Beginners Guide to Freelancing

So, you want to be a freelancer? Great. Just quit your job, start posting on Instagram that you're open for business, and wait for the money to roll in. Easy, right? Yeah. No, that's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. But here's the thing. Freelancing can change your life. You just need to know the actual steps to get there. Lucky for you, I've broken it down into three simple steps that'll take you from, I have no idea what I'm doing here, to wait, people are actually paying me for this. In this video, I'm going to break down the complete process and road map to freelance success. And I'm breaking it into three gamechanging steps. First, you're going to learn how to land your first client and get that crucial initial win. And then I'll show you how to build unstoppable momentum that keeps clients coming back. And finally, we'll talk about gaining real traction, turning your side hustle into a thriving business. Let's go. The first step in your freelancing journey is to get your first win. No matter how small or insignificant you might think it is, getting a first win lets you know that freelancing is viable, that it's a legitimate pathway forward for you and your career. But to get your first win, you have to identify something first. You need to identify what your superpower is and specifically how it links onto a common problem that a client might have. I've been doing freelancing for 16 plus years and I've dealt with lots of problems, but they all really boil down to one or a mixture of the three following problems. Number one, client has no time. Problem number two, the client wants more money or client number three, they are out of energy. So the question is, how do your skills, how does your superpower that we're going to talk about actually link on to one of those three problems? For instance, maybe your superpower is web design. you're really good at web design and framer web development. Well, a website can solve for all three of those cuz maybe the client doesn't have time to do it themselves. They're out of energy. They don't even want to think about it, but their current website isn't making them the type of money that they would like it to make for them. You have a superpower that latches on to very specific problems that the client has. New branding, for instance, can offer people more money by garnering them more attention. Or a funnel or automation could give back some of that precious time to your client. and that's valuable for you to solve. I want to pause for a moment and say thank you to the sponsor of this video and that's mobin. com. Mobin is the one-stop shop, best place on the internet to go to find the inspirations and solutions for the problems that you and me are trying to solve each and every day as web and digital product designers. Mobin members get access to applications and sites so you can be inspired and solve those problems. I especially love their search capabilities. I can jump over and find things that are trending, category, screen, specific UI elements, and even entire flows. If I'm trying to solve a editing profile flow or an onboarding flow, there's 749 examples of the experts who have already solved that problem. We're talking about the best in the industry like Headspace and Grab and Adobe. And on you go. You can download all of these, bring them into your Figma projects, and use them as inspiration. Spend less hours toiling to figure it out yourself and trust the experts that have been solving these problems for years. Let it inspire you and let it save you tons of time. Subscribers of this channel get a special deal, 20% off an annual plan. You can find that link down in the description. Thank you to Mobin for powering the design community and inspiring us all. So, the question is, how do you solve those problems? Like we said, it's with your superpower. What are you good at? What are you skilled at? What do you dabble in? What are you interested in? Is it design? Is it development? Is it framer? Do you like building zappier automations and funnels? The question is, what is your superpower? Do you have one already? If you don't have a superpower, then the only thing you can really solve for is time. The client is outsourcing their lack of time to you. And that's okay. Maybe you don't have any of these skills. Maybe you're not quite ready yet. Maybe you don't feel like you're good enough. It's okay. You have time to offer. And they don't have time to give to something. They're going to pay you for your time. Now, I will say caveat here. You don't want to stay here. You want to become skilled. You want to grow your superpowers because at some point you're going to hit a ceiling on the amount of time you're able to sell to your clients. And so, it's not an infinite resource. We can always make more money, but we can't make more time. So, if you don't have a superpower, you're going to leverage your time. If you do have a superpower, then start using it. solve for any of those three problems and you will start building your first win towards your freelance journey. Now, what do you personally have that they don't have? This is what we call an X factor or a differentiator. It might be design or development or framework or automation. It might be lots of those. It might just be a few of those. And it's okay if you only have one or two superpowers at this time. That's okay. By immediately implementing or executing on those superpowers, you're going to get more experience. You're going to gain more superpowers.

