| I started with no connections too. I've been a freelancer since 2015 and I recently started my own consulting firm. Here's how I got clients. 1. I contacted someone on a PHP forum looking for coders, we chatted and he turned out to own a consultancy and one of his clients was looking for .Net coder. He referred me and I got my first client as a freelancer. 2. I attended a frontend meetup and met another consultancy owner and I freelanced for him for about a year. 3. Last year I sent out around 50 proposals on Upwork and got several people talking to me and 1 client. It was not terrible, just very frustrating, and there were people who were only looking for US/European freelancers so you are not always competing with, say, Indians. Eventually Upwork asked for my id card, electricity bills and I left. 4. When I was starting my own consultancy, I wrote an ad and asked everyone I knew to post it on their social media. I also asked my girlfriend to ask everyone she knew too. 500 people saw it and I got my company's first two clients. Key insights: 1. Consultancies/agencies are easy targets, when they need coders, they REALLY need coders NOW. You won't get paid as much, but a subcontract is better than no contract. And they might even refer clients to you. 2. Keep meeting people, and talking to them about your service. Know that forums, Upwork, networking are all just means for meeting people. How you do it doesn't matter, what matters is that you keep meeting people. Congratulations on becoming a salesperson and yeah, it's less sexy than writing code. |