Introduction

As with any business, it’s important to know your target market and what they are looking for and find a way to position yourself to take advantage of opportunities.

It’s equally important to know what you are good at and what you want to do. If you are going to run a freelance business, it should focus on things you are passionate about.

Market research

Talk to people

There are many ways to conduct market research. One of the simplest ways is by speaking to people who work for the sorts of companies you want to do freelance work for. Find out what services they are interested in and what they find valuable. Importantly, try to find out what they want that isn’t currently available in the industry. There might be a niche in the market that you can take advantage of.

You can use Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner to find out what people are searching for. Are people searching for what you are thinking of offering? If you are trying to bring potential customers to your portfolio website, then ideally, there would be a volume of people searching for it.

Pricing

Deciding on pricing can be a tricky process. One major consideration is what you need to earn to cover your costs and ensure you make a living wage. Knowing and assessing your worth and what value potential clients place on your services is essential.

This is why it’s important to know your position in the market. Are you offering simple solutions to small businesses, or are you selling bespoke development solutions for higher-end clients? One isn’t necessarily better than the other, but knowing what the market wants and is looking for is important. This should clearly be communicated to the potential client, so they know what sort of business you are.

It’s an idea to look at what competitors are offering, but don’t just start undercutting them to try and gain clients. Know your worth and stick to it. You don’t want to start by charging less than you need only to create a client base that isn’t suited to you and your freelancing business. The wrong clients are often much more work than they are worth.

Knowing how much value you can offer the client with your skills is also good. The value you can give the client should be more than the price you’re charging; that way, clients can see the worth of using your services.

Pricing changes

As you develop more clients and gain more experience as a freelancer, you might find that you get the opportunity to be pickier about what projects you choose and what price you charge. Because freelance work can be unpredictable, you might be very busy at some points, so your rate might increase. At other times you might need work and so could offer a lower rate.

Lesson task

Goal

To find out what sort of price you should be quoting potential clients.

Level 1

  • Search for other freelancers in your area offering front-end development services that you’d like to offer too. Do they say what their costs are?

  • Work out what price you need to charge a client to cover your costs and pay yourself a decent salary. It might be a good idea to work out an hourly rate that you need. That way, when quoting a client, you can work out how many hours it would be and figure out your rate.

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