Monday, October 20, 2008

Work From Home - Freelancing And Blogging

In addition to monetizing your own blog with advertising spots, paid reviews, affiliate marketing, freelance jobs etc., there are many opportunities on the net for getting paid to blog and other freelance jobs.

The secret is to start using your content to get paid to blog.

If planned well, blogging can take your affiliate income through the roof.

Being Consistent

Many freelancers are inconsistent in marketing themselves and looking for new freelance jobs. This means that when you do market yourself and something comes in, you feel good because you have some income, you have some money, and you feel like your business is going well. But then you take your eye off the ball of marketing yourself and you just focus on delivering your service for your current projects.

Without keeping some consistent marketing in your routine, you're not filling the pipeline for new potential freelance job opportunities. Therefore, when you get a job, you feel great when you finish the job, and after which you have nothing. Result - you scramble desperately to find the next job.

By the time you start marketing again, it takes a while to get the engine back up and going, so it's a very inconsistent way to market yourself. The best way to remedy this deadly mistake that many freelancers make (especially most people who are new to the freelance business) is to set aside a certain amount of time each day to look for new freelance jobs and follow up with potential employers.

This could be a certain amount of time or it could be a certain number of jobs that you're going to apply to. Even if it's just one job a day or two jobs a day, that’s fine. All you need is to pick your rhythm, a success habit that you're going to do daily, every weekday for your business, and it doesn't have to take a lot of time. Set something as your daily goal and make it a success habit.

The key part of that habit is being consistent. It's where most freelancers fail and this is what takes most freelancers out of their business and puts them back into full-time jobs.

When you crack the code as a freelancer, you're going to love it as you're going to earn great money and you're going to have lots of freedom and responsibility to do what you want to do, when you want to do it.

Planning Ahead

Now, let us determine how much money you want to make and CAN make in the next 12 months. First, let us assume the salary you are seeking, say $30,000. Now, let's divide that number by 2,080 (based upon 40 hours per week over 1 year) and you will come up with $14.42 per hour (gross).

Every day, you would have to make over $105.00, and for every week you should set a target of $577.00.

Let us say you are unable to find a job for the first month, which means you have lost an estimate of $2,500, which eventually has to be added on to the yearly salary that you are seeking. So to play safe put in a two-month period [that the time tour search might take], which increases your annual salary target to $35,000, your hourly target to $16.80 or a daily target of $.134.40 [8 hours], or a weekly target of $.672.00 [40 hours]

Now make note of this;

 Your targeted annual salary [12 months] – should be set at $.35,000
 Your hourly rate that you plan to charge would have to be greater than $.16.80, let us say $.17.0
 Divide the figure in #1 by your answer in #2 to get the total number of hours you need to work in the next 12 months to reach your goal.
 Divide the answer in #3 by 2080 [based upon 40 hours per week over 1 year] to estimate the gain you would make and the time you would take to breakeven.
 Then think about how many hours you would have to be putting in, on a weekly basis, so as to figure out how many clients it’s going to take to reach your goal.

The result you get here is how many hours a week you have to work to reach that goal. The only advantage is that you can also work on holidays and get paid on it. This, of course depends on your social life.

If this number seems unreasonable, then you need to go back and reassess your goals. Maybe you need to increase your rates or you need to decrease your goals.

Whatever may be the case, I sincerely hope it works out for you.

If you crack the freelance code and start charging a lot more for your services, you can make it to your goal with far-less hours and fewer clients than you have in mind, and beat out most of the freelancers out there who work without a profitable strategy.

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