Ideas for getting freelance work

When I started freelancing, I had done a lot of personal projects and projects for friends and whatnot, but I really barely used those as references. I always bid cheap, but never the cheapest because I knew I wasn't the best, but I certainly wasn't the worst lol...

couple of tips: 1) Be yourself. bid on jobs you want to do and be excited about them. I've made suggestions in the bid process that the client could totally use without hiring me. But in all honesty, there's a million jobs out there and being unwilling to show value added will lose you more than giving away suggestions ever will. That's who I am though, and so it was a part of who my business was.

2) Be honest. Don't present yourself as a super developer if you have no portfolio. Particularly if you are bidding on frontend work. If you have little practical experience you don't have to say that, but you can say "I'm trying to make the switch to freelancing. I don't have much in my portfolio at the moment, I know, so I'm not gonna charge you an arm and a leg"

3) Build a portfolio. It doesn't have to be paid work. Imagine a company and build them a webpage. add it to your portfolio. Not only does it help with your portfolio, it helps you iron out your skills. You're here, so obviously you're a self starter! Create a company that sells widgets and sell the Sh*t out of em lol (on paper).

4) Do local work. This is family and friends. Getting started in freelancing isn't huge. if you get paid to build a site for your niece (even if she pays you $5 and some cookies), congrats you're a freelancer! plus... it builds your portfolio.

5) Specialize. I'm not sure what your particular skillset is, but I would suggest specializing in an area if you haven't already. I specialized in backend programming and Web-based systems, which is super broad, but it told people I could program.

6) Craigslist. I landed several long time clients on craigslist. It's less stringent that a freelance site, and you can really just talk to the person who wants work without formality. again, be honest here. People are forgiving when they aren't separated behind some hiring system.

I'm gonna leave you with my elance profile. hopefully I'm not violating anything, as the service is dead now, and I'm not freelancing anymore. [to the powers that be of teamtreehouse.. you can see my profile has been inactive since 2013 lol.. dont delete me! :D ] ... anyway, you may gleen something from it. The site is dead so I'm not sure if you can see my bids and stuff but my profile blurb has been the same since I started with the site aside from the very first line where I would periodically update my ranking: https://www.elance.com/s/chrisvaughan02/