best way to get clients for a full-stack dev?

[CPANathan]

Skype or LinkedIn is always available in PMs, I'm actually working on something weirdly similar at the minute; reason being for the whole "mind is blown with 40 different ideas".

Give me a shout.

 

[seo express]

he is aware of freelancing platforms

Then he should start selling his services there.

 

[CPANathan]

Then he should start selling his services there.

Completely disregarding the point of this thread here man...

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

Skype or LinkedIn is always available in PMs, I'm actually working on something weirdly similar at the minute; reason being for the whole "mind is blown with 40 different ideas".

Give me a shout.

sure, would love to hear what you're busy with. not sure if i can pm so please pm your skype!

 

[Shyout]

If he's starting from scratch (meaning low online presence and content on blog/site) - best option is to reach out cold.

Here's how I'd do it.

-> Scrape a list of website using Wordpress (since you mentioned that's what he's coding on, right?) on a site such as Builtwith: https://trends.builtwith.com/websitelist/WordPress (there are ~35M websites using Wordpress).

-> Find contact info of decision makers (use an email finder such as Apollo or Anymailfinder)

-> Automate outbound messaging sequences by Email or LinkedIn (use Apollo/Instantly for email, Expandi for LinkedIn).

Then it's about testing a few angles. It would be interesting to brainstorm what common difficulties people have around Wordpress development. If, for example, they have trouble upgrading to newer versions without breaking the website.. you could just target people with older versions and offer to help them upgrade.

 

[Alexion]

What he needs is an employer who has these kinds of jobs on a much greater volume.
Tell him to accept even a shittier pay, like maybe $15/hour.

He will have the privilege of seeing what clients actually want and look for, and he will then be able to hunt them down on his own.

I know "full stack" sounds nice, but when it's regarding Wordpress, there is no stack, it's just Wordpress and PHP dev.
Not a lot of people are looking into that, not to mention his HUGE competition out there. You can't turn around the corner without finding a Wordpress "full stack" dev.

Best tip I can give him(or you) is invest around $150 in connects on Upwork, and send 8-10 different batches of cover letters, see what sticks and what gets interviews. He(*or you) should be able to find a cover letter that gets one job each 10 proposals. That's going to be the wining ratio.

His line of work doesn't pay more than $25/hr, and that's being generous.

Your english level of communicating with job posters has to be pristine. No funny english, or you'll lose 70% interest right from the start.
You or he needs to be able to conduct interviews in English on zoom/loom/whatever.

That's how you get the big clients.

Clients want to hear solutions, not your/his personal life story.
When sending out proposals, get straight to the point.

Tell them THE SOLUTION, HOW are you going to implement it, and maybe later, talk about yourself in max 2 paragraphs. Clients really don't care about that, they need shit done.

Most of the jobs I got were from two lines like this
"Hey. I know what you need, I already did this in the past. You can have a working solution real quick. Let's get on a call and get through the details to make sure we're on the same page".

That's it. That's all clients want to hear.
In some rare cases, I also looked up the prospect on LinkedIn, and showed him some past projects.
Caution, as not all of them like this.

Remember, it's never about YOU, it's about the client.
Never use "I, Me" in your cover letter, at least not at the start.
Always talk about THEM, THEIR problems, HOW they can get the solution, HOW fast.
Use words that will paint a mental picture in their head as having the code already done by you.

Something like this:
"Once we're done and you have your website up and running, you'll be glad you didn't waste any more time browsing through meaningless proposals"

People will, in a fraction of a second, actually imagine this for a moment, and that's going to get you/him hired.
I would even insist on copying their way of talking, if you notice anything in particular in their job description. It's called building rapport without them even knowing.

I've written a few posts about upwork proposals in the past, but to my shame, never saved the links, and I can't filter out where or when I posted them. If you have patience, you can find them on the forum, or try google, i think they indexed it.

Always remember, there are TENS of thousands of developers working for 4$/hour in some countries.
THE ONLY WAY you can compete with them is with proper communication skills.

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

What he needs is an employer who has these kinds of jobs on a much greater volume.
Tell him to accept even a shittier pay, like maybe $15/hour.

He will have the privilege of seeing what clients actually want and look for, and he will then be able to hunt them down on his own.

I know "full stack" sounds nice, but when it's regarding Wordpress, there is no stack, it's just Wordpress and PHP dev.
Not a lot of people are looking into that, not to mention his HUGE competition out there. You can't turn around the corner without finding a Wordpress "full stack" dev.

Best tip I can give him(or you) is invest around $150 in connects on Upwork, and send 8-10 different batches of cover letters, see what sticks and what gets interviews. He(*or you) should be able to find a cover letter that gets one job each 10 proposals. That's going to be the wining ratio.

His line of work doesn't pay more than $25/hr, and that's being generous.

Your english level of communicating with job posters has to be pristine. No funny english, or you'll lose 70% interest right from the start.
You or he needs to be able to conduct interviews in English on zoom/loom/whatever.

That's how you get the big clients.

