Freelance Bootcamp #4: How To Establish Your Freelance Business

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This is the fourth edition to the  Freelance Bootcamp series.

As a freelancer, you’re essentially a “one-man” business – although you may work in partnership with other freelancers (which is what I do) it’s still a lot about yourself, and how you conduct yourself when dealing with clients, deadlines, and the whole shebang. The fact that you’re a single person business does affect branding and establishing yourself as an industry professional quite a bit.

Here are a few tips and tricks to help you on your way of establishing your freelance business.

Become “client-centric”

Imagine you were a client and were hiring a freelancer to do some work for you. Maybe you wanted them to re-design your company logo, or do some PSD work for your website’s template? What would you want from them? Personally, I would want an individual who is commited to working on the problems I’m facing, and actively post suggestions and improvements from their own side to help make the work better. I would want someone who actually cares for the outcome of their work, not just the paycheck that comes through their door. I would want someone who could give me the best possible solution to my problem – not just a quick fix. This is what you need to do as a freelancer. If you don’t really care about the client’s project, whether their venture will succeed/fail or whether what you’re doing is the best way to go about it then you’re not fulfilling the needs of your clients, and therefore your service is lacking.

So what do you do about this? Well, there’s a simple, easy solution. Simply treat the project as your own. Imagine that logo your working on isn’t for your client’s company, but your own. You would take great care and precision with work for your own business, so why shouldn’t you do the same on a client’s project? Yes, the client has their own vision on their business, but try and envision what they see, and understand what they’re getting at. That way you’ll achieve a much greater level of client satisfaction and ultimately increased business.

Work out a marketing strategy

One of the hardest parts of freelancing is getting your own clients. New prospects are the hardest, and therefore you should always have a dynamic, workable marketing strategy in place to attract new attention. This needs to be written down in a document and stored so that you can simply follow your strategy through step by step instead of wasting time working and remembering your previous strategy.

Your marketing strategy needs to be robust, and varied. Here is a list of what I consider to be my marketing strategy:

• Post services on Talkfreelance, NamePros and SitePoint.
• Compete in competitions on 99designs and SitePoint.
• Distribute business cards with client communications such as emails (where you could use eCards) or sending business cards with any “snail-mail” (traditional mail) you send to your clients
• Tell all friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances etc.
• Go to Chamber of Commerce meetings
• Debate and discuss hot topics on design-related forums
• Go to industry events
• Email prospective clients whom I think may require my service
• Get in touch with past clients and see if they need any work done, or ask if they know anyone who needs any work done
• Call clients for a social chat every month or so
• Create quality Wordpress themes and offer them with a linkback to your portfolio
• Create astounding pieces of client work and ask for critic on design forums
• Register for Behance and other places where they allow you to showcase your work
• Offer discount coupons
• Mail local businesses with a personal letter that is unique to them, explaining what you do and how you could help their business
• Cold-call prospective clients
• Run a portfolio blog and write detailed, interesting posts on design-related issues
• Update my portfolio with the new 6 best designs created

You could manipulate and apply these to any freelance business.

The whole point of a marketing strategy is to make more and more people actively aware of your services so once a need comes up, like a company needs their site re-designed, your name comes to their mind first.

Follow up on EVERYTHING

Make sure that you follow up on all activity, whether it be from current clients, or prospective ones. Don’t leave them hanging. Also, if you’ve replied to them, and have yet to receive a response after a couple days, don’t hesitate to contact them again to get their response – people are very forgetful.

When I say follow up on everything, I also mean follow up on your previous clients – and not with getting more work in mind either – show a genuine interest in what’s going on, and how your work has impacted their business. Even call them up for a social chat every once in a while too – it’ll keep you fresh in their minds.

Be consistent

You can’t just strongly market yourself for a short period of time, and expect consistently high volumes of requests for work. It’s a continuous process that needs to happen every set time period. I tend to try and market myself actively once day in a month – I think it’s good practise to take a day out and just see if you can pick up more interest in your services every month. Also give time for industry events, and make sure you network when you’re at one!

Hopefully by following a few of the processes described in this article, you’ll be able to develop your brand and establish yourself further as an individual who strives to create quality work.

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