Get to be your own boss. What else do you need? There are many perks of being a successful freelancer! Yet there is something that might bother your client.  These tips can work miraculously. They might give you refreshing vibes and change your entire work schedule. I have worked with freelancers for a long time now.  What puts them on most blacklists is unprofessionalism. I hope you pick up some value in these tips to steer your career straight and help add value to your profile!

Recommended Reading: Top 10 Mobile App Development Companies in India

1. Let’s make a Deal!
Do you need contracts even for the small jobs? It can be a huge task to figure out the details behind every deal so do you have to run away?
Many freelancers get caught up in heavy paperwork and drain their time in it. All you need to do is cover the basics on which you and the client have to agree upon. Your contract should have these basic things:
• The work produced isn’t plagiarised.
• The client’s proprietary information should stay confidential.
• Payment terms. The payment mode of the time and conditions of payments.
Having a few basic terms in place for every project will always protect you, importantly, will help inform about your work. Once you have your contract, your client then can print, sign, and return.

2. Don’t be afraid to say “no”
Don’t add too much to your plate.
Saying no is hard, but you can avoid all the strenuous work. When in a dilemma, stick to your limits and abilities.
No matter what you do, you are eventually going to disappoint someone. It can be the client because you were not able to deliver your 100%. So turn down features opinions and add on when you aren’t available or ready for them.
The worst thing about taking on everything that comes your way is that your plate may end up full.
You make wrong commitments. You’re stressed, anxious, and the worst part, now you’re left with no time to make use of that golden opportunity.
Next time you get a project; don’t just reply with an instant yes. Just consider the opportunity, ask yourself.

3. Focus your freelance business
By focusing on your brand identity and the type of projects you take on, it’ll make everything much easier for you—from marketing to doing the actual design work.
Pick one or two services to specialize in, and only take on work that falls into those categories. Then turn down the rest.
Once you’ve decided on the services you now specialize in, be sure to translate that in your brand. Only allow that feather on your hat to show and creep in your profile.
Some keywords and content can help you big time. All of this is a by-product of marketing, which in turn will steer traffic and new projects on your way.

4. Showcase not show off
This is a repetitive but much relatable topic. Many freelancers make the error of filling their resume with work just to show that they have some sort of skill in design. Keep it simple to showcase your previous works.
There’s a difference between a freelance business CV and a school profile. A freelance portfolio should only contain the work you expertise in via client work.

5. Transparency the clearer picture
As a freelancer, truthfulness is an utmost necessity. That’s something you must be proud of, so don’t hide behind a veil. Be the face of your business to be proud of your work.
From a client’s point of view, if I were to hire you to provide a service, I would want to know a reliable guy. So be sure to inject who yourself are into your brand. Personalize your product.
Also, when a client is interested in working with you brief him up regularly, If he wants to give opinions suggestions take them.

6. Make a schedule
Freelancers often have a flexible schedule. It is a huge mistake many people would take advantage of that flexibility. The best way to avoid getting used is to make a schedule for you.
The dirty little secret here is that much of the time where you do not do actual work can be turned into precious minutes to enhance your abilities and learn more.
But, even if you’re working on a project basis, and can make your own hours, it’s in your best interests to make them regular. Plan your work at specific, slotted times makes it convenient to get in the zone when you need to be – relaxed and enjoy your life.

7. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy!
Speaking of enjoying life, many people overlook this point and end up overburdening themselves.
Taking time for you isn’t just fun and games; it’s a primal part of work-life balance. In order to be really productive, you need time to rest and recharge your batteries.
Take holidays breaks and off days.
When deadlines haunt, you’ll have to burn the midnight oil and get things done. Just make sure you touch your deadlines by burning that midnight oil.

8. Know your numbers
Your freelancing is a serious business, and as a business, you need to know your numbers. Such as:
• Business revenue (How much do you need to make per month to live?)
• Site traffic (Where are the clients coming from? What’s your most popular thing?)
Knowing these stats will shed light on the regions that are working for you and what areas need improvement. To see where the most traffic is coming for is the most archival technique.

