Today we answer a common question we’ve been getting from the community: “What we would each do if we were starting as a freelancer from scratch again?”. This was a really fun episode, where we each discussed what we would do in our first week if we were starting a new freelance business today. We get into the dread of cold-calling, the power of referrals, how to become a specialist, offering value, and using the power of social media to attract your initial clients.
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Meet Your Hosts
The Honest Designers Show started when our founder Tom found he was regularly chatting and sharing tips with top designers; Ian Barnard, Lisa Glanz and Dustin Lee. We soon organised a weekly call where we would help each other with areas we were struggling with and try to give each other actionable feedback. Soon we realised that the collective experience of the group was proving so valuable for each of us, that we thought ‘why not share these conversations with the world?’.
And so, The Honest Designers Show was born! This podcast is an insight into how to succeed in the creative industry, as well as giving you a totally transparent, under the hood look at some of the tougher, less glamorous hurdles to overcome! We also tend to get a little goofy along the way, so this is a chance to get to know each of us a little better :). We’ve loved recording this show for you, and we hope that you find value and enjoyment in listening to it.
SHOW NOTES
In this episode we talk about what we would do each do if we were starting out as a freelancer from scratch. We discuss some successful tactics from our earlier careers and combine these with the experiences we’ve learned along the way.
[1.00] What is our advice for freelancers starting out?
[1.40] Lisa picked up the Yellow Pages and cold called!
[2.30] How Lisa transitioned from full-time to freelance
[3.40] Why it was tougher in the past, without social media
[4.50] Finding the motivation to break out of your comfort zone finding clients
[5.45] How to keep faith when struggling to find clients
[6.30] Why direct communication is the most effective
[7.15] Why your ‘conversion rate’ matters when pitching for business
[8.30] Why people hire people they like
[9.20] Why human relationships matter so much in business
[10.20] How Tom used local connections to get the ball rolling
[10.50] Referrals then start to kick in
[11.20] How Lisa just referred her developer for us
[11.50] Ian didn’t put himself out there, but still got work
[12.50] How Ian used link-backs to attract new clients
[13.30] Don’t burn bridges, as older companies can often pass on work
[14.30] Building up a web with strands to potentially reach new clients
[15.15] Sticking with what feels comfortable to you
[16.55] How Ian still to this day gets client requests from older work
[17.15] Why designers are in demand
[18.30] We don’t even know many designers who are available! This makes it easier to get referrals.
[19.00] Paul Jarvis making a name for himself to attract referrals
[20.00] A great business development opportunity for designers
[21.00] How Dustin has a mutually beneficial friendship with another designer
[22.00] Word of mouth and recommendations are the highest converting way of attracting new clients
[22.50] Stand out by offering something of value (without pitching your services)
[23.50] Tom’s story of how he offered free consultations, and his tips for how to replicate this technique
[25.30] The importance of putting yourself out there in the right places
[26.15] How Dustin stood out by combining two things he was great at, to find one thing he was best at
[27.00] How to niche down to attract early clients more easily
[28.00] Becoming a specialist, to make your services more attractive to potential clients
[29.15] Dustin’s experience of hiring a specialist
[30.30] Ian’s experience of developing a specialist style in his lettering
[31.30] Focusing on what’s in demand in your local area (Lisa’s experiences)
[32.15] Why local can be easier than global when you’re starting out attracting clients
[32.50] Defining your ideal client (who you can realistically attract)
[33.30] Quick fire round – What Lisa would do is she started out today
[35.00] If Tom started out (he would ignore the ‘fancy’ work that didn’t make money early on)
[36.30] Why the business cards, and the ‘brand image’ aren’t so important early on
[37.10] What Dustin would do starting out (guest blogging and providing value)
[39.30] Why you need to be sincere and contribute value, rather than spamming people
[41.00] What Ian would do starting out today (using his network of Facebook friends, using social media as a catalyst)
[42.00] Ian’s tip for defining the work you truly want to focus on, very early
[43.00] How Ian would post content from day-1 to build up an audience
[45.00] How we would all do what we actually did originally. But in a more focused, quicker way.
