To be totally honest, a small portion of my business is based on a handshake (and a prayer). I sometimes get caught up in the excitement of landing a deal and forgo any form of written agreement. Maybe it’s a fear that adding steps or rocking the boat with a formal freelance contract will give the client a chance to pause and reflect on the project at hand. I suppose I worry they will scrutinize and possibly reconsider our arrangement if they’re faced with the finer details in black & white.

These insecurities are silly, of course. Whenever I kick-off an engagement without something in writing, I’m taking a HUGE risk. Don’t do as I do—do as I say: Every freelance project should have a contract.

We actually get into the importance of freelance contracts on podcast episode #4 with Tom Jepson.

Why Freelance Contracts Matter

Whenever I admit to someone I don’t always use a contract, I inevitably get the “tisk tisk” response—and for good reason! A pinky swear doesn’t hold up in court. A high-five is no guarantee of future payment. Why introduce undue risk into your growing business? You have enough to worry about!

A freelance contract protects both you and your client. Any fears of pushback or resistance are nonsense. In fact, I once had a potential client second-guess working with me because I didn’t send them a contract by default. They sensed I was a sketchy, fly by night operation. It works both ways too. If someone is reluctant to put your terms in writing, that’s a red flag for you; the service provider.

Defining the scope of work in a contract will also minimize the chances of a project going off the rails. SO common in the creative industry. This is your opportunity to clearly specify the terms of your engagement. What’s included? What’s not? How are requests outside of the SOW billed?

There is one added benefit of implementing freelance contracts in your client onboarding workflow: valuation. This may never apply to you, but should you ever try to sell your business in the future, buyers are going to be looking for contracts. Otherwise, what guarantee do they have that revenue will remain steady and projects will stay in line?

What’s in a Contract?

A freelance contract doesn’t have to be an exhaustive 40-page document. Bare minimum, it’s a signed letter of engagement between you and your client that touches on the agreed-upon rates and when payments will be due. The more detail you include in your agreement, the more protected you are and the better expectations will be managed on both sides.

For larger projects like complete website design & development, I urge you to take the time to fully express the scope of work and deliverables. Be sure to include what the hourly rate will be for any out-of-scope requests or change orders.

If the client is responsible for furnishing certain items such as text content or photos, note that as well. This will prevent the infamous “I thought that was included” email down the road.

One thing I’m especially careful about in any sort of formal agreement is the project timeline. These things can be hard to predict to begin with. If you overshot a deadline date in the contract, would it make the entire document null and void? I’m no lawyer but I wouldn’t chance it. I usually say something along the lines of, “Estimated Project Timeline: 60-90 days.” That’s solid enough to make most clients happy, yet soft enough to give you breathing room.

Now you might be thinking, “I’m not an attorney. I have no business writing contracts!” Sure, you can seek legal counsel to draft a custom, properly-worded contract template for your business and take the extra step to get it notarized each time you bring on a new project. Such measures may be overkill for a freelancer just starting out, though. That’s what everyone should do—but a signed napkin covered in coffee stains is better than nothing in writing at all.

I’ve never been to court with a client and I hope you have the same good fortune. There have been a few close calls with being ghosted before payment and I don’t want that feeling ever again. A mutually-signed (and dated) document can be a powerful motivator for both parties to hold up their end of the deal.

Where to Find Freelance Contracts

This can all be an easy breezy online process for you. There are several tools and resources out there to make building a freelance contract and collecting e-signatures as painless as possible for all involved.

As you know, I use Fiverr Workspace for all of my invoicing needs. They also have built-in proposal and contract features that I use often. Everything is in one place so I have all signed documents, invoices, and payments tied to a client record—complete paper trail every step of the way. Other alternatives you might wanna check out are DocuSign and PandaDoc.

If you need some help with the wording and format for your contract, check out LawDepot or TemplateLab. Heck, even LegalZoom offers a Website Development Agreement template.

Now you are well-informed and ready to protect your bottom line. So when the next gig comes along, let’s put some ink to paper!

So you’re beginning to see the profit potential of starting a web design business. Great! Likely by now, you’ve built at least a few sites for practice and are ready to go legit. Here in the good ol’ U.S., we have seemingly endless freedom and opportunity to put a stake in the ground and build wealth on our own terms. This is the land of entrepreneurship—AFTER you do some paperwork, of course.

What’s in a Name?

