Freelancing at an early career stage produces additional challenges. Most obviously, the biggest challenge is growth, both in professional competence and as a business. As a fresh graduate, for instance, starting freelancing means you would be building your professional competence as well as your business – at the same time!
Insane odds, don’t you think, when you compare how many experienced freelancers there are in the world as it is?
But not all is lost. There is a way to start as I showed some potential ways forward even if you don’t yet have any true work experience. How to start freelancing as a fresher is not as difficult as you might think!
For a young individual, it may be easier to start online rather than offline in the local circles, i.e. your hometown, because sometimes you just need to get things started with the first couple of clients and specify a niche that is not yet highly competed.
Then, you can quickly learn how to start freelancing with no experience. It’s a process.
But first, let’s take a look at an ordinary case and examine the client side of things in a situation where the work is done by – a complete noob.
I recently had to get my laptop fixed.
If my laptop repair was a job on a freelance site, this would be my review: 2/5 stars with feedback saying ”Eventually, everything got done. But I find it slightly irresponsible to put inexperienced people in customer-facing roles because the customer can observe every mistake and mishap in the process.”
Anyone, e.g. freelancers, working in the service industry should learn from this. This is how it went.
The computer repair guy who kept fixing one thing but breaking another
One day, Tuesday, I went to a computer repair shop to get my precious laptop that I’ve come to love very much (the keyboard is a perfect match with my fingers!) fixed. The cooler was making so much noise I knew there was some physical issue with it.
What a mess this ended up being! :-/
My beloved laptop torn to pieces by a noob!
VISIT No. 1
I went to the shop (20 min drive), explained the situation, and demonstrated how badly the cooler worked… a very young repair guy, probably an intern, took my laptop and started pulling it into pieces to see what the problem is.
After sitting there waiting for the process to finish, a senior-looking repair guy said to come back in half an hour. I popped out for coffee and came back in 30 minutes.
Both repair guys said there was just some dust in the cooler that blocked it occasionally, and they had just cleaned it and lubricated it with a drop of oil.
They also recommended getting a new battery so they helped me to order one. Ready on Friday or Monday, they said.
They charged me a nominal service fee with around here in Malaysia is peanuts. I gave my biggest thanks for the speed and quality and went back (20 min drive) happily.
Not 5 minutes from using the laptop back at home, the cooler started stopping and restarting all the time. Urgh. It was actually worse than before I got it ”repaired”.
No point driving back to the repair shop now, I deemed it better to wait for the battery to arrive. Then, get everything sorted out by spending another 30 minutes there, as I imagined it.
VISIT No. 2
I got a call from the repair shop on Monday morning and drove there again (20 min). The intern took my laptop again and started to clean it, again. This time I stayed in the shop while waiting (doing something on LinkedIn, probably)…
The intern went back and forth between his desk and the backroom, supposedly, to ask guidance from the senior repair guy. I just waited without saying anything.
Before finishing, he realized that on the table there were a couple of screws that were supposed to be inside the laptop somewhere, so he had to revert the job and redo a little which took about 10 minutes. He tried to do it without me noticing it, but yeah, I noticed it. Didn’t say anything, though, out of courtesy. (I’m coaching many youngsters, after all, so I should be supportive!)
One hour later (phewww), the process was completed with the conclusion being that there were some leftover pieces of dust inside the cooler, still.
So, the first repair failed, actually. Well, OK then. The intern did not get it right the first time.
He cleaned the cooler again and tested that the new battery worked. Better now. They only charged for the battery, so I was still positive about this job. I drove home (20 min).
Now, even though the test in the repair shop showed good results, the problem now was that the display started flickering randomly, effectively stopping any computer use. I suspected a cable problem during the assembly. Again, this occurred when I already got home.
VISIT No. 3
It was Tuesday again now. I drove to the repair shop (20 min), again, and said I liked them so much that I wanted to come to visit every day. 🙂 (Couldn’t help a little pun at this point.)
I then showed that the display that worked before didn’t work anymore after the last ”repair”.
The junior started operating on it again and I went out for food and to call my client.
After 45 minutes, I came back to check the status. He had just finished, so I tested the laptop. Display OK, it was indeed an issue with the cable being bent badly.
But now, I couldn’t log in!
