How To Juggle Getting Clients And Working
Let’s say you’re a freelance marketing consultant.
On the one hand, you have to master your field. Marketing consultancy is a tricky field and if you’re specialising in some online facet (probably for the best) then it’s a constantly updating field and everyone is struggling to be one step ahead of everyone else.
Then, you have the other hand: Putting the work in for your clients. Your clients aren’t paying you to keep up to date with marketing trends. They’re paying you to get them results. It’s unlikely that they care about the next technical wizardry. They just want more money than they’re paying you.
It’s understandable, but then you have a whole other thing you have to deal with and no other hands left: Getting more clients.
Most freelancers struggle with the ratio between selling/landing clients and actually doing the work for the clients they have.
Once again, I’m here to help you.
To Start With, You Need A Ton Of Clients
Bear in mind that this is how I started. Other people might do all kinds of other weird stuff, but here’s a personal study with a success rate of 100% and a sample size of one.
In the beginning, you have no clients and no reputation. You probably don’t have as much skill as you think either, but I’m not a self-esteem doctor or a psychic, so we’ll leave that there.
You obviously need to spend 90% of your time prospecting in every single way you can.
Low paid jobs? Sure.
Helping your uncle’s friend’s son write a CV? Why not?
Give marketing advice to the guy who knocks on your door selling charity subscriptions? You need the work.
Fiverr, Upwork and all those scarily bad sites? Yep.
At the beginning, you want quantity. There’ll be gurus that tell you, “No, get the clients you deserve,” but here’s the thing: You will sit and wait until you’re a dusty skeleton if you do that. You can’t compete as an expert if you don’t have a track record, beaming testimonials and the intangibles to compete.
Forget it and spend 90% of your time prospecting.
I Have Loads Of Terrible Work! What Do I Do Now?
Having loads of work, even if it’s bad work, is good.
Part of being an established freelancer is that you can be picky and choosy about the work you do, when you do it and how you do it. At the above beginning stage, your life will be pretty irritating at times, but you should work through it.
When you can honestly say, “I don’t have time” it’s time to start getting more choosy:
- Build a waiting list (social proof)
- Put your prices up (woo! More money)
- Drop the bad clients
- Collect DATA
You want to collect data. Stuff you should take note of:
- Do you get work that you’re not working to get? Referrals? Some guy who posted a link to you on a particular site? Where does it come from?
- Is there any particular niche where you’re talented?
- Do any clients moan a lot and expert more, and do any of them give you more praise than others?
You get the picture… all of this data is relevant when you make the next jump.
Actual Marketing
There’s no point in marketing yourself with all kinds of complicated gimmicks as a new freelancer. You aren’t going to set up an email list to pimp out your $5 articles or your $10 website logos. It’s not necessary and the low level clients you get won’t really be interested.
Now, once you get to a point where your rates are going up, you’re busier and you’re more in demand, you’ll want to start doing some sensible marketing.
At this point, you can look into that sort of stuff. This is where data is important. Who are your best customers and what do they have in common?
Build your website and marketing message around those.
At this point, you’ll be busy enough that marketing will want to take a side-seat to your work. You do this by setting up funnels (literally and figuratively) and autoresponders. Essentially, you want to take your foot off the pedal for real-time marketing (aka getting clients) and put more time into building a web of marketing goodness.
In other words: Wait on the Twitter account until you’re established and you know who you’re going after as clients.
At this point, your freelance work should be consistent, your prices should be gradually rising and you’ll be weeding out the weaker/troublesome/cheaper clients. You’ll also likely be niching down in terms of the service you offer.
The Robot Rebellion
Let’s say you do the above and it takes you a year to establish yourself. You’re at the point where you charge market rates or above, you have a stable of clients that pay you comfortably and you concentrate on stuff that you enjoy.
What next?
There comes a point where you don’t want to actively market. So you must stop. Past a certain point, cold calling doesn’t achieve your goal, and the time commitment to marketing to new people sucks too much out of your working-time budget.
So you use robots.
Remember when I said you need data? That’s because by the time you get to this stage, you must know who your clients are, where they go and most importantly, the cost of acquisition. At this point, the numbers matter more than the interpersonal stuff.
Here’s where you build actual funnels, use PPC, constantly have a waiting list and become a “brand.”
Final Thoughts
Generally, you should put more effort into what I’d call “active marketing” at the beginning, and you should get more passive as your career progresses.
Note that I’ve mentioned a few things that are “guru bait” in this article. People talk a lot about “building a brand” and “picking their clientele” but the average guru completely omits the fact that you can’t just do those things when you have no clients and no real business.
“I’m building my brand” is not a concern if you’re charging $5 an hour. It is if you’re charging $500 an hour. You can’t just start at $500 an hour either, like some believe.
Yet that’s exactly what many freelancers try to do, getting everything backwards and getting nowhere in the process.
Instead, start with achievable stuff. Put it out there in straightforward terms. Then advance as you need to in an organic manner. Do not push marketing… let it be a natural consequence of the services you provide and the position you have in the marketplace.