From my days as a semi-pro photographer I figured out that when things get slow you have to go looking for your business rather than waiting for it to come to you. You can only pester your friends, family, and former clients to a point. What I have found to rejuvenate the soul and ignite the creative juices is to enter contests.

Contests serve as a means to compare our work with our peers given a particular set of rules or requirements. There is usually much creative freedom given to the participants and usually a decent reward for winning the contest. Below are some of my observances from my history of entering contests.

1) Find a good contest to enter. - You should seek to enter contests where you have a chance of winning and whose prizes are worth the effort you will put into it. Web development and design contests often provide monetary compensation for your winning design. Some contests even lead to future work for the client so think beyond the prize money offered and be sure to communicate your willingness and availability to help the contest holder in the future. You may wish to find a site which offers multiple opportunities to enter contests or has a variety of contests offerings. You may be in the mood to create logos for the current month, or go wild with a 10 page coded webdesign with interactive and dynamic features. Find the contest that will inspire your best work.

2) Evaluate the competition - Contests are tricky in that you are putting your work up against others to a biased and subjective judge. The manner in which we developers and designers view a site may be very different than the way a contest holder views our contest entries. I have found it is best not to be the first contest entry but to be early enough to outshine the current competitors. Getting that first WOW factor at the right time can boost your chances of winning. If there are already several good designs with positive feedback, you may not want to enter that contest unless you can offer something entirely different.

3) Communication - Always communicate in public and private with the contest holder. Public communications should indicate how you met thier requirements, request feedback, and to thank the contest holder for their consideration. In private you should commuicate how you can help the contest holder (aka future client) with the post implementation and other design/development needs they may have. Don’t be too pushy but don’t be afraid to promote your abilities. NEVER knock your opponents designs.
Never promise an entry that you can not deliver. I see many developers do this after asking questions about the contest.

4) Win small pizes graciously. Regardless of the amount of prize money, always be gracious and leave the door open for future business. If the contest pays out $200 and you normally receive an average of $400 for website development, treat the contest holder the same as if he payed you $1000. He/She may need your services at a later date or refer you to other potential clients.
Contest holders may not be thinking beyond their current needs or may have cash flow issues that are not a problem later.

5) Lose graciously. If someone elses design blows yours away, acknolwedge them. We all need a pat on the back from our peers. You may also want to develop a relationship with them for future opportunities. As your business grows you may not have the time or the talent needed for every client. Having a few friends in the business my give you some inexpensive outsourcing options. You can also think of this as team building.

6) Use contests as a means to express or enhance your style. Too often we are working with clients who have a style in mind and they do not offer us the full creative latitude we would like. Contests are your chance to try new things and to move outside of your comfort zone.

7) Don’t over do it. Entering contests can be a lot of fun. You may have to enter several before you win one. But as a business person you have to balance profit with energy expended. If you are just starting out and do not have many clients you may wish to enter several contests to get things moving. But those of us with an established business should evaluate our time and energy expended with the chance of winning and the rewards or loss for doing so. Once you have several designs to chose from in your library you may find it easier to enter a contest and less time is expended for each contest. Do not enter too many contests, if you happen to win a couple in a row you may stretch yourself too thin. I have also noticed whenever I get a new client or win a contest, all my old clients suddenly have work for me. When it rains it pours. ALWAYS communicate your timelines and make sure you manage your clients expectations.

8) Additional work beyond the contest requirements should be negotiated. If there are some minor changes or additions you may wish to offer them gratis. But if there is significant work to be done after the contest, use the opportunity to educate the contest holder about your fees and always charge your normal rates. Undercharging will hurt you in the long run. If the contest amount was more than you normally earn, you have a choice to absorb the additional work for free, reduce your overall rate to match what you would normally have been paid for the project plus additional work, or use the opportunity to increase your fees. A client with deep pockets who appreciates your skill set is your best client. Those who want you to constantly modify thier site for minimal fees are not serving your best interest. Learn to negotiate your fees and build pricing policies that are flexible should you meet the right client.

9) Have fun. If the contest world becomes drudgery, stop doing it. Find other ways to promote your business or spend the downtime honing your skills.

a continuation from the first long winded post.

RECAP: You have your first client, a quote for the project, general requirements which seem to keep growing, basic mockups of the site you will build, hosting in place, and the latest copies of Photoshop and Dreamweaver.

