Starting Out
By WaltKania
There must be at least 3,298 articles around the web on “How to Launch Your Freelance Career” or “How to Start a Freelance Design/Copywriting/Photography Business.”
Have you seen them? The advice is remarkably consistent and utterly sensible.
Have six months of living expenses in the bank. Assess your skills and strengths. Survey the competition. Identify target clients. Devise a ‘positioning’ for yourself.
Set a launch date with 30-, 60-, and 90-day milestones. Write a detailed marketing and promotion plan. Build a network of contacts, enhance your social media presence. Hone your portfolio. Set up your workspace, set up your pricing, invoicing and accounting systems . . .
That’s all well-reasoned stuff. Hard to argue with any of it.
Except for one thing.
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Starting Out
By WaltKania
The more you think about the freelance model, the simpler and simpler it gets.
Example.
If you are a musician or a sculptor or a fine artist, the thought is, you need about 1,000 true fans to make a living at your chosen craft. To live large, you need maybe 10,000.
If you aspire [...]
Starting Out
By WaltKania
What if you haven’t amassed a huge body of work to show clients?
Re-do something that bugs you. Alan Siegel re-imagined the typical credit card agreement. Opened some eyes with it, too.
Or what if your portfolio is 82% skunk work that you’d rather keep under the bed?
No problem.
Dazzle them with makeovers. Redesigns. Rewrites.
It’s actually a more interesting way to convey your skills, your voice, your sensibilities.
Befores and afters
Find some website home pages, or marketing copy, or photos, or interfaces, or whatever it is you make.
Then re-cast them as YOU would do them.
Pick examples that bug you. Or examples from the types of clients you want to work with.
Continue . . . »
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