9. Make every rupee count
If you are serious then you need to save up on taxes. That is how you can make every rupee count. Read all the government policies regarding tax TDS and rebates. Now the GST. Try to maximize your income bar. Manage your expenses and income judiciously.

Recommended Read: 5 STeps to Pursue a Career in Freelancing

The post Tips to Become a Successful Freelancer! appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

“If your business is not on the internet, then your business will be out of business”

– Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft

In this fast-moving world, websites and mobile applications hold the topmost pitch in the business growth. They help in conveying the products and services of the companies to their prospective clients in the most effective way. They are the face of any business and more often the heart. You cannot go about thinking to accost the best sales, users or clients without having the sound portfolio in the form of an excellent mobile application or website.

Similarly, the content plays a very crucial role in business expansion. You need to inform about your work to the right people in a persuasive way wherever they are. The content in your professional blogs, websites or any guest posts should convey your thoughts, ideas, insight, and knowledge in a simple yet compelling manner. Good content presented in a readable format does wonder.

But what if you have a highly sophisticated website designed and developed by the incredibly talented people and yet out of reach of targeted readers? Even with the innovative product, how do you justify no traffic?

What’s wrong here?

Can you guess?
Yes! The digital marketing is the ‘heroine’ of any growing business in the present scenario. It knows how to attract people. There is no chance a business can grow in a fully fledged manner without exploiting the complete potential of digital marketing tools. You have to have the access to the world-class SEOs and SMMs to bring the reach of your product to the larger crowd.
Otherwise, you know the fate of documentary movies. No matter how great the director, screenplay, actors are, it cannot come at par with commercial cinema in business because it lacks massive launching, promotions, teasers, marketing, and another such tact.
It is need of the hour. Even the conventional businesses are now adapting to these new
mediums to keep up with the cut-throat competition.

Thus, it becomes highly important to ensure that your websites and apps are designed and developed on the right platform using appropriate technologies with superior talents to pour ideas and market it.

Best Way to find Freelancers

Businesses and individuals often approach freelancers to outsource their IT needs.
Outsourcing projects help companies in many ways:
1) Cost Saving: Getting projects developed from freelancer/remote team is effectively cost saving than getting them designed by in-house team as then you have to provide them fully functional office looking after their refreshments, taxes, cash-on-leaves etc or via agency where huge commissions are involved with apparently more fees, lesser transparency and no direct involvement with the developer.
2) World Class Talent: You can easily access the top talent around the world without much effort and movement.
3) Flexibility: It is an easy and relieving experience to give charge of the work to the experts and forget about it as they will take care of the rest. Unlike in-house team where you need to keep them motivated and busy, freelancers keep themselves self-motivated and active.
Upwork is one big name in the freelance market that has been around for 10+ years.
Even if you are naïve in this domain, you still have heard the name at some point. With the growing irrelevant crowd on the website and ever-increasing unacknowledged issues, the site has recently lost its credibility both towards clients and developers.
As they say, you need to keep updating your product if you want to survive in the IT industry else you gradually disappear from the game.
Filtering desirable freelancers from websites like Upwork is a laborious job and highly unreliable way of getting work done. Here the success rate is not 100%.
You may succeed in finding the right developer for your idea but there are high chances you end up getting bluffed and betrayed. This often results in handing over your project to some other freelancer and having to pay extra charges thereafter.

