EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BE A FREELANCER IN 2019 (Build your brand!) #grindreel #garyvee

what's going on guys welcome to another video someone left a comment on my last video that I should do a video on how to be a freelancer in 2019 what sort of dev skills you need to know to be able to do that for front-end development and I was like you know what that's actually a pretty good idea but the thing with freelancing in general is that it all stems from brand so I want you to watch this clip from Gary Vee real quick which talks about how brand is everything and how if you have that you avoid the bottleneck of having to find clients and all that stuff so I just watch this real quick and we'll dive right in and the reason I want you to build a media brand around you is no technology not Alexa not Facebook not anything that gets invented that we don't know exists now none of that builds or beats brand because they're not gonna ask Alexa for let me service my pool or who should I go with they're gonna say I want to go with David call David and fix my pool and that's called Brant and there's a very big difference my friends between brand and sales and ninety percent of people are in the sales business I just want to make a real quick mention that everything in this video could be its own topic but I'll try to give you the quick and easy rundown of what it takes to be a freelancer in 2019 so why do you have to build a brand well building a brand and having reputation is everything branding is the bottleneck pretty much if you don't have a brand if you don't have a reputation if you don't have something that people can know you by work that you've done a history besides recommendation letters and word of mouth then that's the bottleneck now you can pay marketing agencies to get your stuff out there but if you have your own brand you already have eyes on your products and then you can point those eyes to another product building your brand is the number one thing that you can do even if you're applying to a job or something you have a history of things that you've worked on you've documented your struggles you've documented your successes you've documented the things that you've worked on where someone else applying to a job they just have a resume and cover letter you have a resume cover letter history and a whole log of everything that you've been doing and keeping track of which gives you a story gives you that extra edge they can relate to you more you're not just a paper on the top of the stack because that's what you're that's that's where it'll be if you have a brand it doesn't matter how great you are it doesn't matter how great your projects are its if no one can see them if no one knows who you are it doesn't matter it's a it's like Twitter Twitter's actually not very profitable as a company but Twitter has access to so many people's emails and users that if they decide to push an ad into everyone's Twitter inbox they could probably make a whole lot of money right so twitter has distribution which is what you want is why brand is so important okay so how do you how do you start building a brand then right well get active everywhere every social media platform don't consume the platform don't use the platform to consume it right because then you can get lost and distracted and they say if the if the platform is free then you're the product that they're selling pretty much right so they're selling your data they're gathering information about you right don't consume the social media sites just use them to promote your products your projects that you've worked on history so for example if you're like a UI UX person you better have projects on dribbble you you better find a way to get an invitation to dribble it's invite-only you better have projects on B Hance your project should be everywhere you should be posting your products on Instagram and UI UX tag or something crazy right you just need to have a brand people need to know who you are that's just that's just how it is you need to get active everywhere if you don't like making videos or talking to a camera I'm sorry that that's where the future is going blogs and written content are still kind of relevant but not so much as time goes on videos so much easier to scroll through and just look at and then when you're done just keep scrolling so get active everywhere on every social media account Facebook LinkedIn is good for business Instagram for design and visual visual things like that and again we're doing front-end development so if you've worked on a cool front-end application I'm going to show that stuff off on Instagram one more thing while I'm paused right here is I wanted to mention the best way to create a brand is to start providing value to people you want to start taking your knowledge and giving that to other people or giving people tips and hints in ways that people can improve their life and the more that you can improve other people's lives the more that your life will improve and usually the better off your brand grows and so that's what garyvee would tell you that's what I'm gonna tell you don't start off just like making vlogs because no one no one knows who you are no one cares about you yet you need to be providing helpful valuable content right up front and then in return people will give you their attention and their trust in their loyalty and and that's basically how you build a brand so if you're gonna make a blog or a video try to provide some hints and tips of what you struggle with how you overcame those struggles something that you learned something that you think would help other people debug a piece of code or something like that something in your project that you learned or you could share at some point that would improve someone else's attempt at doing something similar okay back to this another thing that can backup your brand a little bit these only go so far because no one knows these people but if people write you a recommendation letter it kind of does a little bit for you but not not that much as we're talking about a portfolio that is your