Over the next few days the client sends you some other text for the about us page, a couple brochures in pdf format about his product, and a couple images he “borrowed” from the internet. You have researched some sites for products similar to his and find they use a lot of “happy people, smiling faces” imagery rather than product images. So you visit your favorite $1 stock image site and recommend 10 different people shots for the client and ask him to pick a couple. He of course picks 5 and wants you to buy the large $5 versions. Your appropriate response is “Sure, I’ll just add the costs to the bill”. Ok says the client.
[For those of you following along with the math; Spent $425, plan to bill $250.]

You fill in the pages with the content and images, installed the basic OSCommerce cart and added a couple of product images to it, complet the contact form functioning the way the client requested and even created an output page so the client can output the database contents. You even created a document of how the store admin panel works so the site owner can update products and descriptions. You get some feedback from the client that all is looking good but he would like the store design to be more congruent with the site rather than the standard grey/white layout. So you spend another 10 hours fiddling with the code and CSS to bend the store front to your will. Clients annoying friend is sending you templates for OSC that would add another $59 to the total. You discuss with the client and determine these are not necessary.

Just when you think you are done the client reads an article about “blogging for business” and sets up a blog at wordpress.com. He would like you to incorporate the blog content into the site. You know from your previous blog experience that you can set up wordpress on his hosting site and make it look more congruent. So you notify the client and he agrees. You spend the next 3 evenings adding that in.

You feel you are just about done and go through the mental checklist.
Hosting - check
Design - check
Online store - check
documentation - check (until you try to use the store)
blog installed and designed - check
home page - done
about us page - done
contact page - done
product page - done except for link to store
services page - empty - still waiting on customer to send content.

WOW YOU ARE 99% DONE!!! CONGRATULATIONS.
So you call the client with the good news and ask him to do a run through of the site. You also request a meeting so you can teach him how the admin panel for the shopping cart works. Upon the run through the client requests some changes to almost every pages content , a change in color of the title fonts, and wants to add a box on the home page with the titles of the latests blog posts. Easy enough you spend another 6 hours making all the changes.

At the meeting the customer praises all your hardwork and makes “The Promise”.

The Promise: “The experience we have given you will help you find more business in the future. I have 3 or 4 friends who need websites and I will be glad to tell them about you.”

The problem with the promise is that the client will also tell his friends how cheap you are and how accomodating you are so you have no control over what to charge. You will also find your clients friends are even less knowledgable about the web than the client was and will have no idea why they need a website. Your client will become their advisor based on his experience. (See where I am going with this).

You begin your walk through of the store application which is all very cool to the client. He doesn’t quite get how the credit card thing works since it does not automagically go into his bank account. He will have to use his phone to get approval on credit cards. He also spots the PayPal option and asks if you can install that. So you spend the next 30 minutes infront of the client setting up his paypal merchant account and installing the option. You test it with a dummy $1 product you set up. The client also spots the info boxes, shipping options, and poor image quality of small images and asks you to fix those.

So you spend another 5-6 hours fixing his issues. You use your digital camera and take some product shots to use in the store and help the client fillin all the products. You run through several test orders and make sure all works.

60 days after you started the site is finally complete the client is satisfied and you submit your $250 bill fully documenting the site design for $200, product shots for $25, and the stock photo costs of $25. The client gets the bill and sends you a check, but comments that he thought the agreement to pay the extra $25 was covered for product shots and purchased images.

A month goes by and the client calls and asks for some minor updates. He wants Meta tags on all the pages and want to make the site more search engine optimized. He also wants to add google ads to the blog. You offer to do this for an additional $100. The client talks you down to $50 because he has seen how fast you added paypal to the store and doesn’t think these changes will take that long. So you spend another 5 hours learning about SEO and how to add adsense to the blog. You make the changes, get client feedback, and bill your $50.

[Total spent $425, Total income $350 but you rationalize you have only paid a net of $75 for the latest software.]

Overall this experience has not been terrible and you are confident you can do it again vowing next time you will have a more reasonable pricing policy, a contract, and will educate the client better from the beginning. This article is not meant to dissuede you from doing so, but is here to help you prepare for running a freelance web design business. Every client will offer you new challenges but you will also likely increase your experience and performance level such that you can manage 3-4 clients at a time. Your early least profittable clients will require more work from you in the future and bring you new clients. Treat every potential and previous client with respect and expect they will respect you. Good luck to your new business venture.

Future articles will deal with some specifics of overcoming customer challenges and products that will make running your business easier. Thanks for reading.