I’m ashamed of how cheesy the title of this section is. Alas, we’ll move forward. You need to come up with a name for your web design business. Back in my Fiverr days, people would hire me every day to help them develop the perfect moniker for their new venture (not always an easy task). It’s oddly personal and subjective and almost too important to outsource.

Sure, right now you may be a solo act cranking out cheap Wix sites in your parent’s basement—but what about the future? This name needs to not only encompass what you are today, but what you might be someday. Who knows… you could be a full-fledged creative agency with 30+ employees in the next few years. “Marty’s Decent Sites LLC” might not age well as you grow.

Take some time to find that perfect balance between clever and meaningful. Imagine a prospect telling their boss or a boardroom the name of your business. I usually shoot for memorable yet provocative. Oh, and don’t forget to factor in domain name availability!

Make it Official

In order to accept payments from clients, you’ll need to legally form a company. Most people in the beginning stages of their web design business will elect for an LLC. This option is ideal because it protects you (the owner) from the company’s liabilities affecting your personal assets.

You aren’t gonna be messing with payroll or anything crazy like that out of the gate. An LLC is a pass-through entity so you avoid all that double taxation rubbish. Overall, it’s an easy breezy way to get up and running officially. Services like LegalZoom make it even simpler (and faster). Be warned: once you form an LLC, your days of straightforward free online tax filings are likely over. Get yourself an accountant, track all of your business-related expenses, pay your quarterly estimated taxes, and don’t leave money on the table. The formation process takes a few weeks, depending on your state, and will run you a few hundred bucks.

FUN TIP: When you file for an LLC, they will require you to choose a Registered Agent. This is essentially a place for official mail to be sent if they can’t find a direct address for you. LegalZoom offers this service but you can get it MUCH cheaper with a quick Google search. Mine is less than $40/year.

Take THAT to the Bank

What is with me and these section titles today? In my defense, you really DO need to take your LLC formation documents to the bank. Make an appointment to sit down with one of their business specialists and set up an account.

Personally, I have two accounts: one checking and one savings. The checking is where all my company’s revenue lands. From there, I make frequent transfers to the savings account for taxes and my own personal account for salary draws. All of my business expenses and recurring charges are debited from the checking account. This makes for a nice clean separation between everything.

Keep in mind, when you start using billing software, it will integrate with your bank account(s). This facilitates automated, real time expense tracking and one-click accounting every year. So you aren’t gonna want it linked to an account that has a mix of business and personal activity.

FUN TIP: A lawyer friend once told me it’s wise to use a different bank for your business than you do for your personal life. This adds another hurdle of protection in case there’s ever an incident where assets are being frozen or possessed. I didn’t take this advice myself, but do with it what you will.

Put Yourself Out There

Look at you with your newly-formed, tax-paying LLC! Not only is it refreshing to be in the good graces of government, but it gives your clients an added layer of confidence as well. You’re legit. You’re a big boy or girl now!

All that’s left is to start telling the world about your web design business. Build a website, make some business cards, and get to work!

It’s always interesting to see how people learn about me or discover MMMW. I’m keenly aware one of my claims to fame is being an OG Top Seller on Fiverr. We’re talking straight up trailblazer here. Last year, I made the (very) difficult choice to deactivate my Fiverr account—which I will get into later in this post. My purpose today is to let you in on my personal experience with the platform in hopes that it can some way help your freelance career.

What is Fiverr?

Much like UpWork or Guru, Fiverr is a marketplace of creative freelancers offering services in their respective specialties. One element that makes Fiverr stand out from the rest early on was their $5 starting price point on all gigs. Nowadays, it’s actually rare to find anything of value on there for five bucks—but the gimmick helped them quickly gain a massive following of loyal clients and creators.

People use Fiverr to take projects off their plate. The platform has everything from logo design to explainer video production to data analytics. It’s not just for cash-strapped entrepreneurs either. Major brands like Netflix, PayPal, and Facebook trust Fiverr for ongoing creative support.

My Fiverr Experience

I joined Fiverr early on while living in New York City. At the time, I was working for a non-profit and desperately needed to supplement my income. I can’t remember specifically how I stumbled upon the platform—but it’s safe to say they didn’t have Super Bowl commercials back then. It was like the wild west. There were maybe a few hundred sellers besides myself. Of course I’d love to assume people were crazy about my creative perspective but I owe a lot of my initial success to the lack of competition.

