What Do I Need To Start Freelancing as a Teenager?

Skye Khilji:

So the next one comes from Jay Nagjee, @jaynagjee on Instagram. This guy is my little brother. I consider him my little brother. And you know, we worked in Dubai together.

I worked in his dad's company, he interned with us, we went to India every month, six or seven times in a row. And he is one of the smartest and most intelligent and talented people that have the pleasure to know. He's just turned 20. And He's scary, talented. his life's mission is film. But he also wants to create the world's greatest hamburger, the world's greatest chocolate mousse.

He's a poet, a writer, filmmaker, videographer, and a film student at Boston, in the university in Boston. I can't remember the name right now, but it will come back to me and yeah, Jay, he's just a really, really talented guy. And I recommend everybody goes and follows him @Jaynagjee on Instagram. All right, let's get Jay's question.

 

Jay Nagjee:

Hey Skye, how's it going? A little bit of context? Before my question, I want to start freelancing and helping companies grow through film.

So making advertising or corporate videos, and I've done that in the past, and I've always done it through, you know, people in my own circles, so my clients have always been people I know. And my question is, what are the different assets I would require? And what are the different steps I need to take to get myself out there and start getting clients that are outside of my network and around the world as well, so that I could, you know, remotely work anywhere the same way you are.

So you know, you have a lot of experience in that field. And I really like what you're doing here, man, so keep it up. I mean, no, chill.

 

Skye Khilji:

All right, Jay. So thank you very much. Firstly, for the kind words, what I would tell you is the assets that you need are the things that you're The audience or the people who are checking you out, are going to interact with. Number one, you're creative, you're into video studio stuff is going to be a portfolio.

So I would spend the first few months just working on awesome projects and creating things that are, you know, great. You can do them for yourself. What I would also do is I would approach businesses who need video, okay? And I would do it for free in return for case study and testimonials. And I would select the businesses who are going to be well known. So people have heard of that brand.

So it might not be Wendy's restaurant, but it could be a branch of Wendy's like for example, I've done a campaign for the Hilton Hampton Hilton in downtown Phoenix, that's just one specific franchise. But on my portfolio, I can say, you know, I've done work for Hampton Hilton, which is true. You know, it's very clear that it is a franchise, but having that brand, being somebody that trusts you to do their work. That makes a big difference.

So look at the businesses who you can leverage their credibility. Okay, there are certain businesses who have credibility. And when you do work for them, it's worth doing it for free to build an impressive portfolio and an impressive resume. So building the portfolio is first.

Secondly, you're going to need a website that looks great, because you're in the visual space, it absolutely needs to work on mobile 80% of web traffic plus is mobile, and it's only going to get more.

So I see a lot of websites I go to the desktop version looks good. I go to mobile, and it's all screwed up. And that's a fundamental mistake that you can't come back from. So make sure that looks good. And, you know, you can just use a template from themeforest or buy a theme from WordPress or even get one for free.

But visually things need to be impressive. The next thing I would tell you is those assets being in place. It's really about connecting with people. So the other assets you need are attention assets. One is a group piece of content that you give away for free. That solves a lot of problems, I would recommend you go and look at skyscraper content. It's a strategy, where you figure out what is the best stuff on a topic, and you find a way to top it to make it better.

If the current skyscraper in, you know, videos for business is 10 foot high, you create a piece of content, there's 20 foot high, you go beyond and further and deeper than anybody ever has before, you'll start getting attention.

Once that piece of content is done, I would be boosting it in Facebook. And I would boost it in a way that only people who are potential clients are going to see that. So they see a piece of content. That is you solving a problem for them and giving and you happen to be a videographer. And you start building a relationship with them. When they like your post. They like your page, now they start seeing you in their feed.

So it's really about as every answer in this podcast, create value for other people and then push that out and get you know people aware of it. Then, you know, once they're aware of it, just keep feeding them that good stuff. And you can then reach out to people the answer I gave earlier for my code in this episode about reaching out via LinkedIn, that definitely works.

And you know, it's really just going to be about everyday doing something. So in Upwork, Miriam and I probably apply for five to 10 jobs a day. So if you look at that over a month, there's 300, 310 jobs a month. And I probably get, say, 30 of them that go to a kind of an interview discussion stage, and 10 of them become projects, and we're good. So you know, I know that the numbers are such that we need to be doing something every day to win new projects. So go on to the freelance sites, apply for projects every day. also reach out to businesses to do case studies every day.

Go on to LinkedIn, find the companies in your area and just send them a DM and you know, in the beginning, just do a low cost to get some projects in and as your portfolio grows and your feedback grows, you'll start to be able to come on to higher fee, people will start referring you.

And you'll actually get more work from the people that you did the first project for. That's something that always always happens. So don't look at it as one project. Look at it as building a relationship. I hope that helps, Jay.