July 25, 2010 in Identity by Designussion

Some freelance designers are of the opinion that the 80:20 rule applies to a freelancer’s business. They reckon that 20% of our income comes from 80% of our clients and 80% of our income comes from 20% of clients. I happen to agree with this, for the most part.

In my own experience I have found that business from previous clients was where the majority of my work generated from. This may not apply to freelancers who have just started out, but over the years business does head toward the 80:20 rule. Does this mean marketing to new clients is futile? No, that is ridiculous. What it means is that all your efforts in marketing will go further because a client who does come to you will be back for more business and will refer you if you play your cards right.

1. Thank You

Whenever I do business with anyone, I send them a thank you card. This is not always a matter of getting more business but rather its because I’m a nice guy. A side-effect of being a nice guy just happens to be that the client has a record of your contact details in the contact card and feels better and easier about recommending you to friends or family.

2. Mailing List

Add your previous clients to an email mailing list. The problem with mailing lists is that they become irritating, especially when they start to clog your inbox. The best way to have a mailing list which will actually have some effect is to email at most once a fortnight, you can increase this to once a month, but my experience tells me not to do weekly or daily emails.

3. Business Card

A business card gives you a professional look while being personal. The greatest advantage is that it is great for marketing as business cards make their way around. Since a business card has the vital info on there it should be enough to get a potential client to contact you.

If you don’t believe the advantages of business clients, I would tell you to go and watch Will Smith’s film ‘Hitch’. In the film his entire business survives on a single business card.

4. Warm cold calling

If you have a previous client’s details and worked for them two years ago, it may be time to give them a call. When you call them, be genuine and actually ask about them as opposed to launching into a tele-marketer script (like a guy from India who rang me today!). Once you have asked how they are, whether the service you provided for them was good, you should pitch to them.

Don’t ask them, tell them.

Say “Have you heard of our 25% off deals? Yeah, its very limited and as soon as we were offering it I thought of you. Shall I come down and discuss it with you?” That is more likely to receive a yes than the tele-marketer who rang me saying “Sir, my name is John Price (in an indian accent) you want to take advantage, we have excellent deal blah blah blah (for five minutes)”

Finally…

These are not all of the ways of getting business from previous clients, but rather some of the best ones from my personal experience. What does your experience say? Please be kind enough to share your experience with us so all our readers can learn.

What should we do next?

Well, since you’ve made it to the end of this post, you might be interested in these related articles and resources.

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