THRIVE

• If you want something done right the first time, you’re going to have to pay well for it.
• If you want something done well and at low cost, it will take a longer time.
• If you want something done fast and at low cost, it won’t be done very well.

Beginner freelancer friends, we start our journey in the “low cost” part of the map. The big bucks will come when you build enough experience points to get something done well on the first try, or can deliver excellent work within a very short timeframe. Don’t worry, you’ll earn your place on that field.

For now, let’s look at the players on the low cost field.

Companies who have low budgets for creative services

• Small family business
• Neighborhood cafe
• Start up in the early stage
• Fellow freelancers
• Non profit organizations
• Churches
• Government run facilities such as libraries, public parks, national museums
• Bazaar merchants
• Schools
• Daycares
• Transportation
• Basically, 95% of businesses in the development world have zero to low budget to spend on marketing, advertising, communication or other creative services. (Yes I made that statistic up, but admit it, doesn’t it sound about right?)

In order to convince someone to hire you for a job, you’ll need to show proof of work. This is why you need to have a basic portfolio. Clients will only hire you for work that you have proven yourself able to produce, because you’ve already done it at least once before. See, Exhibit A: Porfolio Item.

Eventually, we want clients to pay us for our work. (Don't worry, that's coming soon!)

If you are currently a student, a fresh graduate, or you have zero real world experience in the service you want to freelance in, this part is written just for you. Your portfolio currently has your best school project and probably work for an imaginary client, created just so you could showcase your mad skillz with Adobe Photoshop (or Premier, Audition, or whatever service you want to offer clients).

Now, we need to get you your first real clients so you can tell future paying clients, “See? These guys trusted me to do work for them! You can see I can do similar work for you too!” (See, Exhibit B: Portfolio Item created for Real World Client Guinea Pigs Ltd.)

The future paying clients never need to know that you were never paid a single cent for that project. If they ask, you can say, “I’ll send you my standard proposal for projects like this.”

(More about proposals later. In the meantime, here's the freebie template!)

How long do I need to keep working for free ?

You probably only need 1 or 2 Guinea Pig projects to get a feel for doing similar projects for future paying clients. This will produce 1 or 2 non-paying portfolio pieces per service to present to future clients, as samples for work with actual pay.

While we’re learning how to do your best work, we’re not really at the level of other freelancers on the market. This means we take on projects that take us longer to finish than the average person, we’ll even charge lower prices than the average freelancer, just to get paying projects. But we will only do this for work that we love -- we don’t mind the longer hours and lower pay, because every project is hours of enjoyable creative work, and it fulfills us in deeper ways than just financial provision.

But money is still important, and that’s why we are investing our time and energy to upgrade our skills through these no-or-low-paying projects. The goal is to be able to do consistently excellent work, so we can be as good as (and hopefully better!) the other creative professionals doing the same work. Every project is practice, letting you train your creative “muscle memory,” and find the most efficient way to make things. If you keep that in mind, you will soon be a more productive, prolific and profitable creative professional.