When you’re first starting off, you will need to find the best ways of finding freelance work for your industry. There are various ways of finding new projects to work on and this will be a quick rundown of some different ways to do so without having to wait for search engine optimisation to pay off or build a following on social media.
Freelance Marketplaces
There are websites like freelancer.co.uk, upwork and various niche marketplaces for web design, marketing, 3D design etc. You can often add yourself as a service provider and people can find you by keyword search, or you can search jobs posted to some sites and pitch for those projects.
While this can be a quick way to get started as a freelancer or fill gaps in your schedule, there are a few downsides.
- If you’re just starting out as a freelancer, you won’t have any reviews on these sites and may find it hard to get new projects.
- You will be up against people working in countries with lower cost of living. This difference in costs means that if you’re in a Western country, you will be getting undercut by people in India, Thailand etc. While some people might say they are cheap because they aren’t very good, that’s often not the case and the difference in currency means people can employ excellent freelancers from other countries at a fraction of what we might charge.
- The platform will take a cut of your profits and may not pay you straight away. This can be damaging to your cashflow and you may end up working hard and getting paid much later. Ideally you’ll be taking deposits for work so you’re getting paid part of the fee up front and this might not be possible if you’re working through a freelance platform.
- This is likely to be low value execution only work, with no elements of strategy involved. That might be fine for when we’re starting out, but the more experienced I’ve got the less I want to be doing that kind of work.
Your Network
Depending on what you do and how you’d like to work, either contracting or working from home, you might know people who work for companies or agencies that need some help when they get busy. Some freelance contacts might be able to pass enquiries in your direction when they’re fully booked or don’t have the exact skills required themselves.
Don’t be shy – let your professional contacts know you’re available for freelance work and a rough idea of your day rate. This can mean navigating LinkedIn, but also emailing folks and picking up the phone for a catch up that also reminds people you’re there.
Here are some good tips from Sophie de Albuquerque on how to build your network as a freelancer
Referrals
This is the number one way I have built up my freelance web design work. Offering a referral fee encourages people to pass your details on to their contacts. As long as you take on work you can effectively deliver, your network of referrers will grow over time. This can happen quite quickly – I was up to speed within about six months due to recommendations mutliplying.
If this is effective you might not need to do any kind of marketing! Not having to spend time on marketing or pay someone to do that for me saves a huge amount of time and money. Being recommended is also ‘social proof’ and a good way to start the relationship off.
One thing to watch out for here is whether the clients referred to you are a good fit for your skills and ethics. I’ve also found that referred clients often haven’t done research and chosen to work with me in particular, which can lead to them not being properly engaged with the project, or even knowing anything about me.
Summary
We’ve looked at three potential ways of finding freelance work in this article – freelance marketplaces, your network and referrals. There are pros and cons to each approach to be aware of. I’ve found referrals to be the most effective way of building my freelance business without having to do other forms of marketing.