Once I had started to create digital art, I posted it on forums and communities etc..my first customer saw some of my earlier works, and thought I could create something for one of their websites, so they got in touch with me and I did, we were both pleased with how it turned out, and I realised that it was easier than I thought and had fun doing it at the same time, I just had got paid for something I enjoyed doing..surely that’s everyone’s dream job. If one customer liked this, then i am sure other’s would too, so that’s when I started to take designing a little more seriously, and set up a website to showcase my artwork..

2. When you started freelancing, what were your goals? Do they differ to what they are now? What conscious decisions did you make to reach your goals?

I had several goals on the road to freelancing, I think most of all I wanted to enjoy what I was doing, and what I was working on, I set goals like to evolve my work, and make new websites, set up projects and do more networking too. I dont think differ too much now, although at the beginning I was less picky and took pretty much most jobs, even with low budgets just to broaden my portfolio as I was breaking through into the industry.

3. What was the most important thing that allowed you to grow your business?

The most important thing I think was setting up my website. This was a key factor in looking more professional and getting more clients. Most of my clients now email me from finding my website actually. My business definitely grew from here, and now I will set up a website for each project, and always update current one’s to keep things fresh.

4. You have also created an ecommerce shop (Funkrush), could you tell us how that came about?

Funkrush originally started out as a hobby as I was developing and bringing myself into the creative industries. I had made a lot of contact with illustrators and designers via networking and in person. So I got friends to design shirts, found a printer and set up a quick website and started selling! Born and bred in the online ghetto, it features designs by some of todays most recognised contemporary illustrators. Funkrush produces a variety of products, mainly focusing on tshirts but also zip up hoodies, socks and even prints.

I tout Funkrush as being urban apparel but it’s more of a mixture of urban infused graffiti street art mixed with cool, funky, and unique characters. We use the tagline “clothing that makes you smile” for the business, and it’s a very accurate take on our products. It has developed ever since and is now stocked all over Europe, I have more plans to develop it too!

5. How do you balance your time between selling tshirts and Freelancing?

Well to be honest, I think its about 50/50…although recently I have started designing more and have spent less time on Funkrush. Ideally I will get people to run Funkrush for me so I can concentrate on designing more and not have to worry about things like order fulfillment, which is actually starting to annoy me, however sales have grown its still enough for me to handle. It would be great to market and advertise Funkrush more, actually..im pretty busy, so organising time between the two is pretty hard, but I am a pretty laid back kind of guy so I dont let it stress me too much.

6. What are your plans for 2010?

Relaunch my personal portfolio (which should have launched while you are reading this – www.peteharrison.com), also relaunch Supercombo, I have a lot of new products for it, I was going to build a new Funkrush website, which not only stocked Funkrush but other brands too, like supercombo..so I can start to combine my projects and things will be easier to handle! I want to upgrade my stockroom, print a bunch of new tshirts, and get some nice clients design wise. I also want to upgrade my studio, and sell a lot of stuff I have that I don’t need..perhaps do more traveling too!

But then I realized that a large portion of Chris’s audience is made up of freelance designers, and since I’m a freelance copywriter, this would mean I’d be talking to a lot of people who dress cooler than me.

But if you’re willing to overlook my writer’s penchant for Fred Perry cardigans, I promise to talk about something we all agree is of utmost importance to every freelancer, regardless of stripe, (or argyle) and that is: making money.

And so today I’d like to share advice on how to market your freelance business when you already have business coming in the door.

Why is it so important to market yourself when you’re already flush with projects?

Because money in the bank and a few projects on the go can be the death rattle for freelancers. The reason is because these things provide a false sense of security. As a freelancer, when money is rolling in, it becomes too easy and too enjoyable to “go with the flow.” With less pressure on you to bring in more business, you can become undisciplined.

Maybe you start to sleep in an extra hour. Or you spend a little more time each day e-mailing friends, clicking around on Twitter and generally wasting time.

