How to become a better freelancer in Nigeria

The present Nigerian workforce is filled with different categories of people making ends meet through various ways and one of such ways is through freelancing. More and more people are entering the Nigerian gig market on a daily basis and freelancing has become a force to reckon with in Nigeria. With this surge of people into the gig market, it has become important to provide tips on freelancing for newbies and oldies also. People are looking for ways to improve their skills and get better at what they do and a lot of content exists to help this. Here are five tips that will help you become a better freelancer in Nigeria.

1. Leverage on analytics to improve

If you want to become a better freelancer, one important method you can use is through analyzing your analytics. It is important to read feedbacks and act upon them, that’s how you know what is working and what is not. Analyzing data such as which people are buying your products or patronizing your services, what type of jobs they do, where they live, how they got to know about the service you render and so on allows you to know your next move and how to improve. Leveraging on analytics is simply a way to plan ahead using favourable tactics that have been seen to work.

2. Set up an office to work from

Another way you can improve yourself to be a better freelancer is by setting up a freelance office where you can work from especially if you work from home. Setting up a freelance office where you can work from will not only make your work more arranged, it will also put you in the proper state of mind for work and serve as a motivation for productivity. Instead of working at a place not designed for working such as the bedroom where you can easily get lazy and relaxed, it’s better to work at a place specifically designed for working where the environment is structured to ensure productivity. Find the design that suits you, purchase proper furniture and set up your office. It would go a long way in helping you become a better freelancer.

3. Improve your communication skills

Improving your communication skills will go a long way in helping you to be a better freelancer. As a freelancer, you would be doing a lot of communicating with clients and how good your communication skills are would be a large determinant to whether or not you would be a successful freelancer. A lot of clients have either lost interest or been put off simply because the freelancer has poor communication skills. That shows that communication skills are very important if you want to be a better freelancer. Try different methods of communication, desist from only maintaining one method of communication, also try to make your clients find it easy to reach you, it would go a long way in helping your business to grow.

4. Join a freelancing website

Joining a freelancing website or community is another way to become a better freelancer in Nigeria. It helps you keep in touch with the trends in the freelancing community, makes you know the latest happenings and freelancing tools and get general information that’ll be of benefit to your freelancing career. There are a number of freelancing websites in Nigeria that you can sign up to such as African freelancers, SourceGig, FindWorka, and Asuqu.

5. Be selective of the clients you accept

The final recommendation on how to be a better freelancer lies in the quality of clients you accept to work for. Your experience as a freelancer largely depends on the type of clients you work for. Some clients help you improve in your work while some are a pain. For freelancers that are newly starting, it is common to want to accept every client that comes your way because of the wrongful thinking that quantity is better than quality when it is the other way around. Choosing good clients would reduce a lot of the problems that may arise in your freelance career such as having to pursue clients to pay and these sort of problems can be really frustrating and tiring.

Following these five tips would set you on the road to becoming a better freelancer, all you need to add is the right amount of dedication and commitment. Did you find any of these tips useful? Share with us in the comments section and if you have any other suggestions that have worked, share them too. Thank you.