Upskill to Upscale

How Adding to Your Freelance Repertoire Can Make or Break Your Business

Sep 11, 2024

person wearing orange and gray Nike shoes walking on gray concrete stairs

Welcome back again!

Today we are talking about Upskilling.

This is one of my favorite freelance topics.

According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, upskill (in this context) means, “to acquire more advanced skills through additional education and training.”

This is one of the most valuable (in my opinion) things that any freelancer—or person in general—can do to grow their business and improve their lives.

But the art of learning is itself learned.

Storytime

Being homeschooled, I had a variety of learning methods available to me. My mom tailored our education to the individual strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles of each student, and was always a connoisseur of collecting and comparing curriculums. I grew up mixing and matching; self-teaching and adapting. Some curriculums were similar to public school methods and were led by the teacher (my mom in my case); others were self-paced and student-based, allowing students to study for themselves, on their own time, and come to their own conclusions. Those were my favorites.

I learned early that “school” was fun and valuable and, more importantly, I learned how to find and apply new things to my life without outside prompting. Not knowing how didn’t factor into my decisions (usually) because I knew I could always find out how.

Then I got out into the world and discovered that mindset is not as common as it should be.

In fact, self-teaching is intimidating for a lot of people.

Today, to help mitigate that fear, I want to introduce you to my top 3 reasons to upskill, my top 3 favorite methods of upskilling, and how I choose what to upskill.

My Top 3 Reasons to Upskill

Two reasons for your business, and one reason for you.

Reason #1: Skill = Money

The more you can do—and do well—the more you can be paid for and the more you will be paid for doing it. It’s as simple as that. Don’t diversify your skills to an extreme, at least not as part of the same brand, because that can give the impression that your business is a little chaotic and disorganized.

Learn with purpose. Having related skills can turn one-time clients into repeat customers because you can leverage one service to advertise for another and continue to work with the same people. For example, I have had clients hire me for copyediting, and then, when they learned I also format books, they hired me to format their books for publishing as well.

Cha-ching! I earn twice.

Reason #2: Trust & Respect

As annoying as it may be, humans judge by outward appearance, and first impressions matter. Whether they are looking at you, your website, your LinkedIn, your portfolio, or your list of services and accreditations, the more professional the appearance, the more likely they are to trust you and the more respect they’ll give you. That’s one of the reasons degrees and certifications exist is to show professionalism and legitimacy in business.

Especially in today’s digital world, knowing what you’re talking about and being able to offer recent and relevant information on a variety of related topics is invaluable for developing rapport with colleagues and clients.

That’s not to say every learning opportunity you take needs to cost money or come with a fancy piece of paper to prove you’re smart. That mindset (whether by professionals or by their clients) drives me bonkers. But you should know enough about any service you are offering to be efficient in your work and be able to demonstrate your knowledge.

Again, first impressions matter: if you don’t have accreditation, you’ll need to show your knowledge not just tell people about it. People will treat you better and you’ll attract better and higher-paying clients.

Reason #3: It’s Fun

This is the top reason to keep learning, in my opinion. For those who don’t have a love of learning and the motivation and interest to continually grow in their abilities and as a person . . . I don’t know what to say beyond expressing my exceedingly great sorrow on your behalf. You are missing out on one of life’s greatest joys.

We were designed to create and to stifle that creativity with a lackluster approach to learning and growing is sad . . . to say the least. I will refrain from a long and pointless rant here although I would love to ask about the increasing statistics of people who say they have no dream and no purpose in life; people who don’t know who they are and have no hope or motivation in life beyond next month’s paycheck and the monotony of the essentials of each day’s living.

Pushing ourselves to new heights sharpens our minds, gives us something to aim for and to achieve, and gives us purpose. Approaching life with curiosity and an eagerness to know more opens our eyes to see how we can help others and make the world a better place, besides giving us the resources to improve ourselves and achieve a higher quality of life.

Everyone needs something to learn, do, and believe in.

Top 3 Learning Methods I Use

#1: Written Resources

What can I say? I’m a writer and a reader. Words are my hobby, my business, and my education. Seriously, I spend so much time reading. Here’s a list of the kinds of things I read:

Books (they simply can’t be beaten)
Blogs (and other written online content)
Magazines, journals, and periodicals (the Freelancer magazine, for example)
Social Media (What? Yes. I learn from social media. I follow creators that teach me something useful, take notes on anything particularly noteworthy, and save helpful graphics when I can)
Written courses and curricula

Reading is great because it helps you improve your writing. Whether your business is writing-focused or not, you will have to write sometimes. It could be social media posts, copy for your website, product descriptions, or any number of other things, but you will have to write.

