Reality
Howdy,
It's been a while since I last posted. A few months back I decided I was going to get in the arena and try to put the skills that I do have to use and try earn some income from them. In my case, I know how to make websites. So I thought I would start a web design agency. And I did. My website is up.
I threw the website together, to try and get something up. But I hate it:
- It is too wordy.
- There a big lack of imagery/icons.
- It doesn't scan well.
- There is no social proof.
These are all the aspects that I need to be bringing to any future client projects. But alas, I need clients. Those clients are going to come from outreach initially, it is highly unlikely anyone is going to stumble upon my website and ask me to build I site for them without any social proof.
In a previous post, I mentioned getting a client. This was someone I knew, who has a small business and wanted a website. Well, I've got my first taste of what it can be like when doing client work. Things fizzled out with this person because they didn't get back to me with the stuff I required, so I couldn't really get anything done.
I floundered around for a bit until about two weeks ago, until I eventually worked up the courage to ask a guy at work, who I'm friendly with, if he wanted a website for the cake baking business he runs on the side. He was rapt, and we got to work straight away. Working with him has been the polar opposite. He's been prompt in providing me with things like images and feedback on designs etc.
As things stand, he has approved the design and I am now actually coding his site. I hope he like the end result.
The little voice inside my head is never far away though. As of late, I have been dealing with internal chatter about "Maybe you should build a small product" and "Ooh that's a cool SaaS idea". I am trying to take these voices for what I think they are, my mind's procrastination mechanism for not wanting to put myself out there and potentially open myself up for criticism. I need to take these as a signal that I am on the right track and follow through with this.
My plan is to do 2 more free projects and then re-do my website, so that I can face the next challenge: reaching out to people to pitch my services. I am scared to death about having to do this, but as they say: no pain, no gain.
This post was last edited 2 hours, 49 minutes ago.