How to Get Started as a Freelancer and Land Your First Real Client
Posted June 5, 2011 in Getting Clients, Getting Started
This blog post is all about starting out as a freelancer. I’ll outline the steps you need to take to make sure you are as successful as you possibly can be and explain how to grab that first real client. (Who isn’t your dad’s mate’s brother’s wife’s uncle’s dog’s friend–try saying that drunk?)
I think that the main reason that new freelancers fail is a lack of real life experience. You may have great skills on Photoshop or at coding, but if you don’t know how to be a decent account manager all you will ever do is work site to site, never quite managing and meeting expectations. This won’t be due to a lack of quality in your work, but in the way that you sell yourself.
What you have to remember is that being a good freelance designer/developer (or whatever your freelancing specialty is) only accounts for about 75% of the skills needed to succeed. The other 25% are project and account management skills. If you know what to say to a client and generally how to manage their expectations, then you are already one step ahead of the game. You just need the experience to do that.
The main point of this post is to get you started out as a freelancer. So, let’s get going.
Step 1. Your Portfolio
If you are really new, you may not have any commercial work to show. How do you counter this? Well, it is a tricky problem. Clients like to see examples of your work, and if you don’t have any on your site, they probably won’t take a second look.
My suggestion is to offer three to four free sites (or heavily discounted sites) to local companies, or even better, local charities. Find things like your local hospice or even small businesses like Bob’s Plumbing. Offer them a free site. Get three or four of these discounted and free sites under your belt and within a month or two you will have some great work to put in that portfolio.
I am not going to harp on about what makes a great portfolio. Everyone has a different view on that. Read one of thousands of posts on ‘how to get a great portfolio‘ that are posted all over the internet, and follow their advice.
The only advice regarding portfolios that I have is this–make your portfolio your own! Don’t use a generic template. Add your own style and character to it in some way.
Finally, once you have your style and your site running, go get 500 business cards printed from a decent printer. Make sure they are decent cards, and not branded with the printer’s logo and name on one side. If you look cheap, then you are cheap. Look professional and that is what you will come across as being.
Let’s move on.
Step 2. Get Real (Paying) Clients
The BEST advice I can give you for picking up new clients is this–make a spec sheet. A spec sheet, or a speculative work sheet, is something I have used at a couple of agencies. It is basically a spreadsheet that lists the company name, contact at that company, number, email and website (if applicable).
Once you have a spec sheet with 20 to 30 companies on it (all in your local area) then go to them. Don’t call them. Don’t cold email. Get yourself in that building and talk to someone. It is much easier to put the phone down or delete an email than it is to close a door in someone’s face.
Walk up to the building, bold as you can be. Be confident and ask to see the manager. If that isn’t possible, then depending on the size of the company see someone in marketing, or at least chat with the receptionist.
The key here is explaining you are LOCAL. You are not some mass outsourcing agency. You are a local freelancer looking to work with the community.
If you can chat to the manager then and there, that’s great. Tell him/her that you appreciate them taking a few minutes to chat to you (but do not apologize about it) and just give a very, very brief overview of what you do.
Example: “Thanks for taking a few minutes to talk to me. My name is Rob Fenech and I am a freelance web designer from just around the corner. I wanted to come and introduce myself and offer my services to you should you need them…”
So now you have to judge the prospect. Do they look interested? Bored? Annoyed? Body language is a key in selling face to face.
I can’t tell you how to play out every scenario, but you don’t want them to feel like you are pressuring them. Just introducing yourself first is a good start. If they are keen and chatty, then start asking about their existing website (or about whatever specialty you are trying to sell them).
Do they have a website? When was it built? What do they use it for? Is it working for them?
Rarely should you chat about the look and feel of their website to a client. They generally don’t particularly care that you can make their website look nicer. What they care about is that you can make it rank higher, or that you can make it generate more business. And, of course, you can do those things…right? So, that is how you must sell to the client. You have to explain that what you intend to do is going to effectively earn them more money than it costs to hire you.
Don’t be disheartened if the first handful of prospects say ‘thanks but no thanks.’ You can also expect a couple of them to get a little rude. But, as long as you keep up your appreciative demeanor at all times, you’ll be fine.
Once you find a client who just eats up what you are saying (they come along about once a week), or someone who was thinking about getting a new site built anyway and sees it as fate that you walked through their door–well, then you are in business.
Never jump straight in with a bid for the site. Asking questions is the key. Ask about the audience. Who will view the site? Ask about the content. What is the site all about? The more you ask, the better prepared you are.
Once you have all of the information needed and the client is 90% sure that they’re getting a new site, you are ready to give them a quote.
Step 3. The Quote
I quote based on a daily rate. And, I suggest that is what you should do too. Find your base daily rate (I won’t go into the whole ‘what should I charge‘ debate now) and use that rate to determine how much the site will cost.
You will get better at judging the length of a project as you go, but for me, I usually say that it takes one day for design and two days of coding for a basic CMS site with no more than ten pages and no more than four unique templates.
But, this changes all the time, depending on the project. That is what I consider to be my ‘site base rate.’ That is the figure I have for doing sites for clients and I will not touch a site for less than that even if it is a two-page easy peasy site. That is my base rate and I stick to it religiously, and you should stick to whatever your base rate may be.
Now you have the figure in your head. The trick here is to present it so that it doesn’t sound like loads of money that will hit the client all at once.
The way I do it is break the quote down into three parts: a deposit, a mid-point fee, and a final payment. My usual split is: 25%, 25%, and 50%. So, for a £2000 project, the client needs £500 to start it, £500 when it is over 50% complete, and £1000 upon final upload and completion.
