Want to start freelancing? This post will help you to know if this is the right path for you!
Research points
How you get paid on Fiverr, how to utilize reddit to find a customer, tips to creating a website to display your work, How to write a business letter and contract for freelance work.
Freelancers often spend most of their time finding clients, instead of doing work and getting paid. With a proper plan and perspective, nailing down your client will make it easy to find them, and for them to find you.
Know Your Market
Who will use your service?
Simple, follow this 4-step thought process to understand who your ideal clients are, where they might spend time looking to solve their problem (they should actively be looking), and how you can get on their radar:
- My specific customer is someone with this problem: _________.
- My prospective customer spends time researching the problem / solutions in these 3 places:
- One way I can break in to one of the places above: _________.
- My persuasive pitch in an email to them: __________.
Know Your Target Market
Who are you targeting? Are they young or old, it will help you to start freelancing and targeting the right people at the right time. You shouldn’t target a Millennial the same as a Gen Y.
Know Your Niche
Who in that market will you cater to? Are you an expert? If so, make sure you let others know about your niche.
Know Your Skill and Value Add-On
If you’ve got skills, show them. People hire freelancers for their skills but my guess is that you have many additional skills. Once you’ve proved your worth, you can add on additional things to charge your client.
What Is a Value Add-On?
“ Why do I charge the way I do? I use a retainer model, as do most (all?) XYPN members. It’s not novel for you, but I often explain to clients that it’s like the world’s only good buffet. At buffets you spend a fixed price and then you overeat. Over-consuming steam-table food is a bad idea. But frequent “consumption” of financial guidance from me is a good idea, and the fixed monthly retainer encourages you to do just that.
When it comes to investing, I charge less for investment management than industry average (I max out at 50 bps), in part because it’s on top of a planning fee, and in part because I don’t actually do that much with your investments and I want to align the fees I charge with the value I provide.
This article gives thoughts about how to justify your rates as a freelancer, it can help with anything though. This is also known as personal branding. It’s the reason Nike can charge twice as much for the same shoe, their brand equity is built up by their story and history of good work.
Have a story to tell:
- Why do you serve the way you do? How do you serve?
- Why do you conduct business the way you do?
- Why do you work doing what you do?
- Ex: I started as a computer science major, but I realized I had such a passion for helping families to be happy. I also love tearing apart both numbers and behaviors in a desire for people to be understood and to level the playing field of education. I choose to work in Financial Planning because of my strong desire for families to be happy and in control.
#1 Use Reddit
- Look into what you do, and find the r/ for it. Example r/HireAWriter r/HireAnAttorney r/MarketingJob from there you can search around for keywords of your choice.
- Second bit would be to create a /HireMe on reddit with good detailed story and price and information about you and the value you provide. A good hireme in 3 or 4 applicable channels can bring a lot of clients.
#2 Have your own website
- Testimonials – this gives some proof your work is good, and helps build brand equity.
- Pricing: It’s awkward to put out there, but if you don’t anchor your clients to a location, you’ll end up with people reaching out with a much lower price in mind. Just how freelance works folks.
- A Get To Know Me section – people like humans. If you’re automated, tell them why its perfect too. (i.e. a popular robo advisor like WiseBanyan says it’s absolutely FREE! This helps people understand the reasoning for their not being any personalized touch on investments like a typical investment service would have, making their automated formula with no personal touch sound great!)
- Resume and examples of work
- Easy to find contact info – Every good website should have a “Work with me” or “become my client” right at the very top. – you have 2.6 seconds. So have a Logo, Menu, Search box, social links, primary image, good written content, and a great bottom of the line.
- Availability to be contacted/ strict time frame for responding
#3 Try Fiverr
Customers Find You Pretty Easily.
At a cost, customers find you, and there is lots of advice on making a Fiverr look good. I’ve been able to pickup a lot of freelancing clients through Fiverr. Do good work, you’ll get them coming back over and over.
How Fiverr works:
They keep 20% of money earned, they create a marketplace, gigs don’t have to start at $5, but it’s a great way to build a 3 tier up sellable list.
