Let’s face it, the most challenging aspect of being a freelancer is finding freelance clients and marketing yourself online.
If you’re just starting your freelancing journey, you’re probably clueless about how to attract new freelance clients or promote yourself in the freelancing industry to grab some good projects.
While you may feel that getting a good number of freelance clients and projects is a very challenging task, actually, it isn’t if you use the appropriate tools to do so.
In this blog, we will talk about some simple steps by which you can easily attract more freelance clients.
Freelance Marketplaces Vs Exploring Online
When looking for freelance clients, you must choose from these two main options:-
Marketplaces: This includes locating clients on popular platforms like Linkedin, Freelancer, Toptal, Fiverr, Dribble, and Upwork.
Exploring: This entails pitching your services to prospective freelance clients personally. For example, preparing a list of individuals who require your services and then reaching out to those folks manually.
To begin, where you go to attract clients will be heavily influenced by what you’re selling and who you’re selling to.
Another consideration is your current industry relationships. Is there someone you know, like, and trust who is likewise interested in what you have to offer?
Let’s dig deeper into both choices so you can make the best choice.
Finding Freelance Clients on the Marketplaces
A freelancing marketplace is a website that connects freelance clients with freelancers. Clients publish employment tasks that freelancers can apply for.
The money is only released to the freelancer once the project is certified and completed by the site. As a result, it ensures the safety of both platform users.
Creating a profile on numerous platforms increases your chances of gaining freelance clients, but it also means you will spend more time administering multiple sites. You can also utilize the site to find top freelancers in your industry.
One of the most common errors made by new freelancers is joining all of the accessible freelancing platforms. You should concentrate your efforts on one or two platforms to maximize your time and expand your portfolio.
You will be less productive if you are scattered.
Before creating a profile, compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of each site. Based on input from freelancers and freelance clients, here are some of the greatest freelancing sites:
Upwork
Upwork is one of the largest freelancing platforms today, with over 1.5 million clients globally.
Thousands of opportunities are posted every day in various niches, skill levels, project durations, and rates.
Upwork features articles and discussion groups where you may learn how to be a successful freelancer.
Fiverr
The fact that you can create a work offer based on your freelance services makes Fiverr stand out among other platforms.
Buyers can purchase these ads immediately without having to communicate with you first, and they are known as gigs. Instead of going for jobs recommended by companies.
Since hundreds of freelance clients can examine your articles every day, this technique boosts your chances of being noticed. Getting high-paying customers on Fiverr is difficult. Because the platform was designed for rapid tasks, this is the case.
The good news is that, while you may begin by giving low prices, once you have received positive feedback, you may triple your prices and still receive bids without the necessity of throwing regularly.
The disadvantage is that the marketplace typically takes a significant portion of your earnings, ranging from 5% to 20% on average.
If you want to know some of more best freelancing websites for landing profitable projects then this blog is for you!
Finding Freelance Clients With Exploring
Some of the people’s initial freelancing gigs were mostly from native businesses that they had connections with. The initial number of purchasers is mostly their family and friends.
One factor people learn quickly is that marketing to those who already trust you may be a ton easier than marketing to those with who you’ve had no previous relationship.
There’s additionally no guarantee that your ideal consumer — the one UN agency you’ll be able to deliver the foremost worth to is wanting to rent on sites like Upwork. In that case, it’s your job to travel out and notice these purchasers and pitch them your services.
The big advantage of going direct is that you simply have a lot of management of the purchasers you’re employed with, management of the rating, and of what percentage of individuals you reach.
On the other hand, going directly to clients might require more labor. After all, these individuals did not place a job posting and may not be actively seeking assistance.
Choosing Between Freelance Markets and Prospecting
Overall, it is critical to assess the many pros and cons for oneself.
Having stated that the most crucial thing you should ask yourself is:
“What should I be doing to land my first sale quickly?”
At first, the most important thing is to get as much experience as possible as quickly as possible.
We’ll go through how you get freelance clients through marketplaces and prospecting in detail below.
Obtaining Employment Through Upwork and Job Boards
To attract your first freelance client through a marketplace, Fiverr and Upwork are the two most recommended websites. And we can say that Upwork is one of the largest sites which allows you to select jobs in a wide range.
Some advertisements want to hire on the platform locally. Therefore, checking if it’s a match before rejecting it is crucial.
