One Thing I Wish I Had Done Sooner for Building My Freelance Web Design Business
Blog #134: One Thing I Wish I Had Done Sooner for Building My Freelance Web Design Business
Fix this early on in your freelance business journey.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a manual on how to start your freelance business or side-hustle that was customized to you specifically? Like so many newbies, when I began my web design business in the Fall of 2018, that’s exactly what I was in need of.
I wished for a custom blueprint that fit my personality, my specific goals and aspiration and the exact challenges that I was facing in my business.
There was none.
I did read a few blogs of other freelancer journeys but had not fully found the answer for myself.
So trial and error was to be the path.
I made many mistakes or what I now lovingly call “learning lessons”. This is just one of them:
Learning Lesson: Build a Portfolio of Showcasing Your Skills Early
Had I resolved this sooner, I would have made faster progress in building my $100K freelance design business, a milestone that I reached at the end of 2022, four years after my very first paid web design project.
The biggest challenge in getting a new freelance business or one-person business off the ground is getting hired by clients, getting revenue into your business. As a newbie, having built some websites for friends and for my personal projects, I would be looking for a new project but had no real portfolio of work that really showed off my design skills.
There’s one thing that I had to understand about getting hired for a job vs getting hired for freelance projects:
Clients hire based not on your resume or how many degrees or where you worked previously, but a clear demonstration of your skills.
There are two ways in which you can show that you’ve got the skills:
You can do this through content you have online
You can have blog articles, video tutorials or podcasts showcasing your skills, depending on your niche. For web designers, having a youtube channel with design tutorials or a series of blogs presenting your past works as case studies can be a great showcase of your skills.
Or you can show this through a portfolio of work.
Having a portfolio page that has visuals or examples of your past work where potential clients can see your work is very helpful. For some niches, the actual work may not be “showcase-able” but perhaps you can do a case study of before and after of problem/solution/results.
I did both. I started a YouTube channel with tutorials and talking head videos. And I created a little showcase of my design projects.
But what got me faster results was building a portfolio.
This meant doing pro-bono design work. I built a new site for a writer’s group so that I could showcase their website as my first example.
I got my first couple of clients by showcasing just that one site. But it was only months later that I built 5 more pro-bono websites to add to my portfolio.
Doing this, did 5 things for me:
First, I got 5 really awesome testimonials
Second, I had 5 awesome examples to add to my portfolio of work.
Third, I now had experience working with 5 very different people with very different businesses which boosted my confidence in working with clients.
Four, I now was able to create a template for my project workflow that was derived directly from these five projects.
And five, I had a better understanding of some of the common needs of clients despite different businesses and goals. It gave me the fodder I needed to eventually create my first package.
If you don’t have a body of work for which you want to get hired, go out and create a portfolio to showcase. This can apply to most side-hustles and one-person businesses offering services you want to get hired for.
As a web designer, I’d recommend building between 3 to 5 websites for your portfolio.
What about the Catch-22: “I don’t have a portfolio because I have no clients”
That is a valid argument that people have faced before. How did they solve it? In the past, newbies would become an apprentice of a master and learn under them first. In today’s world, you can still do that but you have more options.
One way to do build your portfolio if you are just starting out is to do pro-bono work for real people right from your friends and family circle. The other way is to create demo websites for made up businesses.
If you are already a designer getting hired for projects but are not yet attracting the kind of projects you really excite and inspire you or the type of clients you want to work with, you can also use the above method. In your portfolio, showcase only the type of projects you want to do in the future and leave out the rest.
In either case, add a caption below your portfolio letting your future clients know that these are example sites that showcase your skills and that they are not real client projects. No matter what you do, being integral and honest will bring you better results and let you sleep well at night.
So, get started on this as soon as you can. Building a good portfolio of a handful of sites will increase your opportunities to get hired when you finally speak to a potential client or apply of a possible project.
Once you have your portfolio done of 5 sites, add a link in the comments and let us all know!
Action Task: Build a portfolio of work showcasing the skills you want to get hired for.
You got this!
PS: If you are on LinkedIn, I invite you to connect with me there for more conversations and connections. If you want more tips and invites to trainings on how to grow your freelance online business, join the Abundant Creative Newsletter here.
