The advantages and disadvantages of freelancing ... think carefully before moving to freelancing
Advantages of freelancing
the advantages of freelancing: 13 advantages that will make you immediately resort to freelancing
The trend toward self-employment has begun to increase significantly recently, and I mean in the Arab world. This trend has been delayed compared to the global trend because there is no great awareness of its importance, as well as the advantages of freelancing that freelancers can enjoy. In this article, I will present the most important features that characterize freelancing, which should constitute a great incentive for the freelancer to move to freelancing.
Judging freelancing in general or freelancing on the Internet is often linked to comparing it with traditional work, so when I narrate, I will resort to many points to compare them with traditional work to show the clear differences that constitute the advantages of freelancing:
table of contents
1- Work passionately within the field you love
2- An incentive for creativity and excellence
3- You do not need capital
4- Achieving higher income
5- Unlimited profit
6- You can use your skills to get profits
7- The possibility of achieving great success in a short time
8- Flexibility
9- Lack of work routine
10- Getting rid of commitment to the workplace
11- Getting rid of work time commitment
12- Target a wider group of customers
13- Expand your network of relationships with others on the Internet from around the world
1- Work passionately within the field you love
One of the most important advantages of freelancing is that you do not have to work in fields that you do not like or do not prefer to work in. Choosing freelance work means that you will choose the field of work that you prefer. Whereas in traditional work, you may be forced to work in a field that you do not like because there are no suitable job opportunities for you, or the return it provides is not rewarding.
2- An incentive for creativity and excellence
Working in the field of self-employment creates space for you to be creative. You work within the field that you enjoy and have a great passion for, and you can excel every day in new ways and methods that you create, whether to develop the work or even to provide competitive services.
3- You do not need capital
Many projects that can be established as successful projects require large capital, but self-employment may sometimes mean that you obtain the same profits that can be obtained from the profits of those projects, even without capital.
4- Achieving higher income
Freelance work means that you will get an additional source of income if you work another job, or it can bring you a very high income that will replace any other work, so that it can be considered a primary source of income.
5- Unlimited income
Profit through self-employment is characterized by the fact that there are no limits to the profits that can be obtained. You may get returns similar to those of your routine work, and if you work smarter, you can achieve much greater returns.
Suppose you are an employee of a company and receive a specific salary every month. The return you receive will not change significantly over several months or even several years. But suppose that you work in the field of freelancing on the Internet, then you are not limited to this income, but rather there are many possibilities in which you can achieve a very high income compared to any other work.
6- You can use your skills to get profits
Perhaps the most important advantage of freelancing is that you can use your skills and talents and invest them in a job. In fact, you can work on any talent, as you always have ideas and choices that no one else will have.
7- The possibility of achieving great success in a short time
Successes in traditional work are often linked to waiting for a promotion or moving to a better company with higher salaries and greater benefits. Waiting to achieve success here, you will often wait to cross the traditional timeline, which should express the extent of the experiences you have gained during a certain period, unless you make a qualitative leap that makes you exceed That line.
While successes in self-employment are not related to time, all you have to do is always develop yourself and seize the right opportunity. Freelancing is like a big sea and there are many opportunities within it, and to achieve the success you want, all you have to do is use a suitable fishing rod - that is, your skills - and wait for the right opportunity that will be a great success for you.
8- Flexibility
Flexibility in traditional work is one of the things that is missing. Sometimes you may have to apply for a specific job even though there are many things that restrict you to it, but unfortunately you do not have the ability to modify them, whether in terms of tasks or even the method of performing the work.
In freelancing, you can always innovate new ways of working, and you can even move between the specializations you are good at. For example, if you are good at preparing content, you can work for a period in preparing technical content, or you can work in the field of marketing and other content, of course, if you have skills in both.
9- Lack of work routine
Traditional work is often tied to a specific routine, for example you have to wake up at a specific time in the morning, arrive at work and be greeted by stacked files. You will not always be able to choose the way you do your work. Your boss may have a different point of view or even a specific priority at work that may drown you in a deadly routine.
In freelancing, you do not need to kill yourself with this routine. You can choose your clients according to the work you want to carry out, and if you feel bored with a certain part, you can move to another part, or you can even target services other than those services that you are accustomed to doing.