bread and butter as a freelancer you need a portfolio even if you're not a freelancer just as a developer that is your lifeblood and if no one can see what you've done what you can do no one's going to want to see what you can do all right so what are the actual skills that you need the actual programming skills and I wish I could say JavaScript react CSS html5 and firebase and you'll be good to go but that's not that doesn't answer the question you have to ask the right question who are you going to be freelancing for and what type of applications are you going to be making are you going to be making full stack applications are going to be doing static pages to update some restaurants menu or something like that what are you going to be making and then you need to update your skills to reflect that so if you're making full stack applications I'd say you probably need to learn angular or an MVC of some sort if you'll be making static pages maybe do it with react for fun I don't know you could do it with just sass and HTML and JavaScript if you if you really want it's not that's not too bad but there's so much more there's so many auxilary skills that you need as a freelancer that just having those alone won't get you the client to even get started especially if they're giving full trust in you and design and in everything like I did with the deli down the road all right so you need exhilarate can't just be a developer and then suddenly be a freelancer you need so much more so let me tell you what other skills you might need as a freelancer digital marketing is huge so if you come to a freelance client and you develop their app and you come to them and say I can market your app and get users onto your apt you do the development you do the marketing you do the design maybe you learn some sketch Photoshop learn color Theory basic design principles learn about the most modern design libraries for example material design by Google is really hot right now but there's so much more like soft skills that you can bring to the table to really up that like yeah I can develop the develop the app and then give it back to you but that that doesn't cut it anymore you also need to be possibly comfortable with outsourcing outsourcing has become huge I don't know if you guys have ever read the 4-hour workweek by Tim Ferriss but basically he outsources work to two people in India and then he claimed it as his own and he spent four hours a week handing off the work from India to his boss until they got caught and then he got fired and then Hiro's book and now he's famous so but actually outsourcing outsourcing can be good if you can't do something for example I interviewed Sam he's a wordpress freelancer and he outsources some of his work he outsources his design he outsources some JavaScript development as needed but he is the overall like proprietor of the project and he does most of the WordPress work but the things that he can't do or that would take him forever so it's not cost-efficient for him or the client he just outsources he just gives it to somebody else and as much as people want to do everything themselves it just doesn't make sense all the time just make sure you get you know good people that you're outsourcing to that are budget friendly and that do quality work all right so next question is how do you get your first clients as a freelancer and as much as I'm always very against unpaid internships I am very for doing projects for free for companies that need new stuff just at first not forever just at first just to get your name on a few things that are real that companies are using and then you go to your third client possible client your third prospect and you're like hey look at these other things that I've done they don't know that you weren't paid for that just think of it as an unpaid internship or a project that's like the cost of entry pretty much just take your ticket that's it's the cost of entry to be a freelancer these days unless you you know go everyone says go to your family and build your friends a website and you know build your friend my friend is a photographer my friend is an artist she needs a website but like no one actually goes there so it doesn't really matter they want to cite just so they can check that thing off the like that doesn't always work you need to go to places and ask if you can do things for free just make it look like you're not trying to scam them because if it's free and you're even if you try to start explaining they'll probably hang up the phone and close the door not respond your email so there's a little bit of nuance there which we'll talk about but every time my girlfriend gets sick during the winter time whenever she neva tably gets sick she has a little cot that she unfolds in her office and she sleeps in here instead of in the bedroom she has like this little cot okay so the next topic is how do you charge clients and I'm a big promoter of flat rate over hourly because hourly selling your time and it can kind of promote a little bit of distrust between you and a client because now you're just working slow to build them more money like are you sure you're late are you just working slow and just billing us hours and I'm not a huge fan of that but you need to make sure that you get your money and so what I always do is say alright half up front half at the end and that's fine so that way you're not totally out and you check in half way and they're like yep everything's good chances are you're gonna get that over other half of money but if you got bills riding on this you can't just be like alright I'll do the project and you'll hopefully pay me a fee that doesn't don't do that that's too risky you're doing yourself a disservice charge at least 25% upfront bare minimum you need some sort of like leverage to be like look I'm not I'm not working with you anymore in case they just like totally drop then you you're not totally boned hourly like I said don't do it I'm not a huge fan of it don't sell your time this is good for you because if you work really fast and get it done really fast and you charged five thousand