WARNING: This post is long and will lead to future posts

Why this Article:
It occurred to me there are countless websites dedicated to teaching you how to code and how to pick a web designer/developer, but almost none to teach us how to run a web site development business. I believe many of us stumble into the business by accident rather than choosing it as a career path. So while our hobbies and interests in the computers eventually lead us to doing work for others we have not prepared to actually be in the service of others. Therefore in this and future articles I will describe what I have learned along the way, mistakes I have made, and my vision of the future for the freelancer who merely loves building websites. Keep in mind I am not a small business expert, accountant, lawyer, nor coding guru.

Making the leap from building websites for your own use vs a client.
It starts so innocently. You build that first website to meet a personal need to show off your art, blog your thoughts, or set up a forum so a bunch of your friends can chit-chat about a common interest. You pour countless hours into it to make your site perfect and learn a little HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP along the way. You may even decide to build a second or third site, just for fun.

Then it happens. Someone approaches you to help a friend build a website and they are willing to pay. It is at this point the business begins and you have to make some quick decisions and assess your skills before jumping all the way in to working for someone else.

First Meeting with the client
Now that you have your referral in hand you arrange to meet with the potential client at the local starbucks or their place of business. You listen to clients ramblings about new media, their potential for growth, the 500 page website they will have one day, and that they currently only need 3-6 pages but have no budget to hire a design firm. In other words they want you to work cheap to make their dream come true. You interact during the discussion expressing your familiarity with some of the features they want based on sites you have built in the past and what you have seen on the internet. You take vigorous notes about the features you are not sure how to code or implement. [My first real client wanted not only a 20 page website but eCommerce storefront, a blog, a forum, and a user/data driven application. I can not tell you how terrified I was.] The client does not have much content written yet, nor artwork beyond their logo, but seems to be in a hurry to get it all done. The client usually will give you a list of websites he likes and elements he would like to emulate.

At the end of the meeting the client will usually indicate what he is willing to pay or ask you for a quote. Your response needs to be carefully thought out and you should not convey an answer until you have a clear idea how long it will take you to implement the clients desires. Politely indicate your need to assess and organize the requirements further and that you will be in touch within a day or two with an estimate.

By now you are painfully aware you have no idea how many hours you will spend on this project, no pricing policy, you have some coding skills to develop, software to research, no standard contract to offer, nor experience to help you provide the estimate to the client.

Jumping into the unknown.
So you take all the info from the first meeting and determine that you can do the work, though the sites he gave you to look at have nothing in common other than the color green. You look at his puny number of pages requested and pick a dollar figure out of mid air. $10 a page first comes to mind, no wait that is only $40 for the whole site and you know from your personal site development experience that you will spend at least 40 hours on this project plus time spent with the customer. You have also been eyeing the lastest upgrade to Photoshop CS3 and Dreamweaver for a mere $400. So you pick $200.00 just to split the difference.

Armed with your new pricing policy (with no real basis in time and effort) you fire off an email to the potential client with your offer. The client thought it was going to cost him $500-1000 so he is relieved and jumps at the chance to “help you develop your business”. Then he adds in a couple more requirements, like he expects you to find him graphics or come take pictures of his products. No problem, you own a digital camera. (Do you feel the pain yet? ). You, being a savy business person, indicate you will charge an extra $25 for doing so. If you are really savy, you find an online contract and modifiy it for your needs then send it to the client to make sure you get paid. If not, the clients handshake and recommendation from the friend was good enough for you. Client agrees and work begins.

The first drafts
You eagerly go and upgrade your versions of Photoshop and Dreamweaver, spending your fees in advance. Based on your first meeting and the second site the customer gave you as a reference you set about creating the visual design and layout. Your first attempt may be very rough so you create a couple more with refinements to show the client, using Lorem ipsum for filler text. You email these to the client and wait for his response. Three days go by and you get no feedback, So you send a second email asking if the client received the first drafts. Client responds immediately indicating he has received them and will get back to you shortly. The client that seemed to be so gung-ho get-er-done 4 days ago is now holding you up and is creating fear in the back of your mind that you are not really ready to do work for other people.

NOTE: The clients timetable will not be the same as your timetable for getting the project done. If the two of you are in synch consider it a gift from God.