10- Getting rid of commitment to the workplace
It is one of the first advantages that everyone calling for freelancing calls for, meaning that you are not committed to a specific workplace. You can work from your bedroom, from your garden, or from anywhere else.
11- Getting rid of work time commitment
This is another advantage for people who hate adhering to specific working hours, or who do not prefer to wake up early to start their work at 8 am. You can work at the time you prefer. Do you prefer to work at night, or wake up late, for example? That's okay. You can choose the time that suits you.
12- Target a wider group of customers
When you work in any traditional job, you are governed by the place of work based on your place of residence, and no matter how willing you are to change your place of residence and no matter how much flexibility you enjoy, you will undoubtedly not be able to reach any place of work.
Freelancing means that there are no limits to the clients you can target, especially if you speak English well and are good at using it, so you can communicate with any client without any problem.
13- Expand your network of relationships with others on the Internet from around the world
It is considered one of the most important advantages of freelancing, as work relationships are always the basis for developing work or obtaining greater opportunities, so building good work relationships is considered an essential advantage that every person seeks. Freelancing on the Internet means that you can establish business relationships via the Internet and therefore you will establish them with people from different parts of the world, and thus there will be no limits to your work and opportunities.
Disadvantages of freelancing
Disadvantages of freelancing: 16 problems that make you think carefully before moving to freelancing
Most people who call for freelancing overlook or ignore the drawbacks and disadvantages of freelancing, as they always market the advantages, and sometimes even the superficial advantages, such as flexibility of work and lack of commitment to place and time, while there are many disadvantages that may constitute a fundamental problem for the freelancer, as it is not possible to Anyone can adapt to it.
In this article, I will talk in some detail about the most important disadvantages of freelancing, which you should think about carefully before deciding to start your work as a freelancer online:
table of contents
1- Great competition
2- Difficulty in gaining the first customer and determining the price of the service
3- Difficulty withdrawing profits and transferring funds
4- The possibility that customers will not pay the amounts they owe
5- Instability
6- There is no fixed or regular return
7- Lack of job benefits or social security
8- The work responsibility is great
9- Difficulty managing time
10- Some works need inspiration
11- Difficulty in refining skills and obtaining experience
12- Failure to develop skills means a decline in performance
13- The illusion of absolute flexibility
14- Constant presence on the Internet
15- Lack of time for rest and personal time overlapping with work time
16- Lack of social relationships
1- Great competition
There are some areas of freelancing that are characterized by a lot of competition, such as translation and content preparation. Not all freelancers may be experienced, as many of them rush to work in this field because they believe that it is one of the easiest jobs, as they will only write content in Arabic. Therefore, the greatest difficulty here lies with the professional freelancer, as he is forced either to accept a low price for his services, which is not a reasonable price for a professional person, or to maintain his price and specialize for a specific category of clients.
2- Difficulty in gaining the first customer and determining the price of the service
The most important problem that a novice freelancer can suffer from is how to obtain his first client, meaning how he can obtain the necessary experience to qualify him to expand the business and build a successful business exhibition. The freelancer falls into a vicious circle: he cannot get the first client without previous work, and he cannot get previous work because he has not yet obtained clients.
To solve this problem, I have prepared an article that serves as a beginner’s guide entitled: How to start freelancing from scratch and without previous experience. You can view it here.
Another difficulty that a novice freelancer may also struggle with is how to set the price for his services. The services that are provided in self-employment are not like goods in the market, where there is an almost uniform price that prevails in the market.
3- Difficulty withdrawing profits and transferring funds
Many Arab countries suffer from a real problem in transferring profits, as it is not possible to use a PayPal account in them, even though it is the widely followed method throughout the world for transferring balances and amounts of money. Even if the amounts are transferred in other ways, the process may take longer, which negatively affects the person who relies on self-employment as a primary source of income.
In a previous article of mine in a series of freelance articles, I dedicated an article to ways to withdraw profits without a PayPal account, which you can view here.
