Real questions from real freelancers

"I doubt I’m good enough yet to start a freelance career, I worry I need to learn more skills first."

 I doubt myself and skills, I worry I’m not good enough yet to start a freelance career. I  work with WordPress to make websites, I was thinking to add Webflow as a skill too, I always think I have to learn more skills before I start?

I wouldn’t worry about being good enough. The truth is if your starting out you’ll make a lot of mistakes and fail a lot and that’s fine.

There’s very little risk to starting, it might not work out, but it costs nothing to start so you haven’t lost anything by trying.

You don’t need to be the best, you only need to be slightly better than your competition.
In fact you don’t even need to be a better designer;
you only need to be better at communicating with the client.

RE freelancer skills…

don’t add multiple skills that do the same thing (webflow, wordpress, Squarespace).
Instead stack skills that multiply your value,
and lead naturally into each other

  • (web design + SEO)
  • (Landing pages + ads)
  • (Photography + motion design)

You don’t need skills before you start,
You start then learn the skills you need as you go.

Courses for “doing” skills like web design won’t get you far, the best way to learn is by coming across real problems for real clients in your projects, then solving them.

If you’re not sure what skills to focus on, after you have X2 valuable services under your belt, focus on learning sales it will help you grow fastest and build a safety net of profit in the early days, when clients are harder to find

Asked by

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Said

Web designer

Answered by

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Nicholas Robb

Founder, Design Hero
Author of Life by Design

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