I’m going to get up on my soapbox here for a minute, so if you don’t want to hear it, scroll down a little bit.
Over the past decade, I’ve run into many leads and clients that have had terrible experiences from flakey freelancers who have either disappeared, communicated poorly, didn’t deliver a project, or just didn’t set the expectations the client had.
If you are a freelancer in business, please, please, do right by your clients. Be honest and don’t get in over your head.
If you find yourself in a sticky spot, there’s nothing that communicating to the client can’t fix.
If you are a freelancer and asking questions like “how come clients don’t respect my value?” or “how do I charge more than bottom dollar hourly rates?” The big reason is that of these flakey freelancers who don’t do right by their clients and then those clients are jaded and don’t want to be burned again.
If nothing else is taken from this, please communicate clearly and often with your clients so that it raises the bar for all of us in the services based industry.
Rant over!
This is actually an easier answer than you may think.
Be empathetic
Tell them that you are very sorry and can appreciate their apprehension based on their past experience. I’m sure you’ve had bad experiences in the past with either a product or service, right?
Put yourself in their shoes for a minute and support them. Don’t be confrontational.
Don’t throw anyone under the bus.
You only know one side of that story and you have no knowledge of the situation. However, you can call upon your own experiences of bad service in the past and how that made you feel.
You have your guard up and don’t want to be burned again, and that is exactly how they feel too.
Reflect the conversation back to how they found you
Once you are able to put your arm around them, next reference back to how they found you.
If it’s a referral, that’s great, because referencing the person’s name you pull that trust factor back into the conversation.
If it’s by some other means, say an article or podcast you were in, mention that big takeaway. No doubt it’s the reason why they wanted to get you to work with them in the first place.
Give them confidence
Tying in that takeaway, ensure them that they won’t find themselves in a similar place again because of how you run your business.
Share with them some behind the scenes workflows and processes if you need to.
But what you want to do is instill confidence quickly that you’ve got things under control.
By talking through these 3 points, you’ll find that most of that initial baggage the lead has, will be put aside. What you want to keep in mind though as you work together is that baggage is not gone.
They will be on the watch for the signals of getting burned again, so you need to be as well so that the trust you’ve developed and earned doesn’t chip away.
Marketing for Freelancers
More episodes in this topic:
10
Social Media Marketing, is it worth it to do?
11
What social media platforms to spend time on?
14
How to get clients when I have no portfolio?
35
How to get the messaging right to attract customers?
39
Have advice for soliciting podcasters to be a guest?
49
Should I focus on SEO or Paid Ads to gain new clients?
56
Do you get any leads from your content? And what traffic acquisition methods have worked best?
72
When creating a new freelance service what’s the best way to send cold emails?
75
What is my second most successful lead generation tactic?
76
Why is an email list important for a freelancer?
79
What is the best way to attract larger clients?
82
How do you market your business to local clients other than attending networking meetings?
89
How do I pitch some big companies in my niche?
90
Imagine I was going to bring you $100k in revenue
93
How does a freelance web designer build a client profile when preparing their marketing plans?
103
How do you price your services on your site?
110
How important is branding?
114
What are some useful tools that you use?
121
What makes a great case study?
122
How do you turn the things I do into benefits?
124
How do you decide what to start blogging with if you’ve never blogged before?
125
How often should I write a blog post?
131
Should I put pricing on my website?
138
How to overcome objections people have about you?
150
What is the best lead generation strategy?
151
What is your cold outreach strategy?
153
How would you get into the corporate business as an independent professional?
160
What is the difference between warm and cold outreach?
161
How to answer objections and get clients to say “yes”?
166
How to grow with word-of-mouth marketing?
175
How to ask?
203
All my work has been word of mouth, how do I find work on my own?
211
How do you handle a good fit for you that doesn’t really fit for your marketing message?
213
What do you say when a lead comes to you from a bad experience with another freelancer?
214
What to say when a potential client says you are too expensive?
215
How do I find the time to create content for my business and what do I write about?
217
Is this going to get me clients fast?
224
What is the #1 business trend for 2019?
227
How to sell on Twitter?
231
How do you make it simple for a lead to sign?
239
Why did I move my business from Drip to ConvertKit
240
Why ConvertKit?
243
How do you sell strategy?
244
11 Lessons on How to Find Clients
245
Finding Clients Lesson #1: Targeted Referrals
246
Finding Clients Lesson #2: Zero Line Item
247
Finding Clients Lesson #3: The Client Sandwich
248
Finding Clients Lesson #4: The Sneak Peek
249
Finding Clients Lesson #5: Buy a cup of coffee
250
Finding Clients Lesson #6: Get Yourself On A Podcast
251
Finding Clients Lesson #7: Your Up Level Skills
252
Finding Clients Lesson #8: Brag about your clients
253
Finding Clients Lesson #9: Are you priced right?
254
Finding Clients Lesson #10: Who do you hang with?
255
Finding Clients Lesson #11: Group Coaching for Leads
258
Is Instagram a better vehicle for visibility? Sales?
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