What kinds of clients are worth hunting?

1.  Rich ones

This may sound blindingly obvious, but it only pays to chase clients with money. And by money, I mean spendable cash [...]]]>

If you’re going to actively look for clients (as opposed to lie in wait for them), who should you be pursuing?

What kinds of clients are worth hunting?

1.  Rich ones

This may sound blindingly obvious, but it only pays to chase clients with money. And by money, I mean spendable cash that is in the checking account right now.

I wasted way too much time pursuing little businesses and start-ups thinking they were easy pickings for a newbie freelancer. No. They may be a source of work, but a lousy source of income.

Same with cash-starved producers and agencies who finance their projects on the backs of freelancers. (“Soon as we get paid, we’ll pay you.”)  No.

You want to work with thriving businesses, busy firms, or individuals with fat wallets.

2. Heavy users

The economics of freelancing overwhelmingly favors repeat assignments, long-term relationships. You want clients who use a lot of what you do. (Sometimes cynically called “chronic clients” or “repeat offenders.”)

So spend your energy wooing clients who need boatloads of content, plenty of web design, photos, illustrations, copy, programming, whatever. Maybe they are design firms or agencies or web developers. (See Rule 1, however.) Or companies and businesses who do a lot of marketing, development or creation themselves.  Sell them once, get work for years.

Nothing wrong with one-shot clients — if they walk in the door or come to you by referral. But if you need to hunt down and sell a new client for every assignment, you will exhaust yourself. (And you will spend 83% of your time seducing instead of working.)  Better to focus on the frequent flyers.

If you sell something clients use only once — such as an identity — it’s more efficient to chase branding firms, marketing groups, consultants and others who can serve as your scouts and procurers.

3. Kindred souls

I’m embarrassed to admit that I got this part wrong for years. And so did many of the freelancers I know.

Look for clients who think like you. People with tastes, attitudes, outlooks, and philosophies that jibe with yours. They will be more profitable and easier on the psyche.

You write edgy, irreverent, ballsy copy? Chase firms who already have edgy and irreverent websites. You sell design? Court those companies with a design sense that makes you drool with envy.

You build tight and minimalist interfaces? Chase developers who already ship that way. You’re into human, emotionally-resonant marketing?  Call on companies who act that way right now.

Me? I often did the opposite. Like a dope, I sought out clients whose marketing copy was riddled with corporatespeak or incoherent technobabble, reasoning, like a dope, that they were aching for my brand of silken prose.

They weren’t.

I discovered that clients who used stiff, corporate copy (a) actually liked it that way (b) couldn’t care less or (c) hated my silken prose.

It was far more productive to go after companies whose copy I liked. We saw eye to eye.

My proofreading friend Miriam found tons more work by chasing firms with pristine and error-free websites. They were the ones who loved proofreaders enough to pay them handsomely. (Not the lummoxes with typos in their brochures.)

There’s no money in trying to convert the philistines.

You’d rather run your own life, and not be blown around by someone else’s [...]]]>

You’re drawn to working on your own because you want to do it your way.  You don’t want a boss. You hate punching a clock, asking permission to do stuff, going to meetings, trusting your fate to some company.

You’d rather run your own life, and not be blown around by someone else’s winds.

Yeah, me too.

But there’s flip side to all that sweet autonomy. It hit me sharply about three days after I went freelance.

All my excuses were suddenly null and void.

Once I took the rudder, I couldn’t blame a bone-brained boss, or crotchety company policy or a damn re-org for my troubles.

I realized that when you have virtually complete say over who, what, where, how and when, griping and whining get you no sympathy points whatever.

Worse, yet, the only thing that bitching does is instantly give you a list of stuff you have to fix, start doing, or stop doing.  (Which is, when you’re hoping for a little sympathy, is irritating in the extreme.)

On the other side of your gripe is your game plan.

For me, the internal chatter goes something like this. (Oddly, the other voice sounds like that hard-chinned English teacher of mine from high school, the one who brooked no bullshit in her class whatever.)

“Oh, the economy sucks right now. Nobody has any budgets.”

Really?  Nobody?  How many clients said they had no money?  Three hundred and twelve?  Every company east of Pittsburgh? You can’t find three, four or five clients who have some money? Look for companies who are used to paying twice what you charge. Then offer them brilliance for 20% less.

Better yet, why can’t you offer something amazing they will find the budget for?  Um, . . . I don’t know, try something.

“Clients just don’t value this work. They just want cheap and fast.”

