Your credibility is everything, and it’s very easy to look it up. if it’s not on par with the expectations of your potential clients, it won’t be easy to get their business. We’ll look at some principles to follow and show you how to get great references from well-known companies, even though it will cost you something.
Have something behind the belt
The challenge for new solopreneurs is to show potential clients they have something behind them that makes them qualified to work with. No client wants to be the first and hope for the best - it’s too much of a needless risk. Even a nice website and socials with valuable content don’t always have to be enough to convince a client. Many of them are looking for information about your previous clients and projects - the more in number and prestige, the better. If it sounds like a name-dropping game, it is.
Reference types
1. Text mention: If you’re not sure whether you can use the logo of the company you worked with, a simple written mention of the company will be a safer option. Solopreneurs often choose this option when mentioning their former employers and leave the logo treatment for their clients.
2. Company logo: The most popular option is to simply put logos of your former or current clients on your website. If you want to go by the book, you should ask the company whether they agree. Some even go as far as writing a note in the website footer that logos are trademarks of their respective owners. In practice, very few solopreneurs do either, and very few companies mind (or even notice). Use your judgment to distinguish when it’s a good idea to ask.
3. Personal reference: The best kind of reference is a quote from your client - usually, it’s an employee who was your point of contact. It doesn’t really matter what the quote contains as long as it is positive. Always ask for this - if the client refuses, no big deal. If you can, try to get this quote from the highest-ranking person you were in touch with - a CMO sounds better than a Marketing Manager. Personal references on your website can also contain a photo of the person who gave it to you - we recommend either having all your references with photos or none. If you want to make it as easy for the person to agree to this, ask whether it’s alright to use their LinkedIn photo - all they have to do is to say yes.
Previous employers
Even if you’re new to freelancing, it’s probably not your first experience, and you have already worked somewhere before. You can freely list the names of your former employers, the positions you held, and the work you did. As we mentioned, be careful about using the logos - it’s pretty unusual to list logos of former employers.
Working for free
If you can’t get work any other way or would like to have more prestigious references, you can offer to work for free. Not forever, just long enough for you to merit using the logo of a given company on your website and being able to say you worked with them. Nobody will ask whether you worked for free - it won’t even cross their minds. The problem usually is that small companies that may welcome some free help are not prestigious enough, and their references won’t help you a lot, and the bigger ones don’t or won’t accept free help. The solution is to look for companies that are both small enough to take you in but with a name that rings a bell. We have two tips for you: startups and nonprofit organizations. They will be very eager to give you a good reference (ask one from the CEO or other executive), you can work on it part-time, and even ask for some money later when you both see that you’re bringing real value.
💡 Keep in mind
This advice is only for solopreneurs who are finding it difficult to find paid clients or positions or those who want an easy way to have a particular startup or nonprofit’s name on their CV.
Startups
Early-stage startups are notoriously strapped for cash and would often be thankful for a pair of hands that don’t need to be paid but can still contribute. Many of their employees are part-time or compensated mainly by equity stake with little pay, so your offer won’t even look weird. Startups are, by their nature, usually involved in some innovative stuff, which always sounds good. We recommend you look for startups founded by people who have left high positions in big companies and want to build something of their own. Your website can then say: “Worked on [startup name] directly with John Doe, former head of [super high position] at [well-known company].” Their HQs are usually in big cities, which will also look good on your CV, especially if you’re from a small city. Speaking of location, startups are very remote work-friendly, so the pool of startups you can choose from is pretty big.
Non-profits
Another source of valuable references is nonprofits. For obvious reasons, most of them have very tight budgets and would appreciate any free help they could get. The big advantage is that many nonprofits are pretty well-known, and even those that aren’t have very serious-sounding names like National Institute of XYZ, XYZ Foundation, or XYZ Association. Remember, the name-dropping is real.
Five references are better than one
We can certainly all agree that getting five references in the span of a year is better than getting only one. If you want to level up your reference-making efforts, join the companies mentioned above or other organizations only for a limited time. The best case scenario is if you can do a project with them that lasts 1-3 months or doesn’t take up a lot of time, where you can contribute something that’s easy to demonstrate and point to. When you tell a client (or put in on your website) that you consulted for [company], they won’t care whether it was for three months or a year. They themselves may only want to get your services for a couple of weeks, so doing the same for a company you have a reference from is perfectly fine. By stating what we did, we definitely don’t want to encourage you to join companies for free for a while, leave without doing anything useful, and then brag about your work for them.
Remember
👉 Sometimes, it’s better to ask whether you can use the company logo as a reference.
👉 It’s always worth trying to get a personal reference (quote) from the person you worked with.
👉 The easiest way to get prestigious references is to work for free for startups or nonprofits for a while.
👉 Offer free help to companies based on their reputation.
👉 Always try to get a quote about your work from the highest-ranking person in the company.
👉 You don’t need to work for them for long, but only long enough to justify the reference.
Homework
1️⃣ Put together a list of your former employers and any past freelancing clients you’d like to showcase.
2️⃣ If you had a good relationship with your former superiors, ask them for a few words about your work that you can use on your website. Do the same with the former clients.
3️⃣ If you still need some references, make a list of startups and nonprofits you like, reach out to them, and offer to help them for free for a couple of months.
👏 Fantastic work!
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