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I try to stay away from sites like that in the first place, because I see wasting a lot of time building a reputation before getting actual work. It just never

I try to stay away from sites like that in the first place, because I see wasting a lot of time building a reputation before getting actual work. It just never made sense to me. The sites like Freelancer and oDesk are saturated with highly competitive, cheap developers from Asia anyway. It's annoying. Nothing against Asians, but I wouldn't try to dive into a pool of them to get work. It's unrealistic in most cases, because they eat up opportunity like machines -- in large numbers. Better off just cold calling.

billmalarky 12y ago
How do you cold call? Who do you cold call?
- ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
  Just find a local web design agency, for example, and send them an email introducing yourself and asking for work. There's plenty of resources about this, shouldn't be a huge mystery.
- gregthompsonjr 12y ago
  That remark was mostly meant to be understood as a joke, but since you asked: Depending on what you're doing, you can Google businesses that need help, get their contact details, and go to town. See a business with a busted site? Check for their contact details, call them up or email them, try to get a response, convince them of why they need you to build them a better site. Cold call.
- manarth 12y ago
  I worked for a medium-size web agency who used a third-party marketing company. That marketing company cold-called companies on their database, kept track of things like when they last had their website rebuilt, what technology they used, the features, the name of the decision-maker or person responsible for procurement, etc. I believe the marketing company were on retainer by a number of web agencies, and when they found a lead, they referred it to the most appropriate agency (for a percentage commission) - the agency then continued the sales process (e.g. with a pitch, an RFP response, etc). I suspect there are a few reasons this model worked: * The marketing company maintained their database over the long term, so they could discuss previous developments, plans the customer was making, etc. * Providing leads to a number of web agencies (rather than each agency having a small in-house telemarketing team) gave the marketing company a greater economy of scale, which meant they could afford to invest in tools and training that were specific to telemarketing. * Providing leads to a number of web agencies allowed the marketing company to generate revenue (commission) from a more diverse set of needs, e.g. sharepoint projects to one agency, wordpress projects to a different agency, etc. If a small agency were doing their own telemarketing, their conversion rate would generally be lower, because they would end up missing out on potentials leads, from not having a particular specialisation.

billmalarky 12y ago

How do you cold call? Who do you cold call?

ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
Just find a local web design agency, for example, and send them an email introducing yourself and asking for work. There's plenty of resources about this, shouldn't be a huge mystery.
gregthompsonjr 12y ago
That remark was mostly meant to be understood as a joke, but since you asked: Depending on what you're doing, you can Google businesses that need help, get their contact details, and go to town. See a business with a busted site? Check for their contact details, call them up or email them, try to get a response, convince them of why they need you to build them a better site. Cold call.
manarth 12y ago
I worked for a medium-size web agency who used a third-party marketing company. That marketing company cold-called companies on their database, kept track of things like when they last had their website rebuilt, what technology they used, the features, the name of the decision-maker or person responsible for procurement, etc. I believe the marketing company were on retainer by a number of web agencies, and when they found a lead, they referred it to the most appropriate agency (for a percentage commission) - the agency then continued the sales process (e.g. with a pitch, an RFP response, etc). I suspect there are a few reasons this model worked: * The marketing company maintained their database over the long term, so they could discuss previous developments, plans the customer was making, etc. * Providing leads to a number of web agencies (rather than each agency having a small in-house telemarketing team) gave the marketing company a greater economy of scale, which meant they could afford to invest in tools and training that were specific to telemarketing. * Providing leads to a number of web agencies allowed the marketing company to generate revenue (commission) from a more diverse set of needs, e.g. sharepoint projects to one agency, wordpress projects to a different agency, etc. If a small agency were doing their own telemarketing, their conversion rate would generally be lower, because they would end up missing out on potentials leads, from not having a particular specialisation.