Monetising my new skills in Web Design

I know some people who have found not having a portfolio to not be such a big deal, but I think it could only help and it's not too hard to get started.

Do you have any favorite businesses you patronize that you could offer to do a cheap or free website for? Maybe a local restaurant or coffee shop that would let you place flyers or business cards on their tables in exchange for a free website?

How about a local charity or church? Have you asked friends or family if they know anyone who could use a website?

You could also design a few templates to use as examples in your portfolio, but I think if you're going to go to the trouble of designing something, you might as well do it for a local business or charity where you can possibly benefit from some referrals and positive word of mouth advertising.

Good luck!

Steve

My experience when I was first starting was that people were reluctant to give me their money without seeing past results. Although in hindsight this might of been a roadblock put up by myself showing lack of confidence. However, my success lied in building cheap(ish) or free (think - by donation) websites for friends and family who had legit businesses (not your aunties kitten mittens company). These websites allowed me to have a portfolio to show potential clients and also led to referrals and more confidence when selling.

So as Steve mentioned I would suggest getting some portfolio sites done for cheap or free and then use those for your portfolio (and ask for referrals!). Keep in mind this is just my suggestions and what worked for me, I'm sure others in the forum would find this being a waste of your time.

Good luck with your transition into the web design side of the business!

I started off years ago offering my services at very discounted rates as a means to building up my portfolio in exchange for testimonies. Its a great way to get started.

I've sold $10k web designs... without a website to show and no portfolio. The only person that necessarily needs a portfolio is YOU. I went a good 6 months before we had a website to show and that was just because of the VERY FEW people that asked to see a website with portfolios... but they were never going to close anyway; tirekickers.

You're ability to sell web design has EVERYTHING to do with your ability to sell them that you're going to give them a website that will bring in more business/sales/revenue and NOTHING to do with have a portfolio... That usually stems from just being scared of not having the right rebuttals.

It's like thinking of going up to girl in a bar and asking her out... and all you think about is that she's going to slap you or embarrass you in front of her friends. Can it happen? Yes. Is it likely? Not really.

I agree with Voasi - I regularly sell higher ticket website designs, without ever being asked for previous work. Funnily enough, in my experience, selling at a low price generally attracts customers who want to see previous work, who want to speak to clients, etc. Selling at a high price (confidently) only gives me a yes or a no.

When it comes to price, remember that the customer sets their value of your work, not you. You can influence that, but you can't determine it. If someone thinks that websites are worth $100, you probably will have to do a lot of justifying to raise their price. However, if someone thinks websites are worth $100,000, then you have a different conversation going.

I found, in the very beginning, the trick was to just contact hundreds and hundreds of people. Easiest place to look for me was the yellow pages - simply because the people in there are obviously willing to spend money on advertising, and (depending on their market) probably aren't getting a great return on their investment in the yellow pages - because, really, who looks at the yellow pages anymore? So straight away I had a book of people that were potential customers. Then just go through and find people without a website and give them a call.

I was always really trepidatious about contacting prospects, until I spent a week contacting over 100 people and simply trying to get a yes or a no out them (maybes not allowed). By doing that, I removed all nervousness out of the equation and just made it fun - how many "answers" can I get today?

I started off selling my web design services for $1500 to $15000 with no portfolio and it was not very hard at all.

First of all, you need to make sure that you are pre-qualifying your potential customers. Make sure the you know what type of customer you are getting before you get to even talking about doing a website for them. Find out about their current site, why do not have a site, if they understand what a site means to their business, etc etc. Knowing this will help you know if they are will to pay good prices for a site or not.....and you are getting to know THEM which goes along way to them trusting you.

Second, you do not have to show them a portfolio at all. The two techniques I use since I still do not really have any kind of portfolio is...

First, get them to show you sites they like in the 3 follow categories, Layout, Colours/style and finally functionality. You tell them you can give them what they are looking for but the best examples are the ones that they find themselves, even if it is their direct competitors. The entire internet is your portfolio since you should be able to replicate 90% of the sites out there.

Then if that is not quite your cup of tea, the other approach is to get the basic details of the site they want and show them a handful of purchased themes/templates demos for them to finalize the design. Again, using other peoples work as a sudo-portfolio.

This is the way I do the majority of my work since I do not stick to one business niche and my web design works comes from all business types and website styles. There is no way for me to have a portfolio for every type of website style, layout, functionality etc etc...so why even bother...

Voasi and the others have summed it up well.

The need for a portfolio is mostly in your own mind.

There are two kinds of people in this world:

1. Those who care that you don't have a portfolio

and

2. Those who don't care that you don't have a portfolio.

Your job is very simple. You want to sort the people you talk to into either category, and continue the conversation with group 2.

Now we're into Qualifying.

Does this prospect recognize the need for a website like you can make?

Does this prospect have the ability to pay you at the level you deserve?

Does this prospect have the right personality to work with you with a minimum of upset?

The problem most people have when selling is not having a consistent sales process. Find out the answers to these three questions and you'll be able to have good prospects who you can turn into good clients.

Thanks to everyone who has answered my questions. I will get onto a bit of cold calling from tomorrow.

I will keep you updated on how things go.

I did my first day of cold calling for web design. I was targeting Italian and Spanish restaurants.

In the end, I got 1 lead from a Spanish restaurant, who said that he interested in my services...

BUT...

He wanted to see my previous work because he was speaking to another web design company who have a nice portfolio of restaurants, I know I can provide a good looking site for him. He seems open minded about working with me, but I don't know what to do, because I don'y have a portfolio.

Any suggestions?

I followed up all the calls I made on Thursday where the business owner wasn't there. From this I got one guy interested in my offer of £1500 for a SEO / Social Media optimised responsive website.

Plus I got a meeting with a restaurant owner next week about doing a similar job on his site.

In 2 days I've contacted 25 businesses.

Got 4 potential leads.

I will continue with cold calling next week. Hopefully, I can get a closed deal this point next week.

Thanks guys.

That's awesome Chameleon,

How are you going about creating your call lists?

Are you just using your local phone book, google local, software...

Have an awesome day
Adrian