Freelancing for the full time employee - Part 2 (Finding Clients)

The anatomy of a client

One of the most frequent topics I receive questions about is how I find my clients. I like to separate the task of getting work into two separate genres: active, and passive. Which one you use more will largely depend on how much you rely on freelance for your income. If you are wanting to run your own show 100% of the time, you should probably go for a more active approach. If you are like me and enjoy having the benefits of a full time job, but also want to have the extra cash from things you can do in your free time, you will benefit from a more passive approach. Before I dive into these, however, let me provide a brief overview of what a client looks like. These bullet points make up attributes that are common amongst all, or most, of my clients. Hopefully this will provide you with an idea about some of the kinds of people that are most likely to hire you.

A typical software-based client:

• Is ambitious. They have an idea that they want to experiment with and may or may not be ready to take the plunge.
• Is interested in being an entrepreneur. Whether the job they hire you for is designed to make money or not, they will ultimately be acting as a business entity with you since they will be communicating project requirements, paying invoices, and managing communications with a contractor.
• Is excited. Most clients are really excited to turn an idea into something real. This often leads to their idea evolving over time (sometimes very short periods of time). This can be a great attribute for a client to have if you set your working-relationship up properly, otherwise it can become a scope-creep nightmare. For more information on this, look at the “Once you find a client” post.

The "Active" approach to finding clients

The active approach to finding work involves finding people to sell yourself, and your skill sets, to. You are taking yourself to where the work is. Here are a few examples of things you can do to actively find clients to work with:

1. Sell to local businesses - A simple technique that can be an easy way to pick up easy work is to lookup the websites for local businesses around you and try to find ones that look like they are pretty out of date (I’ve found a lot of auto-repair shops, ma & pa restaurants, and boutique stores to be in need of a web-update). These can be easy money since, most of the time, these are static sites that don’t even require a database to function. I’ve found projects like these to be prime candidates for CMS services like drupal or wordpress. The catch here is that a lot of these places aren’t focusing their business on web-based sales or traffic, so you need to put on your salesman-hat and help them understand how paying you to throw up a beautiful/simple wordpress site can help them increase their revenue. Either give them a call or go into the store and do your best to help them understand how a new website could raise their bottom line. Since it is a completely separate skill, I’m not going to go over how to be a convincing salesperson but you can find plenty of information on that if you dig online a little.

2. Meet new people - Ultimately, you need to know more and more people in order for you to get new jobs. This can best be achieved by putting yourself in situations where you are more likely to meet the kind of people looking for a freelancer. What these situations look like can vary depending on where you are. I’m not going to provide specific examples of places to meet new people, but I will provide two general “categories” of potential places to meet people as well as their benefits and drawbacks.

   • Technical Groups - Good examples of opportunities to network with a technical group are events like hackathons, meetups, and conferences. These are great for multiple reasons, a key one being that it gives you a chance to build up your short-list. Keep in mind that most of the people here probably won’t need to hire a developer. The real freelancing opportunity here can come from being on someone else's short-list. My highest-paying side-job came from another developer I met at a similar event. He needed help with a project and remembered that he enjoyed working with me, so thankfully I was the person on his list that got contacted first. If anything, these are also good opportunities to get some more tips and tricks on how you can grow your own business.
   • Non-Technical Groups - These extend to pretty much the rest of the non-developer world. If your week consists of you going to work/school in the morning, then coming home and sitting around all evening, you may have some difficulty growing your client base. Everything from being involved with a club or church, to switching up which bar you go to, is an easy way to expand your network and increase your chances of finding clients.I’ve had several projects come as a result of introducing myself as a developer in an MBA class I took.

3. Ask people - It sounds super simple, but getting the guts to just outright ask people if they need a website/app/game/developer/etc. Is surprisingly effective. If they come up dry, ask them if they know anyone else or tell them to keep you in mind if they hear of anyone looking for a dev. Word of mouth can become a really powerful tool once you build your network out a bit.

4. Go to freelancing websites - There are literally hundreds of these, and I would probably advise against this route more than any other. These websites will usually have potential employers post a description of the work they want, and then developers from around the globe will post their potential bid for the job. I’m yet to have a successful experience with these since all the bids that get accepted are way below the amount that I’m willing to work for. I’ve had a large number of clients complete projects from these sites but then hire me to re-do them since they didn’t come nearly close enough to meeting their expectations.
   

   The "Passive" approach to finding clients

   With my personal freelancing, I've had a lot of success with a very passive approach to finding work. This is definitely my preferred method of building a client base. Here are my primary ways I find clients:

5. Tell everyone - The vast majority of my freelance work comes through this method. I think just about everyone associated with me knows that I’m a software engineer, and that I do freelance. Both my wife, and me, try to find natural ways to let people know that I develop apps, websites, games, etc. for people willing to pay for them. Make sure you do this right, as unnaturally bringing it up in a conversation could make you look more like a salesman (which is what you are subliminally trying to be anyways, I guess), rather than someone just sharing about who you are. Here is a guiding rule of thumb that will eventually get you some work if you keep at it long enough: Any time someone asks you what you do for a living, tell them what your fulltime job is and then also tell them that you do side-work making websites, apps, etc. for people as well. It is amazing the amount minor interactions I have had in this manner that have actually led to acquiring some of my best clients. I’ve had success with this tactic in places as random as the checkout line in a grocery store.

6. Meet new people - Telling the same people, multiple times, that you do side-work isn’t likely to yield much new work. The brunt of this point is to simply find ways to be more social. You can be technical about it, but it really boils down to just talking to more people and being more comfortable getting to know the people already around you. This includes classmates you may not know well, co-workers you have interactions with but know nothing about, and strangers it makes sense to strike up a conversation with.

Next up:

Freelancing for the full time employee - Part 3 (What to do once you find a client)

Carter Hesterman ・ Aug 23 '20 ・ 4 min read

#freelance #contractwork #clientwork #clientmanagement