The fundamental concepts of obtaining utilized on niche-specific platforms, like the ProBlogger Job Board, area unit remarkably just like those of obtaining started on Upwork.
Therefore all you have got to try and do now could be apply everything you have learned within the preceding posts to your most well-liked market.
Always keep an eye out for new job postings every day, and only apply to positions that are relevant to your experience.
Getting Your First Fiverr Job
Fiverr is another wonderful starting platform to attract freelance clients. As noted before, you develop specialized services (so-called gigs), which consumers can order on-demand in a different way than other freelance markets.
Fiverr is a website enabling anyone to join up for a service and provide $5. That is no longer the case, though, and now there is a huge chance to make extremely excellent money on the site.
Fiverr is an excellent platform for many newbies because you can quickly try several ideas without cost to evaluate what works.
Considering a Career as a Freelancer or Consultant
To be precise, cold prospecting will probably be a bad rap. Ultimately every single consultant or freelancer’s dream is to get the highest paying freelance clients. You have to be patient with it. It takes time.
Every single freelancer, even the most successful ones, does some kind of prospecting. Try giving free non-profit work to develop goodwill and associate your business with a real customer.
However, working for free is a contentious issue. After you’ve established yourself, don’t be afraid to charge what you’re worth!
You can earn over seven figures from a strong relationship with your customers (assuming that based on how good your reputation is in front of them).
And it is your job to ensure that you get closer to those customers every day. You are prospecting if we have to say in other terms.
Prospecting for Freelancers
This approach frequently leads to a great waste of time. One of the crucial things to perform as a freelancer is identifying and validating prospects.
You need good customers who respect your expertise and pay well.
Right?
It won’t be fun for you, but it helps a lot.
Step 1. Establish a List of Leads
There can be two approaches while you’re establishing the list of leads:
The Shotgun Approach: Strain out as many individuals as possible in your message, hoping you’re going to morsel.
The Sniper Approach: Laser accuracy about who you are contacting.
The sniper approach is certainly far more successful if you’ve selected a strong niche and truthfully pared down your message.
If you send your message to hundreds of people, the rate is not only reduced, but the quality of your customer is less than that achieved with the sniper approach.
That is why niche and messages are so crucial to reduce.
One good objective here is to name 20 persons who can contact you about your service. All of these people ought to fit into what you have to offer.
Most importantly, you want the people you already have a relationship with to start the cold search listings. He’d be deemed a “warm” lead, as he knows you at least.
This warm list may also begin with reference sources.
Step 2. With A Simple Email, You Can Rack The Shotgun
A famous marketing guru taught one of the most essential principles over ten years of intensively studying marketing. The concept is known as shotgun racking.
So say you have a list of 20 people who you want to tell you what you have to give. What are you going to offer? But not all people are interested in what you must sell (at least not now).
You, therefore, must find out who it is. And it is done by delivering a calculated, mostly ignoring the signal. There are the few who are interested – those who raise their hands – in your prospects. It’s also worth noting when you rack your shotgun; you don’t ask.
You would not like them to commit themselves, such as organizing a telephone conversation or holding a personal encounter. Rather, at this point, you just identify the prospects you can resolve — i.e., the ones that raise their hands.
Better Cold Email Template for Pitch
So, what is good cold email marketing?
Remember, what you are doing here is just trying to get ideal freelance clients to raise their hands and make a very simple small commitment that they are interested in your products.
Thus, here is how it looks like someone who pitches cold in the “earn money” area with a website owner.
A personalized introduction that indicates to the prospect that this is not an automated communication.
Provide evidence (e.g., years of experience, past results, specialty) that you are worth listening to and understand their situation.
Discuss the main advantage of working with you.
Encourage them to raise their hands by making the lowest commitment feasible.
Step 3. The Follow Up
When you’re in a sales conversation with your freelance clients, keep in mind that you’re attempting to create a win-win situation.
The freelance clients require your services, and you require the business. So there’s no reason to feel bad about following up.
The easiest method to establish a win-win situation is to simply inquire about the best time and mode of follow-up right after your initial conversation.
Your prospects are busy people who would appreciate it if you were considerate of their time. Those with marketing and sales experience will recognize that what you’re doing here is driving leads down your sales funnel.
You have a list of 20 persons at the top of the sales funnel. You then wrote a personalized but semi-templated email to each of these 25 prospects to determine which ones are interested in what you have to offer.