Let us understand this problem in a more fundamental way:
1) Let’s say you post a project.
2) Some 30+ freelancers apply for it. Some of them do not even check the essentials required like skills, qualifications etc
3) The best freelancers still did not apply as they are already over-packed with the existing work.
4) People displaying false experiences and skills is a well-known phenomenon.
5) After 10 days of analysis to find the best developer, you select the one with the best score (someone who has the better ranking, good rates, and good reviews).
6) What if it is an agency which takes the work from you and again outsources to someone else? You would not be able to interact with the developer directly.
7) Most of the freelancers work full time in other companies. They take up extra work as a freelancer to earn some quick money.
They would never spend enough time checking the environment, understanding the client’s requirement and guiding them through the best-customized approach to get work done.
8) Finally, what if the developer does not pick your call or leave the project incomplete?
Yes, Upwork does have a rating system but there is no real way to confirm if the developer you hire is trustworthy and dedicated towards the work and also it does not assure the communication ease of the freelancer.
Even on investing 10-12 days in selecting the right candidate to accomplish your task, you could still choose the wrong person, not deliberately but by mere less awareness and transparency.
Websites like upwork are often criticized for this big downside. People become victims to these fraud profiles and end up spending more money than their initial budget.

What’s the solution?                
In the midst of this chaos, few companies worked hard to rectify issues faced with upwork and came up with the outstanding products.
EngineerBabu:
How about if you have someone who does all the analysis of your project and guides you find the expert developer to meet all the requirements and get the work done in the best possible way?
That’s EngineerBabu!

EngineerBabu is an Indian company that helps in connecting the perfect partner for all your IT needs with the aid of domain experts.
It basically reduces your days of efforts required in filtering the right candidate. It curates highly skilled people from all over the places and gets you handpicked experts to work for your dream.
Removing the wheat from the chaff is a work in itself.
Businesses opting to this website are often startups or SME’s looking to grow flexibly by hiring freelancers to handle projects rather than in-house or via agencies.
They operate as part of what has become “talent cloud” with hundreds of freelancers offering a range of skills in a flexible and efficient basis.
They also promote the benefits of freelancing and remote team as a means to allow people to work more freely in the environment that suits them best.
It provides resources for new and growing businesses and for those who are looking to build a career as a freelancer.
How EngineerBabu helps you to find the perfect IT partner

Here are the best alternatives we consider –

For the Freelancers or IT Company:

1. Create a profile and go through verification.
2. After you are verified, choose projects matching your skills.
3. If you are a paid plan user, you can directly apply and the client will get a notification.
4. We help clients choose a developer and connect them over email.
5. You can also work in-house.

For the client:

1) Engineerbabu team discusses the idea with the client taking down their requirements. (Technology, scope, budget etc)
2) It connects the developer with a client over email for further developments.
There is no bidding system as we provide the best options appropriate for the project. We avoid unnecessary time consumption with bidding process where large numbers of people send proposals and most of them are not even eligible.
3) The team takes follow-ups both from the client and developer from time to time to know the progress.
4) The client can keep the check on the development and progress of the project through our free project management tool “BaseCamp”.
5) Engineerbabu experts spend a lot of time in testing the product and further plan strategies for its promotion.
6) People seem happy and satisfied with the process.

Guru.com:

Based in the US, Guru.com is yet another global freelancing marketplace for freelance workers and employers to partner on a contract basis. It is fairly easy to use with around 1.5 million members worldwide.
How Guru.com helps you:

1) Guru offers a vast network of freelancers to help you accomplish your creative, technical or business projects.
2) Here you are allowed as a freelancer to bid for the certain number of projects for free. After a while, you will have to switch to a paid membership.
3) It is free for the employer, thus in favor of clients.
4) The portal charges a fee from freelancers in the form of transaction fee and membership fee which are quite hefty.
5) Like many other sites with plenty of freelancers, clients have to take the pain to filter the suitable candidate from a large number of proposals.
6) You select a freelancer by evaluating their profile on the basis of reviews, recommendations, testimonials etc.
7)  Guru has an inbuilt project management tool called “Work Room” where you can assign work to the freelancer, keep a check on the progress, share files, define milestones etc.
8) Another good part of this site is it uses the system called “SafePay” which makes sure that you do any payment only after you approve of the project.
PeoplePerHour:

