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Here’s the big thing to get to succeed as a freelance web developer:
If you and your buddy are hiking in the forest and are suddenly attacked by a grizzly bear… you don’t need to be the fastest guy in the world. You just need to be faster than your buddy.
There’s your uber-secret, stop-the-presses secret to success.
Freelancing is a competition. To win, you don’t need to be perfect… you just need to be better than the next guy. And, let me tell you… most of your competition is epicly bad at this.
The grizzly would be five bites into a thigh bone before they took two steps.
You just need to do some simple things that others aren’t willing to do. Here’s my 5-point “dominate freelance sites” checklist. Don’t overlook this. It’s nothing earth-shattering… the gold is in the doing:
1. Pick a Niche
Ohmahgawd John! Quit talking about this niche thing. It’s all you ever talk about… blah, blah, blah… I get it.
Do you?
I get that response all the time. THEN, I check their profile:
“I’m a highly motivated web developer with experience in HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, Javascript and NodeJS”.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Everybody says that… and it means NOTHING to a client. They don’t even know what half that stuff is. They do not “understand the words that are comin’ out of yo mouth!”
What is the end result you deliver?
“A profit-generating membership site your members will love.”
“A smooth registration form that’s a dream to complete.”
“A dead simple blog you’ll crank out quality content on.”
NOW you’re speaking my language.
Pick a niche, specialize in it and best the best at it. This is the 2nd most important thing you can do to be a wealthy freelancer (#1 is coming).
2. Build a Compelling Profile
You can’t make people hire you. There’s no magic secret to make every client hire you every time. Instead, it’s about making your best case… and, believe me, most freelancers do NOT.
Here’s some obvious stuff most aren’t doing:
- Fill out the whole profile.
- Use a professional-looking picture
- Write more than two sentences in your description
- Have a portfolio
- Take relevant tests
Brain-busting stuff I know… but you’d be shocked how many freelancers just don’t do it. Then, of course, come to me bewildered about why they’re not getting clients.
Here’s a hint…
If you’re not willing to spend more than 10 minutes on your own profile… chances are you’re not going to put much effort into my project. True or not… that’s what a client thinks when they see it.
Now, I have a video (I’ll tell you about in a moment) where I give you my 3-step formula for writing my service description that I’ve found works like gangbusters… but simply being complete is yuuuuuuuuuge!
3. Bid Intelligently
Here’s another head-scratcher…
I get a lot of freelancers who complain to me about all the “junk projects” on Upwork or Freelancer.com, etc.
Ya know…
You can filter all that junk out right? In fact, there’s a filter right on Upwork when you search for projects… that lets you only see projects from clients who actually hired someone before.
And you can toggle it between:
- No hires
- 1-9 hires
- 10+ hires
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So start off by only toggling the 10+ hires option.
Those are presumably the cream of the crop in terms of clients… and avoid all that junk. Plus, there’s filters for client Experience Level, project Budget, Job Type and a lot more.
Finding the right projects to bid on is the “dirty secret” to winning at bidding.
Of course, writing your bid is a whole other animal. But, I recently made a video for you where I go into that. I’ll get to that in a minute.
4. Do Good Work
The #1 most important thing you will do to have success as a freelancer is to do make your clients over the moon about working with you.
It’s about the code you write…
It’s about how fast you get stuff done…
It’s about how well you communicate…
It’s about how easy you are to work with…
It’s about how reliable you are…
It’s the WHOLE thing. You can’t use one to Trump the other. All of them combined will ensure clients love you, hire you again and again and tell everyone they know about you.
But, you’ve likely heard a lot about that… so let’s move onto:
5. Build a Funnel
This is the thing almost every developer balks at:
“I just want to put up my profile and get work.”
“I don’t want to do all this marketing stuff.”
“Selling is evil.”
(Said in my whiniest Gilbert Gottfried voice)
But, it’s THE fastest way to start getting clients.
Let’s say you build those dream-like AJAX forms…
Put a video on YouTube showing how you built. The exact code. Point people to your profile at the end of it if they just want it done for them. Throw a $1/day in YouTube advertising at it for a month or two until it gains traction.
Just don’t give away the source code like I do.
And, that’s it.
You’ll start getting viewers, subscribers and eventually clients. And it’s cheap and easy as hell.
Don’t be afraid of this.
You don’t need to be Tom Cruise. You just need to have something that actually works and be able to explain it fairly well. And, clients will see you can do exactly what they need and want to hire.
I get multiple quote requests every single month doing this.
So, that’s all simple stuff… but the trick is in DOING it.
Now I mentioned a video where I get into more detail about this. It’s a 30-minute whopper where I go into a lot more detail about these five steps, including:
- My 3-part formula for writing my service description
- How to write your bids to get hired
- The critical part of your profile everybody gets wrong
And a bunch more.
It’s this month’s Patreon-Only e-course. If you want to keep going with this and get access to the video, just become a supporting listener of $10 or more per month over on Patreon… and you’ll get it.
I’m finishing editing it and it’ll be up on Patreon in the next few days.
So, be sure to jump in right away.
Here’s where to go:
https://johnmorrisonline.com/Patreon
You’ll also get access to all my other Patreon-only courses, all my source code and priority Q&A access.
No reason not to:
https://johnmorrisonline.com/Patreon
See ya over there!
P.P.S. If you liked the show, give it a like and share with the communities and people you think will benefit. And, you can always find all my tutorials, podcast episodes and more on johnmorrisonline.com, @jpmorris on Twitter and youtube.com/johnmorrisvideo.
