Increasing Freelancer Sales
Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 4:30 pm
I'm struggling a bit here this month in trying to drive up my freelancer sales. I keep getting these "script kiddies" (let's call them). They're either newbie affiliate marketers who joined some program for $2K, or some teen with dad's credit card. And they want me to bring up some kind of streaming video site for like $300 (or something like that). I'm like, "Dude, um, get back on your tricycle and go home -- I think your mom is calling you," (but in nicer terms, of course).
So I'll share with you what I have, and perhaps you can share with me something that you might know. I need to increase my sales this month for building PHP websites. Some of these ideas below are still ideas yet -- I've yet to finish them.
- Do an online and offline sales campaign. As for an online one, do it by paying for it in the usual places (AdWords, SitePoint, etc.) and then also look for free things like forums that let you advertise in a forum post, or advertise in your signatures. As for offline sales, an ordinary full-color business card will do, pinned up in all kinds of places in a busy town. You can also drive around office parks and downtown buildings, collect addresses, and send out letters and then follow up with cold calls. You'll get a lot of "NO" and it's depressing, but occasionally something comes through. And the clients you get through offlines sales, I've found, are more lucrative than the clients you find online. This is because the clients you find online often know a thing or two about dealing with developers, while the offline clients may still be new to the web and only have a puny website -- not the kind of thing you can offer them.
- Communicate with affiliate marketers and web designers in their online turf. Find out where these guys are, let them know who you are through your signature, and interact with them. If that means Facebook, or Warrior Forums, or Wickedfire, or SitePoint, or Adobe Flash or Photoshop forums, or someting else -- then so be it. The affiliate marketers want to get websites up, and the web designers can sublet work to you as well.
- For your clients found from offline sales leads, try to pitch to them the idea of you as their web host (even though you outsource it), and you as their web payment processor (taking your percentage before PayPal, Google, WorldPay, or other provider does their thing). Your clients found from your online sales leads probably won't let you get away with this, but your local clients may have no problem doing this. I know a guy in town, for instance, who gets away with charging his clients $200/mo. in web hosting, and he doesn't even host the sites in his office! Instead, he gives the appearance that he hosts the site in his office. He also provides one free update per month for that fee. And he makes enough money to have a fancy office, drive a mercedes, own an expensive beach home, and have 5 other employees working for him. Now, if I could just charge $50/mo. in web hosting fees for something that I outsource on a shared hosting plan, that would be sensational.
- For your local clients (again, clients found through offline sales), I also recommend taking a percentage out of any shopping cart you set up on their site. That way, the money from the customer goes to you first via PayPal or whatever, you take a percentage out, and then you pay your client the rest. And I imagine the range has to be flexible in the 1%-%10 range, depending on the amount of money pushed through your system.
- Sometimes when you establish relationships with your clients who are web designers, you can encourage them to do online and offline sales campaigns to drive more business to both of you. (I should know -- I'm getting my favorite UK client (a web designer) to do this very thing now. We're going to be passing work either way among both our sales campaigns.)
- Make yourself more marketable. Train, train, train, and train again. Learn not only how to install something, but how to connect pieces of it (usually the login user/group system) with another package. And that takes PHP coding. So, that could mean learning how to connect Drupal's login system to a Vanilla (getvanilla.com) forum system. Or it could mean learning osCommerce, ZenCart, Magento Commerce -- that sort of thing. So when business is slow, get yourself a marketable skill. Remember, your weak portfolio could be turning clients off this very moment -- clients who may already be visiting your site.
- Bring up a series of forums on multiple topics where you can bring in ad revenue.
- Bring up a free dating site to bring in ad revenue and sales from gifts.
- Bring up a classified listings site to bring in ad revenue and paid listings.
- Find portfolio clients and give them perks and freebies with the agreement that you can put a picture of their site, and a link to it, from yours, along with a short description on what you did.
- Find web designers on the web and make a short pitch to them on what you can be called upon to do.
- Advertise and get one or two clients on retainer for like 1/2 your normal rate. I've got one and I love them to death. Their work is difficult, but only in bursts, and man they really pay my bills in the meantime.
So, a few key things can be inferred from this:
* Hedge your bets by doing off-shoots from your web development.
* Get some residual income projects up (your own sites) -- LOTS of them.
* Make yourself more marketable.
* Consider offline sales, not just online sales.
* For local clients found from offline sales, who often don't know better, consider doing "web hosting" and "eCommerce", but which you outsource and take a partial cut, giving yourself residual income.
