So your freelance business is going through a summer slump but you’re not sure how to get out of it and start making money again
You can’t keep relying on your savings.
What if this slow stage goes on past Summer? How will you make money to pay your rent & support your family?
Well, in today’s video I’m going to break down 5 ways you can get out of a summer slump and start booking clients again.
Freelancing is all about exchanging time for money. But what if you need more money and have no more time to give? That's when you need to start making passive income, and the easiest way to do that is with affiliate marketing.
My friend and affiliate expert Justine Grey is here today to teach you- my lovely community of freelancers and designers- how to do affiliate marketing right so you can boost your freelance income. Justine has even listed 31 affiliate programs you can join!
Read on for all the deets on how to make affiliate marketing work for you.
Nearly 6 years ago, as my newborn baby slept in her father’s arms, I sat up in my hospital bed and flipped open my laptop.
23 unread emails
15 project notifications
4 urgent requests
All this since going into labor less than 15 hours before.
At the time, I had been running my freelance business for several years and most of my income sources - including paid writing and client work - required me to trade my time in order to get paid.
This meant I could not take any time off before, during or after giving birth to my second child. The realization that I would not get another paid maternity leave, like I did with my first child as a company employee, hit me like a ton of bricks.
Does your portfolio attract the right kind of clients? Is your portfolio reflective of your current skill set, or is it outdated? These are questions I want you to consider as you read today's guest post by Hannah.
Hannah is part of Ditto, a creative design and branding agency based here in the UK, and her and the Ditto team have pah-lenty of experience in building a portfolio that attracts the right clients with the right budget. Read on to learn how they created such a successful, money-making, client-getting portfolio!
Nesha xo
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If there’s one thing that’s made winning business immeasurably easier for our branding agency, it’s been developing a portfolio that plays to our strengths and showcases our signature style.
People come to us at Ditto knowing exactly what to expect, and are much, much easier to convert into paying clients since they’ve seen a portfolio full of work that they already love. It gets them excited to work with us and fills them with confidence, overcoming much of the decision-halting anxiety that often plays a part when shopping for a designer (will they understand me? What if they show me something that I don’t like?).
It wasn’t always this way.
Around three years ago, we were a fairly generic design agency that undertook pretty much any work from anybody. We did branding projects, sure – but we’d also do plenty of one-off projects with tiny profit margins. Most of our clients were super-local; we’d design business cards, flyers – even bus timetables. We made money, but business was frustrating and getting clients on board felt like wading through treacle. Uphill. In a snowstorm.
Blogging is a very powerful way of getting potential clients to visit your website, become familiar with you, and inquire about your services.
The reason I started my business was because of my blog (you can read my story here). My business would have been a complete flop without it. A lot of my clients have even told me that the reason they decided to hire me instead of another designer was because my blog posts proved to them that I was trustworthy and knew what I was talking about.
So, in a nutshell, your blog posts will:
A question that I often get asked when coaching designers is 'What should I blog about?!'
Because the majority of blog posts in our niche are about business, money and marketing, you may feel like you should blog about that.
Stop right there.
If you sell products, courses and coaching based around helping people grow their business and their income then go ahead and blog about those things. But not if you don't.
You're mainly selling design services, right? That means your blog posts should be centered around those services. Your posts need to attract potential clients who are interested in investing in design, so your posts should:
Brainstorming blog posts can take up quite a bit of time so I've done it for you! Below are a list of blog post ideas that web and graphic designers can feel free to use. These posts are centered around your skills, expertise and services.
Happy writing! :)
I’m guessing that one of the most important parts of your business is getting clients, am I right?
One of the oldest (and most successful!) ways to get clients is through referrals (aka. someone refers a client to you). But how do you get them and who do you get them from?! And how can you generate referrals instead of just waiting around for them?
Referrals have an unreliable reputation. If you’re just waiting around for them, you’re going to find it hard to stay in business my friend. But there are ways you can generate more referrals.
