6 Vital Soft Skills Every Freelancer Needs for Success

You think you have what it takes to be a successful freelancer? Well, don’t be so sure! You see, in order for you to get the most out of your career as a freelancer, there are some important soft skills that you need to have.

These soft skills often get overlooked by a lot of freelancers, so the fact that you are reading this gives you an advantage over 50% of Freelance Fledglings. Many newbie freelancers assume that all they need to become a successful freelancer is an internet connection and a computer, but they couldn’t be more wrong.

There are a specific set of skills that every budding freelancer should add to their resume if they want to have a financially rewarding future. These skills are just a small part of everything freelancers need to know about online work.

This article sheds much-needed light on the importance of these soft skills to every freelancer trying to make a mark in the industry. Below is a breakdown of each skill and how it will help you advance in your freelance career.

6 Vital Soft Skills Every Freelancer Needs for Success

1. Client Relations

Your success as a freelancer is highly dependent on strong solid client relationships, and providing outstanding client service will portray your core values to your client. This is important since it will foster trust between you and your client. Trust is good, trust means more jobs and more jobs mean more money. To ensure good relations with your clients, incorporate the list below anytime you are dealing with them.

• Get to know your client, where they work, which position they hold at the organization so that you can customize every relation to suit every client and make them feel special.

• Always go the extra mile for your clients, especially new clients; this will go a long way in building your client base. 

• Exercise some patience when signing on new clients; some people just need a little more time to mull things over.

• Lastly, always remember to treat every client as your most important one.

2. Good Negotiating Skills

Adding some decent negotiating skills to your freelancer arsenal would definitely come in handy since you do not want to sell ourselves short and you also don’t want to scare away your clients with insanely high pricing.

Take some time and do some research on how much your fellow freelancers are charging for the services you are offering, and then use that as a benchmark for your prices. This middle mark will provide a “buffer zone” which you can manipulate depending on the price the client wants.

Click here to learn these good negotiating skills.

3. Time Management

For you to make it as a freelancer, you need to have your time management skills down on lock. I am sure by now you know that online work is not bound by time or boundaries. This means that you might have clients in other time zones around the world, so in order to keep up; you will have to adjust your schedule to correspond with your client’s respective time zone.

This might mean sleeping during the day and working during the day. There are some proven time management techniques that will do wonders for your schedule, and you can find all of them explained into detail in this FREE E-book: 10 Proven Tips to Maximize Your Productivity This Year.

4. Organizational Skills

One of the key ingredients for your success as a freelancer is an above average sense of organization. Time management and organizational skills go hand in hand, for you to get organized, you will have to manage your time and learn how to spend it wisely.

At times you will have coinciding deadlines from different clients and you will have to find a way to meet both deadlines without losing a client. That’s exactly where good time management and organizational skills come in.

Here are a few tips on how to get organized with your work;

• Assess your workload schedules on a daily basis.

• Identify the most important tasks or job to tackle based on deadline and urgency.

• Schedule client meetings and appointments.

• Organize both personal and professional life alike.

Getting organized has a lot of rewards and it goes without saying, managing your time wisely will make you a successful freelancer.

5. Listening skills

Listening to your clients is a something you need to work at, pay attention to their needs and the specificities of the client’s project. Asking questions is highly recommended for clarifications where necessary.

Try to keep in constant contact with your client and provide feedback; this portrays you as a dedicated freelancer and also provides you with a clear picture of what the client requires of you.

A successful freelancer is one that grows and constantly adds new and useful skills to his/her arsenal. Implementing the above 5 vital soft skills into your workflow, then success is guaranteed.

Related: Everything You Need To Know About Online Work