* Web designers and affiliate marketers can be repeat business. Newbie ones can be cheapskates, but more experienced ones pay reasonably well.
That's my advice. So what's your advice?
So I'll share with you what I have, and perhaps you can share with me something that you might know. I need to increase my sales this month for building PHP websites. Some of these ideas below are still ideas yet -- I've yet to finish them.
- Do an online and offline sales campaign. As for an online one, do it by paying for it in the usual places (AdWords, SitePoint, etc.) and then also look for free things like forums that let you advertise in a forum post, or advertise in your signatures. As for offline sales, an ordinary full-color business card will do, pinned up in all kinds of places in a busy town. You can also drive around office parks and downtown buildings, collect addresses, and send out letters and then follow up with cold calls. You'll get a lot of "NO" and it's depressing, but occasionally something comes through. And the clients you get through offlines sales, I've found, are more lucrative than the clients you find online. This is because the clients you find online often know a thing or two about dealing with developers, while the offline clients may still be new to the web and only have a puny website -- not the kind of thing you can offer them.
- Communicate with affiliate marketers and web designers in their online turf. Find out where these guys are, let them know who you are through your signature, and interact with them. If that means Facebook, or Warrior Forums, or Wickedfire, or SitePoint, or Adobe Flash or Photoshop forums, or someting else -- then so be it. The affiliate marketers want to get websites up, and the web designers can sublet work to you as well.
- For your clients found from offline sales leads, try to pitch to them the idea of you as their web host (even though you outsource it), and you as their web payment processor (taking your percentage before PayPal, Google, WorldPay, or other provider does their thing). Your clients found from your online sales leads probably won't let you get away with this, but your local clients may have no problem doing this. I know a guy in town, for instance, who gets away with charging his clients $200/mo. in web hosting, and he doesn't even host the sites in his office! Instead, he gives the appearance that he hosts the site in his office. He also provides one free update per month for that fee. And he makes enough money to have a fancy office, drive a mercedes, own an expensive beach home, and have 5 other employees working for him. Now, if I could just charge $50/mo. in web hosting fees for something that I outsource on a shared hosting plan, that would be sensational.
- For your local clients (again, clients found through offline sales), I also recommend taking a percentage out of any shopping cart you set up on their site. That way, the money from the customer goes to you first via PayPal or whatever, you take a percentage out, and then you pay your client the rest. And I imagine the range has to be flexible in the 1%-%10 range, depending on the amount of money pushed through your system.
- Sometimes when you establish relationships with your clients who are web designers, you can encourage them to do online and offline sales campaigns to drive more business to both of you. (I should know -- I'm getting my favorite UK client (a web designer) to do this very thing now. We're going to be passing work either way among both our sales campaigns.)
- Make yourself more marketable. Train, train, train, and train again. Learn not only how to install something, but how to connect pieces of it (usually the login user/group system) with another package. And that takes PHP coding. So, that could mean learning how to connect Drupal's login system to a Vanilla (getvanilla.com) forum system. Or it could mean learning osCommerce, ZenCart, Magento Commerce -- that sort of thing. So when business is slow, get yourself a marketable skill. Remember, your weak portfolio could be turning clients off this very moment -- clients who may already be visiting your site.
- Bring up a series of forums on multiple topics where you can bring in ad revenue.
- Bring up a free dating site to bring in ad revenue and sales from gifts.
- Bring up a classified listings site to bring in ad revenue and paid listings.
- Find portfolio clients and give them perks and freebies with the agreement that you can put a picture of their site, and a link to it, from yours, along with a short description on what you did.
- Find web designers on the web and make a short pitch to them on what you can be called upon to do.
- Advertise and get one or two clients on retainer for like 1/2 your normal rate. I've got one and I love them to death. Their work is difficult, but only in bursts, and man they really pay my bills in the meantime.
So, a few key things can be inferred from this:
* Hedge your bets by doing off-shoots from your web development.
* Get some residual income projects up (your own sites) -- LOTS of them.
* Make yourself more marketable.
* Consider offline sales, not just online sales.
* For local clients found from offline sales, who often don't know better, consider doing "web hosting" and "eCommerce", but which you outsource and take a partial cut, giving yourself residual income.
* Web designers and affiliate marketers can be repeat business. Newbie ones can be cheapskates, but more experienced ones pay reasonably well.
That's my advice. So what's your advice?