Finding freelance clients is one of the big challenges in freelance life. You may think it’s tough at the beginning, but the ebb and flow of freelance work never stops and carries on right on through your more experienced years.<\/p>\n
But any effort you put into finding and testing reliable places\u00a0to find new freelance clients will make the job of finding more work that much easier. And if you put the effort in consistently and repeatedly, you’ll find that your efforts are rewarded exponentially.<\/p>\n
Finding freelance clients will always be a necessity, but you can make it easier for yourself.<\/p>\n
When Alexander Horoshkevich from Freemlance.com got in touch to find out how I find freelance clients, I was pleased to answer his questions. Here’s a summary of our discussion.<\/p>\n
1) Where do you find your clients? Freelance marketplaces (such as Upwork, Elance, etc.), or friends, or someone who has recommended you?<\/strong> 2) With referrals, how you had got ones when you started? It’s hard to get quality referrals when you don’t have any clients.<\/strong> One thing I did do when I first started freelancing was use my previous employer as one of my first clients. I hired myself back to them for 2-3 days a week, which helped make the transition to full time freelancer much easier!<\/p>\n 3) Had you found any clients through your blog?<\/strong>
\nI always ask new client leads where they heard of us, which makes it much easier to track this. Looking back at the last few years, 90% of new clients are referrals from our existing network,\u00a05% from old clients coming back to us, and\u00a05% from enquiries through our agency website (mainly through the SEO and Content Marketing work we do).<\/p>\n
\nWhen I started, I let people know that I was going freelance and was looking for work. Several friends and previous clients then recommended me for roles they were aware of.<\/p>\n
\nYes, probably 10-15, but these are generally lower quality \/ smaller budget leads than through referrals or previous clients. I blog mainly to help other freelancers looking to establish their careers and become better freelances themselves.<\/p>\n