In our last article, Search Remotely offered seven reasons why it might be best to enter the remote job market through freelancing.
An article in Forbes, citing data from the freelancing platform, Fiverr bears this out. The data show 2023 trends to indicate that almost 80% of the companies surveyed would rather rely upon freelancing than adding new permanent fulltime or part time staff.
And, if you are thinking that freelancing is just for workers looking for parttime gigs, money to supplement their income, think again! Freelancing can become lucrative. Working as a solo, independent contractor can turn into a full-time profession, career or business.
Full time Remote Work Freelance Market is Growing !
Don’t believe what we are saying? Just look at the data and follow the money!
Freelancers working full time represent one-third of the total number of freelancers (about 22 million) in the marketplace. MBO Partners estimates that the number of people in the US who embarked upon a freelancing journey increased by almost 60%!
So as a potential freelancer on the lookout for remote job tasks for which to bid or quote, you have two options.
- Create a profile on several of the freelancing platforms and test the waters by entering the freelance market part time.
- Develop a plan for long term success as a full time freelancer.
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A reason for opening a part-time business could be because you don’t have enough hours in the day to pursue it full-time. Either you are already working full time, you are a caretaker, you may have ill health, or you are in or nearing retirement. Perhaps you just want to earn a little spending money as you relax on the beach drawing down your trust fund?
A reason for starting your own online business as a freelancer is that you want the freedom to do what you want, when you want. You may also have found, based on experience, that you could definitely earn a lot more, add more value and have more flexibility working on your own.
Either way, it’s impressive to go after what you want – and the good news is, even building a business part-time, you should start to see good results quickly from your efforts if you plan it out properly.
In the article, we will provide information to help you in your pursuit of answers.
Part time Remote Job with Former Employer
If you like the guidance, structure, and support offered under the banner of traditional employment, working as a part time freelancer for one company may be the best option for you. While you will have the freedom and flexibility to go your own way; as a part time freelancer, with one particular company (perhaps former employer), their unwritten and informal guidance to you can not go unnoticed. When you work as a part time independent contractor for a former employer or a company with whom you have a solid relationship, they will often give you guidance and direction on:
- Identification of individual tasks required for completion
- Process templates
- Benchmarks and milestones
- Immediate feedback and correction
Sometimes the relationship is so tight that they will provide you with the necessary supplies, materials and background history and documents on how the task was completed before your arrival.
If you have the opportunity as a freelancer working on a remote job assignment for a former employer, snap up the chance. And quickly!
Think of the cost savings. There will be no need to re-invent the wheel. Plus you will have a ready reference to use when ever you expand your part time gig to full time as you seek additional clients. Please take a look at a few of the top paying remote jobs. These occupations may open the door for a lucrative career as a remote freelancer.
The Highest Paying Remote Jobs
If you think working part time is a viable option for you as you embark on a remote, work from home career, there are professions that are higher demand than others. For instance, Upwork identified the following remote jobs for freelancers and independent contractors:
- Copywriter and Editor
- Web designer, Web Developer and Photographer
- Digital Marketing Consultant and Social Media Manager
- Data Analyst and Business Consultant
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What if your former employer did not offer you a golden parachute? You still may have a future as a part time freelancer working on remote job task assignments. But first, let’s take a look at the different online business models.
Which Online Business Models Work Best for Part Timers?
There are several options from which to choose. Can one definitely say that an option is better than the other for part time gigs? Not necessarily. But sometimes it can interfere, depending on the business model and your schedule.
For example, you might not be able to pursue a service-oriented business life writing content for other bloggers, ghostwriting novels, designing visual graphics, analyzing business statistics, or developing a website if you never know exactly how much time you’ll have to work on your business.
It’s possible that your life is hectic and you’re pursuing this as a “when I have a few spare moments” goal. That’s perfectly okay, too! You just need to find something that fits your schedule so that you don’t wind up with angry clients and customers because you didn’t meet a deadline.
If you do have set hours and you know that you have exactly 2 hours a day to put into your business and that you can write 5 pages of content, then you can figure out a delivery schedule for ghostwriting, for example – and you wouldn’t be putting your business reputation at risk.
You also want to allow for physical and mental exhaustion. If you’re already stretched to the gills with work and life and trying to supplement your income with a part-time endeavor online, then you might want something where it comes easy to you – not something that you struggle to learn and master.