My first gig was selling ad space on one of my high-ranking websites. I set up a Sponsors page and allowed buyers to add their hyperlinked logo. This type of offering would never fly today as we now know a page with 300 outbound links is garbage in Google’s eyes. It gave me my first taste of Fiverr riches, though, AND helped boost my seller reputation. When I graduated to more legitimate, service-based gigs, I had a solid rating to rest on.

I experimented with a handful of gigs with varying success. One of which, slogan writing, became my white whale. Did I mention I had never written a slogan in my life? Fast forward to completing over 17,000 orders; bringing in nearly $140,000. It would be impossible to count how many companies are out there using my taglines to this day!

Anyone reading this and thinking, “okay, I’ll do THAT too” might wanna think again. I had a bunch of copycats pop up in the Business Writing category throughout my tenure on Fiverr. Most of them learned the hard way that the marketplace is unforgiving to unoriginal ripoffs. My customers were loyal and my feedback spoke for itself.

On a somewhat “results not typical” side note; I soon found myself in the Fiverr fold, so to speak. They invited me to their exclusive events in NYC, interviewed me for their blog, and hired me for various pilot programs with major corporate brands. I was even at their company holiday party! I’m not sure if they do that stuff anymore, but it really made me feel deeply connected with and invested in their mission.

At the peak of my Fiverr career, I was earning over $3,000 each month—but at what cost? When I joined the platform at age 25, extra walkin’ around money was my singular goal. Fast forward 6 years or so, I’m taking freelance web design WAY more seriously; trying to build a real business. Saying goodbye to that income was not a decision I took lightly. I toiled over it for months before pulling the plug. Fiverr was the ultimate security blanket, but spending hours each day earning $5 a pop was neither sustainable or scalable. Factor in the mental gymnastics of working with 20 different companies simultaneously and the anguish of coping with semi-frequent unpleasant personalities… it was time to move on.

Do I regret my years spent on Fiverr? Heck no! In what other realm is it even fathomable to gain professional experience doing work for 15,000+ clients across countless industries? Not to mention, it helped me pay for my wedding and buy my first AND second homes. Financial perks aside, it made me the ultimate freelancer! Look, my personal mission evolved but Fiverr might be the perfect fit for you right now. Don’t discount what this platform can do for your supplemental income and short-term goals!

How to Succeed on Fiverr

Allow me to reiterate once again that joining ANY of the freelance marketplaces today will be an uphill battle for a new user. Is it impossible? Nope! It’s just a challenge that requires patience, determination, and a little faith. The rewards of which can potentially change your life for the better. So, where to begin?

Set Your Expectations

I want you to make money on Fiverr but I don’t want you to jump in with a sugar-coated notion that this is easy money. Unlike UpWork, buyers on Fiverr tend to have budgets on the lower end. As a seller, this is a volume play for you. Forget about the off chance you’ll land a $1,500 landing page request. Focus on selling a lot of something much smaller. Remember, I crawled my way through the Fiverr algorithm just $5 at a time.

Find Your Sweet Spot

Spend some time browsing the various categories in Fiverr to see what services are succeeding currently. Now, duplicating those gigs will get you nowhere. You are brand new. You must find YOUR gig. With such a flooded marketplace, niching down and being super specific will help you stand out. Instead of “Logo Design” maybe consider “Vintage Style Logo Design”. The more specific, the better—while not being SO fringe that nobody needs the service, of course.

Pump it Up

When you create your first gig on Fiverr, you will be virtually invisible in the search results. These are the hard facts. The algorithm is designed to serve buyers with their most likely shot at gig happiness. An unknown seller with an untested service is too much of a gamble.

To start gaining the trust and traction of the all-powerful Fiverr Gods, you need to prove yourself. The more positive ratings you get, while delivering on-time and being responsive to new inquiries, the more prominently you will appear in your category. Yes, it’s the classic chicken and egg conundrum once again. How do you get a rating if you can’t get an order? YOU must go out and get the first few yourself. Friends, family, employer, whatever—beg your circle to order your gig and leave feedback. The more they spend, the better. It’s a bit of a fake it til you make it situation. Keep this up until the real, organic buyers start purchasing.

Alternatively, you could always create landing pages or mini-sites linking to each of your gigs and send paid traffic to them. It could get expensive but will probably become a worthy investment soon enough.