Clients want to hear solutions, not your/his personal life story.
When sending out proposals, get straight to the point.

Tell them THE SOLUTION, HOW are you going to implement it, and maybe later, talk about yourself in max 2 paragraphs. Clients really don't care about that, they need shit done.

Most of the jobs I got were from two lines like this
"Hey. I know what you need, I already did this in the past. You can have a working solution real quick. Let's get on a call and get through the details to make sure we're on the same page".

That's it. That's all clients want to hear.
In some rare cases, I also looked up the prospect on LinkedIn, and showed him some past projects.
Caution, as not all of them like this.

Remember, it's never about YOU, it's about the client.
Never use "I, Me" in your cover letter, at least not at the start.
Always talk about THEM, THEIR problems, HOW they can get the solution, HOW fast.
Use words that will paint a mental picture in their head as having the code already done by you.

Something like this:
"Once we're done and you have your website up and running, you'll be glad you didn't waste any more time browsing through meaningless proposals"

People will, in a fraction of a second, actually imagine this for a moment, and that's going to get you/him hired.
I would even insist on copying their way of talking, if you notice anything in particular in their job description. It's called building rapport without them even knowing.

I've written a few posts about upwork proposals in the past, but to my shame, never saved the links, and I can't filter out where or when I posted them. If you have patience, you can find them on the forum, or try google, i think they indexed it.

Always remember, there are TENS of thousands of developers working for 4$/hour in some countries.
THE ONLY WAY you can compete with them is with proper communication skills.

you guys are taking this wordpress stuff out of hand. he builds custom sites. just usually he's working on wp because that is the platform many of these companies use. and like i said, he has plenty of experience. $15/hr sounds crazy, he doesn't work for less than $35/hr. every job he has had paid him $75-85k/year with full benefits.

the upwork proposals are interesting, but only if the pay is right. he is good at making proposals on what he can do for a business, and he's a well-experienced zoomer.

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

If he's starting from scratch (meaning low online presence and content on blog/site) - best option is to reach out cold.

Here's how I'd do it.

-> Scrape a list of website using Wordpress (since you mentioned that's what he's coding on, right?) on a site such as Builtwith: https://trends.builtwith.com/websitelist/WordPress (there are ~35M websites using Wordpress).

-> Find contact info of decision makers (use an email finder such as Apollo or Anymailfinder)

-> Automate outbound messaging sequences by Email or LinkedIn (use Apollo/Instantly for email, Expandi for LinkedIn).

Then it's about testing a few angles. It would be interesting to brainstorm what common difficulties people have around Wordpress development. If, for example, they have trouble upgrading to newer versions without breaking the website.. you could just target people with older versions and offer to help them upgrade.

would there be a way to target a specific micro niche?

 

[CPANathan]

I'd pay more attention to what Alexion's saying, he's probably got the most if even the best experience with this kind of thing

I've personally took some guidance from that message

 

[yogib34r]

I was fairly successful going through local business websites finding a bug/typo and then either reporting it to the business while letting them know who I was and what I did or reporting it to the agency that had built the website. In either case I'd wait a week, then follow up asking if they had any work, I was more successful delaying the sale. I avoided web builder sites for obvious reasons but I had a student that built websites on wix and charged businesses £250 for the privilege.

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

I'd pay more attention to what Alexion's saying, he's probably got the most if even the best experience with this kind of thing

I've personally took some guidance from that message

we're on the same page as far as writing the perfect proposal. he is more than a wp dev, he is full stack. if the upwork connect strategy can apply to his skillset and what he can offer, then we're in business. just not sure if we're on the same page because a full-stack dev here in the US doesn't even work for $25/hr.

but he (the programmer) knows his market better than anyone, so maybe I should give him a solid pitch to use like Alexion mentioned, and have him go pitch and get some Zoom calls going. I could have him lower his hourly rate just a little, and he usually does pretty good on Zoom calls. he has a selfless personality, and he is very sociable, great at getting a conversation going.

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

What he needs is an employer who has these kinds of jobs on a much greater volume.
Tell him to accept even a shittier pay, like maybe $15/hour.

He will have the privilege of seeing what clients actually want and look for, and he will then be able to hunt them down on his own.

I know "full stack" sounds nice, but when it's regarding Wordpress, there is no stack, it's just Wordpress and PHP dev.
Not a lot of people are looking into that, not to mention his HUGE competition out there. You can't turn around the corner without finding a Wordpress "full stack" dev.

Best tip I can give him(or you) is invest around $150 in connects on Upwork, and send 8-10 different batches of cover letters, see what sticks and what gets interviews. He(*or you) should be able to find a cover letter that gets one job each 10 proposals. That's going to be the wining ratio.

His line of work doesn't pay more than $25/hr, and that's being generous.

Your english level of communicating with job posters has to be pristine. No funny english, or you'll lose 70% interest right from the start.
You or he needs to be able to conduct interviews in English on zoom/loom/whatever.

That's how you get the big clients.

Clients want to hear solutions, not your/his personal life story.
When sending out proposals, get straight to the point.

