Hi all, I am wondering if you could provide me with some hard truths here. I am a freelancer/business owner and have been doing so for the past couple of years. I build websites, brand identities and specialize in ecommerce.
With all of the talk of AI, sometimes it’s scary to think that maybe this line of work isn’t as viable as it once was. But I want to know your thoughts on this.
I have had success doing this work but not as much as I would like and in more recent years of doing it, it’s been a challenge to figure out if it is still worth pursuing this business. Is there still a high demand? Is the lack of clients just my own wrong doing marketing wise? Is this something even worth pursuing anymore and putting my energy towards? If it is, what should I be doing differently?
I would love to know if anyone has any tips on this and just hearing from other business owners who have kind of hit their “rock bottom” in business and what they did to succeed.
Posted by al_b21
3 Comments
If you build amazing websites, I can assure you you will still have work for many years, AI can do good websites, but none can do maintenance, most serious company will not hire someone who know how to do basic websites with AI, they will prefer someone who know what they doing, who know how to scale when needed and how to solve issues.
Remember that AI is a big help and has many limitations when you start a serious business; it cannot do everything in your place.
For me, as someone who has tried and failed to hire freelancers in your area, half of the time it’s about your ability to actually connect with and diligently understand what the client is looking for and to actually deliver and leverage your expertise to give them what they want.
So many times the value prop seems to be “you give me money, I give you something you may or may not like. If you don’t like it, you can give me more money and I will keep working on it”.
One person broke through the clutter of the hundreds of ads and outreach by offering me a flat fee with up to ___ hours but guaranteed that he could give me a sneak preview before I committed to paying. There was nothing for me to lose so I said yes, he blew me away with his sneak preview, I said yes, and now I hired him for additional projects.
Perhaps there’s a way you can better connect w/ the people you’re trying to sell to?
Keep going, don’t give up, we all go through tough business times.
Build an Upwork account if you haven’t, and work on your LinkedIn network.
Things will eventually work out, remember that most people aren’t putting in consistent work.
Consistency is the real differentiator in business.