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Don’t Start Off Freelancing On The Wrong Foot

 

I have a couple of advice for the freelancers who are just starting out in the web design / development business. I can say I have an experience in this field, because I started out on the wrong foot, unfortunately.

The first and most important thing is do NOT underestimate yourself and your skills, even if you’re a student and want to earn some cash in your free time. Many developers who just beginning the freelance journey are tend to lower the price of the work to have the guarantee that they will get the job. This is wrong, because small prices usually attract cheap clients who wants to negotiate even on $5. These type of client are better to let go. If you do quality work clients will come.

Clients can see if someone selling his/her services cheap and they will instantly deduct that the cheap service equals cheap quality.

If you’re in the shoes of a developer who has nothing in his/her portfolio it’s not that big of a deal. It’s true that you will find clients harder if you don’t have a single reference, you have to work twice as hard than the rest, but it’s not impossible to pull it off.

Don’t try to get on every job that pops up in your inbox. Even an experienced developer can’t do more than 3 – 4 jobs at once. When you’re starting out you can select the offers using 2 simple rules. First select those jobs that you think you can develop in a relatively small time-frame AND select those jobs that pays well, therefore you can maximize your return on investment (ROI). As a side note, in our case return is the money you will have and investment is your time and labor that you invest in your client’s project.

Beginner freelancers are usually underestimating the time that the project will take, therefore missing the deadline. Don’t miss the deadline. If you’re heaving trouble figuring out the time-frame that the project will take then try this little trick.

Break down the project into smaller pieces. Repeat. Give each small piece a time estimate that will take to finish. These estimates will be your total time-frame. Optionally you can add 5% – 10% to the total time, this is reserved for surprises that could happen during the work.

Humans can’t future estimate anything. I bet that you don’t know what will you do EXACTLY on next week, or even the day after tomorrow. Sure, you say you will work, but you can’t say exactly how many hours or how productive you will be.

The next big question. Hourly based or fixed budget.

I usually use the following method. I just convert the estimated total time into a fixed price then add 5% – 10% to that value. It’ easier to think in hours than in prices.

Let’s say you’re hourly rate is $20 and the project will take 90 hours. The fixed budget will be 90 hours * $20 +10% from total.

How to inspire quality ? With the following simple, but hard to achieve rules. Over deliver under the project’s deadline. Don’t just finish the work, add value to it. Many developers don’t do this, they just want to finish the project as quickly as they can and cash in.

Another thing, try to offer your suggestions. In the client’s eye you’re the expert, they don’t say it directly (because they know what they want), but they expect to get some suggestions on their project. It is definitely a plus if you do this.

One other important thing, be honest with your prospects, clients. Just say: hey this is who I am. It’s that simple. Many beginner freelancers are tend to multiply things. They say ‘we can do this job‘, ‘we discussed about your project‘. It’s not the way, clients will eventually realize this and they just move on.

Laslty, this could sound a little selfish, but don’t feel sorry for your prospects. On every occasion, on every offer try to come up with the best possible deal for them AND for you, but if can’t decide on a final price than this is how it will end. Don’t try to lower your prices just, because your client’s budget is limited. A good managers budget is always lower than your estimate.

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