So?  Are you chained to these pinchpennies?  Find clients who thrive on really good work. Start with companies who have dazzlingly good web sites, brilliant content, irresistible product photography. Contact them.  Find agencies, marketing firms, web developers who are doing amazing stuff. Attract them.  Or, duh, find out what clients will pay big money for.

“Everybody takes so long to pay.”

Then don’t work for laggards. From now on, get half the money in advance.  Make them commit, up front, in writing, when they will pay. If you must wait for your money, double your rates.  At least you’ll be waiting for a bigger check, no?

“There are too many people doing [ insert trade here ]. And they’re all working for peanuts.”

So don’t be ‘just another’ [ insert trade here ].  Be something entirely different.  Nine times more appealing, smarter, more distinctive. Offer something they don’t. Or can’t. Or won’t. Specialize in something insanely narrow, like menus for noodle shops, copy for people who hate to read, black-and-white logos, one-page web sites.  And really, if you can be outdone by someone who works for eleven dollars, you’re doing it wrong.

“I’m no good at promoting myself.”

Then stop promoting, hawking and marketing yourself like an ass.  Instead, engage some people, one on one.  Send a human-to-human email (or even a handwritten note) to three new people every day for a month. And make it about them.  Don’t yammer about yourself.

While you’re doing that, make your current clients feels so damn excited that they can’t help but tell nine other people about you.

Put something on your web site that is so stunningly different that it scares you. Do some work for small local charity that has a crappy web site with god-awful content. Do something.

“Some days I just can’t stand the work.”

Would you rather be twenty feet up a ladder, sizzling in the sun, scraping fifty years of paint off an old house?  Remember that?  Or driving to your cubicle job with an awful twist in your guts because you’re about to get chewed out?  Remember that?

Yes, I remember. Never mind.

2.  We’re afraid of being laughed at.  “How much?  For that?  Are you serious?  Wow, you are way out of line here.”

3.  We’re afraid the client will say yes to that big juicy fee, and holy crap [...]]]>

1.  We’re afraid we won’t get the assignment.  It will go to the cheaper guy.

2.  We’re afraid of being laughed at.  “How much?  For that?  Are you serious?  Wow, you are way out of line here.”

3.  We’re afraid the client will say yes to that big juicy fee, and holy crap we’ll actually have to deliver something that justifies all that money which will be hard because the client will be expecting to be blown away and we might not be able to pull that off which would be hugely humiliating especially if the client wants the money back.

Your fee gives off subtle clues about the quality of your work, where you fit among other freelancers. It will even color how much the client likes what you deliver.

Most of us, most of [...]]]>

What you quote for an assignment will send strong signals to a new client.  Or a potential client.

Your fee gives off subtle clues about the quality of your work, where you fit among other freelancers. It will even color how much the client likes what you deliver.

Most of us, most of the time, are leery of losing out on good work by quoting too high.

Fact is, you can also miss out on jobs by charging too little.

There are plenty of clients out there who will pass you by because you’re too cheap.

“Is this guy working at a folding table in his basement, or what?

“At those rates, she can’t be very good.”

“He obviously doesn’t understand what’s involved here.”

Clients who think like that are gold. Those are the clients looking for world-class work, for smart people who can solve problems, for stuff that must be good. And they usually need a lot of it. You do not want to turn them off with WalMart prices.

You can buy a beach house with a stable of true fans like that.

Have you seen them?  The advice is remarkably consistent and utterly sensible.

Have six months of living expenses in the bank. Assess your skills and strengths.  Survey the [...]]]>

There must be at least 3,298 articles around the web on “How to Launch Your Freelance Career” or “How to Start a Freelance Design/Copywriting/Photography Business.”

Have you seen them?  The advice is remarkably consistent and utterly sensible.

Have six months of living expenses in the bank. Assess your skills and strengths.  Survey the competition. Identify target clients. Devise a ‘positioning’ for yourself.

Set a launch date with 30-, 60-, and 90-day milestones. Write a detailed marketing and promotion plan. Build a network of contacts, enhance your social media presence. Hone your portfolio. Set up your workspace, set up your pricing, invoicing and accounting systems . . .

That’s all well-reasoned stuff. Hard to argue with any of it.

Except for one thing.

None of the freelancers I know did it that way.  Not a one.

Mostly, they just leaped over the fence. With only half-baked plans (if any), not nearly enough money, and often without a clue.  (Me included there.)

They convinced themselves they were ready, even if they weren’t “properly” prepared, at least according to the conventional advice.

