Forum Moderators: mack
Webwalker
Step 2 -- Start with your own site. Make it very informational about your services.
Step 3 -- Build a small portfolio of non-profit sites like your church or friends who have bands.
Step 4 -- Get business cards
Step 5 -- Start pounding on doors, and calling local businesses. Look for the owners. Learn to get past the "gatekeepers" and talk to the guy/gal in charge. Try to sound like you know the person, or at least like they are expecting to hear from you.
Step 6 -- Maintain professionalism at all times, and you will get good word of mouth
Step 7 -- Keep reading at WW and LEEEEARN!
Best of luck. We've all been there. Stick around here, and WW members will ease your learning curve.
**Note save receipts for everything and write it off on you taxes (it's a good way to justify that cool new laptop to your significant other;)
[edited by: webwalker at 8:03 pm (utc) on Mar. 8, 2004]
A "DBA" is a "doing business as" name, i.e., a business name instead of your name. Requirements for registering this may vary by state or locale.
One interesting way to build local business: join a business networking group. In the US, these are really hot right now - in essence, a few dozen businesses get together and try to buy from each other. (They are typically set up as a for-profit entity, by the way. The organizer gets fees from the members.) They have weekly meetings, and there's strong peer pressure to do business inside the group. They usually only let one company into each category, e.g., one web design firm, one banker, one plumber, one insurance firm, etc. If you are looking for a way to network in the community, this is a good start.
As far as getting your name out I recently found a book (I'll sticky you the details) that gives some good marketing tips and how to approach advertising.
Make sure to tell everyone what you do, I mean EVERYONE. Pretty soon someone will call and say that they remembered that you were someone to call. It just happened to me last week.
Wisdom found on a sugar packet one day many years ago. And never forgotten.
Now for some caveats:
All of the above will help you understand what is going on around you and in the long term sustain you. Getting that paycheck is only the beginning, be sure to have the next steps mapped.
I also tried going door to door with busniesses and all I got was polite "no thank you's" or lies about how they would call me back later and they didn't.
As Martini says, expect not to make money at first. Reinvest your money into promotional materials and developing your skills.
DBA, I don't know that one either...
...is not as apt to get the dollars
as he who climbs a tree and hollars!
Many techies don't have people/talk skills so it difficult to get that first contract.
But do you know someone who is good with people? family, relatives, friends, in-laws, neighbours - if they went with you, made first contact, got your foot in the door - you could then take over and deal with all the techie questions. All you need is a few jobs to establish your name/reputation and you can fly without the baby-sitter. Pay someone if you have to, or perhaps commission from future profits.
webwalker
This negates the first part of the challenge - convincing a client that they need a website in the first place.
If you can find potential clients who already have websites and then show them how their website could be a thousand times more attractive, more usable and lead to greater profits, they'll be delighted to take you on to enhance their web presence.
Also, there is nothing wrong with offering very low prices to local businesses as a way to get experience and referrals that you can use later on (unless such a plan will lead to starvation, homelessness, or loss of internet connectivity).
ajkimoto
