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11 Proven Tactics to Get Clients as a Freelancer
If you want to live as a freelancer, you have to money in the box. And no money comes into the coffers if you don't have clients as a freelancer.
So far so good. But the competition for customers can be tough - you're not the only one on the hunt. So are all the other freelancers, of course, and therefore it is important to stand out.
You do this, of course, first and foremost by improving your skills. But all the skills in the world are of no use if the customers don't know you exist. And that is precisely why we have made this post.
We review the most important sales channels for freelancers – how to get visible to your prospects – and follow it up with our top tips for closing the sale and retain customers.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
1: Network, network, network!
Family, friends, boyfriend, cousin, your old uncle, your mother's best friend, your husband's former colleague – you name it.
All are potential entry points when you need to build a portfolio and find clients as a freelancer.
Whether you're just starting out or you've been around for a long time, you'll surely have been advised to use your network. And maybe that recommendation already hangs far from your neck - but there is a reason why networks in particular are recommended so often:
It works.
The network method is effective because people in your network already know you and can thus vouch for you and your professionalism. Likewise, they know a lot of people you don't know yourself - and probably a number of potential customers too.
And your network is not limited to your acquaintances. Get used to also asking business people you meet on your way – e.g. your hairdresser, bike dealer and local burger bar.
They have also need help from skilled freelancers.
2: Use your previous workplaces
Your former bosses and colleagues know how talented you are - and they will occasionally have tasks you can help them with.
Keeping in touch with a former workplace is a very good example of never burning a bridge.
Because if your workplace still likes you, they have no reason to does not to hire you. It could, for example, be that your position has never been re-filled, and there are therefore some tasks ready for you.
Going back to a previous workplace is not going back to a fuser – on the contrary, it is precisely an advantage that your old colleagues and bosses know you and your abilities. Brand new customers do not do so in the same way.
3: Have a targeted and customer-oriented website with a focus on your professional profile
Your customers form the most important impression when they talk to you - but they also research you online.
Compare it a bit to a Tinder date (if you've been on one). It's the meeting in real life that ultimately matters - but the online impression is important because it gets you in the door.
Buy or build one simple, neat and pleasant website, which displays your services and recommendations in a user-friendly and simple way.
Show what you can do – even without a portfolio
And if you don't yet have previous clients to show off, you still have plenty of opportunity to show what you can do via your website.
Let's say you're a graphic designer, but you don't yet have any customer cases that you can or must show off.
You can easily show off your performance by e.g. to include examples of other people's designs – and to describe to customers that your thesis is something similar. In addition, you have certainly done something in your free time or during your studies that shows off your abilities.
In this way, you hold the customer's hand, and they can see exactly how their new logo, flyer, roll-up or e-book will look.
4: LinkedIn: Share your professional thoughts
LinkedIn is an excellent channel on which to position yourself as a thought leader, and thereby attract a lot of exciting contacts and – over time – leads and customers.
On LinkedIn, it's important not to lose heart if your posts don't get the attention you'd hoped for.
It takes practice and many attempts to get through to your desired audience. But with time you will find exactly the tone and style that works for you. And you find out which topics your target group is most interested in.
And once you've found your own unique style, there's a highway of views, leads and clients ahead of you.
LinkedIn also works in such a way that once you have established yourself as a stable content creator in the eyes of the algorithm, it will start showing you to more and more people all by itself.
That's why it's just a matter of scratching your head - then the results will follow completely by themselves.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
5: Market yourself locally
Most companies prefer to buy locally as long as the quality is high.
It is easier to meet in person, you get a stronger customer relationship, and the work is typically just that much better when you know that the other person is only a bike ride away.
It is therefore obvious to try your hand at local marketing – and it doesn't have to be particularly advanced, unfortunately.
It can be something like hanging up a flyer in places where your target audience is - in office communities, for example.
It could also be writing a sales letter, which you deliver in person to selected companies. Just the fact that they get a real impression of you and that you take time out of your day to visit them makes an impression.
It is a golden opportunity to get clients as a freelancer. And it works.
6: Grab the bone and call specially selected companies
Telephone sales are a lousy sales method - if you shoot with scattershot.
If, on the other hand, you find some specially selected companies and really get to know their business and needs - and on that basis give them a call - then you can easily succeed.
Remember to have a clear plan for the conversation before you call: How should it start - continue - and end?
There is actually not that much hocus-pocus to open the good phone conversation. Introduce yourself clearly and clearly with your first name, say which company you are calling from and give a reason for your call.
It can, for example, be:
"I'm calling because I drove past your beautiful store today, and then I simply had to check out your website - but I see that you don't have one yet?"
"I'm calling because you were recommended to me by an old colleague who thought that you and I just had to have a chat."
The most important thing is that you regard the telephone conversation as a completely ordinary conversation between two people, in which a natural meeting of needs is included. You can't sell anything they don't need.
Find out if you are compatible and if they need you - and only then try to book a meeting.
7: Use freelance platforms
There are now a number of freelance platforms with good tasks available. Here you can also be active and bid on selected tasks.
