How NOT to Screw Up as a Freelance Stay-at-Home Mom

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A freelance stay-at-home mom job can be a dream come true! IF you have the self-discipline, dedication, and organization to get established, stay on track, and hustle.

Freelancing is not for someone looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. And it’s not meant for people who want to work short hours and make big bucks – at first. Keep reading to discover what mistakes NOT to make to become a successful freelancer who can make a lot of money staying at home.

What is Freelancing?

Sometimes being a freelancer feels like an endless stream of panic and confusion. image credit: @sarandipity’s

Freelancers work for themselves and offer services to others for payment. They are not an employee for others. When a client hires you, they are hiring your services, but you can’t claim any benefits as an employee of the company.

That means no insurance, paid time off, or vacation pay. If you get sick and can’t work, you don’t get paid. And if you don’t have steady clients that will wait for you to recuperate, you won’t have any income once you’re on the mend.

Starting over with new clients constantly can become exhausting and do a real number on your self-confidence.

What Kind of Jobs Can Freelancers Do?

You can offer plenty of freelance services, most of which allow you to work remotely. Freelancing is the perfect opportunity for stay-at-home parents, students looking to make extra cash through a side hustle, or people who find themselves wanting to quit their current job and start their own business.

6 easy jobs to do as a freelancer
image credit by:@sarandipity’s

Potential freelancing jobs to do working at home include

• writers
• photographers
• website designers
• digital artists
• social media marketers
• virtual assistants

Freelance Writing – It’s What I Do

One of the most common – and easiest – ways to make money at home is by being a Freelance Writer.

I am a freelance stay-at-home mom, content creator, and blogger. But I also ghostwrite – when clients pay me to write content that doesn’t get added to my portfolio or credited to my name.

Working for other clients is the best way to get your portfolio started to get recognition. But don’t put all your eggs in one basket! Choose several clients and sites, and save time to work for yourself.

To become a successful freelancer, avoid these five beginner freelancing mistakes. Need a freelancing job? Contact me for potential writing opportunities! I’m currently accepting guest bloggers for several niches!

5 Biggest Mistakes Made by Freelancers

Mistake 1

Paying for access to job boards, private email lists, or “Secret” clients.

I started my writing career as a romance novelist in the early 2005s. Read more about my journey to freelance greatness here! And I turned my career path towards freelance content writing nearly a decade ago.

Early in my freelance writing career, I made typical career mistakes. A huge freelance writing error was believing that the only way to get good jobs is to pay experts to tell me where to find them.

Over several years, I spent thousands of dollars I couldn’t spare to find the dream job to launch my freelance writing career.

Unfortunately, I can honestly say that I never once found a paying client from any website, mailing list, or job board that required me to pay for access. Save your money! Every successful collaboration I’ve had came from somewhere free.

Here are four of my best FREE places to find freelance jobs for beginner writers, photographers, website designers, digital artists, social media marketers, virtual assistants, and other stay-at-home careers.

• Indeed
• LinkedIn
• Pro Bloggers (the majority of my long-term clients came from this site, and I still regularly check it when I’m looking for a quick gig or inspiration for new clients)
• Fiverr

Mistake Two

Choosing the wrong freelance platforms and clients.

Another nearly career-destructive move I made at the beginning of my freelance writing transition was working for the wrong platforms.

My first experience with a client that paid for my writing services was through a cheap content mill website. I made less than a penny a word. And I had to copy someone else’s stories without including crucial freelancing writing tools, like SEO, original content, formatting, or linking. I still retain a horrid copy from a non-payment piece.

Don’t stoop to this level of desperation! Within months, I was feeling the burnout that comes with a job that you KNOW isn’t right for you.

Besides not having any creative freedom and being severely underpaid, I discovered that I wouldn’t get any recognition for my work. Not even a review, a star rating, or a private message of thanks.

I was overworked and barely brought home more than $100 a week – for over 50,000 words! It wasn’t working.

When you’re not freelancing the right way, you can experience burnout.
image credit: @sarandipity’s

Mistake Three

Working without thought of the future.

After much contemplation, I decided that my dream of being a successful stay-at-home freelance writer wouldn’t be a reality. I didn’t have anything to prove I deserved to be a paid freelancer.

So, I started to search job boards and career sites for open positions near me. As a single mom with four kids to support, it was time to surrender to the inevitable. I would have to find a job working outside the home. Goodbye, stay-at-home introvert momma.

Waitressing or bartending were my first thoughts on how to make the most money after not “working” for the last eighteen years. – A major downside of being self-employed as a freelancer.

And then, I discovered the career break I needed. When I found the Pro Bloggers Job Board, I suddenly had access to several clients in my wheelhouse of expertise. Customers who wanted to pay me to write! Or so I thought.

I ended up working for cheap digital content agencies, where I made pennies for hours of work. But I was bringing home enough to scrape by with the bare minimum. And I received essential training that I otherwise would have had to pay big bucks to learn.

Honestly, it was worth the tradeoff for me, but there wasn’t much in the way of FREE resources like there are today. But it was another stepping stone in my freelance career journey.

Because when I wanted to start finding better-paying jobs, I discovered the major issue with my path. I was writing dozens of pieces of content and growing a diverse range of expertise.

But none of my work got credited to my name. As the term ghostwriter implies, I was invisible to potential clients. Despite the last three years, 300+ articles, and 783,947 words written, I didn’t have any writing samples to show that I had any writing skills.

