FreelanceM.ag

“Whew. The famine is over. Someone just asked about my services. Thank goodness. Now I’ll have some work.”

Have you ever felt like this?

If you have, slow down. Not every prospect who contacts you should become your client. While some freelancers feel that they must accept all paying work that comes their way, that’s not a good tactic if you really want to succeed as a freelancer.

One of the most important things you can do as a freelancer is learn to say no.

In this post, I’ll list nine ways that bad projects harm your freelancing business. I’ll also provide more advice about saying no and include an email template.

If you liked this post, you may also like How to Keep Fake Clients from Stealing Your Time and Sapping Your Energy.

Targeted marketing is more effective than generalized marketing. Yet, many freelancers still use a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to marketing their freelancing business.

If you can learn how to target the prospects who are a better fit for your freelancing business, you’ll be ahead of the rest.

But before you can use targeted marketing for your freelancing business, you need to know who to target.

One way to get started with targeted marketing is by defining an ideal client for your freelancing business.

Once you know who you are trying to reach, you can start to target your marketing efforts to them. Here are just a few ways to target your ideal client:

• Write blog posts on your freelancing blog as though you are writing to your ideal client.
• Look for and follow social media users who fit the profile of your ideal client.
• Contact prospects who fit your ideal client profile directly.

This post, however, is about how to find your ideal client. I’ll provide a little more information on what an ideal client is. I’ll also provide some questions you can use to define the ideal client for your freelancing business.

If you liked this post, you may also like Why Freelancers Need Private Clients.

Your prospective clients are afraid of you. And it’s not just you. They’re afraid of most freelancers who they don’t already know.

Overcome those fears, and you’ll close more freelancing business. Ignore your prospect’s fears, and you’ll lose business.

Does overcoming your prospect’s fears sound simple? It’s not.

Overcoming client fears is quite a challenge. And quite frankly, it’s something that many freelancers don’t even try to do.

Your prospects will probably never admit to you that they are afraid. Instead, your prospects will waffle about, never making a final decision. Or, they’ll move on to a freelancer who they feel that they can trust more than they trust you.

If you’re having trouble converting prospects to clients, it could be because you haven’t addressed your prospect’s issues to their satisfaction. In this post, I’ll list four things your prospective clients are afraid of. I’ll also explain how you can overcome those fears.

If you liked this post, you may also like the post Improve Client Communications and Win Over that Problem Client.

Eventually, it seems like nearly every freelancer I know has a promising client deal that they just can’t seem to close.

Over the years, many freelancers have asked me how to get a prospect that seems promising to commit to doing business with them. “I just know they’re about to decide,” the freelancer says.

If you’ve got a potential client sitting on the fence, you’re not alone. A prospective client who won’t commit can be a source of frustration for a freelancer, especially if you happen to be experiencing a period of freelancing famine.

It’s easy to fall in love with a potential client and get attached to the idea of doing the work. However, unfortunately we don’t always get a chance to do every project we fall in love with.

In this post, I’ll discuss why some potential clients won’t commit to working with you.

Should you network with other freelancers?

This has been a hotly debated topic, probably for as long as there have been freelancers.

On the one hand, freelancers don’t often hire other freelancers directly. (I myself have only done it less than dozen times, and that’s over a fairly long freelancing career.) Networking with peers may seem like a waste of time.

On the other hand, being part of a freelance community provides some significant advantages. In many ways, peer networking can give your freelancing business a boost.

Personally, I think that the benefits of networking with freelancing peers far outweighs the disadvantages. In this post, I’ll provide six reasons why I think you should network with other freelancers.

If you liked this post, you’ll probably also like 29 Easy Ways That Freelancers Can Feel Less Lonely (All New).