But the defining characteristic of freelance work is that it’s project based. And all projects, however lucrative, eventually come to an end, so you must keep up your search for new projects.

This doesn’t mean you need to be obsessive about this, but it does mean you should consistently market your services.

Here are four things you can do to help keep your marketing funnel full.

Send thank you notes to clients and colleagues. This is an easy one. Buy a pack of 50 thank you cards, and keep them on your desk. Every Friday, write five thank you cards to clients, colleagues, and others who have helped you in your business, or have the potential to do so.

This is one of the oldest techniques for keeping your name in front of clients and prospects, but very, VERY few freelancers actually do this. (Good news for you – you’ll stand out.)

Set up Google Alerts and check them! Assemble a list of keywords in Google Alerts that are relevant to clients in your industry.

With a constant supply of relevant, fresh industry news, you’ll have a list of topics you can pass along to clients, with a little note saying, “Saw this, thought you’d be interested in the part about…”

You can also use these Alerts as fodder for your own blog posts, newsletter articles, tweets, or as part of a larger special report you might write as a lead generating “buzz piece.”

Create your own Case Study. Sure, you have a nice portfolio of work, but just showing clients your “book” doesn’t always communicate the impact that your design work had on a project does it?

Why not write some short narrative copy about the project, explaining what your design helped your client achieve? Show this narrative alongside images of your work, convert it to a nice PDF and you’ve got a one or two-page “case study” – an impressive, professional looking sales tool that you can send to prospective clients.

Rather than just taking the laid-back (read: lazy) attitude that “the work speaks for itself” invest a little time writing up a narrative that makes it crystal clear how integral you were to the project.

“But I’m not a writer!” you might say. Fine. But I’ll bet you know one. Trade some design services with a copywriter in return for help with your case study narrative. (Example: You design her case studies, she writes yours. Easy-peasy.)

Set aside a block of time for your “marketing” activities. All this means is that you schedule time to actually do things that relate directly to marketing your services. Maybe 30 minutes every morning, or maybe 2 to 3 hours every Friday, it really doesn’t matter when, as long as you do this consistently.

This may not be your idea of fun, but once you make a habit of it (and once you start getting clients as a result of it!) it will feel like much less of a chore.

Of the four tips above, the most important one is number four. Most freelancers are strapped into the feast-and-famine roller coaster because they only get out and market themselves when they’re desperate for money with no projects on the horizon.

Do not let that be your fate. Keep marketing, even when you’re doing well, so you can step off that roller coaster once and for all and start living the balanced, wealthy freelancer life you deserve.

Pete Savage is co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle. Order Pete’s book this week from Amazon.com and get up to $300 in free instructional materials to help you attract more clients and better paying projects. Click here for more info!

Due to the interpersonal interaction and the rapport that may result during networking sessions, you have opportunity to make a more lasting impression than many of the other forms of marketing such as brochures and posters. Once you manage to break the ice and gain a level of confidence with the potential client and the conversation starts to flow freely it will not be that hard to bring up what you do and how you can both benefit in a business relationship.

Even though many people might not necessarily admit it, lucrative business deals are sealed as much due to the technical ability of the parties involved as they are due to the social and ‘emotional’ connection between the parties. People will not hesitate to give business to someone that they think they can easily relate with. Networking is an efficient way of doing business when one looks at the speed with which it can move you into this kind of trust with your target clients.

If you think about it, most businesses are built through networking even though the entrepreneur might not actually realize that they are networking. It is passing the word round to family and close friends on what it is you are doing that many people are able to land their first significant contracts and build from there. The importance for freelancers is probably more significant than it is for many other types of businesses when you consider that the freelancer fulfils multiple roles that would often be handled by different people in an ordinary business.

… part 2 here …

1. Job Opportunity.

With today’s economy there are many people who simply can’t find work or who are working less hours than they need to make ends meet. Becoming a freelancer will provide you with job opportunities as long as you are willing to go out and search for them

2. Financial Gain.

You can either work as a freelancer in your spare time which will help supplement your income or you can choose to work at home full time. Either way if you put in the time and effort you can actually gain financially over what you make at your day job.

