In any kind of business, it is important to remember that the existing clients are more valuable and profitable than the newer ones. The same goes for the freelancers as well. If you want to give a boost to your income, you must remember that it is always easier to get business from the existing customers rather than looking out for new customers. Therefore, it is important that you as a business owner continually work on to make better relationships with first-time freelance clients so that they can come back for more. In reality, it doesn’t take much hard work to make the first time freelance clients hire you back again if you have been doing your job exceptionally well. If you have been doing so, they already know your potential and therefore like and trust you.
Make First-Time Freelance Clients Come Back For More
While on the other hand, it is a lot of hard work to find new clients. What is important is that you need to understand what the freelance client’s want from you. However, people often make certain mistakes and end up losing their clients. But, the great thing is that these can be fixed easily. Listed below are a few ways which would make your first-time freelance clients come back for more.
1. Reading and Listening Carefully
When a client provides you with an instructions file, a style guide or anything else, it is important for you to go through it properly. To be able to complete a project efficiently, you have to make notes of things. To ensure that the project is being done properly, you must follow the instructions very closely. Most of the people often get this wrong and end up losing their clients. Clients provide the instructions for a reason. Not all of the clients are demanding but if you have any queries, you must feel free to ask appropriate questions. Follow everything properly and you would notice the clients coming back with more work.
2. Be Gracious
You need to remember that you should make the clients feel good about working with you. You need to thank for the opportunity that they have provided you with. Also, try and speak to them about getting another assignment from them by expressing interest after the project has been completed. If the client has enjoyed working with you, it is for sure that you would get more assignments. And, when you show them the fact that you also have enjoyed working with them, they would consider giving you more projects to handle. Freelancing includes building strong relationships and producing work of good quality.
3. Request for an Outline of the Approval Step
This is a simple thing but can, in fact, turn to out to be rather helpful. When you are working with the clients for the very first time, you must request for an outline approval step. This can be especially helpful if is a rather large project. In simpler words, you can ask the clients for feedback of the plan that you have before you jump straight from getting the assignment and then submitting the final draft. This can, in fact, help you to save a lot of time and effort. This would also help you to practice so as to organize your thoughts.
4. Ask Questions but Do Not Seem Helpless
At times, the clients do not provide with proper information or style guide and you must always ask for it. Also, make sure to ask any questions that have not been answered by the client. It could be anything right from the content of the article to the style of it. But, always ensure that you are asking questions that make sense and not something which could undoubtedly be understood easily. This is because looking helpless is a big turnoff and the clients might not come back. At first, try to figure out the problem on your own and if you feel that it is really important then go ahead and ask the client about it.
5. Understanding the Fact That the Clients Have Their Own Pace
It is important to understand that the clients have their own pace. With some of them, your work would be published right after a few days while for the others, it might take weeks. Nothing is actually in the hands of the clients. It might be internal strife that is causing the delay in the publication of the post or it might be something else. Whatever it is, you must never badger the client about publishing your work as you would just end up increasing their problems. Getting your payment on time should just be your main concern after the work has been finished and nothing else.
Other than this, you could ask for referrals and keep ion submitting good work in order to get the first-time freelance clients to keep coming back for more.