Hi everyone,

As a freelancer you might be worried about the market being saturated and not sure how to improve your freelancing career.

I want to share my top 3 advice which can help you get more clients and keep working with them for longer.

The advice is aimed at web development/design but can be applied to any freelancing work.

#1 You are in the business of understanding other businesses



It’s important and required from you to learn the technical side (ex: picking a suitable programming language, best practices, solving problems)

If you stop there, what’s the difference between you and the million other freelancers?

Let’s look at a usual scenario of hiring freelance developers:

1. Business wants something done, they either have an idea or a detailed brief
2. They go on freelancers websites to find a suitable candidate
3. They get 100s of bids from freelancers all over the world
4. They will filter through them and pick the one they feel is best
5. The developer now gets work based on what he is told and project is delivered

What’s the problem?

The average freelancer will do what they are told only and their initial bid will only take into account the technical side of the project.

The problem: Any programmer can develop based on an idea or brief.

What should you do instead?

You should be genuinely curious about the client’s business.

What is that project for? why do they want to develop a [website/app/project] now? what’s the clients business? how do they make money? who are their customers?

Simply asking these questions puts you in the top 1 % of all bidders automatically.

Don’t just ask and then get to work as usual!

You love technology right? cool, how can you help this client improve his idea based on what you learned about their business, using technology?

Now if you propose new ideas that make sense, you are the 1% of the 1%.

At this point the price does not matter.

Which reminds me: market rates are for losers.

You are not selling a commodity, you are a consultant offering solutions — you set the market rate for yourself based on the value you offer.

#2 You want to be a big fish in a small pond, not a small fish in a big pond



As a web developer you are competing with all the other million developers in the same pond of people looking for web developers.

What’s the problem?

You offer almost exactly the same service as everyone else, when people want to find you they are looking for a general terms such as “web developer” and that decreases your value.

How do we fix it?

What happens if we reposition your offering and say you are a web developer who specialises in boutique hotel websites?

Now we can say you are:

Competing with a much less crowd of web developers

Charging x10 more than other developers because you are offering a specialized service

In the future as you understand the market better you can develop Software as a Service and rent it out to boutique hotels.

Replace boutique hotels with any other market that makes sense to you based on who you have access to and what you personally like.

#3 Always be adding value



When I first got into business I thought the way it works is you get clients to pay you money.

The main goal? get paid.

What’s the problem?

Your clients will end up seeing you as a cost, you are not bringing in much value and so it’s an unfair relationship.

What did I do to fix it?

Instead of thinking how to make money, I started thinking how to add value.

I now lose money on some projects but it’s okay because the clients are happy and keep coming back for more which ends up making more profit.

Want happy clients?

Always Be Adding Value.

Keep the client’s interests first, always think of how would you give them the best value? how do you make them more money? what is the best thing for them?

It’s challenging because you are sacrificing your profit margins for your client but also because constantly providing more value to clients takes a lot of work!

If you can’t do that then your competition will and sooner or later you will be out of business.

Your thoughts and feedback are appreciated.

All the best!

This post has been edited by WebMedic: Jul 8 2017, 05:33 PM

Nice.

nice post ts

1. usually how do you show ur progress? is it by giving all the source codes or just show via video demo?

2. how do you get paid? by hourly/monthly rate or the task finished then get paid?

3. what if they ask for addons/update new things even though you already completed the task? they have to pay extra or foc?

well speech. just no customer will pay a good price for freelancer around Malaysia. 99.9% of customer don't understand what the heck themselves need on the project, the direction, and whatsoever, just say "i want this like that one, just copycat it" and done. WTF.

1. You can have the website/app on your own server where they can see it live, don't give source codes until you get paid

2. Clients hate hourly and for good reasons, it's very scary to hire someone and pay them hourly because it can stretch far beyond their budget.

Go with fixed project price, that's best for everyone.

If you offer a recurring service you can charge for it monthly no problem.

3. This is up to you and the terms you agreed on.

When I first started freelancing I would be very strict about adding new features or doing any changes, now I understand that it's okay (and better) to be more open to changes, might take you more time but you want to keep the client happy.

So depends on:

- Do you want to work with the client again? might be a good idea to be more open to changes
- Are they asking for too much work? explain to them it's not as simple as it looks and why it's a lot of work

But make sure you agree at the beginning of the project on the deliverables, you don't need a contract by a lawyer - a simple email with "this is what we agree on, [list of items] do you agree?" will do

Let me know if you have any more questions

All the best!

Customers are willing to pay good money anywhere in the world if it's presented properly.

Correct most customers don't understand what they want, which is why the first point in my advice is you are in the business of understanding other businesses

It's your job to understand their business and consult them on the best solution - then you can charge whatever you want.

All the best!

Nice and good tips. Add more advice.

Do you took FYP project? Lot of people hate if freelance do the apps for FYP client. What is you point of view regrading this?

Well said, especially add value and this:



Focus not just on technical side, but business side also.