How to Become a Freelance Designer in 2021 (5 STEPS TO FOLLOW NOW!)

hey beautiful people it's misco here did you know the global design services market is going to reach 249 billion dollars by 2022. so if you haven't thought about getting into freelancing as a creative or designer you are going to miss out on a massive opportunity so in this video i'm going to break down five very very practical steps for you to get started as a creative or designer so let's get right into it guys so the very first thing that you need to make sure is to have the right mindset and i know a lot of people talk about this but i really want to get tactical with some of the insights i'm going to give you so when you are first starting out as a freelancer and you're thinking about it and you really don't know if this is the right decision to make hands down freelancing is the perfect side hustle for a junior or senior designer one the main reason for freelancing is the perfect side hustle is because this allows you to create an additional income stream who does not want an additional income stream now the second reason why it is the perfect side hustle for juniors and seniors it allows you to further refine and gain more experience within your own comfort zone when you are a freelancer you are your own boss so you don't need to turn to anyone for any sort of approval you make the decisions and you can allow yourself to grow as much as you want so if you're thinking about it this is the time to make that leap now the second thing you need to make sure that you have right in terms of mindset is understanding what design services you are going to offer potential customers and who are those customers going to be now let's be realistic if you are a junior designer and you've only had one or two years experience you can't expect yourself to be working on a freelance contract with companies like apple or microsoft you have to be realistic and see which companies are the low-hanging fruits where you can get your foot in the door and you need to define that yourself first and over the years as you get more and more experience and more and more exposure then you can start moving up the ranks now when it comes to services don't try to be the jack of all trades where you do branding graphic illustrations ui ux and everything because when you start to come out as a freelancer you are ultimately running a business and people want to hire people who are good at their specific trades and skill sets now if you spread yourself too thin you're going to become a jack of all trades and you're not going to have a niched and specialized skill set that you can charge a premium for moving forward so make sure you understand what design services you are going to serve and who they are going to serve for then in terms of your portfolio if you're a designer and you don't have a portfolio just yet i have broken down three tiers in terms of solutions that you can use to build your very first design portfolio so t1 would be a custom built design portfolio where you code it yourself oh and by the way if you appreciate the fact that i have created slides into a practical five-step process to help you get started as a freelance designer then please gently smash that like button because that will really help the channel grow and if you haven't realized i am releasing a full freelance course and i have left a link in the description so if you want to learn more about it feel free to check it out now obviously not everyone can code so webflow and wordpress would be hands down my preferences in terms of creating your very first design portfolio and i'm going to let you know why right after now t2 is squarespace and wix and then t3 is dribble and behance now if you ask me how would i structure these in terms of priorities so ultimately if we don't think about the platforms themselves if you think about the customer what does the customer want to see what does a potential client want to see they want to make sure that one you were reliable you that you were trustworthy three you have the relevant skills and four they want to learn a little bit more about you before they actually contact you and if you empathize with that and you put yourself in the customer's shoes and imagine yourself wanting to hire someone these are exactly the things that you would want to look for so make sure when you think about your design portfolio use the platforms that allow you and enable you to tell a great story visually and through content allow you to upload case studies allow you to tell a little bit more about yourself showcase photos and videos about yourself really create trust and transparency into who you are so once you've understand that you can see that webflow and wordpress really enable you to do that and if you say that you were too lazy to go and design something from scratch you can see here you can download and buy any sort of templates to get you started right away so there are no excuses for why you can't utilize one of these platforms to get started right now then i would say t2 is squarespace and wix they have the same features as webflow and wordpress but i do find them quite limiting and they don't have the best experience as well but they allow you to tell a compelling story with a lot of customizations so that's why they're t2 in terms of t3 dribble and behance you have to have one of these accounts the reason being is because it allows you to showcase your work but it also allows you to attract a lot of potential clients because a lot of potential clients are actually browsing behind and dribble for designers for their project so when you have your own portfolio that could be hosted on webflow also have your dribble account or your behance account where you can continuously showcase your work as well and this will allow you to attract more and more clients in the background so once you've got your design portfolio ready make sure you include these five key pages on your design portfolio such as webflow and wordpress the reason is because like i said when a customer lands on your design portfolio they don't just want to see a photo of you they don't want to see just two case studies they want to see who you are can they trust you are you reliable do you have the experience to fulfill their needs now the home page the about page the case studies the testimonials and the contact page really helps answer all those questions for the client now if you haven't seen me review design portfolios make sure to gently smash that link above because i review