The absence of clients or a small number of them is the biggest fear of a freelancer. When completing the current Client's project, you are scared that the next one is not on the horizon yet, and after completing it, you begin to look for it. You continue to run in this wheel, with varying success, losing your priorities, trying to please your current customer so that you can get work from him in the future, as if he was your last one.
In today's article I want to talk about a situation where you urgently need client. What can you do in this situation? Unfortunately, it is difficult to rely on a published portfolio, especially given the current overcrowding of the market supply. You will be required to take active steps to attract clients. You need to tell outloud that you exist. This is necessary even if you are an excellent professional in your field. That is why we can safely say that it is not those who perform the task better who earn more money. It all comes down to your ability to successfully attract a new clients or, more importantly, bring back an existing ones.
If you do not have an established clientele, you need to actively write to potential clients, offering your services. Which is quite a complicated procedure, especially if communication is not your strong point. You may simply be unsure of your professionalism, overly try to please potential clients, and get upset if you are refused or completely ignored.
A more comfortable situation for you will be if you begin the process of communicating and nurturing future clients with current projects. As I have already mentioned in my letters: you should devote half of your working day to promoting your business and expect that you will fulfill the project order in the remaining half.
Allocating enough time to run your business will ensure that you avoid several critical problems, one of which is too few contacts. You are almost equivalent to a typical advertisement for any online service that flashes in your feed on any social feed. The proportion of effectiveness of such advertising is measured as a fraction of a percent per thousands views. This is a bit of an exaggeration, given that an email message or a personal message written on a social network has slightly more weight. But the math is kinda the same, especially if the message is impersonal and distributed to any unknown recipient.
You definitely won’t achieve success by contacting 2-3 people a day, and especially not on a regular basis. Moreover, the effectiveness depends on the choice of the recipient and how carefully you have researched him to be sure that you are an excellent candidate to work with him. The situation becomes especially complicated if the person has never heard of you. In this regard, the time allocated for promotion should include time for basic communication with a theoretical client at a time when neither he nor you need anything, and you simply show interest in his business, note interesting details, sincerely praise, yes and just have a good relationship. This is why networks are called Social - live, real communication is the most valuable thing. Such live communication can also be displayed systematically and tracked, so that it is not isolated and is consolidated by several touches. They may not even pay attention to you the first time they see you.
Therefore, 10 or even 20 contacts per day can be considered a good result. If you urgently need project and you have time, then this figure can be safely doubled or tripled, if you are capable.30-40 contacts sounds quite hard, and it is, but it won't last forever. Eventually you will get clients pro, while you will get the experience of intensivelyreaching out for a client, and will easily reduce this volume to a comfortable one.
In my Liid.app - CRM for freelancers, I have provided a simple record of information so that you can record who you contacted and when. This will allow you to systematize your search process and keep some statistics, as this will allow you to understand what is happening at the moment and what your success looks like.
If you have already built up a client base, then your situation is much more promising, since you can offer services to those who already know you and are confident in the results of your work.Here it is worth dividing into two options for using this channel. You can remind them of yourself, and perhaps offer a new type of service or even figure out how to solve an challenging problem that is relevant for a particular client. This is the most effective option, since it is very likely that the client does not see you as the person capable of this and you just opened his eyes, or he did not even know that this was possible and you gave him excellent advice. Another option is to ask for a referral. This is primarily relevant at the final stage of the current project in progress. You can prepare template for him to easily resent it to a referral, that way you can control the conditions of your offer.
No matter how drastic it may sound, you need to do an excellent job and even better if with results that exceed expectations, which does not mean that you need to go all out by 200%, but rather lower your initial expectations somewhat. Let's try to double the time frame. If you simply meet the specified deadlines, then you will keep your promise; if you deliver faster, then the client will be significantly pleased. Depending on the type of your service, the options for Buns that you can deliver upon completion of the order vary and you should think about it yourself. These can also be purely symbolic things that go beyond the boundaries and simply make a good impression. Do this and you will definitely be remembered.
There is no point in asking for another referral if while curent project in progress. The ideal time is after its completion, when a person is inspired by the feeling of a job well done by you, which, despite the fact that he pays for it, he perceives as a good favor, which he will gladly return to you in the form of a referral.
A systematic combination of constant cold contacts, referral requests and regular updates and notifications about your services creates a solid basis that allows you not to be distracted by worries about the flow of clients and focus on other important aspects of your business.
