#007: Understanding Freelancing Niches & Categories
Welcome to the freelancing marketplace podcast. Your freelancing guide delivered your brand online remotely. And now here’s your host, Grace Locsin.
Hi there, how are you guys doing? I hope that you have been enjoying our topics here in this podcast, I would like to officially welcome you to today’s episode here in the Freelancing Marketplace Podcast. This show is dedicated to freelance marketers and business owners who desire to leverage their online presence through freelancing. Today we will be talking about understanding Freelancing Niches and Categories.
What are the niches that you can start with as a freelancer or a newbie in the freelancing industry? And what are the niches that you can be established as well, later in this show, I’m going to be sharing the freelancing Tip of the Week and my key takeaways
The Freelancing Niche is an essential component when you’re starting your freelancing career. It is because when you don’t know what your niche is, and you’re not as specific as possible, it’s not sure what you’re going to brand yourself as a freelancer. So identifying your freelancing niche and understanding what category it might be in is significant. So later on, when you’re going to set up your whole freelance branding into your social media presence, applications, or websites, you know where to focus since you already understand your very niche, and what category you’re in, wherein you can flourish from there.
So when it comes to understanding your freelancing niches, there are niches that you can start with and can be established. Because oftentimes, after teaching and coaching 1000s students in freelancing I have already experienced that a lot of you guys don’t have the niche that you’d like to be established when you’re starting. Now, let me help you categorize the niches that you’d like to pursue in your freelancing career and the niches that you can start with. And later on, when you are a little bit more familiar with how freelancing works, you’re going to be more pinpointed and targeted to the niches that you can establish yourself as a freelancer.
When we’re talking about niches that you can start with this can be according to these three skills:
- Skills that you have prior experience with.
- Skills that you know how to render to clients. So these are services that you already have prior experience with, maybe offline or online.
- Skills that you are learning in your training right now. So these are niches you can start with so it can be skilled.
Skills that you have prior experience with
So maybe when you were in high school, you experienced how to do feature writing or article writing or news editing, or probably you were the head of your school paper or you’re a part of the team. So you know how to render this to your clients. Because you have prior experience. Maybe when you were in the offline world, maybe you’re in the corporate world right now on you’re already doing merchandising, you’re doing online bookkeeping or offline bookkeeping, you’re maybe using a certain application, like, maybe you’re already familiar or using certain applications or software like QuickBooks, or Pinterest or Facebook page, maybe you’re into online selling, so you have prior experience with social media or financial. To identify what those services are? Or what are the skills that you have right now in your hand? And those are niches that you can start with as you start freelancing.
Skills that you know how to render to clients
Even if you don’t have prior experience, maybe you encountered what that you learned in the past when you were in high school, or in college. Like probably PowerPoint presentations, writing or you work on a certain project and in that project, you were able to learn how to do project management. So it may be a prior involvement or a recently learned experience because you went online free certification or online free training in the websites are different websites and you gain knowledge. So once you have identified that, you come up with a way to render that skill. This can be a niche that you can focus on as a freelancer. So again, it can be recent training or knowledge that is already a part of you. You might think it’s not relevant in the freelancing marketplace but actually, it can be a niche or a skill that you can start with as a beginner.
Skills that you are learning in your training right now
A lot of you guys are familiar with Surge Digital Agency which provides online training. Or probably are enrolled in another online training, or you went into a certification process via Google garage, or analytics or HubSpot, or other websites that are offering free training. These can be social media search engine optimization, email marketing, graphics, design, video editing, web design, podcast, management, and marketing, it may be anything under the sun that you are going through right now or taking right now as part of your training. These could also be niches that you can start with freelancing. Again, this can be skilled with your prior experience, or this can be skills that you’re ready to render to clients right now because it’s a stock knowledge or skills that you are learning wherein you can start with.
Eventually, you might want to consider and would love to shift into another niche that you can focus on and provide quality service or can establish as a freelancer.
