Marketing for Developers

hey guys marketing for developers in this code on the go episode so what is marketing for developers essentially is getting the word out developing a reputation so that you can either secure work or be get into freelancer getting freelance jobs so the three most important assets that you can have going forward in my estimation are a reputation develop a great reputation and number two develop great skill sets technical and communication skills and the third most valuable asset is IP intellectual property that could be a SAS software to develop it could be a website that you could develop upon it could be a book that you write etc etc etc so that in mind if you want to market yourself as a developer first thing you have to do is develop your skills so you have to have your technical skills and then you have to have some communication skills writing skills etc I would also start building your reputation so when you have your technical and your communication skills those two skill sets can be used to develop the that asset that reputational asset it's so important because people are going to hire you whether as an employee or as a contractor as a freelancer based on your reputation first and foremost that's what's going to get you in the door so how do you build reputation you build reputation by getting out there and getting to know people that's over your communication skills come in handy so one thing you could do is start speaking the local business after you finish let's say a basic web stack course which is I always recommend because it the website gives you the most opportunities in terms of jobs whether it be freelance or whatnot and the most opportunities in terms of business opportunities the web stack is king no question about that so assuming that you've got your web stack skills where you're able to build stuff and you don't you don't have to be crazy good just be able to build nice-looking websites a nice-looking crud based system you know your you understand how to you're comfortable setting up hosting comfortable getting a domain name getting that online this is all part of what you need to do as a professional developer and that's part of the marketing aspect so you have to get a website up for yourself right a website up in that showcases but you're able to put up a website that's the very basics right and make sure it looks good so if you're not a designer type just use a template and slightly modify it and but don't be s if you're not a great designer don't claim to be a great desire just show that you know how to implement other people's designs right that's one of the things about being a developer is being able to have the nerd eyes as they say to be able to go out there and see what's available and to pick and choose what's the best whether it be the best templates the best language for the job the best frameworks the best database implementation sometimes you want to go no SQL most of times you're gonna want to go SQL database most of the time depending on the circumstance that is what you have to do as a good developer so by having a good website that illustrates these skills it's far more important than anything else you've got to get that website another thing you got to do is maybe get some basic certifications something to show that you've passed some tests you've done some things it's not terribly important but it helps a bit it's kind of it may pad your resume a few percentage points if you will for me certifications is not nearly as important as getting a great looking website out there doing a couple freebie client jobs just you know as a stash if you will not as important but the certifications a few here and there can help if people for me when I look at people who might work for me the the certifications for me is like okay okay skies certifications it shows at least he's put some effort it's not going to I'm not going to go oh my gosh certified okay I'm gonna hire this person no but when I see that there it's there it helps a little bit but before you look at that you got to get your skills technical written build reputation by having a site by doing a few projects here and there nothing will sell your skills your skills more to somebody when they see that you actually have done work for real people so that's very important so how do you get your first jobs talk to local business friends family so we can build something for real they'll try to build something huge but something you know small a couple projects here and there to three projects is more than enough to get going for paid work remember to do freebie jobs is fine it's actually a great idea people will go to Stash's will go to code camps I've heard people tell me this many times they vote they pay ten thousand fifteen thousand twenty thousand US dollars to go to a cold boot camp because they see oh I'll get a stash we don't need to pay ten twenty thousand dollars to go to a cold boot camp to get stash work stash work is just free work for working for somebody once you've got a basic website up and you can do your basic foundational stuff I'm talking web stack here but I guess it's applicable to iOS development or Android develop then just approached obviously listen this is what I know here's my site that's what I know I'm looking to build some chops and build some reputation I'm going to work for you for free for a rake three months whatever it is and you'll eventually get somebody who will say ok come in you know we'll get you going we'll train you up if you're any good you probably end up you you might end up getting a job there if not you've built some reputation so yeah web marketing has a lot to do with website do work so that you can showcase the work then you want to get on social maybe have a social presence will it be Twitter or maybe he's a couple YouTube videos again you just want to build reputation so that people can see that you have a certain level of real-world competence do not show portfolio of tutorials that you've done because that's just a tutorial you want to show a couple projects which built for real people that's a big difference not a bunch of tutorial because anybody can fall along the tutorials that's just like painting by numbers that is not the same thing as actually building a project for somebody when you get into the development game what you're gonna find that what you're going to find is that that interaction