DEV Community: Kyle Prinsloo

How To Onboard Clients As A Freelancer

Kyle Prinsloo — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 08:04:05 +0000

As a freelancer, the process of onboarding clients is crucial to establishing a successful working relationship.

Client onboarding encompasses various elements including understanding client needs, effective communication, and optimizing the overall customer experience.

In this article, we will delve into the intricacies of client onboarding, the best practices to follow, and how to measure success and continuously improve the process.

What is Client Onboarding?

Client onboarding involves familiarizing new clients with your work methods, processes, and what you expect from them.

It's also crucial to understand the client’s specific needs and objectives during this phase.

A smooth onboarding experience can significantly enhance your brand's reputation, both personally and professionally.

This article will continue with tips on how to effectively onboard clients.

Understanding the Client Onboarding Process

The client onboarding process typically begins with an initial meeting or consultation where the freelancer and the client discuss the project scope, objectives, and timelines.

This sets the foundation for a successful collaboration by aligning expectations and addressing any concerns upfront.

Why is Client Onboarding Important for Freelancers?

Client onboarding is essential for freelancers as it sets the tone for the entire working relationship.

A well-executed onboarding process can lead to higher client satisfaction, repeat business, and positive referrals, ultimately contributing to the freelancer's success.

Client Onboarding Checklist

Purpose and Goals:

What's the goal? Determine if it's for e-commerce, showcasing work, or sharing expertise.

Target Audience:

Figure out who the website or ads are aimed at, considering age, location, and ideal customer.

Branding Guidelines:

Request any existing branding materials like logos, color schemes, fonts, and style guides.

Content Needs:

Inquire if the client will provide text and images, or if they need assistance.

Functional Requirements:

Understand specific functionalities needed, like online shopping, contact forms, or booking systems.

Design Preferences:

Discuss the client's design likes, dislikes, and any website references they admire.

Budget and Timeline:

Clarify the project's budget and desired completion date.

Maintenance and Updates:

Discuss post-launch plans, including maintenance, updates, hosting, and support needs.

Steps to Successfully Onboard a New Client

There are several key steps to successfully onboard a new client, such as conducting an onboarding meeting, setting clear next steps, and establishing regular touchpoints to keep the client informed and engaged throughout the onboarding process.

But for the short and quick way, I will plug my SaaS, ClientManager.

It's the simple client onboarding and management tool for freelancers and agencies.

Here's what you can do:

Design custom forms.
Share a URL with your client.
Once they complete it, you'll be notified.
It's super simple and can be set up quickly.

Actually, it's our most popular feature! ❤️

Conclusion

Streamlining your onboarding process and collecting all essential information early on helps create a mutual understanding of the project's requirements, goals, and expectations.

This approach leads to effective collaboration and minimizes the chance of misunderstandings or conflicts.

To summarize, you should now understand:

The definition of client onboarding.
The methods for onboarding clients.
How to create a client intake form.
What kind of intake form to develop.

Hope this helps :)

Cheers,

Kyle

With No Code Builders, Why Should Clients Hire a Developer?

Kyle Prinsloo — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 06:07:17 +0000

With the advent of tools that make building an e-commerce site or basic portfolio website simpler than ever, many developers are starting to wonder if this serves as a bad omen for things to come…

If any client can simply open up an account on a no-code builder, drag and drop a few components until they're happy with the design, click 'Publish' and call it a day, how is there possibly any hope for developers and web designers?

Unless you're just getting started as a developer, you've probably heard a similar version of this doom and gloom argument before, but worry not my friend, there's more than a glimmer of hope.

TLDR: No-code builders should be seen as an opportunity - not a threat.

In this article, I'm going to explore exactly what sort of no-code builders are out there, the mistaken threat they pose to developers, and the actual benefit of hiring a developer which you can use to build up your confidence to bolster your proposal proposition success.

I tweeted this last year, give it a read to get an overview.

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What are No-Code Builders?

No-code builders are tools on the web that make building websites, e-commerce stores, and even full-blown applications possible without writing any code. Low-code builders are similar but can be ever so slightly more technical.

In reality, no-code builders are sometimes confused with low-code builders where only a very little amount of code is needed when building out the site or app.

There is a huge variety of no-code and low-code builders out there today which could give you, a new or even more experienced developer, the impression that your job is being acutely challenged by smart software.

Webflow, for example, claims to be "the modern way to build for the web" where users of the tool can "build production-ready experiences without coding". On Webflow, you're able to design in the browser, build a site, connect it to a CMS, and host it all without writing a single line of code. Even the Webflow site itself is built using Webflow, which brings a tear to my eye, but in a good way.

Webflow is just one of these site-building tools.

You may have heard of others like Wix, Squarespace, or Weebly. They're all very similar tools, but essentially they do what Webflow allows you to do, although all of them offer a slightly worse experience in comparison with Webflow.

All of these mentioned builders normally come with pre-packaged designs that allow you to simply select a design, replace the placeholder text with yours, and click 'Publish'.

There are some caveats to this and they're bigger than you may expect…

But more on that later.

Moving on from site-builders, there are plenty of other no-code builders out there.

Shopify is another tool you may be familiar with especially if you've worked with clients that require e-commerce solutions. Shopify offers businesses the means to construct a fully working online store without the need for a custom-coded solution.

And then there is WordPress.

No talk of no-code builders would be complete without mentioning probably the world's most famous content management system. It's estimated that over 75 million sites will use it today; WordPress.

Why No Code Builders Won't Replace Developers

No-code builders are all over the Internet these days and are being used by millions of people but does this mean that they are replacing developers?

Not for now, no.

While these tools allow for sites and apps to be built much faster than what it would take a developer to hand-code them, these tools are still quite useless in the hands of someone who doesn't know what they are doing.

What often happens is that someone with a business idea, let's call that someone "Jim", will see the multitude of ads for no-code tools (they have really high marketing budgets), notice how simple it appears to design, build, and host a website, and is then fooled into thinking that he can do something just as good.

Jim will then purchase a subscription to a no-code tool like Wix (it's free but only to a very limited extent) and set about designing and building a site. After several hours or days, Jim has put together a site that, to his eye, looks great and is a sure-fire way of propelling his business to success.

Except that... well, it is an objectively bad website in terms of its design and usability.

It takes Jim a few embarrassing conversations with a few friends and colleagues to realize that his site is not as good as he initially thought and that maybe it's better if he turned to a professional to sand the rough edges of his site or even redo it entirely.

Jim then approaches a developer or designer for the work who then charges a fair wage for the work done. At the end of the day, Jim possesses a Wix website that looks pretty good but now he has spent double or triple his budget and wasted precious time in getting up a site that can achieve his business goals.

Many freelancers know this fake story actually happens where they have to 'fix' a lot of bad client websites they made themselves.

That's the troubling thing about many of these no-code tools.

Clients often start off thinking they know what they're doing thanks to the "if I can do it, you can do it" nature of these no-code builder advertising campaigns.

At the end of the day, there are quite a few big trade-offs when a client chooses a no-code builder over a developer. The first mistake, however, is thinking that there should be a choice between a developer and a no-code builder.

If there's one thing you takeaway from this, remember this:

You will always get people who want to cut their own lawn, and you will always get people who pay others to cut it for them.

Don't worry about those who want to cut their own lawn.

The Positive Sum Game of Developers & No-Code Builders

Developers only write code.

At least that's what everyone thinks.

In reality, developers provide solutions to problems. How they provide these solutions have changed with time. But, at the end of the day, developers are hired to solve technical problems and provide tangible value to a client or company.

That’s the core of what developers do.

Developers have, for a long time, tended towards snobbishness. In particular, many have looked down at abstracted programming languages and environments as "lesser" or "illegitimate".

Companies and clients that require custom software solutions still need developers for specific tasks. You don't see Amazon turning to Shopify to run its latest brand merchandise shop. Likewise, clients who need custom solutions will hire developers who understand software.

Those companies that will rather use a no-code builder probably did not have developers working for them full-time anyways. The thing is, these builders don't facilitate the kind of work that developers do in the first place.

More abstraction in the case of software tools and solutions does not replace developers. Rather, it equips them to complete tasks that would otherwise be unnecessarily time-consuming. This allows higher productivity which is better for the company or client in question!

What are the Potential Issues of No-Code Building Apps?

It is undeniable that many businesses and companies are attracted to the enticing benefits of no-code building platforms, but you should bear in mind that there are always some cons to something such as the following:

Limited features and templates

If your business requires a more distinctive procedure or strategy, the no-code option may not be a good choice.

No code development platforms give multiple templates and components that may be modified to fulfill a set of use cases when it comes to building up the various elements of an application.

Security

Since you're developing an app or a website from another app or website, there's no guarantee that you're safe from any breach or major issues that the no-code platform can encounter.

You won't even have control over the provider's technology stack when you use no-code. If the provider's internal security is breached, you and your project would be exposed including all of the money and time you put into developing it would be wasted.

Ownership

You need to rely on the original vendor to ensure that your application is properly maintained in the future. If you have a contract with no-code builders, it might be hard and costly for you to switch providers if needed.

The Benefits of Hiring a Developer

Developers are professionals.

They understand the intricacies and nuances of the web that allow them to know when a website or application is not working as it should. This is valuable in and of itself but the real value of a developer is in his or her ability to prevent problems before they even arise and this is where many clients who don’t use a developer get caught out.

Developers also often bring varied skill sets to the table. You’d be hard-pressed these days to find a developer who is also not well versed in at least one other complementary skill such as design, digital marketing, content writing, or SEO.

