Kyle Wiebers

So, think you are ready to take on the web world and become the next freelance all-star? You better learn fast that you are swimming with sharks ready to devour you without even blinking. Before taking the plunge, be sure to polish up these six crucial skills.

Passion

This one should be obvious, if you don’t have passion for what you are doing, change what you are doing.  Passion is what I refer to as the light at the end of the dark tunnel.  You will have to have passion to get you through the rough spots.  There will be times when it’s 4:00am and you are stuck trying to get your navigation hover state to look exactly how you want it.  Passion is will help get you through the bad times and amplify the feeling during the good times.

Pursuit of Knowledge

A curious nature will be a large asset to web developers and designers.  Methods come and go in waves and your goal should be to stay on top of or ride the wave and get back out on the next one.  New methods will always be developed to solve an old problem, new code libraries will come that will solve problems faster, new things come as time goes by and wanting to actively learn these will only help you out in the long run.  Knowing different ways of solving the same problems will allow you to see a problem from different sides giving you the upper hand on choosing the best solution.  It will also help you when communicating with buzzwordy clients who think they are experts, but are just familiar with trends in development/design.

Emotional Intelligence

I have talked to too many clients who say they are worried about working with freelancers because  freelancers can’t work well with people.  This connotation is negatively reinforced by freelancers who can’t work well with people and it turns into one of those situations where the bad people ruin it for the good.  Having emotional intelligence helps out the case for the good people.  Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in your ability to communicate and work effectively in a professional environment.  If you are unable to tell what a client (or potential client) is really trying to say to you, then you are going to be hard pressed to find any work.

Work-Life Balance

This is the one skill that I struggle with the most on this list.  Being a college student with a full time part time job and then working on freelancing and developing this blog seems to take up the majority of my time.  Work-life balance is key to developing yourself as a person and ensure that you do not become your work.  Speaking from experience, as my work-life balance gets better the number of mental blocks I hit decrease and I seem to have more of the eureka moments.  Work-life balance is definitely a hard skill for lots of people in the industry, but a great work life balance will go a long ways for you.

Business Savvy

Business savvy freelancers are always more successful than their counterparts.  Understanding who are the influencers and decision makers for web content and how to grasp business politics in a quick manner are skills that will go a long ways.  You’ll find that as you work with different clients, some skills you learn are non-transferrable and will only apply to those type of clients.  Business savvy is most definitely a transferable skill that will work with bull headed law firms or small private colleges looking.  Being able to communicate what you are doing effectively in “english major” terms will be a skill that should not be overlooked.

Caffeine Addiction

Lastly and almost as important as passion, you must have a caffeine addiction  You really don’t need one of these, but it will help you as you find yourself doing work later and later into the night.  Many other freelancers I know swear by either a specific energy drink or coffee to get them through work sprints.

The Goods

I hope you work on polishing up these six skills before you start freelancing.  Having the opportunity to develop many of these skills through other real world experience was valuable to me as a freelancer.  What skills do you feel are valuable to tune before you enter into your own freelance business?  Let me know in the comments.