Freelancing: who are your competitors

12.12.202121.04.2022 Sam

The competition in freelancing is very high and the situation is getting worse every day, more and more specialists are switching to remote work – very motivated, savvy and who are ready to work until they drop. Often they are dumping – since newcomers do not have work experience and the necessary reputation, they set low prices in an attempt to get the first customers.

Should freelancers be afraid of competition? Certainly not! Because competition keeps freelancers on their toes, makes them stay motivated and develop. Many performers do not think about the benefits of competition, but in vain. By studying your competitors, you can not only improve your own skills, but also develop a promotion strategy that will attract new customers.

What can a freelancer gain from studying competitors

Research on how successful freelancers work can provide valuable insights. For example:

How to work like a pro?
How to work on several projects at the same time and attract new clients?
How to become more motivated and productive?
How to expand the range of freelancing services?

If you watch how rated freelancers work, you can analyze and understand their strategy, and then apply these methods in your work. All successful performers use some common tricks, but every top freelancer has his own secrets that make him stand out from the competition. Try to use all these secrets in your work. You need to constantly study your competitors, because freelancing does not stand still and everything changes at a breakneck pace – the old leaders of the rating leave, and more successful colleagues take their place. The process is ongoing, so without a detailed analysis of the strategies of their competitors, a freelancer ceases to understand what is in trend and what is not.

There are four proven ways to increase your competitiveness and start making more freelancing.

Identify your competitors

Before you start studying your competitors, you need to understand who they are. Not all freelancers who are your colleagues are your direct competitors. In fact, you are competing with performers of the same professional level or slightly higher. Top freelancers work in a different price category and in specialized niches and compete with experts of the same level. It’s simple – beginners compete with beginners, mid-rangers compete with mid-level freelancers, and rated professionals compete with performers of the same high level.

Of course, you need to study experienced freelancers as well, but at the same time, keep an eye on what colleagues at your level are doing. Don’t just study the experience of your colleagues, consider the strategies of other freelancers who are not your direct competitors. For example, designers can peep how to build a portfolio, and marketers – strategies and rules for promoting their own services. Having studied the methods of work of competitors, you can competently compose texts on your personal website or in your own profile. This is important, especially for beginners.

The main attention should still be focused on the main competitors who operate in the same price category and area. Understanding their strategies and tactics will help you understand why clients choose a particular freelancer and what criteria they are guided by when doing so.

Understand how your competitors work

Every freelancer who works for a long time on the exchange knows who he is competing with. It just seems that a huge number of performers are looking for work on the stock exchanges and there is no place for a beginner. In fact, you just need to be careful and understanding will come very quickly. For example, on the freelance exchange Avtor24, there is work for both beginners and experienced professionals. The site has projects of varying complexity and subject matter. At the request of the contractor, on the site you can draw up a cooperation agreement. Despite the high competition, you can always find new projects and tasks on Avtor24. There is enough work on the site for all performers.

As a rule, in different projects on the exchange, the same number of performers is unsubscribed. Soon, the freelancer notices familiar profiles that unsubscribe in the same tasks as him. The circle of such performers is quite stable and clearly defined, if you do not take into account newcomers, who are described in almost every project. But when evaluating your competitors, you should not take into account newcomers.

When studying competitors, you need to understand what customers find so attractive in them. How do performers gain their trust? Maybe the reason is the lower prices? Or maybe they have a better portfolio? Or is it because they use paid services? There can be many similar questions, and each of them helps to understand who your competitors are and why customers prefer them.

After collecting a sufficient amount of information, it must be systematized, analyzed and compared with their methods of work. It happens that a freelancer simply filled out a portfolio correctly and described his skills in detail in it. Clients often look through the profiles of performers and often choose more open freelancers. A blank profile without a story about yourself, without a portfolio and reviews looks a little suspicious. The client is unlikely to choose such a freelancer.

Also pay attention to how successful competitors offer their services. Making a good impression on a client is very important, experienced freelancers know this very well. They try to understand what the customer needs and, in accordance with this, build communication with him. Every little thing matters: the style of presentation, links to past projects, the presence of previews of works from the portfolio, as well as the cost of freelancer services.

Analyze the behavior of network competitors

Rated freelancers care about their own image. Many of them run blogs or advertise their services on social networks where there are a lot of subscribers. Often such freelancers share their experience there or give working advice, effective techniques, and also tell other users how to act in a given situation.

It happens that professionals do this unconsciously, not realizing that they are giving out valuable information to their competitors. If you follow the profile of successful freelancers, you can determine their communication style with potential clients and work habits, and then apply it all in your work. For example, you learned that a competitor is using a task management application. Do the same. If it helps him in his work, then it will surely help you.

