Connor Wilson » Blog Archive » Advice for Starting Freelancers

Advice for Starting Freelancers

Posted on March 22nd in Freelance — 8 Comments so far. Got something to say?

I’ve been offering my design, WordPress, PHP, etc… skills in a freelance situation for a while now. I communicate with my clients via IM and email, and the lack of personal contact has not had an impact. I’ve come across some obstacles and have overcome some things to get to the point where I am now. But where is that point? Well, I’m not making a living here, and doing this in my ’spare time’ (spare time can be more than my ‘other’ time sometimes ;)) is a good job. It beats having a part time job making minimum wage at Staples (which I applied for, but got rejected. Guess they didn’t want knowledge…) and maybe making $60-70 a week. Here are some tips I have, for those beginning and accomplished alike, but more geared towards those starting out.

Trust. It’s hard to come by. It’s hard to find a client you trust, although most are trustworthy, and it’s hard to find a client that trusts you. This is a big issue, and establishing trust is important, but you have to know somethings, and this entire list will have a recurring ‘establishing trust‘ theme.
Take down payments. Even if you have a mutual trust with the client, and you know you’ll send them the files and they’ll pay you in full, but taking a down payment is important. I didn’t do this at first, and wish I had. Now, I take 35% up front, and the remaining 65% upon completion. That leads into this:
The process. To ensure no one gets screwed, follow this order of payment and transfer:

Client pays 35% down upon a mutual agreement of what is expected and to be done. Make sure both sides know what is expected. Next, you do the work. For example, you design the site, show previews to the client, lightly watermarked is necessary. They are pleased with your work. They continue to send the remaining money, and then, and only then if the money has cleared the send the files. Zip them up nice, and send them via email and/or IM or however they ask. If the job is worth more money, add installment like payments for progress.
HTML and CSS can be downloaded directly from the browser. If you’re doing a coding job for the client, and it’s only XHTML/CSS, encrypt your code. In FireFox it’s a simple Ctrl + S and they have all your work at their finger tips.
SitePoint Marketplace is a bad place to find clients. I’ve PMed, emailed, added many people looking for freelance workers over SitePoint, and because SitePoint is such a huge site, with such huge talent lurking, I can say you will never get a client off the SP marketplace and be statistically accurate. I’m talking about the “Looking to Hire” section of course.
Stay in Touch. I don’t care if you haven’t done any work or made any significant progress. You need to talk to your clients some way at least every other day, but it should be everyday, unless you’re waiting for a response from them. In freelance, most jobs are short term, and every other day, there should be enough progress to report it to them. Constant communication also builds trust, and maybe even friendship.
Know when to keep it professional. You have to know which clients will turn into friends which you can talk to normally, but you also have to know when to put your game face on. Make sure you can make the client comfortable with you, and if one thing makes people comfortable, it’s when they know that you know what you’re doing.
Try to spot the ‘clients’ that will rip you off. One sign is that they will add you straight to MSN/Gtalk/etc… without emailing you. This is where the down payments are key. If you’re suspicious about them, just play along until it comes down payment time. This also transitions into my next tip.
You do NOT want free hosting, free advertising in exchange for money, with rare exceptions. I’ve heard many times that I could get hosting, or ad space, or traffic. You name it, I’ve been offered it, and turned it down. First of all, if they are offering you hosting, chances are it’s a reseller account. Baaaad. Second, if they offer ad space, it’s most likely on the site that they need your for, which in turn probably won’t be a good spot.
You will NOT do this one for free. And you will NOT do this for free because it will look good in your portfolio. People who say this are just fishing for free services. This will waste your time and escalates into greater things. I offer help over email or IM, but I do not do free work or write/fix free scripts. I will give you friendly advice or advise on to how your script should run, but I’m not going to do it for you.

There’s ten things already, and I could keep going. In part two, which I’ll write… when I feel like it I’ll focus more on the bad end of things. How to deal with people that won’t pay, what to do when your work is just taken, etc… Any questions should be done through the comments, and I’ll answer everything there.