How to impress
A Freelance Client
Top Trick for Getting New Clients as a Freelancer
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hi this is episode 55 of cron dose I'm
your host Jordan Hutchins I'm a ruby dev
in the CTO of the dev camp platform if
you're wanting to start a freelance
business the most pressing challenges
typically revolve are in getting new
clients when I initially launched my
freelance business I struggled to
acquire any customers however after a
few months of trudging through the
traditional channels I discovered a
great solution that resulted in
generating over two hundred and ninety
thousand dollars last year and it's what
I want to discuss today let's begin by
reviewing the list of options for where
you can find new clients as a freelancer
I've read countless blog posts and a
number of books on this subject and the
following were the most popular
recommendations first and foremost are
friends and family this may seem like a
natural place to start however it's been
my experience that friends and family
typically expect you to work for free or
incredibly cheap this channel can be
good if you're just starting out and you
need to build a portfolio however it's
not too scalable and usually not very
profitable
next would be networking events for
networking you can join your local
Chamber of Commerce or find networking
groups where you can promote your
business this approach can work well in
some cases however each time I've tried
it I've discovered that there are
already several other developers
attending working on getting new clients
for their own freelance businesses I
wouldn't let my experience with this
option stop you from trying it but make
sure that you're prepared to compete
with others I remember attending a
Chamber of Commerce meet and greet a few
years ago when everyone around the room
introduced themselves and their business
there were over half a dozen freelance
developers who are all offering pretty
much identical services third are
outsourcing services this is the option
that I want to focus on today
interestingly enough I was told by a
number of freelance experts that this
Avenue was too difficult however I found
a great way to use it for getting new
clients as a freelancer like I already
mentioned I did difficult time in the
beginning getting new customers using
services such as oDesk and Elance which
now merged in are now up work were
especially challenging even though I had
a solid portfolio and a decade of
experience I couldn't get a single
client some of the challenges were the
following first I didn't have any
ratings or reviews not many clients are
willing to take a risk on a developer
without some type of recommendation from
others second I was priced much higher
than the majority of the other
freelancers most of the freelance teams
marketing on services on outsourcing
sites are offshore this meant that I was
having to compete against developers
offering to work for at times 90 percent
cheaper than my rate I charge a hundred
dollars per hour well the majority of
the offshore teams are charging ten to
twenty dollars per hour and lastly I
didn't have the time to pitch potential
clients consistently in regard to
marketing my freelance services I was
very streaky I would get motivated for a
few days send out a large number of
pitches and then I get depressed I
wasn't getting a replies and I wouldn't
send proposals out for weeks after
struggling for a few months I knew I
didn't have any control over challenges
one or two however I could do something
about number three I was working a
full-time job at the time while also
attending grad school so my time was
very limited with that in mind I came up
with the marketing system and it
actually worked since I'm a little bit
on the stubborn side it took me a while
to admit it but I finally came to terms
with the fact that wasn't getting new
clients especially with the methods I've
been trying up to that time so I put a
plane into action that involved hiring
some freelancers of my own I assembled a
team that helped fill in my weak areas
in order to start getting new clients I
knew that I had to have clearly written
proposals that describe my services and
I also knew that the proposals would
have to be sent out 24/7 with that in
mind I research sales copywriters on up
work and hired a talented marketer who
created three different proposals that I
could use this included sales copy that
advertised my experience portfolio and
expertise as a developer I had three
versions created because I wanted each
one to be targeted to a specific type of
project for example one of the proposals
focus on Enterprise projects another
proposal was targeted at building api's
while the third had content year toward
startups
with a full set of professional
proposals as ready to implement the
second step of my plan which is to
consistently send out proposals for this
I hired a detail-oriented influent
virtual assistant from the Philippines
named Sai
I was able to hire Sai for six dollars
and fifty cents an hour and he paid for
himself in the first week I walked him
through the proposals and described the
types of projects that I wanted to get
hired for after I was confident that Sai
clearly understood my goals I let him
loose on Elance he reviewed the full set
of potential projects on the marketplace
and sent my targeted proposals to each
project that fit my criteria within a
week I was getting responses back from
clients and within two weeks I'd been
hired for multiple projects three months
later I had to hire my own developers
because I was getting so many clients
that were hiring me to build
applications so how did my strategy work
out well here's a screenshot of my
FreshBooks dashboard last year my
freelance business generated over two
hundred and ninety five thousand dollars
in revenue with one month hitting over
40 thousand dollars I'm not going to
pretend like this is easy this is pretty
much the opposite of a get-rich-quick
kind of scheme however by implementing
this strategy I was able to cost
efficiently outsource the marketing for
my freelance business so that could
focus on actual development I hope that
this has been a helpful guide for
getting new clients as a freelancer and
has also given you some ideas on how you
can build your own business in addition
to this I'm also working on my own
freelance bootcamp that's going to be
everything from starting from scratch
all the way to teaching you how to build
a fully functional and successful
freelance developer business and I'm
hoping to have that live and published
in the next month or so so stay tuned
for that
