How I Landed My First Client

In October 2009, I was the programming coordinator at a children’s television network. Those episode of Veggie Tales and Babar you saw? I decided which episodes to air when. It was a terrific job, especially as my first job out of college. I loved the work and I loved my co-workers. And, multipotentialite that I am, I wanted to do a bit more. Alexey Timbul gave me advice: pick a date and make it happen.

How did I land my first client?

I visited The Simple Way website to learn more about the organization. A friend loaned me a book by co-founder Shane Claiborne and I’d previously stumbled upon their website when researching intentional communities. When clicked to their website, I learned they were in search of a web designer and webmaster. So I put together a portfolio of some past work, an updated resume, a cover letter, and I applied. A phone call, and one in-person interview (and many phone calls and emails of negotiation) later, I landed the gig.

I put in my notice, took at ten day trip to Denmark, and then I was working for myself.

Easy breezy, right?

Landing my first client was about more than landing my first client

In my original telling of the story, you’re missing the backstory. You didn’t hear the countless hours of work and preparation that made those few key moments of “landing my first client” possible. When I was in high school, I wanted to be an actor (incidentally, a dream I realized a few days ago when I received my first acting paycheck). For me, part of “the dream” was having an official website. So I scoured the Internet looking at official Web sites of my favorite actors. One day, I had the off-the-wall idea to recreate those sites. Using a combination of reverse engineering and Alta Vistaing (a search engine at the time), I discerned bits and pieces of web design and programming. Eventually, I suceeded in recreating the now-defunct website of So Weird star Erik von Detten. I would stay up until 3AM, munching on Entemann’s donuts and sipping on Pepsi, pouring over the designs and the code. I didn’t even have a hosting account, all of my creations lived only on my computer

After recreating a few websites, I moved on to creating original websites. Frankie Muniz, Katie Holmes, and that-chick-from-Smallville were amongst my pseudo-official creations. In college, I started off doing graphic design for a fan website loosely affiliated with the production team of a WB television series; over time, I learned some HTML to help with the maintenance. A year after moving to New York, I redesigned the website of a local non-profit that I volunteered with.

When it came time in October 2009 to pitch myself, I had thousands of hours over the span of almost a decade of experience. Landing the first client was almost the easy part, I just showed up.

So when I want to start new projects or break into new fields, I follow a similar approach: I do lots of work and then I show up.

Want to hear more from me? (I’m writing about how I landed my first acting gig next)