four ux design portfolios that i genuinely believe put the designers best foot forward to really attract clients so make sure to watch that video if you haven't but to quickly summarize you want to make sure that your homepage is compelling have a photo of yourself showcase some of your case studies have a bit of a blurb about who you are and then that links into deeper pages where you have a page dedicated to about yourself have a large photo of yourself bring through photos of yourself working out and about because this builds a relationship and trust signals for who you are so the biggest mistake is to hide behind your website and not let the potential client understand who you are or even see you because really when someone is able to see your face it immediately builds trust between the both of you then you want a page dedicated to all your case studies and i would say three case studies is a minimum you want to make sure you have at least six relevant case studies depending on what design discipline that you were trying to exercise so if you are a ux designer make sure you have at least three ui and then three ux case studies to showcase so you can put your best foot forward and then one page that a lot of designers i notice miss out on is the testimonials page why would you hide them on a single page two levels deep in a case study make sure you pull out all your case studies and put them on an actual page so when someone lands on your website they are only one click away from hearing all the great things about you don't make it so difficult for all your potential clients to find the great words about you then obviously you want the contact us page and one thing that i talk about in all my design reviews is instead of putting forward a contact page potentially you can reword the contact word to get a free proposal because who does not want a free proposal now one simple tip if you do have a dribble or behind account when you're uploading your work make sure to always in the description add a cta utilize your design shots as advertisements when someone clicks on your design work and they're taking a look at it make sure in the description you have clear ctas about we're taking on new work new projects feel free to get in touch it's easy to overlook these small details but remember there are lots of potential clients who are browsing the internet looking at your work looking at my work and looking to hire a designer for a project now if you don't actively put forward that you are taking on your projects they might assume that you're too busy they might assume you might not reply there are lots of different factors which cause them to churn in other words don't contact you so make sure you actively put your best foot forward then in terms of your personal brand now that you've got your design portfolio you want to start focusing on the personal brand now the one thing that you want to focus on is having a consistent portrait photo across all your platforms now whether you use dribble behance use linkedin twitter whatever social platforms you use whatever platforms you use make sure you have a consistent profile photo so you will notice that on my linkedin my profile photo is the same on my youtube which is the same on my instagram which is the same on my twitter which is same in my newsletter it is all very very consistent you also want to have a very consistent color palette and also messaging so if you can see in my linkedin banner i say a decade of turning startups into superheroes now if you go to mscommedia.com you will also see we help turn startups into superheroes make sure your value proposition your messaging are consistent throughout all your different social platforms because if a potential client lands on any of them you want to make sure that you're putting your best foot forward and they know exactly what you do now i understand that there are a lot of different social platforms that you can build a personal brand on now how should you think about this i like to boil it down to investing into two social platforms to really get yourself out there and to build that brand awareness about your personal brand so the way that i think about it is one should be dedicated to acquisition and one is dedicated to retention so what do i mean by that you want to dedicate one of the social platforms to acquire potential leads and then you want to use another one to retain those potential leads what i mean by that is to nurture them so someone who might not be ready to hire you right away you want to make sure that you have a platform where you can continue educating them you can continue sharing great work sharing insights to really warm them up until you warm them up so you can move them from a warm lead into a hot lead so they actually contact you and want to hire you right away so how do we break that down now in the next section i'm going to walk you through which platforms you should go through but in terms of acquiring and retaining the potential leads you need to make sure that you are active on your social platforms so if you're thinking what can i do to really be active what can i share on social platforms to attract more leads what can i post to attract more clients here are some of my recommendations that have worked extremely well for me showing your successes showing your learnings sharing some recent projects showing your testimonials sharing work in progress and sharing project insights as well so as you can see over here on linkedin i actively post updates about the projects that i work on the clients that i work on the testimonials that the clients leave me on my google business account i post it onto linkedin so i repurpose all this great information of positivity and great work and great success on all my social platforms because i'm creating this viral loop of getting my great content in front of potential clients so over time when they hear more and more about me and they become memorable and they remember me as a positive freelancer or agency owner they will get in touch when they actually think about hiring someone for ui and ux design work so now that you got an idea of how to get started in terms of just your personal branding without over complicating it you just need a consistent personal visual brand which is a portrait shot a color scheme and some messaging then you need to think about there's so many different social platforms which two you want to focus on and then once you've decided which two you want to focus on i've already provided you all the tips