What do separate amateurs from professionals? – Quality of upgrading skills!

Jul 29 , 2019 10 min read 2014 Views 0 Likes 0 Comments

When Sachin Tendulkar retired from cricket, he had achieved almost everything that a batsman could do. 100 centuries, appearance in most matches and almost every record under the belt – Sachin had reached impeccable heights of success.

However, even before his last test innings vs West Indies in Mumbai, he practised for about 1.30 hours in the net session, 30 minutes more than other prominent batsmen of the team.

Was he supposed to do it? – No, because another 1.30 hours wouldn’t have made any difference to the 100% skills he possessed already.

However, since the pitch was turning, he wanted to bat a little longer against the local right arm off-spinners to tackle on the West Indies spinners.

That’s the power of upgrading your skills besides acquiring the new ones. Every situation is dynamic and demands upgraded knowledge and innovative techniques to be tackled out.

Freelancers often ignore the essence of upgradation of their skills, due to which they lack behind while competing against other experienced and newbie freelancers.

Since freelancers are one-person business owners, they have to constantly hunt for acquiring new skills and upgrade the existing ones in various fields such as marketing, sales, finance and of-course their own technical field.

Even when they can outsource the other operations, they should still keep themselves updated with the new trends and insights, to negotiate better. With their own technical skills, more they learn, better are the chances of stepping up the career ladder faster.

Without constantly upgrading the skills and staying on top of the changing trends, freelancers can’t even think of getting a raise in pay or demand more competitive work.

This plus That = Edge over the peers offering only “this”

A writer may write the most compelling content, enough to captivate the attention of the readers. However, he will always be placed against writers in the industry.

However, the moment a writer learns how to design social media posts and newsletters, he or she can become more marketable and may even fetch higher prices.

By combining two or more skills together, freelancers provide a more attractive solution to the clients, since they can solve two problems simultaneously. Clients also don’t hesitate in paying the desired amount, because they get dual benefits by hiring one person.

All in all, it results in a win-win situation for both the client as well as the freelancers.

If you look around, professional freelancers are constantly looking to add more weapons into their armoury. We are in a digital age, where Youtube and online learning sites like Udemy, Coursera and Lynda have brought learning to our laptop and mobile screens.

Today, freelancers need to be on their toes to improve the already acquired skills to stay relevant in the market.