and experience is the best superpower of all. Now, if you have some of these superpowers, maybe you have time to give some skill sets, what type of client would best benefit from your superpower? Who do you sell your services to? Later on in your freelance career, there might be some different advice for this, but if you're just getting started, here's the category of client that you're probably looking for. They need to have some money. Not too much, not too little. They need to have money to be able to pay you for your services. But if they have too much, they're probably looking at other solutions, more established, more experienced. So, you're looking for that Goldilocks, perfectly warm porridge of a client that is looking for somebody like you. Often, they are midsized or growing businesses. Those are the best. They have money to invest, but they haven't quite leveled up. They haven't kind of overcome any sort of hurdles to make their first design hire or have a developer on staff. They need somebody like you. and most importantly, they have a problem to be solved. When you identify this type of client and your superpower and the problems that they have, it's important that you take your next step on this by writing a tagline or a help statement that communicates your superpower to that client. It might live on your portfolio or all of your social media. You might say, "Hi, I'm Jesse. I design framer websites for clients who need to monetize and grow their business. " That's a simple tagline or help statement. Now, when it comes to the topic of niching down, you'll get there, but early on when you're starting your freelance business, you don't want to niche too hard because you might niche yourself right out of the market. You won't find any clients because those types of clients that have that type of niche issue are probably looking for designers that have that niche experience. If you don't have that yet, you're going to start out as a generalist and make your way in to a specialist further on down the line. Let's talk about making your first money. If you want to make money from clients, there's a few things you have to do. Number one, you need to make it easy for them to say yes. And the ways to do this first off is to reduce the risk. There's a lot of risk if you bet on somebody that doesn't have a lot of experience. They don't testimonials. They haven't done this a whole lot. So, what would make it attractive as a client to hire you? Well, a couple things. You can lower your cost. And again, quick caveat, you don't want to stay here. You don't always want to make 15 or 20 bucks an hour. You want to become a specialist, somebody that someone seeks out even though you have higher costs, but early on, one of the ways you can reduce that risk is by lowering the cost. Another one is quick turnaround times with great communication. Designers are often really, really bad at communication. But if you can have quick turnaround times, fast productivity, and good communication with your clients each and every day or each and every week, then it's going to reduce some of that feeling of risk that a client has. Lastly, consider throwing in a money back guarantee starting with you for 3 to 5 days. And if the project isn't going well, they'll get a 100% refund. That's something you need to work into your process, but it reduces risk. The next way to make it easy for them to say yes is to meet with them face to face. Jump on a Zoom call with them. Allow them to jump on a free consult call, ask you questions, and you can ask them questions. Now, when you come to these consultation calls, you need to be prepared. that is going to instill confidence and reduce that feeling of risk that the client has. And so create a well-prepared document, use some AI, knowing their industry, their current brand or website, and prepare some questions ahead of time. This all falls into learning the art and skill of selling. Every creative professional could benefit greatly by learning how to sell. And learning how to sell is really learning how to ask quality questions and be a diagnostic technician with your potential clients. The next step is to build your toolbox. This is all of the things you need to be really effective. And one of the most effective tools that every creative has in their toolbox is a portfolio. Something to show off your work, something to house that help statement or that statement of who you are and what your superpowers are and how you solve problems. If building a portfolio is too timeconuming or intimidating, then I encourage you to go grab a free framer template. Pop that up, get your name on it, drop that help statement in, try to get any kind of work that you have and start to leverage that to gain more clients. The other thing you should have inside of your toolbox is a couple of design tools or programs that you feel accomplished at. Maybe you're really good in Photoshop or Affinity Design or Figma or Framer. start mastering some of those tools that will actually help you to solve these problems. Quick caveat here, keep it scrappy at the beginning. Don't try to master every design program or platform or tool out there. Just learn what you need when you need it. The things you probably need right away are the things that directly relate to your superpower. Web design, branding, logos, development. Find the thing that you absolutely must know and master and spend some time inside of that platform.

