Mahfuz Mohammad Lutful Yazdani is a successful freelancer in the areas of web development. He has been working in this sector more than 5 years and now he is a successful freelancer in a very short time.
The Start
Mahfuz Mohammad started his freelancing basically from the end of 2014. He had no plans for any jobs but to own business. During the years of 2010-2011 he tried to make progress in the share market and in the furniture business but that didn’t go well. Then he was thinking about what to do with his life and then he was thinking about freelancing. He had good knowledge about computers. Mahfuz says, ‘That time there were a lot of coaching centres on freelancing. But I have found Mr. Aminur Rahman on Facebook. He is one of the most famous freelancers here. He had his own training centre at his home. so I got enrolled in his project and after learning for 2 months. I heard about Munshi Jahangir Jinnat Heerok who trains people for a freelancing job in Meherpur. So I went to Meherpur and stayed there for five months. And that totally changed my life as he has taught me a lot of things. In December of 2015 I started working in Elance and Odesk. On Odesk I did not get much success but it was a bit progressing at Elance. Add when a few years later odesk and elance got merged in upwork, I found myself working in upwork.com. I had few clients already. I had good relations with them so they kept coming back to me. And from then, I was doing good in upwork.com’.
What He Does
He started his career with wordpress web development. He had worked for wordpress customisation, wordpress web development, wordpress team management, designing tools development, converting designs into WordPress, basic SUV, web security and various other things. He is specialised in this area.
Skills to Work in this Category?
‘In my category it’s all about coding’, Mahfuz says. ‘Recently there are some freelancers who tend to Like working as visual composers. But these are the basic things. You cannot do much with these tools’. Mahfuz suggests learning coding if someone really wants to be a web developer. He suggests learning codes like HTML, CSF, PHP, JavaScript. The more you know, the better you can do.
Why Freelancing
We wanted to know why Mahfuz has chosen to be a freelancer. ‘As I have said I don’t like jobs and I am a bit a lazy person and I don’t like to be dominated. I love to be free. I had business plans but those didn’t work well so I have chosen to be a freelancer. I did not expect to have this much success but I thought I need to survive and on my livelihood with freelancing’, Mahfuz says. But the twist was when Mahfuz started his career in freelancing he found that it was more complicated than doing a full time job in offices. But with these complications he earned more money than any other job here in Bangladesh.
Mahfuz’s Hard Journey
Mahfuz had training with Mr. Aminur Rahman for 2 months and then with Munshi Jahangir Jinnat Heerok in Meherpur for 5 months. They helped him a lot. Mahfuz is grateful to them. Mahfuz tells us that he must say that he is one of the lucky ones. He says, ‘I have worked for like 18 to 20 hours a day at my starting days but still I think I was lucky more than many others. Because just in a short time I started earning and progressing in my career’.
Inspirations to be a Freelancer
There were few people who have inspired Mahfuz but he rather liked to mention the concept of dollar which inspired him than a real-life person. One dollar is eighty plus taka – knowing this fact he was very much inspired. And there is Mr. Aminur Rahman, Munshi Jahangir Jinnah Heerok. And there is Russel Ahmed. Whose tutorials Mahfuz watched a lot. Those three mentors inspired him to achieve success.
Marketplaces
For marketplaces, Mahfuz mentions Odesk, freelance.com, Fiverr, and elance. Primarily he got success at elance.com then at Odesk. Then these two websites emerged as upwork.com. He had a profile in feverr.com too but since there was too much workload in upwork.com he now works just in upwork.com.
3 Tips for Clients
‘Every person is different so there is no specific method to make a client happy. The client can be too smart, average, not that smart, cooperative or not. The scenes are always different. And since it’s a global work, the client can call you at midnight, in the morning or at dawn and evening and you need to be very much responsive’, Mahfuz stresses. He suggests being responsive to clients and trying to reply to him as soon as possible.
Secondly, He tells us, ‘You can’t know everything so you have to know people who are working in this area and build a team when it needs for a specific project.’
Thirdly, try to understand what clients want and try to give them time and satisfy them. That will help you to succeed’
Tips for Newbies
Mahfuz has taught lessons on freelancing to many newbies free of charge. but most of the newcomers in marketplaces think that they will buy a computer and from the first day without any kind of survival they will start earning a lot of money and that’s where the mistake. Mahfuz says,
‘You have to take time and understand the marketplace and requirements of clients. There is no hurry. Secondly, Bidding is too important. Luck is a big fact but if you can convince the client that you have understood very well what they want then definitely they will hire you.’
Mahfuz stresses that if someone keeps trying, bad luck can not beat him ever. Now or then he will get success for sure. Mahfuz believes that skills are the keys, there’s no way that a skilled man gets unemployed. Thus he believes in him and looks forward to higher opportunities in future.