The Importance of Community for Freelancers
Madi 💫
The most common question I hear from freelancers, both those new to independent work, and those with years of experience, is: how do I find quality clients?
It's a great question, and one that doesn't have a straightforward answer.
Not all clients are the same
New freelancers often flock to popular freelance platforms to find work, but those opportunities are usually short-lived and underpaid. To find meaningful work, you have to invest in making connections.
A long-term client is worth more than multiple short-term clients. Long-term and recurring clients are the people who will keep coming back to your services, and refer you to future opportunities.
The experts know best: In Contra's State of Independence report, Moe Amaya, co-founder of Monograph, had this to say:
While initial client leads are the hardest to get, all my subsequent leads came from existing client referrals. Do good work and build relationships.
Do good work and build relationships 👏 Period.
The power of community
One of our favorite phrases at Contra is: Your network is your net worth 🤝
What does that mean, exactly? It doesn’t mean going out and networking 🤮 It means, like Moe said, building relationships.
Networking doesn’t have to be dull and stale; you can connect with people who you get along with and who do the work you do (or aspire to do.)
So... how do you find community?
The most important thing is to know what you are looking for in a community. Ask yourself the following questions:
What are you looking for in a community?
Who do you want to be in community with?
Where do those people hang out?
What knowledge can you offer that others might not have?
For freelancers, it can be hard to find community, since a lot of the work is done solo. Here are three ideas for meeting other independent workers
The Contra Slack community! I'm biased, of course, but Contra's Slack community is filled with over 10,000 freelancers, clients, and creatives sharing knowledge + opportunities 🤝
Twitter! There are so many independent workers sharing their experience on Twitter, especially writers. Try checking out the hashtag #FreelanceChat for all the discourse 🐦
In person! You can Google "freelancer meetup" + [your city name] to connect with other freelancers in your area (when it is safe to do so). There are creative meetups going on all over the place! 🎈
Keeping in touch
Remember: opportunities come and go, but the relationships you build stay with you.
Keep in touch with past clients and check in with them periodically to see if they need anything that you can help with. Do the same with your freelance friends.
Let people know when you have availability for projects. Past clients and other freelancers are great people to work with, and to get referrals from.
On the flip side, when you have too many projects coming your way, or projects that don't fit your skillset: refer those opportunities to your own network! Pay it forward and maintain that good freelancer karma 🌀
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Posted Dec 9, 2021
Building community helps freelancers find and retain clients, and makes Independent work feel less alone.
