Recommending the most talented, ethical people for any task is something I love to do.
A new Freelance Folder post is making the rounds at Twitter. In it, Laura Spencer who offers copywriting services at Writing Thoughts asks Freelancers this question:
How much time do you [Freelancers] spend on marketing?
Since I took the time to share some recommendations on how freelancers can increase their incomes in the comments of that post I am also sharing them here with my readers.
New freelancers probably will have to spend half their time marketing and even then building a new business doesn’t happen overnight. May I make some suggestions?
1) Make sure your blog or Web site clearly shares what you do and ideally what it costs or at least how to find out. Your about page can be a good place for that or you could have another page called hire me or consulting. Both your about and that page should be VERY OBVIOUS on your site – usually a tab under the header.
2) Create relationships with people who are in a position to recommend you and send you business. You won’t need to do nearly as much marketing if the people who influence those who would most be interested in hiring you are your best cheerleaders.
3) Whenever possible make it easy for potential clients to buy from you. That is done by offering a specific task for a set price. Most people have difficulty making decisions. If you only give them two yes/no decisions to make you will get a lot more business.
Some examples of this would be:
A. Creating and installing a Favicon $X
B. Article writing 500 words for $X or a package of X for $XX.XX
C. Installing WordPress $X
D. Blog Maintenance (installing or updating plugins or doing backups) $X
E. Writing some custom CSS to change the look of quotes or add a Call to Action box
You get the idea. There is a HUGE market for people who will provide BASIC services. If you think those are too easy or don’t pay enough that is untrue.
What something is worth is NOT based on how long it takes YOU to do it.
It is worth how long it would take THEM to learn how and get it done times the value they place on their time.
In many cases they do not want to learn how to do it themselves no matter how long it would take so to those people it is worth even more than the value of their time multiplied by the hours required.
Remember that to someone who has a career or business income they may value their time much higher than you price yours. What you can do in 15 minutes that you think isn’t worth bothering with might take them 10 hours x $25, $100, $300 or even more PER HOUR!
A task you thought you could only charge $15 for could be valued by the market at $100-$500 or more.
Offer a specific task for a specific price and you make your services very easy to purchase.
Here are the only two questions potential buyers will need to answer:
A. Am I interested in what this freelancer has to offer? yes/no
B. Am I willing to spend the amount of money they charge for their service? yes/no
See how simple that is? You will get far more buyers that way than if they have to contact you for a quote or you only focus on large jobs. Those small jobs will turn into more work from happy clients and referrals.
Eventually how much time you spend marketing your services will drop to very little because satisfied customers and connected Social Media Marketers will send you all the business you can handle.
This tip applies to EVERY business and EVERY blog. Make it clear what you have to offer. If you have products or services make that VERY obvious!
Do NOT expect your visitors to spend time trying to guess what you do. They won’t.
FREELANCE TIPS:
- How to be More Productive and Start Earning More as a Freelance Designer @1stwebdesigner
