Lately, my freelancing career, or should I call it self-started business has picked up. With the recent completions of several jobs, I find it now easier to find new clients. The experience gained from these past several months on freelancing has helped me greatly and I’d thought I’d take a few minutes out of the day to share my thoughts.
In The Beginning
It’s quite hard to start out with nothing to showcase in your portfolio. I remember when I had first began to freelance and only had friends and families that wanted a website designed and made. Although the pay was little, or free, I took it just for the added experience and also an addition to my portfolio.
The Referrals
After doing my share of free work for friends, the referrals started to kick in. I did a website for my friend’s music production studio in which he has some clients that he wanted to send my way since many of them were looking for a website for themselves or their group as well. Through this networking system, I was able to expand my network and get known for my work.
A Better Portfolio
With friends, and friends of friends, I was able to acquire a variety of clients and wasn’t inclined to only making websites in a specific genre. As my portfolio grew, I was able to charge more each time given the fact that my practice and experience has increased. From consulting to design and the development, dealing with each aspect of the whole process has helped me gain more attention to my strengths and weaknesses.
I’m not at the point in which clients comes to me but probably am not far from it. With school almost over, I’ll be free more to focus on trying to promote myself through socializing with others of the same interest and through the beauty of social networking websites.
