3 overlooked ways to get clients fast
You’ve made the decision to become a freelancer, now, how do you get clients fast without being weird, desperate, or invasive?
In this post, I will show you three overlooked ways you can use to get clients. And what’s more? They are most likely things you know but have discarded as nothing. Without further ado, let’s dive into them.
Identify your client
Hold on a second, before we dive into these three ways, there is something that needs to be done first. And that is to clear the clutter by identifying who your ideal client is.
You see, many freelancers are shooting at everything and aiming at nothing. They are not clear on who they want to work with? So, to you, do you have a mental picture of your ideal client?
Let’s say you are into graphic design, for instance. Do you want to work with individuals, small businesses, or big corporations? Establish this first as this will determine where you will be doing your ‘fishing’.
That done. Now, ask yourself for the niche you want to work in. If you want to produce videos for companies for instance, what kind of companies do you have in mind? Those in the tech space or those in the health niche? This might seem inconsequential but knowing the niche you want to target will help you know the trends and opportunities existing among businesses in that niche.
That way, you are able to reach out to your prospects with things they can relate with and need, instead of a random and offensively cold pitch like that of an average Joe. So, pick a niche — or two.
One more thing…
How much would you like to earn per client? You need to have a figure in mind as it will help you know the best approach to use in finding your own kind of clients. There is a place for compromise in this though. But it does make sense to have a particular amount you will never go below.
Now that we’ve laid the foundation for the three often overlooked ways of getting clients as a freelancer, let’s see what the ways are.
Identify flaws in a prospect’s business
I once came across a quote in a book and it says,
“There is less to fear from outside competition than from inside inefficiency, discourtesy and bad service”
I don’t know who made this statement but it is true that business owners — the serious ones especially — do their best to optimize their business and make it the object of their customers’ rave. Now, how does that apply to you? Here is it: once you’ve made a list of prospective clients in your niche that can pay you the amount you want, do an in-depth study of their business as it relates to your service. Ask yourself, ‘in what way can I help these people do better?’ ‘What is currently lacking that I can supply?’ ‘And in what way is my supply going to be relevant to their business?’
Now, pay attention. If you miss me here, you might as well just go get a pillow and sleep.
To answer the questions above, you will have to look for flaws in their businesses or identify areas where they can do better. Flaws? How? Here’s what I mean: let’s say you want to pitch a photography service to a modeling agency, you can try and get the unedited pictures of some of their models and edit them in a way that is better than what they currently have. Once you are done, go ahead and send it over with your pitch. You never can tell; they might have been looking for a better replacement for their ineffective freelance photographer. It’s a way of offering your take on your potential client’s product; a customer review kind of thing.
So, go ahead and get your leg in the door of your prospect’s business; reach out to her or a key player in the organization with your pitch. To know who the key player is? You can make use of sites like Linkedin or you can just google the company. If you are gonna use Linkedin, type in the company’s name in the search bar, click the employee’s tab. You will see the ‘who is who’ of the company (provided the person is on Linkedin). Go ahead and make your pitch wisely.
Win the heart of your prospect
To win the heart of your prospect, you’ve got to show up for them. And by showing up, I mean you show you care. Showing you care about the business pain points and questions of folks who are not your clients yet, can have a serious impact on the eventual relationship you’ll have with these people. People naturally like others that seem to have their interest at heart. Hence…
“Before you ask for a hand, touch a heart”
And two of the ways you can use to touch the heart of people so they end up as your clients are by providing answers to their questions on social media platforms and or organizing workshops for them.
Online platforms
Provide answers to people’s questions (related to your service) on platforms like Quora or Reddit, do a thread on Twitter, participate in conversations on Facebook groups, etc. Show up with valuable content for free. What happens most times is that prospective clients will check out your profile (make sure it is on point) to know who ‘this guru’ is, and can from there reach out to you with their business need or pain point.
Workshops
Have you ever thought of teaching small business owners how to do their own graphics design using less difficult and professional tools like Canva? You can organize a workshop for free as a way of helping small business owners reduce their costs. If you do that, can you guess who would be their first port of call when they still find it difficult to do the design by themselves or they can’t find time to do it or they don’t want to do it? You, of course.
And what’s more? You can use pictures from this event (with you as the speaker) as your cover photo on social media. This will increase your perceived value in the mind of prospective clients. Do you get the point?
Volunteer
Working for free isn’t the route most freelancers would like to take but if you really want what I refer to as ‘access granted to insiders’ even though you are a freelancer, then, I think you should consider volunteering. Just hit up an organization with your desire to help them with your service for free. Who doesn’t like free things especially if it is a service coming from a professional?
And guess what…most times, those companies don’t use your service for free. They might not pay you what you would normally charge, but they will definitely express their appreciation of your time and skill in one way or the other. And what is more? If you do an excellent job, you can ask for referrals; something I believe they will be more than willing to do in the light of what you do for them.
And when you feel it’s time to ‘move on’, you shouldn’t burn those bridges but rather keep them in your network and show up for them from time to time.
Final thoughts
These are some of the ways you can use to get clients fast as a freelancer without appearing weird or desperate. And if you have other overlooked ways that are not covered in this post, kindly let me know in the comments.