Service First

At the height of my Fiverr momentum, I was getting 30 new orders per DAY. It’s not always easy to maintain stellar communication and brilliant quality standards at that volume. Take it from me… you MUST prioritize customer service and on-time delivery. On the few occasions I let these two critical factors lapse, my bottom line suffered greatly.

A handful of missteps eventually cost me my Top Seller status, demoted me to Level 1, and forced me to crawl my way back to the top. It was grueling. Honestly, my order flow never really recovered fully. Do not miss a beat! Stay on top of Fiverr; keep the browser tab open, download the app, constantly refresh the page. Your reputation and ranking on the site is not something easily rebuilt.

Here are a handful of guidelines to live by if you want to achieve lasting success on the platform:

• Deliver on-time, every single time
• Never (ever) pause your gigs
• Write short, sweet, SEO-friendly gig titles
• The first sentence in your gig description needs to be the best
• Under-promise and over-deliver when possible
• Maintain a document with frequently asked questions and perfect answers to save time fielding inquiries
• Follow-up with unhappy buyers to see what it would take to get a better rating
• Fiverr’s search algorithm favors videos over static gig artwork
• Never include “Message me before you order” in your gig description
• Do not send mass messages or spam (ever)
• Stay active on the Fiverr Forum and participate in their virtual events

Always Upselling

This is just one of the tenets of commerce in general—but applies especially to the Fiverr marketplace. When you create a gig, make your base price very reasonable with plenty of value to the buyer. You might even take a loss on that tier because this game is ALL about the upsell. Your higher tiers and Gig Extras should be so irresistible, buyers get major FOMO at the mere thought of not upgrading.

Fiverr does a great job of pushing buyers to spend more during the checkout process, but YOU have to bring some strategy to the table. Give it some real thought and plan out your offerings to encourage high-ticket sales.

You have probably seen web designers on marketplaces like UpWork and Freelancer who are raking in tens of thousands of dollars per month (or more). No doubt, those platforms are good places to nab a steady stream of small jobs—IF you have an established reputation. Getting to that point is a massive uphill climb, though. As a newbie, you are one in a million; lost in a sea of competition. That’s why I’m always looking for unconventional places to find new clients. Earlier this month, I quadrupled my investment in a surprisingly effective lead generation tool; Thumbtack!

If you’re thinking Thumbtack is just for plumbers and carpet installers, you’re not alone. Truth be told, I went into this experiment expecting to come up empty. Part of my job is to try things out so you don’t have to. Well, needless to say—you might wanna give Thumbtack a chance! I truly believe if you fully commit to any lead generation channel AND put in real effort, you will see results.

What is Thumbtack?

At its core, Thumbtack is an app that allows homeowners to find local experts who can help with specific jobs around the house. For the most part, people use it to get fences painted, ceiling fans installed, walls patched, etc. However, believe it or not, thousands of people use it to find creative contractors every day (this was news to me too)! Thumbtack may not put website development and logo design out there as its primary service line, but we still get to benefit from their global marketing machine.

Getting Started

It’s fairly straightforward to join Thumbtack as a contractor and set up your profile. Depending on the number of services you intend to offer, it can be time-consuming—so set aside a couple hours at least. You don’t wanna half-ass your profile as it’s essentially a selling proposition to potential customers. Try your best to provide all the items it asks for to ensure your page is as complete as possible. The more content for the app to grab onto, the more exposure you could get. It will ask you for photos of relevant jobs too. This is a great place for your portfolio of work.

When you first join the site, Thumbtack will offer a deal if you pre-purchase credits in bulk. I took them up on this promotion and I’m glad I did. I haven’t seen the offer since.

How Thumbtack Works for Contractors

If you’ve ever been on the customer side of Thumbtack, you know how it works; submit details of your job and the system picks a few recommended providers for you to consider. I’m assuming they do things this way because there are so many contractors for each category. It would be too overwhelming for homeowners to scroll through dozens (or hundreds) of options. This is more of a curated experience AND it gives the lesser-known contractors a fighting chance.

If a customer selects you to bid on their job, that’s called a Direct Lead—and you are automatically charged by Thumbtack for each one. The amount you’ll pay varies on things like the type of job, its size, number of pros available, and your market. When that lead lands in your inbox, the ball is in your court. It’s up to you to turn those few lines of text into a relationship. Sometimes you reply to a request and never hear from them again. Well thanks, jerk, you cost me $150! That’s the game, though. Over time, you just hope the business generated from good leads overshadows the wasted expense of the bad ones. There is some luck involved, but a lot of it has to do with your ability to be responsive, knowledgeable, reasonable, and say all the right things.

