Quite a lot of time my articles on this site are written with a small business owner in mind. I write about issues that not always relate to freelancers or one man operations. However, I myself started as one and starting from today, I want to dedicate at least one slot per week to them.
From my experience, there are two things that most freelancers have problems with, getting clients and getting referrals. In today’s post I want to focus on the first issue.
Your success as a freelancer, and your income largely depends on two factors, how many clients can you get and how well can you service them. And, the two work together. You will fail even if you have plenty of clients but can’t meet your deadlines. But if you have only a handful of clients, no matter how good you are, you will not make much money.
Winning new work is quite difficult for a freelancer. I only realized this when I grew my freelance business into a small company. Suddenly, new doors had opened for me and I had more opportunities to do business with people. But, looking back at it now, I wish I stayed small, although this is something for another article.
Over the years I picked up few things though that you can do as a freelancer to get more clients for your business. Here are some of the ones that worked really well for me.
How to Win New Work for Your Freelance Business
1. Have the best presence on the internet you can. In today’s world not having a top of the art website is a business suicide. Having said that, I still know freelancers who don’t even have a portfolio online. If you want to get more work, you have to allow your prospects to find you but also to quickly assess if you are the person they have been looking for. You can achieve that by having a kick ass portfolio on your site, a great content and sales message that motivates potential clients to buy from you.
2. Be active on social networking sites. In tandem with the previous advice, you need to build your authority on social network sites. Don’t use them for your personal benefit, instead, build a credible image of yourself as an expert in your field. Many prospects research potential freelancers they want to hire there and therefore, you must have a spotless profile.
3. Maintain a regular contact with your current clients. ONe of the best ways to win new clients is through referrals. However, you can’t get many of them if you are not in constant contact with your clients.
Send your clients a regular newsletter, ideally containing useful information that will help them or solve some really pressing problem for them (relating to what you do, of course). This is not about telling your clients how to do your job, rather offering them advice on how to work with you better.
4. Be present at as many conferences, workshops and your industry events as possible. It is very hard to win new work from the comfort of your room, I am sorry about that. You need to be where your prospects are, and you need to be active there. Attend every conference you can, of course related to what you do, take part in workshops and business meetings. Network and you will not believe how much business you will get this way.
How to Quickly Qualify a Prospect
Qualifying a prospect is one of the key aspects of the sales process. There is no point in selling to everyone. Firstly, not every person you meet is interested in what you are selling, secondly, they may not be in a position to buy anyway.
Selling is time consuming. It does take days, even weeks to make a sale. You have to find the people to sell to, initiate the sales process, make the initial contact, get through the barriers and make a presentation and even at this point you might not get your prospects to sign a contract. You may have to prove your worth by providing a good pre sale support and so on. That’s why it is so important to make sure that the people you are trying to sell to are likely to buy. And, in order to know that you have to qualify your prospects.
How to Quickly Qualify a Prospect
There is a very simple rule in sales which says that in order to be worth investing time and resources in, a prospect must have all of those three qualities.
They must need what you are selling.
This really speak for itself. You must find people who need your services or products and what’s more, ideally they should need them relatively soon.
They must have the money to pay you.
There is really no point initiating a sales process only to find out half way through that the prospect doesn’t have the budget to work with you. So, in order to save your time and efforts, you need to qualify if the prospect has the money to pay you. This of course doesn’t mean checking their bank accounts, I don’t think you would be able to do that anyway. But it means having a serious look at their business to assess if they can afford your rates.
They must have the authority to buy
Lastly, the person you want to talk to within the organization must be in a position to say yes. Not speaking with a decision maker is a real waste of time. Sure, they may say yes to you but chances are the the final decision will be halted on the higher level. So, unless you can’t talk to a desicion maker, don’t initiate the sales process.
Selling takes time. It also consumes a lot of effort, resources and energy. Therefore, you really need to make sure that you approach the right people, the ones who are the most likely to buy from you.
From my experience, there are two things that most freelancers have problems with, getting clients and getting referrals. In today’s post I want to focus on the first issue.
Your success as a freelancer, and your income largely depends on two factors, how many clients can you get and how well can you service them. And, the two work together. You will fail even if you have plenty of clients but can’t meet your deadlines. But if you have only a handful of clients, no matter how good you are, you will not make much money.
Winning new work is quite difficult for a freelancer. I only realized this when I grew my freelance business into a small company. Suddenly, new doors had opened for me and I had more opportunities to do business with people. But, looking back at it now, I wish I stayed small, although this is something for another article.
Over the years I picked up few things though that you can do as a freelancer to get more clients for your business. Here are some of the ones that worked really well for me.
How to Win New Work for Your Freelance Business
1. Have the best presence on the internet you can. In today’s world not having a top of the art website is a business suicide. Having said that, I still know freelancers who don’t even have a portfolio online. If you want to get more work, you have to allow your prospects to find you but also to quickly assess if you are the person they have been looking for. You can achieve that by having a kick ass portfolio on your site, a great content and sales message that motivates potential clients to buy from you.
2. Be active on social networking sites. In tandem with the previous advice, you need to build your authority on social network sites. Don’t use them for your personal benefit, instead, build a credible image of yourself as an expert in your field. Many prospects research potential freelancers they want to hire there and therefore, you must have a spotless profile.
3. Maintain a regular contact with your current clients. ONe of the best ways to win new clients is through referrals. However, you can’t get many of them if you are not in constant contact with your clients.
Send your clients a regular newsletter, ideally containing useful information that will help them or solve some really pressing problem for them (relating to what you do, of course). This is not about telling your clients how to do your job, rather offering them advice on how to work with you better.
4. Be present at as many conferences, workshops and your industry events as possible. It is very hard to win new work from the comfort of your room, I am sorry about that. You need to be where your prospects are, and you need to be active there. Attend every conference you can, of course related to what you do, take part in workshops and business meetings. Network and you will not believe how much business you will get this way.
How to Quickly Qualify a Prospect
Qualifying a prospect is one of the key aspects of the sales process. There is no point in selling to everyone. Firstly, not every person you meet is interested in what you are selling, secondly, they may not be in a position to buy anyway.
Selling is time consuming. It does take days, even weeks to make a sale. You have to find the people to sell to, initiate the sales process, make the initial contact, get through the barriers and make a presentation and even at this point you might not get your prospects to sign a contract. You may have to prove your worth by providing a good pre sale support and so on. That’s why it is so important to make sure that the people you are trying to sell to are likely to buy. And, in order to know that you have to qualify your prospects.
How to Quickly Qualify a Prospect
There is a very simple rule in sales which says that in order to be worth investing time and resources in, a prospect must have all of those three qualities.
They must need what you are selling.
This really speak for itself. You must find people who need your services or products and what’s more, ideally they should need them relatively soon.
They must have the money to pay you.
There is really no point initiating a sales process only to find out half way through that the prospect doesn’t have the budget to work with you. So, in order to save your time and efforts, you need to qualify if the prospect has the money to pay you. This of course doesn’t mean checking their bank accounts, I don’t think you would be able to do that anyway. But it means having a serious look at their business to assess if they can afford your rates.
They must have the authority to buy
Lastly, the person you want to talk to within the organization must be in a position to say yes. Not speaking with a decision maker is a real waste of time. Sure, they may say yes to you but chances are the the final decision will be halted on the higher level. So, unless you can’t talk to a desicion maker, don’t initiate the sales process.
Selling takes time. It also consumes a lot of effort, resources and energy. Therefore, you really need to make sure that you approach the right people, the ones who are the most likely to buy from you.
