Promoting my Freelance Business

[jblz]

After reading through the 'Promoting my T-Shirt Business' thread and seeing valuable responses I was hoping to steal that approach and gain some ideas for own efforts

I'm trying to gain extra money at the moment by extending what I do at my 9-5 to also freelancing on evenings and weekends.

My focus is on system administration, server/hosting tasks. I foresee my typical client being people who need some help with their web servers.

My marketing efforts are as follows-

Reddit - Reddit has got me almost all the work so far. These clients are typically people with an interest in technology but not the knowledge or experience to be confident they've done what they need correctly.

UKBusinessForums - I've had one message from the marketplace. UKBF marketplace chosen as I already have an account and has a ton of SME owners who may need some help with their server side of things. You find a lot of people who set up their server themselves but as things grow they realise their a bit out of their depth - this is the typical client I was expecting from UKBF.

Direct email - I set up a email account and website with basically just a paste of my ad. I've only sent out a batch of 12 emails so far (adhering to legislation!) with a basic explanation of who I am, what I do and link to my LinkedIn. These have been directed to UK based freelance web designers as I'd expect some may want to lighten their load/have a problem related to sysadmin. No responses. I'm thinking of continuing to 100 emails sent and reassess at that point.

My freelance ad is in my signature and I'd be appreciative of constructive feedback if you spot any issues or areas for improvement.

I'm hoping people could perhaps suggest other places I can use to gain work, or comment on my current approach? Places where people are involved with digital but the focus isn't on the technical side of things. I'd rather avoid freelancer.com and similar - I prefer a more personal environment though I'm not writing those services off entirely.
LinkedIn I can't really use effectively. Although the MD of my 9-5 (who actually used to be a UKBF Top 10 member! Small world) is aware of my freelance efforts I think it wouldn't look great to be posting about freelance services whilst working.

Any thoughts or advice would be massively appreciated

 

[sherbetdipdab]

Interesting. So how do you get work from Reddit? Replying to posts with links to your website?

Could you team up with any local providers of services that work together or white label your service.

 

[Matt1966]

Join a freelancing website.
Apply for toptal / upwork (most prestigious) - you'll probably be rejected unless your CV is impressive.

Fall back options: freelancer.com, peopleperhour.

I'd always encourage people to make a website and grasp the basics in SEO. If you think about it, you're offering techy services - making your own site, QUICK, and easy to use will, without doubt, give the user confidence in your techy abilities. Furthermore, this gives you the opportunity to potentially expand - maybe being a server reseller/affiliate for example.

This isn't the type of service I think would work too well with Social Media stuff, I'd attack Google Ads / Organic rankings. Track conversion, see if what you're doing is worthwhile.

Your current marketing efforts are pocket money worthy - I'd also strongly urge you to stop emailing people. Doesn't matter how you spin it, it's spam. I get emails daily from Indians saying they can do this that and the other - don't be one of them. Haha.

 

[jblz]

Interesting. So how do you get work from Reddit? Replying to posts with links to your website?

Could you team up with any local providers of services that work together or white label your service.

I utilise subreddits made exclusively for posting services. Teaming up with similar providers is what I've been attempting to do by reaching out to web designers - I wouldn't want to touch local ground due to anything that can be remotely construed as anti-competitive with my 9-5.

Join a freelancing website.
Apply for toptal / upwork (most prestigious) - you'll probably be rejected unless your CV is impressive.

Fall back options: freelancer.com, peopleperhour.

I'd always encourage people to make a website and grasp the basics in SEO. If you think about it, you're offering techy services - making your own site, QUICK, and easy to use will, without doubt, give the user confidence in your techy abilities. Furthermore, this gives you the opportunity to potentially expand - maybe being a server reseller/affiliate for example.

This isn't the type of service I think would work too well with Social Media stuff, I'd attack Google Ads / Organic rankings. Track conversion, see if what you're doing is worthwhile.

Your current marketing efforts are pocket money worthy - I'd also strongly urge you to stop emailing people. Doesn't matter how you spin it, it's spam. I get emails daily from Indians saying they can do this that and the other - don't be one of them. Haha.

I appreciate the honest feedback and suggestions. Cold emailing relevant freelancers does indeed feel wrong - but isn't this a viable method to reach out to people or is it just seen as spammy?

