Hi everyone,
As a freelancer you might be worried about the market being saturated and not sure how to improve your freelancing career.
I want to share my top 3 advice which can help you get more clients and keep working with them for longer.
The advice is aimed at web development/design but can be applied to any freelancing work.
#1 You are in the business of understanding other businesses
It’s important and required from you to learn the technical side (ex: picking a suitable programming language, best practices, solving problems)
If you stop there, what’s the difference between you and the million other freelancers?
Let’s look at a usual scenario of hiring freelance developers:
The average freelancer will do what they are told only and their initial bid will only take into account the technical side of the project.
The problem: Any programmer can develop based on an idea or brief.
What should you do instead?
You should be genuinely curious about the client’s business.
What is that project for? why do they want to develop a [website/app/project] now? what’s the clients business? how do they make money? who are their customers?
Simply asking these questions puts you in the top 1 % of all bidders automatically.
Don’t just ask and then get to work as usual!
You love technology right? cool, how can you help this client improve his idea based on what you learned about their business, using technology?
Now if you propose new ideas that make sense, you are the 1% of the 1%.
At this point the price does not matter.
Which reminds me: market rates are for losers.
You are not selling a commodity, you are a consultant offering solutions — you set the market rate for yourself based on the value you offer.
#2 You want to be a big fish in a small pond, not a small fish in a big pond
As a web developer you are competing with all the other million developers in the same pond of people looking for web developers.
What’s the problem?
You offer almost exactly the same service as everyone else, when people want to find you they are looking for a general terms such as “web developer” and that decreases your value.
How do we fix it?
What happens if we reposition your offering and say you are a web developer who specialises in boutique hotel websites?
Now we can say you are:
Competing with a much less crowd of web developers
Charging x10 more than other developers because you are offering a specialized service
In the future as you understand the market better you can develop Software as a Service and rent it out to boutique hotels.
Replace boutique hotels with any other market that makes sense to you based on who you have access to and what you personally like.
#3 Always be adding value
When I first got into business I thought the way it works is you get clients to pay you money.
The main goal? get paid.
What’s the problem?
Your clients will end up seeing you as a cost, you are not bringing in much value and so it’s an unfair relationship.
What did I do to fix it?
Instead of thinking how to make money, I started thinking how to add value.
I now lose money on some projects but it’s okay because the clients are happy and keep coming back for more which ends up making more profit.
Want happy clients?
Always Be Adding Value.
Keep the client’s interests first, always think of how would you give them the best value? how do you make them more money? what is the best thing for them?
It’s challenging because you are sacrificing your profit margins for your client but also because constantly providing more value to clients takes a lot of work!
If you can’t do that then your competition will and sooner or later you will be out of business.
Your thoughts and feedback are appreciated.
All the best!
As a freelancer you might be worried about the market being saturated and not sure how to improve your freelancing career.
I want to share my top 3 advice which can help you get more clients and keep working with them for longer.
The advice is aimed at web development/design but can be applied to any freelancing work.
#1 You are in the business of understanding other businesses
It’s important and required from you to learn the technical side (ex: picking a suitable programming language, best practices, solving problems)
If you stop there, what’s the difference between you and the million other freelancers?
Let’s look at a usual scenario of hiring freelance developers:
- Business wants something done, they either have an idea or a detailed brief
- They go on freelancers websites to find a suitable candidate
- They get 100s of bids from freelancers all over the world
- They will filter through them and pick the one they feel is best
- The developer now gets work based on what he is told and project is delivered
The average freelancer will do what they are told only and their initial bid will only take into account the technical side of the project.
The problem: Any programmer can develop based on an idea or brief.
What should you do instead?
You should be genuinely curious about the client’s business.
What is that project for? why do they want to develop a [website/app/project] now? what’s the clients business? how do they make money? who are their customers?
Simply asking these questions puts you in the top 1 % of all bidders automatically.
Don’t just ask and then get to work as usual!
You love technology right? cool, how can you help this client improve his idea based on what you learned about their business, using technology?
Now if you propose new ideas that make sense, you are the 1% of the 1%.
At this point the price does not matter.
Which reminds me: market rates are for losers.
You are not selling a commodity, you are a consultant offering solutions — you set the market rate for yourself based on the value you offer.
#2 You want to be a big fish in a small pond, not a small fish in a big pond
As a web developer you are competing with all the other million developers in the same pond of people looking for web developers.
What’s the problem?
You offer almost exactly the same service as everyone else, when people want to find you they are looking for a general terms such as “web developer” and that decreases your value.
How do we fix it?
What happens if we reposition your offering and say you are a web developer who specialises in boutique hotel websites?
Now we can say you are:
Competing with a much less crowd of web developers
Charging x10 more than other developers because you are offering a specialized service
In the future as you understand the market better you can develop Software as a Service and rent it out to boutique hotels.
Replace boutique hotels with any other market that makes sense to you based on who you have access to and what you personally like.
#3 Always be adding value
When I first got into business I thought the way it works is you get clients to pay you money.
The main goal? get paid.
What’s the problem?
Your clients will end up seeing you as a cost, you are not bringing in much value and so it’s an unfair relationship.
What did I do to fix it?
Instead of thinking how to make money, I started thinking how to add value.
I now lose money on some projects but it’s okay because the clients are happy and keep coming back for more which ends up making more profit.
Want happy clients?
Always Be Adding Value.
Keep the client’s interests first, always think of how would you give them the best value? how do you make them more money? what is the best thing for them?
It’s challenging because you are sacrificing your profit margins for your client but also because constantly providing more value to clients takes a lot of work!
If you can’t do that then your competition will and sooner or later you will be out of business.
Your thoughts and feedback are appreciated.
All the best!
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