with the client the ability to communicate with them to hammer down specifications and to deliver on these specifications is a big part of the process of being a developer so doing tutorial walkthroughs although they can help to a minimal extent they are they're just a stepping stone to the real thing right they're just a stepping stone so to make an analogy I'll use a boxing analogy because I have that's my background tutorials are kind of like preset pad drills so you've got your coach they might hold the pad you're going to do a left right cross left right crossed and then left right uppercut left right uppercut you know those drills have a certain purpose but you can't be one of these people I used to call them pad hitters people who never step up and get into the ring to actually spar or fight they just hit pads and the pad hitters discover once if they ever get brave enough to jump into the ring to do the real deal they realize that their pad hitting all that pad hitting all those drills all those tutorials if you will don't amount to making them good fighters and then you think that they get a beating I think they get a beating there's no no exceptions a bad beating versus the person so you can have a guy who's doing pad hitting for six months a year take a guy who's doing the professional pad hitter for two years I've seen this guy's two years three years buh-buh-buh-buh-buh they can hit the pads like there's no tomorrow and then they get in the ring with somebody who's just been sparring for six months the guys are aspiring for six months wipes the floor with the pad hitter destroys up no competition because the pad hitter even though they're doing drills that help a little bit pad hitting could only take you this far you need to get all of what you need to get the whole way same thing with the Taurus tutorials are a bridge to the real deal that's why I tell people when you are learning software development you learn your foundations first and foremost once you got your foundations then you do one or two maybe three little project courses to get your your beak wet to get the feet wet to help you to understand you know the basics of it and then what you got to do is you've got to take that leap and you got to get in the ring and you got to build something for somebody for real and what you're going to discover as a professional developer is that you're constantly learning new things introducing yourself to new things as you go along even after five ten years of development you're still going to be learning new things if after 15 years you can still be learning new things that's just part of the game that's why a solid foundation in the fundamentals will make you a far better developer because all those complex things that we see all those complex frameworks all these complex technologies they're just all kinds of fundamental things stacked on top of each other and when the confusion and my experience and experience with everybody I've ever worked with or mentors or taught the confusion comes when learning to code is when you don't understand some key fundamentals so you may have a technology finger bit like I I don't like a hamburger you have your bread you got your meat you got your your pickles and your toppings and you got to the other bun and the bread at the top when you look at it from a hole it looks kind of complex get all the stuff going on right it's like a framework is the weird analogy but if you understand each of those pieces it becomes pretty easy to learn but if you're not trained in your fundamentals and you don't understand one of those layers did you're kind of lost right and that's where people have a lot of trouble is that they don't understand one of the layers so learn your fundamentals all right I went off on a big tangent there talking about burgers and everything yeah so turns of developers marketing themselves to build your reputation put up a site start working with people start putting out a couple projects may get some certifications not nearly as important as actually having portfolio portfolio some basic projects you've worked on the first couple of projects are going to be freebies so you can cut your team so you can learn and just step in that ring and do what you need to do - to really develop the skill sets trust me once you have completed your first project or even when you're halfway through it you're gonna feel so much more comfortable so much more confident about your skills it's unbelievable how much more confident confident you're going to feel and trust me this process that I'm outlining here in this video works in terms of getting a job that's why people want to market themselves as developers if you can't find a local business who you could build something for then what you could do is you can just go to up work or some other site like that and just you know take projects that for free just do one or two small projects emphasize small and just do it for free because a big part of being developed or remember is communicating with the client whether the client is one of your freelance clients or whether the client is an employee or or maybe a co-worker where you may be working with a team of developers and your job might be to implement some aspect of a shopping cart system just as an example so you're gonna need to communicate with the front-end developers you're going to need to communicate perhaps with the database designer if you're a bigger medium-sized or bigger business so you're going to need to communicate with people to make sure everybody is on the same same page with regards to how to APIs being built so for example we're building out new modules to your web for system so I have my app my lead developer for the app itself and then I have my lead a front-end designer and everybody's got to talk to each other everybody's going to talk to each other I coordinate and between the different people this is this a couple examples right there but if they can't communicate with each other it's problematic so yeah so that's why you got to get into the game to learn how to better communicate with people when you're in a project so there you go that's how you market yourself as a developer I hope this helps all right buh-bye

Channel: Stefan Mischook

Views: 7,806

Rating: 4.9702969 out of 5

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Id: dXu_m1LVaYA

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2019