Active search and attraction of new customers are needed to increase sales (customer base) and company profits (business development). In this article we share The Ultimate Guide on How to Find New Clients.
If you are not engaged in attracting new customers, you may be left without them: old ones have a habit of disappearing from time to time. They are simply lured away by your competitors.
The global outsourcing market development in 2021 shows that high-experienced specialists will always be in demand. But at the same time, the level of your experience doesn’t guarantee to find a client.
Many salespeople know how to find customers, and few know how to do it effectively.
Table of Contents
Stream Search
Today, traditional ways of finding clients based on constant spending of time on the road, distribution of information materials, and cold calling are gradually fading into the background. Nowadays, more and more attention is paid to automated systems for finding clients.
An example is web technologies. Having created its representation in the network in the form of a business card site, corporate resource, promo site, or online store, the company can search for customers in the wilds of the world wide web.
If the resource is made with high quality, filled with relevant and useful information, new consumers will not be long in coming. However, you will also need to regularly invest in promoting and increasing the popularity of the created resource in order to ensure its full functioning.
Successful customer search depends on many factors. It matters how unique, original, and most importantly relevant your proposal is. If everything is in order, customers will appear immediately, but if the competition is high, you will have to turn on your imagination, show ingenuity, and have a creative approach to solving the issue.
Employees of the company also play an important role in actively attracting customers. The effectiveness of the search largely depends on how effectively they communicate with potential buyers and how responsibly they approach their duties.
Determining the Ideal Client
If you are a freelancer, then you have to know that many freelancers make the mistake of wanting to work for any client as long as they have money. Of course, with freelance exchanges appearing, the question “how to hire world-class engineers” isn’t so hard to answer anymore.
But the wrong client can harm your business. You end up wasting time on rework because you don’t understand their strategy or you argue tirelessly with them because your views were never the same.
In other words, it’s important to take your time to figure out who will need your design or web development skills. First, ask yourself the following:
- What industry do your clients work in? Do you have such an experience ??
- What role does your point of contact play in the company? Developer? CEO? Programmer?
- When should you contact them to start a discussion about freelancing? When will they first open? When are they going to launch a new product?
- Why do they need an assistant – a freelance designer or a freelance developer?
- What can you do for them that other freelancers can’t?
Even if you’re not 100% sure you want to specialize in your niche, you can still expand it as wide as possible to prepare as soon as you find a suitable option.
Brand Yourself
And here social networks will come to your aid. Don’t underestimate how your profile looks on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Instagram. The customer will most likely review all the links available before entrusting you with the work.
This should be taken into account when publishing every post. If you have an open Twitter account and you regularly swear at customers with whom you disagree, this is unlikely to help you in search of a new job.
The other side of the coin is that they are “greeted by their clothes.” Well-designed social media pages that demonstrate that you really do your job thoroughly and do it well can help you find a client, even yielding to colleagues in professional skills.
And if you also become a popular blogger, describing the specifics of your work, clients will begin to find you themselves. The main thing is not to be among the theorists who, in practice, do not meet the required level.
Do Your Research
Never interact with a prospect if you haven’t done any preliminary research yet. What for? Because not knowing anything about them is as bad as not knowing about you. Remember:
- Your goal should be to impress your customers from the start, so you need to know about them: who they are, their target audience, their concerns, and have a plan for how you tackle their new project.
- Your proposal should cover all aspects – from results to the frequency of reviews.
- You can even offer a free subscription so they know that they are not just getting a new website or design from you, but also a marketing discount or a few months of free website maintenance and support.
Finding new clients and convincing them that they need to hire a professional worker is difficult. This is why a well-formulated approach is essential for new business development.
Plan Your Budget and Performance Metrics
Performance metrics and budget planning will keep you constantly looking for clients. And that means – to spur on self-development. One of the hardest aspects is the lack of leaders. Conditional goals will become your guide.
Keep track of Your Competitors
Despite all your advantages (or disadvantages), the customer can always refuse your services and use the services of other workers. Therefore, you need to be aware of the current market conditions – what prices, what skills are in demand, and what will be relevant in the near future.
By the way, freelance exchanges often let you see other freelancers claiming the same job as you. Obviously, they propose a wide range of services including online engineering services, 3D printing, machine learning, etc.
So the more experienced you are – the more niches you can enter. Even a cursory glance at your profile will be enough to sensibly assess your competitiveness. If you are interested in a broader assessment of the situation, it is worth talking to people who often use the services of freelancers and learning about their needs firsthand.
“It is very useful when you work in a team with other freelancers (often clients hire several people for development) – then you can evaluate your skills in comparison and acquire new ones, analyze rates, experience, competitor profiles and, based on this, form your proposal”, – the freelancer shares his experience.
Share Your Knowledge
As a web designer or developer, article writing may not be your forte, but that doesn’t mean people don’t want to hear you. Start a blog on your website and show your knowledge of what’s going on in web design, or give your audience several reasons why they need to hire a freelance developer.
Besides writing for your website, give potential customers another way to get you online by purchasing a piece of content (like a blog, infographic, white paper, WordPress tutorial, etc.) published on the website. The same rule applies here: showcase your expertise and value through whatever you create so that when people search for it online, they point right at you.
You Have Found Clients. What’s Next?
The long-awaited moment has come: the client has been found, the time has not been wasted. But what to do next, how to develop relationships, communicate correctly, and establish long-term cooperation?
It’s not an easy question, because it is difficult to find a client, but you can lose it quickly and easily.
For each client, it is recommended to develop an individual communication methodology aimed at respecting and understanding their problems and needs.
The more welcoming and sociable in this case the employee of the company conducting the negotiations, the faster and more successful the result of the interaction will be.
It is important to show the importance of the client to the company, however, everything needs a measure. Feeling that the company is holding on to the client, he can begin to use it.
Provide the client with support and assistance when he really needs you. This will show the quality of service and the high level of professionalism of the company.
Finally, the main thing is, in no case violate your obligations, provide the client with a high level of service throughout the entire period of cooperation, which will be the best indicator of your competence, openness, and decency, desire to do business cleanly and without risks.
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We hope you have enjoyed The Ultimate Guide on How to Find New Clients. If you would like more personal tips, advice, insights, and access to our community threads and other goodies, join me in our community.
You can comment directly on the posts and have a discussion with Andrew, the Founder of The Logo Creative.
*TIP – We recommend Freelance Level Up Kit by Kady Sandel, It’s for graphic designers who have the foundations of their business but want to grow, raise their prices, and sign more (and better!) clients.