Hiring a developer is not the same as getting a subscription for a new software tool to get a job done. A developer represents expertise that understands the holistic picture. It is this key point that results in vastly differing results when a no-code tool is put in the hands of a developer versus it being used by the client himself.

Developers are experts.

Clients with unknown tools in their hands are not.

What clients get by hiring developers are people who can bridge the gap between software capabilities and the business requirements of the client. How a developer achieves this is often abstracted away from the client who really only cares for the end product and whether it works and looks as expected.

Conclusion: You're The Asset - Not The Tool You Use

No-code tools may initially serve as a source of anxiety for developers and their sense of work security but digging a little deeper reveals a different story.

Technology has evolved and continues to do so at a rapid pace. Those who maintain their value in the workforce are those who remain relevant.

A developer who uses a low- or no-code tool to achieve a specific client requirement is just as relevant as a developer who hand-codes the solution.

The key differentiator here is time. Everyone values their own time the most. Save your client time and you’ll set yourself apart from the developers looking to remain in their old ways.

This can be a nuanced argument but a common developer vs. no-code tool story can be boiled down to this:

A client needs an expert to build his or her product. They will realize this at some point if they go down the journey of building their product themselves.

It’s up to you, the developer, to remain vigilant in upgrading your skillset and confident in the business and technical acumen that you can offer clients.

Do this and you’ll forever be a sought-after professional developer who adds value.

And remember, you'll always get the guy who wants to cut his own lawn, but you'll always get the other guy who pays someone to do it for him.

Same principle applies to web development, design, freelancing, etc.

What do you think?

If you have anything to add or say about no-code builders, let me know!

Until next time,

Kyle

Is No-Code the Future of Creating Websites?

Kyle Prinsloo — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 07:13:22 +0000

Creating websites these days has become effortless.

Many successful businesses have awesome websites using different programs where they do not have to write any code, and you can do it too.

With the popularity of no-code, questions such as “is no-code the future of creating websites?” are starting to pop up in people’s minds.

In this article, I will be discussing:

What is No-Code?
The No-Code Movement
Pros & Cons of No-Code Platforms
No-Code Platform Features
Building Websites Without Coding
Services That Allow You to Make a Website Without Coding

What is No-Code?

No-code is an approach in software development that allows non-programmers or those who have no technical skill to build websites or applications without writing codes.

Instead, you can do the process visually through a graphical interface and configuration.

It requires zero programming or coding skills to build a website. If you are not into the technical side of things, no-code can help you build a website by simply dragging and dropping software elements.

For non-technical folks, no-code removes the barrier mainly by making the process of building a website easier and accessible.

Many small businesses cannot hire a software developer or outsource to build their website because of financial setbacks.

With this innovation, you can now create a website of your own with a few steps.

No-code will be the go-to and alternative solution especially business owners who want to build a website of their own but can’t afford to pay for it.

The No-Code Movement

No-code movement has transformed the technological landscape and this "revolution" primarily helps the community by providing an alternative solution to programming and coding setbacks most of us have.

In business, product promotion and development can be frustrating when you need to update everything manually.

With manual coding, progress is slow. Your primary concern as a business owner will be the time it will take to get everything done, as it can affect the user experience of your customers.

Using no-code, you now have the opportunity to build whatever marketplace set-up you want faster and more affordable too.

Pros & Cons of No-Code Platforms

Today, no-code is widely used worldwide because of its user-friendliness. Workflows tend to get done fast and easily.

Pros of No-Code Platforms

An immediate solution to problems you have in terms of website development because you will be able to create software solutions without having to hire expert programmers.
Regardless of your degree, career, or position in a business, you can now build a website by yourself that will add value to your craft or business.
Building a website is faster and cheaper. Hiring developers will cost you a lot of money and with no-code, you will be able to cut the cost.
It will save you months and months of working since you can now build a website straight away without the need to code.
You will have creative freedom on what you want to add to your website since the process is more visual.
Obviously, with no-code, web developers will have less on their plates and can focus more on streamlining processes or creating new innovations.

Cons of No-Code Platforms

Security breaches with no-code are unavoidable, and once the platform you are using is affected by this factor, your website will be compromised as well.
You don't have the full authority with using no-code networks, so basically you are taking a risk in using such platforms.
You will not be able to customize software using the no-code platform.
You have to adapt your business process based on the capability feature of the no-code network or platform you are using.

No-Code Platform Features

Drag-and-drop interface

With no-code, you can simply grab virtual objects or elements on your screen and drag them to different locations or onto other elements you want to use.

It is a simple and easy feature most users enjoy as it's similar to imitating physical movement.

Whether you're new to building or designing a website, this feature is the main reason it is convenient to use no-code development platforms. With a quick drag and drop function, you can ensure the efficiency of your work.

Data connections

The majority of no-code systems are string along with database and server-side programs. Some systems also give you an option to connect to your preferred database.

This feature is helpful because it allows you to store underlying data or information when analyzing massive amounts of data.

User interface builder

User Interface (UI) builder is another great feature of no-code platforms. With this feature, you will be able to create pre-configured elements to build your website quickly.

With a UI builder, it's easier to access, understand, and facilitate your actions.

Visual modeling

With no-code, everything is visually modeled. You will be provided with information in a readable, visually presented form and is suited for users with no tech skills.

This visual model makes it easier see how your website will look like after all the drag-and-dropping; thus, making edits as you see fit.

Building Websites Without Coding

Creating a website is an essential skill you have to master, especially when planning to start a small business.

Knowing how to build a website on your own will save you from spending a significant portion of your hard-earned cash and time.

Work smarter, not harder.

Since no-code doesn’t require programming skills, you can just follow through these steps and build your own website. Here’s a guide if you’re a starter.

Choose A Website Builder Platform

In choosing a website building platform, the first thing to consider is the familiarity of its interface. Many platforms offer simple and easy to grasp interface, similar to creating simple documents, so you might as well start with a platform like that. The important thing is that it has some easy-to-use tools for editing. I recommend you use WordPress for an easy start. Plus, it’s free.

Pick A Domain

Picking a domain or name for your website may sound easy, and yes, it is fun and easy, but it still needs some brainstorming. While you have the freedom to use any name, picking the right domain can be a considerable part of your success, mainly for your brand awareness.

Pick A Theme or Appearance

Theme is the overall look of your website; it will create the whole context of your website. You don't have to be an expert in design to stand out. One thing to consider in choosing a theme is its cleanliness, not hard on the eye, professional-looking yet straightforward.

Customize Your Theme

Once you have set your theme, further customization is the next thing you have to do. It's more like doing some tweaks here and there to improve your website's overall look and feel. You can use your own creative approach as always and polish every element.

Create Pages

Pages are a vital part of the overall usability and technicality of your website. Visitors who visit your website normally land on your homepage, and when they want to look for more information, an easy-to-navigate menu page will guide them to find what they are looking for. Aside from the homepage, you must also have an About page, a Contact page, and of course, your product or service pages.

Adjust Navigation

Adjusting your site navigation is the next step you have to work on after you finish working on your web pages. Streamline your menus and widgets to make them easy to navigate for your site visitors. Once they find your website easy to navigate, there's a big chance they will find what they are looking for, and that may ultimately mean a conversion for you.

Test and Publish

After you finish the steps above, you can review and test everything for your final polishing to ensure everything is in place, every link is working, and each page is properly set up. If you're confident that all elements work and things look presentable, what's left to do now is publish your website.

Services That Allow You to Make a Website Without Coding

Running a business takes time and coding a site from scratch will take even more time.

But since you will not need a programmer to build your website still, you have to figure out what platform provides the best no-code service out there.

While plenty of website builder services offer solutions for your problem, choosing the best platform to use is a priority.

Wix

Wix is a site builder that gives you the freedom to create, design, manage, and develop your web presence precisely the way you want. With its simple interface and great templates, you can smoothly build your own high-quality website to promote your business, showcase your work, or start your own blog site.

Weebly

Weebly has great customizable web page designs and practical tools to help you build your website. You can start by creating a free website with its very user-friendly customizable drag and drop editor.

Webflow

This platform tagged itself as "the modern way to build for the web" as it allows users to build a professional website using its visual interface. It has thousands of templates you can use for your different content or e-commerce business.

Shopify

Shopify is perfect for your small e-commerce business; with hundreds of themes you can use for your branding customization. It is also compatible with both Android and iOS, so you can easily manage your business using your mobile device.

WordPress

If you're fond of writing and planning to start a blog site where you can publish your write-ups, WordPress is a go-to website builder for thousands of bloggers all over the world.

With its free feature, you can choose from hundreds of templates with free plugins, so it's all up to your creativity. WordPress is also SEO-friendly and easy to install.

Here is some useful information on how to make your website SEO-friendly when you can’t code.

Squarespace

If you are looking for another comprehensive platform to build your website, Squarespace is a platform that allows users to create as they will. Using a simple click and point function, you can easily customize all features you want.

Final Thoughts

Progress and development take place to improve our living conditions.

In terms of technology, changes happen because we want to find solutions to our current problems, and no-code is a solution for many who don't know how to program or write codes manually.

The idea of no-code is something we shouldn't be taking too much verbally. The world has been coding and learning to code day by day and, with that, there is a massive amount of code already written.

But that doesn't mean modifications are not needed. We still need someone to code regardless.

One might arrive at a logical conclusion that no-code is the future. One way or another, the possibility of getting there is probable, but essentially it will take some time.

