Most freelancers are reactive — they wait for new leads to come to them.
The problem is that getting leads reactively depends on luck. Will you get a new client when you need them? Or will you instead need to start looking for a job?
Our in-depth articles and guides on sales and marketing will help you generate high-quality project leads on your own terms, and allow you to eliminate uncertainty and doubt.
Whether through 4+ years of in-depth articles, premium courses, the conferences and events I host, or my podcast, my #1 goal is to help you become a more successful freelancer.
(This is a guest post by Mojca Mars, a speaker at the upcoming Double Your Freelancing Conference. Don’t have your ticket yet? Buy your ticket while they’re still available and join Mojca and 13 other speakers in Norfolk, Virginia, this September 16th – 18th)
“I’m afraid we can no longer keep you on as an employee,” said my boss at the advertising agency I worked at for more than a year. It was a nice way of saying I was … well, fired.
I had n0 connections, no knowledge of business, I just knew 1 thing – I wanted to create something of my own. I had absolutely no clue how, so I did what I do best – used social media to build a business. And boy, what a wild ride it was.
(This is a guest post by Kurt Elster, a speaker at the upcoming Double Your Freelancing Conference. Don’t have your ticket yet? Buy your ticket while they’re still available and join Kurt and 13 other speakers in Norfolk, Virginia, this September 16th – 18th)
A year ago I was in the same position as many freelancers and agency owners. My professional life was a roller coaster of worrying if I could bill enough this month and then worrying about delivering on time the next. The worst part was that I, like many of you, had accepted my situation as the nature of the business.
Today things are quite a bit different. I get as many as ten new, qualified leads every day, on top of selling consistently to existing (and happier than ever) clients. And the best part is it happens almost entirely without me.
One of my first marketing experiments after opening up my agency’s office in downtown Norfolk, Virginia was to setup a Facebook ad campaign advertising our web design and development services.
Fast forward a few hundred dollars in budget… and you can probably guess what happened next.
I shut down the campaigns.
The clicks we did get (which weren’t many) weren’t leading to new leads. It was a waste of money.
I wrote off the idea of paid advertising, and instead focused on building up a grassroots network of referral sources.
Well, my decision to steer clear of ads obviously worked. We were able to make do without paying for leads.
But a few months ago, somebody asked me if I’d reconsider paid advertising for finding clients after hearing about the runaway success I’ve had advertising my email course, Charge What You’re Worth.
My response was that if I could go back in time knowing what I know now about Facebook ads, I would. Here’s why:
In this article, I’m going to open up the kimono and give you an inside look at a conversation I had last week with someone in one of my Mastermind groups. These conversations are typically private, but I asked Jordan if he’d be open to me sharing the discussion we had with all of you, and he said yes. Here’s the plan we put together for helping his software business find, and ultimately sell, high-value clients.
Before you hit that back button, know that this article will help you — even if you aren’t an optimization consultant who works with ecommerce companies.
My goal is to help you take many of the strategies and techniques that Jordan is using and apply them to your own business – regardless of what type it is.
There are plenty of ways for freelancers to get project leads: job marketplaces like oDesk or Elance, referrals from past clients, people finding your website through a Google search, and so on.
But we all know these acquisition channels vary in quality. Given the choice, I think we’d all prefer a strong referral from a wonderful past client over competing with potentially hundreds of others for a gig on a job board.
So with that said, this article is about referrals — the holy grail of project leads. One of the best things you can do as the owner of your freelancing business is to increase the amount of referral sources you have. The more people you have to refer you, the more direct leads you’re able to get.
But most of us don’t do much to proactively get more referrals or to expand our referral network. We each have a “sphere of influence” — people who know what we provide, and are able to recommend us to others (or just hire us outright). Let’s talk about how you can both grow your sphere of influence, and condition those in it to become prime referral sources for you.
