philcrissman.com

Around this time about 2 years ago, I made a false start into a web design business. I set up a little web site, announced it to the world, started working with a couple friends to design or fix sites for them…. and that’s about as far as it went. My intentions were great, my motivation high (at least at first), and ultimately I dove in too deep. I was too busy with other things and eventually just abandoned the idea and went on with work.

I’ve thought a lot about it since then, however, and I’ve become more interested than ever in eventually stepping out of tech support and into more web design and development. So I’ve started freelancing, and I’ve had a few thoughts on how to do a better job of it than I did last time.

1. First, get a client. Don’t try to get fifty, one will do to start. Don’t set up a web site and make huge investment into infrastructure until you’re already doing something. I mean, yes — if you’re looking for clients and finding none and have nothing else to do, sure it makes sense to work on your own website. What might make even more sense is working on something like a new Wordpress theme which you can give away, and which would actually add to your portfolio (hint, this may provide a clue as to what I’ve been doing instead of blogging recently ;-)). A professional web design looks pretty bare without at least a short list of clients or examples of other work you’ve done… Once you have a few clients you’ve done work for, it will be that much easier to create a site for your freelance business (which I haven’t even done, yet).
2. Talk to people. How do you get clients? I suppose you could just start cold-calling, which is no one’s favorite activity and which I certainly haven’t done (though I might). Mostly, just talk to people. Eventually, you will talk to someone who is needing a website, or knows someone who does, etc. There are quite a few job boards out there which specifically list freelance work, but those are going to get a lot of applicants, and they’ll probably want to see examples of your work. If you haven’t already started, you won’t have any examples… You may have to just dive in and try to talk someone into giving you some work, but I found it much easier to just find a few small projects by networking.
3. Don’t quit your day job. Don’t even think about it. I think part of my problem the first time I thought about this was that I was a little too ambitious. Yes, all motivational rah-rah aside, it is possible to be too ambitious, at least in the sense of biting off more than you can chew. I didn’t quit my full-time job, but I was thinking as though I could suddenly line up enough web design/development work that I could quit said job.

That’s all I’ve got: I’m taking it that things like “know your stuff,” and “learn about browser differences and incompatibilities” are a given. If you don’t know what you’re doing, definitely learn it, first.

Once you have a couple clients, if you’re sure you want to make a go of freelancing, it might not be a bad idea to pick up a short book on bookkeeping or accounting, but I’d wait till you have to think about invoicing before you muddy your head with all that. If I’ve learned one thing, I think it’s this: just get one client. One job. Do it, and do it well.

Then go from there.