Posted by jethrozs on October 24, 2011 at 3:47pm
Hi all.
I work with my brother with a great focus on Drupal - be it theming or module development. We have the dedication and skill behind us to accomplish any task handed to us (so far :)
We have a problem, however; we are based in a village outside of Port Alfred. How would we go about marketing ourselves to larger areas, such as Johannesburg?
The amount of money to be made in the Eastern Cape has proven to be limited in this area of work, and honestly, we are getting a little bit worried.
Thanks for any input.
Comments
If you want to make contacts
If you want to make contacts with others in the Drupal community, why not attend the monthly user group meetups in Joburg or Cape Town? The Joburg group is having a larger Drupalcamp on 5 November, 2011 which would be a good opportunity to network. You're welcome to bring materials promoting your company as well.
Otherwise I've seen quite a few opportunities posted to this forum, it might be worthwhile checking older posts.
Why do they even need to be
Why do they even need to be in South Africa? :) Most of my clients aren't - in fact, I far prefer working with non-South-African companies. To be completely honest, they tend to have a better work ethic (I'm generalizing of course, but this has been my experience). I'm a freelancer doing mostly theming and site build and design, and all of my work except for one job has been through word of mouth.
I would suggest that you pitch on a few jobs on the [http://groups.drupal.org/jobs|drupal jobs] board (this was where I got the one non-referral job I mention above). Of course, in pitching on remote jobs it is important that you have a good portfolio / showcase of work and probably some references. Also, make sure that you google the client before taking them on and if you get a bad feeling, it's probably best not to take the job on, even if it outwardly seems amazing.
It might also be worth just posting a status about being available for hire onto both Facebook and Twitter. Although it might become so in the future, this is not currently a "drying-up" field and there is plenty of work out there so I don't think it will be too long before you find something.
Best of luck.
Totally agree with the face
Totally agree with the fact that South African clients are .. how can i put this nicely .. different to work with. I have not had any work with international clients working with drupal but when I did graphic design the international clients were more open to ideas then the locals. Locals tended to want pink lol cats on there flyers and INSISTING on using ms word clip art - whereas the international clients seem to understand this global business ethic that the internet brings , a lot better.
this site is quite new but you might find some work here http://www.drupaljob.com/