Drupal Talk

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By Farez Rahman

Winning freelance work can be a hit and miss affair. It really is case of winning some and losing some; hopefully more winning than losing as your freelancing career progresses.

One factor that will increase your win rate is the “chemistry” you have with the client, and the only way to make chemistry happen is to find the right kind of client and project. This will allow you to be excited about the project and fall in love with the client.

Let me give you an example from our latest website client project, an organisation in the film industry. Who doesn’t love films? Especially one that produces world famous names. We are huge fans, and this really got our juices flowing!

Despite being twice more expensive than our nearest competitor, we won the pitch. How? In the client’s own words, because they “fell in love with us”.

Heres’s why:

1. We were genuinely excited about the project, and it showed. Our initial meeting was 4 hours long and that time just flew by. There was no doubt in their mind that if they hired us, we’d be giving the project 110%. Simply because we love everything about it.

2. We understood the client because we made a huge effort to. We went to meet them at their premises, spent hours understanding their needs, took a tour of their building, met their staff and spoke to them, and tried to absorb the “vibe” in the organisation so that we can understand how to translate that into the website design and branding. We stepped into the client’s shoes and tried to “get” them. All before sending them our proposal.

3. We wanted to be in their “gang”. We genuinely saw ourselves as part of the team, rather than “hired guns”, and that created an atmosphere of collaboration rather than one of client and supplier. We bounced off ideas from even before we won the project, and every meeting has been inspirational.

The only reason all that happened was because we liked the client and we loved the project. 

Don’t get me wrong, the project had it’s own share of difficulties (what project doesn’t?!), but the fact we were all committed and had open communication throughout, meant we were able to get on top of these and produce a really nice piece of work.

Clients love hiring people who are enthusiastic about them and their work, and you can’t fake it, so pick clients/projects you want to work with. 

So, think about who you’d like to work with and the type of project you want to work on, and then go find them! It makes winning projects so much easier.

I’d love to hear what your ideal client or project is below! Or if you have an OnSavvy developer profile, I recommend describing them there too (post a link to your profile in the comment so we can see it).

By the way, OnSavvy is dedicated to specialists and freelancers who love what they do, and want to shape their career by being picky about the projects they take on, and immerse themselves wholeheartedly in a way that enhances the end result. Come join us.

Do you have any other tips for winning freelance work? Or are you struggling with winning pitches? Why not share in the comments area below, or you can tweet me at @farez.

Photo credit: Express Monorail via photopin cc

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On Tuesday 14 May 2013 I went to my first Drupal Yorkshire meetup. Stefan van Hooft gave a great presentation on Drupal Without Coding via a Google+ Hangout. The presentation clearly showed the way he builds geotagging into his Drupal sites. The whole evening was a great success. A recording of Stefan’s presentation is available here; youtu.be/h7fk2TjFg8o

Drupal Yorkshire hold regular meetups on the second Tuesday of each month do check the website
www.drupalyorkshire.org.uk

Photographs and Words 2013 PHH Sykes
www.phhsykes.co.uk
phhsykes@googlemail.com


This work by PHH Sykes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

PHH Sykes posted a photo:

On Tuesday 14 May 2013 I went to my first Drupal Yorkshire meetup. Stefan van Hooft gave a great presentation on Drupal Without Coding via a Google+ Hangout. The presentation clearly showed the way he builds geotagging into his Drupal sites. The whole evening was a great success. A recording of Stefan’s presentation is available here; youtu.be/h7fk2TjFg8o

Drupal Yorkshire hold regular meetups on the second Tuesday of each month do check the website
www.drupalyorkshire.org.uk

Photographs and Words 2013 PHH Sykes
www.phhsykes.co.uk
phhsykes@googlemail.com


This work by PHH Sykes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.