FBP 012: Freelancing to The Next Level with Stef Gonzaga of The Freelance Pinoy (Part 1)

The Freelance Pinoy has been one of my inspirations and resources when I was first thinking about creating Freelance Blend back in October of 2013. At first, I was thinking that The Freelance Pinoy website will be a competitor of Freelance Blend in the Philippine freelance niche, but I quickly thought to myself that, in fact, The Freelance Pinoy could actually be complementary to Freelance Blend and we could work hand in hand in serving the Pinoy freelancer. (It did help that we belong to the same alma matter, DLSU!)

And so I was glad that the lovely founder of The Freelance Pinoy website, Stef Gonzaga, happily obliged to be interviewed by yours truly. While doing the interview, I realized that both of us have the same mission — to help current and neophyte freelancers maximize their potential and to lead them to take their freelance business to the next level. During the interview, because we were both so engrossed discussing about our passion – helping freelancers – , we did not realize that we exceeded an hour and a half, my longest episode so far.

That is the reason why I decided to split the interview into two episodes. This will give you more time to absorb all the information that was shared by Stef for this episode, Part 1, restart your brain, then take in more information from Stef in Part 2 (Episode 13). (I will not be surprised if you keep pressing the rewind button from time to time.)

Part 2 (Episode 13) comes out next week.

Here are the important learnings that you will get from Part 1:

Key Takeaways

How being a “pasaway” at age 16 led Stef Gonzaga to a freelance writing career in college. (Note: Can anybody translate “pasaway” in English for me please?)
How she discovered Odesk while still in college.
Starting a free blog for struggling Odesk newbies.
How she got featured in Odesk’s newsletter.
Why she transitioned from a free WordPress blog to an official blog with her own domain.
Why she never worked at a full time job ever and why she doesn’t regret it.
Why freelancing is not a walk in the park.
How she dealt with the pressure to work in a corporate environment from her family and friends and what she did to convince them.
The cons of freelancing.
The employee mindset of most people who start a freelancing career and why that mindset should be changed.
What scares people about freelancing.
The 3 most popular questions that she gets from freelancers.

1. How do I find clients?

2. How do I sustain myself with freelancing?

3. How do I get paid?

How to pay taxes as a freelancer.
How not to get intimidated by competition in freelance marketplaces.
The importance of being creative in your approach to clients.
How to position yourself as a benefit when applying for jobs.
How showing interest in the client (background, website, etc.) sets you apart from others.

Resources and Links

Jobstreet
Odesk
Elance
WordPress.com – Free blogging tool
http://thefreelancepinoy.com/freelanceblend (Special link created by Stef Gonzaga for Freelance Blend listeners about the blog posts mentioned during the show).
Direct links to the blog posts mentioned:
TheFreelancePinoy.com
@tfpinoy (Twitter)
/thefreelancepinoy (Facebook)

Quote Unquote

On the blog: “This is really my baby. When you think about it, it was really my baby and it’s been awesome to see it grow throughout the years.”

“Freelancing isn’t easy and it takes a lot of work.”

“I told myself that this is what I wanna do and I haven’t looked back ever since.”

On pressure from family and friends: “I know that a lot of freelancers experience this as well, they experience this kind of challenge and really it’s just being confident. Having faith in what you do and having confidence in what you do. And that’s all that matters.”

“When you think about it actually freelancing is really running your own business.”

“Finding clients, there’s actually a lot of places that you can go to. It’s landing the clients that’s the challenge.”

On how clients select freelancers: “They are not going to care if you are a summa cum laude, they are not going to care if you are hard working or if you wake up early in the morning…They only care about what you can do for them.”

Again this is Part 1 of our 2-part interview with Stef Gonzaga of The Freelance Pinoy. Please tune in next time for Part 2, Episode 13 of the Freelance Blend Podcast. Thanks for listening!

Dear Freelancer, What scares you about freelancing and how did you conquer that fear? We would love to hear your story. Please share in the Comment Box below.

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