Always expect private clients to haggle and bid with you. Some freelancers inflate their prices by 10% or 15% so that when someone haggles, they can reduce the price by that amount without actually losing out and the client thinks they got a great deal. I don’t like to do that myself, what I usually do is tell the client this: “Most freelancers charge 10 to 15% more so they have some haggle room, but I don’t do that. I charge what the job is worth and no more, no less. So, there is rarely haggle room on my quotes.” But you should do whatever suits you best.
Where Do I Go From Here?
So there you have it. You have just landed your first client. Now, make sure that site is the absolute best and does everything that it should do and more. Local businesses chat with each other and recommend people to each other a lot. If you do a good job, you may get more work via word of mouth.
One final point: always, always underpromise and overdeliver. This is key. Never say “the site will be ready on Friday” and finish it on Monday or Tuesday of the following week. Clients hate that. If you underpromise “The site will be ready by Wednesday next week” and you get it done by Monday (overdeliver), then the client will love you for it.
Remember, the key to being successful isn’t all about your skill in your freelancing specialty. It is largely about your account management skills.
Good luck!
Your Turn
How did you get your first client?
Share your story in the comments.
Image by _tar0_
Related posts:
- How to Use Elance and Guru to Land That Client Every Time
- How to Find Your First Client
- The Freelancer’s Guide to Getting Started on LinkedIn
- How One Ecommerce Company Got Started
- 7 Tips for Using Your LinkedIn Profile to Land Great Projects
About the author: I'm Rob Fenech from London. I am 28 and have a degree in advertising and marketing. I have been freelancing for about 2 years now, but before that I was working on contract basis around London for a ton of agencies and a cool charity too.
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26 Comments
Susan K
June 5th, 2011 at 9:12 amHow I got my first client: With the exception of a a previous industry contact, I got my next few clients by emailing letters of introduction (versus the in person approach used the article). I do prefer emaling because you can approach clients throughout the country, and sometimes potential clients have realized that although I may not be a good fit for them, they will email it to other businesses who may need someone with my background and skills.
From this article, though, I can see why personally going into offices and meeting clients face to face would be appropriate. To be honest, going and meeting the client face to face before even having a project would not be apropriate nor practical (many are throughout the country and in other states) in my particular niche area. However, again, I do think that the approach is valid for other industries/niche areas.
CyberTramp
June 5th, 2011 at 5:53 pmI couldn’t do that. I look like a bag lady now due to living in a building site for 3 years … :(
Gold
June 5th, 2011 at 6:25 pmI would only add to Rob’s suggestions that you should remember that you’re playing the numbers or percentage game. the more you try the better the chances are that you will get through. I always felt the the receptionist was there to screen the callers and see to it I didn’t get in to see anyone. That was her job.
Don’t rule out any method of communications. If one way doesn’t work try another. Remember, one of the qualification for a prospect is that you have to have a door or someway that you can approach the person. If you can’t contact that person you don’t have prospect.
Good Luck
Freelance Search
June 6th, 2011 at 4:16 amWell, I get my clients mostly from recommendations. But I do think at this point of time I have to get my “REAL FIRST CLIENT” with my own efforts and not just wait for someone else’s recommendations. It must be easy to find freelancers who are like me. lol..
Logo design
June 6th, 2011 at 8:15 amThese are really good tips for free lancers. Undoubtedly the free lancers would get a lot of help by this post. Thanks for the help for free lancers like me.
Joe
June 6th, 2011 at 8:39 amList of companies and you cold call going through door.??
Really, after all the internet, videos, forums, linked-in, facebook, craigslist, indeed job board…you’re going door to door..??
Need to come up with a list of companies, then do research of some of the people at those companies. If you still insist on cold call door, then at least have some people’s names to use. However, there are a lot more roads to travel than try to have someone go through the front door.
Thanks for the post.
Rob Fenech
June 7th, 2011 at 2:11 amThanks for the comments all.
@Joe – yes I firmly believe that going door to door to get your first real client will help you to gain valuable experience in dealing with people.
Anyone can put an advert up on craiglist or on a forum etc… but going door to door (only in your local area) will really help you to learn how to interact with people.
By no means is this a golden rule, you should use every avenue possible to get new clients, but by meeting people face to face, (from experience) your conversion rate goes up dramatically.
I suppose it all comes down to the individual; if you don’t feel comfortable doing it, then it might not be for you – but if you are just starting out as a designer/developer, then your local area is a hotbed of activity, and actually meeting people is the way to go in my opinion :)
Daquan Wright
June 7th, 2011 at 10:42 pmI understand what Rob is trying to say. He’s saying it’s important to know people and to understand how they think, and that skills in the real world will transfer better to the web rather than vice versa.
As for my first clients, I was on an anime website (a big fan of Japanese animation). After the forum shut down, people contacted me because they knew I did websites. I’m working on two projects now and they both came from that forum.
I find that the best way to get clients is to interact with them and develop some type of connection, because someone is willing to hire someone when they trust them. Trust takes time to build. Until you have an established blog/portfolio/testimonials, developing that network of contacts is vital. I like the advice here. :)
I don’t know if I’d go door to door, because I’m really good at interacting with people on the web (plus I’m in college and know how to deal with people in the world as well). But the advice is great.
Steve
June 28th, 2011 at 10:00 amGreat article but I still feel this falls into the cold calling category. I think you can have success with this method but it’s a numbers game.
Gregg H.
July 27th, 2011 at 4:01 pmUp to this point, I have had most all of my freelance opportunities based on word of mouth recommendations. Initially getting started is tough, but once your family and friends know what kind of services you provide, they start telling their family and friends, and on. The people that know what you do, the more opportunities you will be given.
I think having 500 or so business cards on hand all the time is an excellent idea. Give them to family and friends and have them hand them out from time to time. Soon your clients will be handing them out to other potential clients.
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