Freelancing is a lonely business. Hours are spent in front of a computer hoping that the clients will keep coming. Spending time with other freelancers is necessary to gain a better perspective of the world, build those networks and potentially create income.
In this post we’re going to try to fix this problem. Here are ten of the most popular ways you can connect with your fellow freelancers.
FreelanceFolder recent came out with a post called What it Really Costs to Be a Freelancer. It shows the harsh reality to the common misinterpretation that freelancing is free to start up and maintain. Like said in the post, that is far from the truth. Many startup costs for freelancers are low compared to other businesses, but freelancing has plenty of expenses to deal with. Among these include computers, software, books, apps, business supplies, business cards, and more.
In fact, some of the most successful freelance businesses can spend hundreds a month just on maintenance. Check out the post more for other examples of how freelancers usually have to spend money. In this post, though, I wanted to look into some free or cheaper alternatives. Sometimes running a freelance business can live up to it’s original expectations of being maintained cheaply.
Any business can benefit from having a marketing budget to buy advertisements, subscriptions to job boards and the like, and for any software that can help them with marketing. However, most new freelancers do not have that sort of budget, and even with a few extra bucks in the pocket, it is still incredibly important to live frugally as a freelancer (just in case next month isn’t so fortunate!).
When I was just starting out, it took me some time to realize what worked and what didn’t in terms of marketing my freelance business. Just within the first year, I hastily lost plenty of my income on unneeded or ineffective marketing. Now, I’ve learned from my own mistakes, and have a successful marketing strategy on only $7/mo. Even with my large $7 a month being spent though, in this post I’d like to show any new freelancers how to get going with a steady client base on only $0 (free!).
Part 1 and part 2 of this series has so far consisted of planning and finally setting up shop as a new web designer. However, you can’t be a very good freelancer unless you have clients, right? In the previous steps we’ve definitely done work, but we need to start getting paid to work!
This is why in part 3 we will be focusing on getting clients, and more specifically on landing our very first clients. This can be difficult because many just starting out may not have any real-client portfolio pieces, and we can easily look inexperience or unskilled. There are plenty of ways to overcome this, though, so let’s look over a few options.
The holidays are great times for web designers to do some side work and get some errands done that have been put off for the past year. While having a probable lull in clients, this time of year can be a great time to analyze your portfolio and renew it. By doing so, you can gain a whole new, upgraded breed of client and enhance your career.
The main show of a portfolio is, of course, the set of portfolio pieces you show off. It’s one thing getting new clients to your portfolio; it’s another thing winning them over. To do so, you must create great pieces and even more importantly, present them in a great way.
