“The Impact of Online Freelancing and Social Media Marketing on the Journey of an

Entrepreneur”

According to Fennell (2019), one must develop entrepreneurial qualities in order to be able
to succeed in the business industry. Hence, having a mindset that is necessary for
entrepreneurship could allow a person to identify the challenges and difficulties in the business
and provide instant solutions to alleviate these issues. Thus, in the provided journal article, the
entrepreneurial qualities of Mr. Bryden Elizan have been emphasized as well as the factors that
made him continue despite the crises that he faced. Aside from this, the utilization of online
freelancing also provided the readers with insights on how Mr. Elizan coped with the challenges
during his failures and how social media marketing became the tool to re-launch his failed
business.

To give some background of the case scenario of Mr. Elizan, the challenge in
entrepreneurship started when his first venture failed to make him shift to another job to
support himself. However, he realized that his job of being a call center agent was not viable
health-wise. As a result, he again shifted to UPWORK, which is an online platform mainly for
freelancers across the globe. After some time of recovering, he suddenly lost his father because
of liver cancer, and at the same time, his mother too experienced kidney failure. Aside from
this, Mr. Elizan’s mother-in-law also suffered from a stroke and the health of his father-in-law
decline because of heart failure. Due to all of these phenomena, Mr. Bryden Elizan faced
depression along with his family. However, despite all of these negative events in his life, he still
chose to be positive and move forward since he believed that he would be a successful
entrepreneur someday. He figured out how to earn better, and he entered numerous industries
in order to develop connections and camaraderie, which could help him as an entrepreneur
someday. Mr. Elizan also took into account the advice of Dr. Bonilla, one of the people Mr.
Elizan met in his seminars, to break down the whole crisis into smaller problems and address
these issues one at a time. Hence, we can infer from this situation that Mr. Elizan possesses the
qualities of being an entrepreneur. He was viewed as someone who was mentally and
emotionally prepared to be an entrepreneur because of his mindset. Thus, the summary of the
entrepreneurial qualities of Mr. Elizan is the following. The first is that he stayed positive
despite the depressing circumstances that happened in his life. The second is that his mindset is
always to move forward and search for opportunities instead of mourning. The third is the
advice of Dr. Bonilla, which is to break down the problems and solve them one at a time. Then
lastly, create connections with the people around you since it could pose opportunities and
benefits for you and your business. Therefore, with all these qualities of Mr. Elizan, he became
capable of being a successful entrepreneur and he was able to turn the situation around from
low to high.

Furthermore, taking into account the successful ventures of Mr. Bryden Elizan, there are still
qualities that he must develop in order to maximize his strengths as well as his assets. In the
provided journal article, Mr. Elizan has entered into numerous industries and fields, namely:
Academic Clinic website manager, Review Masters, Naga City Guide, and Social Media
Consultant for thirty-eight (38) hotels. However, Mr. Elizan became overwhelmed with the
continuous opportunities that he is receiving which lead to dilemmas and challenges. The main
reason why is because he is confused on which one should he prioritize first, and with the tons
of opportunities in his way, he believes that he cannot handle it all at the same time. Therefore,
what he must do is share his workload. According to an article published by the Construction
Industry Federation (2018), jobs simply cannot be done alone. Hence, having more people to
work as a team could lead to a boost in productivity, innovations, enhanced morale, presence
of support network, and establishment of strong relationships. When Mr. Bryden Elizan
develops the quality of sharing his workloads and developing a team, then all of his assets could
be more productive since numerous people are working and not only one. Aside from this,
since people have different ideas and suggestions, it is most likely that Mr. Elizan’s businesses
could enhance and strengthen because of the possible ideas of his people. Moreover, a support
network will also be observed wherein every time there are challenges and difficulties faced by
the business, team members usually rely on each other for support and guidance. With this,
Mr. Elizan will have a shoulder to lean on with regard to providing solutions to the challenges of
his business, leading to a more successful business ahead of them. Thus, sharing a workload as
an entrepreneur is necessary since it makes tasks easier to complete in an efficient and timely
manner.
 In conclusion, the journal article provided us with insights on how to be a successful
entrepreneur despite the challenges faced in our day-to-day lives. We can infer from the article
that Mr. Elizan persisted to become an entrepreneur and adapted to the crises in his life in
order for him to survive. Hence, as stated by Putta (2014), having entrepreneurial mindsets will
always lead to perceiving opportunities and seeking alternatives in times of challenges or
failures. Hence, being an entrepreneur is someone who do not easily give up but instead, tries
to re-launch the situation. Moreover, the journal article provided the readers with an idea of
how online freelancing, as well as social media marketing, serves as a tool for start-up
businesses to prosper and be successful. Hence, the use of social media marketing must be
strategic since it is a widely used tool to improve the reputation of an enterprise (Nakara,
2012). Therefore, with all the learnings evident in the article, the most beneficial strategy that
we must instill in our minds is the ability to adapt to any situation that is present in society.
Without this ability, one cannot be a successful entrepreneur (WHO, 2014).

References:

CIF. (2018, March 9). The Benefits of Teamwork in the Workplace.

https://ciftraining.ie/2018/03/the-benefits-of-teamwork-in-the-workplace/

Fennel, C. (2019, August 30). The Benefits of Having an Entrepreneurial Mindset.

https://www.speedstartup.org/blog-post/the-benefits-of-having-an-entrepreneurial-mindset/

Pilapil, E. (2020, June). Journal of Ateneo de Naga Graduate School. Case Study on the Impact of
Online Freelancing and Social Media Marketing on the Journey of an Entrepreneur.
https://bikolnonjournal.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/5pilapil_bikolnon
july2020_final08192020.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2XjfKWMDf
9oOeJC5jOMeqiD43bmJ_eKHDfVsFp2k5Qjuuvn_BqrxGeTM