I believe many solopreneurs have had insecurities in terms of how they’ll manage to create a pipeline of projects to make ends meet financially. What has worked well for you to secure projects that help pay the bills but are also interesting for you as a professional?
Speaking from my own experience, most of my projects this far have come from personal networks. Either knowing someone directly or being recommended by a shared connection. This usually also means that the projects are of good quality and there’s some kind of trust established between the parties from the get-go.
But I’m sure that’s not the only way to approach it. What are other ways to land great projects?
For me, the only channel that really works is networking. Full stop. Everything else is great for communication and marketing, but it does not convert like good old-school networking.
I agree with Dorian’s response and will add, check your contracts carefully for non-competes. Some of my best engagements have resulted from people hiring me after interacting with me while I was working for someone else.
It doesn’t have to be competitive, and I’m careful not to burn bridges. But for example, the ghostwriting aspect of my career really kicked off when I was an editor and contributing authors would say, man, you made me sound so good. Won’t you just write this for me? I had to say no, of course. But with no non-compete, you can bet those were the first people I reached out to when I left that job.
I’ve seen some super restrictive non-compete clauses that are basically “you won’t work with anyone in our industry or anyone you met here for 2 years” and I’m not signing that. No way.