PeoplePerHour is a UK based company that provides a platform for thousands of freelance experts in hundreds of different fields.
As a leading marketplace to find freelancers, jobs can be availed on an hourly basis and can be ramped up as needed to build the whole team online, thus this model is scalable up to the global enterprise.
How PeoplePerHour helps you:
1) Here you get a choice to select from entry-level experience to expert level freelancer.
The prices are fairly reasonable. It is advisable to pick expert freelancer every time as you would find quality skills set only with the experts here.
2) You have to use filters here to opt according to your parameters such as country, experience level, project type etc
It is advisable to wait for the good proposal to arrive. Due to the availability of plenty of freelancers, it happens that many of them apply without checking the details. Thus, it is advantageous to wait and get completely satisfied before handing over your project.
3) It offers various options to be in touch with a freelancer including an inbuilt video calling feature.
4) It has a little-complicated interface which might trouble you in the beginning.
5) Payment needs to be deposited in PeoplePerHour account right when you accept the proposal. Money is held in the escrow and is released as soon as you approve the project.
6) If for any reason, the client cancels the deal, he will be charged 10% of the fee.

Fiverr:

How Fiverr helps you:

1) Fiverr got its name from “five dollar” where every service and task accounts for $5 as their base price.
2) It is the global online market for freelancers and companies to provide their services at much cheaper prices.
3) As the prices are low, so is the quality. You can still get the simple tasks like business card designing, HTML website designing and others done.
4) It is good when you want the product to be developed without much complexity, innovation and quality.
5) It is suitable for very small businesses where work is required to be done very quickly without much detailing.
I hope you find a suitable freelancer according to the need of your project. Some tips that may come handy while taking your decision.
 
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried”
                                                                                                              – Stephen McCranie

1) Always choose experienced people over newbie, it definitely helps in the long-term relationship.
 
“Quality is the best business plan” – John Lasseter

2) All companies have a development budget, and it is understandable to work within that budget. However, you should never let price alone drive your choices. Let the product and the quality of the developer’s work determine who you hire. A quality product is a brand in itself and branding comes with a price.
3) Get NDA signed before sharing your idea. The NDA form is available in Google or you can ask your developer to share his NDA template.
NDA terms are;

• Not to share your code
• Reuse your code
• Can’t work on similar domain or idea for 2 years
• Can’t work with your competitor
• Company or the employees cannot start another company using your idea or its piece.

4) Ask for the portfolio before hiring anyone. In the samples provided, check for the user interface and evaluate the expertise of the developer and team.
5) You can also ask the contact numbers of previous clients of the concerned freelancer/developer. It will help you to know about the quality of work delivered, work ethics, time management etc.

A reliable and an intelligent freelancer is the ultimate requirement of any project.  I hope you find your desirable one keeping these points in mind.

The post What are the best alternatives to find freelancers? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

What was the problem and Why we started?

Freelancing is a fundamentally wrong way for a successful project, It’s there must be a smarter way to find one.

 Let me explain it to you

1. You post your project
2. 30+ Freelancers apply without checking details of your project.
3. Best freelancer still didn’t apply to your project because he is already overpacked with existing work.
4. After 10 days of analysis to find the best developer, you select the one with the best score (Someone who has a better ranking, good rates, and good feedbacks).
5. What if that freelancer takes work from you and outsources to someone else?
6. Most freelancers work full-time in other companies.
7. Freelancers don’t spend enough time checking your requirement, understanding the doc and guiding what is the right approach to get work done.
8. Have you ever seen any freelancers, Helping you write user stories, sending grunt chats and Creating mockups?
9. Entrepreneur spent a lot of time taking follow-ups, testing the product, taking suggestions from other apps or friends than planning strategies to promote the app.
10. After all, this what if freelancer didn’t pick up your call or left the project incomplete.

How EngineerBabu helps you to find a perfect partner (Clients or Developer)

For the Freelancers or Team

Step 1: Create your profile
Step 2: See if you find any projects matching with your need
Step 3: If you are paid plan user, you can directly apply and the client will get a notification.
Step 4: We are also helping clients, and Developers to connect with each other but with the following criteria.

1. We discuss with clients, taking their requirement (Scope and Budget).

2. Then we are connecting them over email from now

3. We take follow-ups from clients and Developers to know the progress.

We get both positive and negative feedbacks from our clients.

