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Home » The Famous Blog » How to Win Clients and Influence Visitors : A Freelancer’s Story

How to Win Clients and Influence Visitors : A Freelancer’s Story

January 24, 2011 - Last Modified: November 3, 2022 by Adam Barber

Freelance Business

I’m going to get right to the point and not waste a lot of time with fluff here. If you want clients for your freelance business, people need to trust you. Easy as that. People give money to people they trust. That makes sense, right? Would you hire someone who cold called you out of nowhere? I hope not. So why should you expect people to act any differently than you? You aren’t special.

But you can be.

What follows is my (accidental) strategy to building my freelance business to the point of needing to turn down work requests on a daily basis. There are two components to this, so I’ll talk about each of those in depth, then follow up with what I consider the canonical to-do list of first steps for those looking to get into freelancing.

1. Building Trust

Building trust

When you launch a new site, consider your reputation meter at zero. This is doubly true for your first site (what is zero times 2 anyway? Oh right, still zero…) So how do you fix that? Easy. Give away everything you know.

Giving it away – Write until your  hands fall off. If you are hoping to attract clients who want you to make websites for them, demonstrate that you are an expert. Build a resume website to showcase your work. This goes beyond the traditional advice of “blogging,” because I don’t think just blogging is enough. Anyone can throw together one 300 hundred word post every week, but it takes serious knowledge and commitment to be able to product a 15 minute video tutorial (see my two most recent thesis tutorials for examples of this!) every week. By producing things that are helpful, to those who may ultimately end up being your competition, you automatically leap frog them in terms of authority. I can’t tell you how many developers or designers I’ve had end up paying me to secretly finish client projects for them. In addition, while you should never intentionally steal clients. The other designers and developers you help, may eventually just end up passing work directly to you.

Package it and sell it – Having a product that people can download (either for free or for sale) is the best way to land new work. Every single day, someone will buy one of the ThesisReady thesis skins then email me asking to pay me to customize something for them. This inevitably leads to more work down the road, and it takes me no time to hunt down potential customers.

In fact, as a result of implementing these two elements on my site, I’ve spent exactly zero dollars on advertising (if you don’t count the free $100 Google gave me to try out adsense) to promote my site. In-bound marketing at it’s finest.

2. Putting Your Plan Into Action

Freelancer Business Man

So there you have it. The key to success is give away everything you have. Give until it hurts, then keep going. Now let’s figure out a few actionable steps to put that concept to work.

1. Write Your First Reference Article

coffee & laptop

The concept of evergreen content isn’t mine, but it’s a good one. My first reference article was a tutorial about making the multimedia box in Thesis a widget area. It went viral in the Thesis community within a few days of writing it.

2. Find Your Community

Find your community

I got lucky when I decided to specialize in Thesis development. DIYthemes already had a community help forum setup overflowing with customers asking questions. I genuinely wanted to help, so I made it a point to set aside a few minutes each day to answers people’s questions. It wasn’t long until I had had my first client as a result.

I went in with no expectations and I came out with a client. Cool.

3. Build Your Product

Build your product

Now you’ve got a little good karma happening between being helpful in the community and writing great tutorials, and that stream of trust is starting to trickle in drop by drop. If you’ve done it right, you’re probably getting a few visitors to your site each day mostly via some long tail search traffic. You’ll notice though, that they’re spending a lot of time on your site. Maybe 5 or 10 minutes.

Whoa! That’s cool.

Now you need to give people a chance to pay you for something. By making a product, visitors can turn into customers via a painless, low-cost investment in what you’re selling. You now have someone who trusts you enough to break out their credit card.

4. Nurture Your Customers

Nurture Your Customers

I still SUCK at email marketing. I really do. But even with my limited understanding, and less-than-perfect execution, by emailing the group of customers who have proven that they want to give me money with even more helpful information, they are even more willing to pay me for my time when they have a question. More importantly, they’re willing to vouch for me when a friend of theirs needs the name of good web guy. That’s a huge deal.

Summary

So there you have it. My complete formula for freelance success. In the past 16 months, following those steps have enabled me to go from starving college student to successful small business owner making Thesis skins. I’m able to do what I love, and I don’t have to make the choice between buying either gas, or food for the week.

All in all, I’d say that’s a good thing.

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Filed Under: News

About Adam Barber

Follow @thesisready

Adam is the founder and lead developer at ThesisReady.com which makes skins for the Popular Thesis framework. He also publishes weekly video tutorials related to all things marketing and WordPress.