They weren’t thinking, “I’ll go freelance as soon as I. . .” It was “Once I go freelance, I can. . . .”

Fact is, I contend you will succeed much faster if you just make a break for it.

Sure, if you jump into freelancing, you will screw up at first. You will chase the wrong assignments, take jobs you should have avoided. You will charge less than you should have. A slippery client may chisel you. You will kick yourself more than once.

But you will do all that anyway, even with all the pretty preparation and targeting and six months of money in the bank. You will make the same rookie mistakes we all make.

It will just take you longer to get them out of the way.

The sooner you’re out there plying your trade, talking to clients, looking for assignments, the sooner you’ll hone your freelance instincts and get your head in independent mode.

But what’s wrong with planning?

For a freelancer, planning is just guessing. It is impossible to know where your best opportunities are until you begin chasing some. What looks promising on paper doesn’t necessarily work out here on the front lines. And there are opportunities you won’t find until you’re out here mixing it up.

In his first year on his own, my friend Eyal made 50% of his income from consulting work he never even thought about doing. The services he planned on offering didn’t exactly fly off the shelves. It is always this way.

You need to be out there trying things, not working some idealistic plan. There is magic in doing stuff.

And what’s wrong with a financial cushion?

Nothing wrong with money in the bank. Lord knows it might save you a few sleepless nights.

But here’s the paradox. When you’re starting out, having six months of living expenses in the drawer can slow you down dramatically. Even dangerously.

If you’re flush with cash, it’s way too easy to fritter away your time on things that feel like work, but aren’t. Such as tinkering endlessly with your web site, getting your business cards just so, spending hours working LinkedIn and Twitter, trying to decide between Blinksale and Billings and MacFreelance for invoicing. That is all ninth-priority busy work.

What you need is a laser focus on the stuff that matters, which is:  finding clients, doing remarkable work, and getting paid.

You need a sense of urgency, a feeling of “Holy crap, this is for real.”

You need practice feeding yourself and paying the rent without the “security” of a 1st and 15th paycheck.

Working without a net will get you there faster.

And you’ll realize you’re actually doing what 92% of people are too scared to try.

But you can apparently invoke this to your advantage, almost at will.

Let’s say your workload starts to slow down. Or you want to expand your stable of true fans. Or maybe you’re just [...]]]>

This is a spooky phenomenon that I cannot explain. Don’t ask me what’s behind it, or how it works.

But you can apparently invoke this to your advantage, almost at will.

Let’s say your workload starts to slow down. Or you want to expand your stable of true fans. Or maybe you’re just itching for fresh faces and different work.

So you start to reach out more. Instead of waiting, you begin pursuing.

You contact a few companies you’d like to work with. You call people you haven’t spoken to in a while. You send ideas to your clients to plant the seeds for new assignments. You hustle.

And after a few days of this, or maybe a week, or even two weeks, lo and behold, new stuff happens.

New work shows up.  New clients ask about a project or two. Inquiries land in your inbox. The pot begins to bubble again.

But here’s the odd part: none of the new stuff comes from the people or projects you were chasing.  None of it.

It comes from unexpected quarters. From a guy who had worked in the cubicle next to you ages ago, who has moved to a new company and needs work done.

Or from someone who stumbled across your web site a month ago and has been meaning to call you.  Or a client is referred to you by a person you don’t even know.

You beat the bushes, and new opportunities fly out. But not from the bushes you’re beating.

It’s almost as if, by diligently and earnestly doing the right thing, you somehow trigger random events in your favor, now.

This sounds so goofy, I’m reluctant to bring it up. Except I have experienced this dozens of times.  And I’ve heard the exact same story from a freelance information architect, a freelance composer, freelance project manager, many freelance designers and writers, and even a guy who sells concrete.

They don’t know why this works, either. But there it is.

Oh, and as we have all discovered, you can’t game the system.  It doesn’t work to copy and paste some lame emails or make half-assed calls for an afternoon, hoping to be mysteriously graced with work from on high. You must pursue in earnest.

If you have an explanation for this, I’d like to hear it.  (And no, that woo about the theory of attraction isn’t an explanation.)

Meanwhile, go do.

In fact it’s often something else entirely.

For me, things tend to go a lot smoother when I remember that. I get more work, more referrals, too.

Story

A while ago, a producer hired me to write scripts for a series of videos for [...]]]>

Sometimes the assignment isn’t what we think it is.

In fact it’s often something else entirely.