To reach an age of absolute no-code, we need to outdo ourselves with artificial intelligence before anything else.

Once we discover how to create programs that can create a program of its own, written codes will endure in the future.

How about you? What do you think of no-code as the future of website building?

Until next time,

Kyle

How to Promote Yourself as a Freelance Web Designer on Social Media

Kyle Prinsloo — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 08:18:12 +0000

The website design industry is expected to generate over $40 billion in the US alone this year.

And that number is only going to increase.

But with that increase, comes more competition :)

So, how will you promote yourself as a Freelance Web Designer to stand out from others?

There are so many ways, but in this article I'll walk through using social media.

Promoting Yourself on Different Social Media Networks

Social media has provided us with great opportunities, one of which is the opportunity for free promotion. It can be a decisive part of your success, but marketing yourself is often a challenge for many freelancers.

Let's get started:

Facebook

Create a business page focused on freelancing/your agency.
What do you post? Share what you're working on.
Share videos/screen recordings of web design tips for businesses.
Join Facebook groups in your desired niche or create your own one, then eventually promote your services.
Promote your client testimonials - you can boost the posts.

Twitter

Optimize your bio and header image to be focused on what business owners want to see. Are you available for work? Say so.
Post daily tips on what businesses could do to improve their sales.
Share your work. That's what Dan does, and he's dominating it.
Engage with other business/web design tweets.

Complete and optimize your profile.
Connect with relevant business owners or your desired niche.
Post tips and share what you're working on.
Use the InMail ads to get client leads - these are effective (if done right).
Apply Danny's tips.

Instagram

With a massive number of daily active users, Instagram is a perfect platform for website designers since it's an image-based platform.

Make sure it's clear business owners can hire you in your bio.
Post helpful carousel tips for businesses.
Create short stories with your tips.
Record your design process and talk about it.

YouTube

YouTube is great for showcasing your knowledge and expertise and it's also a good SEO platform to help your content rank on Google.

Create videos on what businesses want to learn about, like how to grow their business with web design + marketing, etc.
Showcase your case studies on what you've done for other business and their results, then promote it.
Talk about your design process and common mistakes businesses make that costs them $.

TikTok

TikTok is booming, so it's a good platform to be on if you're good at video.

These are short videos, but you can follow the same guideline as YouTube above.

Other Platforms

Behance

If your design skills are next level, you need to showcase it, and Behance is a great platform to do this.

Many clients reach out to top talent there, so share your work and watch the leads come in!

Present it the best way possible, and you can do that by showing your process. To grow your engagement, make sure you appreciate others' work by commenting and liking them.

Quora

Promoting yourself is like building up your reputation. Many business owners, thought leaders, and industry experts are using this platform to build their reputations.

Through Quora, you can showcase your expertise in website design since it is one of the most prominent Question & Answer sites on the web. If you want a quality, generic, and reliable results, Quora is an ideal platform for that.

In fact, my brother, who is also a freelancer, got a few clients from being active here.

All he does is replies to business owner questions - as simple as that!

Other Ways to Promote Yourself as a Freelance Web Designer

Create A Portfolio

Relevant skills and abilities are the keys to getting the right clients. An online portfolio website allows you to show what you've done, not just tell what you can do.

The advantages a professional portfolio gives you are:

It helps build your credibility
It can set you apart from other website designers.
It helps people visualize working with you.
It shows consistency between what you do and what you say.
It gives you the freedom to show your creativity.

Read this for detailed tips on creating a winning portfolio.

Create A Blog

Starting a blog is another way where you can self-promote.

The point of having a blog is this:

It showcases your expertise.
It helps with SEO.
Clients search for a problem, this shows you know the solution.

Networking

Networking is absolutely a great way to self-promote. Some people don't like stepping out of their comfort zone (I was one of them), but just start small.

Chat to friends, your local coffee shop owner, and when you get more confident, start attending local business meetups where you can talk to business owners and offer your services.

There are a lot more ways to get clients, which you can read here.

Branding and promotion requires confidence.

Work on your skills, and let your work do the selling for you.

Now it's time to apply all of this, and get the clients :)

Until next time,

Kyle

How Tailwind Can Help You Code Faster

Kyle Prinsloo — Sun, 30 May 2021 09:09:16 +0000

What is TailwindCSS?

TailwindCSS is a CSS framework used for rapidly building websites without leaving your HTML. It should not be confused with TailwindUI which is a set of prebuilt HTML templates (using TailwindCSS) created by the makers of TailwindCSS.

Tailwind have tailored it to be a "highly customizable, low-level CSS framework". This allows you to be able to build out custom components in a utility-first approach which has saved developers hours of work by improving their workflow.

TailwindCSS has been compared to Bootstrap but this comparison is flawed for one major reason...

Bootstrap is a great way for beginners to build out designs quickly because it comes with pre-designed components. It is exactly this "pre-built" nature of Bootstrap though that makes it somewhat inflexible and a hindrance for developers looking to simply extend or modify existing Bootstrap styles.

I'm not saying it can't be done... because it can.

But the almost atomic approach to Tailwind is what sets it apart from Bootstrap. Tailwind provides you with the building blocks which you can then use to construct your designs in a manner you see fit without the annoying problem of mistakenly overriding styles or battling with default configurations.

Tailwind makes your life easier as a developer, whether you're a pro at CSS or not.

Writing CSS more easily means less frustration and more productivity - important factors for all of us who value our time.

How can TailwindCSS help you code faster? Let's look into that.

Benefits of Using Tailwind

Tailwind not only saves you time as a developer, but also makes the whole process of writing CSS quite enjoyable.

It's predictable in that it uses meaningful variables and predefined classes while outputting a very small bundle size with PurgeCSS. Custom CSS components are even possible with TailwindCSS thanks to the possibility of composing a parent class with a number of Tailwind utility classes.

This is just the start of the benefits of Tailwind. Here are a few more:

1. Easy Onboarding

Say you work on a project and a new developer is brought in.

Getting the new developer up to speed with the codebase can take a significant amount of time due to it being new code.

This is completely normal.

Add in the complexity that even well-written CSS brings in and the chances of a quick, seamless under-one-hour onboarding becomes a dream. Fair to say that a project’s CSS code can be a significant hurdle to get over before the developer is able to confidently extend and modify the existing codebase.

Tailwind comes to the rescue here as it provides all the naming and organization which remains consistent across projects.

Sure, there are of course means for complexity thanks to Tailwind’s extensibility which allows custom configs to be set up. But, overall, the barrier to entry is several magnitudes lower than when walking into a vanilla CSS or CSS-in-JS codebase.

2. Zero Context Switching

It is completely possible to style out your entire HTML without physically leaving the HTML code when using Tailwind.

This is a true time-saver. Just think about the number of times you’ve looked at your HTML, gone into the CSS to make a tweak, and then spent at least a second or two picking up where you left off in the HTML.

While this may sound trivial at first glance, anyone who has coded for a long time will know how these little context switches can break concentration or, at the very least, waste a lot of time over months and years.

3. Existing Design System

Working out font scales, consistent spacing rhythms and color variants can take ages for those who are not designers or developers who have not had a perfectly annotated design handed over to them.

Unfortunately, this is quite common.

Fortunately, Tailwind solves this issue by providing the design system.

A design system set in place allows for less mental overhead deciding between two very similar shades of teal or a slightly smaller font size.

A design system is constraining which is necessary for those that want to build slick and consistent layouts in the shortest possible time frame. This allows for more time focused on writing code that gets the job done without sacrificing design quality.

Tailwind’s design system is extensible, so the constraints can be overridden. But it is this initial system that saves developers oodles of time when they just want to get up and running as quickly as possible.

4. Logical Utilities

The days of racking your brain for a new class name that fits in the rest of your CSS code are over, thanks to Tailwind.

All the classes used are utility classes meaning that they correlate to a very small, modular snippet of CSS code which is often only one line long. What this gives you is atomic control of your layouts without any issues of unintentionally overriding previous styles.

These utility classes are used directly in the HTML allowing you to easily see where you’ve repeated or overridden yourself. This reduces code duplication and a common source of developer frustration.

For example, the class “mt-4” can be added as a class directly to an HTML element. This would add a top margin of 1 REM (typically 16px) to the element it has been applied to.

Should you wish to bundle a few utility classes into one parent class such as “.button”, Tailwind have made it simple by allowing you to use the “@apply” directive.

Adding the “.button” class to an HTML element will then apply all the utilities defined under the “.button” CSS class. This improves readability and allows for time-saving reusability if you have multiple HTML elements you’d like to use the “.button” class on.

While the atomic, utility-based Tailwind classes will serve your design needs almost every time, Tailwind has been built in a way that allows you to further customize the system when needed.

5. Responsiveness is a Priority

Responsive designs are an absolute must with over 50% of web content being viewed on mobile these days. It’s simple, if you’re not building responsive layouts then you’re locking out a certain number of users or giving them an awful experience when interacting with your sites.

Making your designs responsive could not be any easier or faster with Tailwind thanks to what they’ve termed “variants”.

All of the Tailwind utilities are generated with responsive versions, or variants, allowing you to simply prepend a certain size (“xs:”, “sm:”, “lg:”, “xl:”, etc.) to a utility class for it to only apply at that size. By default, Tailwind classes apply to the smallest screen size so it’s best to use the responsive sizing names as your screen size increases.

Gone are the days of writing out separate CSS for your various screen breakpoints which can often lead to overriding issues which sap more development time.

Customization is also possible here.

