Tips & Tricks for freelancers
- Concentrate on what you really do best.
- At the end of each project ask the client for three colleagues who might benefit from your services, and be sure to follow up!
- Some tips on creating a portfolio. When I first started I always like to act like I was a huge company on my portfolio site, and often referred to myself as we. Don’t do this unless you are a huge company! Your potential clients want to work with freelancers and not companies. Make it personally but not too personal. Try to impress them within 30 seconds. The most effective portfolio trick is to make everything on the homepage. Which includes: your portfolio gallery, contact info, about you, and a featured project (optionally).
- Get out there. There’s a tendency as a freelancer to stay in the office and just work, work, work. You need to get out in the community and be known.
- Phone, don’t email, especially if you’re contacting web agencies. They get hundreds of emails every week and even if you’re exactly what they’re looking for, unless you’re lucky they just won’t read your message. I tend to email them and then follow it up with a call.
- Set aside a work area, preferably in a seperate room which you can close the door on… In the corner of a lounge/dining room/bedroom etc is no good, because it’ll remind you of those stresses you have at work while you’re trying to relax (deadlines, annoying clients etc)
- Start a monthly newsletter to your existing and potential clients to tell them about all the great work you’ve been doing. At least once a month they will think of you, and there is a good chance you will have developed a solution for one client, and another client will realize they could use something just like that.
- Develop a network of other freelancers who have skills that compliment your own, as one person can’t do it all.
- dedication to the client is essential.
- It is true that a several long term clients who always look for you first when a new project comes will bring you important financial results too.
posted by John Baush @ 6:41 AM
2 Comments:
Marketing is important! Most freelancers think they can just get by on their reputation and referrals. Some actually can, most can't.
When I first started freelancing, I relied exclusively on referrals and made a decent living, but only worked about 1000 hours a year.
Then I started to advertise three years ago and generate traffic to my web site and --- BLAM! -- I'm now booked over 2000 hours per year and have two people who work for me.
What works?
Freelance directories like FreelanceLocalTech (free);
Google pay-per-click ads (although they can get expensive, so your pricing model had better support it);
Focusing on tackling your local market FIRST (because that's the easiest pickings);
And making sure you offer something no one else does. It could be a different look for your web sites, a methodology that's more effective than what most consultants use, whatever! Just make sure you highlight what makes you unique and is what prospective clients wants!.
And avoid selling yourself on project-bidding sites where you sell yourself against foreign competition. That's not the best way to build long-term client relationships... and long-term client relationships are the most profitable ones.
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