Taking the leap and becoming a freelancer is a no easy decision, but it’s one that more and more people are choosing to make. Some estimates state that by 2020, over 50% of the US workforce will be self-employed. This indicates a seismic shift from traditional office work with set hours, to a style of business that allows for greater flexibility, autonomy, and a career on your own terms.

But this flexibility can come at a cost. For many, the risk of foregoing a steady monthly income is more than a little daunting. With bills, rent, childcare and any other number of financial obligations to consider, setting yourself up as a small business requires careful consideration. However, unlike a set salary, your earning potential as a freelancer is practically unlimited.

Here, we’re going to look at just some of the reasons people choose to swap the day job for becoming their own boss.

Increased Earning Potential

According to Totaljobs, the average freelancer across all sectors can typically expect to earn anywhere from £37,089 to £76,514 per year — but this is not necessarily a representation of a freelancer working specifically in sales. Your income as a freelance sales agent is linked to the amount of time you put in, the level of skill you offer, and the types of deals you close. This means the amount you can earn has no set limit, with the potential to lead towards an incredibly profitable career.

Commission and other incentives largely contribute towards this, as you won’t be required to split this income with an employer. This income comes straight to you, instead.

And on top of this, you’ll have the benefit of being able to use the business links you’ve built up over their careers to create new business opportunities.

Freedom and Flexibility

Ever felt held back by your company? This sentiment is widespread among many sales employees, where they can only earn depending on the opportunities provided by their employer. This, combined with long working weeks and inflexible hours, has pushed many businesspeople to buck the trend.

As a freelancer, you’ll be able to work when it suits you, without the obligation of putting in the standard 40+ work week. You’ll have the flexibility to work more or fewer hours as it suits your schedule, meaning you can create a much better harmony with your work and home life.

As a freelancer you will also have the freedom to pursue the kind of work that suits you best, so you can focus your efforts on working with clients that matter to you, and can bring in the most money.

Diversifying Skills and Experience

Asides from the flexibility and high earning potential, as a freelance sales representative you will have the opportunity to work with a wide range of products and clients, expanding your experience and your skills across many different sectors. Proving your adaptability is something that can set you apart from the typical sales agent, meaning you can make yourself an attractive choice for businesses looking to boost their sales.

And every successful sale means another entry for your portfolio, so you can show new potential clients the wide scope of your experience, expertise and effectiveness as a salesperson.

You can freelance with Exceeders

We’re looking for talented business people like yourself who can introduce our partner products to the contacts you’ve acquired throughout your career. Through our platform, you’ll be able to use the connections you’ve nurtured over the years to convert these assets into an income. 

And you don’t even need a technical background to start with — we’ll give you expert coaching on all of our partner products and how to successfully close deals.

For every completed sale, you’ll earn a generous incentive of up to 12% of the transaction. Our partner products vary in price from $30,000 - $300,000, so you could stand to earn up to $36,000 from just a single successful deal.

Interested in working with us? Check out our job openings.

In recent years, companies have seen a sharp rise in online shopping numbers.

It is estimated that in 2018 alone, over 2.4 trillion dollars were spent in online retail worldwide – a figure that has almost doubled since 2014. Online shoppers today make up over 47% of the internet population.

What makes e-commerce so appealing?

• Convenience: Why go out to buy something when you can do so from the comfort of your home or office at any time – round the clock?
• Choice: E-commerce opens the doors to more choices. Where ten years ago, consumers were almost limited to what was available locally, today, shoppers can make purchases from halfway across the world
• Price: In many cases, shoppers can find items online cheaper than they are in showrooms and stores as online retailers do not have the burden of showroom costs, on the ground sales, and can save on marketing and advertising
• Assurance: Before making an online purchase, online shoppers can do research, check reviews, and make comparisons to help them decide if the product or service is the right one for them

It is no wonder that with all of these advantages, even businesses are making their purchases online these days.

As a leading IT software and services enterprise market store in the Gulf, we have taken note of online purchasing trends. Five years ago, it was challenging to make a sale without multiple visits to our customers, guiding them through the sales cycle – making them aware of the product or service, telling them about its benefits, and trying to convince them that it is something they should be buying.

