement in search results.
The Take Away
The best piece of advice I have for you is to just get started. Choose a field, do the research and create a strategy. And then implement it. Don’t quit your job just yet as this might take some time to get traction, but give yourself a realistic timeframe of 6-12 months to get this up and running, and stick to the plan. Freelancing is not some mysterious world where hypothetical people live, it has become a real online community of buyers and sellers interacting everyday to trade services for fees, and you can be part of it too!