Ask HN: How do you get new freelance jobs/contracts?
32 comments
I haven't had to market my services since January 7th (I started just a few weeks ago back on Dec 26 when realized I needed a better way to pay the bills than try and get a student loan), and I'm still booked solid. It's all been word of mouth since. Before then I posted on industry forums and hung out in the same IRC chats they did. You'd be amazed how many people hang out in IRC still these days. The real beauty is most gigs are rather small, and most clients understand my reputation as a great serviceman so they usually send me a payment and then tell me what needs to be done.
I've been a freelancer off and on for the past few years. I'm 22, in university, and have a start-up habit, so I need a way to fund myself. I found a great niche for myself in the past month that allows me to focus on delivering great work at breakneck speeds.
My main focuses are to be fast ("wicked fast", "what do you mean you're done already?", etc. from some clients since), to deliver great quality, and to deliver more than I promise, and act beyond professional--yet not quite too friendly--to clients.
The result is amazing. I'm already at a stage where I need to decline work and were I to be doing this full time I easily bring in enough requests to amount to what I've totaled as $525~ worth of work a day, which I could complete were it a full-time gig.
It's very easy: Make a dead simple portfolio that lets your work speak volumes where most people use gimmicky words (mine's at http://sicret.net ). Make your clients proud of your work (a lot of my clients love showing off their new designs, even though it's an industry that typically keeps things very private for competition's sake). I'm brutally honest with a client as well. If I am running behind because of some other mix up or I am not satisfied with a design, I will tell them, and offer them a discount or to redo.
Customer satisfaction is more important than customer acquisition. So is being truthful.
Don't be afraid to drop ineffective clients. You're in it for business, not to make everyone happy. your happiness comes first.
The most important thing I've learned: constantly charge more. Eventually you'll plateau, but until then or until your own project takes off, keep learning and keep getting better; then keep charging more. You'll be worth every penny if you give half a damn.
I've been a freelancer off and on for the past few years. I'm 22, in university, and have a start-up habit, so I need a way to fund myself. I found a great niche for myself in the past month that allows me to focus on delivering great work at breakneck speeds.
My main focuses are to be fast ("wicked fast", "what do you mean you're done already?", etc. from some clients since), to deliver great quality, and to deliver more than I promise, and act beyond professional--yet not quite too friendly--to clients.
The result is amazing. I'm already at a stage where I need to decline work and were I to be doing this full time I easily bring in enough requests to amount to what I've totaled as $525~ worth of work a day, which I could complete were it a full-time gig.
It's very easy: Make a dead simple portfolio that lets your work speak volumes where most people use gimmicky words (mine's at http://sicret.net ). Make your clients proud of your work (a lot of my clients love showing off their new designs, even though it's an industry that typically keeps things very private for competition's sake). I'm brutally honest with a client as well. If I am running behind because of some other mix up or I am not satisfied with a design, I will tell them, and offer them a discount or to redo.
Customer satisfaction is more important than customer acquisition. So is being truthful.
Don't be afraid to drop ineffective clients. You're in it for business, not to make everyone happy. your happiness comes first.
The most important thing I've learned: constantly charge more. Eventually you'll plateau, but until then or until your own project takes off, keep learning and keep getting better; then keep charging more. You'll be worth every penny if you give half a damn.
This is something I've wondered about for a while. Everyone says "Hang out in IRC"
That's great and all, but there's a lot of IRC servers with a lot of different channels. Got any specifics? Its almost like saying "I find using email gets me a lot of clients". Its specific enough to have an idea, but not enough to be of any use at all if you don't know where to start.
That's great and all, but there's a lot of IRC servers with a lot of different channels. Got any specifics? Its almost like saying "I find using email gets me a lot of clients". Its specific enough to have an idea, but not enough to be of any use at all if you don't know where to start.
As a direct example: the forum I go to (while I won't say its name) is tailored for people who make money through advertising. In their IRC they talk about advertising and I went in looking to just make friends with them and to let them know I'm a designer, without asking for work. Eventually, one person came to me asking for work (and by eventually, I mean within hours) and after the work I did for him, word spread VERY fast about my capabilities and I've been booked since. The ONE important thing it to make sure you always keep your word, otherwise the reputation you've built declines.
If you're declining work you should raise your rate.
I've decided it's best to gradually increase rates, which is what I am doing. It takes longer to build up to the 'plateau' level, but there is more security, which is important because any growth I have right now would just be icing on the cake since all my core needs and growth needs are met currently.
