The Freelance Developer Path

About me

This is a brief history on how I got here and how you can do the same!
My name is Alessandro, I used to teach Squash (it's a racket sport, google it!) and then got into freelancing.

Initially I freelanced as a copywriter and then decided to learn how to code.

I got my bachelor's in computer science this year while working full time for most of the three years (it's 3 years for a bachelor in Italy, because we do one additional year of High School)

The Skills to land the Job

In my opinion there's 2 "meta" skills you need to land your first job.

1. The "Sales Skills", i.e. being able to sell your work!
2. The "Technical Skills", i.e being able to actually perform the job

Most people hate selling. They believe it's about being pushy and manipulative. The reality is far from it. You basically cannot trick anybody, they are too smart!
So selling is actually the skill of finding people that value you and producing a win-win agreement with them.
In this case, money for your time or for the code you can write.

Sales Skills

This is definitely the highest value part of the article so TAKE NOTES!
The ability to sell is actually a very simple skill when it comes to selling freelance work to people that are posting jobs.
These people are already looking for you.
The only thing you have to do is convince them that you are the right person!

Your Competitions's approach

I can speak very accurately about what most people do because over the years I have collaborated with 100+ freelancers and as such have gone through THOUSANDS of applications.
Most people believe that if they list their features they will get hired. And they believe that their sales process can be the same for every type of customer.
❌ WRONG

Most applicants will copy and paste their "presentation letter".
Not only is the presentation letter useless (it talks about them, not about what "I", the CLIENT, want).
It's counter productive.

The presentation letter shows that you don't care about me. You didn't even take the time to read the job request.

Show, don't tell

When it comes to movie making, the number one rule is "Show, don't tell".
The same applies to your sales pitch. Don't tell me you are an expert. SHOW ME.
Make me FEEL that you understand me.

The biggest Sales Secret for Technical Jobs

If you want to land the Tech job. Just read over what the client wants and then EXPLAIN to them the steps, from A to Z of how you are going to get there.

GIVE AWAY your best secret, for FREE. The client won't run away and hire some cheaper competitor, they will chose you.

They will chose you because:

1. You read the letter (most don't)
2. You SHOWED that you are useful

If you apply this tip RIGHT NOW, you will see a MASSIVE increase in closes,

If you are ready to IMPROVE your sales process as a freelancer HIT ME UP - RIGHT NOW and I'll discount the session! (only to first 3 that apply)

Technical Skill

This day and age is amazing how fast you can get up and running! I'm actually working on a course that teaches you how to build your prototype in 2 weeks! (DM me if interested, I may gift it to you 😉)

Without choosing any stack, the basic skills are:
⋅⋅* Front-end development
⋅⋅* Back-end development
⋅⋅* Api development
⋅⋅* Microservice Architectures
⋅⋅* App development
⋅⋅* Desktop app development
⋅⋅* Database development

We can go deeper but with the current tools (think AWS, Heroku, mLab, etc..) you can "skip" a lot and get proficient very FAST.

If you need help choosing the right stack for your project, we can hop on a consultation call. I'm pretty confident we can find your ideal tech stach AND define the ARCHITECTURE of your app on the first call.

This WILL give you the map you have to follow to BUILD your app!

If you are STILL ON THE FENCE - MESSAGE ME - RIGHT NOW, and I'll send you a nice gift!