Dear Steemit community, I am going to tell you a little about my experience as a freelancer, how I started? what motivated me? and, how I have kept working on this until today?
My journey in this world began in 2016 after having to renounce my job as manager of a restaurant, in which the maximum I could earn in a month was 90 USD and at that time in my country (Venezuela), our currency conversion was 1,000 Bs for 1 USD; now at this precise moment the change is 752,354.88 Bs for every 1 USD.
During this period of transition, between being unemployed and looking for something to do that would generate more income than what I did in my old job, a cousin recommended me to check certain blogs and portals that spoke of freelancing as a good opportunity; Therefore, I decided to give it a chance. After a short time of researching, I came across a group of freelancers who prepared workshops on how to work in the field and offered a Webinar to explain what freelancing was about.
As a rare thing in my country, the day of Webinar I did not have internet in my house, so I had to go to a cyber. I found it quite attractive and after it ended, I ran home to tell my family how interesting it was this field of work and immediately began to put together what would be my introduction and personal image.
The start was hard, I cannot lie, I did not get any work and was on the edge to give up and find other alternatives, but persistently, sending daily proposals and improving my personal image, letters of introduction and cover letters could achieve the contracts that led me to stay on this path.
My first contract was with a German company that needed a publication translated into Spanish, that job saved my month because even though there was little I could charge, in Venezuela the change was enough. Later I obtained several more contracts with German companies that needed their content translated from German into Spanish or English; although it seems complicated to do translations, it is not that much, it does require dedication and good management of the target language, but it is not impossible.
After a short time of work, delivering everything on time and impeccable, I could already count on at least 3 clients who sent me work regularly, a woman who represented a German real estate company that was venturing into the Spanish market, another German company that sold their products by Amazon and an American who wanted to transcribe and translate all the audios he recorded during his stay in Central America for his doctoral thesis.
This is a job that makes you work with people from all over the world, to belong to projects so varied that is amazing, to know about topics that you would never investigate for yourself; this is what makes me want to continue being a freelancer, I know I have a long way to go, but I also know that if I continue I will be able to improve myself day by day.
Now, almost 3 years after having started, I have regular clients and I work for a couple of translation companies that send me work constantly, little by little I have been securing very diverse contracts and I hope to continue working in this medium for a long time.
Soon I will be publishing my experiences in this field and some recommendations or tips.
If you want to share your experience as a freelancer you can leave it in the comments and likewise if you have any questions or advice.
Best regards,
Luis Colmenares