for a project you get it done in a week you just made five thousand dollars in a week and if you take three weeks as I was talking about yesterday then the client doesn't end up paying you more because you're late I mean the project still late which is bad I mean they don't end up having to pay you more money because you've already agreed to the Terms of Service so finally let's talk about some of the websites that you can use to get a job there's up work up work is actually pretty good if you don't want to charge anything but you're gonna get undercut pretty pretty hard especially for international clients but if you want to get your foot in the door and you don't have to go out to these companies and like do cold walkins and cold calls and cold emails if you want to skip that process just go to up work and then just undercut everyone else and just basically to be like yeah I'll do it for free that's fine then boom you you got your first freelance project cuz who's gonna say no to free Fiverr so Fiverr is pretty popular it's it started off with just like you pay $5 for some guy everyone remembers like the Fortnight guy and then his channel got removed off of Fiverr now he's famous on YouTube or whatever but Fiverr is a good place to freelance and you can just start off with little things just be like look I'll build you a landing page for $3 or something right as long as you get to control the design if they hit you with the super complex design and they're like yo can you make this it's like you know six seven windows worth of scrolling and then you're like yeah absolutely four three two no I'm not doing that but you can start off for free I'll make landing pages for free I'll do this for free out of this for free and just put some services up there for free and I bet in no time you'll get clients coming to you what I did for some After Effects stuff when I wanted to start learning video editing in the freelance world was I went to Reddit and I went to the gaming subreddit and I was like I want to make you a lower thirds for any gaming youtubers out there the lower thirds is that little thing you see slide out in my videos every single time the video starts like I made that by hand I did the animation the colors switching and and all that stuff and I was like I want to make you one specifically for your channel at no cost just maybe put a little thank-you note in there at the bottom and now I can link to real YouTube channels that are using my lower thirds I'd have to go find them but there are some out there that are still using my lower thirds and I got spammed and then people are like I was like yeah I have like 15 people do is like look if you do it right now I've seen what you've done I'll pay you like 20 bucks so then boom now all of a sudden some guy wants to pay 20 bucks to skip the line of all the people I was making lower thirds for alright so you guys like he looks cute and fluffy and snuggly and he loves you know he loves scratches and stuff but like he wouldn't believe like how many times I have to vacuum like every week okay so let's talk about the last one which is what are some other ways to approach clients besides those two external third-party websites this is the order of operations that I would use when I would go to approach a client I would walk in those are that those are the greatest because you know it's most awkward for everyone involved but it has the highest chance of a yes and then after that there's cold-calling which is also awkward for everyone involved and there's an easy exit for the other person that you're prompting too and then emailing which is the worst because everyone just thinks that you're a scam so let me tell you about the time where I cold called someone and I had to get creative here anything outside the box I cold called someone and I was like hey I noticed that your websites a little bit outdated it's just a static website for for car repair car mechanics and I called them and I was like hey I think it would use some work I'm a web developer currently trying to build my portfolio I'm willing to do it for free and they hung up on me before I could even like get to the details because I think they heard free and they were like yeah what is this guy well it was a scam from I called them back with a different voice and I was like hello I'm a recent customer and I am just extraordinarily pleased with the work you've done on my car and I'd like to do something in return for you at no cost to you you guys just did such an amazing job on my sister's car and it's just really it's just really been amazing for the price and I'd like to make you a website you know for free I think you could use a little work and for whatever reason that didn't click with them that I had someone just called and and asked him and offer them a website they're like oh really yeah yeah I think that we could actually so like I pretended that I was a customer so that I could get get a freelance project hey OCO can you tell them to like and subscribe I'd appreciate that well I guess that's it guys if you enjoyed the video you know what to do let me know what special effect that you guys want to see in the next video flying is really hard to do and you guys keep asking for things that require a ginormous green screen so try to keep it simple like wall climbing or telekinesis or something like that but if you want to see a certain special effect go ahead and leave that in the comments I'm happy to see what you guys want and I'll see you guys in the next video [Music]

Channel: Joshua Fluke

Views: 53,468

Keywords: joshua fluke, code bootcamp, javascript, how to code, learn to code, how to make a resume, resume tips, code interview, lambda school, team treehouse, web developer, web designer, programming interview, web development interview, reactjs, entrepreneurship, motivation, grind, vlog, freelance, freelance developer life, freelance developer salary, gary vee, build your brand, how to build your brand, fivver, upwork, gary vaynerchuk 2018

Id: -bpVYbG1Ras

Length: 15min 16sec (916 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2018