If you can get big guy as your client, you will always likely to have stream of earnings. Big guy tend to be a recurrent client, and it is easier for you to be referred to your next client. And provided you have a good reputation, outstanding job that beat all your competitor in the market. By the way all the successful freelancer start from what you are now, so just do it 
It’s really a tough world out there. But eventually word of mouth should help you get many projects. Also think of this from a different angle.
Assuming you are kept busy throughout the week and clients pour in…, the maximum you could earn is 160 hrs a month. so let’s say your hourly rate is US$50 then your earnings will cap at US$8000 per month no matter how hard you work
But suppose you create a product of some value and sell it or create a service of some value, then it is recurring income for you. You will earn more than 160 hrs worth of work per month.
I could very easily live off of 8 grand a month. I’d only need about $3,000 of it each month, with the other $5,000/month going into the bank (which of course would be used to help pay my taxes).
I’m not sure whether you are married and with kids
You’re talking relatively large figures here…
Anyways, what you are saying is very true.
If you can sell services or a product in which you invested time in the past and don’t need to put time (or a large amount of time) into it, then you have an income which counts up.
This is the key. To me, freelancing seems more like a bridge pillar until you manage to become a full time entrepreneur, selling products and services online, making profit with no, or very little expenses compared to what you get.
FizixRichard, Shadowbox and many others have made very good points about this. I worked in advertising for about 20 years in client service until I decided to work on my own (should have started earlier, but the high salary/security disuaded me). I started learning the web business by studying, studying studying and getting clients for web services that I outsourced. I started learning using how to use the tools, and started developing my own work and outsourcing less and less. It was TOUGH but things got better.(Yes, try to get an additional income) Am still learning and can’t say I excell in design but what I do think makes a difference is offering great service, a lot of handholding, being there and this has worked for me. A LOT of business that I have has come solely from referrals. A corny endline: “Build it and they will come”.
Actually, I’m single, with no children. And the part of the US I live in is very affordable when it comes to the cost of living compared to other areas of the country. Add a wife and children and the cost of living goes up to about $4,000/month (assuming things like insurance, extra food and utility usage, for example).
But bear in mind where I’m at I can actually live off of $2,000/month so it’s really not that big of a jump from 3K to 4K/month. The rent for the apartment building I live in is $550/month, with all utilities (save for gas) covered.
How about a list of quick plusses and minuses:
Pluses:
-Satisfaction of doing something on your own
-Make your own hours
-Get out from behind the desk now and then (client meetings, training, etc)
-Work from home… work at a coffeeshop… work on the beach…
-Vacations whenever you want… heck, work on vacation if you have to
Minuses:
-Taxes
-Irregular cash flow
-Wearing multiple hats can get overwhelming (in one day you may be a designer, programmer, salesman, tech support…)
-Did I mention taxes?
-Cost of keeping up shop (computer maintenance, software, etc)
Overall the pluses out weight the minuses for me.
That’s a strange comment! A freelancer who is smart, does good paperwork, and has a good CPA and lawyer can pay much less in taxes than a regular employee! If you really don’t like taxes, you should always by independent. It’s the full-time workers who really suffer in the tax system.
biggest pro of freelancing is freedom… but it’s got the price. you’re responsible for business operations and lots of other tasks.
yeah, i agree… taxes are not an issue for a smart freelancer/consultant. if you do business internationally you can open an offshore in low-tax or no-tax jurisdiction and be fine. also your money is not stolen by the sharks like social security or what other pension fund you got where you live. as per insurance… you can pay something at your own, wherever you want… the best is switzerland… and got worth service for your money.
when you’re freelancer/consultant/contractor you pay from your own pocket for software, books, courses, school, equipment, conferences attendance, … a bit of isolated work might be problem for some people. i solve that by taking a few months contract here and there. last year been 6 months in russia. in 2-3 weeks hopefully i’m off to cyprus. as a consultant/freelancer/contractor if you go work abroad you don’t have hassle with work permits and so. you simply invoice your services abroad as a company and send yourself do the service. it’s perfectly legal!
freelancing is not for everyone. also you must have experience and knowledge beyond your trade to be a successful freelancer.
Awesome thread, lots of good information which made me open my eyes. To be successful in Freelancing you need to have good communication skills with clients.
Freelancing i find is not a 9-5 or 5 day a week job, it can be a 18 hour 7 day a week job, but most designers dont care about how many hours they work - its just the fact that your doing something u love doing, and that is the glory.
My friend the earning of a freelance web designer is not fixed, it depends on the working capacity as well as working speed of the freelancer. The more he/she works more he/she can earn. The intersting part of this freelance job is that a freelancer can earn as much as he wants because their is no limit of earning in freelancing, but you have to be dedicated towards your work.
Wow this thread is a blast from the past.
With that, I totally disagree
I have never seen a freelancer make more than a healthy living from their work. There are so many hours in a day, and only so much you can charge. Unless you can produce a great design every 15 minutes, you are VERY limited as a freelance designer and would be wise to diversify if you want to exceed more than the maximum hours x rate in revenue!
Don’t ya just love an old thread that pops up?
An old thread I know, but certainly an interesting one.
