9 Things Freelancers Absolutely Must Do

to Land Lots of Quality Clients

9
Red Lemon Club

A Red Lemon Club Publication

redlemonclub.com

All Rights Reserved Alex Mathers 2011 No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Legal Notice
Every effort has been made to make this report as complete and accurate as possible. The purpose of this report is to educate. The author does not warrant that the information contained in this report is fully complete and shall not be responsible for any errors or omissions. This publication is not intended for use as a source of legal, business or accounting advice. The Publisher wants to stress that the information contained herein may be subject to varying state and/or local laws or regulations. All users are advised to retain competent counsel to determine what state and/or local laws or regulations may apply to the users particular business. The author shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this guide.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Write Down Your Personal End Goals. 2. Determine Your Target Market. 3. Assess Exactly What Your Target Market is Looking For. 4. Know When Your Prospects are Likely to Look For You. 5. Find Out Where Clients Are Looking For People Like You. 6. Determine What it is About You that Makes Clients Choose You. 7. Work Out the Main Way For Your Prospects to Engage With You. 8. Spend Time on Building Your Credibility as a Professional. 9. Develop and Maintain Relationships with Prospects and Past Clients.

9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25

End

26

Introduction

9
9

9 9

99

9 9
6

Introduction

professionals!

Thank you for downloading this must-have report for freelancing

If you plan on attracting plenty of regular work from great clients, this is a hugely important resource to give you the essentials required to do so. Unlike so many guides out there for people looking for success, this book provides actual action steps that you need to work on, instead of endless theory. Sure, if you create stunning work or provide a brilliant service, the quality of the work will attract the occasional new client. However, if you want sustainable, regular income from great clients that you love to work with, these 9 To-Dos will allow you carve out a path to get there. The following have been arranged in order of priority starting from the highest at 1, down to 9, although each element is important. Its also perfectly fine to address elements individually, at your own leisure and to your own order. Lets get straight to it...

1. Write Down Your Personal End Goals.

1. Write Down Your Personal End Goals.

Something that many simply dont do, but will create guidance, motivation, focus and confidence in you as you forge ahead with your career, is knowing your own desired end result. This is a well-defined goal, or set of goals that serve to clarify in your mind exactly what you want. Write down your 5, 10 and 20-year careers goals on paper. Make sure these are goals that you personally are strongly motivated towards. Be descriptive and read it through a few times. Then hide the paper away, and refer to it regularly, tweaking occasionally when you need to. For example, I see myself as the creative director at a graphic design studio in London with 5 employees working on exhilarating projects with major brands, yet with plenty of free time for my family on the weekends.

2. Determine Your Target Market.

10

2. Determine Your Target Market.

You need to be completely clear on exactly what type of individual (or organisation) you are targeting your service towards. The more specific you are, the better because knowing this will inform the type of work you do, as well as your brand and it will have a strong bearing on how you will market your work. These things are key. When you reach out to prospects within your target market with an awareness of who these people are and what they want, they are much more likely to respond better to you.

11

3. Assess Exactly What Your Target Market is Looking For.

12

3. Assess Exactly What Your Target Market is Looking For.

You need to be clear on what your target market want, so that you can provide them with the offers and solutions that are just right for them. Spend some time researching those within your target market to see what makes them tick and what they truly need. Knowing this will dramatically improve the way you approach new prospects and create awareness about your brand.

13

4. Know When Your Prospects are Likely to Look For You.

14

4. Know When Your Prospects are Likely to Look For You.

Yup, I said when. This means finding out about where along the line, in a prospects career or personal life, do they find a need to reach out to people like you. What needs to happen in someones life for them to use the kind of service you offer? For example, if you provide advice for small business companies, you will want to know the timing of when business owners (your target market in this case) are likely to ask for advice. This will then guide your strategy for reaching out to these people so that you dont waste time appealing to business people who are already experiencing business success further down the line, for example.

15

5. Find Out Where Potential Clients Are Looking For People Like You.

16

5. Find Out Where Potential Clients Are Looking For People Like You.
You need to determine where your potential clients within your target market are looking for services or products like yours. Do they read magazines or surf Google, or look through online forums or use social media? Do they rely mostly on referrals, and if so, what other business professionals do they trust in order to get these referrals? The easiest way to find out where people in your target market go to find you, is by asking them. Knowing where your target market is, will show you where to find them and where to introduce your brand and work.

17

6. Determine What it is About You that Makes Clients Choose You.

18

6. Determine What it is About You that Makes Clients Choose You.

This means working out what it is that is unique to you and your service alone, and expressing this selling point clearly and with confidence. This might require some tweaking of exactly what you are doing within your business so that you are clear on what it is that clients might choose you for. You need to be absolutely certain on this one, because any half-baked, unsure responses will not inspire confidence in potential clients and in yourself. You need to be comfortable in saying to prospects: The thing you really need is my service!

19

7. Work Out the Main Way For Your Prospects to Engage With You.

20

7. Work Out the Main Way For Your Prospects to Engage With You.
This is different to finding out where your customers are. This is about determining what exactly it is that you want your potential clients to actually do in order to develop an ongoing relationship with you. Most of your clients will take a while to build up a level of trust in you before committing to using your services. Therefore you need to know the medium through which, contact is made. Do you want them to sign up to a newsletter on your blog or follow you on Tumblr? Do you want them to call your office, or send you an email? Think about your main form of developing a relationship here. I find an ongoing newsletter, with me providing regular valuable content and the ability to interact via those emails is a solid form of engagement.

21

8. Spend Time on Building Your Credibility as a Professional.

22

8. Spend Time on Building Your Credibility as a Professional.

Prospects are more likely to develop trust in you and eventually use your services and products if you have established a degree of credibility (or proof) of your professional capabilities. You dont have to be at the top of your game in order to have credibility, but the more the better, and this is an ongoing process. There are so many ways to build credibility as you go along, and they include any manner of building up a professional image of you. This includes things like a set of positive testimonials on your personal site or writing a blog that demonstrates your expertise in something, ideally related to your service or niche. This could also include something as small as the number of people that follow your sites RSS feed as it flashes up on your site.

23

9. Develop and Maintain Relationships with Prospects and Past Clients.

24

9. Develop and Maintain Relationships with Prospects and Past Clients.

Using the main form of engagement that was established in point 7, but also via various other modes of communication, you need to maintain an ongoing relationship with potential clients and especially those people who you previously worked with. Even the most influential and highly regarded professionals need to maintain awareness amongst prospects and old clients to stay fresh and ahead of the competition. As well as obviously staying memorable, this is important in developing a level of trust and likability in the eyes of those that may eventually work with you. Over time, if your services are appropriate to the needs of that person who has developed a relationship with you, you should be in with a strong chance of getting hired. A newsletter is one form of maintaining such a relationship with those you have linked up with, but there are many other methods you can use to create additional weight behind your central form of communication. This includes regularly sending individualised checking in emails to old clients for example, sending out postcards, or creating status updates through social media platforms and updating a blog.

25

End
There you have it. A proper consideration and application of these 9 elements will benefit your freelance business in a big way. I would recommend taking a folder and splitting it into 9 sections. In each section make sure you have written down exactly the details of how you are dealing with each of these 9 elements of your freelancing business. Thank you for taking the time to read this essential guide. If you have any questions, please ask. Before you go, I would hugely appreciate it if you shared this book with those you know by Tweeting about by clicking this button:

Thank you!

Best, Alex

26

THANKS FOR READING!

AUTHORS LINKS redlemonclub.com apeonthemoon.com twitter.com/moonape

27