Day 6 the client indicates he likes design 2 better than 1 and 3 but sends you 5 more websites he likes, especially number 1, and would like you to try creating something like that, and that he needs to be able to sell products online and collect credit card numbers. So you look at the back end code for the requested site and realize that you can not duplicate Amazon.com with its massive scripting and data driven content. So you seek to focus on the layout and positioning of elements to create a similar look. You change the color scheme to blue orange and white and create a couple new mockups for the client to evaluate. You also start researching how to add a shopping cart and how to deal with credit cards. Fortunately for you there is opensource PHP shopping carts similar to the forums you ran so you can feel somewhat confident you can add it in. [WHEW].

Day 8 the customer indicates he likes what he sees and sends you the home page content and a request to add a long form to the contact us page which should output not only to his email but be stored in a database for future reference. He doesnt know anything about databases but his friend told him it would be a good idea. His friend, who recently spent $1000 to have his 3rd blackhat google arbitrage site created, now enters into all decision making.

You add the clients data to your template and correct a few spelling mistakes and make some gramatical changes to make the clients hurriedly written content to fit the box you have alotted for the home page. You play with various font sizes and margins to make sure the important stuff is above the fold and looks nice. The coding is starting to gel, and you tackle the form on the contact us page, borrowing code from whereever you can find it. (Thank you to all those of you who post solutions to the web).

Hosting and Domains
You send the temporary functional link to the client so he can preview your work. Not 2 minutes later the client is calling you and asking why you are developing on yourdomain.com instead of hiswonderproduct.com. You ask him if he has the domain information and indicate you will transfer it over to him. It is at this point the customer indicates he registered the domain name but does not have a host provider. He expects you to find him one, and does not indicate whether he is willing to pay for the hosting or expects you to pay for it out of your $225.00 quoted. So you agree to do the research and get back to him.

The host you used for your domain works just fine and seems to offer easy installment of ecommerce applications and has multiple MySQL databases to use for other requirements. And is only $95.40 per year. So you call the client back and recommend ABC host. The client says ok and indicates you should set it up for him then he will reimburse you the $95.40 when the site is complete. About 10 minutes goes by and the client calls you and indicates that his friend doesn’t like ABC host and would prefer he use a windows based host provider which runs $195.00 per year.

Now your plans for the PHP opensource eCommerce platform will not work, and the simple mySQL databases are now a more complex SQL Server or MS Access, neither of which you have any experience. And since you just maxed out your credit card with purchasing new software you really can’t afford the $195 up front. At this point you decide to inform the customer he does not need XYZ and that it would be a waste of his money and describe the difficuties you would encounter. He agrees and you decide to use LMNOP-host which seems to have all the features you need, the low price, and meets the friends requirements. (Can you guess how many hours that exercise used up? )

Mental note: For future clients have a set of hosting recommendations.

To be continued
As you can see building the first site for someone else will require more of you than you may have thought about. I am going to continue this article in the near future, but for now I will leave you with a laundry list of things to consider.

Basic Coding skills: Continually advance your HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP/mySQL skills.

Hosting: Know 3-4 hosting companies and join their affiliate programs. You can recover some costs and earn extra commissions.

Applications: Familarize your self with eCommerce, Forums, and blogging software. Joomla or other CMS will enter the picture at some point.

Legal: Do create a contract and have the client sign it. Get a business license.

Project Management: Do use a project management tool to keep you organized. I prefer basecamphq.com by 37 signals. Communication makes things easier and if you can document the changes it will help you.

email: Save all email, print it if critical to the project.

Pricing policy: After you have built a couple sites below their market value you will realize how valuable this is. Your pricing should be reflective of your skills, market value, and your time.

Accounting: Track all expenses and income for tax purposes. Save receipts. Seek the advice of a tax accountant for write offs of your cellphone, highspeed internet upgrade, computer equipment, Software, and other purchases related to your business.

Billing: Whether you choose to charge a portion of your fees upfront vs after the work is complete is up to you. It may also depend on the ability of the client to pay. Do your billing in a timely manner and expect prompt payment. You can offer paypal as an option if you do not process credit cards.
Support Team: Know a graphic artist, copywriter, and fellow developer who are willing to help you out. Be sure to include a provision for their fees in your initial quote and contract.

Time: If you work 9-5 and go to school, when are you going to run your business. Set a time to work on a consistent basis.

Fear: You will have it. Just break down the requirements into manageable tasks and tackle them one by one.

Learn to say NO. Accept only projects that excite or inspire you. Some clients won’t be worth the hassle but don’t let fear make you say no to quickly. Some of my best clients continue to challenge my abilities which in turn helps me grow as a developer.