I answer your questions on how to guest post on established blogs, how to collaborate with other freelancers, my proudest moment in my freelance career, and the one thing freelancers don't often talk about.

"Were you apprehensive guest blogging for the first time did you feel like you weren't 'expert' enough?"

Question from Shaylee

‍I was very anxious when I did my first guest blog post for another well-established blog. I was putting out a message to thousands of other designers and freelancers, and that's scary, because I was always afraid that my message wasn't going to resonate, or maybe I was going to come off and sound naive.

‍It was a major step outside of my comfort zone.

‍I'll be honest with you, I was so scared when my first post went live. Again, I was afraid it wasn't going to resonate but as soon as some of the comments started to come in, it was resonating.

I didn't have an audience at this time so sharing my experiences to someone who had an audience, it skyrocketed my traffic to my website, my search ranking, and a bit of my confidence. It encouraged me to write more and eventually after guest posting for about six months, I started sharing more on my blog on a consistent basis.

‍If you want to start guest posting look at the sites you already visit or maybe the websites that have the audience you want to reach. See how they format their blog posts, start commenting on their posts, and become part of their community. Then simply reached out to the blog and share some of your ideas, share your experiences, and see if they accept contributed articles. Most of the time they do, and as long as you have something worth sharing, I'm sure they'd be willing to have you express what you know to their audience.

"How do you collaborate with other freelancers?"

Question from Melissa T Brown

‍Collaborating can be great. It's a way for you to get your name out there. It's a way to bigger and better things, and it's fun to work with someone else. I know at least for me, 99% of my work is all done by myself when I'm working one-on-one with clients and working on my own projects.

‍If you want to start collaborating with other freelancers, start by finding the right person that you feel you are compatible working with. I would recommend starting on Twitter. Look at the people you follow. You see their Tweets coming in every day, so chances are you get a sense of what kind of person they are.

Once you find someone you want to collaborate with, then simply reach out, but make sure you're reaching out with a good reason for the opportunity. You can't just email someone like, "I like your stuff. Let's work together!" Because that doesn't give them any reason to take the time to work with you. Collaborating takes a lot of effort from all parties involved.

If you're reaching out to someone, you have to do a lot of legwork. You have to bring a lot of information, organization, and ideas upfront that gets them interested. It's also important to factor in what that other person's current workload is like. You can't reach out to someone you know is extremely busy and expect them to want to collaborate. Sure you can ask – that doesn't hurt – but don't get offended or hurt if they just can't commit to another project.

"What's been your proudest moment of your freelance career?"

Question from Charli Marie

‍The proudest moment of my freelance career was the day my fiancé, Anita and I closed on our house, because that meant my freelancing had become a livable income.

That is absolutely huge for me! That I can pay my mortgage and half of the bills in partnership with Anita from what I love to do. I freelanced full-time for a good 2.5 years before I started making even over $500 a month. I took so many risks to get to where I am today, and it's finally paying off. So this definitely has to be the proudest moment of my career thus far.

"What's the hardest part of freelancing people don't often talk about?"

Question from Femke

‍The hardest thing that most freelancers don't talk about is money and taxes.

You can google how to overcome creative block, how to be productive, and how to make money online, but it's daunting to talk about taxes, because it varies depending on where you live and how you structure your business.

To sum up everything you might find online, the advice you need for how to do your taxes as a freelancer would be to hire a professional.

‍It's as simple as that. To save money, frustration, and time, hire a tax professional to help you.This applies to anything that you're not interested or specialized in doing. Hire help it'll save you, again, time frustration and money.

Answer this...

What do you think is the hardest thing most freelancers don't talk about?

‍Add to this in the comments below, and share your thoughts.

If you want a shout out and have your question answered, tweet me using the hashtag, #AskBrentG!