and recommendations on different types of content that you can share every single week to really help build that consistency and also that brand awareness when people start to see your work over and over again so now that you've got the right mindset now that you've thought about your portfolio you've built it on webflow you've also got a dribble account to continuously build awareness about the great work that you do you've also decided to think about the personal brand then you need to think about marketing how do you leverage all these different social platforms like dribble linkedin facebook twitter instagram to generate more leads to market yourself so before we jump into the tactical insights in terms of leads there are three types of leads if you haven't heard about them first they start off as cold then they become warm and then they become hot now what is a cold lead a cold lead is a lead that really requires the most work to nurture and turn into an actual lead itself a paying project because they probably don't know anything about you you could potentially have called them cold emailed them cold contacted them on linkedin you could have met them at a meet-up it is someone or an opportunity that has no connection with you whatsoever then you have the warm lead a warm lead is someone who potentially could be interested in your services so for example they might have subscribed to your newsletter they potentially could have followed you on linkedin they could potentially have visited your dribble profile and followed you they could have followed you on behalf they could have left a comment on one of your linkedin posts and said great work we might have some work in the future for you so this is deemed as a warm lead and then you have hot leads which i like to classify as a lead that you can close within seven days so generally they start warm and then once they go hot it means that they've actually contacted you directly through a dm could be through your design portfolio it could be through instant messaging it could be some sort of method of contact where they intentionally contact you and say hey i would love to get jump on the call to learn a bit more about your services and i'd love to see if we can collaborate on a project so these are the three types of leads that you need to focus on and the reason why i'm explaining this to you is because the different types of platforms will allow you to generate different types of leads so if you are a freelancer looking to generate leads right away like instantly then i would highly recommend you to focus on upwork freelancer.com and seo optimization why would i be recommending these three i'll give you guys a quick moment to think about this so three two one these generate high intent clients and leads so what do i mean by that when someone is posting a job on freelancer.com or on upwork they have an intent to actually hire someone right away whenever the freelancer meets their requirements or needs they are ready to put money down and get the job done similar with search engine optimization which does require a lot of upfront work but when someone searches for sydney ux design agency or sydney web designer into google they are already finding and wanting to find a designer for their project and when they contact someone they are ready to put the money down the only thing that they're trying to figure out is is this designer the right fit for their project so if you're looking to get leads right away you need to make sure you focus on the marketplaces and also the search engines because that's where people find direct designers right away then you have the warm leads these are people who are still browsing then don't have the intent to hire right away but they are starting the research phase of finding a designer so i would highly recommend dribble the hands local facebook groups so if you live in for example new york if you typed in new york startups in facebook i am sure you will find lots of local groups on facebook groups where founders entrepreneurs come together to talk about business and within these groups you will find a lot of founders are actually looking for design work so for example i'm from sydney australia and there is a very large group of well over 13 000 founders called sydney startups and every single day there are new founders looking for designers to help them with their projects so this is the prime real estate if you're looking for warm leads dribble behind facebook groups and also linkedin are a great place to share your work share your successes share your learnings share a lot of insights into the work that you do such as on linkedin posts to really get the attention of potential founders who want to hire you then if you want to target cold leads which doesn't really make sense if you're a freelancer but if you do want to get yourself out there to really maximize your opportunity to get more leads meetups network events cold contacting founders on linkedin are also very very effective ways to get yourself out there to build awareness about your personal brand and really to build strong relationships as well because generally when it comes to business being having face-to-face engagements is a way to build trust and hands down it is always better than a quick message or a zoom call so if you're looking to start marketing and to get yourself out there you really need to understand what type of leads am i looking for do i want to get work right away am i at a place where i'm happy to invest up front time to really build a stronger online presence because then that would mean that you should focus more on the warm leads but if you feel like you just want to really get yourself out there then targeting all three types of leads hot warm and cold and just doing every single thing to get yourself out there is going to maximize your chances of landing a job then the last thing is about pricing so you've got the right mindset you've got the portfolio you've got the personal brand you've got the marketing distribution now you've got yourself out there you're posting good stuff sharing your work then you need to figure out how do i price when a potential client actually reaches out to me now what you should not be doing is something i want to talk about when you first get out as a freelancer your ultimate goal is to not maximize your rates you do not want to try to lose out and miss out on great opportunities because you're trying to make a quick buck remember freelancing is a long term strategy and it's a long-term