Hello Sheffield.

Next week I am getting my website finished. Basically everything will be ready for me to start offering my services as a creative & web designer.

I have been working toward my 'business' for about a year or two (study, portfolio and building websites for free and building my experience)

My services and packages will be aimed at start up businesses that want they business 'to grow' with me.

I am wondering what is the best way for me gain clients? best way to market myself?

I will offering a discounted rate first few months of the business?

I welcome advice, tips, links to site that may be of help to me. (or even the odd comment about grammar or spelling)

Many thanks in advance

Will you be getting someone to check your grammar and spelling before you upload it to your websites?

yes i will... :P Cheeky Mare :)

People are right these forum's can be very harsh when asking for advise and tips. Luckily I wont be taking it to heart.

Just for you I will be on my best grammar and spelling behavior from now on ;)

Emmikins, congratulations and well done for taking the brave step to start your own business. You appear to have done a lot of preparation and openly admit you are learning and will rely on the help of others who will look to genuinely assist you.

I have run my own business and find that you have to have something unique to offer. You need to establish connections in the business community so that what you do becomes known and is promoted by others.
I work with like-minded women in Sheffield who are determined to be successful and help others along the way.

Check out www.entrepreneursladder.co.uk a unique organisation run as a social enterprise which has developed from finding out from women what they want in terms of support.
Within the group you will find levels of expertise, support and encouragement from others freely given so that you can grow and thrive in business.

Good Luck and pm me if you want to find out more, and please join us for the FREE Working Woman Expo at St Pauls Hotel in Sheffield 23rd November 10am onwards.

I first set out in business at just turned 23 years old, ive always believed that if you dont try or ask you will never get what it is you want, and for anything you dont know there is usually someone in your phone that will.

Several of my friends always talk about one day doing their own thing, but i think the difference between us is, they will go to their graves talking about it, whereas i will try and achieve the goal.

Whatever field of business you are in the same rules apply, you have to get out there and you can do as much prep work as you like, but until you take the step you will never know.

Don't be scared to try,ask and most importantly make a mistake.

Good luck

Emmikins what do you know about Joomla? Serious question.

Also there are lots of resources here (http://www.speakingandmarketingtips.com/). I have seen this person in action and they are good.

@ TinaE, Thank you. This was the kind of response I was looking for. I will PM you soon.

@ C.Electrical. I agree. I don't want to be the person that always talking about it. I am not scared to make mistakes, as person only learns and grows from their experiences and mistakes in life.

@ Bloomdido. (again) Joomla is a very good content management system. Which many web designers use & find very handy to allow clients to update the content of their own web pages.
However Joomla does not design the sites for you. It also does not meet the W3C standards. Like many web software there are many pro's and con's.
Thank you for the link, i believe this will be of used to me.

There is so much help out there, it's a question of choosing the right help. Most of the help is free as well.

First off join some business forums. You can introduce who you are and some have a tenders forum where people can leave messages, i.e. 'I need a website'. The best ones are:

www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk
www.shell-livewire.com
www.a1businessforums.co.uk

With regards to support contact the following organisations:
Inspiral - www.inspiral.biz
Business Link Yorkshire - 08456 048 048
BIG - www.thebigwebsite.org.uk

Just contact them and say you are a new start up. They have many events to attend and can offer loads of support.

www.startups.co.uk - useful site. They have an event on 2nd December at Victoira Quays Hilton Hotel. You can register on the site - it's called Startups Live or something.

As a new start up lots of people will offer you many things. Get free advice first - best to go with Business Link or BIG first and they can then refer you to other organisations.

I have been playing at my business for the past year, but one thing I have learnt and will take forward with me next year is networking, this is not my strongest point but I think it is essential!

My big project for next year is to sort out a decent e-commerce website that I can amend, so I might be in touch.

yes i will... :P Cheeky Mare :)

People are right these forum's can be very harsh when asking for advise and tips. Luckily I wont be taking it to heart.

Just for you I will be on my best grammar and spelling behavior from now on ;)

First lesson to learn - forums may give it to you straight (but harsh) but thats much more preferable to customers who will just walk away without telling you why...

Didn't you do ANY research into marketing in the last 2 years?