Tell them THE SOLUTION, HOW are you going to implement it, and maybe later, talk about yourself in max 2 paragraphs. Clients really don't care about that, they need shit done.

Most of the jobs I got were from two lines like this
"Hey. I know what you need, I already did this in the past. You can have a working solution real quick. Let's get on a call and get through the details to make sure we're on the same page".

That's it. That's all clients want to hear.
In some rare cases, I also looked up the prospect on LinkedIn, and showed him some past projects.
Caution, as not all of them like this.

Remember, it's never about YOU, it's about the client.
Never use "I, Me" in your cover letter, at least not at the start.
Always talk about THEM, THEIR problems, HOW they can get the solution, HOW fast.
Use words that will paint a mental picture in their head as having the code already done by you.

Something like this:
"Once we're done and you have your website up and running, you'll be glad you didn't waste any more time browsing through meaningless proposals"

People will, in a fraction of a second, actually imagine this for a moment, and that's going to get you/him hired.
I would even insist on copying their way of talking, if you notice anything in particular in their job description. It's called building rapport without them even knowing.

I've written a few posts about upwork proposals in the past, but to my shame, never saved the links, and I can't filter out where or when I posted them. If you have patience, you can find them on the forum, or try google, i think they indexed it.

Always remember, there are TENS of thousands of developers working for 4$/hour in some countries.
THE ONLY WAY you can compete with them is with proper communication skills.

ill write the Upwork connect strategy down in my notes and also check out your posts about proposals

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

I was fairly successful going through local business websites finding a bug/typo and then either reporting it to the business while letting them know who I was and what I did or reporting it to the agency that had built the website. In either case I'd wait a week, then follow up asking if they had any work, I was more successful delaying the sale. I avoided web builder sites for obvious reasons but I had a student that built websites on wix and charged businesses £250 for the privilege.

how many cold mails were you sending out weekly? and you were able to keep a steady flow of clientele coming in?

 

[CPANathan]

You'll go far here buddy

Just because it sounds stupid, doesn't mean there's not a lot that goes on behind the scenes.
You'll both learn more on that when you start looking into digital presence. Keep up the hustle

 

[yogib34r]

how many cold mails were you sending out weekly? and you were able to keep a steady flow of clientele coming in?

I was doing 50ish per week, I benefited from a change in law, gdpr, lots of companies needed minor tweaks to be compliant but at first I was only getting 1 response per week. I was lucky that a couple of marketing agencies I contacted had no inhouse dev so their work came my way off the back of the message. Plus one technical director liked what I was doing, we're still friends. I stopped sending the after a few months as I had enough work.

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

You'll go far here buddy

Just because it sounds stupid, doesn't mean there's not a lot that goes on behind the scenes.
You'll both learn more on that when you start looking into digital presence. Keep up the hustle

most definitely. digital marketing is a fat ass science experiment! ive shot you a message on skype btw

I was doing 50ish per week, I benefited from a change in law, gdpr, lots of companies needed minor tweaks to be compliant but at first I was only getting 1 response per week. I was lucky that a couple of marketing agencies I contacted had no inhouse dev so their work came my way off the back of the message. Plus one technical director liked what I was doing, we're still friends. I stopped sending the after a few months as I had enough work.

that's pretty awesome. definitely low-cost and effective. gonna be implemented for sure. nothing like free results lol

 

[Shyout]

would there be a way to target a specific micro niche?

It would depend on the niche. I've created similar workflows for dev clients (focused on platforms other than WordPress).

Usually, it went like this:
> Scrape BuiltWith and filter by CMS
> Import list of Domains to LinkedIn (Sales Navigator)
Here LinkedIn maps the domain URLs with the corresponding accounts (expect a 70-80% match rate)

> Once accounts are imported - you can play around with the filters and target a specific industry
Here complete list of industries: https://www.sage.exchange/post/linkedin-industries-list-rankings-2022. If your niche is included, then you're good.

> Then out of the list of companies left, you can filter decision-makers

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

It would depend on the niche. I've created similar workflows for dev clients (focused on platforms other than WordPress).

Usually, it went like this:
> Scrape BuiltWith and filter by CMS
> Import list of Domains to LinkedIn (Sales Navigator)
Here LinkedIn maps the domain URLs with the corresponding accounts (expect a 70-80% match rate)

> Once accounts are imported - you can play around with the filters and target a specific industry
Here complete list of industries: https://www.sage.exchange/post/linkedin-industries-list-rankings-2022. If your niche is included, then you're good.

> Then out of the list of companies left, you can filter decision-makers

wheeww that's great thank you very much

 

[SuperKingCheese]

A full stack dev with 5 years pro experience and a CS degree? Just get a full time job for 80K per year.

 

[iEscapedTheMatrix]

A full stack dev with 5 years pro experience and a CS degree? Just get a full time job for 80K per year.

yup that's what he does lol. just looking to help me essentially get his own business started so he can grow that income even further and not be tied to corporate culture. and on the flip side, I can use this as a case study when I start my digital agency