After 2 minutes, I figured it was the Shift key that didn’t work so my password was typed incorrectly.
Also, the touchpad didn’t work so we had to test things with a USB mouse.
Brilliant, I thought. The intern managed to fix the cooler and the display cable he broke, but now he produced not just one but two new issues! I was praying for the Great Brown Coconut (GBC, the Protector of All Freelancers, and the Saviour of Independent Professionals) at this point because I was supposed to pick up my kid from school soon. This thing was dragging too long now.
I explained the situation after spending another 45 minutes in the shop and the senior repair guy said they needed to check if the touchpad has an issue with the hardware or the software now. Will call me tomorrow when done.
I drove back home (20 min + an extra 10 min now because of traffic peak) to pick up my kid.
VISIT No. 4
Wednesday now, eight calendar days from the start. I waltzed into the repair shop (after 20 min drive), again. The intern and the senior repair guy saw me coming and had everything set up for testing. That was good customer service, at least.
Now, the cooler worked! The display was also working just as smoothly as before the ”repair”, and the touchpad and all the keys seemed to be working too. I did a keyboard and a touchpad test in front of the intern and agreed that now everything seemed to be working (finally… phewww, again).
I asked what he was planning to charge for the job and he said ”no charge.” He then thanked me very politely by bowing very deep (it’s not required by the custom in Malaysia like it perhaps is in Japan), clearly expressing his deepest non-verbal apologies.
I was absolutely sure the guy thought he’d get scolded, or he feared that my laptop would break in some new way again, or something else catastrophically embarrassing would happen to him.
I left quickly saying ”now it looks like working perfectly, thank you!”
I didn’t shoot the noob.
But at the same time, I was having a really strange feeling about the overall summary of this experience.
The job got done, but the experience as a client… OMG
The result of those four visits was that:
- I got 1 thing fixed, but I also got 3 new issues.
- Eventually, all issues were solved.
- I spent 3 hours in the shop or nearby waiting (not all of that time was completely wasted but it felt like that).
- I had driven to the place and back 4 times (20 min X 2 X 4 + 10 min = 170 min = 2 h 50 min).
- I wasted several liters of gas when driving back and forth.
- I had high hopes of getting things done every time I went in and faced disappointment thrice.
- Everyone was super polite and very helpful.
- I kept the atmosphere overly positive on purpose to not make it too horrible for the intern.
- The repair was very affordable: I only paid for the new battery and one small service charge.
But the overall feeling was like ”dear GBC, why is this happening to me?” So much time wasted, 6 hours almost! And going back and forth after the intern told me my laptop was ”fixed” three times before it actually was!
You can always earn more money, and you can patch things up in different ways, but what is lost forever is your time. And that lost time feels twice as bad when it goes together with constant frustration.
So frustrating. OMG.
But eventually, this little everyday nightmare was over and the matter concluded. I decided never to go back to that place even if the alternative is 1-hour drive away. I’d lose less time and gas, probably, assuming the other repair shop would have real professionals doing all the work.
How all service industries work
On the way driving back I started thinking about how the service industry works regardless of what type of business we would examine. The computer repair shop offers a similar type of service that many freelancers do too, although most freelancers do things remotely and digitally.
A client appears with an expectation that the freelancer needs to manage. It’s not only about getting the job done (eventually), but it is also about how the job is done for the part that the client perceives.
If the above scenario was a job that I outsourced to a new freelancer via a freelance site like Fiverr, Freelancer, or Upwork, this would be my review:
- 2/5 stars rating
- Feedback: ”Eventually, everything got done. But I find it slightly irresponsible to put inexperienced people in customer-facing roles because the customer can observe every mistake and mishap in the process.”
Even though the job was completed and my issue solved, it was the experience and the frustration that would produce that kind of bad feedback.
It’s not just the result that counts. It’s the customer experience.
And here, I’m thinking of this in business terms. I would never blame that intern for anything! He did everything he could, went to great lengths in trying to get the job concluded, and definitely learned a lot from the experience which will help in all future jobs he will need to do.
But I would blame the guy in charge of the business operation, obviously, the senior repair guy, the manager in charge of the shift. What he, quite obviously, failed to do is something no business should ever do:
- Failed to introduce a safe work environment for the intern by giving reasonably simple tasks and overseeing all of the processes personally to guarantee no mistakes were made.
