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I am a freelancer from last 4 years started in 2014 and I am pretty happy being the one and I would like to share my learnings here so that anyone who is thinking to start this as a career can understand the depth of this sea. I was working as a Field Manager in Loreal Cosmetics before starting as a freelancer. You might what was wrong with my last job and why I left it, let me give you how I reached here.
As a Field Manager, my job was to shortlist candidates for HR, give them a competition picture of what is happening in the market and managing the transportation for the staff so that they reach on stores and home on time. All this was beautiful with good pay and the most time I was supposed to give to this job was 3-4 hours max. I was enjoying every part of the job but there was one which I hate the most and that was meeting managers of the stores and keeping them happy rather I want this or not. This is not in my nature, I am bold and straight forward and find this tough to digest the unending demands and keeping a smile on my face to please managers.
Many of my friends were telling me how lucky I am to have a job with good salary and benefits and such minimum time. But to tell you exactly I was not happy with one point that I have mentioned above. Now the company decided to remove the project manager and promote me as a project manager. She, the project manager, was my friend and asked me to say No to the HR team when they ask me for promotion and also resign just to shake management. I have spent a great time with her as a friend and though this was not a professional attitude I decided to do same she asked and the result was management accepted my resignation and they were stunned that I was resigning on the day of the promotion.
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Cutting this short, I was not regretting this as my friend asked for the favor. I came back to my parent's town and heard that a friend of mine is earning online. I met him and he suggested me to watch a website www.elance.com now www.upwork.com for 3 months, just watch and observe. Anyhow, I am not good in following instructions like a fool. So, I started applying for projects. I spent the first 6 months realizing the skills that I can offer online. Here is what I was struggling with;
- Skill Niche
- Feedback Score
- Mindset: Online earning is fake
- Thinking that I can do each and everything
- Bidding on every project that requires multiple skills
All of this ended when one day on 4 am a client from the USA sent me a message and asked me to come online at Skype for the interview. I have applied for a different job and he saw in my resume that I was part of the HR team process and that is exactly why he was planning to hire me. He has a software house and wanted me to shortlist candidates for his software house. So, after a long effort with an empty profile (without any feedback), I was able to get a freelance job on elance.com at 150 USD/week. I started this job and next, I was talking to two other clients for telemarketing and virtual assistance.
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That is how I started flying as a freelancer but to tell you straight it was not easy and it is still not that easy but I am happy with what I am doing now. Elance closed my account after two years as I am managing my clients' accounts and which was against their policy. They blocked all the account where my IP was present. Till then I have links with many clients and was able to sustain on my own but I would like to mention here that www.upwork is a great market place for people who are looking to start online earning.
Pro Tip: If you are confused about which niche to choose as a freelance, I suggest go with Virtual Assistance as this cover all the major and minor skills.
This was the story of my journey from a Field Manager to Virtual Admin Manager and I am providing web designing plus development, telemarketing, customer support, video editing services with the help of my team. I am happy to work while sitting at my desk, my couch and sometimes my bed.
