In this Hasty Treat (Short episode) we answer your questions about Freelancing - how to charge more, building a portfolio, finding clients and our thoughts on using pre-made WordPress themes.

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Jonathan Stark is the author of Hourly Billing is Nuts and has worked with companies such as Staples, Time and T-Mobile. These days he routinely commands an effective hourly rate of $2000+ per hour, so I'd say you should check his course out.

Show Notes

1:00

• Our first episode on Freelancing - how to slam dunk freelancing

4:00

• Q: Ideas on building a portfolio and landing those first customers
• Your portfolio doesn't really matter as a web developer
• Your reputation and referrals is key
• Reputation in the community is important
• Put yourself out there!
• You have to tell people what you do
• You have to ask people if they need work
• Good communication is key

8:00

• Q: What are some strategies for budging and quoting?
• Understanding what a website is worth to a client
• Talking to your client ablut pricing
• Asking how much they have available to spend
• Chunking the project into multiple bits so they can build on it

14:00

• Q: How do you tell your existing clients that you need to charge more?
• Clean Scope / Scope Creep
• Quote in Features and pieces, not entire projects
• Fixed Pricing
• Becoming a better/faster developer
• Getting more expensive as you move
• Don't charge hourly
• Taking big Ls

18:30

• Q: What is your opinion on value based pricing?
• We're huge proponents
• Clients don't like hourly billing
• The client should know what you are paying and what you are getting

22:00

• Q: When is it okay to use WordPress and pre-made themes? Is that cheating?
• The beauty of open source
• The business Wes answer
• The developer Wes answer
• Building your own starter files
• Undoing other developer's work

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