I'm an entrepreneur, a freelance video producer, and a blogger. I've been freelancing for now 10 years and I'm still in that journey to financial freedom. My first job was an office messenger. That was what I did after high school. My brother owns a construction company and during that time I asked him if he can give me an opportunity to do something in his business as I wait to join college and he agreed. My second job was freelancing for a newspaper. I used to like writing while still in high school. I had taken a course from the Writers Bureau in U.K. It was a correspondence course that I did online and I didn't complete it though, but during my time in college I was freelancing as a writer to the local newspaper and articles I wrote for the newspaper were for children. These were put out every week that they have for children and I did a lot of articles for children while I was in college. So my second career was freelancing and that is what actually shaped my thoughts and my perception on freelancing. I did train as a broadcast journalist back in the year 2010, where I graduated with a diploma. My current role is freelance video producer. On Upwork, a friend of mine introduced me to Elance and oDesk, I signed up for both and I started freelancing as a video producer. I manage my productions, from pre-production, production and post production. I have been able to consistently be a freelancer for now, 10 years.
I've never been employed after college. Immediately after college, I started doing entrepreneurship at the same time doing freelance and I did a mistake when I was starting up, I registered two businesses. In the year 2021, I decided to close one of the companies I had and then remained with one. That setback that actually I had to accept that the business I had was not performing and I had to accept that reality and close that company. And that closing the company, despite it was a failure, it has really helped me to focus on the second business, which is in the same niche in the video production. There are some things I need to do each week freelancing on Upwork, running my own business, TechTube Video Studio, and thirdly writing a blog post on freelancing business where I share my experience in the industry. You have to market yourself every day. I want to grow to a position where I can mentor other people to be good freelancers. Communication is vital in the freelancing business, especially when dealing with online clients, you have to communicate promptly on time. Secondly, you have to deliver quality over quantity. If you deliver quality, clients will look for you and they will refer you to other clients.
For someone who is new to the industry, I would advise them to identify a niche. For example, me, I specialize in screencast video production, I do everything from scripting, getting the voiceover, and then producing the videos. So I want people to know me as a professional screencast video producer. Of course I can do other things. Like for example, if a client is looking for animation work done for them for a 2D animation, for other things related to video production, like videography, I can still provide that. But my main, like my main line of service is trained as video production. So when you–– once you find a niche, stick to that niche and be consistent. If I'm consistently doing the same thing all the time, such that in five years from now a client contacts me and they want a video produced for them, I can do that. That is consistency and that is what makes someone succeed in something. I believe that it's possible to generate a sustainable income and become financially free from working online.
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