5 Ways to Get Freelance Clients When You’re Just Getting Started

5 places to get clients 

This week, I talk with a listener about five ways to get freelance clients when you're first starting out, are you ready? Let's go. 


What is up self maters and welcome to another episode of the self-made web designer podcast. Learning how to get freelance clients. It's kind of like a Rite of passage for newbie freelancers, right? At first it's awkward and you don't know. If you're doing it right, but eventually you start to hit a stride. 


This week, I sat down and chatted with Sammy, Sammy and her husband have almost accidentally fallen into making websites for people that. But they've decided they want to intentionally make it into a business. Sounds kind of cool. The problem is they don't know how to get the ball rolling. So I sat down with Sammy and I gave her five ways that she can find free. 


Clients in the early stages of her and her husband's business. But before we dive in, I want to invite you to sign up for my free flagship course called the web designer starter kit course. And it, I talk about how I went from knowing not a gosh darn thing about freelance or web design or development to doubling my income with a web design side hustle. 


And then I went on to change careers. Completely. So I go over how I learned everything from finding clients to learning development, learning design, and even how to find a community to go through the journey with you. So go to self-made web designer.com and sign up today. You'll join thousands of others who have done the same and your journey to becoming a successful freelance web designer will start off on the right foot. All right. Are you ready to learn five ways to get freelance clients when you're just getting started? Let's see.

Yeah. So, um, I just had some questions because, um, me and my husband are trying to start a web design business. 


So he's a web developer and I'm a designer. Um, so we're kind of like a dynamic duo and we, um, got started on a, uh, web design project for a family friend. And this was before we even like, had this idea. So we were, he contracted my husband's Zach to do the development and for me to do the design and as we were going through the project, we were like, I feel like we could do this. 


Like, this is really fun. It'd be really great to work with each other. Um, and there's just been so many like pros about it that we can think of. Um, so we're kind of just starting to get that going. And we kind of got like our first client, um, or second client, uh, kind of last week. Um, but we're kind of just like, in those beginning stages of like, there's just some things we don't know how to do. 


We're not sure of sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, w where do you feel like you need the most clarification on as far as the process. Um, I think we're both tend to just dump the, like, how do we get our clients and how do we like get our name out there and market to those we've, we've made like a running list of like bad websites that we've just come across, like businesses in the area. 


And we just have like all these ideas for these people, but like, we don't know if like we should just approach them. Um, with our ideas, cause I've kinda like built, built up some mock-ups. So showing them what they could look like, but we just don't know how to approach it. Sure. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Great. Well, it sounds like you've, you've kind of started thinking through it, so that's, that's awesome. 


That's the first step is going. Okay. How do we start from nothing and get to something? So what I say is just to kind of do what you guys are already doing, which is your first few clients, you need to reach out to the people that you're connected to relationally. So. Uh, your friends, your family. And so you just, you just, you know, text them, call them, email them, say, Hey, we're starting this web design business, really excited about it. 


Do you have anything that you would need to be done? We'd we'd work for cheap since we're just getting started. And you also add in there, Hey, also, like if you know anybody that would need this, like let me know. I'd love to connect with them, you know? Typically what I, what I tell people to do is write a list of a hundred folks that have a business or have something that they might need a website for, and just write it down, you know? 


So, and this is going to be folks that you're directly connected with, but it could also be like folks who, you know, like, My uncle has a friend who owns three businesses. And that would be a good connection. Like, you know, just kind of brainstorming through that. You know, you can I say a hundred because that's, you know, an even round number and you can just kind of make that the goal, but it's really like, however many you can think of. 


You just go for it. At first, it takes a little bit of work because you're, you've got to think like, okay, who do I know? You know, but eventually like the wheels start spinning and you'll be able to figure it out. And then from there you've got a couple options, could go the, like the networking relationship building route, which is, you're just constantly trying to connect with business owners in some way, shape or form, build a relationships, add value to them. 


Like what you're saying, like, Hey, you know, I've got this mock-up. Um, if there's a few things, I think you could do really easy to just to make your website really stand out, give that to them and, and, and offer advice. You know, like there's all sorts of folks, you know, like everybody needs a website, right? 


Typically everybody has questions about it. So, you know, doing it that way, that that can take a long time just to, to build relationships. So it just kind of depends on where you guys are at with how quickly you want to get this started. Another part of it is to get in some web designer groups and create relationships with other web designers, because a lot of times. 


And this happened for me, for sure. At the very beginning where I had friends who are web designers, they would get jobs that they didn't want to mess with. And so they would pass them off to me, you know? And at the time I'm like, I'll take anything. I don't have anything, you know? So I'll take your leftovers. 


That's, that's another thing that you can do something else is to figure out where your niche is and go to where those people are. You know, for instance, show it is where I work and it's a platform. It's a website. That focuses mainly on photographers and creative entrepreneurs. Our Facebook group has a ton of photographers on there asking questions about show it all the time. 


