How do you find clients as a freelancer?

FYI I changed the title from "Freelancing" to "How do you find clients as a freelancer?" Being more descriptive in the title helps more readers decide to click your post. 👍

Hey @boffdub @KaseyNorth (since Kasey wanted to know others opinions too)

I used to run a design agency for four years working with mostly startup clients.

1. Times are tough for companies but times are even tougher for freelancers since companies will be forced to either stop or pause work with contractors and freelancers for a period of time.

2. If you prefer to have a full-time job rather than freelancing then I suggest don't give up on it and keep looking while you spend some hours of your day to look for freelance opportunities until you get a job.

3. Regarding the pricing, I knew how much I wanted to make per month and how many hours I wanted to work as well. So I took the total money I wanted to make and divided by the hours I could work to find out how much I would need to be making per hour. This helped me price my hourly rate, estimate how many hours for a project to price per project rates and also to see how much I can discount my pricing if the client asks for a discount.

4. To find leads: You'll come across a few freelance lead sites such as https://folyo.me/ , it's a paid service but saves you time. Robert from Folyo does great work and has a good newsletter too. One of my USP which helped me was that I would cold email the company and offer to do a small piece of the project without taking any money upfront so that the company can decide if they like my work and would hire me.

5. Find interesting businesses locally and maybe do a small piece of work for free and then present it to them, this gives you a chance to sit down and then sell your service/pricing.

I've been freelancing for the past 3 years and i have a lot of buddies who are all freelancers and the good thing with it is that you only need to find a couple of good clients who you have a good connectiom with and who will keep you busy.

If i had to find work now, i would make a really strong portfolio with work i want to get hired for and i would cold email potential clients.

There is a pretty good book called "The frelance manifesto"
https://www.amazon.com/Freelance-Manifesto-Modern-Motion-Designer-ebook/dp/B071JRYMSG

Its written for motion designers but you could use it for any field of work.

Bottom line is: make a portfolio of good work(personal projects if you dont have any clients), find compaines you think you can help, find people who will hire you in those companies, write PERSONALIZED!!!! emails, hope for the best.

This is i think the best way right now in my opinion, of course it will be a bit harder with the current situation but its possible.

Of course you can always start building your LinkedIn profile to be more visible, but thats more of a long term sollution.

Sorry for typos, im on my phone.

Here are a few ways you can find businesses that likely still have the budget to hire freelancers during this time:

• Google ‘[Company name] jobs’ to see if they have any active listings or posted new openings since mid-March - if a business is still actively hiring and expanding their team, this means they are likely weathering this pandemic well

• Go to Facebook’s Ad Library and enter the names of a few companies you’d like to work with. If they posted any new ads since mid-March, they likely still have a decent budget.

You can reach out to these companies by detailing 3 high impact UX changes they can make to increase sales or conversations (you can reference a template for this here). The goal is to pique their interest and demonstrate your expertise with these ideas and entice them to jump on a call with you.

I have tried Upwork and got one client there but the majority of work is from niche communities. I joined a lot of Slack communities and began to partake in those conversations and channels. This opened the door to some connections and leads.

I've been freelancing for three years and started with a limited network, so I used two approaches concurrently;

1. Freelance websites such as UpWork etc, though quality jobs can be tough to come across, even if you have a niche. Quality work is there, just try and pick jobs that have good reviews of previous jobs. I found my best client to date through UpWork.

2. I also worked 1 or 2 days a week from a co-working location, with the purpose of building my network. This has worked out ok and I still pick up some work via this network.

I also agree with others, build yourself a good portfolio, even personal projects which can sometimes be better than paid work. For example, I've built 5 websites for customers that I don't like for my portfolio purposes and I am about to pivot my freelancing business from niche to a broader range and will need to build personal projects for portfolio purposes.

On pricing, I'm someone who prefers a project cost as opposed to hourly as I like to work in different chunks throughout the day. If the project is really small (less than 3 or 4 hours) then I will consider hourly contracts. Regardless of what option you prefer when it comes to pricing, make sure you know your hourly rate. It's also good to have a daily rate if you work with international customers as not all countries have a culture of working on an hourly rate basis, some insist on a daily rate.

Hi @boffdub

Here's my 2 cents , hope it might help you in some way.

1. How do you get clients when you don't have a huge network of people?

• Try online freelancing sites like Upwork.com, freelancer.com or fiverr.com.
• This platform will help you understand the current freelance industry better, & you might find a good long-term project to work on. And this will help you to build your portfolio as well as your network.
• You can also get some good opportunities from linkedin or stackoverflow Jobs. so you might want to try those as well.

2. How do you price your work? is it per hour or per project?

• You can go either way with the payment part. Mostly it’ll depend on the work. If a project is not clearly specified I’ll go with per hour , & if the requirements are clearly defined then I’ll go with a fixed price.

@boffdub IH gives you a great opportunity to work on real projects and build a portfolio.

You won't believe how many designers have just concepts and nothing shipped. You will learn how to validate your ideas with the user, what is technically feasible, work with a deadline, etc.
Clients love it when you show that!

If I would be starting out I would go in the Landing page section and offer my service for free until I build a solid portfolio and skillset.

ps. I already recommended this to another upcoming designer but Webflow has youtube series about freelanceg that is well made!

Good luck

I got started just like how @Nakkeeran mentioned: Doing free work for local communities and professionals and I started receiving contacts from them. I didn't have a showcase portfolio. I just had a couple of designs in my phone gallery. Whenever someone would approach me with questions, I would forward them the designs.

That's how I would work. Also, I'm thinking of developing an app for freelancers. I would love to talk to you. What's your email?

UpWork 100% @boffdub

It has died down A LOT recently however.

It helped me get off my feet when I was starting out but the secret is standing out in your proposal copy.

Include links to relevant portfolio items, a link to book a call with you on Calendly, etc.

I highly recommend going through Chris the Freelancer’s UpWork course on Skillshare.

Freelancers are usually the first to be let go in a crisis, so I'd at least keep looking for permanent jobs, since not all companies are evenly affected.

When I used to hire freelancers, we usually did so by posting a request to freelancing agencies. These are companies that keep a database of thousands of freelancers and will research the right one for your job requirements. They will keep a cut of about 10% of your charges.

Since I'm from Germany, I don't know who the largest of these is in the US, but have a look at hays.com to get an idea.

I am also curious to hear others opinions. I'm in the same boat as you with a little web development knowledge mixed. I recently stumbled upon a Youtube channel called "the futur" and I received tons of information on your questions if you need a link I can find it for you.

I initially found clients on Freelancer.com, now some of those clients still contact me years later for different projects, so now the clients are contacting me instead of me looking for them. Currently I price my work per hour, at $50/h, but I don't really accept freelancing projects anymore as I prefer to work on my own projects. I do sometimes accept projects if it's something that is interesting and I would actually want to work on.