3. Set You Own Hours.

You can set your own hours. If you choose to work 12 or 14 hour days for three or 4 days and then have a long weekend you can. If you prefer to work during the wee hours of the morning and then sleep during the day time you can do that as well. You can choose your own hours and work as much as little as you choose without worrying about getting demoted or fired.

4. Accept only those jobs you want.

When you work for a big or little company, you work for the clients they accept. Here you accept only the jobs and clients you want.

5. Be your own boss.

By becoming a freelancer you become your own boss. Which means not only can you set your own hours, your own vacation time, but your own rate of pay as well.

6. Saves Money.

Becoming a freelancer can actually save you money. You don’t have the expense of gas to and from work, or eating lunch out. You can dress anyway you please which helps to save on your clothing budget and you are not asked to put in for co workers birthdays, baby showers, weddings, and other celebrations which can add up to a big chunk out of your paycheck.

7. No daily commutes.

You no longer have to fight rush hour traffic or drive long distances to the office. You can simply jump out of bed, grab a cup of coffee, and you’re at work.

8. Less Work Related Stress.

When you work as a freelancer you can eliminate a lot of the work related stress that surrounds working in an office with other people who may have conflicting personalities or annoying habits. Since you set your hours and take the amount of work that you know you can comfortably handle there will also be less deadline stress.

9. Independence.

As a freelancer you have the independence to work from anywhere you please. You can work from home or pack up the laptop and do a bit of traveling while working on the road.

10. Personal Satisfaction.

There is nothing like the personal satisfaction you get from building your freelance career from scratch and becoming a success at it.

11.Doing Something You Love.

This last reason is possibly the most important. You get to do something you love. So much of our are lives spent working why not do something you truly enjoy?

When starting out in freelancing, often you’ll hear all sorts of advice. Advice like “price yourself cheaply to start with to get some customers”, or “don’t go full time straight off the bat”, etc. That’s all well and good. But this one piece of adviceshould be at the back of your mind no matter what else you hear.

“Market yourself for the long term”

Good solid work comes from good, solid relationships and good solid reputations. There’s no quick way to build those ingredients, but there are ways to make it quicker. Here are some ways to keep an eye on the long term.

Look for work in the right places

Building long term relationships requires you to position yourself as an irreplaceable resource for businesses.

Now there are exceptions, but generally you don’t find these clients on job boards. Why? Because those clients are happy to use job boards! They can find a replacement very quickly, and most likely, as soon as your rates rise or your timeframe shifts, they will.

Instead, some places you could look for work would be local businesses, agencies, freelancers with complimentary skill sets.

Local businesses need someone to take care of their website for them. Most often, they don’t have the knowledge or time required to maintain an effective web presence. For these types of businesses you can situate yourself as the “go to guy/gal” for all their website stuff. Take care of their domain name, web hosting, updates, keep up to date on their marketing goals, be available for questions etc.

Working for agencies and other freelancers is great for freelancers that like defined projects, because almost always, if you do a good job, you’ll get more work in the future. In these situations, you’re basically outsourcing your marketing.

Your service doesn’t stop when the job is done

If you’re working with small business owners, your service should never stop. If you aren’t doing hosting yourself, at least work in with a hosting partner that shares some profits with you. Always look for opportunities where you can offer new services.

Build recurring revenue streams

Some people don’t recommend hosting yourself. I recommend you do, but that you charge for it. My hosting is typically more expensive than other hosts, but my clients pay more because they trust me, and because I become their sole contact for all web issues, which makes it easier for them.

Same goes for domain registration.

If you do one website a month, and charge $300 hosting for a year, the next year, you’re starting off at $3600 revenue instead of 0.

When you’re selling, think of the long term

Don’t always be blinded by immediate reward. Some times its better to take a pay cut in order to get a job that has great potential down the road. (And anyone that says they’ll send you heaps of people for work, usually won’t).