For me, things tend to go a lot smoother when I remember that. I get more work, more referrals, too.

Story

A while ago, a producer hired me to write scripts for a series of videos for a tech firm. We had a long conference call with his client and her team, talking about their objectives, the nature of their technology, the content we have to cover, timelines, milestones. The usual.

After the call, the producer asked for my take on the situation.

I immediately launched into a four-minute speech on my concepts for the videos, the structure, the tone of the narration, how it would be tricky to make their technology simple enough — and on and on. (Mentally calculating my fee all the while.)

The producer listened patiently, without comment.

When I was finished, he told me about the client, Elaine, who he had known for a few years.

Eighteen months before, she had been downsized out of a big corporation and spent seven months looking for work, demoralized and scared to hell. She eventually landed the job at this smaller tech company, a huge culture shift for her.

The video series was her first major project in the new gig, initiated by her.  She was still feeling her way around the company’s techno-geek mindset and hierarchy.

The producer didn’t say a word about budget, or creative, or shoot-days or casting.

He was telling me, sort of sideways, that our mission, what we were getting paid for, was to deliver storyboards and a script (and later a video) that Elaine could present to her bosses and score a huge hit.

She needed to wow some people in a big way.

That’s what Elaine was hoping for. That was ‘the objective.’  That was the ‘creative problem.’

He was right.  It wasn’t about my personal artistic vision or any pie-eyed illusions about going viral with these things.

It was about giving Elaine something that would get a rise out of six guys in a conference room two weeks from Tuesday.

That was the deal, right there.

And that’s the image I held in my head while working up the treatments and scripts. I pictured Elaine pitching our (her) video concepts, and the nerdy bosses nodding.

I found the rudder, the North Star for the project. It simplified everything, made everyone happy. Made good money, good videos, too.

Elaine is a true fan to this day.

Out here, at ground level, sometimes ‘solving the problem’ means making a client look like a genius.  Or not making them look bad.

Sometimes the ‘creative challenge’ is to give them a way to score huge points somewhere.

The more I’m conscious of that, the better I do.

Example.

If you are a musician or a sculptor or a fine artist, the thought is, you need about 1,000 true fans to make a living at your chosen craft. To live large, you need maybe 10,000.

If you [...]]]>

The more you think about the freelance model, the simpler and simpler it gets.

Example.

If you are a musician or a sculptor or a fine artist, the thought is, you need about 1,000 true fans to make a living at your chosen craft. To live large, you need maybe 10,000.

If you aspire to open a restaurant, you will need a surrounding population of at least 50,000 people, and then convince 2,000 of them to eat at your place. Over and over again.  (And, you will need about a half-million in cash to even get in the game.)

If you want to launch an iPad killer, you’ll need to wow a few million paying customers, minimum. And you have to lure them away from Apple.

But to carve out a living doing what you do — whether it’s illustrating, writing content, coding, InformationArchitecting, project managing, making logos, coaching, or taking pictures — all you need is, get this, ten true fans.

Just ten.

And by true fans I mean people who regularly use what you do. People who have already paid you money. People who, when they need what you offer, automatically call you, and no one else.  People who, when asked “Hey, do you know a good ____?” they will tell people about you, without thinking.

With ten people like that, you are okay.  Maybe not rich.  But you are alive, well, and solvent and not selling your soul to the company.

You don’t need to be famous.  You don’t need to show up number 3 in Google.  You don’t need 5092 followers on Twitter and 664 contacts on LinkedIn.  You don’t need to be profiled in Wired.

You need just ten true fans. In the real world.

Ten living, breathing human beings who think you’re swell.

Fact is, as my freelancer friends and I realized over a few beers one night, none of us ever had more than 10 true fans at one time.  Ever.  Even when we were raking in the cash like autumn leaves, it wasn’t because we had ninety-two clients. The huge money always came from a relatively small circle of paying, avid fans. Always, always.

Better still, once you get your head around ten true fans, everything clarifies.  Your daily task gets simpler. You can shed a lot of bullshit, and lose excuses. You have focus.

You no longer have to worry about ‘the economy’, or ‘the industry.’  Or the 89,422 other people  on Google who do what you do. You are not working in the vastness of the universe.  You are serving your ten true fans.

When you sit down at the desk on Monday morning, all you have to think about is your people.  How are they doing?  What do they need?’  It’s your personal micro-economy.  Not the economy.

Ten true fans.

You want this project, you want this client. So you think very carefully about the fee.

