I'm so tired of craigslist...Any better options?

holymexicobatman

holymexicobatman

Well-known member
So for the past few months I've been living off craigslist trying to get my production company up and running. Which, as I am sure many of you know, really sucks. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's great and I meet great new clients and fun, decent paying work. But that's rare and the headache and risk of trying to find good clients is starting to really wear on me and the gigs keeps getting less abundant.

I'm offering several services such as film/video production, web design, graphic design, and some photography. Yea, I've spread myself pretty thin, but diversifying has been the only way for me to find enough work to pay bills. I live in Kansas City, so it's not like I'm in some rural town or anything...

Anyway, my real question is: Does anyone have any tips about getting local or online work outside of just craigslist and good ol' fashion face-to-face networking? Are sites like Elance or whatever even worth a shot? Are there any other media/tech/film job posting sites I'm missing out on?

Much appreciated...
 
put together a good portfolio/website and show examples of your work... craigs list...is a waste of time.... and th eother sites otu there...you will compete at rock bottom prices...making them useless as well...word of mouth and face to face or enthusiast forums are your best bet...
 
I've had a couple requests from LinkedIn that worked out, maybe one or two (out of hundreds) from Craigslist pan out so I'll agree that it's a borderline waste of time (I find myself on there more for amusement than anything else), and then an odd job from Mandy (or similar video specific job site) on occasion. Nearly ALL of the work done by my company comes from word of mouth though. The group of people I graduated from college with are all in related fields (social media, advertising/marketing, PR, news, print, radio, etc) and they know me as the guy who does video - so, if the word video gets brought up in their current jobs guess who they contact. Networking is absolutely key - and I don't mean just TELLING people you do video work, it's a lot more subtle and tactful than that. Actually engage in conversations, chat with people, get out of your comfort zone and find some common bonds and let the discussion lead to what you do and then bring it up. Speak passionately about what you do, why you love it, etc, and it really shows (if you're being genuine) people that you're probably someone they want to work with. As you can see below in my sig my website is under construction, and has been for months and months and months (soon to change actually). Also, I rarely upload stuff to Vimeo or YouTube. This lack of effort in establishing an online presence is due to the clients I work for already knowing what I can do. While this has gotten me very few "new" clients we have had more than enough work solely through word of mouth to support my colleague while I finish up grad school. once I'm out I plan on making our online presence a bit more robust and whoring it out to new and potential clients a lot more than now, but honestly I feel like if I do really start marketing that we might not be able to keep up with the work we've been getting in recent months. Either way as far as I'm concerned networking is where the money is. Don't just take advice on here either, there are tons of good blogs, articles, books, and so forth, out there regarding marketing yourself. In fact, I think B&H had a good article in their most recent Student Buyer's Guide that you might want to check out as far as branding/promoting yourself goes.

Best of luck,

Cheers,
Adam
 
Thanks very much for the advice guys!

I do my best at face to face networking. And I do very much understand that this really is the best way to get good, long-lasting clients. My only issue at this point is that I'm new to this city and my friends, colleagues, family, etc are all at least 500 miles away...That being said, it's slow and steady progress but progress none-the-less. =)
 
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