What are the services I can start with? Is this a skill that I can also focus on? Is this a skill that I can establish myself online and gain authority and build my online presence, or I’d like to change over into another one. Adapting into another niche that you really like, maybe Clickfunnels, real estate, brand marketing, and advertising, human resource, or whatever it may be, you need to decide on what skills that you can start with and what are skills that you can establish yourself.
Freelancing Tip of the Week
This freelancing Tip of the Week is a quote by Edward Gibbon. “Our work is a presentation of our capabilities.”
So when we are starting to consider our niches, make sure that when we are building this later on, in our discussions, in the next few episodes after these, make sure that you are building with quality, because it’s a representation of the capacity of your capability. If you are doing the whole setup thing and coming into the freelancing world, with just a so-so or quote-unquote “bahala na” mindset. A lot of Filipinos would go and just render or jump into the freelancing world without a plan. And without really the mindset of quality, you’re not willing to be competitive, because again, according to the quote, our work is a presentation of our capabilities. So if your website has a lot of portfolios, has a lot of social media links has a lot of SEO applications, or what are the things that you have learned from your coaching sessions or from your online training, maybe with FVA, or free training, the client will visit your online presence or will look at your resume. And we’ll check what are the capabilities or what are the things that you can go and give and serve by the output that you are sending to clients. So if it’s just a simple biodata or a simple resume, without the online presence, without creativity and quality output that actually represents who you are then that will also represent that you’re not willing to put an effort, you’re not doing an extra mile, you’re not adding quality and a lot of your abilities may be missed out. You’re probably a simple person. So go ahead and present something that’s really simple, but the value and the content are there.
Let us say you’re also a very creative person. So you’re going to be adding lots of jobs, lots of animations, you’re even presenting a video or a PowerPoint presentation when you’re sending your proposal. And it’s going to be different for each applicant. But whatever your application may be or your online presence, it reflects who you are. So when we are considering identifying our niche and really go into different categories where we’re in, make sure that you have this in mind.
In this episode, the key takeaways for me are there is no fixed when it comes to freelancing. It is a journey. One time we had this river cruise with my husband and me and some of our friends. And there were some really good highlights where we bumped into these big rocks and we would go downhill. Okay, we would be underwater, you were in this rubber boat. So we went river rafting and it was fun. It was just a journey where the waters just came through, we’re not interrupted. So there were no big rocks and all. But in those moments as well, those sorts of times, we really enjoyed the scenery around us. We were able to look into wild bees, wild monkeys visited some underwater tunnels. We were able to really appreciate nature on the journey. Yes, there were exciting moments again, during the rapids, when your whole water wrath, you would go up and down and up and down and probably be underwater and even go up. Those were fun. But when it comes to the whole journey of it, you will enjoy the whole adventure because of the usual thing of just being in that boat and appreciating the scenery around. And if you’re going to really count what are the things that you experience in the journey, it’s a mix of the usual things, quote, unquote, the journey, and also and the highlights when there are rapids along the way. So in freelancing, it’s the same. It’s a journey.
There are areas where we’re having all of these highlights, we’re having some struggles, but oftentimes, you need to look around you with everything you steal, everything is just calm, everything is just in your routine. Because those are the very moments that you will really find peace and will appreciate what’s going on. Again, it’s going to be a journey and adventure. And it’s composed of the highlights, the exciting things, the challenges, the winds, the victories, but oftentimes, it’s just going to be a normal journey into one client after the other one project after the other one niche of 30. Others are transitioning to being a seasoned freelancers, but overall that will make the whole journey worth it.
Whatever niches you’re in whatever categories you’re in, look at freelancing as a complete adventure in your life, that you can appreciate whatever you’re going through every day, because the moments that you are in with your family, with your spouse with the trills or the mundane of freelancing that overall, is the beauty of freelancing.
Thank you so much for being with me in this seventh episode of The Freelancing Marketplace Podcast. I would love to connect with you so please go ahead and follow or connect with us on our different social media sites at Surge Digital Agency. You can also check out our website Surge Digital Agency and hire or screened and experienced virtual assistants. Thank you so much for reading. I will see you in the next episode.