You are definitely right though.
You are definitely right though.
Dawdle (http://www.dawdle.com) depends on freelance contractors for all non-essential tasks. It's all about that warm fuzzy feeling.
So, OK, pay attention. I'm going to tell you how to get jobs.
1) IT'S NOT ABOUT PRICE. Seriously. If it was about price, I'd go to eLance.
2) Tell me your rates up front. Period. If http://www.flingmedia.com can, you can too. If you don't, I won't trust you. You have no idea how many prospects you lose by not doing this. If you don't do this, you depend on referrals. REFERRALS WHO WILL TELL THE CLIENT WHAT YOU COST.
3) Please, for the love of God, have your portfolio up on your site, and make the links be target=_blank.
4) Blog. Twitter. I will judge you by the quality of your posts and the number of followers. Deal with it. It's like SAT scores; you can be smart and get a shitty score, but you can't be dumb and get a high one.
5) Contribute to FOSS projects. It shows an ability to work with others under others' terms. Guess what? You work for my company and you're supplementing my employees' work. If you can't get along with others, you're useless to me.
So, OK, pay attention. I'm going to tell you how to get jobs.
1) IT'S NOT ABOUT PRICE. Seriously. If it was about price, I'd go to eLance.
2) Tell me your rates up front. Period. If http://www.flingmedia.com can, you can too. If you don't, I won't trust you. You have no idea how many prospects you lose by not doing this. If you don't do this, you depend on referrals. REFERRALS WHO WILL TELL THE CLIENT WHAT YOU COST.
3) Please, for the love of God, have your portfolio up on your site, and make the links be target=_blank.
4) Blog. Twitter. I will judge you by the quality of your posts and the number of followers. Deal with it. It's like SAT scores; you can be smart and get a shitty score, but you can't be dumb and get a high one.
5) Contribute to FOSS projects. It shows an ability to work with others under others' terms. Guess what? You work for my company and you're supplementing my employees' work. If you can't get along with others, you're useless to me.
I assure you, you can do dumb things and still have a lot of Twitter followers. For example, you have 400+ followers and advise people to use target="_blank."
" ... and make the links be target=_blank."
Please do not do this. Let the user decide how to handle links.
Please do not do this. Let the user decide how to handle links.
You're right. Coz people's browsing habits vary.
Me for example don't like those target=_blank. For useless sites I often just use the back and forward buttons of my browser. Infact for going back I use backspace(FF). So it's pretty faster than closing tabs one by one and returning to your original tab.
Me for example don't like those target=_blank. For useless sites I often just use the back and forward buttons of my browser. Infact for going back I use backspace(FF). So it's pretty faster than closing tabs one by one and returning to your original tab.
Not downmodding, but I call bullshit on #2. Every project is different and not everyone charges by the hour. Also, I skimmed Fling's site and all they are basically saying is that they have a $5k minimum, which is pretty common. Although I admire the hell out of their Manifesto point #11. :)
Do an incredible job with your current clients
This has always worked for me.
Most of my best new clients have been referrals who were behind schedule at the time and had a freelancer that who had been unable to get the job done so far. I all cases, I either met their current deadline or missed it by a week, and earned a longterm client who always gives me his projects. In fact I will have to hire someone this year and probably use the services of a freelancer.
Last year I officially decided to cease actively seeking clients.
Most of my best new clients have been referrals who were behind schedule at the time and had a freelancer that who had been unable to get the job done so far. I all cases, I either met their current deadline or missed it by a week, and earned a longterm client who always gives me his projects. In fact I will have to hire someone this year and probably use the services of a freelancer.
Last year I officially decided to cease actively seeking clients.
I totally agree. The easiest way I found to get into this was to first do an incredible job as an employee at every company I worked for. This builds up your reputation. I tended to jump around to different jobs a bit. Usually, when I got bored, I'd move on...but I always made it a point to leave a job with nothing but a positive effect (i.e. they were sad to see me go). After some number of years, other people from those companies may have moved on as well. Keep in touch with all of them (e.g. linkedin). This is how I got my first consulting contract. All my business has been via word of mouth, but I built that network while I was working full-time for various companies. Keep that network growing -- and always do an incredible job, and you should have a good time of it.
Sometimes, though, there is a conflict of interest for the client. In case the job is ongoing (continuous maintenance, new features) the client might be afraid that you will not have enough time to devote for them if they find you other customers, (I'm almost sure that this is the case with my current (only) customer).