Hadn't heard of Toptal - thank you. Looks like their IT side of things focuses on programming though I've emailed for clarification on scope of entry.

 

[fisicx]

If I need help with my server I raise a ticket with my hosting company.

So not really sure why I would need your services.

If I did need help and found your website I wouldn’t know what half your services mean. Sell the sizzle not the sausage: list the benefits of getting your help rather than a long list of things I might or might not need.

 

[jblz]

If I need help with my server I raise a ticket with my hosting company.

So not really sure why I would need your services.

If I did need help and found your website I wouldn’t know what half your services mean. Sell the sizzle not the sausage: list the benefits of getting your help rather than a long list of things I might or might not need.

Thanks for your reply fisicx. You may make a very good point regarding service descriptions - I'll review.

Re: your hosting company - many people do not have a managed hosting service. There are also tasks where I'd expect would be out of scope for your hosting company. One job I currently have is upgrading a very old version of Moodle (education platform) - this will take multiple hours due to the upgrade process and the issues the client has with it. As a bit of market research, would your host draw the line at something at that, do it for a fee or just do it as part of the service?

 

[fisicx]

Re: your hosting company - many people do not have a managed hosting service.

And there you go again. Many businesses wouldn't know if their hosting was managed or not. They just pay GoDaddy $9.99/month and it all works.

If they need Moodle upgrading they will search online for help. You need to be there for them when they do. What they won't be doing is searching for a System Administrator. Where are all the case studies on your website, all the examples of the thing you have done, the stories of the fixes and solutions, the testimonials from clients and so on? Unless you are ranking on Google for the things people need help with they will never find you and get in contact.

 

[arnydnxluk]

One job I currently have is upgrading a very old version of Moodle (education platform) - this will take multiple hours due to the upgrade process and the issues the client has with it. As a bit of market research, would your host draw the line at something at that, do it for a fee or just do it as part of the service?

That sounds more like a job for a developer, and no, most generic hosting providers of any reasonable size wouldn't complete that task for their customer without additional payment.

As mentioned most individuals and businesses do use a managed hosting service. Those who don't have the right people in-house to manage it (or think they know better than qualified sysadmins and therefore won't want your help until everything goes very wrong).

You might benefit from going more down the route of web application support, e.g. WordPress support, sort of like this: https://wpfixit.com

If you're set on doing sysadmin, perhaps brand this as IT Support. Look at the URL in @KM-Tiger 's profile for another take on how to offer and sell sysadmin services.

 

[rsshep]

Is it worthwhile targeting those looking for someone to manage their AWS/Azure/Digital Ocean accounts/servers?

I have a client who are primarily a .NET shop, but they have a number of projects hosted on Linux in AWS and they simply don't have the skills in-house to manage this, so it comes to me.

General websites, I can't really see businesses having a need for your services, especially when they're using simple shared hosting accounts. However, those building mobile applications and other types of applications certainly could, especially if you're handy setting up environments in AWS that have multiple servers, MySQL replication etc etc, as this stuff isn't exactly straightforward and can require some configuration to get the best performance.

 

[jblz]

Genuinely appreciate the points of view so far and I've got some actionable changes to take on board.

The responses have suggested terminology is certainly an issue here - I'll review the wording of what I put out. Mike makes the point of typically expecting a developer to perform a platform upgrade when typically this is 95% server work is also a factor against how I sell and position myself.

Suggestions of positioning within web application support and AWS/Google/Cloud based account assistance is definitely covered in what I do, though again this makes me realise I really need to rework my ad/service descriptions. Thanks for the suggestions of specific places to research (i.e wpfixit).

The website was thrown up purely for the mailshots I was doing - I haven't sent any more emails since posting this thread. It's now on the todo list to make the website a bit nicer/inspire more trust and do some basic SEO, after I nail down my copy.

 

[fisicx]

Case studies, examples of your work and lists of things that need maintenance. The more content you add to your site the more Google will like you and the better the chances of someone finding you to fix their problem.

Terminology is good but people don't search like that. They will search for 'How to upgrade my website to PHP7'. Or 'how to make my website run faster'. Or 'How can I move my website to the cloud'.

And fixing WordPress sites can earn you bucket loads of cash.