Sometimes one of the hardest things to do is  gauge a new client. What do they do? Who is their audience? What kind of designs work best for their industry? Even before eliciting requierments for the website, it’s good to get to know the client by using some of these questions. About a year ago I came up with this question sheet to do just that. I ask for information about their business/organization, their basic needs for a website, and what they want from me. I also ask for and provide them with contact information. I’ve added it the Freelancing the Net Documents Folder. Feel free to use it for yourself!

(link to post)Visit Question Sheet

As per usual, FreelanceSwitch has published a great article, this time regarding college freelancers. As someone who up until a couple of weeks ago has been exclusively a student freelancer, this stuff really rings true. Especially this little number:

Try to keep your student status out of it

Words cannot describe how frustrating a client can be pre-contract when they find out you’re a student. I do feel however, that once you’ve developed a rapport it’s ok to mention- my clients have been very understanding, especially when it came to crunch time in the semester.

So go ahead and check out the other 4 tips. All really great adivce if you’re a student looking to freelance.

(link to post)Visit 5 Tips for College Freelancers

When you talk to potential clients, it’s pretty seldom that one will say, “It doesn’t matter how much it costs, let’s get going.” Most want an estimate. I wrote about determining my prices in a previous post, but since most of us work on some hourly rate, we need to figure out how long it will take so we can give a proper estimate.

Tags: clients, estimate, price, productivity, rates, time | Posted in Advice | 2 Comments »

It’s been a while since my last post, but I can explain. Last week, I went to ACM South East, an academic conference for people in the field of computing. That got me thinking about the great opportunity freelancers have by attending conferences in their field. While ACM SE was a general purpose conference, there are tons of different conferences more oriented to each field of computing, and beyond that each professional field. Conferences overall can help your freelancing career by providing specific opportunities for you not really available anywhere else.

Tags: articles, clients, network, networking, partners, people, relationships | Posted in Advice | Comments Off

If you’ve gone to college, there is a good chance that you were constantly busy- between projects, tests, going to class, and having a social life it’s hard to find time. That’s not including the extracurriculars you do. So how can a college student possibly be a freelancer? Well, it’s all about finding the right balance.

Tags: clients, college, student, tips, work | Posted in Advice | Comments Off

I wrote a little over a month ago about finding my first niche. As I said, it worked out for my for a while, but MySpace got big and snatched that market right out from under me. To be honest, it was time for me to move on anyway. My skills were getting better and I was ready to create real business solutions for real businesses. So I had to figure out what my next niche would be.

Tags: beginning, clients, niche, people, skills | Posted in Stories | Comments Off