Whenever we talk about free work with our development friends, we always discuss some of the same concerns:
As a freelance developer, how can I get more customers? I finished my programming training and want to start as a freelancer. Where should I start? How do I deal with cheap competition? How much should I charge? "How can I get more customers?"
I started to be a freelance worker a few years ago, and I made a lot of mistakes in the process of trying to get more customers. At first, I thought that with lower fees, you would get more projects. Right? I also thought that I needed to clearly tell others that I was a freelancer and then post this information to social media. Otherwise, how could they find me?
I have been making these mistakes until I finally realized something.
Low fees will give customers an impression of cheap.
This also caused them to ask me to do more work at the same price. I also realize that if you promote yourself directly, you will quickly greatly reduce your value.
Now that we have abandoned those wrong ideas, I can tell you some good news that excites you: you don't need 10 years of experience to get more customers. This has nothing to do with how many years of experience, it has to do with what services you can provide. It is related to the overall experience, starting with your customers’ need for service, and ending with everything.
I share with you the seven aspects that I have summarized, which can help you get more customers and help you quickly become a freelancer who can support yourself!
1. Define yourself
Before you start getting more customers, you first need to define how you want to appear in front of others-what is your image? How do you want people to see you?
If potential customers hear about you, they often need to know who you are. The first thing they will do is simply Google your name.
Try this: search for your own name in the browser incognito mode. What is your first impression of yourself? Does this match the real you and what you do?
You can influence how people think of you. If you find that your impression of others does not match your expectations, then you'd better change your image. The most straightforward way is to create a personal web page to show who you are and what you are good at. Explain what you do within two seconds before they visit your web page.
This will stimulate your visitors to read on the web, where you will prove to them that you have the experience you said. I will talk more about this later.
2. Don't just be a developer ⚡️
When you are working on a technical project, it is easy to be too focused and focus on some small technical details and forget the key points. But if you only focus on the tasks you are asked to do, you will only produce average results. What you need to focus on is quality work. When you focus on quality, you need to do some work related to your profession.
For example, if you are a front-end developer, you definitely need to know the basics of user experience and performance. This will help you deliver outstanding results.
The same applies to some soft skills, which can help you build a good relationship with your customers. For example, communication skills or business strategy. Understanding the business logic behind the project will often transform you from a freelancer to a consultant.
These skills will prove that you are not just a developer, you are a professional who pursues high quality. This will make you stand out.
3. Show them, not tell them
So, how do you prove to people that you are what you say? It is not enough to say that you are good at what you do. You need to prove to them that you do have experience with this skill.
You just need to show them what you did. If you have a project you have done before to show it, it is simple, you only need to show the one you are most proud of. But sometimes (for example, when your project is confidential), this may be a bit of opportunism, but this is an excellent opportunity to show them your value without having to say it.
It does not need to be a video. You can prove your value in many different ways, such as displaying the logo of the company you have worked for, and displaying the articles you wrote on your blog.
4. Use indirect marketing
When you think about how to get more customers, many people may think: Okay, why don't I start posting on social media saying I am looking for a freelance job? The end result is that this is exactly what you should not do. You quickly lose your value in self-promotion.
Think of it like this when you edit HTML code to change your mouth. Remember how it felt when someone called you to sell you a particular service? How cheap is it? Are you likely to ignore or hang up quickly?
The best customer acquisition technique I learned is to never contact customers. This sounds contradictory, but it is true. Instead, you are using the concept of indirect marketing.
How? Simply share your recent work activities and projects on social networks without mentioning the fact that you are looking for customers. After you share your recent activities a few times, people will start to know what you are doing and when they have the opportunity, they will quickly recommend you to their friends and related people.
If you have never worked on a freelance project before, build a sample project instead of looking around. Make it look attractive.
In addition, it is also very important to find a reliable receiving platform, which can also provide you with a stable source of funds. One of the platforms I use most is the Programmer Inn . The Programmer Inn started as a website related to programmer talents. Developers can complete their personal resumes on the platform. Entrepreneurs and companies in need can hook up technical personnel on the platform, and everyone can cooperate to make money. It belongs to a software outsourcing service platform.
Programmers Inn currently accumulates more than 400,000 registered developers, covering multiple technical fields, and all kinds of socially scarce talents and engineers from major factories can be found on it. As long as you have money, they will be used by you. For developers, of course, it is not only limited to developers, but also designers, product managers, and corporate employers can find jobs here, find employees, and everything you want.
5. The goal should not be a stable source of projects⏳
You may think that successful freelancer means having a stable source of projects and being 100% occupied by freelance work. But it doesn't have to be this way, and in fact, it shouldn't be. If you are occupied with free work all your time, you will not give yourself time to create, learn new things and optimize your personal image.
I will set aside 50% of my time for research. During this time, I will watch online conferences, read technical articles and try the latest technology.
People often ask me, how did you learn XYZ..., and the answer is always the same: I made a sample app for it. So it’s not serious that you haven’t been looking for freelance projects, but taking the time to learn new technologies will actually bring you better projects and opportunities.
6. Find your own workflow
It is difficult for freelancers like us to arrange it in an orderly manner, because we have too many responsibilities to do. In order to ensure a smooth workflow with every client, create a process that you can follow on most projects. In this way, you will have an executable plan at any time when any potential project arrives. You don't need to worry about those small things.
This is an example of my workflow for project launch:
Send the proposal PDF, send the contract, sign and accept the signed contract of the other party, send the fixed invoice, collect the deposit, complete the free work tasks, send the final invoice, and send the feedback form. When you have your own workflow, you will work smoothly, because it will make your customers like to work with you and trust you. In most cases, they will recommend you to other companies in the future.
7. Higher fees
If you are just starting out, it’s okay to charge less for your first or second project, but you will need to start charging higher later. You may think that you are not worth the higher charge, but going through these steps will make you charge higher because you already have more value for the charge. You may not know this yet, but low fees will make your customers feel that they will get low-quality delivery results.
If you already have a lot of free-working projects because of your low fees, you may lose some customers because you have increased your fees. But this is indeed a good thing, because you will eventually earn more and will have more time for research. This is a risk you don't need to be afraid to take, because it is worth it.
Likewise, you will not work with customers who demand too much, you will work with customers who appreciate your service. When it comes to price, you need to charge this fee comfortably-then raise the price by 10% to 25%.
For example, you are already working on a project and charge 200 per hour. Since you have spent time learning user experience and web performance in the past few months, you should now increase your current hourly salary by 15%, because you have brought more value to this project.
Following these steps, I have completely changed my life and hope it will also change your life.
For more in-depth content related to free work and remote work, please pay attention to Programmer Inn. Think what you think and do what you need. If you need to reprint this article, please send a private message to my official account name.