People are happy with our Process

Developers are getting Paid without focusing on Sales

Here is His review for Server work https://www.g2crowd.com/products/engineerbabu/reviews

These are the list of deals we cracked recently. 

Thanks for suggestions.

This coming week, we are trying to focus and improvise few things:

1. Customer Support, This week we have 4 Days holidays Due to Holi, our employees were on leave for 4 days.
2. More projects

We have written the following Article that reached almost 12,600 Likes over Linkedin

Indian Developers are Not Good in India but When they reach the USA they become Google & Microsoft CEO.

Your friend Mayank at EngineerBabu.

The post 45 Days : 84 Projects : 1147 Freelancers : Product Update 1.01 appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

Have you lately realized how dull a 9 to 5 job is, how you push yourself to work every day and long to get back home as soon as possible? Have you started feeling disconnected from work and often feel the need to test different waters? Well, in that case, you may long to explore one of your interests. So here I am with some handy tips to help you in taking up a side business while managing it with your present job.

1. Commitment is doing the thing you said you were going to do, long after the mood you said it in had left you

I am not talking about commitment to work here as it comes after commitment to yourself. Now that you have decided to start a venture irrespective of the current job, you need to stay true to your aim.

There will come moments when you would think of dropping the idea altogether and keep pursuing your job. But do not forget it is something which could make you actually happy. Your present job might be enough for sustenance, but that would not necessarily make you happy.

The new business is not going to be an easy task, so you need to promise yourself that you won’t abandon it midway but give in your hundred percent. Motivation may get you started, but commitment is what keeps you going.

A good way to start finding time for the new work is to letting go of unyielding activities such as hours spent in playing video games, social media or watching TV.

 2. Forget all the reasons why it won’t work and believe the one thing why it will

Do not get demotivated even before starting the business. List down the reasons why you want it in the first place. People may give you all sorts of advice but at the end do what your inner voice tells you. Have the courage to stand for what you believe in.

You may have a variety of reasons including learning new skills, working on your interest, multiple income sources, becoming financially stable or building a strong foundation to back your loved ones in the hour of need. Be rational enough to take on something because you would be required to invest your time and resources in it.

3. Life is never boring, but some people chose to be bored

Wayne Dyer very bluntly puts reality in front of us. However bitter it may sound, but it the truth. It is completely up to us how to create a friendly atmosphere at workplace or home.

Situations may not have gone your way when you started working, but now that you are experienced enough, you can finally give a thought of doing what you like. For this, you need to focus on your interest areas along with the required skills.

You may also take out time to learn new skills which your work requires. Learning never stops until you die and the more you learn, the more you grow. If you are good at designing despite being involved in a corporate job, give it a try. Sometimes taking risk fuels your passion.

4. A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules.

These lines from the popular Hollywood flick ‘Inception’ lays emphasis on the power that a new idea holds. It should be able to communicate efficiently with your target audience, employer or client. You are starting something, so obviously you need to be good at it.

Along with your way, you would me meeting businessmen with similar idea or aims. But how you make your endeavour stand out is up to you. An in-depth study about your venture is crucial to how it will turn out in the near future. And half knowledge is always dangerous. So research as much as possible meets people who can help you determine the course of actions and set on the journey.

5. Ask yourself if what you’re doing today is getting you closer where you want to be tomorrow

Consider if your words are complimenting your actions. If not, then you really need to set realistic goals. Since you have decided a particular course of action, allot specific time duration to it and try to stick to the deadline.
Without allocating a finite period, you will not only end up exhausting yourself but also be incapable of managing two jobs. Begin by setting daily, weekly or monthly goals. Once you start ticking your to-do list, you will be confident enough to face bigger challenges. This personal motivation is essential to your growth.

6. Most successful freelancers are those surrounded by strong supportive networks 

You can go for freelancing as an option too. In that case, there is absolutely no need to stress about doing two jobs. Time management is important along with maintaining quality.