And we have a lot of designers on there who are constantly in there answering questions. And so then from there, they get a ton of business from our Facebook group. 'cause they're being helpful. They're showing up and not saying like, okay, I'll let you know how to fix this. If you pay me a hundred dollars, right. 


They're just going, Nope, here's what you do. You take this form and you make it, do this thing and it's fixed. Right. You know, figuring out where those folks are getting on those groups, interacting with people, trying to add value. Um, and then another thing, which is, this is what I, I did was find a freelancing platform. 


Just start working on building up your reputation there. So mine was Upwork and swear. I encourage people like if you're going to start somewhere, start on Upwork, because there's, there's a ton of really good opportunity for, for high paying projects. It takes a little bit of time. It takes, you know, they say about a month to get your first project. 


And that's what it took for me. And then it was about six months before. I started getting, you know, nonstop requests for, you know, quotes on projects and stuff like that, but it was, it wasn't still has been a good source of a lot of good projects for me. So is that helpful? Are there some things that you guys have been thinking about? 


Yeah. That's really helpful. Yeah. We just didn't know, like, how do you make that first step of approaching the client? Yeah, for sure. Well, it's, it's tough. What I have tried to do in the past, which is connect with somebody on some social media platform and send them a mock-up like that has never been really successful for me. 


There are a lot of folks who claim that that works really well. And so I might have. I figured out how to crack the code with that, so to speak. But with that, it's kind of a numbers game, you know, like you've got to say, I'm going to, I'm going to pitch to a thousand people on LinkedIn, you know, who have the title, business owner for whatever nature. 


And, and then, you know, throw them a template or throw them some suggestions for their websites or whatever. Um, so if you can, you want to try to find a little less cold of a connection, you know? So if you find somebody. That you might be a good potential to build a website for you. Just try to, you try to find somebody who can connect you and then you reach out to that person and say, Hey, would you mind connecting me to this person, this business owner, I'd love to get to know them and see if maybe we can help them. 


Uh, with our, with our website, that's, that's going to be a lot easier. Um, then just like, you know, you know, going into somebody's inbox and, and Eminem and, and from, from a stranger, cause business owners get a ton of DMS from different folks trying to sell them, whatever they're they're, you know, trying to sell. 


So I said, one more question. Are there any other like tips or advice that you would have for. I think the main thing and the thing that I wish I would have done at the very beginning is to create structures and workflow systems at the very get-go. So, you know, when I was first getting started, it was very much a hodgepodge, like, okay, uh, this guy needs a website. 


All right, what should I do first? Well, we should probably make a mood board mood board. We'll put some fonts on there. Maybe go to like maybe some wireframes. I don't know. Is that, how do you do wire frames? You know, like, uh, so if you can, if you guys can come together, Like a workflow plan of how you're going to process a project. 


It's going to be a lot easier to scale because there there is. And I've seen this with tons of freelancers. Um, there's this struggle at the beginning, but at a certain point you reach like this nexus level. And it's like, you go over the top of the hill and things just start kind of going very quickly with how many projects you're getting and how many folks who've got interest in, you know, you working for them. 


And so when that happens, if you don't have these structures and systems in place, it can kind of make or break your business. Like you're either going to go crazy and start working 80 hours a week, or you're going to stop hitting deliverables and stop hitting deadlines. And then. That's when, you know, the, the work stops because folks are like, man, these guys didn't do a good job. 


So that would be my one thing to encourage you guys to just sit down and have it. Doesn't have to be crazy, you know, but just say, okay, step one, looks like this. Step two looks like this. Let's put some things in place to where it's more systematized and easier to do and, and even easier to hand off. So let's say, you know, two, three years from now, you guys are, are cranking. 


And you got to hire on somebody. Well, you don't want to have to redo everything to where you've got a new system and you're teaching them the system, but you've got processes in place. You've got manuals that you can go here you go. You know, like this is how we do things and, uh, it'll make things a lot easier in the long run Sammy and her husband are doing all the right things. 


They're asking the right questions, but more importantly, they're just going. For it, you can't let the fear of not knowing what to do, keep you from stepping out. If you take these five methods for finding and landing freelancing clients, I guarantee you that you're going to start getting some projects in no time. 


Hey, I hope you've enjoyed this episode where I talked to. Listener from the podcast. If you black to sign up to have a conversation with me about how to be a better freelancer or a better web designer, web developer, or whatever I do free 15 minute phone calls every single week, I'll leave a link in the show notes for you to sign up, or you can go to self-made web designer. 


Scroll all the way down. And the link is right there down at the bottom of the page. I love getting to know you and I love helping out as much as I possibly can. Hey, next week, we've got another awesome episode coming straight at you. It's going to be a lot of fun. It drops Wednesday night. At midnight, you can stay up with me.


We'll eat some popcorn. We'll have a party doing it. Okay. Until then don't stop working hard and don't forget if you don't quit.