I’ll admit, being active on Thumbtack was a bit stressful for me. Of course I wanted to be super immediately responsive to any new inquiries but they seemed to always come in at the worst times. You can’t turn off the faucet once it starts. As long as you have a card on file, you could get charged at any moment. If you delete your payment method, Thumbtack won’t let you access your old leads, messages, or opportunities screen. You can, however, pause for 30 days at a time—which is what I’m doing at the moment. Needed a breather to share my experience with y’all!

My Results

I launched my profile on March 8th. In my first 14 days on Thumbtack, I spent $331.58 and made $1,550.31. That’s a healthy profit by any standard! In case you’re curious, here’s a quick rundown of where the cash came from:

John R.
He needed help getting his dropshipping store setup. We ended up doing two full days of e-commerce coaching for $500 and then some extra billable work for $142.50.

Greg Z.
His online tea shop was getting lots of traffic but very few orders. I did a full conversion analysis of his Shopify store for $95 and was then asked to execute those suggestions for $522.50.

Laura M.
This was a wicked sketchy deal from the beginning and I don’t care who knows it. I won’t go into too much detail but the task at hand was never fully defined and every email seemed to be more confusing than the last. Although this one had long-term potential, I ended up showing myself the door after doing $290.31 worth of billable work.

Between those promising leads, I had a handful of people ghost me, scoff at my prices, and waste my time in numerous other ways. That’s okay! In the end, I 4X’d my money using a lesser-known source of new business.

Getting Web Design Clients on Thumbtack

I’ve learned a few things in my short time on Thumbtack so far. For the self-motivated freelancer, there are actually THREE ways to land new clients on the platform:

1. Direct Leads

You receive a Direct Lead when a customer creates a job on Thumbtack, sees your profile in the recommended contractors list, and clicks the “Contact for price” button. Since these leads are deemed a good match by Thumbtack, you are automatically charged for them (anywhere from $30-$175 each). You cannot get a refund for bad leads unless the client doesn’t read your response to their initial request.

When replying to direct inquiries, don’t insult the customer by sending a canned response. Demonstrate that you actually read their message and/or checked out their site. Be as personal as possible—referencing anything you know about their needs and you will rise to the top of their prospect list.

Be certain to set reasonable availability hours in your profile. Getting a new inquiry at 1am and not responding until you wake up at 8am is a ding to your response rate (and waste of money).

2. Opportunities

The Opportunities tab gives us more of an open market look at the Thumbtack ecosystem. From there, we can see recent inquiries customers have sent to other providers for services you offer. This is your chance to swoop in and steal the deal. Since you are sorta crashing someone else’s party, the likelihood of conversion on these opportunities is slim. You only pay if a customer responds (and that amount is usually quite a bit lower than the cost of a direct lead).

When you quote an opportunity, be real with your price. In fact, I recommend skewing on the higher end. You don’t wanna pay $60 for someone to respond who refuses to pay more than $12 for a logo design. Bidding honestly weeds out the cheapskates before they cost you time and money.

3. Sleuthing

In browsing the many opportunities that pop up each day, I started to notice a handful would provide their URL in the job details. From there, it’s pretty easy to find their email from the website itself or a WHOIS lookup on the domain name. Reaching out to them directly just might help you stand out among the other candidates. If they respond to your email, it costs you nothing in Thumbtack fees. Hey, I’m just throwing that out there. It’s probably frowned upon. For what it’s worth, I didn’t have any luck with this tactic myself. All of my dollars came from direct leads.

Conclusion

Let’s be real; it’s a little odd for someone to search for a web designer on a platform like Thumbtack. If you go down this road, try to keep in mind the type of client you might be dealing with. Chances are, they are not your white whale with a $30,000 budget for a simple WordPress site. Fortune 500 enterprises are not looking for talent on a home improvement app. Instead, you’ll get dozens of little projects from customers who are two rungs above tire kickers and don’t believe any creative services should cost more than $300. Hey, it keeps the lights on and serves as a helpful fallback when your other lead generation channels are running dry. Always consider the lifetime value of a client—even if your initial engagement is small. Try Thumbtack for yourself!