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Interview with Phil Matthews from The Web Design Blog

Luke — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:24:33 +0000

Name: Phil Matthews

Location: Weymouth, UK

Freelancing for: 6 years

Website: http://www.weymouthwebdesign.com/ and http://www.thewebdesignblog.co.uk

Firstly can you tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

I’ve been freelancing for nearly 6 years and had the pleasure of working for some really great clients. I setup The Web Design Blog in late 2009 with the intention of sharing useful resources, interviews and downloads with the design community.

How did you get started in Freelancing? How did you land your first customer? What marketing did you do when you were starting out?

I’ve been designing websites as a hobby since 1996. I’d always wanted to work for a design agency but when I was actively searching for comapnies near me (in around 2003) I noticed all of them required a design related university degree which I didn’t have. As a way around this I thought I’d start freelancing to build up a portfolio of design in the hope that this would show them what I could do despite without all important degree. I’m happy to say that the freelancing took off more than I’d anticipate and I’m still doing it to this day!

To gain my initial clients I did some basic advertising on a tiny budget. For my first few jobs I listed an auction on eBay for people to “buy” my web design services for a small business website. The price I sold the first few websites for on eBay was ridiculously cheap but, ironically, my first ever client is still with me to this day. After doing a few of these sites I started to get enquiries via more traditional methods which allowed me to gradually increase my rates to a more sensible level.

When you started freelancing, what were your goals? Do they differ to what they are now? What conscious decisions did you make to reach your goals?

When I started it was all very low risk and I didn’t have specific plans. I still lived with my parents, had very low overheads and didn’t really have a set goal. I just wanted to get some experience under my belt to show potential employees. However, after the first 6 months I had begun to take things a lot more seriously. I’d started to arrange hosting for clients as a way of earning a small amount of residual income each month and I was running Weymouth Web Design more like a business than an experiment.

What was the most important thing that allowed you to grow your business?

I think I was quite lucky that one of my early clients was a domestic cleaning franchise based in the UK. Their managing director knew that I was just starting up in business and he offered me so much advice. Despite being one of my first clients and we still work together today. He told me to find something that I could invoice my clients for monthly or yearly to give me something to fall back on if I experience a quiet month. Luckily, being a web designer, the natural choice was to offer my clients hosting and domain registration services. It is something that I can bill for every year (or in some cases monthly) and it provides a useful service to my clients at the same time.

To help develop my skills I like to learn something new with every website I create. It could be a new CSS technique or simply a new way of displaying a font. I’ve aimed to do this with every new website since the early days.

What was the biggest stumbling block you encountered, and how can other freelancers avoid/overcome it?

A couple of things… Firstly, I didn’t require a deposit from clients for the first three years. I know this sounds crazy but I had never needed to. In my first three years I’d never experienced a non-paying client. It turns out I had just been very, very lucky. It only took one non-paying client to make me realise I had to ensure that my work and time was protected with a deposit. I now charge 50% upfront for web design services (sometimes less on very large projects) and it really has made things a lot easier. And always remember to get a contract signed for every project!

If you could give one piece of advice to freelancers just starting out, what would it be?

My advice would be to find something you love to do and work hard to be the very best you can. If you like designing websites then keep practising different techniques and trying them out. If you want to build up a portfolio of work you can always try to find a worthy charity that could benefit from your design skills. And make sure you charge what you are worth from the beginning. I started off being far too cheap and it makes it difficult to increase your prices later on if your clients are used to your lower prices.

I see you’ve setup a fantastic blog with design resources. How does your blogging affect your freelancing?

Thanks very much! I hadn’t anticipated how much time is required to write a really good article so I am trying to squeeze in a few more hours every week to keep on top of things! I’ve been lucky enough to interview loads of great people for the blog and it is wonderful to learn their design processes, influences and opinions on the current state of the industry. That is definitely my favourite part of running a blog.

It is still very early days for the blog and I haven’t fully decided what the best way to develop it so I’m just going to keep going down the direction I’m on and just see how it goes!

Can you tell us how we can find out more about you and what you’re up to at the moment?

Sure thing. You can checkout my blog at www.thewebdesignblog.co.uk and follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/philmatthews (make sure you say hello!). If you’d like to see my design work my portfolio is online at www.weymouthwebdesign.com

Interview with Tristan Judd from Able Net Design

Luke — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:00:46 +0000

Name: Tristan Judd

Location: Perth, Australia

Freelancing for: 6 years

Accomplishments: Over 6 years, Tristan has worked with dozens of small businesses, and launched several side projects and web applications. He was recently voted 5th best web designer in Australia by TopSEO’s Australia.

How did you get started in Freelancing? How did you land your first customer? What marketing did you do when you were starting out?

Tristan: I remember being at school not knowing what I wanted to do. In one of the computer classes we had to develop a website. Turns out I actually enjoyed it so much that I decided that building websites was what I wanted todo.

So after a few years of studying I was ready to launch my own web design business, Able Net Design.

Marketing was word of mouth, initially. Then came the add in the YellowPages. My business name, Able Net Design although not sounding as cool as some of the other names you hear these days was actually thought up purely for the YellowPages.

I was able to secure first page listings in categories simply by taking advantage of the alphabetical order of the YellowPages. So while other companies had to pay large amounts to get listed higher up I got it for free.

When you started freelancing, what were your goals? Do they differ to what they are now? What conscious decisions did you make to reach your goals?

Tristan: I was working part time in a friends business and I had a goal that I would be able to support myself in 4 months. I learnt very quickly if you really believe you can do something it’s not so difficult to achieve. There were lots of long hours but within three and half months I was able to support myself.

I suppose my goals from then on were to continue to grow. Building web pages and getting as many small businesses online as possible. I felt then and still feel now that many small businesses don’t understand the advantages of having a properly built website.

Back then I was all about building my own solutions. CMS’s weren’t that widely available so I built my own which worked out quite well. Nowadays I would recommend wordpress to my clients that don’t require that much of a customised solution.

I suppose as I mentioned above the conscious decision I made to reach my goals was simple. I couldn’t fail.

What was the most important thing that allowed you to grow your business?

Tristan: It was the mind set I had that. I couldn’t fail. There was no room for error. The other thing is never stop learning. Read all the time, look at other sites and see what they come up with.

What was the biggest stumbling block you encountered, and how can other freelancers avoid/overcome it?

Tristan: The biggest stumbling block, I have had is getting people to pay on time. It’s a really difficult thing which I still have problems with now. One piece of advice would be no matter how close you think you are to a client, stick to your rules. If you charge late fees because they don’t pay on time then charge them. Even if they ring you up to complain about it.

If you could give one piece of advice to freelancers just starting out, what would it be?

Tristan: Find someone you can work well with. I have found that it is easier to build a company when it is more then just one of you.

Can you tell us a bit about what you’re doing now?

Tristan: Over the past six months I have turned my attention to building web apps. KaffeeBreak is a small business accounting package which I developed out of frustration using MYOB on a daily basis. It’s going through a redesign at the moment however I successfully run my two companies financials on it with out any problems. http://www.kaffeebreak.com

Another project I am about to release is Trolley. It is an eCommerce wordpress theme. Ready to use out of the box. http://trolley.ablenetdesign.com

Finally I am devoting some of my time to an opensource project. It is a cms/blogging platform which I decided to build just to see what other alternatives can be created. If your interested in helping out I would love to chat with you. http://freshpowder.ablenetdesign.com