- Put a complete noob in a customer-facing role before there is enough confidence in the noob’s mind. This can only mean that the customer sees every mistake being made first-hand. This is all about optics – how it looks. Amateurish.
- Did not take responsibility for the overall delivery to the customer. He seemed to be just asking if the job was done or not.
The correct way to do these things is to give the noob a chance to do things with minimal guidance but in a way that the result is always good enough to be released to the customer in return for the customer’s money. Some kind of quality assurance process must be in place.
Here, the intern was just thrown under a bus and the senior repair guy was happy to see him survive it. I don’t think it was intentional, just not responsible enough behavior from the senior repair guy.
Learn how to start freelancing with no experience by focusing on customer experience!
So, the question is: ”how do I become a freelancer with no skills?” or ”how to start freelancing as a student?” You will need to pick a skill that you want to develop over time, but that is just a matter of choice and practice on your own. A bigger question is this: ”Can you freelance as a beginner?” This question has a more business-focused sound to it, doesn’t it?
Becoming a freelancer is easy. You quit everything you do now and try to find work on your own. Knowing that there are so many freelancing sites these days, you might ask yourself ”how to start freelancing with no experience on Fiverr?” and go sign up on that platform. Now, you think you’re a freelancer, right?
Well, technically yes, but not really.
You could try to google your way to the glory with phrases like “how to start freelancing as a fresher” or “how to get the first job on Upwork”, go through some superficial videos, and think you got it now.
No, it’s not that easy.
It’s an entirely different thing to be able to turn that freelancer status into a short-term and even long-term success when you start from absolute zero in every sense of the word.
Even if you don’t yet have much experience in conducting the kind of work you plan to do as a freelancer, you should be able to create that risk-free environment for yourself. For instance:
- Make sure that most of the mistakes you make don’t show to the client so that your perceived credibility remains intact. Redo and sacrifice more of your time to double and triple-check everything, ask a friend to help and split the profits, or something, so that the client always maintains a professional impression of your work.
- Communicate politely and effectively, and remain positive even if you’re facing trouble in the execution and you must spend more time than you thought. It’s the experience you’re getting that is worth more than the time you lost.
- Promise very conservative timelines assuming that something will go wrong and your original estimate might be off. Many small jobs given to entry-level freelancers are not urgent. Good and fast is costly, every client knows that.
- Learn risk management as one of the first professional skills.
- At every step, make sure your client is not wasting time when working with you. Absorb every issue you cause yourself instead of casting them on your client.
- Don’t ask for money unless you’ve done what you promised. Rather, accept a bad financial outcome for yourself rather than for your client understanding that you gained valuable experience that will make you a better freelancer very soon.
- Don’t give up and vanish if things start to go south too much. Take responsibility and make notes to yourself not to repeat the disaster.
The issue with starting from zero is that you are both the noob and the one in charge of the business at the same time. If you are able to handle both roles at the same time, that is absolutely fantastic. But that setup is prone to a lot of mistakes and mishaps.
This is where mentoring helps. Hundreds have come to me hoping to get guidance on how to start freelancing for beginners.
It is best to get in touch with someone who has already walked the path you’re hoping to walk and ask this person for guidance. For both developing your core skill and building your business. Someone who you would qualify as a role model in general. And make sure there is a fair deal for the mentor.
With a mentor, you could always go ask things such as:
- ”Do you think this result is good enough for my client?”
- ”How should I explain this situation to my client without looking like an amateur?”
- ”What kind of client should I aim for next?”
- ”How can I get this starting stage to a stage where I can actually make money?”
- ”What should I learn next?”
And even if it is not really your mentor who gives you all the answers, an objective perspective of the mentor and the discussion with you will bring you clarity.
So, can anyone learn how to start freelancing with no experience? Is it possible to figure out how to start freelancing as a fresher? Maybe. It’s really up to you. Keep trying and keep learning, real work experience is the best teacher anyway. Having a great mentor can shorten the learning curve and save you from a number of troubles which is the fast way forward compared to going completely solo.
One way or another, you have to be able to create an environment where your client’s experience of working with you is fantastic despite the mistakes you make.
Good luck with your pursuit to find freelance work and landing your first client!
