A digital media career often presents you with the opportunity to lose the shackles of the office life. Freelancing from home, or simply being able to work from home – especially if you have a quality home office – can be a blessing, and there are actually studies that suggest that it can be more productive. If you are trying to set up a home office, you can find various tips here: http://www.spherelondon.co.uk/blog/top-tech-tips-for-setting-up-a-productive-home-office.
Once you have set it up, the next step is launching your freelancing career. As a freelancer, you will have to rely on yourself but that doesn’t just mean your digital skills. You can be the best digital artist in the world, if you cannot find the people that will allow you to thrive in that role you will go nowhere quickly. That is where freelancing comes into the picture, which is pretty much a skill on its own. Luckily, you can learn that skill.
The benefits of Working from Home
There are clear benefits of working from a home office:
- Extra time you gain from not having to travel to work and back home, not to mention the meetings you don’t have to attend
- A familiar environment often results in doing better work
- Professional freedom that you rarely get in a company environment.
How to Work from a Remote Location
In order for this venture to work, you have to be able to create valuable work without physically being in the same place as your employer. This often makes the work a little bit harder, mainly because the quality of the instructions will vary. When you are in the same room as your boss, and you don’t understand something they want from you, you can usually ask them for more details.
With remote work this is often quite different, if not for else because of the fact that you will often deal people who speak a different language than you. Often times it will be nobody’s fault, but the process will still get a lot harder. About the means of conversation: getting in contact with a potential employer is fairly easy these days, you can use a large number of applications that integrate different call and messaging features. Skype is obviously the most popular one, but you can use anything.
Creating value without actually being present will come down to your specific skills. When it comes to digital freelancing, we are talking about a number of skills, including but not limited to: graphic and web design, video editing, copywriting, etc. None of these skills require for you to be in direct contact with your employer. That’s the good news, of course, now finding that employer is another question. For that you need to take advantage of the internet, but before that, you have several options.
A lone Employer (company) or a Network
When you are a digital freelancer, you can follow two different routes, but a quality portfolio will be required for both. Your previous work, certain recommendations, a high quality resume about you, the digital expert. You can get more tips about how to become a successful digital freelancer here: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/how-to-be-a-successful-freelance-artist/ It comes down to your strategy. Do you want to work for a single company? It has its advantages, the main one being you not having to chase the work all the time. You can build a good working relationship that way, and the job will likely be getting easier and easier. The possible downfalls? You can miss out on more interesting and possibly more lucrative opportunities.
The second route is building a network of clients who will becomes returning customers. The advantages are more diversity and unique jobs that can propel you forward in your field. You could theoretically do both, but that can easily backfire as you will likely not have enough time to do your best on both fronts. If you choose to freelance your services for numerous suitors, you will run into unique opportunities from time to time, opportunities that will likely challenge your abilities.
How to find the Work
There are several channels through which you can attempt to find work. The best course of action is probably not trying to rely on a single one, rather being present on numerous online platforms.
– Social media
- Direct outreach (this is called cold e-mailing which requires you getting on lists)
- Trying to reach out to friends or former colleagues
- Agencies
- Marketing your own content (creating a website or a blog where you show off your work)
There are also job sites that allow you to possibly reach a large number of potential clients. It obviously takes some time but once you have built up your own network, you will likely not have to worry about how to find work (that is unless your challenge yourself/decide to do something different). In any case, you can absolutely take advantage of the limitless opportunities the internet can provide for you. If you have the necessary skills and have an at least adequate to solid work ethic, there is no way that you will stay without work for a long time. You will find opportunities, probably more than you can handle. The goal should always be having the luxury to choose.
The Jump from the Office to your Home
Remote working and the idea of a permanent home office are relatively recent privileges. With today’s technical advancements and the improving public opinion on working from home, you can absolutely build up a career within the walls of your private sanctuary. But it does require a little bit different mindset. If you are struggling to make the transition, you can find some tips on the subject here: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/managing-the-transition-from-office-job-to-work-at-home.html
In any case, once you made that transition and you have all the technical necessities (a quality computer, phone, a good internet connection and a space, a corner where you can be creative), all you will need is a little bit of resolve and some healthy desperation to find your next, and possibly dream job.