Freelancer Kit: How will you choose what skills to sell as services?

Easier said than done!

Identify Target Market

• Call it instinct or habitual thinking – people who are new to freelancing, self employment, part time careers, entrepreneurship are inclined to list only those skills automatically, that they have been doing.

• You need to choose skills based on two things:
• What you can do?
• What people and business need?

• If the market is saturated and competitive for the skills you have, look at the current demand and consider tweaking your skills to meet that growing demand.

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Three Filtering Questions

Pass the skills you have identified through these questions:

• Who will need these services?
•  How can you offer more to those who order your services?
•  Why will they return to you?

Do a realistic assessment and avoid any wishful thinking here. Define how your skill will bring value to the client

Skills or habit/ attitude

• Let us assume, you are good in people management, stakeholder management, operations management, negotiation, closing deals, taking prompt decision, driving an agenda to execution and of course, not to forget boss management .
• The question is can you or how can you sell any of these abilities outside the corporate environment as a service?

Here is how I identified one of my offerings

• I love to write – All kind of writing. However I am an average writer compared to my global counterparts whose native language is English. That is the master stroke - knowing your limitations first. I knew mine.
•  With 35% American population into freelancing and writing, I wondered what chance I had to stand on my own.
•  A couple of years back when I had approached a leading nationalized bank with a business plan, the Branch Manager asked me who did the plan for me as she seemed impressed with it. She confirmed it was a feasible plan and can be funded.
• While I had to shelf the idea of that business as I was planning to shift base back home in a yearor two – what came out of that experience and interaction was my skill in making business plans, not because of how well I write but how I think holistically.

Limitations

• English is not my native language
• I did not have any business degree or Masters tag
• While my credentials were zero in the startup ecosystem my extensive experience in Bid Management went a long way to compensate for it.

Today

•  38 International Buyers in 11 months
•  35% repeat buyers
•  I have prepared plans for different domain ranging from Hydroponics to App development, coaching to real estate, Bio diesel plant in Africa to entertainment industry in UK, restaurant in Dubai to marine management, bathroom grab bars to non-profit firms in Florida, first time venture in design industry to entrepreneurial coaching in China.
•  Subject to industry and research I charge anywhere between, $135 to $450 to write 800 words plan.
• This is just one of my offering and in just one portal.

My Resources:

•  Self Learning
• Online Learning
• Micro Learning
• Social Learning

The point is all I did was I just tweaked what I can do to fill a gap.

Now let us re-look at your skills and what gaps it can possibly fill. Are we ready?

To know more about Future of Work, click here

Based on BECKON Framework, the evaluation and learning road map are first to support your outcomes (income stream) and then assist you to transfer that to others, if you want to scale and build an enterprise or brand as an independent BECKON coach