Those that raised their hands, indicating an interest in what you had to say, are now called warm leads. You’ve got their attention. Your freelance clients are looking forward to hearing from you.
It is now your responsibility to convert this warm lead into a sale.
You’ll need to go through three stages to do this:
Show them, rather than telling them, that you are the perfect person for the position.
Engage in a conversation with the prospect to get to know each other better.
A well-crafted proposal will help you close the deal.
The Follow-Up Email
It’s crucial not to rush things with warm possibilities, just as you wouldn’t ask someone to marry them on the first date.
Your next goal is to demonstrate to the prospect that you can indeed solve their problem – a problem that you know they have since they responded to your email.
You’ll know you’ve succeeded when your freelance client makes another little commitment by organizing a phone call or an in-person meeting with you.
At this point, you’ll realize that not only will the sales process differ with each freelance client, but it will also change depending on what you have to offer.
Never be self-centered or product-focused in your follow-ups. The real goal is to provide value and earn the prospect’s confidence. Your talks should be so beneficial that the client looks forward to speaking with you.
This is only achievable if you thoroughly research your prospects, grasp their present issues, and create talks that are truly beneficial to them (and not only you).
Offer innovative ideas and share your customer success stories. Even if you are unable to reach a win-win situation with the prospect and they decide to decline your offer.
Be gracious enough to provide the advice and direct them to the appropriate individuals who can assist them.
Step 4: The Phone Call
The objective up to now was to have a cold lead on the telephone or a meeting in person with your freelance client. So, what is the point of the in-person meeting or phone call?
Most people believe that this is the stage at which your freelance client can ask you questions about what you have to offer or that you will give them a proposal because they have shown interest.
Once the actual work begins, you can give not only a personalized proposal that addresses every significant business issue of the customer but also make your job better. This allows a greater rate to be charged.
Coming up With Good Sales Questions For Your Freelance Client
An excellent trick here, particularly for people new to sales, is to prepare a list of five sales questions to utilize at this stage of the sales process.
It’s difficult to convince new freelance clients to answer a slew of questions when they simply want to get started on the job. But trust me when I say that after a few sticky circumstances, you’ll realize it’s worth the extra effort.
Every freelance client is different: some believe they trust you enough to make something better than they could.
Some appear to have forgotten about the project as soon as they hired you, and those who are so involved that you can’t get started without them coming in with new ideas or further information.
Some freelance clients respond to emails, and clients do not respond to emails at all. Those who don’t contact frequently may not answer, so it’s best to go over the questions in person or over the phone.
Consider how responsive your freelance clients have been in your previous conversations to determine what is appropriate.
Is it best to contact them by phone or by email? If you’re unsure, ask them what they like.
In either case, provide your questions to the customer ahead of time, so they know what they’re getting into and may take their time considering their responses.
Even if your freelance clients dislike filling out your questionnaire, they will appreciate the fact that you are structured and intelligent enough for making sure that your work proves to be a success.
Proposing And Concluding
We have the proposal phase last, but surely not least. Yes, the time has finally arrived to seal the deal, acquire that first client, and make that first money.
This procedure comprises sending a tailored proposal to freelance clients that details everything they would receive as a result of working with you.
Wrapping It Up
In a perfect scenario, one step, one e-mail, and one telephone call will move your freelance clients down from your sales funnel. Yet remember that it rarely happens that flawless events flow. The process of sales is unclear.
It will be different from each perspective. You will only design the systems and processes that will operate successfully for your company over time. For the time being, the most important thing is to obtain your concept to see whether you are going to be paid for it.
Take a step back and assess the level of trust you’re creating with your freelance client if you have trouble with close sales.
Do you have sufficient confidence to say that they will continuously listen to you?
Have you previously given them sufficient value to justify taking their time?
These are questions that can help to assess the need for improvements to your sales funnel, which you can try to win over both customers today and in the future.
You have to practice just like any ability. And there is no better method to make money than by pitching customers, receiving feedback, and altering your plans according to what worked and did not work.
You’re going to improve over time and in practice. And your closing rate will go too- even if you apply for that employment with a lot of money.
For someone who never requested money before, realize it will take some time for most people to make it convenient.
But those that know that it is a process that needs to be continuously learned and tested in the actual world are the ones that win in the long term.