If you would like to customize your desired screen sizes then you can redefine what the variant prefixes correspond to, in terms of pixel width, in a special Tailwind config file that is generated when starting a Tailwind project.

6. Smaller Bundle Size to Save Your Users Time

Tailwind doesn’t just save you time as a developer, it also saves your users time.

You may not think so when you first lay your eyes on the CSS file outputted by Tailwind (around 480kb).

But…

Tailwind initially comes packaged with all of the possible utilities you may need. This naturally results in a huge CSS file which you certainly shouldn’t ship to production if you care even the slightest about site load times and user satisfaction.

What this initial, large CSS file allows for is fast prototyping in the development environment. You’re able to add and remove different utilities in your HTML without having to touch the CSS file. The magic happens when you’re ready to ship your code to production…

Tailwind is set up to work with PurgCSS and a simple build command will tell PurgeCSS (defined in the tailwind.config.js file) to go through the HTML and find all the Tailwind utilities used.

PurgeCSS then rakes the development Tailwind CSS file and removes all the utilities not used in the HTML.

Setting up PurgeCSS to work with Tailwind is easy thanks to the fantastic explanation over on the TailwindCSS website.

In this way, the generated CSS file for production is greatly reduced in size and only includes what is actually used in the HTML. The client now only loads the CSS necessary for the site to work which means no time is spent loading useless code.

Limitations of Tailwind

Nothing is perfect (except for my tennis forehand), not even Tailwind.

While it has a ton of benefits like improving consistency, performance, and developer time-efficiency, no library is perfect for every developer or team and Tailwind is no different.

1. Readability

The first glaringly obvious limitation, at least to those who are new to Tailwind, is its readability. Those coming from a BEM-style of writing their CSS may be totally put off by HTML littered with tiny class names which appear to clog what is happening in the code.

This is actually not a limitation that lasts very long. Most developers who have felt annoyed by this initially learn to get used to the way it reads. In fact, some have done full 180, like Shawn Wang, Swyx, who went from calling it “classname soup” to saying “Tailwind is easier to learn than I thought”.

The “classname soup” can certainly be off-putting but there are component abstractions (remember the “.button” class we spoke of earlier?) that can mitigate this and generally your eyes will learn to get used to and may even learn to love it (if you don’t already).

With TailwindCSS, what you see is what you get. If you are initially a little put off, give it some time by viewing it as a learning curve. If you still cannot accept all the Tailwind utility names in your HTML, then abstract them to custom CSS names and use them as you normally would use CSS classes.

You’d still be getting most of the benefits of using Tailwind.

2. Lack of Complex Animation Support

Only support for simple animations is included. More can be added through the config file but more difficult animations are tricky if you want to do them strictly with Tailwind.

If you are after complex animations, then you may be better served by writing vanilla CSS or using an animation library.

But most cases will be served well by the handy animations that come with Tailwind such as “.animate-pulse”, “.animate-bounce”, and “.animate-ping”.

I’m sure they will be adding more animations to this in the future though.

Conclusion

Tailwind is a hugely beneficial CSS framework that has several fantastic benefits if you’re a developer looking to build out great-looking designs as quickly as possible.

Working quickly often involves a trade-off of some kind such as quality, but using Tailwind allows you to save time and improve the quality of your code and layouts.

It achieves this by providing a design system that is easy to understand and extend.

While many still prefer to write vanilla CSS or use CSS-in-JS, Tailwind provides us with a way to get sites up quickly without making speed or design sacrifices. It doesn’t have to replace your vanilla CSS but can be used in conjunction with it.

You could, for example, write out all your base layouts using Tailwind and then use vanilla CSS for custom animations or very specific, repeating components.

Either way, you should certainly give Tailwind a chance as it has the potential to drastically improve your efficiency as a developer.

If you’re interested in learning how to use Tailwind, check out their fantastic docs. The screencasts are also a great way to see Tailwind in action as the creator, Adam Wathan, shows.

What do you think of Tailwind?

I’d also like to thank to Rey for his great help with this article <3

How to Grow a Freelancing Business by Outsourcing

Kyle Prinsloo — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 06:57:16 +0000

Outsourcing can change your freelancing business.

Once you realize that TIME is your greatest ASSET, you'll think of your work and life differently.

Few people are able to work 4 hour days, earn a good income and live a life of freedom.

There are many ways to get to this outcome, with outsourcing being near the top.

What is outsourcing?

You are paying someone else to do the work.

What work?

ANYTHING.

Before we get into the "how" of outsourcing, let's have a closer look at some of the tangible benefits you can derive from including it in your business model.

Benefits of Outsourcing

1. Increase Efficiency/Promote Growth

As freelancers, we like to think we can do and handle everything.

If you see yourself as the sole solution to completing a project then you will achieve one of two things:

You will maximize profits in the short term by doing all the work yourself, but you may land in a position where you are pressed for time with creeping deadlines catching you out.
You will only be able to accept a small number of projects at a time due to the physical limitations of how much work you can do in any given day.

Now, you can make this work, but the solution that will see you avoiding both options is getting others involved.

By breaking a web development project into different aspects and delegating it to others capable of completing those tasks, you will naturally be able to take on more projects without, in theory, a drop in quality.

By carefully selecting the right people to trust in working on specific project objectives, you may find an increase in quality compared to if you did the work yourself. You can intentionally only outsource work to others that they are particularly skilled with.

For example, if you're not a great logo designer, then you can find someone who is especially skilled with logos to create one for you.

This approach to delegating specific tasks to those with the specific relevant skill will allow you to scale your business.

2. Increase Focus on Core Activities

Imagin you have a project that includes a wireframe design, logo design, copywriting, SEO and the actual development of the site.

Now, thanks to the outsourcing of a logo design, you've saved yourself hours of work. Sure, it's always good to learn and improve your design skills as a developer and practising with a logo design is a good opportunity for this but it detracts from two things - quality, as we have already spoken about, and efficiency.

By having a logo design off your plate, you can now focus on project tasks that you are more skilled with like the site development. Or maybe you've outsourced that too which leaves you more time to focus on creating the perfect website design.

More time to focus on what you're good at will result in an overall better end-result, a happier client, more referrals, and business growth.

3. Staffing Flexibility/Cost Saving

This is a certain benefit if you are considering hiring full-time employees.

Unless you're already quite established in your industry, you're going to find business to be up and down - some months will be good or great while others will be bad or terrible.

This is the nature of freelancing and is a risk you need to be ready to accept.

There are a few ways to avoid this, read here.

As soon as you add others to your full-time staff, you're adding the potential for collateral damage should things go wrong. At the very least, you'll essentially be wasting money if you are paying a full-time employee to fulfil project-related tasks when there are no projects to work on.

Outsourcing alleviates these risks by virtue of their temporary nature. You only need help with projects when there is work so your work relationship can end, or be on hold, until the next project comes up.

This approach is more frugal and can be a wise decision to make, especially in the early stages of your business' growth.

How to Outsource

1. Define your goals

Do you want to use your freelancing as a way of growing in the many subfields within freelance development?

Do you want to treat your freelancing business as a business from the start with the only goal being growth and industry establishment?

I hope that you want both and are open to learning new skills while keeping your eye on the horizon in terms of what's possible for your business to grow into.

Some freelancers only use this opportunity to learn new skills while getting paid until they feel they are ready to take on full-time employment with a company.

Outsourcing may be less beneficial to them in this short-term approach, but it depends on what they outsource.

Think about your goals here before moving on.

2. Weigh Things Up

Do you want to be a freelancer who only works on project code or do you mainly want to design websites while dabbling with some copywriting?

You don't have to decide and stick to your decision for the rest of your career, but it's worth a moment of introspection to figure what you would like to do yourself and what you like to pay others to do for you.

Like mentioned earlier, you may feel like you can or want to take care of every aspect of the project. That's fine, it'll work in the beginning but will cap your progress and scalability later. There is only so much time and resources available so choosing correctly can save you both.

Once you've done this, choosing the right person to help becomes a lot simpler.

3. Budget

Do you know exactly how much you can afford to spend on a freelance logo designer before it becomes financially unfeasible?

You need to become serious about your business finances if outsourcing is going to be a viable solution for your business to scale.

No, "serious" does not mean "underpaying people", it means understanding exactly what your expenses are capped at and what you have to spend.

To get this right, you need to figure out the quality of work you can get for a certain price.

For this, you need to undertake a bit of research, observe what’s the going price on different freelancing platforms to get ideas and then cap yourself. It will be tempting to go over this limit when you have found someone amazing but this limit is meant to guide you and serve as a reminder of what is possible versus what is financially speculative.

Once you understand the cost-benefit of outsourcing project tasks, it's time to find your person or people.

4. Start Looking for People

At this point, you will know exactly what tasks you'd like to outsource and why it makes sense to outsource them.

You will also know exactly how much money is reasonable to spend. This is a really important fact to possess because prices vary wildly out there.

I would recommend starting your search with your inner social circle and expanding out from there. This will come with a higher inherent trust between you and the other party than what you would get with a random person from the internet at the outset of the relationship.

From your inner circle of friends and family, you can move to social media.

Twitter is a popular place for developers to get in touch with freelancers who can help them with specific tasks. You can send out a tweet and you'll have people reaching out to you.

I did that and found some great writers and designers.

Even if you have found someone through social media, it's worth checking out freelancer platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. This has the potential to be more reliable than your inner circle and social media-sourced people.

These platforms are equipped with smart filters allowing you to only view the profiles of those who fit within your predefined parameters such as price per hour, area of expertise, and years of expertise. You're able to see some examples of their work and get a feel for what it would be like to work with them.