Last step in making your first dollar and getting your first win is to create an offer and start contacting people. The first offer is really not about money. It's about getting that first win. You're not trying to make top dollar here. You're just trying to get your foot in the door and hear some yeses. And it's going to be cheap at first. You're going to get them to say yes by reducing that risk. But what you're really after here is the experience of working with the client or on a project. You're after the testimonial from doing good work for this client. And ultimately, you're after the completion of the project. That's the thing that's going to motivate you, set you up for success, give you the confidence you need to go out and get another client, get another project. Step two in your freelance journey is all about building momentum. That's all you should care about at this point. And momentum is really broken down into three parts. Marketing, delivering, and improving. Let's talk about marketing because marketing is the thing that's going to bring in leads, get you new clients. Early on in the process, I recommend a three- tiered approach for tasks. Monthly tasks, weekly tasks, and daily tasks. Now, the monthly tasks are going to sound fairly impossible unless you're doing the weekly and the daily task. So, let's talk about this impossible monthly task as you begin your freelance journey and marketing and doing outreach. Number one, your monthly task, the only task for the month is to land one new client each and every month. This equates to 12 new clients a year. If your clients are paying $1,000 per project, that's $12,000 per year. If they're paying $2,000 per project, that's $24,000 a year. If they're paying $10,000 per project, I don't know. I'm not good at math, but that's a lot of money. Now, that might sound unreasonable, impossible, Jesse. How could you even ask me to get one new client each and every month? It is impossible if you don't do the weekly tasks. The weekly task that I recommend is two to four social media posts about what you do specifically. you post those on Instagram and Twitter and those posts should focus on your superpower and the problems in which you can solve with those superpowers. So if it's websites, create some social media posts about websites that help people reclaim their time, that help people make more money, that help people X, Y, and Z. Those are what your social media posts should be about. Two to four of those posts each and every week. The other thing you need to do weekly is try to book one to two consultation calls each and every week. Now, how in the world are you going to get one to two consultation calls per week? Sounds impossible if you're not doing the daily tasks. Your daily task when you're starting out and outreaching and marketing is a five55 approach and it's as follows. Five responses or cold outreach on freelancing platforms. I highly recommend Contra. It is by far the best freelancing platform out there right now. There's lots of people posting jobs and you can post your services, but you want to respond to jobs or just do outreach on Contra five times a day. The other five is five cold pitches on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is still a valuable business platform. There's a lot of small and midsize businesses that are looking for help and you want to do cold pitches, cold outreach on LinkedIn and you don't want to sound like you're the expert, the best of the best. You want to say something like, "Hey, I'm trying to build my portfolio. I'm new to the game. I would love to help out. Is there any work that I could kind of tag along with? Is there any problem that you're facing that I could do some cheap work for you? Be honest early on in these cold outreaches. It's going to help you get more traction. The third five, five and five is to engage with five peers on Twitter. If you're a designer, find five other designers. You're not trying to sell your services. You're just engaging with them, befriending them, encouraging them, asking how they accomplish something, asking questions, and learning. So you want to engage with your peers so you start to have a presence on Twitter. Design Twitter is still very much so a powerful thing. And when you engage with your peers, it starts to build a network for you. When you engage on LinkedIn, it starts opening up possibilities for you. When you engage on Contra, it starts potentially getting you those oneto consultation calls per week. Out of those one to two consultation calls per week, that turns into eight consultation calls potentially per month. All you have to do is land one of them to have one new client each and every month. See, I told you it was reasonable. Now, when it comes to marketing, this sounds like a lot of work, but this is the freelance grind. This is what it's all about is getting people in the door and then moving on to our next part, which is delivery. You need to be able to complete each client project with excellence. A huge thing here would be to underpromise and overd deliver. Don't tell somebody it's going to take a week when it really takes two. If it's going to take two, tell them it's going to take three. Give yourself that buffer for when poop hits the fan. Next up, you want to celebrate with the client when you onboard them. Kick off a project, hit some major milestone, or complete the project. It's just a good feeling from a client's perspective that you are celebrating with them. Number four, you want to announce your work online.