After a lot of head-scratching [...]]]>

You’ve been talking to a new client about a project. The client has been disappointed with other freelancers, seems to like you. Has lots of work. The client asks for a quote.

You want this project, you want this client. So you think very carefully about the fee.

After a lot of head-scratching and figuring, you finally settle on $2100.

You type up the email, send it off to the client, with fingers crossed.

A few hours later, the client replies to the email:  “Okay. That sounds good. Let’s get started right away.”

Except you notice that, in your email to the client, where you had meant to type $2100, you actually typed $3100. One thousand dollars more.

What do you do now?

And it’s not about doing work on spec. Which is mostly an exercise in jackoffery. Run away from that.

I’m talking about giving away advice, expertise, game plans, ideas — even that BIG idea [...]]]>

No, this isn’t about doing work for free. That is a dopey business model. (I speak from experience here.)

And it’s not about doing work on spec. Which is mostly an exercise in jackoffery. Run away from that.

I’m talking about giving away advice, expertise, game plans, ideas — even that BIG idea that can literally make a client’s project.  The best stuff you have.

It is the simplest way to make potential clients love you at least 187% more than your competitors. While you land the paying work.

Quick example.

A client of mine needed to revamp her website and her client presentations. I’m guessing the design work was worth somewhere between $8K to 10K.

After asking colleagues for recommendations and poking around designers’ web sites, she found two firms she seemed to like. (They were, in reality, one- and two-person operations. Freelancers.)

She had a few phone conversations with each firm, describing what she was hoping to do. The calls, she said, were interesting and helpful.

But what happened after the calls made all the difference.

A day or so later, one firm sent her an elegant portfolio, some ‘case studies’ of recent projects, rave reviews from other clients, an essay on their design process/philosophy, and a rough budget range. It was all flawlessly and impeccably designed.

The other firm sent a two-page email — in plain text — offering about twenty suggestions and ideas for addressing the issues with the current site and presentations.

They started at a high level, with thoughts on a simpler color scheme, redoing the logo to save vertical space, and different ways to chunk the content, all the way down to recommending a line length for text columns, and using a freebie plugin for their whitepaper downloads.

As my client told me, the effect of that was huge.

“One firm was all about ‘here’s how brilliant we are.’ The other firm was all about me. My site, my issues.

“They obviously spent time looking at my site and thinking about it. They were immediately on my side, looking for ways to make my presentations kick ass, and freely sharing very specific thoughts and suggestions. I instantly knew who I wanted to work with.”

The dynamic is easy to understand.

Telling clients about the genius things you did for someone else:  a snooze.

Telling them how talented you are: a bore.

Talking about their project, their product, their strong points, and neatly specific things that they could do:  endlessly and eternally fascinating.

But isn’t this risky?

Okay, that winning design firm ‘gave away’ a blueprint for upgrading the site.

Theoretically, the client could have taken those ‘ideas’ and used them herself for free.  (Which is what cynical freelancers always fear.)

Except in my experience, clients almost never swipe the idea and run with it. (Maybe that’s only because my ideas suck. Which is entirely possible.)

But it’s also because even the most ‘valuable’ idea usually entails a whole lot of actual work to pull off.

Steve Zelle at idapostle illustrates the difference brilliantly. There’s a nine-mile gap between an ‘idea’ and something a client can actually use – and pay for.

We freelancers aren’t selling ideas. We’re selling execution.  Implementation. Actually building the damn thing, writing the copy, creating the illustrations, shooting the video, rendering the logo.

That’s where your mortgage payment is.

And giving away the ‘idea’ is the easiest way to win it.

Making this work

Yes, sorry, this takes a little effort.  Instead of simply sending off a portfolio or your website url, it will take some thinking. But I’m guessing, at most, it will take no more than an hour or so.

No, you don’t have to write copy, do sketches, write code, design the interface.

Just offer your impressions, your recommendations, your off-the-top ideas.  Yes, they will be preliminary.  Things may change later.  That’s okay. Show them what you’re thinking, how you’d approach this, the easiest ways to fix this.

To show you what I mean, I pulled three examples straight from my email files, which you can download here. Other than changing names and specifics for confidentiality purposes, these aren’t prettied up in any way. (I think there are even a few typos in there.)  They all resulted in work.  Simply by giving away ideas.

If you look at these and think, ‘Heck I can do better than that,’ good for you. Go do it next time.

One caveat.

Never, ever, bash what the client has right now.

Rather than ‘why this sucks out loud, talk about ‘neat things you could do.’