These are platforms such as:
An important tip: If you register on a platform, do it properly. You don't have to have a profile just for the sake of having it - it's very likely that it won't do anything.
What usually matters most to the hiring company is your experience. Therefore, make the most of showcasing previous clients and assignments.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
8: Go the extra mile for your current customers
A recommendation from others weighs almost infinitely more than a recommendation from yourself.
And a recommendation from your customers – those who receive an invoice from you every month – counts most.
That's why you have to fight hard to service the customers you already have. Never compromise on the service for your old customers – and that also applies even if you are busy!
The good periods don't necessarily continue, and when the hustle dies down, they are regular customers, that keeps your business running.
After all, it's also easier to keep a client than to get new clients as a freelancer - remember that every time you've got a new client, the adrenaline and dopamine pump out.
9: Spend less time selling and more time being valuable
Your customers will buy if they can see your value. And here is an important distinction: Instead of telling your value, you must show the.
When you talk to new customers, you need to show them the solution to their problem - and how your solution ultimately helps them to Make Money.
Demonstrate value – and then customers will hire you. Without blinking.
This point ties into many of the other points, but particularly points 3 and 4 this line of thinking is relevant for. On your website and LinkedIn, you really have the opportunity to demonstrate how valuable you are.
Always consider value creation in a sales process. Both you and your customers will be happy.
10: Team up with other freelancers
The good customers on the market often have a team of freelancers with different backgrounds attached. It can be a copywriter, a graphic designer, a developer, a marketing consultant, a bookkeeper, etc.
Therefore, it is obvious to team up with a group of freelancers who do what you do not do yourself - and thereby create a mutually valuable collaboration, where you give each other customers at crossroad.
It's an investment in targeted networking that pays off many times over down the road.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
11: Develop your pitch and become razor sharp for customer meetings
It is absolutely crucial that you have the floor in your power when you get the chance to close clients as a freelancer.
Here is your pitch – your elevator speech, the simple presentation of you as a professional and human being – the most important thing.
Get used to it, and not just when you're alone. Find an acquaintance, not necessarily a close friend, who gives his honest opinion. Present your pitch in front of this person and ask for feedback.
Take what you can use - and keep practicing until your pitch is in the closet.
It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to be able to perform when you are sitting at a customer meeting.
Let as few customer meetings as possible go to waste - they don't hang on the trees. And then be ready with a tight freelance contract when the agreement is to be closed.
11 Proven Tactics to Get Clients as a Freelancer
If you want to live as a freelancer, you have to money in the box. And no money comes into the coffers if you don't have clients as a freelancer.
So far so good. But the competition for customers can be tough - you're not the only one on the hunt. So are all the other freelancers, of course, and therefore it is important to stand out.
You do this, of course, first and foremost by improving your skills. But all the skills in the world are of no use if the customers don't know you exist. And that is precisely why we have made this post.
We review the most important sales channels for freelancers – how to get visible to your prospects – and follow it up with our top tips for closing the sale and retain customers.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
1: Network, network, network!
Family, friends, boyfriend, cousin, your old uncle, your mother's best friend, your husband's former colleague – you name it.
All are potential entry points when you need to build a portfolio and find clients as a freelancer.
Whether you're just starting out or you've been around for a long time, you'll surely have been advised to use your network. And maybe that recommendation already hangs far from your neck - but there is a reason why networks in particular are recommended so often:
It works.
The network method is effective because people in your network already know you and can thus vouch for you and your professionalism. Likewise, they know a lot of people you don't know yourself - and probably a number of potential customers too.
And your network is not limited to your acquaintances. Get used to also asking business people you meet on your way – e.g. your hairdresser, bike dealer and local burger bar.
They have also need help from skilled freelancers.
2: Use your previous workplaces
Your former bosses and colleagues know how talented you are - and they will occasionally have tasks you can help them with.
Keeping in touch with a former workplace is a very good example of never burning a bridge.
Because if your workplace still likes you, they have no reason to does not to hire you. It could, for example, be that your position has never been re-filled, and there are therefore some tasks ready for you.
Going back to a previous workplace is not going back to a fuser – on the contrary, it is precisely an advantage that your old colleagues and bosses know you and your abilities. Brand new customers do not do so in the same way.
3: Have a targeted and customer-oriented website with a focus on your professional profile
Your customers form the most important impression when they talk to you - but they also research you online.
Compare it a bit to a Tinder date (if you've been on one). It's the meeting in real life that ultimately matters - but the online impression is important because it gets you in the door.
Buy or build one simple, neat and pleasant website, which displays your services and recommendations in a user-friendly and simple way.
Show what you can do – even without a portfolio
And if you don't yet have previous clients to show off, you still have plenty of opportunity to show what you can do via your website.
Let's say you're a graphic designer, but you don't yet have any customer cases that you can or must show off.
You can easily show off your performance by e.g. to include examples of other people's designs – and to describe to customers that your thesis is something similar. In addition, you have certainly done something in your free time or during your studies that shows off your abilities.