Use a combination of the above methods to get a couple of people that seem suitable. Don't overthink it but it's good to have a couple of options which you can weigh up in terms of quality, price, and communication-style.

5. Go for a trial period (if possible)

Some won't allow this and will instead only allow you to immediately hire them for a particular task but, where possible, you should first agree on a trial period.

This is obviously not needed if you require them to perform one specific task that will be completed in a week. It's more useful for repetitive tasks that you'll need someone for such as monthly content writing for the marketing strategy you provide your clients or weekly site maintenance.

In cases like these, it's better to first get a feel for what it's like to work with the other person before committing to a longer-term working relationship.

This presents as a chance for you to see how they communicate, whether they stick to deadlines, what quality of work they produce, and it gives you an overall feel for how pleasant it is to work with this person overall.

Ultimately, hiring someone to help out is supposed to make your life easier, not harder so take your time in choosing the person for the job.

I also use (and continue to use) UpWork and Hubstaff Talent - great resources to find quality people to work with.

6. Reap the Rewards

Now that you've got someone working on parts of your projects, you'll find that you have more time to focus on areas that deserve your specific attention. This will result in a higher quality end-result making your clients very happy.

With time, you can outsource more of the work as your business grows and you learn to step away.

Conclusion

Outsourcing is a skill that deserves your attention as a freelancer.

It's one that you should pick up, put into practice and expand upon. Your freelancing business will grow without it taking over your entire life and every single minute of your time.

We need to remember why we started freelancing after all.

For many of us, it was to begin a life of more freedom... Outsourcing can help us get there faster without sacrificing any of the attention to detail we bestow on our projects.

Found this helpful?

You'll love my 80/20 Freelancing eBook then.

Catch you on Twitter :)

10 Niche Ideas for Web Developers to Get Clients

Kyle Prinsloo — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 06:46:29 +0000

To niche or not to niche?

Let me get straight to it and say that you don't have to niche down your web design and development services to be successful in freelancing.

But, I do believe it's more beneficial to work in a niche and this article will explain why.

The old man with the hammer:

One fine, sunny day, the owner of a large million-dollar ship found out the engine is not working.

He called every engineer on board and the surrounding towns, but no one could fix it.

Then he brought in an old man who specializes in fixing ship engines. The old man immediately got to work and inspected the engine from top to bottom.

The owner was watching as the old man reached into his bag, took out a small hammer, tapped something with the hammer, and the engine was instantly brought to life.

A week later, the owner received an invoice from the old man for $10,000.

The ship owner didn’t want to pay for it and said, “He hardly did anything!” So he requested for an itemized bill.

This is what the old man sent:

A lifetime of experience made him an expert at fixing ship engines and he had every right to charge like one.

The subject of niching down is very much tied to the subject of expertise and why experts are able to charge more than the average developer.

Whether you’re new or have a few years of experience up your sleeves, finding a lucrative niche can make the difference for you.

Why Should You Niche Down?

A niche is a small but well-defined segment of a market to which you can target your marketing and offers.

It’s simple:

Niching down positions you as an expert in a specific industry, allowing you to charge more and become more in demand.

For example, if you advertise to everyone who needs a website, you’d have to compete with big brands with millions of advertising funds.

And...

Also the millions of others who charge as low as possible to get the client.

Another benefit of choosing a niche is you can establish yourself as an expert faster and easier.

Make 3 websites for wedding service providers and you’re already a better choice than a generic web developer.

Still not sure?

Read this: Should You Niche Down Web Design Services?

Convinced?

Now, how do you decide on a niche?

You need to consider one or a combination of:

Desire/Interest/Passion
Experience
Opportunity
Time Input

What services do you offer?

I advocate for Website Design and Marketing. Here's why.

You can either get a lot of clients paying you a low amount or a few clients paying you a large amount.

There's no right or wrong approach here.

Let's get into it:

10 Niche Ideas for Web Developers

Private Medical Practices

Private healthcare practitioners are a great market to target because of their competitive industry that makes it crucial to have a high-converting website and also their high spending power.

Chiropractors, dentists, cosmetic surgeons, and psychologists are just some private medical practitioners that you can target.

When it comes to this niche, it’s better to focus on a specific medical practice at a time to be able to hyper-target your marketing.

For example, Perfect Patients is a digital marketing agency that focuses on chiropractors as reflected in their marketing messages:

It’s important for medical professionals for their expertise, the value of services, and the impact on the lives of their patients to be reflected on their website. It will help to ask good questions that will help you better understand their practice, what they’re good at, and their business and personal values.

Real Estate Websites

The real estate landscape may be volatile, but recent surveys show that there is still an increasing number of real estate agents worldwide.

In the US alone, there are over 2 million real estate agents, including both licensed NAR Realtors and agents outside this association.

Because the competition is stiff, real estate agents are starting to leverage digital marketing, a good strategy considering that 51 percent of millennials reported purchasing a home they found online.

There are three strategies you can do here:

Create websites for real estate agents in a city, state, or country.
Create websites for real estate agents selling specific kinds of properties. E.g. condos, commercial properties, vintage homes, tiny homes, etc.
Focus on creating IDX websites.

Example by Jeremy Buff:

Financial Advisors

Financial advisors are licensed professionals who are trained to advise people on how to achieve their financial goals.

Their services include financial planning, tax management, accounts management, investment management, life insurance management, and more. Their clients include professionals, small businesses, and big corporations.

Financial planning and advice as an industry has been steadily growing in value since 2013, achieving an average annualized rate of 6.4% to total $57.6 billion.

Because financial advisors are also expected to educate potential clients about financial management, it’s best to complement your services with other digital marketing services including content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing.

Example: Advisor Websites

Hair and Beauty Services

The hair and beauty industry is extremely diverse, including everything from salons to barber shops, massage spas, wax salons, facial salons, and more.

Hair and beauty businesses are concerned with having a web design that pops and makes a good first impression. The website needs to reflect who they are as a business, what sets them apart, and the value of their services.

Example: Salon Search Party

Business Coaches

Business coaching is a high-ticket service that business owners avail to either solve a problem in their business or take their businesses to the next level. A business coach charges anywhere from $100 to $1,000 per one-hour session.

Since the stakes are high, the trust level needed between a business and a coach is also high. This is why business coaches need a website – they need to convey that they have the expertise, insights, and integrity to take their clients’ business to the next level.

Example: JennieLakenan.com

Online Course Creators

Online learning is bound to grow in the next years, with more course creators putting their stuff out in the market.

There are tons of online learning platforms already like Udemy, Coursera, Lynda, and Skillshare, but these platforms take a percentage off of the creators’ earnings. That’s why many course creators would rather have their own websites.

The main challenge with building websites for online courses is making sure that students will have a great learning experience through great design, smooth flow, and a clean interface. The website also needs to be fast and powerful enough to handle lots of video content.

Example: The Branding Designer

Authors

Both upcoming and veteran authors want a website where they can showcase their works and who they are as an author. It’s a great way for them to build a loyal readership by letting people get to know them more and by having all of their works in one place.

You can target both physical and e-book authors, but keep in mind that they may have different needs. For example, e-book authors may want users to be able to sign up for an account and access their purchased e-books instantly.

Example: Bizango

Website Platform

You can also specialize in a content management system or website building platform. Some of the most popular CMS include:

• WordPress.org
• Shopify
• Wix
• Squarespace
• BigCommerce
• Weebly
• Webflow

Example: WebDevStudios

E-commerce Websites

E-commerce is a fast-growing industry projected to reach $4.9 trillion in retail sales by 2021.

More and more e-commerce stores are popping up by the day, and many of these are owned by first-time entrepreneurs who face three major problems:

Lack of time. Some of them hold a full-time job to get them by until their store becomes profitable.
Lack of technical know-how. Although building a website is now easier more than ever before, people just don’t have the same level of technical skills. Older generations also tend to have more difficulties in building websites.
Lack of expertise. A top reason for failed e-commerce stores is the lack of features to convert visitors to buyers. Solve these three pain points and you’ll surely get at least a few clients.

Because the e-commerce trend is skyrocketing, there are already tons of agencies specializing in building e-commerce websites.

What you can do to set yourself apart is to further narrow down your niche by choosing a specific industry (e.g. hair and beauty, baby products, etc.) or offering more competitive pricing.

Example: OuterBox

Sales Funnels

A sales funnel needs to do one thing: convert. Whether your client wants new buyers or email subscribers, it needs to do the job. A high-converting sales funnel is composed of various landing pages that need the right mix of great copy, great design, responsiveness, and speed.

Building a high-converting sales funnel is not easy, and you’ll probably have to spend some time studying it. But once you master it, it’s going to be worth it.

Businesses are willing to pay thousands of dollars for a sales funnel that works, so you can charge high as long as you can justify it with value and results.

Example: JenGordon.com

Those were 10 niche ideas that you can explore to get web development clients.

I hope this list inspired you to find your niche.

If you have other niche ideas in mind, feel free to share it with us in the comments below.

See you on Twitter

❤️❤️❤️

Here are 10 Freelancing Websites to Find Clients 🔥

Kyle Prinsloo — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 13:27:26 +0000

You are looking for freelancing websites to find clients.

You've found them.

First, let me start off by saying my number 1 recommendation is your OWN portfolio website and social media profiles.

You should see freelancing platforms as a secondary channel and not your primary channel.

It works for some and not for others, but do at least try it.