An example of this is if you’re designing a website for a section of a larger organisation. I’ve got foots in the door in tourism, health, and a religious group. All of which refer a lot more work to me through my repute, rather than by direct word of mouth.

Summary

Always keep an eye on the long term. If you’ve done it right, you’ll find the leads materialising from nowhere.

What I haven’t really covered yet on this blog is getting your portfolio right. When you’ve spent all that time marketing your site, there better be something awesome to see when they get there.

So what makes a good portfolio?

Let’s start with the premise that your portfolio is your most important calling card.

I’ve been involved in both sides of the portfolio wall. Often times i’m exhibiting work to get more work. But there’s been many occasions where i’m checking people’s portfolios when we’ve been overloaded with work and need to outsource to other freelancers.

I’ve seen a load of portfolio and here’s my opinion on what makes the best ones…

1. Well designed.
This goes without saying, especially if you are a freelance designer. I don’t just mean pretty with some nice choice of colours. I mean make sure that your work is set out in a way that is very easy to scan through. Don’t over design and complicate the navigation either, just keep it simple.

Think of your portfolio like an art gallery. The walls never intrude with the work, which brings me to my second point.

2. Don’t try and be too smart.
I’ve seen some portfolios with some crazy ideas and navigation. I understand that the person is trying to stand out and be clever, but I haven’t got the time or inclination to guess how to find the work. I other words, don’t make me think.

3. Show it all!!
This is my personal opinion, but I think you should show off your work in all it’s glory and don’t get worried about being ripped off. I’ve seen some portfolios with tiny little thumbnails of work or short paragraphs of written work because they don’t want to be copied.

If people want to steal, they will.

4. How do you work?
Seeing what you do is great. What’s even better is when I can see the process you went through to get to the final result. What was the situation the client was in when you met them? Did you have to start from scratch? Was their a brief or did you have to research and help create a marketing plan? What were their goals for the project?

This is the stuff people want to know when they take you on. Some will be trusting you with their brand and they want to know you’ll be able to work with them and not in your own little world.

Here’s a video of one site that I personally really like. Please add a link to your portfolio underneath.

So what is a USP?

Well, it stands for “unique selling proposition”.

In non marketing speak, it is a definition of what makes you special and sets you apart from other freelancers. It’s about creating a unique reason for customers to use your services and not your competition.

It makes you more unique, valuable and visible in the market.

For example, Federal Express (FedEx) dominated the package shipping market with “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.” The deployment of this USP allowed Federal Express to emerge as the dominant leader in the industry, taking market share rapidly, and also increasing its sales and profits.

Obviously, you need to be able to back this up too, you can’t just sat it.

Do Freelancers Need A USP?

Absolutely. Your USP will be one of the tools you use to makes you stand out. It will help people understand why it’s worth spending more with you than some guy they find on any old freelance job site.

In theory, if it’s a truly unique reason, then you’re the only one who can possibly deliver what the client wants. That’s when you can start commanding the prices you want.

When you create your USP, don’t get too precious. This will be a work in progress and you can refine it as you grow and develop as a freelancer.

Don’t forget, that your USP is a sentence or phrase that explains what makes you special. So when you develop your USP, you need to put yourself in your prospects’ position.

Think about your freelance services from the point of view of someone about to hire you. What’s important to them and what would be a compelling reason for them to choose you over your competition?

What does your service do for them? How will you solve their problems or improve an outcome?

Customers are not interested in features. However, they are very motivated by benefits.

Freelancing is obviously a competitive market, and you can’t be all things to all people. So maybe it’s worth trying to find a niche. An area in the market that you can take ownership of because of the unique benefits you offer. For example, there are designers that only create websites for churches.

So, to summarise. A good Freelance USP should be:

>> One sentence.
>> One that everyone can understand.
>> Contain benefits that are unique to you.

Then when you have it, use it on all your communications.

Also, add yours below to inspire other readers.

