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Finding More Work & Making More Money

Finding More Work & Making More Money

I know this is probably the quest of most people, but what makes me different is that I am not a beginner. First off, I have posted this because I have certain limitations and a standing position with a perspective that may not allow me to see the 'light' most of you wiser professionals can see, therefore I am basically asking for insight, enlightenment and for lack of a better word... 'help'.

Now, here is my concern... I am a Pro Web Designer and have been doing this for many years. I have designed sites for people all over the world and locally in the Caribbean, where I am from. Most of my work comes through referral or simply people contacting us through our web sites. My income is generated from site design, adsense, donations, banner / text ads on our sites and lastly on site computer repairs. However, recently I have become house bound and am now only able to use my computer to make all my income from home.

So, what do I want? I want a way to make either a greater amount of money than I am currently getting or at least a more stable income, something that will enable me to accomplish more of the things I need to do without having to make it a battle. What can I do that I am not doing, keeping in mind that I am house bound? All insight welcomed. Thanks.

Money Making and Work Finding

I have thought about this many times for myself as well as for you after you had posted this in February. For someone with your expertise it is really hard to suggest anything that I would really say is "worth your time" so to speak. Good or bad I did have a few ideas that I will mention. I would remind you that these are very general suggestions so I am sure they will do not much more than inspire a truly creative idea of your own.

1. You might look at selling web page templates to download from your site. Just something pre-configured with a table layout that someone could easily insert their text and graphics into. A service (product) such as this might could sell for 25$ US.
2. You might also look into selling a web-site creation package on e-bay. I know your rates are actually about as cheap as I have ever seen already but if you were to put one of your packages onto an E-bay auction or an E-bay store you may could get a number of additional web sites each month.

Now if I think of anything that I would deem able to bring in a steady income I will be sure to let you know. That is just so hard to do.

Finding More Work & Making More Money History & Civil Business Politics

Those are good suggestions. I actually posted this on many other places I visit and the responses were almost the same, but two things stuck out that I am trying to implement now:

1. Working more with current clients to seel even more services to them. If they are faithful, why not get them to buy more or refer me to others who will buy more.

2. Organizing packaged 'products' that can be sold repeatedly. This is similar to what you are suggesting Bwren.

Thanks for looking at the Thread and others can feel free to suggest more.

Money Making and Work Finding

Keep in mind that I am not very familiar with the economy in Trinidad but I had a thought that I may implement in my area that may work for you as well.

Basically build a web site devoted to legit advertising for the region local to you. Use it basically as a really cheap way to place an add in the newspaper but it be online. Sell single pages plus banners to businesses. The main page basically be set up to run a number of different banners and face adds while the underlying link has their weekly or monthly sales ads. This would be a little intensive to get everything setup and in some cases maintainance depending on how long before page change date that you required the information to be submitted.

Money Making and Work Finding

Those are things I do already, but you have to understand how people from T&T react to Business... see a related Thread in the Trinidad & Tobago Board about Business. My main thing is connections - right now I am going to be building that back up - over the past few years I have been moving so much that it has destroyed business relations and jobs I could be doing has fallen into the hands of others.

The other main thing I am encountering is client's lack of word. For instance they say, "By 'x' date I want you to build 'x'' then you have no response from them after collecting all the info, making arrangements and so on. I find that most are 'dreamers', they dream of having web services, but do not have the budget to handle it.

Lastly, I have been considering raising my Platinum Package to something spectacular... I think I charge too little, mostly because I have to cater for cheap Trinis that do not like to pay.

Finding More Work & Making More Money

I do believe that I have told you this in the past. You offer so much for so little. This is including membership here as well as your web services. Honestly with the experience that you have and the type of web work you do it is really hard to cater an International business around your present economy. I believe you have said in the past that you do offer discounts on some things Trini which is great, but you have to take into account how much money many of the other countries have that you deal with. *In my opinion of course.

*I will be sure to read through the Trini boards to learn a little more about your location also.

Offtopic but, I am still going to be interested in you taking care of my site for the cable company but I keep running into other expenses and delays that push back my full launch date. I hope I can do it soon for my sake as well as your.

Edited: bwren on 1st May, 2006 - 12:12am

Finding Work & Making Money

Well that is a key to getting new clients really, those that can pay usually want much more than my packages and end up asking for more and more, thus the price goes up. In the past I have had huge projects reaching US$6,000 and US$3,000 just for one site.

Some weeks ago I did adjust the prices of my site packages to reflect two things: rising costs and people who do not pay, or pay on time.

Offtopic but, Feel free to start at anytime with what you can afford and you can build from there, contact me for arrangements.

Finding Work & Making Money Politics Business Civil & History

Just out of curiosity, have you ever considered traveling for a few months to take contract jobs for web design or scripting? I was recently searching on computerjobs.com and found that there are many companies just within Texas that are in search of expert web designers for 3 month and 6 month positions as well as projects. I am sure that they would require local attendance for the duration of the contract but I found many that stated terms of a 40 hour week at approx. 50$ US per hour. At a three month contract you would be looking at a little over 20,000$ US. I know this is a long time to be away from home so I am not sure if this would be an option or not but thought I might suggest. Perhaps if you did this for a company several times over a couple of years they might would even contract to you without you traveling in.