The Ultimate Guide for Beginner Freelancers
Happy Monday, friends!
I am not the most qualified person to write this, but I'm not the least qualified either, so here it goes.
It's been 4 years of freelancing, 1 of those years full-time.
You probably know that if you're reading this because last Tuesday I published this post detailing what I've learned from relying on freelancing as my sole source of income for an entire year and it resonated with some people.
People who had questions like, "How do you find your clients?" and "I'm trying to do it - how did you?"
I thought I would use this Monday's newsletter to provide a non-comprehensive guide to what I wish I had known when I was starting out.
Here's a little disclaimer: There's so much information out there. A quick Google search will give you hundreds of different people, all claiming to be experts, providing their opinions on how you should get started in your freelance career.
It's overwhelming, right? It's hard to know who to trust.
So here's my first secret.
#1: There Is No Secret to Success
I know this is not what you wanted to hear. It is, however, what we all need to hear. The reality is that a different approach is going to work for each of us based on our niche, the services we provide, and maybe who we are as people.
Freelancing is trial and error. I had an account on Fiverr that did absolutely nothing for me and I worked for several different content mills before I got real, well-paying clients. I had to try things that didn't work for me and that depleted me before I found ways of connecting with clients that did work and didn't completely drain me.
I have not "achieved success". I had a good month. You will, too.
This brings me to my second tip.
#2: Don't Pay Anyone to Tell You How to Make It
I have. If you have, it's nothing to be ashamed of. That is good marketing at work. Digging the knife into our pain points and twisting it a little - it's effective. Here's the truth: anyone claiming to have the recipe to success is lying. That doesn't mean their knowledge isn't valuable to some degree, but it isn't worth a down payment on a house.
Try HubSpot, LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, or even an industry-specific professional organization that offers continuing education opportunities.
Or, work with me in a no BS, 1:1 mentorship curated for you.
#3: Where Do I Start Finding Clients?
Y'all know how to ask good questions. I can't tell you, specifically, where you're going to find your clients, but I can give you a few recommendations and opinions.
Cold Outreach
Cold outreach has had a bit of a comeback recently among LinkedIn gurus claiming to be able to get you connected with your ideal clients. Honestly, I have no way to contest or back up these claims. Here's what I do know - cold outreach rarely works for me. I like the bonus features of LinkedIn Premium/Sales Navigator, but not enough to renew it.
To successfully do cold outreach, you have to identify your ideal client/buyer persona - for example, mine might be a decision-maker at a small to medium-sized healthcare marketing firm - compose a list or a few lists of leads, depending on how many personas you've come up with, and then send personalized messages to each one, referencing something they shared recently to show you're interested in them and their work.
Ideally, a cold outreach pitch would add value.
"Blogs appear 23% of the time in the first 5 results on the first page of Google. As an expert blog writer with years of experience writing compelling articles for clients in the healthcare sector, I could write blogs for your website that would improve your organic visibility."
But wait - we're not done yet. To successfully do cold outreach, you have to do all of the above - identify your buyer persona, identify leads, craft personalized outreach, add value to your pitch- and then play the numbers game. Cold outreach works when you catch someone who's already ready to buy from you, and on LinkedIn, you have no idea if someone is going to be open to the services you're offering.
Unless they're advertising that they're looking for freelancers, you are rolling the dice. The kicker is, you've spent a lot of time finding those leads and crafting those personalized messages.
A lot of people would argue it's worth it to pitch 100 people to get one or two responses. I would argue those people have more time than they know what to do with.
For some people, cold outreach clearly works well - but I prefer warm outreach. I don't want to turn potential clients off by pitching them on our first interaction.
Warm Outreach
Identify people that fit your buyer persona. Connect with them and ask for their insights on their industry. Ask for a quote on a piece you're doing. Begin to build a relationship. If they ever need [ insert your service here], you'll be the first person they reach out to.
Note: This is still a lot of work.
Inbound Marketing
This is my favorite way to attract clients! Build a website. Publish relevant content to the niche you'd like to write in frequently on your website and on social media (like here). Engage with professionals on social media who fit your ideal buyer persona and who run in similar circles to you. Make sure your website and socials are SEO-friendly. Be patient. This is the hard part.
We seem to have lost sight of the fact that inbound marketing and SEO take time to work. Again, that's why anyone promising x results in y amount of time is probably lying to you. The people will come. I promise. Be consistent. Be persistent.
This is also a lot of work. Noticing a theme yet?
Freelancer Platforms
Ah, Upwork and Fiverr. Also ProBlogger and the five billion content mills that really no one should be on. Unless you need to put dinner on the table, then absolutely go pick up that 0.02c/word job.
Upwork and Fiverr get a lot of hate. I can see why. I will say this: you are guaranteed to interact with potential clients who are most likely either ready to buy or very close to being ready to buy when you go on Upwork and Fiverr.
That is a guarantee you don't get anywhere else. It's nice, too. I'm not in sales first; I'm a writer. For me to be able to focus on writing good pitches to people that want to buy from me and then writing good work is a bonus.
If you're going to use Upwork or Fiverr, put in work to optimize your profile. Put up a great version of your portfolio. On Upwork, put on all of the filters for the type of job you want - payment verified, your hourly rate if that's how you charge, etc.
Sorting through all of those jobs you don't want is the trade-off for finding people who are ready to buy what you're offering. There are good clients on those platforms; you just have to be patient enough to find them.
#4: Things to Keep in Mind
Freelancing is hard. You are the employer, the employee, the marketer, the salesperson, the SEO person. You do it all. So go easy on yourself. Do your best. I'm guessing you wanted to work for yourself so you had more free time, not less. Remember that.
A lot of people are struggling to find clients and keep clients. It takes time to build up an emergency fund you can use during dry spells. It takes time to know enough people that you can just reach out to someone when work dries up and ask them if they have anything. The highs and lows are real.
It's a numbers game. The more you pitch, the more likely you are to land a client - whether you're sending pitches on Upwork or DM'ing people on LinkedIn. The silence and rejections may mean:
the person you reached out to was busy
you weren't the right fit for the job
or 3,000 other things
Don't take a "no" personally. Keep going.
Freelancing isn't forever. Freelancing reminds me of cold plunges. There's this subtle undercurrent of energy coming from the orbit of LinkedIn influencers that says, "If you quit this lifestyle and go back to a 9-5, you just weren't made for it."
Or - and hear me out on this one- maybe you wanted a different working experience. Maybe you were going stir-crazy working at home alone every day. Maybe you wanted some financial stability for a few years before you went back to freelancing.
You are not a failure to take a break from freelancing if you need to. Okay?
#5: Tips for Getting Started
Two words: inbound marketing. If you're wanting to transition into freelancing, please don't quit your 9-5 before you do so. Start inbound marketing. Put out content that adds value to your ideal customer on LinkedIn. Build a portfolio or your body of work.
This can be as simple as running a blog on your website or a platform like Medium. Start connecting with people you'd like to work with. Use those freelancer platforms. Get familiar with the territory. Take online courses on HubSpot - it's free! Don't work for pennies.
Don't rush it. Quit when you can afford to. Go at your own pace. It's easy to read all of this advice and think you have to start now. That somehow you're already falling behind because you don't have a comprehensive blog in your niche.
Take your time. All growth is good growth. And take every piece of advice with a grain of salt.