We all come on here asking for help but to ask for "the best way" just before you take the leap seems a bit fool hardy.

Will pm you some books to look up and read over christmas.

Emmikins, I know what Joomla is. I use it daily. I want to find someone who can advise me on the CivicCRM database component.

Emmikins - there are lots of people doing web design work, especially on here. Although you seem to be very well prepared. Building up your portfolio is a great idea. Putting your website in your signature on forums is great way to advertise yourself as rarebit and Indizine do.

Good luck. If I come across anybody asking about web design, I'll consider your services. Do you have a website I can look at?

Thanks for the comments.
@ Sharpend – I use a few other forums, I made the mistake of treating this forum as if I was one that I am used to.
I do agree this is more preferable then clients walking away, I just thought the way it was written was in a harsh manner. Maybe could have come across in a more subtle angle. After all with a signature which quotes ‘"The inspiration of the bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it." - Robert G. Ingersoll’ makes me question the readers ignorance.
The poster could have a learning disability, A physical disability that makes spelling and grammar harder than most.

I made this mistake and do appreciative that this was pointed out to me.
I make sure that my websites get quality checked; I wasn’t using this topic as a way to promote my services yet.

Yes, I have done research; I am not jumping in head first. In fact may be more over-prepared. This was part of my own research into gaining more people with real experience advice. 
Half of me is wishing I could delete this post and start again, but I have learnt a lesson and got some excellent advice.

The book list would be brilliant for me, which would be a great help.

@ go4it. Many thanks for the links. I have joined one or two already (such as business link) the other will be most helpful.

@ Bloomdido. Sorry I misunderstood what you was asking, I will pm you later this evening with information I have on joomla (if that ok)

@Optimize. I will promote my service soon (which is more than web design.) Hopefully within next two weeks. At the time of me making this post I was re-writing the contents of my website. I wanted to give it something more. Which was the original reason for this post, to be honest I should have been in bed, I was full of cold.

That would be great Optimize, I will send you my website URL when it’s ready.

Thanks again to all.
Ex

Hello Sheffield.



Hello Emma!!!:banana::banana:

Hello Sheffield.

Next week I am getting my website finished. Basically everything will be ready for me to start offering my services as a creative & web designer.

I have been working toward my 'business' for about a year or two (study, portfolio and building websites for free and building my experience)

My services and packages will be aimed at start up businesses that want they business 'to grow' with me.

I am wondering what is the best way for me gain clients? best way to market myself?

I will offering a discounted rate first few months of the business?

I welcome advice, tips, links to site that may be of help to me. (or even the odd comment about grammar or spelling)

Many thanks in advance
I am having my website redeveloped by a forum member but from what little I know about web design its of no use having a brilliant looking website without anyone seeing it, so you need some SEO links etc a lot of webdesigners post on this site there must be lots of competition out there the great thing is more and more people are having new websites and updating them. Many people thing a website can be built on a shoestring budget ie me, you can network BNI( Business Network International) etc build up clients from referrals and build testomonials on to your own site all this takes time.
Good luck with your business.

Putting your website in your signature on forums is great way to advertise yourself as rarebit and Indizine do.

Good luck. If I come across anybody asking about web design, I'll consider your services. Do you have a website I can look at?

Yes I agree with Optimise, use the signature and then when people hear some good advice they'll know how to find out more about the services you provide.

Websites can be built on shoestring budgets it's just a case of liaising with the client your working with and giving them an idea of what they will realistically get for thier money.

SEO can only get you so far, your site needs to be built well, be popular and have ever-changing, quality content that will get visitors coming back to your site on a regular basis.

Offering websites to small business is a great idea - we've done several for small businesses in Sheffield and Rotherham. However, you should remember not to devalue your hard work by offering a price that won't make you any money!

Think carefully about what you are offering and how long it will take you to complete. Look at your costs and price accordingly.

In my experience, people are more than happy to pay for quality work and a client-focused, personal approach.

Unfortunately the credit crunch thing is causing people to compete on price but there is a market for all levels of quality. With pricing dont foeget you have all your overheads to cover and including your own salary, tax and NI. You need to be working out your profit margin. As they say, turnover is vanity, profit is sanity.