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How to guarantee a stream of clients for your freelance business

Written on 26 January 2012, published in Freelancing with an astounding 10 comments

Last year was looking to be my best to date. Work was flooding in and my price per project was up. Things were looking rosy, I was busy. That is, until September. Suddenly the bottom fell out and the famine began…So how do you guarantee a stream of clients for your freelance business?

So what went wrong?

We’re talking a complete lack of work. I left my shared work space and moved back to my home office. It was a hard decision to make, but it was the only option available. Without an income I couldn’t pay the rent for the office, the petrol to get there or the parking fees. With no money coming in there was nothing to be done.

So why were the freelance gods so cruel? I half wondered if it had something to do with the porn site I had recently turned down, but I quickly threw out that theory. While it’s true that my blog posts had slowed down, I don’t think that was the reason why work had dropped off either. The truth is I had been so busy working, and going from one referral to the next that I forgot the Golden Rule, don’t stop marketing… Ever! I’d stopped.

Too busy for my own good?

I don’t think I sent one single marketing email in the first 9 months of 2011. You’re probably thinking, “What an ass,” and you’d be right. Boy did I pay for it, my freelance business virtually disappeared. Until the end of December I didn’t take on any projects big enough to even cover my taxes. It was a low point, and not one I intend to repeat.

We’re now in the middle of January and it seems that people are throwing projects at me. What happened, what changed? Part of it was timing, we all know these things go in cycles, but mainly it was a change of attitude, and probably more importantly a change in tactics. I started to market myself to prospective new clients on a regular basis.

Salvation

Thanks to Ed Gandia’s course on warm email prospecting I’ve come out with some very interesting leads. I won’t go into the course details as that would be unfair on Ed. What I will say is that until now I wasn’t targeting any particular market. As the saying goes, “If you market to everyone, you market to no-one.” I looked at the type of client I was interested in working with, and made them my entire marketing focus. No more cold emails to people with whom I had absolutely no connection.

My previous attempts at email marketing were drawn out affairs. I  listed my services with links to sites, my project planner, my free ebook, “10 ways to get the most from your web project, a client’s guide.” and other distracting elements. All this in a first email from a complete stranger. We’ve all received these kinds of emails and we’ve all binned them.

Why would someone who doesn’t know me from Adam, want to read about how great I am, when they probably have 3 cousins who build websites on the weekends? Well… the key is to find a connection. Why are you writing to this particular person, what do you have in common, what is it about them or their company that inspired you to want to work with them?

Choose your market carefully

In my case I’m a horror/fantasy fan, so I chose to target horror/fantasy authors. As I’m already a fan the research comes easily. Just use your noggin and think about what would make you open an email from an unknown sender. I doubt very much you would be tempted to open an email with a subject field that reads, “Web designer for hire.” That would go straight in the spam bin. Make it relevant, make it interesting to them and make it short! You’re freelance business will thank you.

Worse case scenario, you send out 100 emails and get 2 jobs. You’re two jobs better off than you were before. The important thing is to market your freelance business constantly, whether that’s by way of email, social media, putting up local ads or even walking down the streets shouting “Web designer for hire.”

You can’t rely solely on referrals. You need to stay active and you need to make sure you’re on a prospective client’s shortlist the next time a project arises. Don’t forget, you’re not marketing yourself for the present, you’re marketing yourself for an unknown future. The chances of your prospective client needing you right now are slim, but in 3, 6 or 12 months you just might be the first person they think of.

If you have any hints or suggestions for great ways to find new clients, or in general about running a freelance business, then I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment below…

So chin up, keep busy and keep working.

Good luck!

Photo Credits: Jamie, Rob Mutch, Jonathan Reyes, alan berning,