With that said, here are my 10 recommendations:

1. 99Designs

99Designs is a freelancing platform with a unique way of doing things. First off, it specializes in design projects, so you won’t find bookkeeping or digital marketing projects in here. What can you design? Anything from a logo to a website.

Second, clients looking for freelancers can either search for one or hold a design contest. The latter is a good choice for clients who want to see several designs as fast as possible.

The design contests are a good way to get experience in understanding client briefs and translating them into a design. It also lets newbies get an equal chance based solely on their artistic talents and not on how many clients they’ve worked with before or how many designs they’ve done in the past.

Pros

Newbies can get great experience by participating in design contests.
They have a community forum where you can ask questions and learn from more experienced designers.

Cons

Some contests do not guarantee payments for winners.
Some designers get their designs from stock vectors and graphics.
There are some user complaints about the quality and speed of tech support.

2. Hubstaff Talent

Hubstaff Talent is the remote talent portal of Hubstaff, a time tracking and productivity tool. It’s completely free to use both for employers and job seekers, with no commission cuts for projects.

While it doesn’t have as many gigs as Upwork or Fiverr, you can definitely find good projects here from clients in different industries including real estate, digital marketing, construction, and others.

You can filter gigs according to skills, type of work (full-time, hourly contract, or fixed price), date posted, pay rate, and experience level.

Pros

It’s very easy to create a profile and begin applying for jobs.
It’s 100% free to use. No commission fees will be deducted from your salary.

Cons

It doesn’t have as many job postings as other job portals.

3. Toptal

If you want a more exclusive freelancing platform, Toptal is the top choice. They claim to be home to the top 3% of freelance talent in the world, so getting approved here is a good boost to your reputation.

As of now, they only cater to freelance software developers, designers, finance experts, product managers, and project managers.

According to the users of Toptal, the application is strict and takes about a month or so. Once you’re inside, you’ll get access to the job board where you can see gigs posted by companies by the likes of Airbnb, Shopify, and Bridgestone.

Pros

You’ll get access to important high-paying projects by some of the leading companies in the world.
They have a tech blog where freelancers can contribute pieces to boost their reputation.
They also have a community of freelancers where you can expand your network, get tips, and get access to exclusive freelancing events.

Cons

The application process is stringent and takes a while.
Some users note that the users far outnumber the projects, which means the competition is fierce.

4. Workana

Workana is a freelancing website specifically for Asian freelancers. They have posted gigs for IT & programming, design & multimedia, writing, finance and management, among others.

It works much like Upwork where you’ll register as a freelancer and apply to gigs once your account is approved.

Clients will be able to see your profile, portfolio, and ratings. They also have protected payment options for both clients and freelancers.

Pros

Registering as a freelancer is easy and quick enough.
There’s a consistent flow of projects that freelancers can apply to.
Payments are protected via Escrow.

Cons

Account approval takes a while, although you can speed it up by paying around $10.

5. Upwork

Upwork is probably the first answer you’ll get if you ask a freelancer what freelancing website they use. That’s because it’s one of the biggest remote work platforms with over 16 million registered freelancers and hundreds of projects posted every hour.

While Upwork gets a bad rap for being a melting pot of clients looking for “cheap” services, there are strategies that you can implement to position yourself as an expert and charge premium fees. In fact, some of their highest-rated developers charge as much as $60/hour.

If you’re planning to sign up for an account in Upwork, note that they recently made their process a lot stricter in an effort to avoid a flood of freelancers with the same skillsets. At least that’s what they’re telling everyone.

Pros

Thousands of jobs are posted every day.
You can set your price.
They offer payment protection for both fixed-hours and hourly projects to ensure that freelancers get paid for their work.

Cons

High commission fee deducted by Upwork.
The competition is extremely stiff.
You have to buy bids ($.15-$.9/proposal) to send proposals to clients.
It’s currently extremely hard for new profiles to get approved.

6. Fiverr

Fiverr has become popular among freelancers because of its unique system. Instead of clients posting gigs, freelancers can post their services and rates. Like Upwork, it has quickly become a marketplace for the “cheapest” services, with some freelancers asking for $5 for an infographic.

But, same as Upwork, there are strategies you can use to find higher-paying projects here. For example, you can create a pricing tier where clients can get more value the more they pay.

That’s exactly what I did to earn $10,000+ through Fiverr.

Remember that the right clients are always willing to pay more for more value. So your job is to show them the potential value you can give for a higher price.

Pros

You can set the price for your services.
You can customize your profile to stand out from the competition.
Most gigs are 5$, but you can see this is an opportunity to introduce a pricing tier.

Cons

Lots of competition.
Fiverr takes a 20% cut from every transaction.
You can’t contact clients outside of Fiverr, so if you want to leave Fiverr you can’t take them with you.

7. TopCoder

TopCoder started in 2001 by holding competitions for coders to solve challenging tech problems and has since then grown its community to over 1.5+ million members.

It’s now a company that provides businesses tech talents ranging from software developers to data scientists, but they haven’t strayed far from their roots. They still hold coding competitions where you can win competitive prizes and even practice to upgrade your skills.

They also post freelance gigs called Gig Works where you can apply and work directly with clients.

Another big plus for TopCoder is their practice challenges that allow freelance developers to hone their skills and learn how to start competing on TopCoder.

Pros

You’ll get a chance to work with big companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Harvard Medical School.
The active community of coders is a great place to network and expand your skills.
Their practice challenges, Gig Works, and coding competitions help developers improve on their craft.

Cons

The UI is hard to navigate and cluttered according to some users.

8. Gigster

Gigster's take on matching clients with developers is a bit different. Rather than matching the client with an individual developer, Gigster assembles an entire team, using AI, led by a project manager with whom the client communicates exclusively.

The application process of Gigster seems straight-forward enough. There’s a resume review, a written screening, and a personality screening. Once you pass these tests, you’ll be invited to join Gigster.

Pros

You’ll get a chance to work with big companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Harvard Medical School.
They have a regularly updated blog with useful technical articles.

Cons

It took a bit of time and fiddling around to find how to register as a freelancer on the website. To save you the trouble, here’s the link if you want to register as a freelancer.

9. Dribbble

Dribbble is a platform where clients can look for web designers whether for a full-time position or a once-off project. It built a reputation as a place to find professional designers, so it’s one of the popular destinations for clients whenever they need a designer.

Pros

You’ll get a chance to work with companies like Google, Dropbox, Slack, Shopify, and Facebook.
They have a regularly updated blog, a collection of design inspirations, a list of top designers, and even local meetups of designers on Dribble.

Cons

You’ll have to pay to be able to message clients looking for freelance designers. The job board is completely free.

10. Arc

Formerly CodeMentorX, Arc is an exclusive freelance platform with a stringent six-layer vetting process designed to get only the cream of the crop. Six stages may sound like a lot, but getting in will expand your network and get you connections that you would otherwise have to work years to get.

Arc pre-vets developers before handing them over to be interviewed by the client to see if they are a cultural and team fit. Once the decision is made, an engagement manager handles the paperwork and payment processing.

Pros

Passing through their application process will boost your reputation.
You can set your own hourly or retainer rates. Arc automatically sends invoices to clients so that’s one less thing to worry about.
They have resources for developers including a salary guide per region, a podcast, a blog, and virtual events/seminars.

Cons

The application process is very strict and may take some time.
There’s no job board where you can freely browse freelance projects.

I hope this list will help you land a freelancing gig soon.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, so feel free to add your recommendations below :)

Enjoy my content?

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XOXO

There’s More to Freelancing Than Just Coding

Kyle Prinsloo — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 12:30:33 +0000

One of the common mindsets of people who want to become freelance web developers is they just have to be so good at coding and the rest will follow.

WRONG.

If you’re serious about being successful, this is not the right mindset to start with.

Freelancing is a business, and it takes more than coding to make it grow.

In this article, I’m going to share the different hats a freelance web developer has to wear to grow and sustain his or her business.

What do freelance developers do?

In its simplest sense, freelance developers write code for clients on a project basis. This means that they are self-employed, they get to set their own rates and decide who to work with, and they control their time.

Freelance developers are first and foremost problem-solvers. Companies are now realizing that going digital is a necessity and not an option, and they are looking for people to give them the right solutions to digitalize their businesses in the most effective way possible.

Websites and apps are tools designed to bring clients sales – so, in this sense, developers directly contribute to clients’ bottom line by building technologies that will give them the edge over their competitors.

These are a few skills required for freelance developers (other than coding):

Understanding your client’s business nature and goals.

Understanding the nature of your client’s business will help you better prepare for the project and anticipate your client’s needs. This is true for both employed and freelance developers.

Ecommerce businesses have different needs from SaaS companies. A startup will also have a smaller budget, shorter timeframe, and different priorities than an enterprise company that has been around for years.

Understanding the nature and goals of your client’s business will enable you to give more valuable contributions and solutions. It will also inform your decision about which features should be included and given more technical depth.

You can understand your client’s business goals by:

Browsing their website and social media accounts. Find out their history, how long they’ve been around, products and services, their plans, etc.
Ask them yourself. This is a good way to show that you are committed to giving them the best solution possible.

Communication

Effectively communicating with a client is key to working efficiently and giving timely, effective results. A lack of clear and timely communication can give rise to a series of problems like bad coding, bad design, lost time, and wasted money.

As a web developer, it’s your job to ask questions to help you understand what your client specifically needs.

