No More Compromise

If you are to grow a successful business as quickly as possible it is important that you leverage the time and efforts of other people. This is, after all, how the biggest companies in history got so big.

But if you’re just starting out earning money on the Internet, you can act as one of those people that successful entrepreneurs can leverage. You can offer your time and effort in exchange for money. By doing this you will be able to grow your own business slowly and quietly in the background while earning money upfront doing work for other people.

As an example, it may take 3 months or longer to achieve a decent ranking in the search engines so if you are building virtual real estate on which to place Adsense, sell advertising and promote affiliate products it can take some considerable time until you actually start seeing the fruits of your labor.

However, you could make money as a freelancer alongside your main venture thus allowing you to keep afloat.

Freelancing is often billed as a way for a complete internet newbie to earn money - that you can just sign up to one of the freelance websites and you will be overrun with orders but I have to level with you - this generally isn’t the case in my experience.

There are only two types of people who succeed on the freelance sites like Elance, Guru and Rentacoder.

They are the people who are willing to work for next to nothing and so undercut other freelancers and appeal to the budget-conscious client.

Then there are the people with experience and verifiable skills, who generally charge more but offer a greater level of service, and appeal most to the client looking for quality in the finished product.

It is virtually impossible to make any decent money by becoming one of the first group. Adverts abound for people who will write 500 word articles for $1-2. For a decent writer, that sum is just insulting and to earn any decent money you will have to work for 12 hours a day or more for next to nothing. Also appreciate that suppliers in India are everywhere and with their lower cost of living they can undercut whatever your bid is and still manage to make ends meet.

Instead, what I suggest is that you focus on the second group.

Take the time and effort to set yourself up as a professional. You are still unlikely to get rich from freelancing unless you are very lucky, but you will earn far more on an hourly basis, produce higher quality work (which is more satisfying) and build up a list of satisfied clients who appreciate your efforts.

In the next part of this series we will take a look at using Elance, in my opinion the top freelance website, in order to start your own freelancing career.