Get your first client - How I landed the biggest client in my career

In this blog post I will tell you how to get your first client. But let me introduce myself first.

Hey, my name is Maja. I am a part time illustrator living in Barcelona. I just recently moved from Germany to Spain and I am very grateful to live in this beautiful city and to be able to follow my passion.

Today I want to tell you the story how I was able to land my biggest client in my career so far. My goal is to inspire you with this story, because I started from nothing as well and a lot can change if you just are brave enough to start.

So if you want to become an illustrator but you are struggling with getting your first clients, this blog posts might be for you!

Too lazy to read? Watch my YouTube Video!

The beginning can be overwhelming

Starting as an illustrator can be really overwhelming. There are sooo many things to learn, so many different art styles you could try and you just don’t know where to start. But the most important thing is to just start, only then great things can happen. Later you can always change or improve your art style and try out new things.

Getting a first client with no or not much experience can be hard. Especially when you don’t have any portfolio or website in the first place. I have been there too. I had nothing at all, no website, no portfolio and I never finished any project or big illustration before.

The story how I became an Illustrator

I always knew that I want to be self-employed and that I want to be creative. During school I started to write blog posts for websites, apps or other blogs. I found the jobs mainly on the platform Textbroker. So if this is interesting for you, you can check this out!

But I can tell you already this was way too little money and after a short time I felt burned out and lost the passion for writing. Maybe my passion was never big enough but I just realised that I don’t have so much fun writing articles about things I am not interested in.

I had the feeling that my creativity is limited in this field and that I want to do something even more creative for me. I realised that I needed to change something. I started to look for blog posts about working online in a creative field. I found something called vector illustrations. I was absolutely amazed by this art art style.

Therefore I started to watch YouTube videos on how to create vector illustrations. Soon after that I created my first simple illustration to showcase my work on platforms. I already posted a blog post about how I am creating vector illustrations for my clients. So if you interested in this you can check it out here to get your first client fast.

This is the one I created

Finding a perfect freelancer platform - Get your first client

I can tell you that I was far away from being good at this, but I was so inspired and motivated that I just wanted to start.

The next step was to look for freelancer platforms to provide my work and to find clients. I wrote a blog post about the best freelancer platform to work online and to get your first client, you can check it out here. There are so many platforms out there but I decided to go with the most popular one: Fiverr.

What I like about Fiverr is, that you don’t need to apply for jobs on the platform to get your first client. You have the option to do so, but this is not the common way on Fiverr. On Fiverr you can create GIGs and offer your skills and let the clients find you. I liked this way the most so I decided to create my first GIG on Fiverr.

I created two Youtube Videos about Fiverr. One video is about the topic “How to get your first order on Fiverr”. So if you are interested in this platform you can check out the following videos. There is also coming more on my channel related to topics like this.

I can tell you that it took me some time until I finally got my first order. But after that the things got faster and faster.

Get your first client and earn money

You probably think that on Fiverr you can just get $5 for your work as the name suggests. And this is actually the meaning of the name when Fiverr was founded in 2010. The founder wanted to create a platform where customers can get everything they need for just 5 bucks.

Luckily after some time this has changed as many seller are requesting more money now. But you need to prepare yourself to work for $1 an hour or less in the beginning. Especially when you are trying to generate your first client. There are still so many really cheap offers and to attract a first buyer you need to be competitive. When you have no reviews yet you need to be the cheapest on the platform so that you can get your first 5-star review and to attract more clients.

It was really a hard time with this little money and a lot of work. If I wouldn’t love this work so much I had quit immediately. But this is my passion and I just loved to create all these illustrations no matter what they paid me. Nevertheless for a sustainable live you definitely need to charge more once you gained more experience.

Getting my first good project

Now we are coming to the interesting part: How I was able to get a client project for a five figure payment. This is why I love freelancer platforms like Fiverr. You never know what could happen and what is out there for you.

As an illustrator you need to put yourself and your work out there. No matter where. If it is a freelancer platform, Instagram, TikTok or Facebook. There are sooo many options. Just do it.

One day I received a message. From a company with agents who are looking for illustrators for another company. So they had a deal with the company and they keep a portion of 20% for example, of the amount they discussed with me.

They told me how many illustrations they want to have and asked me to create an offer. This is a difficult situation, especially when you have never been there. To calculate the worth of your work is super difficult in the beginning.

And I made a mistake.

How I made a mistake with my pricing

For the offer I created a list of my illustration prices for each size and calculated it regarding my Fiverr prices. This was way too low. I was very lucky and had an amazing company in front of me, who explained that I shouldn’t create the price for each figure and better create a price for a whole package.

And in addition they gave me a little hint to charge more.

I was really happy about that because I didn’t feel good with the offer I created. I already knew that this was too low and that it would be too much work for this money.

But I was afraid to loose this client. And I can tell you this will happen many times in the beginning. This is okay, you will learn from it.

After you get your first client you will learn to listen to your feeling and to create offers where you feel this would be fair for both sites.

Getting my biggest client project

I finished the first project for a good amount of money and I was super grateful. Short time after the company reached out to me again, this time directly without another company in between. And they asked for more illustrations.

I was extremely happy that they liked my work and that I had the opportunity to work on such a big project where they printed my illustrations on big posters in a really big city.

This second project I got is the one I am talking about all the time. The five figure project. And I landed this job just through a platform like Fiverr.

I know that I was very lucky and it is not give that this will happen. I couldn’t be more grateful for this.

I just wanted to show you that great things can happen when you are brave enough to show your work and put it out there. You never know when you will get your first client and where.

You never know what will happen.

Living my dream in Barcelona

Now I am here in Barcelona. My absolute favourite city of all time and I am really excited for what will come. I hope this story inspired you to be creative and to work on your passion. As I wrote, you never know what will happen, or which post you make will lead to a big new client project.

If you like topics like this you can stay on this blog and find more blog posts. You can also check out my YouTube Channel where I create videos and vlogs about topics like that. You can also comment here or on YouTube if you have any specific topics you would like me to talk/write about.

I wish you all the best for your future!