Hello! I want to offer my services for big website firms, what do you guys think is the most important things I have to prove to them so they would consider to outsource some work to me? Quality design, I can meet deadlines, low prices etc...? One thing is that I am Swedish, but I don't live in Sweden. But I want, or I hope that I can make website design firms from Sweden to outsource some work to me. So I cant make a meeting with them and at the same time sell my service in a more better way, because as you know a personal meeting with the client is much better than sending an e-mail or a phone call...or that is what I think. So I really have to prove in this e-mail that I am serious and can help them, but as a freelancer I don't know how the "big" website design firms think and what they think is important. Please give me some advice, that I can use when I will write down a good selling e-mail that I will send to websites firms. Best regards Simon
Hi Simon, My advise is to first build some decent portfolio. You should offer your services for a cheap price to few people here at Digital Point just to build up some nice portfolio. If you want to work for some Swedish webdesing or webdevelopment company, you'll certainly need to show them some samples of your previous work or else they will have no reason to trust you. Richard
The "big" design firms typically follow one of two paths: 1) Their reputation preceeds them and they don't need to look for clients, clients come looking for them. 2) Small-to-medium size firms typically have a few dedicated sales people that know the industry and how to approach them. Small fish like yourself, I would start by looking on sites like craigslist. There's a lot of people posting simple design jobs in the 'Computer Gigs' section for every major city. You won't make a huge amount of money, but it's a good place to get you started and to build up a respectable portfolio so you can actually approach the big clients.
Thanks for the advice, if we say that I have a nice portfolio. Is it the only important thing for big firms?
Usually yes. However a list of references they can contact is usually good as well. But for the most people, people only look for portfolio's when looking at designers.