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Invoice for freelance work for Engineering

so when I started my career it was a full-time job in a die Casting Company but soon I realized that I need to diversify my income and I started tinkering with online gigs and also freelance opportunities now I tried most of the online works and I succeeded in making money using some of my so-called Ventures and some of these Ventures just failed but nonetheless I learned a lot in this entire process and in this video I'll be sharing everything that I learned in these last few years now these things might help you generate a six figure or even more in freelance income using your Cad and Engineering skills now before I begin this I have a disclaimer there are no get rich quick schemes and the freelancing is not like working for a few hours in a week and then taking rest of the year off it's in some way more work than you would do in a regular job but you have the freedom here to choose your own working hours and your own clients so with that said let's break down the five-step process that you can follow to create your freelancing career [Music] okay so the first step is identifying and polishing your skills now in a company you have your peers to help you when you make mistakes but in freelancing you have just yourself and mistakes can be really bad for you in your freelance career so the first and the obvious step is to really know what you are talking about and you can do that simply by polishing your skills now I'm good with 2D and 3D modeling and I worked in die casting industry and learned about drawing of dice die casted components their manufacturing process and more so I knew I could do similar work as a freelancer so my core skill was 3D modeling and 2D drafting of small components for pressure die casting so my primary software of choice was AutoCAD at that time so this eventually led me to take up similar kind of work as a freelancer and I also learned as much as I can about fits tolerances Machining processes and gdnt as well even though casted Parts have comparatively loose tolerance requirements I still learned about all these skills because they were related so in a similar way you can identify your core skills and the primary software of choice and then develop your skills as an example if you are designing parts then SolidWorks AutoCAD or Fusion 360 could be your software of choice or if you are into architectural structural or electrical drawings then you can use AutoCAD Revit or other AutoCAD vertical products now for finite element analysis you can use nsys children 360 or SolidWorks and for 3D printing obviously Fusion 360 is a great choice but of course you can select other software as well so essentially based on what your core skills are identify the type of work that you can do and the software that you'll use to do that work and then learn their skills that will fill the Gap now the second step is creating your portfolio now your portfolio is like a one stop place where your potential clients can see all your projects that you have done now if you are completely new to freelancing then you probably don't have any projects and in that case you can create a few dummy projects where you'll essentially make drawings parts and case studies that are related to your work all by yourself make sure the parts you add are manufacturable and you should take care of tolerances manufacturing process and everything else of course if it is about mechanical drawings and if it is about electrical or architectural drawing just try to make it as professional as you can now don't add the simple 2D and 3D drawings that you would usually use for practice in your portfolio it will really make a bad impression and it will make your portfolio look like an immature one so don't do that if you don't know about making these drawings then learn it first by interning in manufacturing companies design firms and other places where you can get the real world hands-on experience this will also help you develop your portfolio of projects once you have worked on a few projects start listing them in your portfolio you can host this portfolio on your own website which I highly recommend by the way you can make a free website using WordPress and then there are also some other options like wistia Squarespace and well of course there are a lot of other options as well that you can select now it doesn't matter what hosting platform you are using for your portfolio what really matters is the list of projects that will eventually show up on your portfolio now you can also create your portfolio in websites like grabcad behance and even on freelance websites like Fiverr and upwork about which you learn in a moment now here is a great portfolio that my friend vishu has created for himself you can check the link to his portfolio website in the description now he's a trainer full-time freelance trainer and works on Adobe projects so as you can see he has listed his certifications then training assignments and very important thing feedback from clients now all of this is Possible only when you have your own portfolio so you can kind of bring it all together at a single place for your potential clients with this kind of portfolio now I'll discuss more about making training as a freelance carrier in my upcoming video and I have several golden nuggets from my freelance friend vishu as well which I'll include in my upcoming video so if you want to get notified when that video goes live just subscribe now and you'll get the notification okay now the third step is finding the work this is the biggest challenge now you should start with freelancing websites like Fiverr and upwork but it's not easy getting started on these websites well because there is a ton of competition out there but there are a few tips that I'll share now which you can follow to beat the competition so to begin with I'd recommend that you start with Fiverr now Fiverr is a website actually link is in the description which is easy to start for a beginner and I have been a client on Fiverr for about seven years now and I've used it to hire Freelancers for all sort of tasks from making web apps to fixing website books to creating ebooks and just everything in between now Fiverr has gig based structure where you can list your services as gigs add a service detail number of revisions that you want to give for that gig and you can provide all the other details that you can provide as a service and finally a price tag you can also create multiple gigs here for different kind of work like you can create a gig for 2D draft then you can create another one for 3D to 2D conversion and maybe one more for 3D print ready parts and another one for FEA finite element analysis and even more now another tip to succeed on Fiverr is this check the gigs that are already already performing well for other Freelancers and offer services at a competitive price with more features and revisions okay and here's the next step when working with Fiverr make sure you its mobile app so that you can answer client questions instantly and this will also help you keep your status as online and clients tend to prefer candidates that are online even I do that all the time so whenever I'm hiring for a freelancer I actually prioritize the Freelancers who are online because that way