Your potential clients have yet to meet you, and all they can depend on is what they can look up online. It's in your best interest to make sure they're impressed by what they find and assured that you're the best choice. Putting time and effort into your online presence will serve you your whole career.
Looking professional
A huge help in getting the first - or any - client is to look the part. Not just in person but virtually, too. Everything related to your professional image online should give potential clients confidence that you're the right person for the job. There's nothing worse than if a client is put off by a freelancer's online presentation. It's not about competing for beauty, graphic design, or copywriting awards - it's just that you don't want to look like a slob.
First impression
Countless studies confirm how big of a role first impressions play and how difficult it is to change any conclusions it helped form. Ensure all touchpoints clients can visit or see - your website, social media profiles, or your Flowlance profile (coming soon), are properly filled. When companies are looking for a freelancer to work with, they often shortlist a few they find most compelling, contact all of them, and see which one makes the best impression. Know that you'll be compared with others, and put yourself in the best position to succeed.
Website
The most essential thing every solopreneur has to get right is a website. If you can't set it up yourself, get someone to do it. It doesn't have to be expensive. Instead of hiring a digital marketing agency that will be happy to charge you anywhere upwards of $1000, find a student who can make it just as well for half the price, and maybe even less.
Remember to come prepared: "Hi, I need a website for my [your industry] freelancing business. Here are three websites I like, here is a Word doc with all the text I want there, and here are five images of me you can use." Whoever does your website can only work with what you give him. Many freelancers prepare only a few text paragraphs and then are disappointed that the website looks empty.
If you don't know what to put on your website, check out your competitors' websites and feel free to copy their website structure (not content!) - or even better, take what you like from each of them. The content has to be original. If you're not a strong writer, write everything you want without worrying about how it sounds or looks, and then send it all to a copywriter who will rewrite it into a copy you will be proud of. The text should be professional but also look like you wrote it - overly professional texts sound unnatural and unrelatable. Be authentic.
If the nature of your work allows you to, show something of what you've done. Instead of lumping it all into a single gallery, make a separate page for each client or project, describe your assignment, and give it some context so anyone who looks at it will know what you were tasked to do and see how you did it. You can do this either in a very basic form or as a case study. If you can make compelling and rich case studies, new clients will be coming one after the other. To help you make them like this, one of the lessons in this Module will be exclusively about case studies.
💡 Keep in mind
AI can help you with the copy, but be careful - it's notorious for generating text that sounds very pompous. Use it to rewrite your sentences rather than have it write them for you from scratch.
If you don't know what to write on your website, prohibit yourself from thinking: "This is self-evident; I don't have to mention it." Most professionals fail to acknowledge how little people outside their industry know about it. Once you allow yourself to go into the details, even the trivial ones, there will suddenly be much more to write about.
Social media profiles
Another no-brainer is social media profiles. Even though filling the profiles sounds like an easy task, you'd be amazed at how many freelancers have them in a very poor state, especially when they try to incorporate some graphic design into it - logos, banners, and everything else of this sort. If you don't want to get anyone to help you out, stick to using photos.
If you can work with some graphic design tools, you can get a pro to make you a couple of post templates, where you will always only change the content. This way, you can have professionally looking images without using a professional every time.
💡 Keep in mind
Getting the core of your online image right is mostly a one-off thing and will serve you for years. There's no good reason to neglect it.
Describing your services
Don't keep your potential clients guessing what exactly you offer or how it works. If there are multiple packages you can provide, describe each in detail. If your field has a lot of intricacies, provide more information about your specialization. Avoid using terms like "complete," "full-service," "comprehensive," and similar without listing, point by point, what services it includes. The more information you can give about your services, the better. Describe how the cooperation works step-by-step to make your potential clients more confident and comfortable about it.
If your field has multiple schools of thought, describe which one you prefer and how you apply it. Share your views on the matters your potential clients care about so they can easily identify you're the one they're looking for.
When it comes to publishing your pricing, you have to ask yourself whether you're a budget option or not. If you are, not sharing your price would essentially hide your biggest competitive advantage. If you focus on offering quality, publishing the price isn't necessary, and you're okay with asking clients to get in touch for a quote. Those who want the best usually don't have the price as their primary concern.
Communication
Your image and marketing aren't only what your clients see but also what they experience. The speed and the way you answer the emails are also your marketing. The same goes for answering phone calls. If someone asks you a question, you can either just quickly answer it and wait for what happens next or use it to start a conversation and demonstrate that you care - maybe provide more (or more detailed) information than the client needed, a detailed explanation of the problem if you see that the client doesn't understand it very well, suggest the next steps that should be taken, and so on. Sometimes, what will set you apart the most won't be your expertise or image but your energy, approach, and effort.
Remember
👉 First impressions are crucial - clients evaluate in a couple of seconds.
👉 Make your website and social media profiles look good.
👉 When writing content for your website, go into details.
👉 Don't give potential clients any reasons to reject you.
👉 Be upfront about how the cooperation works.
👉 Your communication and approach counts.
Homework
1️⃣ Check out the websites of your competitors and write down what you like about them.
2️⃣ Write content for your website yourself. If you need to, get a copywriter to polish it.
3️⃣ Describe your services in detail. If you offer more than one, separate them.
4️⃣ When your copy is ready, find a student or someone cheap to make you a website.
5️⃣ Ensure your social media profiles are filled properly - texts, images, categories, locations, everything.
👏 You’re on a roll!
Next lesson
How to stand out →
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