Self-promotion is not dirty. It's not gross. It's being proud of the awesome work that you're doing and the growth that's happening in you and in your business. And lastly, as you deliver, make sure you ask for referrals from your clients. This is huge. If you have satisfied them, if they're happy with you, they might know two or three other people that are going to help your marketing efforts in a great way. Last piece of this process is improvement. You want to assess the work that you've done and figure out how to get better. figure out in the project what went good and what went not so good. What do you need to change? keep about your process or your deliverables? And you want to do it again next time, but better. Ask yourself questions. Was this not a good fit? Maybe do I need to niche down? communicate better? Do I need to outsource the things that suck? Sure, I want to keep all the money for myself, but I hate this part of the project. I'd rather do 80% of the project over here and have somebody else do this task that I don't want to do while still growing your business. Next up, you want to update your internal process. Are you bad at onboarding? Could your communication get better? Do you need to improve your documents, your proposals, your contracts, and your delivery methods? Update those internal processes and figure out how to create a streamlined, welloiled machine. Lastly, you want to raise your rates. Ask yourself, can I make more money from the same work that I just produced? If yes, then raise your rates until you get less yeses and a few more nos. You want to find that sweet spot where just enough clients are rejecting you, but just enough clients want you. That's the sweet spot. Every project, figure out how to raise your rates until you hit that ceiling. Figure out what's holding you back with that ceiling and then figure out how to break through. If you can't make more money from doing the same work, why was it a bad client? Was the project not a good fit? Do you need to do better work? Was your communication poor? Could you deliver things in a more attractive and appealing way? What about you needs to change? Step three in your freelance journey is to start gaining traction. Now, you've already gained a specific amount of traction. You've made some easy wins and you've started to pick up momentum, but traction is really defined by hitting major milestones. So, you need to set some large milestones in your business. specific amount of projects completed, specific amount of revenue generated for your business. And then after you've set those milestones, you're going to need to set some larger milestones in your business. Twice as much revenue, twice as many projects, or maybe a certain amount of your process automated to make it faster for you, making you more money ultimately. Once you've established those milestones, you have a target on the wall, and you know where you need to go, it's time to start iterating on your brand or your business. First up, you need to reassess your superpower. Is it actually your superpower? Maybe you're promoting yourself as a UI and UX designer, but everybody's coming to you for your web design. Do you actually need to be a UI or UX designer, or could you just do some really kick-ass web design work? It might be time to refine your identity, tighten up your positioning, and improve the quality of what you produce. Next up, you need to figure out what's working and what's not working in your business. Don't get stuck doing the same things you used to. Be willing to evolve and change with what the market's demands are. You don't want to get stuck doing the same things forever. Next up, understand that monetary growth, it's not actually about hours worked. It's about finding the right fit. So, this whole process is about finding the right fit for you and the business that you're building. Now, with all that being said, you don't want to let momentum go to waste. That's one of the worst things that you can do for your business. You're doing great client work. You are assessing and iterating and changing your brand, but you're not leveraging the work that you're doing. First off, you need to leverage the work that you have done and who you've done it for this next phase of your freelance business. Let's say you've completed five websites. What did that accomplish for those clients? What client testimonials have you received? Did you make noise about it online? Did you integrate that into your daily or weekly social media posts? How does it change the value that you can offer to the world? As you're walking through this process, you're going to get to the final piece, which is to learn how to productize yourself, to think of yourself as a product that's sitting on a shelf. The problem is there's lots of other products that are sitting on the shelf, lots of other options for customers to choose. And now that you've actually gotten on that shelf, you have some momentum, you have some traction, you have some milestones that you're achieving. What would make people pick you? Is it the great client experience that they get from working with you? Is it your skills or your years of experience? Are you faster? Are you cheaper? What makes you stand out? And more importantly, how do they find you first? And how do they choose you as the final decision? These are all questions you should be asking yourself. How can I promote myself, position myself, market myself to stand out from the crowd? Figure out what is the most attractive

thing and double down on that thing in your business. If you've watched this video all the way to the end, congratulations. You are hyper committed to building successful freelance business. I hope that this video has helped you. If it has, make sure to leave a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and ring the bell. That lets the YouTube overlords know that this is quality content. You enjoyed it, other people might enjoy it as well. If you have questions, leave them down in the comments and check the description for some helpful links. With all that being said, good luck in your freelance journey. We'll see you in the next one.