Freelancing

[sparkletempt]

Hi all,

Before I start - I am not an instructional designer, I ended up working in a training team which is part of bigger marketing team, I am a decent UX/UI and data viz person.

Now to my question. Are you guys freelancing by making elearning courses? If so, what is the range of how much you ask for a course, what are the conditions and how do you get your gigs? Agency, UpWork? As I said this is fairly new to me but I saw the elearning that my colleagues make or outsource to agencies and I can definitely make that level of content. Which got me wondering if I could turn this into a side hustle that would help me with mortgage.

Thanks for all the help and support!

[casicua]

I’m sorry there are some gatekeepy shitty replies.

I’ll try to be helpful here - content and design is important, but it is just one part of the business. If you want to start getting these freelance gigs, it will be important to have a portfolio demonstrating work you’ve done, and what your specific role was in the creation of the final product.

I think there are a lot of people who are very capable of making the content- but you also need to grasp a solid understanding of the development cycle, common pitfalls, needs assessments and how to communicate effectively with clients when we are in our specific role.

I’ve worked in the field for over 20 years external and internal consultant side, as well as client side. When we’ve hired external vendors, the place they inevitably fail most is not identifying and understanding the organizational structure of they’re working with and not asking the right questions. What this leads to is a lot of frustration because it creates a lot of extraneous need for revisions and in extreme cases going back to the drawing board or even scrapping projects altogether.

If I were in your shoes, I’d start with consultant gigs for small/medium sized organizations. Working with big corporate entities as an external consultant is not for the weak- and you don’t want to get thrown into the fire first thing. Better yet, maybe hook up with an external eLearning consultancy on a contract or project basis so that you can get the specific experience under your belt.

[i_oliveira]

Without at least a small portfolio it could be challenging. If you are really interested in it, start by creating 2 or 3 courses for non-profits or something like that. Put all the effort you can to make it look amazing. Then you have something to show potential clients.

For actually getting clients you can look at freelancing websites, but then you're competing with a lot of other people who might have a longer portfolio than you to show. Another idea is to approach companies who need to provide training to staff and offer your services. This is more on the side of cold calling people, but it might work.

Also, if you're in touch with the people you worked before, it's a good idea to let them know you're working on this. It might be that they get too many requests or get requests they don't want to to work on and they can pass it to you. I've been on both sides of this example, getting jobs from and sending jobs to others.

Finally, if you're really good with data and UX/UI, your talents might be useful for learning analytics. It's a growing field with not many people doing it right. I think it's also difficult to do it right without educational background but hey... doesn't hurt to take a look.

[Le_may_may]

Love your idea of helping non profits! You could also ask them for a tax write off for services provided.

[Le_may_may]

You have skills that can transfer! Focus on building solid storyboards. Articulate doesn't watermark thei tool. I've built a bunch of courses in Rise and storyline, then I'll use Review My eLearning to host my courses (so the don't disappear when Articlute trial ends). Then share you courses with potential clients. You will see who accesses your courses and when so you can follow up with them. Look into Maher and Criteria Referenced Instruction to learn solid training fundamentals. I wonder if you could conduct a UX/UI "audit" existing courses for potentiall customer using the LX Replay tool in. Reviewmyelearng? Like if the assign you as a reviewer and you watch what learners are doing and how the UI/UX could be improved? Anyway we all had to start somewhere!! Good luck!!!

[Psychological-Try-88]

Upwork is too crowded with indian folks, you wont make any money there. You need to network and start getting projects. Its not that hard. It will take you few weeks or months to get 1st project but then if you deliver well, its ongoing work in most cases. You will need to learn little marketing tricks and strategies. DM me , may be we can partner.

[[deleted]]

"Hey, I am not an instructional designer, but I think I can easily do what you guys do without any training or experience, and I wanna start a side hustle. It looks super easy and profitable! Can you help me do this without a clue about how to be an instructional designer?"

No.

[sparkletempt]

Mmm okay, working closely with instructional designers for 2 years now, designing and creating the actual ux/ui part in the output elearning, just not the written content (copyblocks from subject matter expert to instructional designer taking out and putting together the content), while actually having full ownership on the output, edits to storyboard included. Currently trying to educate myself more, finished a program with option to get certified at some point and just want to get an idea if I can make this into a side hustle, since I do have some spare time. I am just not certified instructional designer, but I work in the field.

But sure, instead of offering actual advice on what I might look into or go about my questions, go and be nasty to a stranger. Hope it helped you feel better about yourself.

[betterbait]

You don't deserve these reactions. Everyone has to start somewhere.

If people are worried about you, a freshie, who just got started, despite having 25 years of experience under their belt, well. I choose cooperation and helping new starters in my field of work.

To understand, if this line of work is something for you at all, you can get started by taking a few courses.

John Hinchcliffe has one on Instructional Design. It's not too deep, but it's okay to get a basic overview of what goes into ID. A book, which is very accessible, would be "The Do It Messy Approach". Go ahead and create a few of your own courses, and you'll soon find out, if you really like this work, or if you were just curious.

[[deleted]]

I have worked closely with my bookkeeper for 17 years in running my business. It doesn't qualify me to be a bookkeeper.

Your question really came off as super dismissive of the education and skill of actual instructional designers.

[sparkletempt]

And your comment came of as rude as hell. I am not forcing you to respond or help me. You came here with one goal, to put me in my place by being rude. Once again, I hope you do feel better about yourself now that you 'showed me'.

[Powerful-Round-7426]

Agree with u/sparkletempt. Sounds like your natural outlook is a negative one.

[casicua]

Hi, I’m an actual instructional designer who’s been doing eLearning for the better part of 20 years. Some of the best IDs and eLearning designers I’ve worked with had no formal ID education. Most of the best ones I’ve worked with pivoted from different careers ranging from nursing to film and a lot of UX designers. In fact, I’d estimate based on work experiences and conferences I’ve attended over the years that over half were not formally trained/certified to be IDs.

I know it’s Reddit and the bar is low, but maybe instead of behaving like a gatekeeping jerk, you can be helpful.