Freelancing – What & How : A Guide for Filipino Beginners

The intent of this blog is to guide those who have No Experience and No Idea yet on how to begin their Freelancing journey.

WHAT IS FREELANCING? WHAT FREELANCERS DO?

Freelancing / Freelancer / Freelance Worker – this is the term used when a person is a self-employed or working to a different companies or different clients independently.

As a Freelancer, you can use your skills, education, and experience to offer and provide as a service to your clients.

In my own freelancing experience, a diploma is NOT necessary, so you can use any skills that you have, even a newly acquired one. The most important things are you have the skills, dedication, professionalism to do the job and you know how to find your own clients.

So, HOW DO I START FREELANCE WORK?

1. Know your skills and Define your Services / Know your Niche

• Have you worked in an office before? Or a student who is already familiar with Office tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Email, etc.? You can be a General Virtual Assistant! There are clients who are looking for someone who can help them in general office tasks, managing their emails or their schedules.
• As a General Virtual Assistant, you can also find jobs with tasks like Typing, Data Entry, Research, Encoding, Transcribing and more.
• Do you know how to use and manage Social Media Platforms like Facebook, Facebook Groups, Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, or Twitter? Of course I know you can! You can find lots of clients who needs a Social Media Manager (SMM). Though there are lots of competition on this Niche, so it’s important that you enhance your skills more.
• Do have a talent in Design? Lots of businesses looks for graphic designer for their product listing and social media posts. Being one of the Graphic Designer Freelancer, I can say there are lots of services you can offer as a designer, you can download this PDF guide I made for free. Click Here.
• Do you have a knack for writing? Be a Copywriter. You can write blogs or marketing materials for clients.
• Do you know how to edit Videos? Be a Video Editor. Create marketing videos or edit YouTube videos for clients.
• Do you have experience in Sales? You can still be a Sales Rep Online! Yes, lots of clients have business that they need help into, so sales is one of the best skills a freelancer can have.
• If you have a more specialized skills or experience, the better. There’s always a business or a person who needs your expertise.

2. Polish up your skills

• Once you know your Niche / the Service you can offer, it is best to develop this first.

• The best way to “sharpen your weapon” is to know the tools. Check out what are the programs/systems/applications related to your skills then learn how to use them.

• There are applications that needs payment but usually you can always use a Trial Period.

• Use Google and YouTube. I only learn all the programs I use through reading & watching tutorials.

Still not sure about the programs you need to learn? Then you may browse and check first what the clients usually ask or require. Check out #4 of this blog to know how to see the clients.

3. Create your portfolio with your Services

• While Polishing your Skills, your sample works will not go to waste. Save them and make it as your Portfolio.
• Create/update your Resume, then make sure you also have a Portfolio or the sample of your works. It is better that you can visually show your works to your potential clients
• For Graphic Design, you can compile your designs.
• For other skills, just make a screenshot of your works, then compile.
• Make sure it looks professional.
• You can save your Portfolio as a PDF.
• You can also make a page / site for your portfolio, here is mine as an example: Click Here
• Here is also a detailed guide (tagalog) on making a portfolio if you do not have any experience yet. Click Here

4. Finding Clients

• Easiest way to find clients worldwide is through Freelancing marketplaces. Register on at least 3 platforms and start looking for job postings. These are some websites where you can sign-up as a Freelance worker:

upwork.com	Guru.com
onlinejobs.ph	FlexJobs.com
Freelancer.com	Truelancer.com

Here’s a Step-by-step guide to create your Upwork Account.

• I also recommend Linked In, it’s a platform connecting people, like Facebook, but used more for professional sharing. Here you can post your resume/CV, your skills and portfolio. You can see businesses and employers also post jobs
• Facebook and Facebook Groups. Yes! Clients are in Facebook too. I got lots of local clients just posting my services on Facebook. I’ve also seen a lot of Job posting from other freelancers on the Facebook groups. Check out #8 of this blog for some Facebook Groups I’ve joined.

5. Set your Pricing

• You can set a Fixed-Price Rate and Hourly Rate.
• For Fixed-Price, You can define a price for each tasks
• You can also define a Daily Rate or Weekly Rate
• In setting your Price, you have to consider the amount of time and effort you will put into work plus your electric & network bills (that are part of your investment in freelancing) . There are lots of clients now who offer very Low rates to Filipino Freelancers.
• For Hourly Rate, I recommend at least 6 USD per hour, as of this writing the US minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.

6. Write and Send out Proposals

• Now that you saw Job postings / potential clients, you can send them proposal or application letter
• My number 1 advise is to make it specific to the job posting or client’s needs. DON’T create one generic Proposal Email that you will send out to all your applications.
• Another advise is to focus on what you can offer. Don’t put too much about your background, but tell them how your skills and experience can help the client.
• To compose a good letter and avoid grammatical errors, you can use writing apps like Grammarly

7. Join Freelancing Groups

• Joining Freelancing Groups in Facebook also helped a lot. You will see posts and comments from freelancers everyday that make you more informed.
• I have avoided lots of Scam Clients because I already saw other freelancer’s experiences through FB Group posts and comments
• There are lots of Job postings from other freelancers who have clients that expanding business.
• You can connect with other newbies and learn together
• Most of these groups also offered free and paid trainings for freelancing
• Here are some of the Groups I recommend:

Upwork Freelancers Philippines

Freelancers in the Philippines (FLIP) – by Jason Dulay

Molongskiverse Freelancers

Filipina Homebased Moms (FHMOMS Official Group)

I also created my Facebook Group specifically for Newbies, to share more contents like this, on how to start and grow in Freelancing. I also share here information about Graphic Designs. Join us via this link .