Let’s assume you’re a graphic designer by trade like the people on the TV last night, or you’ve at least been building your skills with Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop like our son who's awesome with these platforms
Clearly, there are a lot of competitors in your industry that’ll be willing to charge much lower rates than you, no matter what you do. There are people from all around the world with lower costs of living that’ll always be willing to accept lesser-paid gigs than you. Get over the idea of trying to compete on price as a freelancer
Instead be different! Take the time to find a profitable niche for your freelance business because it will make all the difference.
Be actively seeking out an industry and type of client that values quality. When you’re in a space that competes on quality, you’ll completely change the ways in which you sell your services. You’ll be competing on value, not price.
Instead of taking any graphic design project that comes your way, choose to concentrate solely on infographic design for startup blogs, or people writing eBooks (that's what our son does)
3. Identify Your Target Clients
Just as important as finding a profitable niche, is attracting the right types of clients for your freelance business. Make some initial assumptions about who you want to work with, target them first, and after working with a few of them, you’ll develop a very clear sense of whether or not you want to continue pursuing similar clients
To determine the best type of target clients as you start a freelance business, ask yourself these three questions:
- Which businesses will find my services useful?
- Which businesses can afford to pay the prices I’ll need to charge, in order to get to my income goal?
- Who are the decision makers within these businesses, and what can I learn about their demographics & interests? Can I find a way to connect with them on a personal level?
4. Build a High-Quality Portfolio Website
As a starting point, let’s understand what the purpose of having a portfolio website is, in the first place. It’s often the first impression a potential client will have of you, your style, your work, and the past clients (or companies) you’ve worked with in your freelance business. You need to effectively communicate the services you offer, and who they’re for. Beyond that, you need to sell yourself on why you’re the best person for this type of work – for the
clients you want to work with.
Your freelance portfolio needs to do the following, in order to be truly effective at selling your services:
- Communicate your specialty & display examples of your work.
- List your contact information & show off your personality.
- Highlight your relevant skills, education, and accomplishments.
- Display testimonials (even if they’re from coworkers or former bosses when you’re just getting started).
- Have regular updates that show your evolution, new clients, and updated sample work.
As you’re developing your portfolio site, find other freelancers within your space and get some inspiration from them
These are just a few of the many tips and ideas you will find inside this invaluable guide
We recommend reading this guide all the way through from top to bottom, but if you prefer to jump around, here’s a hyperlinked table of contents that’ll take you straight to each stage of how to start freelancing...
