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#strategy
One of the most common mistakes freelancers make is choosing the wrong clients.
First, let’s get this out of the way: I did say “choose.” It’s true that clients have to make a choice to work with you. But we’re not beggars obligated to take pocket change from whoever happens to pass by. As business owners, we also get to choose what clients we work with. And those choices make all the difference.
I’m going to assume your first concern is financial stability. That is, every month you earn enough to pay your living expenses, plan for the future and enjoy life. (Those are minimums; you might have more ambitious financial goals, which is awesome.)
If you pick the right type of client, you’ll have plentiful, profitable and (often) repeat business. Pick the wrong clients and you’ll have low profits and constantly be scrambling for new business.
So how do you choose clients who are going to support your success? Here are some things to consider:
Do your clients have a reasonable budget for the service you offer?
Let's say you provide Facebook advertising services and you want to earn at least $5,000 per month. You could have five clients who pay you $1,000 per month in management fees. Or you could have 50 clients paying you $100/month. Finding and managing 50 clients is going to be a lot tougher than finding and managing five.
Do your clients need what you offer just once, or on an ongoing basis?
Imagine you’re a designer. The small business that needs a logo and a brochure, but nothing else, will be less profitable than a larger business that needs marketing collateral every month. If the small business pays you $2,500 for those services, you have to find and sell 24 of those to make $5,000 per month. If you have a large business that’s spending $2,500 per month with you, you only need two of those to make $5,000 a month.
Not all offerings, of course, are conducive to repeat business. Nonetheless, look for ways to lengthen your client relationships and provide value repeatedly.
Is your product or service essential to your client’s success, or optional?
Choose clients who need you — who can’t succeed without what you offer. That will make you more valuable to them and increase what they’re willing to pay you. It also makes it more likely that when things get tough (like now) you’ll keep getting paid. I had a client that manufactured a particular piece of equipment for commercial kitchens. Most restaurants, cafeterias and commercial kitchens are required to have what my client sold. Sure, there are competitors — that’s why they hired me to help with marketing. But their product was a fundamental need, not a “nice to have,” for their customers.
If you could clone your best client, what characteristics would you replicate?
Let’s say you had the opportunity to “clone” your best client. That is, to get many more clients like your best client. What characteristics and attributes would they have? How much would they pay you? What would they buy from you and how often? How would they treat you? What would your personal relationship with your client contact be like? List these attributes to help build a profile of your ideal client. Then go find more clients like those.
The dark art of client selection
This brings us to a hard truth. Sometimes the people you enjoy the most — the neighbor running an Etsy shop, the one-lawyer legal practice or the inspiring life coach — aren't great clients. You might like these people and even enjoy working with them, but their budgets will be small and their needs limited. And when times get tough for them, your services will probably be among the first things they cut.
If you want to keep helping your neighbor out, that’s great. But don’t expect to build a significant, profitable business based on clients just like her. You probably need to look elsewhere.
(Are there exceptions to this? Sure. And if you’re one of the exceptions, good for you. But if not, and if you want to increase your odds of success, find clients who will pay you more money more often.)
#resources
If you’re still trying to select a video conference system, here’s a giant chart comparing a bunch of them (I like Teams and Skype. I actually use Dialpad for many of my calls and videoconferences, but I do pay for it)
Zoom is getting a lot of criticism for privacy and security concerns. If you’re using it, here are some tips on how to make it more secure.
Entrepreneur compiled a list of 111 free tools (i.e. software) to help while working remotely