In the freelancing industry, we often find ourselves at the top with so many potential clients requesting us rather than the other way around. However, there is also many times where we find ourselves in a struggle to pay our bills at the end of the month. In such situations, we usually tend to contract with anyone who we can nab. With that all said, we discuss several key points or strategies to be able to quickly find contracts and begin working again.
Partner Up
The freelancing industry is definitely a stressful option in the web industry that we choose to take upon. This includes every ups and downs that we have to go through, and every night and weekend we spend up working. A great way to better divide up work is to collaborate with other businesses or freelancers. By using such a collaboration method, you can monetize on many benefits such as better work security, easier workloads, and others.
First and foremost, when you collaborate or partner up with others, you increase the chances of finding work during the times of need. The reason for this is, the freelancer or business you may be partnered up with might have quite a few clients they do not have time to work with, and transfer them to you. The same applies when you are at the peak of your freelancing career where you have way to many client requests than you can handle, you can easily transfer them to your partner who can help take the load off for you until you finish up some projects. This method also relates to a saying “you scratch my back, I scratch yours”.
Secondly, by collaborating or partnering up with someone or an entity, you gain more exposure, decreasing the chances of a fall for you and your partner. Which means you can feel more secure with your freelancing career than any other sole freelancer out there.
Consider your partner as your backup plan, when your primary plan fails, you have something to fall back upon and vice versa.
Contact Former Clients
A quick and easy way to gain work again is to contact former clientele who you have done work for once before, and offer them a limited time discount that they cannot resist. This usually tends to work, as former clientele know they cannot get work done for as inexpensive as you are offering them with the discount, and they usually tend to find work for you to do for them. Even if your former clientele offer you small paying jobs, accepting them is better than declining them and not receiving any income.
Freelance Job Boards
This option has to be one of the more obvious routes to choose as we often resort to freelance job boards to find new jobs and clientele. However, because the freelance job board you may often frequent to find work may not be sufficing for a certain month, it is always good to branch out and locate other freelance job boards similar to those you use.
This helps expand on your portfolio as well as increase your chances to locating clientele quicker, and often, when you search for new freelance job boards, you may find a job board that suits you better than the previous ones you may have frequented.
Refer a Friend Program
An addition to contacting former clientele, you can also setup a refer a friend program where former clientele can refer clientele to you and receive a discount on work they need done next. This often helps increase your clientele base rather quickly, and causes a bit of a chain reaction or domino affect client after client. It is also a great method to be using whether you are in a “drought” or not as it helps decreases the chances of falling again.
Local Business Listings
When in need, it is a great opportunity to search through your local classified job boards to find locals in your area who may need some freelance work done. This not only helps boost your image within your local community, but it often guarantees quick income as you can work with the client directly without hassle.
Do note however, many may condone this method of finding quick clientele, as often many seem to find themselves with clientele that they want to get rid of, as they may have been a nuisance. Therefore, it is a great resource to tackle, but leaving it as one of your last options could be more ideal for you, depending on your situation.
Advertising
One unique method to get yourself known to the world is to use advertising networks on sites such as Google, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and others. This helps provide you quick exposure to the global market you may have not touched. It also additionally allows you to focus on other mediums in search for clientele while clientele come to you via this method.
If you have heard of the saying “two birds one stone”, it exactly applies to this method, as it is running in the background for you automatically while you do something else to double up on the effort of reaching potential clientele. However, do not just solely rely on this medium or method to reach clientele quickly, as money is constantly being put out to a medium that cannot relatively guarantee that you will receive clientele from, so it is a costly hit or miss.
To conclude, when you are in a time of need, use creative methods that work for you, and try out new methods to receive clientele when you have contracts and projects going. This allows you to experiment with many different great methods at no cost or affect to you or your business. Additionally, always work on new methods and apply them in times you are not desperately in need, so that you can constantly keep clientele moving in, rather than fall hard when times become tough. This is usually a great idea to put together, as a backup plan is better than no plan at all.
