How to Boost Your Skill Set to Win High-Value Clients

Freelancers are always looking for high-value clients who can provide them with better-paid and more interesting work. This search is something that’s entirely in your control, with nothing preventing you from reaching your goals.  Yet many freelancers find this part of their careers difficult. That’s because it’s tricky to know how to attract the right clients in order to boost your income and experience. With this in mind, the following guide is all about highlighting the tools you need to upskill. This would eventually lead to better work and gaining the attention of more high-value clients.

Communication

Working as a freelancer makes it easy to get the impression that you’re alone on an island. You manage your work, you send your invoices, and you set your goals and deadlines. Often, you won’t even communicate or collaborate with other freelancers over the course of many weeks or even months. But it’s worth bearing in mind that there’s a huge freelance community that is open to all and has plenty of fellow freelancers willing to discuss their work.

It’s through this community that you might be able to learn about new clients, different types of work, or training programs and modules that’ll help set you apart from the rest. Even just sharing the highs and lows of your career with people who truly understand it can be incredibly nourishing. This can give you a new perspective on what it takes to become a pro freelancer.

Books and Newsletters

Meanwhile, there are plenty of online resources out there to help you learn about the key skills that every freelancer should acquire. This is especially important for people who have just started freelancing and are interested in honing some key skills to up their game. These key skills, shared in freelance books and newsletters, might include:

• Time management and learning how to bill properly.
• Client management so that you never upset those you work for and you always meet expectations.
• Financial training, especially in the delicate art of writing an invoice and doing your taxes.
• Blocking is a technique that effective freelancers often use to make the most of their work time.

Information on all of these tips can be found across the internet. They can be incredibly helpful for those who’d like to avoid some of the common mistakes made by freelancers.

Training

If you’re already some way into your freelancer career, then you’ll likely be looking to polish up your skills. Making you an impressive candidate for the job.

Here, you’ll want to go beyond basic advice and fundamentals in order to differentiate yourself with high-value and niche skills. The best way to do this is through some form of formal training:

• Going to night classes will get you sitting in front of a teacher alongside like-minded peers.
• Taking an online course or module. Many offer you a certificate upon the completion of the module.
• Ask an individual you know and trust to mentor you for a period of time.
• Joining an organization on a temporary or part-time contract to benefit from in-house training opportunities.
• A training solution called ‘just in time learning’ is regarded among the best ways to upskill. Giving you the key skills you need as and when you feel that they’re necessary to add to your tool belt.

Experience

You shouldn’t shy away from work opportunities that feel a little bit outside of your particular wheelhouse. The perfect training opportunity that will have you doing the ‘just in time training’ mentioned earlier.

Let’s say you’re a designer, but you’ve never put together a magazine. You know how to use the software, and you know what looks good – so why not try your hand at magazine design, even if it’s not strictly something that you’re confident doing?

It’s only through being bold and adventurous in your career choices that you’ll move anywhere in your career. It might take you a long time to upskill in this way – and that might mean that you’re not earning as much from these ambitious projects as you’d like – but you’ll gain experience, and you’ll refine a brand new skill in the process.

Podcasts

Finally, the value of educational podcasts is finally being realized across the freelancer space. For thousands of freelance workers, learning how others have carved a path for themselves in an often tumultuous career can be inspiring. However, there are plenty of podcasts that go beyond merely inspiring; there are those that actively attempt to teach you how to leverage new skills or polish up old ones in order to attract better work opportunities.

Many of these guides are recorded by freelancers themselves, though others will be created by those who are professional trainers of certain skills. Many will also offer workshops and seminars online, where you can join a conference call to perform activities and quiz the podcast host on their approach. These new forms of education are brilliant, as you can listen to a podcast when you’re out on the run, cooking dinner, or on the bus home from work. That makes podcasts a highly efficient and satisfying way to learn.

Continue Reading: How to Expand Your Freelance Portfolio and Gain More Clients

About the Author

Content marketing and inbound marketing expert, Steve Conway is passionate about discovering new tech which will enhance his already well-honed digital marketing skills.