4- The possibility that customers will not pay the amounts they owe
Working on the Internet means dealing with clients from different parts of the world, and of course you do not know all of those clients, and therefore there is a high possibility of fraud cases arising, or the client refraining from paying the full amount due or refraining from paying the last payment, for example.
Also in my previous article, I talked about some advice for freelancers, in an article entitled: How do you ensure that the client pays the full agreed upon amount? How to avoid fraud cases? You can view it here.
5- Instability
One of the fundamental disadvantages of freelancing is the state of instability, as the freelancer is not tied to a fixed job and can remain at any moment without any work waiting for the next client. This state of instability greatly affects the person who relies on self-employment as a primary source of income.
6- There is no fixed or regular return
In freelancing, especially in the beginning, you will notice that there is an imbalance in requests for work or services. There will be work pressure at a certain time and no client at another time. Therefore, you will not have any fixed income that you can obtain on a regular basis, which will lead to your inability to fulfill your financial obligations, even and especially in the early stages.
7- Lack of job benefits or social security
There are many job benefits such as retirement salary, insurance, sick leave, etc., which are among the basic temptations for any traditional employee. Of course, the freelancer does not enjoy any of these advantages. But there is something worse than that, as stopping work means stopping income, as there are no vacations, for example, or anything else.
Which prompts us to always think about the stage after self-employment, that is, to make self-employment a stage after which we must move to another stage, which I will talk about in detail in a later article.
8- The work responsibility is great
If you work as an employee within a company or organization, you will be assigned certain tasks in exchange for your salary, and your tasks will be part of larger tasks that are divided among all team members. As for self-employment, you are forced to work alone, and therefore the responsibility for the work will be very large and will fall entirely on your shoulders.
9- Difficulty managing time
The difficulty of time management is considered one of the most important disadvantages of freelancing. In freelancing, you will be busy with a lot of responsibilities, and sometimes you will not dare to reject any client, so you will suffer from pressure at work and the inability to organize your time. You may have trouble organizing your clients' delivery times, in addition to even having trouble organizing your personal time.
10- Some works need inspiration
You may have a problem in some or even most disciplines, which is that the work cannot be implemented immediately as you need a lot of inspiration first. This prevents you from estimating the time required for the work and sometimes prevents you from estimating the cost of the work and the price of the service.
11- Difficulty in refining skills and obtaining experience
If you are not an expert or specialist, you will suffer in the first period until you are able to hone your skills and compete with other freelancers. Sharpening your skills means doing more work that requires more effort, and therefore you must research and learn more things about your specialty during it. The difficulty lies in the lack of patience, and the lack of work or services that are of an appropriate level to learn from.
12- Failure to develop skills means a decline in performance
The whole world is constantly changing, and even self-employment is subject to the same law. The skills you possess today will become obsolete in the coming period. There are always new ways and methods by which work can be carried out in a distinctive way. If you want to always maintain the same distinguished level, you must follow everything new and develop your skills for at least some hours every month. If you do not develop your skills, this means that your performance will decline to make way for freelancers with more distinguished skills.
13- The illusion of absolute flexibility
Many claim that flexibility is a key advantage of freelancing, but they fall into the trap of absolute flexibility and do not realize that it is actually one of the disadvantages of freelancing as they believe that they are already free themselves. In fact, the reality is the opposite. The freelancer, especially the novice freelancer, is often unable to refuse clients and therefore will be restricted by almost endless deadlines.
14- Constant presence on the Internet
One of the disadvantages of freelancing, or one of the limitations that a freelancer may also suffer from, is the necessity of his constant presence on the Internet. In the beginning, you may have to be online all the time so as not to miss any customer and to always follow up on your clients and customers.
15- Lack of time for rest and personal time overlapping with work time
Another disadvantage of freelancing is the lack of time for rest.
A freelancer who works from home will suffer from overlapping personal time with his work time, as there will be no clear time for rest or work. This can cause boredom and exhaustion, as the freelancer feels like he is working all the time.
16- Lack of social relationships
Self-employment means that a person often becomes isolated, no longer an employee of a company who meets a group of co-workers every day. Even his continuous work will make him lose contact with his friends. He may turn into an introvert, and of course losing social relationships is never a healthy thing.
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