Learning Experiences as a Freelancer

by
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I thought it might be useful to share some of my not-so-great experiences as a freelance web designer so that others can learn from my mistakes.

All Work and No Pay

What's really frustrating is that I made the same mistake several times. That costly mistake was doing work and not getting paid for it. I'd get an enquiry for building a site by phone or email. I'd get straight back with some ideas and a quote and more often than not my quote would be accepted. I'd even have written confirmation that yes, they wanted to pay me for a website. On this basis I'd do the work and then when it came to sharing my design they'd say that they didn't want to go ahead any more or that they'd found another designer.

It's hard as a designer. You can get excited by a project. As soon as you finish speaking to the customer the ideas start flooding into your head and you want to capture that excitement and creativity there and then. Unfortunately, in my experience it often doesn't actually materialise. They're just not as serious about the project as you think they are.

My advice would be to assume that it's just talk until you see some commitment, and by commitment I mean money. Ask for a deposit. It doesn't have to be much, even £10 or $10 will do, but it's just enough to prove that they're serious. Don't lift a finger until you've got a serious commitment. Trust me -you can't afford to work for nothing.

The Price is Right

The other mistake I made was in my pricing. As I was fairly new to web design I thought I'd hit the low end of the market where I could compete on price and get lots of small cheap sites in my portfolio. It worked well for some customers but it's surprising how many people expect you to travel to see them at your expense when you're charging less than £100 for a website. The only way you can operate at the cheap end is by having very low outgoing costs.

Later, when I stopped being a full-time freelancer and moved into a permanent job I kept the web design going as a side line. At this point I could afford to be more picky about which projects I took on, and, without needing to be so competitive I raised my prices. In fact, I doubled my prices. Here's the thing. I was expecting my number of enquiries to drop off. It didn't. It pretty much doubled. I think that going too cheap was actually suggesting low quality or making people suspicious. Charging more can suggest higher quality and strangely provide some reassurance.

My advice would be to find the price that you think your service is worth and then double it. Serious customers want to buy quality services and with something like a website they're looking for a long term relationship, not a quick handover.

Losing Focus

The third mistake I made was spending my time on the wrong things. I spent a lot of time trying to market myself rather than focusing on client work. I put a lot of hours into studying Google Analytics, SEO and building other sites to promote my main business. It would have been far more cost effective to just pay for advertising rather than commit this time. Trying to market myself by spending time and not money was a false economy. Focus on what you're good at and pay others to do what they're good at.

Hope that helps someone.