Here is a list of the most common problems or obstacles to self-employment:
1. The problem of absolute freedom
Absolute freedom to manage your time in the way you choose, and to complete your work in the way you see fit is one of the most famous problems of self-employment, which causes a lot of time lost, lack of commitment to work, and loss of customer satisfaction.
2. Pricing problem
How do I price my work? What is the correct way to set prices for my business? How can I as a beginner who desperately wants money deal with the pricing element? When can I lower prices? And when should it be lifted?
All of these are important questions, and you have to have enough knowledge and experience to deal with them, so I’ll put a section on them in this guide later.
3. Health problems
Did you know that one of the most common problems among freelancers from home is back pain and neck pain?
Of course, you do not want to work for two or three years, after which you stop working due to health problems, so you have to take the health aspect into consideration in your life as a Covery Lancer.
For a complete list of the most important freelance problems, how to deal with each one of them, and practical solutions based on the experiences of the most famous freelancers in the world, see the lesson in the link below:
What are the most common problems in self-employment?
I had dealt with pricing above as one of the problems of self-employment, and here I will address it in a separate point in detail, because it is one of the very important aspects in the world of self-employment.
First, let us agree that pricing in the freelance world is very flexible, and depends on many things, the most important of which I will present to you:
The most important pricing criteria for self-employment
1. The area you specialize in as a freelancer
Freelancing includes many fields, as we mentioned above, and there is a disparity in prices between some fields, for example, those working in the field of programming get higher returns than those working in the field of writing or translation.
2. The nature of the customer and the size of his budget
If you are a logo designer, for example; A customer who owns a small restaurant will never pay like a company, which in turn will not pay like a big brand wants to renew its logo.
Note: The country in which the customer lives also makes a difference in the price. A customer from Egypt will not pay often like a customer from America.
3. Your skills and experience
By analogy with the same racing example; The big brand will not assign the task of designing a logo to a novice designer, but will make sure that the task is given to an experienced designer, with a large amount of skills, experience and a good work history.
4. Your availability of work
If you have a lot of projects that you are working on, then you can have more freedom to reject projects whose owners are not paid well, but in case you do not have any projects to work on, you have to accept what is available… This is better than stopping work completely.
5. The way you work with the customer
There is more than one way to work with the business, and they differ among themselves in the method of pricing. For example, if you work with a client through freelance platforms, here the platform’s pricing system will have an important role in pricing. The strength of your account on the platform will also limit you to a certain average price.
But if you work with the customer directly, here there will be more flexibility in pricing, and mostly the price will be determined based on the outcome of the negotiation between you and the customer.
6. How difficult the task is
If you are a website developer and a client asks you to create a website with normal specifications… is this the same in price with another website with complex specifications and advanced features? The answer is of course no.
Therefore, you have to raise the banner of the Capri Lancer; Tell me exactly what you want, and then I will tell you the right price to do it!
Now that you know the most important criteria on which the price is determined in self-employment, let’s get acquainted with hourly pricing versus project pricing.
