This article will offer some tips on how to create that reputation that you need online. The tips are for all the starting out freelancers who aren’t getting much client work and want to earn that reputation to get up there with the best of the best.

Something that I have I noticed during my time freelancing is the lack of urgency in some freelancers. They expect that if they make a design and sell it, they believe their the best in the business and sky rocket their prices to high $xxx and end up with no client base.

In my opinion, as a beginning freelancer you have to be patient and gradually build your reputation. Becoming a ‘well-known’ freelancer doesn’t come fast and doesn’t come easy. I know that may sound a little bit off-putting but if you have the skills and you have the mindset to work hard and gather some immediate clients then you can then start planning ahead and then think about raising your prices.

Building A Portfolio - One of the key elements to becoming successful and earning the amount that you’d like to earn is to build up a portfolio of all your ‘best’ work. From past experiences I would also recommend keeping any ‘mock-up’ designs and ‘mess around’ designs that you have because you just don’t know a client may want to see some examples of a specific type of design and you might have some lying around.

Try & Keep Positive - Due to the expansion in the freelance niche, most freelancers pricelists are sky high and it can be a bit daunting knowing that these people do actually make alot from freelancing. But thinking negative and getting into the mindset that ‘you will never make that much’ won’t help you one bit. My advice to you is to stay positive and constantly criticize your own work by constructing pro’s & cons from it. You will learn so much by doing that.

Promote Yourself Properly - We all know how much SPAM can annoy people. So don’t do it! Too many freelancers these days begin out and think that advertising there website or portfolio anywhere possible is going to get them lots of juicy ‘traffic’ were as a matter of fact, it won’t. So how do you promote yourself properly? Well firstly when you have just finished dealing with a client and the job is successful and the client loves the finished article, ask nicely if they would recommend you to anyone who is looking for whatever it is you do (designing, coding, programming).As the weeks go by and the more clients you get the more ‘backend’ exposure if you like is happening.

TIP: As you get more clients, you maybe feel that you need to raise your current prices, in my opinion doing this is a bad move. As you raise your prices, your long term clients and current clients will gradually fall away with your contact and this can then obviously lead to your client base decreasing, remember at the end of the day why are they getting in touch with you? It may be your designing/coding/programming skills that their after and money might not be the case but in most cases you’ll find that money is the major factor. How do I get around earning more money then? Working hard is the key to this question. If you are a hard worker and love to earn money, then doing a promotion or deal is the easiest most quickest way. Lets say for example you are a designer and your current price for a website design is $50.00, ways of earning more money could be simply ‘Offering Two Designs For An Overall Value of $75.00.’ In a situation like this you have to have the mindset of really working hard and getting the work done, this is obviously $35.00 under the actual budget of two website designs, but this is what your clients will like and what will attract them to you. I’d also recommend that setting a restriction of how many people can get this deal, for example the deal will only happen for the first five people to contact you.

Those tips above remember are aimed at starting out freelancers. I hope these pointers have helped because they are only some of the pointers and stages in which I have encountered and learned through my time as a freelancer. If your a freelancer and have any stories and would like to add to this then please feel free to do so by commenting.

Thats all for now, thanks for reading EatFruitPlease.

Regards,
James