Work location becomes no more a headache since you don’t really have to go anywhere but work comfortably sitting on your couch from home. However, this is not an easy task considering you are used to an all day job. You will need to practice self-discipline to fulfil your commitments.

Freelancing as a designer, web developer, content writer or others help in brushing your skills. It also felicitates a chain reaction where you end up meeting new people. This is how your network grows. You can easily keep in touch with everything that is trending.

7. Feedback is a free education to excellence

According to Ann Marie Houghtailing, feedback helps you aim for excellence. Even if it is bitter, it can always help you improve your work. An unbiased feedback shows you the mirror. It determines if your work is providing any value to the client.

Instead of getting disheartened by criticism, look for people who are not afraid of giving an honest opinion. It is only after listening to endless reproaches that you outshine everyone by enhancing your work.

If you want to start a side business without leaving your current job. Sign Up at EngineerBabu and get more freelance work.

The post How to start a side business without leaving your current job -EngineerBabu appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

There is a lot of information available on the internet, and it’s easy to get stunned. So, let’s clear your confusion.

6 Quick Tips to Start Freelancing Work

Here, is a quick guide for you to access the six most used tips to begin a career in freelancing work:

1.Have a public website or portfolio

The first thing that you need to mark your presence is by having a beautiful collection. When you market yourself as a freelancer, it is necessary to have a public portfolio that outlines your work, the services that you provide and which displays your past work well. To create a public impact you can do different things such as: make your public profile; i.e., Linkedin profile attractive by adding few links or documents in it.

You can even make your website where you can show your freelance work samples in a better way. Many people take tension about the web designing part. Here, you don’t need to think a lot about it as you can find numerous design templates on the Internet.

It isn’t necessary to purchase a domain name as many website builders permit you to use a free personalized extension of their URL. It’s the first step when you decide to go for the freelancing world.

2. Have a track of your accounting system

Different clients have different procedures and have their deadlines to submit invoices. Over here, you need to be careful and find an easy way out to track the amount you earn from them. It doesn’t matter if you are going for software or keeping a record on excels spreadsheet. What is important is how you document each project and how you ensure your financial bends in a row.

3. Track your progress with Project management software

When you’re managing multiple customers with various projects and deadlines, it’s sure that you will need a system to help keep you organized. To have a good start, you can have a handwritten or digital master calendar. But, if you want to put an impact, go for good project management software that will help you to keep track and monitor your progress. By doing this, your clients will know what to expect from you.

They are considered best as they provide some solutions offering essential to-do lists. Task grouping functionality is there for you. Other software lets you set reminders, modify organization methods and even enables you to track the time spent on each project.

4. Have a permanent backup solution

Running a business without having a proper data backup solution indicates that you are taking the risk of losing important as well as sensitive information. Cloud storage isn’t always perfect to recover the file that you lost accidentally. Thus, always keep some additional permanent backup solution for all data. It is essential to have as you have to deal with important clients. For example, You can try out CrashPlan, Carbonite, etc.

5. Try out video conferencing software

Freelancing doesn’t involve much of visiting the place to place. Though, exchange of email and phone calls are considered the standard method of communication, video conferencing software is the best thing to try out. Build a professional relationship, conduct face-to-face meetings with the help of this software as visiting each of your clients isn’t possible for you.

Try going for software that has chat options so that you can connect with your customers at any place.

6. Cloud-based document management

No matter what industry you are working in, you have to deal with a lot of records as a freelancer. Freelancing involves contracts, legal agreements, invoices and tax forms as well which need a secure, easily reachable place to live and to manage the client’s valuable documents.

By selecting, a cloud-based system you can access your files anytime, anywhere. To start with, you can try out Dropbox and Google Drive as they are free and are okay to go in initial stages. But, when you start gathering more customers, a more specific solution with improved abilities may prove fruitful for you.

So, try this career path once as it permits you to build expertise and take on new and exciting work for numerous businesses.

If you have ideas and looking to hire freelancers, EngineerBabu is the right platform for you. To suggest or know more about us contact at hello@engineerbabu.com

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