Taking Your Freelance Business to the Next Level
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Or what I wished I knew when I started freelancing.
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Taking Your Freelance Business to the Next Level
- 1. Elevating Your WordPress Business Or what I wished I knew when I started freelancing. Melanie G Adcock
- 2. What We Will Cover Having a process Getting clients Incoming leads Qualifying Clients Client Meetings Positioning and Nurturing Proposals Contracts Development Delivery Maintenance Recurring Revenue Pricing Models
- 3. Finding Your Market Do you need a niche? How do you find it? Clients to look for Positioning yourself as an expert
- 4. Incoming Leads Weed out the tire kickers Worksheet Ask about their budget Don’t rush to give out prices Sell a Discovery Session
- 5. Score Your Potential Clients Rank your clients on budget etc. Look for red flags Listen to your gut. PITA upcharge
- 6. Client Meeting Meet with decision makers Have an agenda Ask if you can record or take lots of detailed notes Ask second level questions: Why? What else? Dig deep.
- 7. Nuture clients prevent sticker shock by sending emails if budget doesn’t match must have list
- 8. If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." - Red Adair
- 9. Proposals and Contracts Use a template Include goals, needs, solution, investment (fee), FAQs, terms, timeline Have a master service agreement
- 10. More to cover content due before development Suspended and Abandoned projects Scope of work Hosting requirements define “bug” website care plans
- 11. Timeline Project Management Design / Prototyping Development Testing Delivery Training
- 12. Referrals and Testimonials Asking for referrals and client testimonials
- 13. Recurring Revenue Website care plans Hosting No email support
- 14. Tools Proposals: Bidsketch, 17 hats Project management: Basecamp, Asana, Trello, Teamwork, Podio, 17 hats, Updates: Zen Desk, Help Scout Care Plan outsourcing: GoWP.com VA - Virtual Staff Finder, Onlinejobs.ph, Outsourcing Angel
- 15. Subscription Pricing Out of the box solution for low budget clients - not custom work very systematic to control the process Set up fee and monthly fee (you host) with 2 yr contract.
- 17. Questions?
Editor's Notes
- Good afternoon. I am Melanie G. Adcock of MGA Creative Designs. I’ve been a freelance web designer for 15 years but I’ve been using WordPress for the past five years. Today I wanted to share with you some of the processes you should have in place in your freelance business. I want you to learn what NOT to do as well as things that can help you stay organize and complete jobs quickly.
- Some of the things we will quickly cover today will be the importance of having a process. Think of when you go to a restaurant. There is a process. You go to the hostess stand, you get taken to a table, the wait staff comes and takes your drink order, they return, they take you food order, they bring the food, they offer dessert, you pay. You need a process to take your clients through. This will keep the job moving and hopefully you won't end up like I have with clients who go missing. Waiting weeks or months on content.
- I always get asked, “Where do I get my clients?” Ninety-five percent of my work comes via referral. I’ve hooked into two great referral machines: Churches and Retirement Communities. I do project outside this niche but these are my bread and butter. These are the ones that generate “mailbox money”. If you are early in your career then you will pretty much have to take on many different projects. Look for fields that can generate referrals. TIPS: Give talks to local groups.
- We’ve all had them. Those calls from a prospective client who is either looking for a website “like facebook but better” for $500 or something similar. I use a website worksheet to weed out the tire kickers. If I get an email from a prospective client I will either send them the link or have a quick phone call to get their budget and a little information. The first reason I love my website worksheet is I can get my client start thinking of goals beyond having a new website. The second reason is it helps me to quickly write a proposal.
- We’ve all had the pain in the asterisk clients. How many times have you had a gut feeling about a client but took the job anyway and then regretted it? Pass on some clients and feel GOOD about it.
- If you have the website worksheet results you now have all the first level questions out of the way. You have had time to look at what they like, perhaps their competition. Now the conversation can really dig deep and you can ask more specific question. Don’t forget to ask “Is there anything else” or “What else” It is all right to talk about budget. If they want an e-commerce store with 50 products and their budget is $1500 you can save you both some time by giving a ball park figure once you have had a conversation.
- Tools include Bidsketch, Proposify, 17 hats
- Trello, Basecamp, Asana, Teamwork and many more.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for referrals and testimonials.