For me, it's a combination of these things:
* word of mouth/referrals from happy clients
* people finding my site online, which is so horribly outdated that I've had people ask if I'm still in business, yet people still hire me through it (I am updating it in the next 2-3 months, but I'm kind of scared I won't be able to handle the increase in workload)
* networking
* running an open source project
I've been incredibly lucky though, I never thought to ask for referrals since I was young and thought that was a no-no or something, but they came in anyway (which is a good sign :).
I also haven't really had time to do much online promotion, but having an open source project to show quality of work and to drive people to use my project and (just often enough) my services probably helps make up for my lack of online promo efforts.
As for networking, I never really tried to sell, I just go out and meet people. I often forget to bring cards or to even mention what I do (even though I do talk too much ;). I heard someone recently explain that networking isn't about marketing directly, but rather about getting your name out there and just being a real human being. The network of your network are who you'll sell to because the people who think you're alright will refer you naturally, or something like that.
The above has kept me more than busy for years now, and since I'm also working on a startup I've had to limit what projects I can take on since otherwise I'd have no time for my own...
* word of mouth/referrals from happy clients
* people finding my site online, which is so horribly outdated that I've had people ask if I'm still in business, yet people still hire me through it (I am updating it in the next 2-3 months, but I'm kind of scared I won't be able to handle the increase in workload)
* networking
* running an open source project
I've been incredibly lucky though, I never thought to ask for referrals since I was young and thought that was a no-no or something, but they came in anyway (which is a good sign :).
I also haven't really had time to do much online promotion, but having an open source project to show quality of work and to drive people to use my project and (just often enough) my services probably helps make up for my lack of online promo efforts.
As for networking, I never really tried to sell, I just go out and meet people. I often forget to bring cards or to even mention what I do (even though I do talk too much ;). I heard someone recently explain that networking isn't about marketing directly, but rather about getting your name out there and just being a real human being. The network of your network are who you'll sell to because the people who think you're alright will refer you naturally, or something like that.
The above has kept me more than busy for years now, and since I'm also working on a startup I've had to limit what projects I can take on since otherwise I'd have no time for my own...
Networking, maintenance work on prior jobs, and extensions to OSS.
I did well by making and contributing to some pretty common Rails plugins in the Rails 0.10-1.x days, and blogging a bit. Some small tech-centric businesses wanted some Rails expertise, were using the plugins, and contacted me.
I did well by making and contributing to some pretty common Rails plugins in the Rails 0.10-1.x days, and blogging a bit. Some small tech-centric businesses wanted some Rails expertise, were using the plugins, and contacted me.
There are some really good comment here already, but my $.02:
My main gig these days was a client at an agency I used to work for. I was the obvious choice for them because I built their software in the first place.
Otherwise, I've gotten contracts through friends, craigslist, and various mailing lists.
Don't underestimate the value of tech-related mailing lists. In the past, when I've been looking really hard, I've been able to get several leads/interviews for contract jobs per week, just from mailing lists.
Also, help other hackers find jobs/contracts. It will come back to you.
My main gig these days was a client at an agency I used to work for. I was the obvious choice for them because I built their software in the first place.
Otherwise, I've gotten contracts through friends, craigslist, and various mailing lists.
Don't underestimate the value of tech-related mailing lists. In the past, when I've been looking really hard, I've been able to get several leads/interviews for contract jobs per week, just from mailing lists.
Also, help other hackers find jobs/contracts. It will come back to you.
Craigslist is a crapshoot. As are most other online gig-engines (elance, odesk, etc). Granted, I have very little experience with them, but just browsing them reveals poor leads, poor pay, and you're generally competing with guys in eastern Europe and India who are going to eat your lunch with low rates.
The alternative is setting up locally. All decent-sized cities have networking opportunities, things like "Business Networking International" where it's highly structured towards referrals (and while useful, sort of MLM-ish), or things like Open Coffee or Geek Breakfast. Also there are usually user groups in your preferred industry or programming language (PHP, Python, etc). Get out there. One of the biggest mistakes I see newbie freelancers/contractors make is that they expect jobs to come to them. If you troll the internet for leads you're also competing against a bunch of other yahoos who are sitting in their pajamas. Your leads will be fewer, and of a lower quality. Get out there, shake some hands, show your face, and hopefully when people think, "Hey, I need a [X]" they will think of you. If you get out there, you never know what will generate business. I had one fifteen minute conversation with a guy and he has been directly responsible at least a quarter of my business for 2008 via referrals.
