Ask HN: Where do you find clients?
I am the co-founder of a company that provides software to established and rapidly developing organisations that wish to introduce modern web working-practices. Think e-commerce apps, large Joomla-based sites, social media features, clean and functional design etc.
We are just getting started but have managed to find some leads mainly through our professional contacts. We’ve also tried websites such as http://www.supply2.gov.uk/ but I’ve found these to be of limited use. Getting clients at this stage is critical to us as we need to increase our portfolio of work.
My question is for those that do web development for a similar audience; where do you look for potential clients, RFPs etc? Do you hit the streets? Hold workshops? Attend ‘networking’ events? Search online?
Note that I am based in London - although it would also be interesting to know how this works internationally. Thanks all.
31 comments
[ 56.3 ms ] story [ 169 ms ] threadI suggest you read Seth Godin's website. For God sakes the man is a marketing genius! :)
Best wishes with your venture.
You'll have to beat off offers with a stick.
Nowadays, a lot of our clients find us via Google and our blog at http://blog.seliger.com , but that takes more time to build. Still, we try and put a fair number of likely keywords in the titles of posts, which helps. We started ours after the Wall Street Journal ran a story on that issue, and it was like, "Why didn't we think of this earlier?"
1.Start a blog
2a.Write the content which showcases your expertise
2b.Identify pain points and share your expertise in those areas
2c.publish the interviews of various persons who are (experts / kind of popular ) in the area in which you are doing consulting.(or) any good content which will of interest to target audience.
2d.in above way you will be building the audience and trust.and people will referring you to their friends if any need arises.
3.Make sure your content is very good/remarkable so that people can share..........
4.As your content spreads you will be known to many people and inturn they will ask you /your company to help on their project.
5.And also develop tools which will be helpfull to target audience.( A good tool spreads like any thing which inturns spreads your company name)
6.Participate actively in various online groups (related to the area in which you are doing consulting) .
you will be suprised when people are contacting you...........
7.Keep an eye on SEO as search engines are driving huge traffic to sites.(good landing page, blog will help in improving the SEO)
8.Adwords (spend some amount on adwords for good targeted keywords to attract diverse audience)
The above is popular referred to as inbound marketing (i.e you will not shout/beg at your prospects for getting leads inturn prospects are coming to.........:))
Important blogs to follow:
1.http://blog.hubspot.com/
2.http://www.webinknow.com/
3.http://www.chrisbrogan.com/
Important book to read The New Rules of Marketing and PR (awesome and excellent) http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books.htm
Are there brokers who specialize in matching clients and customers in the $50k-$500k web space? Any in NY in particular?
Think about how you would select someone for a project if you had £50k to spend on a project. Would you search the web and pick the company with the nicest website or most blog articles?
Or would you reach out to your contacts, see what other companies have done, seeking referals. When you're spending a lot of money, nothing soothes a buyer more than sound recommendations from people who have used you before.
I'm not saying the website isn't important. It is, as your 'shop front' and public image, very important. But it's a small part of the whole package.
So networking might the most important activity you can do, as you never know who you might meet.
Thanks to everyone that's posted so far - every single point has been useful. We actually have a brand for lower budget websites that already uses some of the points here successfully. We can’t use these sites as ‘previous clients’ for the other service since they tend to be for small creative businesses rather than medium/large companies.
If one of your existing websites involved a web application, e-commerce etc, this shows your capabilities.
If you don't think you can jump straight in at £50k, go up to the next price bracket. That way you can use your existing portfolio as a reference. Then just keep leapfrogging up to the bigger business.
Don't forget that you can likely charge medium to large business more than you can a small business. If you're quoting based on value to the customer, the value is likely to be higher for a larger business, so you can charge more.
So what might be a £10k job for a small business, ends up being a £20k job for a larger company.
I once worked for a company that did an e-commerce site for a large plc. They charged £750 per day for development, and the overall cost for the site was in excess of £100k.
But if you were freelance, you would likely charge £250-300 per day for the same. However, this large company was used to paying those sort of rates, and we were a 'consultancy' which can make a difference in price!
Have you considered doing a number of smaller projects while building up your reputation? If you are having trouble finding ~50K look for ~10K or even ~5K and then deliver far more value than they are paying for. At first you may be working more for reputation than money, then that will invert later.
On a related note, look at how much trouble Toyota went to when launching the Lexus to avoid it becoming an "expensive Toyota". Hyundai have tried introducing upmarket models, but to people it's still "just" a Hyundai. The website market is no different to the motor vehicle market, they are both more about perception and branding than the underlying technology.
You should probably be quite open about giving anybody who brings you a paying client a hefty commission of 10% or more.
The only problem is that getting the word out there can be pretty hard work which involves periodically calling up everybody you know and reminding them of the fact that you're looking for projects.
To plug a venture I'm involved with: I believe a lot of these referrals and recommendations can be made much easier using online tools & that's what we've been trying do at http://www.venzen.co.uk - the visitors of the site are mostly London based SME owners looking for service providers such as yourself.
Also, cold e-mails can work surprisingly well if you can lead with a warm-ish intro. Follow them on twitter, read their blog posts, quote their CEO, whatever.. Just something so that the recipient appreciates that this is not a generic email and understands that you've put effort into it.
In my experience conferences are rarely attended by the real decision makers. So you'll need to accept that the people you network with are possibly several steps removed to the ones you are really trying to reach. Which means that you need to tailor your communications to suit at each of the levels so that the people along the chain of command gain from your interaction with them.
Good. Keep doing that. Then get referrals from your referrals. This has always worked well for me.
RFPs I never do. You have little control and have to compete. Look for opportunities where there is no competition.
hit the streets? Absolutely.
Hold workshops? These can be very effective for prospects deeper in your pipeline, but they can also be quite time consuming.
Attend ‘networking’ events? Every one you can. You'll soon learn which are worthwhile and which are not.
Search online? I haven't found much success doing this.
Beyond that, we use Google Alerts to RSS feed + LeadNuke for a continuous stream of new client leads. (disclosure: I developed LeadNuke expressly for this purpose)
Make sure to tell everyone you know what you do, and you'll find work. In the mean time, try craigslist. Its tough to get clients from craigslist but it can be done, and you'll get a lot of great experience winning clients competitively. In our early days, we landed a white-label development gig via craigslist that provided an invaluable source of steady income during that make-or-break time.
For building your portfolio quickly, you've got 3 options as I see it:
1) Make your own side projects and add those to your portfolio.
2) Lower your rates for your initial clients. Be upfront that they're getting a great deal because you are just getting started, and charge full price for support contracts.
3) Make a fantastic website for a local non-profit. You don't have to worry about "cheapening" yourself, and you'll almost certainly get some good PR out of it. Most importantly, the boards of many non-profits are composed of business leaders in the community. You'll gain invaluable connections if you execute well.
If you give free or discount work, its imperative that you treat it with the same respect as a fully priced client. Think of it as a marketing budget, and make sure its having the maximum impact.
Most importantly, don't die. Figure out how much you can survive on, and skip the fancy office for now. Even if its slow, you will build momentum if you make a good product.
http://procnew.com/10-cheap-ways-to-get-clients-for-freelanc...