Today, we find that so many customers have already done their research – they know what products and services are out there, and they already have the top two or three vendors or service providers shortlisted. They have done 70% of the groundwork required for a successful B2B sale.

How did this happen so quickly? Quite simply, business owners and buying decision-makers are following the same habits they’ve formed when making a consumer purchase – research, compare, and buy. Sales Account Managers and Relationship Managers are now viewed as ‘brand ambassadors’ – promoting a specific vendor or service – as opposed to actual consultants. The consultants and everything customers need to know is now online.

Because of these shifting purchasing trends, it is estimated that this year, 2019, B2B firms will spend more on e-commerce technology to facilitate online purchasing than online retailers do.

This massive investment in ‘online stores,’ complete with comparisons, reviews, and round the clock access to chatbots and digital account managers will undoubtedly impact on the ground sales personnel, who will probably be engaged only later in the sales cycle, and act more as facilitators for customers than actual account managers.

The Gulf region is no different from the rest of the world. Since 2016 to date, we have seen a dramatic increase in customer research hours. Organizations, governmental and private, now dedicate hundreds of hours annually to research IT solutions for their problems. IT managers now approach us asking about a specific product or service that could potentially resolve their issue – they refuse to be limited to what is being sold locally by the handful of service providers and vendors on the ground.

This was the main inspiration behind Exceeders.com. When we launched Exceeders back in 2016, our primary goal was to ensure customers had options. Investing in IT solutions in a growing region like the Gulf should be about having international prospects and the ability to bring in the best possible product, even if it does not exist locally.

Today, Exceeders is also about making IT solutions easy to access, research,  and purchase as we believe that this is the natural future of IT sales. IT decision-makers are also consumers who make their purchases via Amazon, eBay, etc. When you combine that buyer mentality with progressive governments such as the Government of Dubai which has mandated that by 2021, all internal and customer transactions will be digitized to enable a paper-free government for a faster, more convenient, and environmentally friendly experience – where else is there to go but online? 

In today’s digital world, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to control communication as an organization. Employees and customers are bombarded with literally thousands of messages daily from multiple channels.

Research has shown that only 70% of employees open up organizational emails, making this once-reliable method of communication less than ideal. Of the 70% who click on the email, only 30% actually read it. With organizational email numbers so low, is it any surprise that marketing emails that go out to customers have an open rate of less than 20%?

Why is This Happening?

In today’s world of Vines, memes, and tweets, the attention span of the average human when perusing communication is about 8 seconds. If it takes you more than that time to get your message across, then you very likely missed. Not only that, we now live in a world of push notifications. Employees and customers are no longer interested in seeking out news and updates on portals or websites. If it is important, it will come to them.

Our internal solution was iDenedi. What started out as a directory of people for new and existing employees, soon turned into an announcement platform to get out the organizational message in a way that was swift, secure, and came to the employee on their phone no matter where they were.

We noticed the difference immediately – read rates for internal messages went up to 80%, half of those within 20 minutes of sending out the announcement. In addition to an increased read rate, interaction with internal messages increased. Where two years ago, very few people responded to emails from management. Today, we have employees liking and commenting on organizational announcements in a way that shows an actual conversation is being had.

It took us only a couple of months to realize that iDenedi had potential beyond internal announcements. Finally, we were able to get through to over 400 employees and 25 partners with information about our mission, vision, the changing scope of the company (we were transitioning from a services provider to a software company), and our products. How could we maximize this experience and take it to our customers?

External Awareness Through Sharing

We soon introduced ‘public announcements.’ By default, group announcements are private – meaning only the members of a particular group can see and interact with them. However, when making an announcement, we gave the option to create ‘public announcements.’ These were announcements that we wanted to circulate beyond the group. They included information about product enhancements, offers, company achievements, etc. and when the announcement is made, they include links for social media sharing.

The results were immediate – with a group of over 400 employees if only 10% of them share the announcement on social media (with the typical social media user averaging around 500 contacts- often more), our outreach was a staggering 20,000 ‘consumers.’ And these were actual people – potential customers and partners.

iDenedi has definitely been a game-changer in cutting through the noise.

Try out iDenedi.