Finding Gigs vs. Finding Projects

ARTICLE BY James Costa | POSTED ON April 20th, 2010 | Freelancing and Business | 3 Comments

The design and development community is over-saturated to say the least. We’re competing for any given client with a number of others that didn’t use to be as large some 3 or 4 years ago. Anyone who grabs a warez copy of Photoshop and Dreamweaver automatically calls themselves web designers. People constantly keep undercutting, and we’re all losing by the end of it. This isn’t a new topic by any means – we know the state of the industry we work in. We’re in it for our reasons, and we stay in it because we love what we do.

That, my friends, is the deciding factor. Do you love what you do? In fact, let’s think about this. It’s one thing to do and say something – but do you walk the walk? To do design is to be a designer (replace design with development/marketer/specialist/analyst/etc – it all works). When someone asks you for your opinion on a piece, your mind automatically analyzes it in any way – hell, you do this regardless of whether or not they ask your opinion. When someone needs help with improving their web product, you automatically think of the possibilities and analyze the the problems to find solutions. We are designers. We love what we do, because we honestly love ourselves. I said it.

For the hell of it, I’m going to go on a whim and say that since you’re reading this, you are a designer. You want to succeed, because this work is something more than what you do. By doing what you do, you are what you do. So then why are we lowering ourselves to such a level that we’re bargaining with ten year olds that are offering $50 websites? Why are we going for those clients, when we can be doing other – bigger – things?

To explain this idea of Work vs. Projects, let’s first go over a phrase everyone has heard. A job vs. a career. There are some people who are in this community for the reason that they need a job right now. They’re able to barter for those incessantly-low prices because they are desperate for the money. Okay, so we’re desperate for the money too, but since we take our work more seriously, we’re not going to undersell our services. This profession is our career, so what are we doing looking for short-term gigs? Should we not be looking for long-term ones? I mean, we’re in this for the long-run, right?

Work vs. Projects

I’m creating (another) challenge for the community today. I dare you to find projects. I dare you to put your effort into finding projects and calling them just that. The Phuse doesn’t have a tab up top called Projects without reason. We call our work projects because we put more time into our clients than the other guys. We take pride in our work, and put a vested interest in the success of the product. When we stay with the client along their adventure, they find more work for us.

Let’s Talk About Projects

Okay, so what’s a project, and how can we tell a project from a gig? A project is any gig that is long-term. It’s always tough to determine a project from a gig because, let’s face it, not many people who have inquired for The Phuse’s services have said they didn’t have more work for them. So what gives?

I always meet with inquiries before I take them on as projects. Before I talk about the work we do at The Phuse, I let the client talk about their project, what they need, and what the future looks like for the project. I get them to tell me how many people are on board, where they’re getting funding, and who’s going to be managing and maintaining the site. From this, I’ll be able to quickly say whether or not I’m interested in the project not based on what they do, but how they respond.

Potential clients that are excited, have interesting ideas, and have a positive attitude to keep the gears moving forward are the clients I work with. And if they don’t seem up my alley? I refer them to the next guy. Sorry, next guy.

Everyone wants these projects, though, so people are still going to undercut you, right? So what can we do to get these projects while keeping our sanity and self-respect?

Put Your Foot In the Door

If you do nothing else, put your foot in the door. If you can’t get the client, while you have their attention make sure they know that you’re the best. Make sure they know that you’re the difference between a Mac and a PC – and Mac is always better (just kidding… or am I?). Make them want to work with you whether it be now or a few months down the line. Just make sure you’re ready to open the door your foot is in that few months down the line!

Do Half the Job Amazing

I have never been so inspired to act by a business book like I am of 37Signal’s Rework. There is a clever little phrase that Jason Fried goes over that essentially states we shouldn’t ever be giving out a half-assed product. When we do, we find that we feel shitty about ourselves putting something out there (regardless of whether our name is on it or not) that we didn’t do our best on.

So here’s a challenge for us: tell the client we’ll do it for their price, but we’ll create half the product. So they want a design and developed site that they can manage content on, but have a small budget? Let’s build the website static, and take the money. That way, instead of making a half-assed product, we make half of the product amazing. I mean, if the client is serious about the project, they’ll eventually find the money to cover the rest of the project.

Create Amazing Partnerships

Too many of us freelance and only do half of the project. We offer design services, but we don’t offer development or vice-versa, and our client ends up having to find someone to do the other half. This is where some nice little marketing comes in: find people who specialize, and team up with them.

Case and point; The Phuse was recently referred to an amazing little Ruby team in Atlanta, Georgia. These folks specialize in Ruby on Rails development. They don’t design. They don’t do the front-end. They specialized because they knew that there was a big niche in RoR development. So this partnership we created works right up our alley. We work on the front-end stuff for clients they have, and they(‘ll be) work(ing) on the back end stuff for some of our clients.

There are plenty of people out there that are doing parts of jobs getting clients that need other things. Content strategists. Illustrators. Designers. Developers. Marketers. UX analysts. Find these people, and befriend them through message boards, Twitter, or whatever else you stalk daily. Now when these people have a client that says “you gave me X, now I need Y and Z”, they’ll say “well, I can’t provide Y and Z, but I know a guy…”

Do You Choose Projects?

What clients do you take on? Do you only look for gigs, or are you looking for projects? How do you find your projects, and what suggestions do you have to get in the door with these projects. Share your thoughts in the comments, below!

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