Blogging is a great business model because it enables you to work when you can and pull in a variety of profits. For example, your income can be derived on a blog from:
- Banner ad revenue
- AdSense links
- Tangible affiliate reviews
- Digital affiliate reviews
- Your own info product creations (like eBooks)
The great thing about schedules is that blogging allows you to schedule blogs ahead of time, so if you have more time on one day, you can queue up a few days’ worth of blog posts and let them automatically go live without you having to log in and publish them. Podcasts and setting up a YouTube channel, as well as serving as a Social Media Manager allow for pre-scheduling too.
You can schedule video shoots, explainer videos, social media posts, uploads and networking tweets on most of the major platforms well in advance. Why not spend 18 hours on the weekend creating content and scheduling the broadcasting of the content to occur throughout the week.
Get her done!
Coaching, tutoring, advising on business strategies and marketing plans, on the other hand, may or may not be a good business model for you because it requires you to be available at certain times of the day. If you’re already employed during the day and planning to work on your part-time business at night, that may not work for your clients – or it could be perfect timing! It depends on the niche and each individual’s needs.
Another approach may be start and grow a membership site and subscription service. Membership platforms can bring in quite a bit of money for you – and it doesn’t require you to be there daily except to make sure things are running smoothly. You can create an entire membership ahead of time that drip feeds to your customers when they sign up. Then you can spend the bulk of your work hours on marketing and promotion.
Things like affiliate marketing can work too, but many influencers report that affiliate marketing works best when you have identified the right partner. Information and product development are all easy to pursue as a part-time work-at-home individual. You write when you can (usually on the weekends) – even on your lunch hour at work – and publish whenever something is completed.
Which Tasks Should You Do in Your Part-time Hours?
Deciding which tasks to work on in a limited amount of time can make you feel stressed. But it’s easier to manage than you might think. You basically have four branches of your business:
- Creation
- Promotion
- Traffic
- Analysis
You should be creating something in your business. That could be a piece of new content that reviews a product, an eBook, a viral report that you plan to launch with money links in it, etc.
Once created, you’ll be focusing on promoting your online pages. The most successful entrepreneurs are those who don’t stop at task #1 – they’re the ones who really dig into the promotional aspect of their business and build a brand and a buzz for their business.
You can do that through social marketing (like using TikTok, Linkedin, Reddit, Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). You can also write press releases, participate in forums, and comment on blogs to help promote your business.
There’s a difference between promotion and traffic, although some entrepreneurs use the terms interchangeably. Promotion is how you develop a name for yourself. It’s how you engage people and create loyal customers.
Traffic is the mere act of getting your target audience to your site so that they can build that connection with you and convert into paying customers. Traffic can be achieved through your promotions (like when you Tweet a link to your site), but you can also use different methods.
If you’re building a list of subscribers, you always want to notify them whenever you have something new up. This includes blog posts, reviews, and even new products for sale.
You can also purchase advertising for traffic using things like Pay Per Click ads on Google, or by purchasing solo ads that go out to another marketer’s list of subscribers.
The analysis is something that never ends. Some people never tackle this task – and subsequently, their business doesn’t achieve the most success that it could if they’d just paid attention to the details.
You need to analyze what you’re doing online and always look for ways to:
- Improve your products
- Increase your traffic
- Heighten your conversion rate
For example, if you have sales copy for one of your own info products, you want to always be split testing to see how one element performs against another one. You’ll have two identical copies of the same sales letter – with just one item slightly different so you can see which one outperforms the other.
It might be something as simple as the color of your text, or a headline change. Maybe the font or image you’re using will make a difference. Everything should be tested and tracked over time.
Tools and Tips That Make Your Part-time Efforts Easier
As someone who has fewer hours to work on your business, you need tools and ideas that help you take formidable shortcuts in your business. Consider investing in tools like keyword research tools that help you pick out profitable words and phrases you can hone in on without doing much guesswork with a freebie tool.
Use quality products right away, like top hosting and email autoresponders. You don’t want to have to migrate everything from a free option to a well-paid version later.
Set up a system through a tool like Download Guard where you can take payments and automatically deliver products without having to be at your computer 24/7.
Part-time entrepreneurs often perform better than full-time marketers do – for the sheer fact that they know their time is limited, so they use a laser-focused approach to completing their tasks whenever they get the opportunity!
