Beginner’s Guide to Taking Cases｜Are you ready to start taking cases? Steps on how to successfully take on a case from having no experience or connections

Are you thinking about taking on a case but don’t know where to start? I was like this in the past, with no experience or connections. I would like to share with you my experience in taking on cases over the years, condensed into this beginner's guide to taking on cases for your reference. Today’s guide will mention the three stages of accepting a case, including the preliminary work of accepting a case, such as confirming your expertise, selling points, and what services you can provide. The mid-term assignment is to understand the trends in the case-taking market and constantly observe what are the most popular case-taking skills now. And after finding the opportunity to take the case in the later work, it is necessary to communicate well with the customer, understand their needs and provide suitable solutions. Let’s take a look at what to do now!

Building your brand: How to position your selling points?

Confirm your abilities and areas of expertise

First of all, you need to confirm your abilities and areas of expertise, understand what you are really good at, and what services you can provide to your customers. There are many jobs available, and each job requires different skills. If you are a graphic designer, you need to install relevant design software on your computer, such as Photoshop, Illustrator and other drawing software to facilitate your work; if you are a marketing planner, you may need to know how to create an attractive design copywriting and the platform’s data analysis capabilities, etc. Therefore, if you want to take on case work, you need to first understand your expertise and ensure that you have the corresponding skills. Finding your own position to take on cases will be the most important thing!

Past case experience and portfolio compilation

When confirming your abilities and professional fields, you can also confirm what kind of services you can provide, and look for past experiences related to this service to compile a portfolio. I would suggest that you compile an online portfolio, which can not only be provided online for reference by owners, but can also be more convenient for on-site demos to owners, thereby convincing them that you are indeed capable in this field and improving the chances of admission. Probability.

Attached below is a rough collection of my online works. Since most of them are text works, I use Google Doc and article URLs to present them. If you are engaged in graphic design or interior design, etc., and need services presented in images, it is recommended that you useBehance,ISSUUCreate a portfolio for other websites.

Set reasonable services, quotes and schedules

Finally, you need to set reasonable services, quotations, and timelines to ensure that your quotation is neither too high to get customers nor too low to maintain your livelihood. It is recommended that you go to various societies or case-taking platforms to learn about the prices of each service item, and then evaluate whether your service prices need to be adjusted.

Attached below is my service quotation for your reference. I classify the service items and use the content to describe my services in more detail. The quotation is written in the right column, but I did not specifically include this part in the article. , for your reference!

Novices in case taking should seize the opportunity: How to find the best case taking opportunity for you?

Use moreFree online case-taking platform

For those who are just getting started and want to take on cases, it is easy to be overwhelmed by the information on the Internet. In fact, it is very simple for beginners to take on cases. I have written an article before 2023 Taiwan Case Acceptance Platform Recommendation: Join the freelancer case acceptance ranks together! I will give you a rough introduction to the recommended case-taking platforms that can be used in Taiwan by 2023. If you are new to taking on cases, you can click on the following article link to help you make it easier to take on cases and find the client.

No matter you have no money, we will accept all small cases!

For newbies who don’t have a portfolio, I would suggest the following two tips:

1. Take any case: Some cases may have very little money or even no fees. This kind of case will take you a lot of time and you won’t get the same return, but this is a good opportunity for you who don’t have a portfolio at the beginning. For example, I didn’t have a portfolio related to business copywriting at the beginning. At that time, a company offered me a copywriting cooperation opportunity: a 2,000-word article for a total of NT$500. Yes, it’s 500 yuan. You read that right XD But at the time, I wanted to say that this was a rare opportunity. I treated it as accumulating a portfolio, so I wrote about 10 articles, and subsequently accumulated a certain number of portfolios. , to be honest, I am also very grateful for this opportunity!
2. Providing free services to increase your presence: I have observed that many people in the case-taking community use this technique. Some case-taking parties will announce that they provide two or three free services, which makes many owners notice that this person has provided corresponding services. Affordable service. For example, when you first receive marketing copywriters, you can provide them with a free quota to help them run social media for a month. This may be a free and good opportunity for the owner. If you have the opportunity to achieve good results, you will make money. There is actually no loss if the results are not good. For you, this can not only accumulate valuable experience, but also establish a good reputation and credibility through these free small services.

explainAre connections useless? That's a lie to you, let him use it all

Some people say that connections are useless, that’s not true XD

From my experience, most of the cases I receive come from my own connections or are introduced by word of mouth from the owners. So don’t worry about being shameless. You can boldly use your connections and social media to promote the services you provide to your friends, family and classmates. You can also join some related communities and interact with other professional case takers. Communicate and contact various potential owners from different nodes.

From contract signing to actual combat: What should you pay attention to after finally accepting a case?

Confirm the owner’s needs

When you finally find an owner, the next thing you really need to do is start a conversation with the customer. Please note that this is not the time to really cooperate. I have met many owners who just want to know the quotation and service items, but in the end they stopped replying after asking a lot of questions XD It is a waste of my time at this time. But I’ll share this with you later.

When a serious dialogue begins between Party A and Party B, it is not only a time for communication, but also a great opportunity to explore the needs and expectations of the owner. Your role is to be their problem solver. Find out from your conversations with the owners what they really need, and you can use this information to come up with a solution and price that you think is best for them. If the owner accepts, you can start the journey of accepting the case!

Sign the contract! Sign the contract! sign contract

After you decide to cooperate, don’t forget to sign a contract. This is very important, so I’ll say it three times! At this time, you need to provide a plan and quotation to let the owner understand the services you provide and the corresponding fees. Finally, if the owner agrees with your plan and quotation, you need to sign a contract with the owner. There are more stories and information about the contract that I can share with you later. Subsequent articles will also provide my own contract template, and there are various other legal clauses that I can share with you~

Be sure to sign the contract, and remember to write down the signing deposit in the contract, and start working on the contract after receiving the deposit. This is a gold medal for a client to protect himself!

Find your own stage: How do successful case takers maintain self-improvement?

Taking on a case is not easy at all. I am still a newcomer on the road of taking on cases, but if you ask me how to be more stable in this field, based on my observation of other people’s experiences, the most important thing is to establish a good reputation and credibility and win the trust of the owners. Trust, this is the real victory!

Today’s article shares some experience with those who are new to taking on a case. It talks about various preparations before taking on the case, the investigation that should be done during the case, and all the small details of signing the contract with the owner after taking the case. I hope this article can help everyone. If you have other questions about accepting cases, you are welcome to send me an email to discuss together ~ Email: tobiehuang@gmail.com

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