Landing your First Client in Freelancing
Freelancing is not an “overnight success” because it takes a lot of hard work. The same with landing your first client; it takes time. It is because you need to show how excellent and outstanding a freelancer you are. But, how can you do it when you don’t have any training and experience?
?6 Tips in Landing your First Client in Freelancing
1. Focus and be patient
Focus is pivotal to your new career; thus, you need to change your irrelevant old lifestyle. This means?avoiding poor time management and procrastination.?When you’re just a newbie in freelancing, you need to build your portfolio. And, in building your portfolio, you will be investing a lot of time in it. There will be no room for laziness because your portfolio is significantly needed in landing your first client.?
Patience is also essential since freelancing takes time. The competition in the market is intense. You need to learn how to?accept rejections?and continue to thrive. You need to embrace your mistakes and grow from there.
?2. Gather your work samples and create your portfolio
Freelancing today is a portfolio-based industry, so clients always look for a portfolio. Your?portfolio?is a document where you put all your work samples. It must present the services you can do and your expertise in fulfilling such tasks. In landing your first client, you need to show your portfolio during application time.
If you have too much to show, don’t display everything. Instead, pick at least 5 of the best samples that you have. And if you have less, you can find the previous outputs you had relating to your niche. An example of this is the designs and graphics you created during your college days if your niche is graphic designing.
Or, if you’re an aspiring social media manager, you can just optimize your own accounts and experiment. This is an effective avenue to show that you know the job well and have experience.
?3. Be professional
You need to treat your career as a business in landing your first client. During application, you need to have a?professional cover letter and resume.?As they say, “the first impression lasts,” you need to give a professional impression to the client, especially during interviews. Choose a decent photo for your social media accounts, freelancing platforms, and even your resume.
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?4. Optimize your digital presence
Over the years, online traffic has been massive, and so, you must boost to reach your targets. One way of getting your targets is by optimizing your website and social media account. Optimizing your digital presence is a way of marketing your business as a freelancer. You optimized a “call to action” where clients will notice you. Aside from updating your social media accounts, you must incorporate relevant keywords. To do this effectively, you need to conduct keyword research. And the good thing is that there are tools that you can use for free.
Below are seven effective ways to optimize your online presence:
?5. Start with local businesses
Considering you just started freelancing, and no one hires you. It is normal because clients only hire those with experience. But, how can you get experience when no one hires you? There are two ways to gain experience. First, you will look for local businesses and offer your services to them. You can either serve them at a minimal cost or even for FREE for a month. And the other one is through apprenticeship.?Online academies have these apprenticeship programs?where you will experience freelancing. All you need to do is pay a small cost to get the actual experience.
?6. Don’t give up
Freelancing attitudes are pivotal to the success of a freelancer. Remember that your new career takes time, so the right time will come when all of your efforts will pay off. And, every time you feel hopeless, think of your deepest whys, the reasons why you pursue freelancing. And it will motivate you to stand up and fight again.
One of the essential factors to landing your first client is experience. These tips are collected from successful freelancers based on their own freelancing experiences. I hope this article helps.
Feel free to visit our?website?for more freelancing and business tips.
Please check this blog for more tips:?How I Started My Own Freelancing Journey.