business no one goes out to try to make sales right away you need to deliver value people need to find value in you and when you can genuinely create value for someone or a business they're bound to tell other people so there is a lot of upfront investment and costs that you need to put ahead to make sure you're doing freelancing right so when you first come out do not try to maximize your rates instead maximize your experiences what do i mean by that what you want to do is you really want to if you even have to reduce your rates by 50 and if you are a junior designer it also makes sense to do some free pro bono work as well just so you can create leverage just so you can start building your client networks just so you can have one additional client who will be sharing the great word about your services one thing i like to tell the people that i mentor is the power of one when you are a freelancer you are the only one who is talking about your services once you start to build a network once you start to do good work for clients whether it's for a hundred dollars a thousand dollars ten thousand dollars it doesn't really matter because each client that you work with is an is one extra person who is going to vouch for you so this builds leverage this builds social validation which makes every future project for you to seal a little bit simpler every single time so your focus is to really maximize your experience so there is no one way to approach this if you requires you to reduce your rate if it requires you to provo no work it doesn't matter once you have a clear focus that your goal is to not maximize your rates but actually maximize your experience you are going to figure out how to create strategies to get more work under your belt then if you already have a full-time role and you're looking to freelance on the side what is the best way to price yourself now i know people talk about value-based pricing but that does not work when you just start out as a freelancer because you don't have leverage and you haven't had experience in freelancing there is still a lot of stuff that you need to master before you can go down value based pricing so if you were just starting out don't worry about value-based pricing don't worry about maximizing your rate just focus on getting experience so to really simplify your pricing strategy grab your annual salary and divide it by 2080 billable hours then the reason why i say this is because one you already know that the place that is employing you has already valued you at a specific amount per year so let's say every single year you get a salary of ten thousand dollars now if you divide that entire salary by all the hours that you work at in the business you will get your hourly rate now without overthinking it and trying to overcomplicate it just start with this number now if you struggle to even close one lead with this hourly rate then you will realize that there is a bigger problem to be solved so just getting started and just getting yourself out there and just closing your first deal is your primary goal and to simplify it just grab your yearly salary and divide it by all the billable hours within the year now if you don't have a full-time role and you're thinking about freelancing i personally and i have said this multiple times that i wouldn't recommend anyone to freelance full-time if you have not had full-time experience because ultimately you were digging yourself into a hole and you don't have the exposure experience or leverage to be able to seal larger deals moving forward however if you do want to freelance full-time and you don't have a full-time role or experience then i will highly recommend you to get started by just looking at the average hourly rate for designers in your country and you can find these insights on glassdoor.com by simply looking up for the specific role you'll be able to find the average salaries for a role that you're looking for and you can simply divide it by 2080 billable hours and that would give you a starting rate now once again i know that value-based pricing is a very effective strategy and i personally use it myself but if you were just starting out your potential clients will not understand how you even form the pricing strategy if you use value-based pricing because you just don't have enough experience in doing so so once again start off with ali build the reputation build the networks build a personal brand and when you have more equity in your personal brand and in your company then you can start to think about how you can value the pricing moving forward so ultimately if you want to get excited into freelancing i have broken down step by step on exactly how you can get started right away and i have also provided you guys a four week plan so you can get started literally within four weeks so the first week i want you to simply think about your personal brand buy a domain and decide on which platform you are going to build your design portfolio on week two start curating the design portfolio and really think about getting the photos getting the color scheme getting the work getting all the content up there and really think about how do you put your best foot forward and once again if you need inspiration i have done countless ux design portfolio reviews so make sure to check the link in the description below to learn more about that then week three i want you to decide on two social platforms that you are going to invest into to really start to market and build your personal brand and week four is to just get started and go to battle so what i want you guys to do is use the content types that i have provided you as for inspiration create some posts that you can share with your audience and then just start posting on the social platforms that you've decided to use so you can start to build that personal brand build that audience and build that engagement and build that awareness about the work that you do and if you are looking for immediate leads remember target the platforms that give you hot leads right away so upwork and freelancer.com are a great place to start so guys hopefully you found this extremely tactical and extremely practical and i will see you in another video very [Music] soon [Music] bye

Channel: Mizko

Views: 8,733

Keywords: how to become a freelance designer 2021, freelance tips, how to become a freelance designer, design freelance, how to find clients, how to find freelance clients

Id: 9XOsBM2hW8E

Length: 24min 46sec (1486 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 21 2021