You have the qualifications, you have the experience and you know your profession inside out, but how do you make that first step from employee to freelancer, how do you start out?
There is a lot of advice I can share on how to become a successful freelancer, however, I’d like to focus on the first step, in miniature, what you need before you approach your first client.
Your internet presence is crucial to winning new clients. Clients will Google potential freelancers before we hire their services. At the very least, you need a basic website but you can also use any spare time you have to build up your presence across the web.
Your website doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, unless, of course, your skills are web development and design. It simply needs to highlight your skills and contact details while being optimised for the right keywords, for search engine optimisation, to ensure people find you through Google or Bing.
I highly recommend one or all of the following:
Choose the social media you use the most and are the most familiar with. Don’t forget to separate your personal and professional profiles online. Your friends will be useful for spreading the word, but your professional persona needs to centre around your work, not the family roast on a Sunday.
It’s tempting to choose them all but a neglected social media account can actually do more harm than good. For professional purposes I recommend LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
There are many websites that allow you to add your business profile to their database. Some act as a marketplace and will charge if you win work through their site. Others are simply informative for clients seeking out your skills. A business profile on sites such as TechCrunch ensures you’re searchable in all the right places.
Your next step is to build a portfolio, this may involve offering your services for a lower cost or for free. This may sound counter productive but the benefits are far reaching. For instance, when I started out as a copywriter and marketing consultant many years ago, I wrote articles for a dollar each. I was over the moon to be paid anything for doing a job I loved. It took just a few months of building my portfolio before I was offered 100x that for my articles. Last year I was shortlisted as the Best Role Model in IT, and I won the Working Mother of the Year Award in 2014 (excuse the trumpet blowing, it’s unavoidable sometimes!) I would never have achieved any of that if I didn’t start out understanding the need for clients to see my work before they invested in me.
You can also use examples of work you’ve carried out for family and friends, previous employers and through courses. Even now, I still offer my services for free, as I offer a free initial consultation, as when you have professional skills in tech, it can be a big investment for a client to make, they need to discover if you will gel.
When freelancers come to me for advice on gaining their first client, one of the biggest obstacles they face is being able to blow their own trumpet. Let’s face it, we’re proud geeks, we’re not necessarily sales people and it can feel strange to constantly promote our skills to potential clients. Unfortunately, this is a skill you do need to hone in order to win work, you need to be completely confident in your own ability and believe you can do the job better than anyone else (or cheaper, or quicker, or you can provide more value for money). Your portfolio will help with this as it proves what you can do, while it’s also a great idea to gather testimonials, references and positive feedback from anyone you’ve ever offered your services to.
As females, we’re fortunate, as most of us love to help a fellow woman in tech get her feet on the ladder of professional success. There are also many groups and platforms we can join to spread the word about our services, while receiving support and advice from members. Seek out the groups that speak to you and connect with influential people over Twitter and LinkedIn. Trade favours with friends and offer others an incentive for recommending your services.
As there are so few women in tech, you’ll find that once you have your first client your list will snowball. Word of mouth is still the most effective form of advertising, and as long as you’re good at what you do, the clients will come to you. Don’t forget to take advantage of all the help on offer from websites like this, and remember there are a lot of women in business who will happily help you to succeed. All you need is the ambition, determination and passion for hard work.