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I have been freelancing for 6 months, and managed to secure a decent, but underwhelming income. The biggest breakthrough I had was finding Patrick McKenzie's blog posts on Freelancing and Consulting. I started here: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-... For background about me, when I started, I had a decent runway, have been able to save while freelancing, and have even gone on a few trips. But money is always tight, my girlfriend and I eat the cheap, discounted meat & veg that is about to go past date. I worked constantly for 6 months, and felt like I was flailing. When I started freelancing, I was focusing on web development/design. I tapped into my network in a way that I thought was reasonably well. I got a few good clients, and was charging about 2-4k per project. But I still wasn't enjoying the work or my life (which was the reason I started freelancing!!) On top of that, I would follow up with previous clients, etc, but the word of mouth just wasn't spreading. Listening to Patrick McKenzie's blogcasts and following up by reading some of Ramit Sethi's material has recently pushed me in the right direction. Ramit gets some guff from some critics on the net, but he did an interview with BJ Fogg (@bjfogg , http://captology.stanford.edu) that really changed the way I look at my business. The most important part is to PICK A FOCUS. Once you pick a focus, you will much better know who your customers are, and then you can talk to them without even talking about work, just learn their problems and how to solve them. That is the step I am on right now. I have yet to see a fical payout from these efforts (its been 2 days); but I already feel as though I am not flailing and incredibly focused - like a surgical laser. As a result, I am working less, less stressed and am much more confident that I will be able to deliver real value within 1-2 month's time. I hope that helped. If you want to carry on the conversation in private, you can always tweet at me @SalvatoChris. |