Freelancers and Business Owners Need to Understand The Value Of Time
An extremely large portion of the work today is done by freelancers. Freelancers are hired for numerous reasons and the freelance market quite possibly can offer every service providers for the job you need. Many businesses are entirely dependent on freelance services for each feature.
Thus, freelancing is gaining more popularity every day and the services and option are growing, the market is expanding and the job opportunities are infinite. However, hiring in the freelance market is entirely different and managing is tricky. For both freelancers and their clients everything depends on contacting the right person, and since many people make hiring and managing mistakes freelancing have gained a negative popularity.
What freelancers and business owners/managers need to remember?
Freelancing is a job like any other. Service for payment. You want to get the job done – you pay for it, you wanna get paid – you get the job done. Forgetting this principle you risk your work, profit or reputation, or why not all the three.
Freelancers need feedback like all others. Freelancers like all other people may have questions, need a better explanation for their task, feedback and updates on the tasks they have done and other such things in order to provide even better service next time. But clients often do need feedback too, as they do forget to communicate, clarify and similar stuff. Thus, communication when working with a freelancer is vital. If you want to have the task completed perfectly you have to be responsive.
Freelancers need to understand time management. Freelancing is not less responsible job, as a freelancer, you must understand that people do depend on you to do something in a particular amount of time. Thus, when you choose this career you must set actual working hours for yourself and notify your clients about them. Maintaining the discipline and respecting your own working hours will fuel your freelancing career.
Freelancers need to be time managed. As many will oppose to the time tracking software saying its the worst kind of micromanagement, other will not fail to understand they do need it. The time and attendance tracking software represents your work completely – it shows your focus, your abilities, your desire to work, your respect for the project. The clients see all that and they know they can count on you to finish your task when you are supposed to. And what if the time tracking software is with screenshots? If you are working, there is nothing to hide. As it was said earlier, freelancing is a job like any other. Many freelance websites have their own trackers like UpWork, but since UpWork are raising their fees, your other options are to prove yourself using a time tracking software to record your working hours.
Freelancers and business owners need to understand the value of time. Whether you are working from home or not, time is your only asset that will evaluate your labor. Every job is done for a particular amount of time, cannot be done for less if it is to keep its quality. Time is equal to value and quality. Therefore, timekeeping is essential. If you do not know the value of your time, or as a client the nature and complexity of your task, you doom your project to fail sooner or later.
Appreciate your connections. Both freelancers and clients need to understand that the business connection they create will be helpful in the future. Every successful freelancer has a network of reliable clients and will always be there for them, just as every successful business owner has a network of freelancers he/she will rehire for sure. The risk bearing for not making such network of connections is not small at all. As a business owner, you risk hiring someone who is not skilled enough, unreliable, bad at time management and such, while as a freelancer you risk working for someone again unreliable who will not pay for your services.
Hiring a freelancer or working as one is a process of trust and communication. Working with or as a freelancer is all about perfect skills and perfect time management. With the changing of the market that is to come after the fee raising of UpWork next month, time management of small contracts and one-time project will change. Freelancers will have even more difficulties trusting a client with their time, and clients will struggle to find freelancer willing to pay 20-25% UpWork fee.
Author Rafi AnandPosted on Categories Business management, HR Management and Hiring, Outsourcing, Personal development, Productivity, Project management, Time management & Time Tracking