Posts Tagged ‘Q & A freelancing’
Q & A: How to move away from the Job Boards
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Hi FreelanceKnight,
I’m a part-time freelancer now, I’m planning to go full-time eventually, but within the past month I found the projects on job boards are of low value, and the income generated from them is lower than my salary of around $2000 per month.
If it’s possible, can you give me some advice about getting more, high value freelance gigs?
Hi sir!
I totally understand where your coming from here, but don’t quit your job just yet. The reason for that is the following. Bidding sites generally have:
- Cheaper and smaller gigs (with VERY demanding clients)
- Massive Competition from other workers (more so now in the credit crunch with people been made redundant, and turning to job sites like GAF)
I personally tried the gig sites like Get a freelancer and similar, and had no luck.
I think, in the end I realized I was quoting too high maybe. However, I feel they are bad investment of your time. Yes, by all means use them to fill your time between bigger, more profitable freelance gigs.
Heres what I suggest you do:
I appreciate you have a salary now. This is great, because you have a reliable income to use whilst you build up clients. I personally would grab yourself some business cards, (maybe from Moo.com?) and give some out to all your friends, family and neighbors. Make sure EVERYONE you know understands your available to hire for freelance gigs. To this day I’ve never found a better (or more cost-effective) form of marketing.
You might also wish to leave your cards in local computer stores and coffee shops. I picked up a client who worked with major national brands through him finding one of my cards in a local computer shop.
You want to make sure you have pretty decent website and logo. If you don’t have one (and aren’t a web designer) then you could grab one from themeforest for as low as $10!
You might wish to set-up a blog, but then just get out there on places like twitter, facebook, forums and blogs and (not spammingly) provide your website link either as your name in website comments, or as a signature line to build up visitors.
Another, more active marketing tactic you might use is to simply walk into a local store, shop or business, and outright ask them if they need any help (or if they are totally happy with) their current website.
Thanks,
Paul, the Freelance Knight
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Tags: Q & A freelancing, Questions
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