Obviously referrals from existing happy clients are paramount. Whenever I complete a project, I always mention that the best sort of compliment is a referral. If they're happy with you, they won't mind giving your name if they know that you can do the job.
I don't blog much. I do use twitter, but found it to only be marginally useful in generating business. It is somewhat good at staying in touch with past clients. LinkedIn is mostly a rolodex, good for little else than getting spam from recruiters.
The alternative is setting up locally. All decent-sized cities have networking opportunities, things like "Business Networking International" where it's highly structured towards referrals (and while useful, sort of MLM-ish), or things like Open Coffee or Geek Breakfast. Also there are usually user groups in your preferred industry or programming language (PHP, Python, etc). Get out there. One of the biggest mistakes I see newbie freelancers/contractors make is that they expect jobs to come to them. If you troll the internet for leads you're also competing against a bunch of other yahoos who are sitting in their pajamas. Your leads will be fewer, and of a lower quality. Get out there, shake some hands, show your face, and hopefully when people think, "Hey, I need a [X]" they will think of you. If you get out there, you never know what will generate business. I had one fifteen minute conversation with a guy and he has been directly responsible at least a quarter of my business for 2008 via referrals.
Obviously referrals from existing happy clients are paramount. Whenever I complete a project, I always mention that the best sort of compliment is a referral. If they're happy with you, they won't mind giving your name if they know that you can do the job.
I don't blog much. I do use twitter, but found it to only be marginally useful in generating business. It is somewhat good at staying in touch with past clients. LinkedIn is mostly a rolodex, good for little else than getting spam from recruiters.
I was actually thinking the same thing recently, and I'm fairly sure most people here will respond with "wort of mouth" and recommendations. There are few things you can do to get more work that will help you more than increasing your network of people.
I've only been freelancing for about 5 months, but so far I've just been referred into work from my friends on Twitter. My first job, the client approached me through my site - ever since it has been followers on Twitter who need work done themselves, or who have recommended me to whoever they know that needs a developer.
I think this has probably been helped to some extent by networking with a lot of these people in person at meetups. There's no substitute for coming across as a nice guy who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about what he does.
I think this has probably been helped to some extent by networking with a lot of these people in person at meetups. There's no substitute for coming across as a nice guy who is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about what he does.
What kinds of meetups did you go to? How did you let people know you're available?
Mostly just this: http://melbourne.twitterusergroup.com/ though I imagine attending things like StartupCamps would also be beneficial.
Letting people know is as simple as putting it in your introduction when you first meet. "So what do you do again?" "I'm a freelance web developer actually, at the moment I'm working on X but I do a lot of different stuff including Y and Z." There's no need to go overboard on 'selling yourself', if people like you and know what you do that's enough.
Letting people know is as simple as putting it in your introduction when you first meet. "So what do you do again?" "I'm a freelance web developer actually, at the moment I'm working on X but I do a lot of different stuff including Y and Z." There's no need to go overboard on 'selling yourself', if people like you and know what you do that's enough.
100% word of mouth / referrals. When I was just getting started, I just asked my clients if they knew anyone that I might be of service to. They were happy enough with my work that just asking that question a few times kept me busy for years. Try it - it might surprise you!
I worked for two large companies in a consulting/contracting role for about eight years and built a reputation for good work and network of contacts from there. I'm still trying to expand out into some other markets to get a little diversification, so I've been trying a variety of routes to make that happen- mainly looking for problems that I could solve and building some prototypes that could be adapted to their needs. We have about 25 people on my team now though, so I have the coverage to do that kind of stuff.
Call 100 business websites owner in your area, and ask them how they heard the first time about the agency that made their website, and if you are smart enough, publish them in your blog to build more reputation as an internet expert.
I've gotten all of my clients, for both writing (freelance blogging and copywriting) as well as programming, from job boards. If you have some previous work that was outstanding, you can often jump to the top of those boards.
-M
-M
By teaching others, doing a great job, giving presentations. I don't see any sign of a down economy, heck I'm making more $ than I ever had before.
Thanks for the awesome responses guys, for those of you using craigslist, where do you post?
Posting on craigslist sucks. I got called from shitty recruiters, my cellphone gets automated spam calls now, and in general I wasted my time.
Make friends.
Craigslist. Try and get a local client first it helps. You can start building your network from there on.
craigslist, confidence, and flexibility
Curious to hear what you guys out there do.