Even worse, I didn’t have clients who would vouch for any skills needed to be a successful freelancer working from home. I was SOL.

Failure is not an option. Do what you gotta do to get ahead and stay there.
image credit: @sarandipity’s

Mistake Four

Don’t limit your services to one client or company. Diversify!

I spent so much time working for one digital content agency covering dozens of different topics that I didn’t have time to find other clients.

So, I ended up with zero writing samples and no established niches, repeat clients, reviews, recommendations, or plans for the future.

Back to square one – I once again visited several job boards with a new goal. Find clients to form long-term repeat business.

While I didn’t have any writing examples to display, I had something just as good. The motivation most clients need to give you a chance to show your stuff if you don’t have references or samples is to offer a freebie!

I started browsing through posts, applying for positions that aligned with the niches I’d become an expert in with a simple formula:

• Short personal introduction
• Brief mention of my extended writing career as a novelist and magazine columnist with links to validate my claims
• Personalized breakdown reply of each part of the client’s response
• Using each section to show my expert knowledge, writing skills, and personal voice
• Define my NICHE! Define your niche with this helpful planning kit!
• Drop in other skills or areas of expertise that might pertain to the topic or could be of use to the client
• Offer to complete a FREE trial piece to demonstrate my skills
• Attach my updated resume, which includes my qualifications and certificates for SEO, affiliate marketing, grammar, and formatting. (Indeed lets you take certification tests to display on your resume for specific career paths.)

Grind and hustle until you get where you want to be, and then go some more. image credit: @sarandipitys

I also found several useful companies that led me to my first decent-paying clients. Fiverr and Freelancer are two services I frequently use to find work and contract workers to help with my side businesses.

And even better, I was getting bylines and recognition for my work! I thought I’d finally made it. But I wasn’t making the big bucks.

Mistake Five

Not getting exposure to your brand.

Then it dawned on me why more experienced freelance writers warned away from digital content agencies and working for other people.

I was competing with non-speaking third-world country writers and people using AIs. Both writing sources are much cheaper than an experienced SEO writing expert. And while I was competing with computers, I was also setting my career back. All of my work was anonymous. No one knew who I was any more than they knew the computer that wrote that high-ranking fluff you’re trying to outrank.

Now, I’m not knocking using AI to supplement your workload. When you finally get to the point where you run several niche-specific sites and work with affiliate marketing and brand ambassadorships, an AI program can save you hours of time and effort.

Not that you get to enjoy it because you should be busy marketing your services on social media, creating Pinterest pins and graphics, expanding your skills with podcasts, online courses (see my five FAVS at the end of this post), webinars, and attending summits.

And when you’re not doing that, you should be busy building your brand and making passive income.

Check out my trippy experience getting lost in the artificial intelligence world in my review of the 6 Best AI Programs to Use to Have a Successful Freelance Writing Career.

The steps to becoming a successful freelancer
image credit@sarandipity’s

Necessary Freelance Tools

When I started freelance writing over a decade ago, there weren’t nearly as many business tools. And honestly, that might have been good – for me, anyhow.

I tend to get excited and distracted by all the tools and resources at my disposal. Like Alice, when she goes down the rabbit hole, I find and test every alternative once I get an idea of a new useful tool. Or at least I want to and definitely try.

After years of testing and investing and wasting money, I’ve found that the four most crucial tools for my freelance business are:

• Grammarly (you can do the free version, but I definitely recommend the paid option when you can afford it. You can use it for ALL of your writing)
• Copyscape – nothing makes you look more unprofessional than stealing someone else’s work. Not to mention plagiarism is a crime. You can use this AI tool to scan your words to ensure they aren’t the same as someone else’s. There’s a big difference between impostor syndrome and plagiarising!
• Hemingway Editor – completely FREE! This tool is exceptional for polishing your text to remove fluff, adjectives, passive voice, and hard-to-read sentences.
• Google Docs – Google Docs shares a lot of similarities with Microsoft Word. But it’s free, and you can share the document directly with other people. And they can see and make edits in real-time for instant collaboration.
  • If you’re a fan of Google Docs, you can also use Google Sheets (like Microsoft Excel), Google Slides (PowerPoint), and Google Drive to keep your files organized and protected. Google Calendars and Gmail can help keep your schedule and communications in sync.

My current resource distractions? OMG there are several! These are my five favorite FREE courses for increasing the chances of becoming a successful freelance work-from-home small business owner.

• 5-Day Pinterest Bookcamp
• The Quick Start Guide to Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
• Naturalpreneur Business School
• Slay Your Content
• 30-Day Summit Bootcamp

Be sure to subscribe to find out how to make the most out of this last 4th quarter of the year so you can put some money in the bank.
Image credit @sarandipity’s

I’m also trying out this awesome FREE challenge by Ultimate Bundles – Plan 90 Days of Content in One Week! If you’re struggling to fill your blog, I recommend trying this email course out.

Interested in discovering how I’m finding all of these cool FREE resources? First, I found some awesome bloggers and online-biz owners to follow.

And then I’ve started participating in really helpful events like the Rebel Bosses summit going on next week. Join me for an entire week of helpful virtual conferences, expert speakers, and industry secrets. Get the most out of the summit with the All Access Pass.

I’ll have giveaways coming soon. I’m now part of the BlogAbout Blogger Network. Join me if you’re a blogger looking to increase traffic!