Where and how do you find new clients?

Many companies start out with a contractor who did very well in their industry and started making upwards of six figures. The problem with such a model is that eventually it can no longer scale, and so smart contractors stop contracting alone, and instead build a company to support their ever growing business to handle the increasing load of clients.

One of the biggest things you’ll hear me say is that you absolutely must build a team! Imagine what would happen if your favorite amusement park tried to operate with only one person running the place. It’s not physically possible, barring loads of artificial people with human-level artificial intelligence. Muahahaha!

*Ahem!* In all seriousness, you need a team or you will fail to scale. I’ve built many companies, and the most successful company I ever built as of writing this uses the concept of only hiring contractors. Why do we hire contractors exclusively despite the fact that we cannot legally control their work to the degree of a W2 employee? Payroll works much differently with contractors than with employees.

For starters, the contractors you hire can be paid a commission of your hourly rate. Say for example that you charge the client $100 per hour, and your contractors make $50 per hour. That contractor is only paid for the hours they work, and you’re never out of pocket any money.

Now, with that $50 per hour, you can pay another contractor $15 per hour that the first contractors work. That totals $50 + $15 = $65, leaving you with $100 – $65 = $35 per hour they work. You’re working long hours busting your butt to grow your own business, so you’ll get paid part of that, and the rest goes to business expenses. Oh, and by the way, we still have enough left over at the end for us to give 10% of our gross profits to charity!

I know you’re asking yourself, “What does having a team have to do with finding new clients?” Well, that’s what we’re about to discuss right now. You see, the contractors making $50 per hour are software engineers at Dragon Cloud. The one making $15 per hour that they work is the Business Manager. The Business Manager runs the day-to-day operations, and he’s the one running procurement to bring in new clients for Dragon Cloud.

Don’t get me wrong, the money is certainly not free, as you still pay the price in time to grow your business strategically. So, while your team is working, so are you.

There are many places you can find new clients depending on the type of business you’re running. Dragon Cloud is transforming from a Web Development Agency into a full-on marketplace in 2019. So, our sources for clients will change, but our team will always continue to push forward to help us grow. After all, once we succeed, our contractors will never again be for want of new clients, as all they’ll need to do is accept the contracts on the marketplace on which they’re qualified to work. That’s their WIIFM factor!

Alright, so I know that your goal was to drum up some new sources of clients by reading this message, and not so much about who will procure the clients for you. So, below is a short list of the most useful sources for many software companies.

Sources of Clients

  1. Dragon Cloud – While this is a shameless plug, as I’m their Director of Software Engineering, you should know that most of our clients come to us after having been taken for a ride for thousands of dollars and years of time by so-called developers who charge $10 per hour. It happens FAR too often, as most people do not know how to hire a software engineer.When you seek contracts through Dragon Cloud, you’ll work with top engineers who are seasoned in what they do. You’ll find that you probably have a lot in common with our team. Once you pass the coding interview, then you’ll be eligible for any contracts we procure for you.Psst… Not looking to become one of our contractors, but instead wish to hire top talent? If you don’t know how to hire software engineers properly, then check out the video course on that in the membership area. It’s included for free with your membership. If you’re not a member of Rick’s Inner Circle, you can either order a membership with the button at the end of this message, or buy the course.
  2. 800Lb Marketing – 800Lb Marketing is one of the key players at Dragon Cloud via Mike Volkin. Let them know you’d like to grow your business, and that Dragon Cloud sent you. Their team can do some amazing things with ads, and Mike Volkin has helped us tremendously.In the nature of full disclosure, we do receive a commission for recommending them. If it gets you better results, do you care?
  3. Job Boards, like Upwork – Upwork is where we got our roots at Dragon Cloud. While you can make well over 6 figures on there, keep in mind that when working with any third-party source, you’re at the mercy of that third-party source for your success. You’ll need to eventually hire a marketing agency to procure clients directly. Marketing is expensive ($10,000 to start out with easily), but with Uwork or other places, you’ll get the funds coming in to market directly, and even with successful marketing, you can still bring in clients through job boards to supplement your profits.A word of caution: the reason I’m mentioning Upwork so much is because in my opinion it’s one of the only places I trust to provide respectible services. They certainly have their drawbacks, but from my experience, Upwork isn’t nearly as bad as some of the other ones out there.