The Essential Freelancers Guide: 5 Must-Have Skills & Tools

In this guest post, Henry Garrison of Resume.co and ZapResume.io offers a freelancer guide that sheds light on the skills and tools that every freelancer should have in their toolkit — helping you decide if freelancing is right for you!

Freelancing is exciting and rewarding in many ways, but only if you understand how to thrive in the ever-changing, competitive business environment. This freelancer guide will encourage you to pursue your freelancing dreams by providing you with an overview of key skills and tools every freelancer needs to navigate your career successfully. We’ll explain each skill and tool in the freelancer guide list so that you know exactly why and how to use them. Let’s dive right in!

5 Crucial Skills Freelancers Should Have 

For freelancers to be successful in any industry, the following five skills are indispensable: 

1. Communication

As a freelancer, you are your own boss, administrative assistant, marketing manager, chief operations officer, and many other things. That means you communicate with many different people on many different levels, and you have to understand each of them perfectly to be able to collaborate and work with them. 

So, communication is crucial to your professional success as a freelancer, as the types of relationships you are able to cultivate with your customers, clients, collaborators, and other people in your industry determine many aspects of your work. 

2. Negotiation

Being a freelancer means you’ll have to negotiate fair compensation for your work. This doesn’t refer only to initial project fees but also to rates for revisions, adjustments, additional work, and all kinds of interventions that pop up along the way in every project. 

On top of that, regardless of how skilled a communicator you are, some misunderstandings and disagreements are always possible. Negotiation skills enable you to address and resolve such misconceptions diplomatically without jeopardizing your relationship with your clients. 

3. Hard Skills

Regardless of the industry in which you work, as a freelancer, you will inevitably face a great deal of competition. Specific hard skills are the best way to distinguish yourself from the competition and establish a reputation for expertise in a particular field. 

In addition, your hard skills guarantee the quality of your services. Clients who hire freelancers typically do so because they expect high-quality results, and specialized hard skills are instrumental in meeting such expectations. 

4. Financial Literacy

As a freelancer, your sources of income are likely to be irregular. Therefore, it is essential that you are able to successfully navigate varying income levels. That means you need to be able to budget, save, and plan for lean periods. 

Another huge aspect of financial literacy with regard to freelancers refers to tax obligations. It is essential for you to understand the local tax laws, deductions, and deadlines to avoid penalties and possible legal issues. 

Finally, you’ll probably want to have some kind of retirement plan. Financial literacy empowers you to create your own custom retirement plan or invest in some other type of long-term financial security. 

5. Self-Promotion Skills

A freelancer’s job stability depends on their ability to acquire new clients. Effective self-promotion is crucial for attracting potential clients and developing your business. 

Self-promotion increases your visibility on the market, both online and offline, while also making it easier for potential clients to reach out to you. Moreover, smart self-promotion helps you win the respect and trust of potential clients, which is crucial for successful cooperation. 

Now that we’ve covered the skills you need as a freelancer, let’s explore the best tools that can support your business. 

5 Fundamental Tools for Freelancers

From self-promotion to financial literacy, these tools cover all the essential aspects of a freelancer’s career: 

1. Resume.co

A neat and compelling resume is a freelancer’s basic means of self-promotion. Resume.co is a powerful tool for creating professional, sleek resumes that present your expertise and skills in an effective manner. 

It includes plenty of resume templates so that you don’t have to start from scratch every time you adjust your resume to meet the needs of a different client. 

This platform will also provide you with plenty of useful tips with regards to how to highlight specific skills and expertise and optimize your resume depending on the kind of client you want to impress.

2. Asana

Asana is also an important tool in the freelancer guide’s tool list as an intuitive project management system that helps you plan, coordinate, and carry out your projects with minimal stress and ambiguity. 

Freelancers typically have to juggle multiple projects at the same time. Therefore, they need exceptional project management skills or a tool that facilitates them. With Asana, you can track progress while collaborating smoothly with clients. It makes staying on track easier and allows you to organize your work efficiently. 

3. Slack

As we mentioned, effective communication skills are paramount for success in any business, and for freelancers, they are indispensable. Slack is a communication platform that allows real-time messaging, file sharing, and collaboration with clients and associates. 

This user-friendly tool enables a smooth flow of communication and helps you overcome potential obstacles typical of online communication. By staying connected and addressing client’s questions in real-time, you build the foundation for quality professional relationships. 

4. MailChimp

MailChimp is a comprehensive email marketing and marketing automation platform that can support your self-promotion in a very efficient manner. It lets you start an email list of your current customers and find new ones. You can use it to keep your business on the radar and share updates on your work and services. 

It is particularly convenient because it doesn’t require working with HTML code. You can prepare promotional emails and materials easily, without any specific knowledge or skill necessary. 

5. Paystub.org

Last but surely not least on our freelancer guide’s tool list is Paystub.org, a helpful resource that streamlines your financial management by automatically generating comprehensive pay stubs for you. It’s a very straightforward tool that helps you keep your finances organized. 

When it comes to managing finances, freelancers face unique challenges because there are many aspects of running a business that are not straightforward, ranging from income to taxes. 

These challenges can make it difficult for freelancers to keep track of their financial responsibilities. Therefore, a user-friendly tool like Paystub.org is a game-changer for busy freelancers. 

Final Thoughts 

In the dynamic world of freelancing, developing a diverse skill set and understanding which tools to use is not a luxury but a necessity that can have a significant impact on your career. 

The skills and tools included in this freelancer guide are essential, whether you are just beginning a career as a freelancer or looking to optimize the processes you already have in place. They will allow you to navigate your freelance journey with confidence and efficiency. 

Author Bio

Henry Garrison is a senior content writer at Resume.co and ZapResume.io, but he is also a guitarist, a baseball fan, and a family man. He has years of experience in the industry, and he loves challenging himself and thinking outside the box. His passion is writing high-quality content that helps thousands of people land their dream job! He has had his fair share of editing content, too, and loves to help out everyone in the team.