That's all for today, see you in the next letter,
Dmitry Kalabin.
In today's article I want to talk about a situation where you urgently need client. What can you do in this situation? Unfortunately, it is difficult to rely on a published portfolio, especially given the current overcrowding of the market supply. You will be required to take active steps to attract clients. You need to tell outloud that you exist. This is necessary even if you are an excellent professional in your field. That is why we can safely say that it is not those who perform the task better who earn more money. It all comes down to your ability to successfully attract a new clients or, more importantly, bring back an existing ones.
If you do not have an established clientele, you need to actively write to potential clients, offering your services. Which is quite a complicated procedure, especially if communication is not your strong point. You may simply be unsure of your professionalism, overly try to please potential clients, and get upset if you are refused or completely ignored.
A more comfortable situation for you will be if you begin the process of communicating and nurturing future clients with current projects. As I have already mentioned in my letters: you should devote half of your working day to promoting your business and expect that you will fulfill the project order in the remaining half.
Allocating enough time to run your business will ensure that you avoid several critical problems, one of which is too few contacts. You are almost equivalent to a typical advertisement for any online service that flashes in your feed on any social feed. The proportion of effectiveness of such advertising is measured as a fraction of a percent per thousands views. This is a bit of an exaggeration, given that an email message or a personal message written on a social network has slightly more weight. But the math is kinda the same, especially if the message is impersonal and distributed to any unknown recipient.
You definitely won’t achieve success by contacting 2-3 people a day, and especially not on a regular basis. Moreover, the effectiveness depends on the choice of the recipient and how carefully you have researched him to be sure that you are an excellent candidate to work with him. The situation becomes especially complicated if the person has never heard of you. In this regard, the time allocated for promotion should include time for basic communication with a theoretical client at a time when neither he nor you need anything, and you simply show interest in his business, note interesting details, sincerely praise, yes and just have a good relationship. This is why networks are called Social - live, real communication is the most valuable thing. Such live communication can also be displayed systematically and tracked, so that it is not isolated and is consolidated by several touches. They may not even pay attention to you the first time they see you.
Therefore, 10 or even 20 contacts per day can be considered a good result. If you urgently need project and you have time, then this figure can be safely doubled or tripled, if you are capable.30-40 contacts sounds quite hard, and it is, but it won't last forever. Eventually you will get clients pro, while you will get the experience of intensivelyreaching out for a client, and will easily reduce this volume to a comfortable one.
In my Liid.app - CRM for freelancers, I have provided a simple record of information so that you can record who you contacted and when. This will allow you to systematize your search process and keep some statistics, as this will allow you to understand what is happening at the moment and what your success looks like.
If you have already built up a client base, then your situation is much more promising, since you can offer services to those who already know you and are confident in the results of your work.Here it is worth dividing into two options for using this channel. You can remind them of yourself, and perhaps offer a new type of service or even figure out how to solve an challenging problem that is relevant for a particular client. This is the most effective option, since it is very likely that the client does not see you as the person capable of this and you just opened his eyes, or he did not even know that this was possible and you gave him excellent advice. Another option is to ask for a referral. This is primarily relevant at the final stage of the current project in progress. You can prepare template for him to easily resent it to a referral, that way you can control the conditions of your offer.
No matter how drastic it may sound, you need to do an excellent job and even better if with results that exceed expectations, which does not mean that you need to go all out by 200%, but rather lower your initial expectations somewhat. Let's try to double the time frame. If you simply meet the specified deadlines, then you will keep your promise; if you deliver faster, then the client will be significantly pleased. Depending on the type of your service, the options for Buns that you can deliver upon completion of the order vary and you should think about it yourself. These can also be purely symbolic things that go beyond the boundaries and simply make a good impression. Do this and you will definitely be remembered.
There is no point in asking for another referral if while curent project in progress. The ideal time is after its completion, when a person is inspired by the feeling of a job well done by you, which, despite the fact that he pays for it, he perceives as a good favor, which he will gladly return to you in the form of a referral.
A systematic combination of constant cold contacts, referral requests and regular updates and notifications about your services creates a solid basis that allows you not to be distracted by worries about the flow of clients and focus on other important aspects of your business.
That's all for today, see you in the next letter,
Dmitry Kalabin.