So where do you start? Well, one of the easiest places to start is by simply giving great service to your clients. Whatever the climate, great service makes great business sense and always leads to more work from current clients and in increase in testimonials.

So here are four easy to apply ideas for you.

1. Go Beyond the Norm.

This decade, you’ve simply got to go beyond the basic and expected levels of service if you want to stand out and get more work coming to you. Let’s face it, in freelancing there are a ton of competitors in the freelance world and competing on cost is only a small reason why people buy. So have a think about the actual time and effort you put into the work you do for clients and also the way the work is delivered. People will always notice your higher standards. Make a big note on your wall to keep on improving in 2010.

2. Deal With Mistakes Fast.

Sometimes stuff just happens. Maybe you were having a bad day, maybe something went wrong that was out of your control. When you mess up something for a customer, simply deal with it quickly and do whatever it takes to make it right. The worse thing you can do is blame something or someone else for what went wrong. My advice is to just be the man (or the woman), take it on your shoulders and get it fixed. Making sure you put the customer’s goodwill as a high priority. This will bring you plenty of future orders and new business.

3. It’s Them Them Them, Not Me Me Me

When we get into freelancing there are so many balls we’ve got up in the air it can be hard to see things from someone your customers’ point of view. But we must create some to think about what the customers really want. Get your friend, spouse (or enemy) to act as a “mystery shopper” of your service. How easy is to call you, ask your advice or simply place an order?

4. Expectations Are Rising and Changing.

As technology changes and trends change, so do people’s expectations. What was good enough last year may not be now. So you could have a go at creating a customer survey. Maybe set some time aside to call a few of your existing clients and ask them what they want. Ask them how you could be doing things better for them. Sometimes it’s best to get someone to do this for you as people will be more honest when they think they are talking about you and talking directly to you.

Focussing on these four key aspects will have a great effect on your customer service and of course get you better clients. Maybe even ones that pay on time too.

I suppose in a way that Twitter Lists are Twitter’s long awaited “groups” feature. It’s a way for you to bunch together other users on Twitter into groups so that you can get an overview of what they’re up to. I personally think there’s a load of ways you can utilise this when you are marketing yourself and your freelance skills so I created you the following video:

In my opinion, one of your tools has to be a blog. I’ll cover why another time, you’ll just have to trust me for now.

Blogging is going to be something new to a lot of you and you’re going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes. However, if I can point a few of those out for you now, it may save you some time and trouble. Here’s six of them:

1. Not interacting with others.
You ever been to the pub where you see a guy going on about himself for hours? Notice how quickly the people around him look for excuses to leave? It’s BORING to listen to ‘me me me’.

The same principle applies online. Don’t be a blogging bore. Be useful, form relationships with people, give people a reason to stay on your blog and then come back later to see if there is any more useful stuff. This business is like any other business… a people business.

2. Not building your list.
You should start your email list from day. Get something free that people need to subscribe to get. Or maybe your content is so good that people will subscribe just to be the first to know when you release new posts. You can then use that list in the future for seeing if anyone wants to hire you for your skills.

3. Not using Wordpress.
Just use Wordpress. Trust me.

4. Not writing very well.
For you freelance writers, this will be easy. For the visual creatives… you may need to learn to how to express yourself in the written word. A good place to start is Copyblogger. Also think about building stories around your blog posts. People like stories and if you can create some that help you stick in people’s heads, they will come back.

5. Not getting a good blog layout.
Now the arty ones may get this one bang on. But then again i’ve seen designers with poor looking blogs. There’s a ton of free Wordpress layouts, but you may want to invest a few dollars in a very good one from WOO THEMES. Keep your content concise and clear. Make it simple for people to access examples of your work too.

7. Not Being Real.
I’ve said this a billion times, but i’m going to say it once more. People buy from people they know, like and trust. So if you’re being fake, you will be found out. If you’re being boring, you’ll lose out. Just be you, you are interesting i’m sure of it.

This blog post was inspired by the 6 figure blogger David Risley.