Client communication involves:

Explaining complicated technological concepts in a way that your client will easily understand.
Explaining your ideas and suggestions to the client.
Asking questions and encouraging clarifications to make sure you’re on the same page about the website’s design, features, and functionality.
Working with their in-house marketing team or hired marketing agency.
Negotiating prices and deadlines.

It also includes deciding which concerns can be emailed and which ones need to be explained face-to-face or through video calls.

Decision-Making

From choosing the framework to deciding whether a certain feature is really needed, you’re going to make pretty important decisions that will impact the project’s success.

If you are the lead developer of the project, you’ll often get asked these questions:

How long will you take to complete the project?
How much time and money should we invest in building feature X?
What is the most cost-effective way to achieve Goal A?

Your experience, technological expertise, and understanding of your client’s business, goals, and specific needs will all come into play when you’re making important decisions.

The best example I can think of to illustrate this point is the never-ending debate about CMS platforms. Which I think is quite pathetic but let’s get to the point :)

Let’s say a business coach wants a simple website that brings in a consistent flow of leads every month.

This website will need nothing more than a single high-converting landing page to do the job.

Decide on if a CMS is best or if you need to code it.

Don't waste your time unnecessarily by coding something if you can just use a plugin or existing theme to do the job for you.

I’ll say it again: As a developer, coding is not your job – finding solutions is. The best solution is the one that achieves business goals sooner.

Marketing

Before you get to start coding, you need clients, and to get clients, you need to start marketing.

The word “marketing” can be intimidating to those who have no prior experience to it because there are so many technical buzz words that sound so complicated.

In the simplest sense, marketing is putting your products and services in front of people who might need it.

Marketing is so important for freelancing that you should aim to most of your time to it and less time to actually writing the code.

To market effectively, you need to answer a few questions:

Who are your target clients? What kinds of businesses do they have?
What are their problems that your services can help solve?
Where can you find them? Are they on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit?
How do you tell your message in a way that will resonate with them?

Marketing is such a big industry in itself, but if you know the fundamentals, you’re set and can learn along the way.

If you want to know more actionable tips to market your services to clients, this guide on how to get clients may help: How to Get Clients as a Freelance Developer

Time Management

Managing your time is huge if you want to stay productive and sane.

As you get more clients and projects steadily come in, it’s easy to lose track and fall into a state of confusion and having a sink filled with unwashed dishes.

Here are some tips to help you manage your time and stay productive:

Multitasking is a myth. Only 2.5% of people in the world can actually process tasks simultaneously.

Here are some more statistics to officially end the myth of multitasking:

According to a study of Microsoft employees, employees took an average of 15 minutes to get back to intense mental tasks (e.g. writing code or reports) after responding to instant messages or emails.
People who are interrupted take 50% longer to finish a task.
Multitaskers make up to 50% more errors.

Instead of multitasking, have short bursts of hyper-focused working mode. Work distraction-free for 2 hours (or how long you prefer), take a short break to clear your mind, and repeat. You can also try the Pomodoro technique.

Collect design assets and resources. Find a set of go-to websites for your photo, vectors, icons, and other design needs. I personally like to use Deposit Photos because it’s easy to use and they have a huge library of assets. There are also free options like Pixeden, Free Design Resources, and 365PSD.

Use productivity tools. You need tools to help you organize your projects like Trello. Make collaboration easier, integrate apps, and maintain your schedule. Learn more productivity tools and other tips in this blog post: Practical Productivity Tips for Web Developers.

Cash Flow Management

No matter how many clients you get and how well you do your job, you won’t stay afloat if you mismanage your cash flow.

Some things you can do to manage your cash flow:

Closely track your income and expenses
Cut costs. Spend only on things you really need. If you’re struggling, that cup of Starbucks coffee can wait.
Stay on top of invoices.
Have a cash reserve with 3x your monthly expenses. If you spend $5,000 a month, you should have a savings account with $15,000. This cash reserve should NEVER be touched unless absolutely necessary.

As your business grows, you need to outsource taxes and bookkeeping to a trusted accountant.

I recommend reading this blog post for more money management tips: How To Spend Your Money As A Freelancer.

How do I become a freelance programmer?

Now that we’ve painted a clearer picture of what freelance web development really looks like, you can set a realistic expectation and even reassess if it’s really for you.

If you’re still set on becoming a successful freelance developer, check out the Complete Freelancing Bundle for everything you need to get started.

I hope this article helped give you an idea of what it’s like to run a freelance web development business.

There are obviously a lot more points, so feel free to mention a few in the comments.

Cheers for now :)

Kyle

You can follow me on Twitter for freelancing tips.

Where to Find Remote Developer Jobs 🏝️

Kyle Prinsloo — Wed, 27 May 2020 13:27:44 +0000

You want to find remote developer jobs.

You've found them:

Full-time / Part-time Developer Jobs

💻🏡💵

Employ Remotely

Employ Remotely is a job board that specifically caters to developers. Because it’s only for developers, you won’t have to waste time looking through irrelevant jobs.

Although they’re fairly new, they already have a long list of promising remote developer jobs. Some of the companies you can find on Employ Remotely are Creative Commons, BuddyBoss, Hubstaff, and Toggl.

Jobs are neatly categorized into four categories: Front-End Developer, Back-end Developer, Full-stack Developer, and Mobile Developer. You can also filter jobs according to the language or framework.

Another cool thing about them is you can send your CV/resume and they will critique it for free through their website ratethiscv.com. Having an impressive CV will skyrocket your chances of getting hired, so I highly recommend taking advantage of this free resource.

Pros

Jobs are easy to browse using the categories.
You can land jobs in really amazing companies.
There are no fee deductions. It’s completely free to use.

Cons

They don’t have an FAQ section so you’ll have to send an email for any question you might have.

🌴

RemoteOk.io

RemoteOk is a remote job portal with different kinds of remote works. Even though there are non-tech jobs such as copywriting and hiring, the majority of job posts on RemoteOk are tech jobs.

It has a straightforward design that makes it simple to use. You can type your skill on the search bar or just click “Software Development” on the menu below.

You don’t have to (and you can’t) create a profile in RemoteOk to start sending applications. When you click the Apply button, you will be redirected to the application URL provided by the employer. This can be on the company website or some other website.

Pros

You don’t have to create a profile before applying which saves time.
The portal is easy to navigate.
New jobs are posted almost daily.

Cons

No FAQ, About Us, or Contact Us sections. The website feels impersonal without a way to get in touch with a “real person”.

🌴

Flexjobs

FlexJobs is another website that curates job posts from all over the web. Flexjobs lists all kinds of remote works.

It’s not a free service. You can pay as low as $4 if you get the yearly plan, but there’s also a monthly plan that costs $14.95.

They also have helpful articles and resources about different aspects of working remotely including looking for the right opportunity, managing your time, and also inspiring success stories.

If you can spare some cash, FlexJobs might be worth your while.

Pros

They look for good remote opportunities all over the web.
They have tons of testimonials or success stories from job seekers who used their services, so they might be worth the few bucks.
Their website is easy to navigate.

Cons

It’s a paid service, so it’s not the best place for people looking to spend as little as possible.

🌴

Hubstaff Talent

Hubstaff Talent is the remote talent portal of Hubstaff, a time tracking and productivity tool used by companies to monitor their remote employees. Hubstaff Talent is completely free to use both for employers and job seekers.

All kinds of remote works can be found here including web and software development. There are full-time and part-time jobs as well as project-based gigs. You can filter jobs according to skills, job type (full-time, hourly contract, or fixed price), date posted, pay rate, and experience level.

I personally use Hubstaff Talent for hiring other freelancers. We've worked (and continue to work) with some really talented people found from this platform.

Pros

It’s very easy to create a profile and begin applying for jobs.
It’s 100% free to use. No commission fees will be deducted from your salary.

Cons

It doesn’t have as many job postings as other job portals.

🌴

LinkedIn Jobs

According to the latest statistics for 2020, around 77% of recruiters are on LinkedIn. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account yet, it’s time to create one.

Once you have a profile, you can start looking for web developer jobs by going to LinkedIn Jobs. Sometimes, recruiters may directly message you especially if you have an impressive profile.

You can make your profile stand out from the rest by taking the following steps:

• Use a professional profile photo. Read on how to take one here.
• Complete your profile. Write an attractive headline and list your achievements, past projects, and job experiences. Make sure to upload your resume and portfolio.
• Regularly update your account by sharing/resharing useful content and expressing your opinion on different matters.

Learn more tricks to stand out on LinkedIn in this blog post: 10 Ways to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out (2020 Guide).

Pros

Many recruiters use LinkedIn to look for the best candidate.
You can use LinkedIn groups to identify key contacts in your industry.
You can learn a lot about companies by following them.

Cons

You can pay a monthly fee to be a “Featured Applicant” which I am not a big fan of.
Profile customization options are limited.
You’ll receive payments directly from clients so you have to be extra careful of scams.

🌴

For Freelance / Project-Based Works

🏝️🖥️💰

Let me preface this section and mention that I believe the BEST way to get freelancing clients is through your own website.

If you want to know how you can get clients, watch this:

Otherwise, also consider these 2 platforms below:

Upwork

Upwork is one of the largest platforms for remote workers with over 16 million registered freelancers.

Clients can come in here to look for budget-friendly yet high-quality freelance services. Although many clients here are looking to save on costs, it just takes the right strategy to build your reputation and charge a premium. In fact, some of their highest-rated developers charge well over $60/hour.

