It’s a great feeling to be writing for Freelance Parent, mostly because one of my past home businesses was as a freelance graphic designer & illustrator. I remember being so proud to answer the question “What do you do for a living?” and being able to nonchalantly reply, “Oh, I’m a Freelancer”.

There seemed something so magical, rebellious and cool about saying “I’m a Freelancer.” Like I got to thumb my nose at all of those poor saps in their stuffy desk jobs as I got to work from my bed eating bon bons. Not that I did that, I just liked it when people thought I had a cushy, cool job.

It didn’t take too many months of freelancing to realize why they called it free-lancing - because you end up doing a lot of work “for free”. That’s right, the title “Free-lancer” entitled me to fix my mistakes, market my business, do my accounting, troubleshoot my computer, sell my services, and build my client base for free. It wasn’t long before my romance with freelancing faded and the drudgery of being an overworked solopreneur ensued.

Finding clients was easy when I first started in 2000, we were still in the internet heyday when people were literally throwing money around as long as you had some tech experience. But when the end of 2001 hit, small businesses were hit hard - and I suddenly had to not only be a creative designer, I also had to be a creative marketer and sales person to keep my business from going under. I didn’t like spending money on my business, I wanted to be spending money because of my business. So I got pretty good at finding ways to get gigs without spending a ton of money (or any at all).

1. Be an excellent communicator - #1 way to get and keep your clients was to stay on top of emails, updates, followups and even day-to-day casual conversations. If you want to send the message “flaky”, nothing does that better than blowing off your clients. People notice this stuff - sometimes not even consciously - but I assure you it can and WILL make or break a project at some point in your freelancing career.
2. Be anal retentive about appearances - Have a great looking website. Have beautiful business cards. Get good headshots taken. These are your ‘representatives’ when you are not there to speak for yourself - so make sure they are speaking to your strengths and not your weaknesses.
3. Throw in freebies - Not everyone will agree with me on this, but every client likes getting a little more than what they pay for. Even if you go the extra mile for every client (and even prebuild it into your fees), let them know that this little extra is “on the house” - people need to know you care enough about their business to work harder for it.
4. Get out in the trenches - Between Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogging, and all of the other social media site, we have little reason to leave the house. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t leave the house. Nothing builds your relationships or networks more than face time, period.
5. Printers and hosting companies are your friend - Most small businesses don’t think of freelancers first for marketing projects, they think of getting a brochure printed or putting up a website. Be on the front lines by making sure that you have relationships with these companies who can recommend you when they are contacted for referrals - and I assure you, it happens more than you think.
6. K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Make projects simple to understand and make working with you as easy as possible. Clients LOVE it when they don’t have to think about working with you, because things just get magically taken care of when you are on board.
7. Create a large portfolio of work even if you have a small portfolio of clients - I used to build up my portfolio by making up dream projects and then designing logos or creating illustrations to showcase my best work. To this day some of my favorite past projects were fake, and I was able to repurpose a lot of those pieces later in my career for paying projects.
8. Pick up the phone - Related to #4, sometimes email just doesn’t cut it. I’ve heard it said on multiple occasions “I got the gig because I was the only one who called the client and /requested a meeting/asked appropriate questions/showed I cared enough to call/. Yes, it really can be that simple.
9. Only spend money on things you know will bring a return on investment - I’m all for investing in your business, but when you have a shoestring budget, make sure that you spend it on something that you know will lead to work.
10. Create a brand for yourself and own it - Need I say more than Seth, ChrisG, or ProBlogger? Get it out there anywhere and everywhere.
11. Pay attention to little details - What might be little to you can look like a big oversight to a potential client. Don’t drive yourself nuts, but looking buttoned-up communicates a lot more to clients than ‘just’ being buttoned-up.
12. Be a great presenter - Being a good sales person is sometimes more important than being a good freelancer. I lost more work because I didn’t like sales more than the next 3-4 reasons combined. It pays (literally!) to invest time in knowing how to showcase yourself and your work well.
13. Ask for referrals - You’ll hear it throughout your freelancing career for a reason. I never liked doing this, but honestly, when I did, it worked.
14. Be found in every freelance marketplace - Elance, Guru, FreelanceNation, even Craigslist. You may or may not want to get any work from these sources, but that doesn’t matter, especially when you are starting out. It’s not just about finding gigs, it’s about building awareness of your brand in front of your community.
15. Network with the competition - Anytime I had overflow work, or a project that wasn’t a fit for my skills, I passed work along to my competition. Sometimes it seems counterintuitive, but I used to give as many referrals as I received, probably even more than that.
16. You’d better be blogging already, dammit.
17. You’d better be guest posting on other blogs already, too if you are in the first year or two of business.
18. Learn some basic SEO - I was terribly short-sighted about the importance of SEO for the first 9 months of writing eMoms at Home. After this, I assure you I paid more attention.
19. Stay in touch with past clients - Whether you do it via email, a mailing list, the phone, or whatever, it’s critical to stay at the top of the minds of the people are most likely to hire you again or recommend you to someone else.
20. Don’t overlook the obvious - have a “Hire Me” page. Think this one is stupid or simple? Go around to a few freelancer blogs and find out just how common an oversight this is.

Guest Author Wendy Piersall is the CEO and Founder of eMoms at Home, and she still does all of this stuff in her current business even though she doesn’t freelance at all anymore.

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