My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [19]
Wendy Merrill, who founded WAM Marketing Group, a virtual agency of freelancers serving the biomed industry, certainly does. Her website, WAMGroup.net, talks about her Northern California-based company’s “brash new take on the familiar agency model” and “agency-quality work—without agency overhead.” I suspect I’m not the only one who’s visited it and thought, Amen.
That said, you do want to be mindful of your audience. If you’re targeting straitlaced law and accounting firms, a site peppered with overly whimsical, psychedelic graphics could miss the mark. When in doubt, play it safe. The beauty of a website is that you can always change it later as your business and client base grows.
So what are the staples of the freelancer’s digital portfolio, aside from your all-important contact information?
YOUR BIO. While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula, you can’t go wrong with two or three carefully crafted paragraphs that sum up your career highlights—how many years you worked as a creative lead at Google before going solo, that All My Competitors Are Dying with Envy award you just received, and so on. Again, the sites of your freelance heroes can be a big source of ideas and guidance here.
Depending on your profession and industry, potential clients may want to see a full-blown resume rather than just a three- or four-paragraph bio. I usually need to show a resume to my copywriting and journalism clients. Likewise, many filmmakers, designers, editors, software testers, project managers, and college instructors I know are asked to do the same. Again, look to the websites of other freelancers in your profession for clues about whether a resume is the norm (many freelancers have both a bio and a resume on their site), as well as what details to include. When it comes to crafting a freelance resume, almost anything goes, as long as the content is clear, concise, professional, and no longer than a couple pages.
Give people a sense of who you are, and include a photo if you want, but steer clear of TMI (too much information) territory. “I don’t need to know the names of your pets, but I might want to hear why you do this work and what it means to you,” says Karrie Kohlhaas, owner of ThoughtShot Consulting in Seattle, which helps independent professionals market and grow their businesses. “Knowing you have two cats, a hamster, and a ferret just makes me think your house smells, but hearing that you have been collecting iconic images since age five makes me think, ‘This person has spent a lifetime preparing for a career to help me with my logo.’”
YOUR WORK SAMPLES. Easy to find, easy to open is my motto. No one wants to slog through a bunch of broken links, Flash animations (unless you’re trolling for animation work), or PDF downloads. “Your work should be the most important thing on the page, not some flashing graphic or annoying music (that no one wants to hear, by the way),” says Emily of Swank Web Style. “If they have to wait too long or if it doesn’t work, they’re just going to give up and never come back.”
While I’m all for saving trees, I’m not advocating we write off print and otherwise tactile portfolios just yet. Even if you meet with potential clients but once a year, you still need to show up armed with your bio (or resume), press kit, headshot, laptop, slide show, print ads, product samples, color samples, demos, illustrations, animations, or publications. No matter what tactile tools you use to show off your talents, keep them dusted, cued up, and at the ready, just in case you get that call you’ve been waiting for all year.
If you’re not sure you can use a sample on your site—perhaps because you don’t own the license, or the information is proprietary—check with your client. Better to be safe than a contract violator. And if you don’t have any work samples yet,