Upwork isn’t the friendliest platform for beginners, but there are still some ways to stand out as a newbie:

• Research the top 20 profiles, study the profiles’ strengths and weaknesses and make your profile better than them.
• Make sure your proposals are hard to ignore by attaching an excellent portfolio and giving as much value as possible.
• Do a great job on each project. Clients can leave reviews on your profile so make sure they only have praises to say about you.

Pros

Thousands of jobs are posted every day.
You can set your price.
They offer a safe way to receive payment.

Cons

High commission fee deducted by Upwork.
The competition is extremely stiff.
You have to buy bids to send proposals.
It’s a hassle for new profiles to get approved.

🌴

Fiverr

Some of you may be wondering why I included Fiverr here, but hear me out 😘

Fiverr may be known as the place where lowballers are looking for the cheapest services, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to earn a decent income here.

I actually earned thousands from Fiverr within one year.

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Here’s how:

• I created a strategy to stand out from the crowd.
Because I noticed that other people offering the same service as I didn’t have good main images or videos, I made sure to have a good cover image and an animated video. Look for ways to stand out and how you can do better than the competition.

• I proceeded to secure reviews.
Because Fiverr is all about reviews, the next main thing is to secure one to two reviews.

• I created a pricing tier for more work.
A pricing tier is where you offer increasing rates for more services. In my case, I offered a $5 website conversion report, a highly detailed action plan and UI document for $100, and then a proposal of 4 figures for me to implement the plan.

• I secured a recurring client through this strategy.
I improved his website, his sales more than quadrupled, and we worked together on more projects.

You can read more about how I did it here: 8 Platforms Web Developers Can Sell Their Services On.

Pros

You can set the price for your services.
You can customize your profile to stand out from the competition.
Most gigs are $5, but you can see this is an opportunity to introduce a pricing tier.

Cons

Lots of competition.
Fiverr takes a 20% cut from every transaction.
You can’t contact clients outside of Fiverr, so if you want to leave Fiverr you can’t take them with you.

And those were websites where you can find web developer jobs or freelance projects.

If you learned something here and if you think a friend of yours might benefit from it, feel free to share this article!

Actually, you are obliged to share it with your friends because it took me a while to get this article together 😀

If you have any suggestions that should be on this list, please comment them below.

Thanks for reading and see you in the next blog post!

How to Start Freelancing (The Basics)

Kyle Prinsloo — Fri, 15 May 2020 16:36:26 +0000

If you’ve been wanting to start freelancing but do not know where to start, this is the perfect article for you.

Freelancing can be a lucrative source of income that can earn you 6 digits in a month, but before you get to that level of success, you have to take the right steps.

In this article, we’re going to discuss the basics of how you can start freelancing the right way.

But first, let’s talk about mindset.

In our years of teaching people how to start a freelancing business, we’ve seen many people who start and fail after a few months.

Why did they fail?

It’s not because they have no skills or resources.

It’s because they had the wrong mindset.

Many people think that:

• Freelancing is a way to earn easy money.
• It will only take them 2-3 months of hard work to reach their target income.

If this is your mindset, stop right there.

We’d like to warn you that freelancing is NOT easy.

It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s a real business that requires hard work to build and grow. It’s a long-term game.

You have to put in the work consistently for months before you see any real results.

You may have to sacrifice a lot of Friday nights and weekends, but once you get your first client and continuously build your business, it’ll all be worth it.

As a highschool drop-out with many struggles in the past, I can tell you this as fact:

Freelancing takes a lot of hard work. Not just a little, but a LOT. BUT it's all worth it.

If you are willing to put in the work, read on to find out the right steps to build your freelance business the right way.

Here's a quick video summary if you prefer watching:

Let's get started.

Define Your Goal

If you don’t know where you’re going, there’s a high chance you won’t get there.

Knowing why you want to start a freelance career is crucial because it will inform your strategy and the way you do things.

These are some questions you should consider:

• Do you want to eventually become a full-time freelancer or is this going to be a temporary part-time gig?

• Are you looking to have a freelancing business to use it as a stepping stone to achieving an entirely different goal?

Having clear, realistic goals will help you formulate an effective plan, manage your expectations, and keep you committed to your vision.

Services Offered

Choose a skill that you’re really interested in and specialize in it. If you love writing, offer writing services. If you love editing videos, be a video editor.

Don’t be a jack of all trades trying to be everything to everybody because they’re not as effective and well-paid as specialists.

If you have heart disease, you’re going to want to be treated by a cardiologist rather than a general practitioner. You’ll also be willing to pay more! The same thing works in freelancing.

What you can also do is think of a skill that complements your main service. For example, a web developer can also offer digital marketing or content writing services because these services go hand in hand.

You can always expand and add more to your skillset once you get the hang of freelancing.

Determine Your Target Market/Niche

A common pitfall of new freelancers is they try to offer their services to anyone who might need it.

This approach will:

• Limit how much you can earn as a freelancer
• Waste so much time and effort

Just like in determining your services, it’s best to target a specific market or niche because this will make it easier for you to build a reputation and start charging higher.

“I develop websites for any business” screams inexperience and vagueness.
But saying “I develop high-converting websites for law firms” screams expertise and clarity. You can even narrow this down further by targeting law firms specializing in divorce cases.

Other possible niches:

• Coffee shops
• Wedding photographers/videographers
• Events places
• Local businesses in your area
• Tech startups
• SaaS companies
• E-commerce stores

Having an idea of who your ideal clients are or what they are like will make it easier to choose which projects to accept.

Ask yourself the following questions to identify your ideal client:

• What should they already have? For example, some content marketers prefer to work with clients with an existing personal brand because it’s easier to come up with campaigns with a high chance of success. Should your ideal client already have a competitive line of products and/or services, website, huge following, good marketing strategy, etc.? You can also narrow down based on location.

• What are their pain points? What are some of their problems that your service can help solve?

• What values should you share? What are some of your non-negotiable values or advocacies? If you’re vegan, will you be willing to work with a meat supplier? Most freelancers stay away from clients in murky industries like gambling and others.

Create A Targeted Portfolio Site

Once you’ve chosen a niche, it’s time to put together a professional website that will clearly show what you can do:

1 – Buy a domain related to your niche.
2 – Write a clear USP or unique selling proposition that will clearly state who your target clients are and how you can help them.

Example: “I create high-converting sales funnels to help business coaches get more clients.”

This website is going to be your primary marketing material, so make sure everything supports your claim in your USP.

Here are things you can do to make your website more effective in convincing potential clients:

• Create a portfolio. Ready three or more sample works so your clients can have an idea of your style and quality. There are many ways to build a portfolio even if you don’t have a client yet. For one, you can offer your services at a discount in exchange for a testimonial. But what if no one takes up your offer? Then you can just create a sample work and publish it on your portfolio. If you’re a web developer, create a website.

If you’re a graphic designer, design a poster and include it in your portfolio and do the following:

• Write blog articles consistently – Blogging is an incredible way to show off your expertiseIf you’re targeting business coaches, you can write about a topic that’s relevant to them such as marketing or time management tips for business coaches.

• Publish client testimonials – 72% of consumers say that positive reviews and testimonials boost their trust in a business, so testimonials are a must. But how will you get a testimonial if you don’t have a client yet? Offering an incentive like a discount or freebie in exchange for a quick testimonial works like a charm.

Determine Your Pricing Strategy

Pricing is a huge topic with lots of areas to cover, but pricing can make or break your business.

A common question of beginner freelancers is should they charge by the hour or by value. We won’t go into too much detail here because we’ve already discussed it at length in this blog post, but we strongly believe that charging according to the value you give is a wiser option both for you and your client. You can learn more about it here.

In deciding how much to charge, your niche also plays a huge role. A local arts and crafts store won’t have a budget as big as that of a law firm.

Make sure that your price is competitive for your specific niche.

Reach Out To Potential Clients

Once your services, website, and pricing are ready, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of manually reaching out to clients.

There are lots of things you can do:

• Use paid advertisements like Facebook and Google ads.

• Create a Facebook group and invite your target clients to join. Regularly post helpful content to build trust, and eventually, you can start selling your services to them.

• Look through directories, Google, newspapers, or magazines to find the contact details of your target clients. Then send them an email or give them a call. Make sure to follow up if they don’t respond within 2-3 days. Create a spreadsheet where you can track down who you’ve contacted, who’ve replied, and who to follow up.

Do these things consistently and persistently and you’re bound to land your first paying client.

I said “persistently” because you can’t send emails to seven people and then be disappointed that it didn’t work!

Some of you may be thinking, “How am I going to find time to do all that?!”

But if you really want this, you’re going to create time. Cancel your Netflix subscription. Limit your time spent on social media. There’s always more time if you prioritize.

There is no shortcut to this process. You will be rejected. Some won’t even call you back. But you need to persevere.

Johannes (the other half of SWD) always says, “You need to have a lot of persistence. Keep trying, keep knocking. Every “no” will bring you closer to a “yes”.”

Analyze, Learn, and Adapt Your Approach

After about 3 months of applying these strategies, you need to analyze the results to figure out what works or not. How can you make improvements? What else should you try?

If you’re advertising, you need to analyze if what you’re spending is giving a decent return. Analyze what copy, landing page, keywords, budget, and others work best.

If you created a Facebook group, what can you do to maximize it?

Once you figure out the strategies that work best for you, drop the others, and start focusing on these key strategies.

Those were the 7 basic steps you can take to jumpstart your freelance career. This process worked for us, it worked for our students, but whether it will work for you depends on the amount of work you’re willing to do.

Also, don't be afraid to start "small":

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We hope that you’ve learned something from this article.

Thanks for reading 😊