Learn how competitors interact with customers

In order to increase your own competitiveness, it is important to understand how successful freelancers interact with clients. Some use a friendly style of communication, occasionally joking, while others, on the contrary, communicate formally and behave with restraint. Determine what style of communication with the customer is right for you. If the bulk of your clients are corporate, then friendly communication can harm your career. And vice versa – if the customer offers to switch to “you”, do not pretend to be an aristocrat and do not try to put a friendly customer in his place.

Also, find out how many platforms and channels your competitors use when interacting with customers. Often, experienced freelancers are represented on several resources and actively work only there. Learn how they offer their services and what customer reviews they write at the end of cooperation. You can even muster up the courage and “hire” such a performer. So you will find out how quickly he will respond to the offer, in what format he conducts business correspondence. Of course, no one will hire him, since this is some kind of intelligence, such research will be very useful for you.

Research and knowledge of your competitors will help the freelancer gain important information that will make him flexible, and this will positively affect his work. Now such a freelancer will have at his disposal all the marketing tools that will make his work more efficient. In the course of conducting such a study, a freelancer will also learn about himself – he will be able to identify his strengths and weaknesses, and thereby increase his competitiveness.

When, after many sleepless nights, the diploma is finally ready, I want to pass it and forget it. But the university will not lag behind the student so easily. After all, the full text of the diploma was read only by the supervisor, and a whole commission will gather to evaluate it. Therefore, in many respects, his assessment depends on how the student defends his diploma.

So what is a successful defense?

Competent protection text
positive diploma review
confident answers to commission questions

In the introduction to the course it is necessary to indicate many important points. One of them is methodology. The student is required to indicate what methods he will use in the study of the topic. This is not the easiest task, and often students cannot cope with this task themselves. In this case, you can contact us. Our experts will write you a paper of any complexity, and you can discuss the price with them personally.

Speech structure

Of course, what exactly to say in the defense depends mainly on the topic of the thesis and on what exactly is written in it, but there are general recommendations that are suitable for everyone.

First, we need to say hello to the members of the evaluation committee. (“Dear members of the attestation commission! Your attention is presented to the final qualifying work on the topic …”)
Introductory part. Here you need to reveal the topic and identify the issues that are raised in the work.
Relevance of the topic. At this stage, it is important to prove the relevance of the chosen topic and the degree of its development in other people’s works. Indicate the subject, object, objectives and purpose of the study.
Theme disclosure structure. Here you just need to list the paragraphs that are in the work and briefly describe them.
Problem statement. To confirm the relevance of the topic, it is necessary to state the problem and indicate debatable opinions on this matter.
Conclusions. At the end of the speech, the commission should hear the conclusions that the student came to in the course of writing the diploma, in which there are ways and methods for solving the stated problems.

On the one hand, it seems that it is much easier to write a graduation speech than the diploma itself. However, high-quality speech is a skillful squeeze out of the work, as well as its competent presentation. And it often happens that a diploma is written with the highest score, and a student gets a worse grade. Therefore, if there is a lack of self-confidence, you can order a speech on our website. And then the probability of failure due to bad speech will disappear. After all, we give a twenty-day guarantee for the work, and if something does not suit you, you can demand that the author finalize the order for free. We make sure that students are satisfied, so if the final version of the work does not meet the stated requirements, you will get your money back.

Formal requirements

When writing a speech for a thesis, you must also take into account that there are purely formal requirements.

Time. Do not forget that there are many students, but the commission is one. Therefore, the time for a defensive speech is regulated and ranges from 5 to 7 minutes. At the same time, you should remember about the time that will be spent on commission questions.
Intonation. Where, no matter how on the defense of a diploma, is it important to win over listeners? Therefore, it is better not to read the speech monotonously, making accents with intonation.
Style. When presenting a speech, it should be remembered that the main goal is understanding on the part of the commission. Therefore, you should not be too smart, but you can’t switch to colloquial speech either. In this matter, you need to observe the golden mean.
Pronouns. As in the diploma itself, it is important to remember during the defense that although the author of the diploma is clearly spelled out, there are a lot of true owners of knowledge reflected in the work (the authors of all the sources the student relied on plus the supervisor), so first-person pronouns are not appropriate here.
Questions. After the end of the speech, questions from the commission will inevitably follow, and you need to be ready for them. Suggested questions should be written down in the course of writing the thesis, work through all the questions that arose during the pre-defense, and you can also look at the questions at the end of chapters from textbooks on this topic.
Pre-protection. In such a matter as defending a diploma, it is better not to be presumptuous and neglect pre-defense. On it, you can practice giving a speech and write down possible questions from the audience. This will allow you to feel more confident in the official defense.

Of course, these are only recommendations, and no one forces you to strictly follow them. However, the rejection of some positions during the defense will create additional questions from the certification committee, which is not always loyal. Therefore, it is best to think through all possible questions and answer them in advance in a defensive speech. Then the teachers will have a minimum of questions, and they will be grateful for the saved time.