Crummy copy leads to corroded client conversion rates. Write well; read books.

#2: Recorded Resources

When I’m not reading, I’m listening.

(Yes, that’s listening to music most of the time; that’s beside the point.)

I listen to hours of recorded educational content each week; video and audio. Even if I know what I’m doing, I often have a tutorial or a “how to do it better” video playing on one screen while I work on the other. Here are some of my favorite kinds of listening material:

Videos (often YouTube or a similar platform)
Audiobooks (because even when I can’t read . . . I can still read)
Podcasts (I love listening to these when I am doing mundane daily tasks like checking email or tidying the house)

Recorded content is great if reading is difficult or you’re too busy to read. Videos are also handy for showing how something is done, which books and podcasts can’t do as well. It also improves listening (and by extension speaking) skills, which help with communication.

#3: Personal Resources

When I say personal, I don’t literally mean personal, one-on-one teaching in most cases. I mean learning directly from a person, whether that’s at a conference, in a smaller group or class, or one-on-one. Some great ways to get this more personal learning are:

Signing up for classes and webinars (there are tons for free and even more that are paid if you have the budget)
Going to conferences, retreats, and other networking events (I’m an introvert, so I haven’t actually done this yet, but I’ve heard its great)
Contacting a pro directly and asking for help, advice, or mentorship (some might charge for this, others are happy to give another freelancer a leg up)
Signing up for one-on-one coaching (top-tier education tailored to you . . . what could be better? But watch your wallet: paying for coaching can shrink it fast)

This is great because in each of these you are learning directly from a person, and generally there is some way to reach out and ask for further help or tailoring to your unique needs. My schedule doesn’t always allow for it, but whenever I can fit them in I will join as many online conferences and the like in my field as possible. Even as an introvert, knowing I will probably have to interact with strangers on these calls, I have decided this is more than worth it for the value I get back.

But . . . What Skills Should I Learn or Improve?

I would choose skills that are “stackable” — that is, skills that complement or build on the skills you already have.

For example, if you have experience using Canva for document formatting and design, a complementary skill would be putting together the text of the documents (this could be copywriting or something more basic like designing calendars, planners, cards, flyers, etc.). A skill that builds on your experience with Canva would be logo design or other graphic design.

For my business, I started with copyediting. Developmental editing, line editing, and proofreading all build on that skill. Writing is a complementary skill to editing; specific kinds of writing (ghostwriting, copywriting, content writing, etc.) build on basic writing skills. Book formatting is complementary to both writing and editing, and I extend the same formatting skills to designing calendars, planners, etc.

Other skills you could add that are more general and useful even if you don’t market them as a service are: marketing, business strategy, basic web design (WordPress is simple to learn and use), and the like.

Go for multipurpose skills that you can use as springboards for learning other new things and remember that you can market just about anything as a paid service.

Definitely focus on the ones that will enable you to work more efficiently and professionally and free you from the stress of trying to manage multiple aspects of your business at once. Look up the best marketing practices for your field and apply them to your business; find the best project management software and learn to use it to streamline your work processes.

And have fun.

Especially if you are freelancing . . . you chose this life because you loved it. If you got caught in the frustration of not knowing how to move forward, it’s time to learn to live and love it again. Put some pizzazz in your day with something new. Learn an instrument, or a language, or whatever it is that you’ve always dreamed of doing and kept putting off for some reason or another.

You are not too stupid to learn or to love the process of doing so.

Seriously, have a ball. Do it your way. Find what works for you and upskill!

Let me tell you about this cool thing I found . . .

As I said, I am always learning and looking for new resources. Well . . . I found this awesome resource a few months back that you are going to love!

Alison Online Learning is a UK-based company with thousands of free courses available to users. They aren’t accredited in the US yet, but they do have certificates you can display on your LinkedIn and résumé or print off, and they are UK accredited. I love their courses. They have everything from overviews on basic business and finance management, to niche topics like private investigation, to extremely specific courses for those in fields that require specialized knowledge.

Whether you are learning something new or looking for a refresher course; studying for fun or out of need; Alison probably has a course for you. Here’s my affiliate link so you can support me and learn for free . . . ↯

Alison: Learn Online for Free

I’m currently taking the A1 Level course for Spanish. What should I try next, I wonder? 🤔

In Conclusione

I know, I know, I wrote a book. I had a list of other things to include but I suppose they’ll have to wait for another time. It’s so hard to keep it short! I forget that American adults officially have a shorter attention span than a goldfish now . . .

Anyway, if you found this article helpful or insightful, please leave me a like and a comment and share it with your friends! (It helps the algorithm which helps me reach more people. 😉)