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{ 29 Responses }

  1. Kostas says:
    Another important thing a newbie freelancer should do is to over deliver and give more than what a client expects in that way you will have happy clients who will willingly promote your work and as a result get more clients
  2. Murlu says:
    Getting people to come back and make referrals is the big one and seems to be what the underlying factor that all successful freelancers have in common. Anyone can land a client but it's keeping them for the long term that really matters - thanks for sharing your story :)
  3. Isabel Rodrigues - Pro Blogger Journey says:
    Excellent points. The step by step process is very detailed and well explained.
  4. Val says:
    Congratulations on your success! You provide great tios in the article, especially on the perceived value of video marketing, and the effectiveness of reaching out to your target audience in online communities. I don't quite get all the hype about the Thesis theme. I read a little about it, and I can't see anything that could make it so special. Yet people buy both the theme and the custom skins, often with recurring payments, and praise it on every corner. Is it only because of their affiliate program? Or can anyone direct me to an article that could convince me that Thesis theme is truly worth the price and effort?
  5. Kevin says:
    Trust is very important if you want to be a successful blogger. They'll only buy or take action if they know you, like you, or trust you. They've instilled their trust on you because they know that you promote or sell the right products and always put out the best content! What a great post! :)
  6. Lennart Heleander says:
    Hi Adam, I always say it needs three basic things to get visitor and get the possibility to do business on the internet; Quantity before quality, Strong and interesting SEO Titles, A special niche blog or site.
  7. Morgan says:
    Hi Adam! Great story!! I love it! This really has taught me a lot and gave me a lot to consider. I'll have to re-evaluate a few business techniques. I like that you really took to the Thesis tutorials and themes. I'd like to find something similar to that in which I'd be able to really assist people, offer a product and then, well, basically go through the steps you just described. To the drawing boards! :) Thanks again for this awesome article!
  8. Alex says:
    Great tips Adam. All you said makes perfect sense. You started by genuinely wanting to help people and by providing great information through your blog or (in your case) via the community at dyithemes you have established yourself as a trustworthy provider of quality work, because people can actually see your work (which I suppose you've done for free when sharing some of the info you knew) without paying you (which trust me is always a plus, if I can see what someone has to offer and see it for free is definitely a plus, then them asking me to pay them to try their service if I want a sample of what they do). Anyway, you have some great tips to share, I might even note some down for myself :P
  9. Wonderer says:
    I am a freelancer for five years. I can tell you how I started. First, I advertised their services on forums dedicated to using the Internet. Even then I thought about what ought to have its own project, but I had no money to make a professional website - and, most importantly advertise it. I made a simple website on free hosting and asked my friends (including using twitter, facebook) that they talked about my site and my services to all who know. And it has given effect! Next things got better, that is important in the beginning - the help of friends and friendship and fellowship on the internet.
  10. Pritam says:
    Really nice article. All the points you mentioned here are what everyone look for to work as a successful freelancer.
    • Adam Barber says:
      Hi Pritam, Glad you enjoyed my post! Thanks for reading.
  11. Wasim Ismail says:
    Building a freelancing business is about building trust with your customers, the reason why users will come to a free lancer is because of value, personal professional, as its easier to deal with one person rather then a whole company or a team. Freelancer needs to offer as much value as possible, just like you said, offering products and services to download or buy to gain more customers. Like the step by step process, thanks for putting it together.
    • Adam Barber says:
      Hi Wasim, I agree - it's all about value. If I don't provide value to a client, someone else will.
  12. TJ McDowell says:
    I think you had a couple things going for you that really propelled you to success that maybe not everyone else will be enjoying. 1 - a niche. You didn't go after every possible avenue that you knew something about. 2 - low competition. You weren't competing with thousands of other people specializing in the same niche. I'd say this was partly right place, right time. The other part was great execution on your part. Congrats on the early success!
    • Adam Barber says:
      Thanks TJ! You're absolutely right about the niche part of it. By picking a specific community of people that had already demonstrated the ability to pay for things they found valuable, I knew I had an audience of customers rather than just spectators. I've got another blog post that I'm working on about that, but I haven't quite worked out the best way to express it yet. Do you have any experience with something similar?
      • TJ McDowell says:
        I've just seen a lot of businesses come and go in the crowded photography market, so I know competing in a crowded market is something that takes a lot of time and effort.
  13. James Hickenbottom says:
    Adam, You mentioned nurturing your customers. I've had trouble in the past with what I call "needy" customers. Once they've made a simple purchase, they blow up my email and phone because they want constant updates, and have a million questions. It is really frustrating. Do you have any tips for "nurturing" these problem-clients, while maintaining one's sanity? If so, I'd love to hear them.
    • Adam Barber says:
      I always do my best to help everyone out, but you're right. At some point you need to get rid of bad customers. Sometimes, you just need to give them a refund and move on.
  14. Al Anderson says:
    Adam, Great article! I really like how you've included the entire step-by-step process. You mentioned that your email marketing is not your strong suit. Mine has been pretty weak as well. Do you have any plans for how you're going to improve your email marketing? Also, do you have a preferred method for finding your community? And how do you know which areas of a community (i.e.: which blogs, forums, etc.) to focus on? Thanks!
    • Adam Barber says:
      To improve on my email marketing skills, I just subscribe to every list I can find. I can quickly get a sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly from that. To find the community, I keep a running list of interesting sites I find via Google searches, or comments on articles I enjoy. From there, I give everyone a fair shake, and once I can see how different sites do in terms of advancing my goals, I put my resources into the ones that create the most value for me.
  15. Justin Germino says:
    I suck at email marketing too which is why I just sent out a newsletter for now until I can figure out a better way to monetize my list without being pitchy. Trust is so essential as a blogger your recommendation on products can mean the difference between gaining or losing trust, so it is imperative you believe in what you promote.
    • Adam Barber says:
      My philosophy is - if I don't use it myself, don't suggest it to other people. Sure, that means less possible money to make, but the reduced downside is worth it. How often to you send out your newsletter?
      • Justin Germino says:
        I sent the newsletter out monthly, but have an occasional between month when I have a contest to run for my mailing list subscribers. I only passively promote products via email in the sidebar, not emails for the sole purpose of selling or promoting a product.
  16. James says:
    'Great post, and I really agree with you. get out there and help people. When I was freelancing, that was how I got my clients too. I also find that as an affiliate, the more I help people, and then recommend them to a product, tool, or service that I use, I make a nice income. Its about helping people first, and then recommending a product. I actually have people from forums that I meet emailing me requesting affiliate links to products that I am not even promoting.
    • Adam Barber says:
      James, I agree 100%. You can never really ever give away too much information. Not only does posting everything I know online for free force me to always be coming up with new ideas (and usually better ideas) it is the best way to scale my time up to help more people. And yes - carefully placed affiliate links sweeten the pot even more!

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