The Freelancer’s Guide: Part Two
In Part one of this series, “The Freelancer’s Guide”, we talked about how to find jobs.
Today we”ll go into the second point I spoke about, and the next obvious step in freelancing. We will talk about “How to land a job“.
How can I land the job?
Once you find a job, unless your at the point when people come to you for work directly, or you have some great connections, it’s going to be tough to some extent to land a job. We’ll talk about 5 ways in which you can do that.
1. Outbid the others
When you start off, I’m sure you won’t have a problem taking $5-10 PayPal cash to take care of a logo that will take you 30 minutes. So when someone bids $20 on a job, say you’ll do $15! You’ll already have an advantage over them that way. Of course, don’t sell yourself too short! 
This is a problem that I struggled with when I first started freelancing. I refused to work cheap, and wanted as much as the big boys. But of course, if someone was willing to spend that much, they wouldn’t have gone with the big dogs. Also, look at it this way. You can view the first few (5-10, not first 2) as just tests. To learn how to deal with the clients, meet deadlines, etc. Also, any and all small or large projects, whether you worked cheap or not, will build your portfolio. This way you are more trusted. So don’t feel bad if you worked a little cheap for the first couple jobs, it’ll help you out in the end.
2. Be Friendly
I will be talking about this in more detail in a later part of this series, but it’s very important, so I’ll make mention of it here as well. If you are not friendly to both the person looking for the job to be done, or the other freelancers looking to take the job, people will not trust you, and you will most likely not end up with the job.
3. Have a Portfolio
I know that it’s going to be hard or impossible to do this at first, but why not try and mock up just a few of your own ideas, and set up a quick portfolio? This way, your clients will have something to take a look at before they trust “dsingrz194″ with their business’s logo.
4. Follow up
Even if you send a PM or email regarding a job and don’t hear back immediately, send another. Now, do not be annoying and ask over and over, but if you don’t hear back in 2-3 days, shoot another email, just to follow up with them and see if the position has been filled or if they are still looking. People really love an ambitious freelancer.
5. Don’t ask for full upfront Payment
I know this is an oddly specific point, but it’s true. If you ask for full upfront payment, especially if you are new to freelancing, you will scare off the potential client, as this is a way that “fake” freelancers scam some out of their hard earned money. If anything ask for 25% or maybe even 50% upfront payment, and make sure that you offer a refund of that deposit if the client is not happy with the product. Once you get larger, you may be able to say “25% upfront, 10% non refundable” or something of the like.
Those are pretty much the 5 most basic and important ways to land the job, and I hope you all can use them. In part three we’ll talk about how to gain repeat clients, or “regulars”. So Subscribe to the RSS Feed and don’t miss it!
Tags: Blogging, blogging guides, freelancing, freelancing guides, graphic design, make money online, tips, tricks, web design, wordpress
I can say right now that I would probably never become a freelancer. Learning all the coding and designing stuff seems way too difficult for me
Although it is very good money, I think that it is not everyone’s piece of pie.
-Mike
Mike Huangs last blog post..Goodbye To Entrecard
Good points mark. A trick I find that really helps is waiting for the person you are working for to offer a price. Then using that to come up with a price like you said. You can perhaps squeeze out a few bucks more of profit
I like this series, perhaps another? 
Robs last blog post..Using Online Communities to your advantage
Thanks for a the great thoughtful comments you guys, it means a lot.
@ Mike - Yeah, it’s tough learning, but it’s rewarding I think.
@ Rob I do that sometimes, but sometimes, if you leave it up to them, they will go way too low.
Also, Yeah, there will be at least 2-3 more parts for sure. 
Yah, these are some really good points. Especially the last one. Many newbies to freelancing want to be paid upfront… check out a person’s rating on a freelance website or their itrader on DP, and make a risk assessment…. that way, it’s less likely you’ll be screwed.
DoFollow Divers last blog post..DoFollow Diver! The Premier DoFollow Blog Search Engine.
Yeah, that’s another thing, your DP itrader or rep will help you in getting more work.
Or more money 
Nothing beats freelancing, the hard part is learning all the designing and coding stuff. And usually if you don’t have a good imagination, then designing websites is going to be pretty tough.
I have a terrible imagination, which is why I do not design websites for a living :),
Yeah, it’s very tough to always come up with unique designs and ideas, but it’s rewarding if you can pull it off
My first attempt at business was freelancing. I failed miserably. This was because I was charging $300+ for a template when I had no portfolio and was only 11. So I wish I had read this post a few years ago!
Shanes last blog post..The Server Is Back!
[...] (12)Don’t lose your originality (11)MonkeyBlogger Officially Launches (10)Keep ideas to yourself (9)The Freelancer’s Guide: Part Two (9) You may be interested in purchasing a review on MonkeyBlogger. Reviews will be at least 300 [...]
[...] dealing with clients, once you already have the job, (Part two ) you need to deal with your clients in a respectful [...]
[...] MonkeyBlogger’s First Interview! (16)Don’t lose your originality (12)Serious Problems (12)The Freelancer’s Guide: Part Two (11)MonkeyBlogger Officially Launches (10) You may be interested in purchasing a review on [...]