In this way, you hold the customer's hand, and they can see exactly how their new logo, flyer, roll-up or e-book will look.
4: LinkedIn: Share your professional thoughts
LinkedIn is an excellent channel on which to position yourself as a thought leader, and thereby attract a lot of exciting contacts and – over time – leads and customers.
On LinkedIn, it's important not to lose heart if your posts don't get the attention you'd hoped for.
It takes practice and many attempts to get through to your desired audience. But with time you will find exactly the tone and style that works for you. And you find out which topics your target group is most interested in.
And once you've found your own unique style, there's a highway of views, leads and clients ahead of you.
LinkedIn also works in such a way that once you have established yourself as a stable content creator in the eyes of the algorithm, it will start showing you to more and more people all by itself.
That's why it's just a matter of scratching your head - then the results will follow completely by themselves.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
5: Market yourself locally
Most companies prefer to buy locally as long as the quality is high.
It is easier to meet in person, you get a stronger customer relationship, and the work is typically just that much better when you know that the other person is only a bike ride away.
It is therefore obvious to try your hand at local marketing – and it doesn't have to be particularly advanced, unfortunately.
It can be something like hanging up a flyer in places where your target audience is - in office communities, for example.
It could also be writing a sales letter, which you deliver in person to selected companies. Just the fact that they get a real impression of you and that you take time out of your day to visit them makes an impression.
It is a golden opportunity to get clients as a freelancer. And it works.
6: Grab the bone and call specially selected companies
Telephone sales are a lousy sales method - if you shoot with scattershot.
If, on the other hand, you find some specially selected companies and really get to know their business and needs - and on that basis give them a call - then you can easily succeed.
Remember to have a clear plan for the conversation before you call: How should it start - continue - and end?
There is actually not that much hocus-pocus to open the good phone conversation. Introduce yourself clearly and clearly with your first name, say which company you are calling from and give a reason for your call.
It can, for example, be:
"I'm calling because I drove past your beautiful store today, and then I simply had to check out your website - but I see that you don't have one yet?"
"I'm calling because you were recommended to me by an old colleague who thought that you and I just had to have a chat."
The most important thing is that you regard the telephone conversation as a completely ordinary conversation between two people, in which a natural meeting of needs is included. You can't sell anything they don't need.
Find out if you are compatible and if they need you - and only then try to book a meeting.
7: Use freelance platforms
There are now a number of freelance platforms with good tasks available. Here you can also be active and bid on selected tasks.
These are platforms such as:
An important tip: If you register on a platform, do it properly. You don't have to have a profile just for the sake of having it - it's very likely that it won't do anything.
What usually matters most to the hiring company is your experience. Therefore, make the most of showcasing previous clients and assignments.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
8: Go the extra mile for your current customers
A recommendation from others weighs almost infinitely more than a recommendation from yourself.
And a recommendation from your customers – those who receive an invoice from you every month – counts most.
That's why you have to fight hard to service the customers you already have. Never compromise on the service for your old customers – and that also applies even if you are busy!
The good periods don't necessarily continue, and when the hustle dies down, they are regular customers, that keeps your business running.
After all, it's also easier to keep a client than to get new clients as a freelancer - remember that every time you've got a new client, the adrenaline and dopamine pump out.
9: Spend less time selling and more time being valuable
Your customers will buy if they can see your value. And here is an important distinction: Instead of telling your value, you must show the.
When you talk to new customers, you need to show them the solution to their problem - and how your solution ultimately helps them to Make Money.
Demonstrate value – and then customers will hire you. Without blinking.
This point ties into many of the other points, but particularly points 3 and 4 this line of thinking is relevant for. On your website and LinkedIn, you really have the opportunity to demonstrate how valuable you are.
Always consider value creation in a sales process. Both you and your customers will be happy.
10: Team up with other freelancers
The good customers on the market often have a team of freelancers with different backgrounds attached. It can be a copywriter, a graphic designer, a developer, a marketing consultant, a bookkeeper, etc.
Therefore, it is obvious to team up with a group of freelancers who do what you do not do yourself - and thereby create a mutually valuable collaboration, where you give each other customers at crossroad.
It's an investment in targeted networking that pays off many times over down the road.
Freelance with Factofly
Use Factofly to invoice and get paid without having your own CVR number or registered company. We handle all the boring stuff, so you can spend your time where it's most fun.
11: Develop your pitch and become razor sharp for customer meetings
It is absolutely crucial that you have the floor in your power when you get the chance to close clients as a freelancer.
Here is your pitch – your elevator speech, the simple presentation of you as a professional and human being – the most important thing.
Get used to it, and not just when you're alone. Find an acquaintance, not necessarily a close friend, who gives his honest opinion. Present your pitch in front of this person and ask for feedback.
Take what you can use - and keep practicing until your pitch is in the closet.
It cannot be emphasized enough how important it is to be able to perform when you are sitting at a customer meeting.
Let as few customer meetings as possible go to waste - they don't hang on the trees. And then be ready with a tight freelance contract when the agreement is to be closed.