I can communicate with them in real time and there will be no waiting time for me so you can imagine why other clients will also prefer the Freelancers who are online or just at least available for answers and even if you cannot make it online well all the time which you obviously cannot then just try logging into your Fiverr account frequently that you can do of course using your app and that will ensure that your last online status stays current and the clients will eventually reach out to you because of your active status all right so the next tip is this once you get a project make sure you deliver it in time and always just always over deliver this will help you get the first few crucial reviews that will jump start your freelancing career another very important tip is doing the project research and sending a proposal only after checking the complete client requirements don't send just generic responses well they're really very easy to just figure out and your clients will spot that it's a generic response and they may not even get back to you so just make sure that you address the problems that your client has mentioned in their project requirement and show specific solutions that you can provide for your client this will also show sincerity on your part and they'll just know that you went through the exact requirements and you took the effort of understanding it and delivering your own feedback before even starting the project now after Fiverr you can try upwork and freelancer.com as well but these platforms are for bigger and more professional projects so I would suggest you complete at least a few projects on Fiverr before you make a profile on upwork and freelancer or you're going to start with a profile on upwork and freelancer but mate Fiverr as your primary focus and then shift to these two other platforms only when you are comfortable with your first few projects on Fiverr now this one is a big tip whenever you complete a project share it on social media sites like LinkedIn Twitter Facebook quora and more but specially focus on LinkedIn as your next client is most likely there now LinkedIn is a professional platform and it's very likely that your clients are already there and if they see similar projects that they are working on or maybe projects where they need help of a freelancer and if you post about a similar kind of project then it's very likely that they will hire you for that project now apart from the project related post you can also talk about challenges you faced working with your current project and what you learned in the process and you can just make it as a LinkedIn post and keep these posts coming this will keep your feed updated now once you start getting projects always deliver and develop connections with your clients and they will eventually help you win even more clients with their connections if they are happy with your work so it's important that you keep over delivering even after you've started getting projects consistently now there is one more tip that I want to share now if you found a client via social media or with your personal connections you can ask them to give you the project via Fiverr or upwork or other freelancer websites now this may seem a bit counter-intuitive but this will ensure you get paid as they'll keep the payment in escrow which all of these website sites maintain and this ensures payment security and ultimately you'll get the five star review which will help you in building your freelancer profile okay so the fourth step in this process is delivering value this is such an important step in your freelancing journey that without this your freelancing career may end even before it starts so here it is when a client reaches out to you always ask for the requirements before asking for a budget when you are starting your freelancing career you should be ready to work for way less than average and try sharing work samples related to your clients projects now if it's not a big hassle then ask your clients to share the project files and then tell them you'll make a sample for them and they can offer the project later after they are satisfied with of course your sample now I'm saying this from a client's perspective as I always tend to like Freelancers who have related projects in their portfolio or if they can share similar samples I'm not a big fan of getting free samples but it certainly helps in assessing the quality of your work that the freelancer can deliver so be ready to deliver for free in the beginning once you have a free projects under your belt gradually raise your price and go for more premium projects now there are Freelancers who are doing the same work for very little and then there are some who really have good hourly rates I'd always suggest you keep your prices on the higher side but justify the high price by over delivering the value to your clients now there is a word of caution here though don't give your clients complete work in free sample else they'll have no reason to hire you and you may lose a potential work so just a gist of what you can do for them is all they need so whenever delivering a sample instead of sending the actual the original CAD file just send them a video recording of whatever you have done that way they can see the project what you have done in the sample and still it's of no value to them but they will get a pretty good idea of what you can do for their project now the final step in this process is growing as a brand now once you have your first few clients which might take weeks or even months you will be in a pretty comfortable spot where getting new clients won't be very difficult but try not to get distracted and keep delivering value to your clients so don't take any project that you cannot deliver finally learn new skills that will help you gain clients in similar Niche and also learn marketing search engine optimization copywriting and everything that you need to keep your business up and running so freelancing is kind of like a one-man show where you are your boss your employee and well everything in between in the beginning it can be a bit overwhelming doing everything all by yourself but as you grow as a brand you can hire people to do some tasks that you can delegate and maybe even get a team for yourself so to wrap it up making a successful Online freelancing Career takes time and constant effort you won't see the results in a day and it might take weeks and even months to get your first client but have patience and just persist and you will get your first client and that will be the stepping stone in your freelancing career now if you want to develop your Cad and Engineering skills to jump start your freelancing career then check the AutoCAD Fusion 360 SolidWorks civil 3D and more courses on our platform where you can start with the self-paced recorded video courses that is fully supported by instructor-led q a forum and regular live sessions you can get access to the entire library of courses for one small monthly subscription fee and you can cancel it anytime you like so check the link in the description and pin comment as well to get started finally if you think that this video helped just give it a thumbs up and if you have comments if you have questions well let me know in the comments area down below I'll see you in the next video take care [Music] foreign