Tips for freelancers to increase their visibility and earnings

CEM CIFTGUL / MARCH 6, 2019

As a freelancer, you know you can’t bet on a steady income. Therefore you don’t have the luxury to sit back and wait for a client to give you something new to work on. It’s not enough that you’re f*c*ing great at what you do, you constantly need to pursue new clients just like a salesperson. This may be the pitfall of freelancing, but you know there are more rewards if you succeed at becoming a pro freelancer. Becoming a member of freelancer platforms that bring new clients might help, but you still need to actively improve your profile and visibility. Here are some tips to be more effective at boosting your visibility and hence finding yourself new clients:

Online v.s. offline presence

Being a digital freelancer requires certainly a strong online presence. And having profiles on related social networks, and freelance platforms will not be enough. You need to be active to create awareness and to build an audience.

Blogging: Write blog posts, and spread them out. But do not bother if you’re not going to write about interesting and unique topics that prove your expertise in the area. If you don’t have your own website, you can write guest blogs on other websites, and blog platforms like Linkedin Pulse or Medium.com and spread the link to your post on social channels like Twitter and relevant Facebook groups.

Freelance platforms: Sign up for online platforms where you can find freelance jobs easily. Freelance platforms now focus on specific verticals, therefore choose the ones that are more effective on the services that you provide.

Freelance platforms specialize in spotting the right pros for specific jobs and evaluating whether they have the right skills to deliver what you are asking for. For instance, at Proteams, when one of our clients want to develop an airline search engine, we know which developers or UX designers on Proteams network have worked with a similar product before, so it is much easier for us to match the client with the right pro.

Make sure you provide all relevant information about you to these platforms. Engage with their representatives as much as possible so that they know who you are, what you have done before, and what you are capable of so that they prioritize you when they make recommendations or hire in the name of the client.

Network: Just like for any occupation, networking is extremely important for freelancing too. Especially if you live in a country with a large digital sector, so your network may be enough to source most of your clients. People you know in real life will always be more helpful, so start with offline networking. Reach out to old friends, and colleagues, ask for their help to reach the right people at the right places. There is no shame in making business, and as a freelancer, you are a business yourself.

Online networking can be very effective too. Platforms like Linkedin and Angelist make it possible to connect potential new business partners easily. But you need to use them wisely. Have a solid professional profile with strong references, and do not connect with people without a purpose. You can even network on Twitter, by retweeting or mentioning relevant people or companies that you want to have interaction with and engage conversations.

You basically have to be present in all relevant environments either online or offline.

Teaming up

As a freelancer, you may be a lone wolf, and it’s not always nice and efficient. Team up with other talented professionals to collaborate on new projects, so that they may bring you new jobs as much as you can bring them some. For instance, if you’re a back-end developer, it’d be great to team up with talented designers and front-end developers so that you can deliver a finished product all together. By working with a freelance team that you are accustomed to, you’ll not only be more efficient, and successful but also have higher earnings, as you will all be feeding each other with new jobs. Don’t forget, less time on marketing activities means more time for work and higher earnings.

On Proteams, we usually team you up with other talented professionals usually within the same budget range and re-book the same team for new clients so that you get accustomed to working with the same team, gain experience and efficiency by working together.

Solid profile

To increase the number of your clients from online platforms, you need to have a solid profile with a high rating, positive reviews, and presenting your strong skills, valuable experiences and noteworthy references.

Skills: Add skills that are most relevant to you, so that you match with relevant clients. Don’t spend time getting clients that look for skills that you don’t have. Many freelancers may be keen on getting jobs where don’t have the necessary skills and show interest anyway for the earnings and learning new skills, but this is not the right way to go. Don’t forget, client happiness is the key success factor. And if you get a job where you don’t have the necessary skills, you will most probably screw it up. This doesn’t mean you should not get new skills, just use them when you are confident about them and make sure that you can deliver high-quality using them.

Experiences and references: Try to work with selective clients and have valuable experiences. This will return back to you as new valuable experiences with selective clients and also as higher earnings. Therefore, you should select your customers. Try to match with more promising companies, and people that pay you back as strong references. If you do not match with a company that you like, knock on some doors, offer some free work for trial/testing period. That way you will gain attention and respect of your potential clients.

Reputation: In order to boost your reputation, you need to have many happy clients, and a strong online presence with followers on a related channel or good reviews on your profile. You have to be listed in the right places where your target clients may find you. You should maybe focus on unique skills and experiences so that you are high on demand for something specific.

Ratings and reviews: Ask happy clients to leave ratings and reviews on your profile. Ratings and reviews are probably the most critical factor in the decision making of a client. One negative review may let you lose many clients, so do anything to avoid negative reviews and ratings.

Customer happiness

Whatever you do to raise awareness of your profile, if you don’t deliver and make your customers unhappy, you’ll end up losing your reputation. Therefore, focus on your customer happiness. Deliver always high-quality, and always on time, do small favors, make them know that their happiness is important to you. Don’t bitch about small issues like a couple of extra hours that you spend on a job or miscommunication issues that you had with them. Let them know, but do not complain, so that they realize that their happiness is important to you.

Pricing

Pricing is a critical factor both for your visibility and your earnings. Make a good calculation of what you should be earning every month, and easily find your hourly fee. Do not make too much discount on your hourly fee to get new jobs, otherwise, you’ll get in a vicious cycle of needing more jobs, getting overbooked, and having problems in your service quality and/or your schedules, hence end up with unhappy clients and bad reputation.

Be transparent with your pricing, and do not charge different rates for different customers. This will definitely piss them off when they find out about that. Focus on having happy and loyal customers that return to get new services from you.