[45.30] Pay attention to what is working, and do more of it (plus Ian’s caveat on this)
[47.45] Why your level of discomfort is dependent on your time-frame to get work in the door
[48.40] How Lisa did the initial uncomfortable work, but then never had to worry about it again
[50.20] Don’t worry about business plans, just get moving!
How you can help
As this is a new show, we’d really appreciate your help spreading the word. If you enjoyed listening and found value in this episode, you can do these two things to help us:
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Let Us Know What You Think
We would absolutely love to know how you enjoyed this episode. We’ll be releasing a new episode each Wednesday, and look forward to hopefully answering many of your questions on the show.
Thanks so much for these podcasts. I really enjoy listening to the topics about the day to day issues of working as a designer. They help me feel a little less isolated too!
Thanks for the feedback Craig, I’m so happy you’re enjoying the show! That’s awesome that we can keep you company while you’re designing. Do let us know if there are any topics you’d like us to discuss on the show :).
Hey guys! A little bit late but thank you so much for the podcasts, I’ve been listening since week 1 and I truly love it. I’m a design student from Brazil and I wish I could recommend you guys for all my colleagues because everyone struggles with these things, but not all of them can understand english…
A topic I wish you guys could cover is organizing your agenda? We know it’s common to grab more than we can chew because at the beggining we just can’t calculate well how much time we need to finish the project. It’s something I struggle a lot. Even if I use timely or some app to record my time it nevers goes well.
Anyway thank you all so much again!
Hey Calyane,
Thank you so much for your comment!
If we manage to get transcripts of the podcasts, the team will definitely explore other languages too but we super appreciate you wanting to share this with your colleagues.
I’ve popped your suggestion over to the designers for you so hopefully they can touch base on a subject like this soon. In the meantime, we hope you’ll enjoy all the podcasts to come :)
Hey Guys, thanks for the wonderful podcast. Just one thing I wanted to mention, that the sound tends to very low and I have to turn up my speaks real high to hear properly. I particularly have a hard time hearing clearly what Tom is saying. I listened to the podcast again on Itunes and it seems to be much better there.
When I heard Lisa say she called up PR companies, I promptly pulled up the yellow pages book (yes, we still use them in my country) and called up, emailed a PR company that I had not considered as yet. No work yet, but at least it might lead to something in the future.
All the best guys. DC is my go to site for inspiration everyday. Please install a favorite button for the products as your site is getting larger and larger and this is direly needed. Probably a redesign of the site a well as some of the drop down menus are getting too long to follow comfortably.
I would be interested in hearing your views on design contests for a future podcast.
Take care.
Thanks for your feedback Shrimati. We’ll look into the sound issue for you, as that does sound unusual. That’s reassuring that it’s working ok on iTunes at least though!
That’s AMAZING to hear that you took action right after listening. I would say that approaching companies for business is a numbers game, so don’t be disheartened if you don’t hear back from one. Lisa did this for hours every day for weeks/months, but all that initial work then led to an entire career predicated on referrals and steady business.
Thanks for your really useful feedback regarding the user experience on our site. We’re currently working on lots of positive changes to make browsing things easier for you guys.
I’ll mention the design contests to the guys too. I believe we’ve touched on them already in a past episode, but personally it’s how I first got into web design work. I’d enter design contests, and never win, then would win 10%, 20%, and eventually about 50% of the ones I entered. This was when I was much younger and starting out, so whilst I wouldn’t consider them a steady career, it was certainly great pocket money at the time, and really good experience to learn what resonates with the client, and what goes into a winning design. I hope this helps :).
Well, I suppose the yellow pages could make a good door stop… or a place for the cat to sit so they don’t sit on your work… ???
Haha, I think that’s what Lisa currently uses it for :P. How’s everything going with you Claudia? Do let me know if we can help with anything in particular in an upcoming episode.
Is it at all possible for you guys to list this on Google Play Music as well? I don’t have iTunes (I know, blasphemy!) and I really don’t want to install another app when I have one that can do the same thing. I’m just asking a question, I have no idea how difficult it is or isn’t to get these on various services.
Thanks for the suggestion Scott. I’m afraid that we’ve already tried to host with Google Play Music, but it doesn’t seem to be available to us here in the UK just yet. However, I hope that you’re able to listen either via these pages, or on Soundcloud, as an accessible format. As soon as we’re able to get on Google Play I promise we’ll be there for you :).