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Maybe you’re looking to change your life and want to leave your daily 9 to 5. Maybe you’re just starting out, straight out of school, and want to do something on the side for some extra cash while you go on the good ol’ job hunt. Wherever you are in life, it can be a good time to start freelancing for some extra cash on the side.
Thanks to the internet, and all the other advancements in technology in the last decades, it’s even easier to find work wherever you are, whatever the time of day is. And this is something that you should leverage if you’re an aspiring freelancer.
These days you can be a freelancer based in Bali working with a client based in Amsterdam. You can be sitting poolside working on a deliverable for a client a thousand miles away, which is the beauty of working as a freelancer, among many other benefits.
But how do you get started, really? Sure, you already have enough skills to offer as a service, but who do you offer your services to? How do you go about how to find freelance clients?
Not to worry – if you’re a freelancer who’s looking to win his or her first client, this post is for you. In this article, I’m going to talk about how you can find freelance clients fast, and you won’t need much except for your time, effort and patience. So let’s get started!
What’s the usual way and how to find freelance clients?
This is how most freelancers start out: they decide to monetize their passion or whatever skill they’re good at. In order to do that, they build a website and sign up on different sites where they can showcase their portfolio or resume.
They advertise themselves a bit, perhaps do sponsored posts here and there. And then they wait for the clients to come to them.
While it seems like a good way to go about starting your freelance career, I’m here to tell you it’s probably not the most effective one.
Think about it: you spend all your time “putting yourself out there”, hoping that in doing so, someone might take an interest in your services, but do you ever really get in contact with anyone?
It’s a lot like casting a wide net, but with very big holes: it doesn’t matter how much space you cover, because at the end of the day, the fish can just escape through the net’s big holes.
I’m here to share with you other ways to get freelance clients to hire you, and these methods are more direct, which will hopefully deliver better results for you.
A Step-by-Step Guide on how to Find Freelance Clients
Step 1: Identify who your ideal client is.
Before you try to execute any attempt to promote your services to potential clients, it’s important to have an idea of who these potential clients might be, and where you can find them.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What kind of person would require your services?
- What is the need he or she has that your services can help address?
- Where would he or she look for someone to hire for their needs?
For example, you want to offer your services as a food photographer. Here’s how you can go about answering these questions:
- What kind of person would require your services? A restaurateur, a café shop owner, someone who sells their food products online, a chef who’s developing a cookbook.
- What is the need he or she has that your services can help address? They need beautiful food shots to use on their menu, or to promote the products on their menu online; They need artistically shot and delicious-looking food photographs to accompany their recipes on the cookbook.
- Where would he or she look for someone to hire for their needs? The restaurateur would probably ask for leads on forums for restaurant owners. The café shop owner might post an ad looking for a food photographer on their social media accounts. The chef turned writer can search online for possible leads.
By being able to answer three simple questions, you can already layout a structure on how you can find freelance clients. In this example, based on the answers given, to reach your potential clients you can either post in forums for restaurant owners, or send a direct message to the café shop’s social media accounts, or make sure you have ads online and that your services show up in search results.
Step 2: Build a database of your potential clients.
There are many different ways to build a client database – you can start by getting leads in your own networks, asking for referrals from friends and family, and so on.
You can also set up an email list online and have special free offers for anyone who signs up. The free offers don’t need to cost you anything other than your time.
For instance, a common practice is to create a guide, booklet, pamphlet, or even a full book where you talk about your services (but of course, not in a way where you’re selling your services too overtly). Remember that the content must be helpful to the reader / potential client, and they should be able to find value in it, which is why they would be willing to sign up to your mailing list.
Read about how to build an email list and best practices.
Step 3: Reach out to the potential clients from your database.
It’s ideal and definitely more memorable if you send a personalized message to potential clients instead of a generic one.
There are multiple items you’ll need to include on your first form of contact with your potential clients – of course, you will need to put your profile, portfolio, and past experience in your email to them. You can also offer some free perks to get them interested in your services.
Keep your message as concise as possible, and don’t beat around the bush: immediately get straight to the point. Remember that these potential clients probably receive numerous proposals from freelancers on a regular basis and they won’t have the time or interest to read through all of them.
Writing a winning proposal takes time to master and a lot of practice, and practice you will have: the longer your database is, the more chances you have of sending out proposals, and the more opportunities there will be to improve on your proposal.
Step 4: Connect with other freelancers
There are numerous ways to go about this: you can reach out to freelancers who offer the same service as you do. Sometimes freelancers get more work than they can cover, so they would then refer other freelancers they know to take on the jobs they can’t handle anymore.
Another way is to reach out to freelancers whose expertise complements yours. For instance, if you are a wedding videographer, it would be beneficial to reach out to other freelancers in the wedding industry, from photographers, caterers, etc. You can discuss developing packages to offer that contain both your services or you can simply ask them to refer you during their future events.
Step 5: Join relevant Facebook groups
Participating in Facebook groups is a great way to not only network but also to drive traffic to your blog. You will need to be active and genuine.
Don’t be spammy and just drop links. This is a quick way to get booted out of the group.
If you love what you do, then chances are you have a lot of value to add related to your niche.
Find Facebooks groups where your target market is. For example, if you’re an SEO guru or email marketing genius, you can join blogging groups. There are plenty of people hanging out in these groups that need SEO or email marketing assistance. Join in and provide your expertise. Give feedback. Many need to outsource certain tasks, particularly in areas they may not be strong in.
Blogging and Earning is a Facebook group that has 35k member and most importantly quite active. If you’re a content writer, what better place to start networking.
Don’t join too many groups or you will get overwhelmed. 3- 4 is a good starting point. If some aren’t working for you, find another one. Block out certain times of the day or week dedicated to engaging on these groups.
Don’t feel disheartened if the first potential client you send your proposal to doesn’t respond at all. Your first ten potential clients might not get back to you either.
The key to being a freelancer is having the willingness and resilience to continuously keep trying until you’re finally able to accomplish something.
You might be doing the same thing over and over again, day in and day out without any clients reaching out to you. But you must push on and trust the process, and perhaps adjust a few tweaks here and there on your program to make it work better. Persistence breaks resistance.
At some point, you will eventually find clients. And with time if you deliver on your promise, you can build a nice business of freelancing.
How did you find this post? Would you like me to talk about more topics like this in the future? Feel free to let us know what you think of the post in the comments section below, and don’t forget to share this post with your friends and other aspiring freelancers!