I don’t call myself a web design, but a web developer, which I’ve being doing for over 3 years now. I don’t deal with clients directly, they’re too much hassle, never know what they want. Instead, I’ve concentrated on doing work for marketing companies and internet marketing companies who don’t have developers in house.
I developed a small content management system, and have allowed it to be custom branded for each of my clients, an absolutely superb idea because it allows my clients to fully pass the work off as their own, but with all my clients using the same foundation in the CMS, I can easily move features from one client to another at a much lower cost.
I manages to get a couple of clients just because of the CMS and the unique type of service I offer in our region, and from that they come straight to me when they have client that require something a little more bespoke, so the CMS was a way of getting my foot in the door.
I’ve started the realise lately that because of the restriction of time, there’s going to be a limit to the amount of work I can do without hiring other people. So I’ve started developed of a brand new CMS which is much better than the last one, can again be fully branded, but is more usable, and add’s more day to day features. I’m also going to host it all myself, which allows me to add on-to the cost of the product.
I’ve also started looking into developing other products that solve some of my own problems, but that might also be useful to others, which hopefully I can charge for. This will hopefully help take some of the hour rate worry away from my day to day work.
Overall, it’s hard, at the minute I’m doing 50 hours a week paid work, and then another 10 in meetings or managing things. So finding time to do anything other than client work is very difficult. However, I know this happens all the time, 3 - 4 weeks of being really busy, then 2 weeks of not really doing much.
One other point worth making. For me, I get lots of deadlines for work, and because work isn’t balanced out across the year, you sometimes end up having to do 2-3 weeks work within a week…it’s very difficult, so something to be aware of.
Wow! This is a great old thread. I wonder whatever happened to the original poster? Did he make a healthy living as a web designer? Wouldn’t it be great if he came back and told us all?
So I guess I am barking up the wrong tree in this field. :goof:
Hehe OK it’s my turn now I guess
I started this thread back in 2007.
Looking back now I can say that I don’t regret anything. When I started this thread I had no experience whatsoever in the fields of web design. I mostly did student jobs earning 10 or so euros an hour. When I had a web design project (in my first year I had about 3), this was something reeeally special for me and I put all my energy into this in order to satisfy my client and to reap the rewards (usually money).
Today, in 2011 (ok, still 2010 technically), I have a much more solid client base with several clients calling me and requesting my work on a weekly basis. It seems that the people around me finally got what I’m doing and that I’m serious about what I’m doing.
I can now make a very decent living as a freelancer, even though there’s still much room for growth of course.
In retrospect, I consider the following steps highly useful for any new freelancer who is just starting out:
- Invest all your efforts into a good portfolio website (take a look at mine if you like)
- Read up on search engine optimisation (SEO) so you know how to get your site a good ranking
- Keep telling all the people around you what you do (the more the better)
- Promote yourself as “the specialist” for one particular kind of service (in my case it’s web design) and don’t get bogged down by offering two many services at once (e.g. event management + photography + business card design)
- Find someone to do your accounting to save you a lot of trouble
- Learn about taxes (especially when you’re based in Germany) and re-invest your earnings into office equipment rather than vacations
- Work from home in the first few years to save you some extra money
- Reject work from clients that you don’t like
- Reject work from people who want to pay you with something other than money, e.g. follow-up orders or recommendations
- Create a burning desire in yourself to excel in your business and everything will come true
If this can help anyone just starting out with a new business, I am very happy. Let’s see where we are in three years from now…
Great advice, Pixelateur! :tup:
Glad that you liked it
It’s nice to see what this little thread has evolved into.
Where do you actually find your clients, Maleika? Or how do they find you?
I’ve noticed that you’re based in Hamburg too but don’t have too many German sites in your portfolio… How come?
I don’t have many German customers because I don’t offer my services in German, so most people don’t even know I’m German. I only run an English version of my site. I may go multi-lingual at some point, but because my first clients were from the US and the UK, I initially decided to do my site in English and stuck with it.
As for how clients find me… clients usually find me through other clients I have as well as developer colleagues. Additionally, I regularly get clients through design gallery sites and ExpressionEngine related sites, but mostly it’s through my client and dev network.
Nice thread…
One of my biggest obstacles in freelancing is dealing with clients and potential clients. First you have to get them calling then you have to deal with them in an effective manor.
#1 ALWAYS get a deposit… NEVER start any work until you get paid… Not all people are bad you will run into a lot of great people, but they way society is today people want stuff for as cheap as they can and if you give them credit odds are most people will not pay.
There are a lot of people that will waste your time… They are looking to build a website as cheap as they can or free and they will window shop for months or years set up dozens of consolations and try to soak info out of people.
Give people the basic run down (15min or so) of you services for their budget, be friendly but professional, but let them know your time is valuable. This will discourage a lot of bad clients and time wasters looking for free sites or people that expect you to call them 3 times a day for 2 months over a $500 job.
A lot of times I will talk to 5-10 people before I get one job that’s a lot of time spent in sales and it can turn into even more if you are not careful.
Professionalism goes a long way, most times wasters and scammers I have run a crossed try to be overly friendly when they exploit people I think it gives them more play in the psychology of a scam. I notice that being very professional turns most of these types away very quick. It lets them know that you are not some young naive kid that will build a site for a link on it or you will not work with out getting paid.