What's up Brand Builders! Steven Houraghan here of brandmasteracademy.com and in
this video you're gonna learn 10 ways that you can win you freelance clients
so you can start building out your client base
now one of the number one questions I get asked is how
do you get new clients and it's no surprise either it's one of the first
hurdles for every freelancer to get new clients in the door because without
clients there's no revenue and there's also the added downward pressure of
price as well because you have marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork and
you've got overseas designers selling their services really really cheaply so
you know you do have clients who have that expectation and prospects who have
that expectation as well but I'm gonna give you ten ways that you can use and
bring into your business so you can convince the clients to go with you and
will enable you to charge premium prices as well number one speak about their
business now it might be common ground for your prospects to jump into
conversations about logos about color palettes and typography and you know you
might also follow that lead as well or that's the conversation that you might
jump into but it doesn't really help you when it comes to charging premium prices
because if you're just gonna talk about creative if you're just gonna talk about
design then you're gonna be compared to other designers no matter where they are
no matter what they're charging so speak about their business start the
conversation of on the right home and keep the initial conversation about
their business and don't move on to creative until later if you speak about
their business and speak about their business problems they'll see you in a
different light number two ask the right questions now
there's an old adage whoever asks the most questions wins because if you're
asking questions you're controlling the conversation so make sure that you ask
plenty of questions about their business and they're gonna be happy to answer
those questions as well if they're talking about themselves if they're
talking about their business and their prospects well then they're gonna be
happy with that conversation so make sure that you have the right questions
lined up and keep those questions coming number three listen actively now this
goes back to the previous point about asking questions and it is widely
understood by psychiatrists about different personalities and you know
when we when we're attracted to different people based on how they behave and
people who asked questions tend to be more attractive to those who just speak
about themselves and this is a trap that most designers fall into when they jump
on the phone with their clients they start talking about you know their their
projects that they've done the experience they have the styles they
like and they don't listen to their clients they don't you know ask their
clients enough questions and they certainly don't sit there and listen to
the answers that they have to give so make sure you actively listen to what
your clients are saying after you've asked those questions and look for
nuggets of gold look for clues and insights that you might be able to use
later on in your conversations number four become a detective now when
your prospect comes to you they'll probably have in their mind an idea of
what they need and they'll be expecting that outcome from this conversation but
the more you speak to them about their business the more you ask them about
their business and the more you actively listen the more ammunition you'll have
to be able to identify what the real problem is now they might be coming to
you for a brand and a logo or they might be coming to you because they're not
getting enough website traffic or they believe that their conversions aren't
right but if you listen to what they say and if you listen to the answers they
give you'll be able to find the real reasons and the real problems behind
their business now as I said you really need to dig deep into the questions
about their business and the the experience that they've had up until
this point and if they're coming to you for the very first time for a new brand
then your conversations here are going to be about their position or about
their audience to really find out what they already know what they don't know
and what they need from the brand that they're expecting you to develop for
them number five educate your client now logo designers and brand designers
traditionally certainly in my experience anyway they don't tend to like it
if their client or their prospect doesn't really have a good grasp of what
branding is they might think it's a logo they might misunderstood the true value
of branding but if your prospect is in this position and if that's what they're
displaying then is the perfect position that they should
be in for you to swoop in and show your value so if you jump in there and
educate your client and kind of bring back the the real idea of what branding
is and educate them on the real idea of what branding is then they're gonna walk
away with a huge amount of value they're gonna walk away with a huge amount of
clarity and you're going to have earned a huge amount of trust so embrace it if
your client doesn't understand branding embrace the idea that this is now part
of your role certainly as a brand strategist part of your role is to
educate your client on what real brand strategy is and the different elements
involved in strategic branding and once they have that knowledge once they're
armed with that knowledge and if they've got gotten that knowledge from you then
they're gonna trust you and they're gonna have their own epiphany that they need you
to work on their brand number six get them excited now your prospect didn't have
the idea of a business and didn't come up with this idea for to go into the
market and fail they don't picture themselves going into the market and
failing they picture themselves succeeding and they believe that they
can succeed with this business and you really need to get them excited about
that they might have an idea of where this business could go but if you ask
the right questions at the right time in the right way then you'll get them to
open up about what the real vision for the business is and they might not have
done this before they're not might not have really taken the time they might
not have been asked these specific questions but if you ask these questions
in the right way then they'll open up like a flower and they'll really really
give you their vision of what this business could be like and that will
open up the idea of what their life is going to be like on the back of that and
as I said sometimes your prospect has never gone through this process before
but if you encourage that if you encourage them to open up about where
this business could go it can get them really really excited
number seven show enthusiasm now of course if they're giving you this idea
of a business and this vision for the future and it's completely unrealistic
and you know you don't see real potential in the business that they're
talking about well then you know you should be honest with them I'm not
talking here about fake enthusiasm but if you do see a business behind their
idea you do see that you can help them to
build this brand that they they need to help their business succeed will then
show that show that enthusiasm get behind their idea of this vision for the
future and that will really really encourage them number eight convey value
now if you are offering a brand strategy as a solution to this prospect well then
you need to go down the road of explaining the value of this strategy so
you need to talk to them about positioning and why they need to
position their brand effectively likewise you need to talk to them about
their audience and why they need to understand them on an intimate level and
the emotions that they're going through the journey that they're on and then of
course why they need an effective communication strategy why they need a
storytelling framework and what good stories are going to do for their brand
and the connection they have with their audience so if you're able to convey
that value well then they'll be able to justify why they need a brand strategy
as opposed to just going for a logo number nine display conviction now on
the whole we tend to be more attracted to people who display confidence now
certainly that's true when it comes to things that we need or situations that
were in if we need an element of safety if we need to feel secure or feel
convinced that the person that we're dealing with is you know is confident in
where they're going on can lead us to where we want to go well then we're
gonna be a lot more attracted to somebody like that then somebody who is
fumbling their words is you know not really confident about what they're
saying they're not really clear in their communication so you really need to
display that conviction and show that confidence in what you're talking about
and give that aura that you know what you're doing you know where you're going
and you know that you can help your client and number ten be prepared to
walk away now we have this primitive instinct as people that if something is
running towards us we run away from it if something is running away from us we
run towards it and that's a survival instinct that we have and you know that
plays that with our client relationships if you're gonna run towards them and
show this neediness their instinct is going to be to run away from you so show
them that you are prepared to walk away if things aren't working out if they're
trying to press you on price if they're trying to get more for less if
they're trying to get more for their smaller budget
then you know show them that you're prepared to walk away you have your
systems in place yes you want their business but you don't need their
business and if you show that preparedness to walk away sometimes it
has the opposite effect now to implement a lot of these tips and techniques we'll
take a little bit of a psychological shift but you really need to do that and
if you do want to push into strategy and start offering those higher ticket
products and those higher ticket services well then you need to break
free from the cheaper clients that you were previously dealing with now if you
are prepared to do that if you do want to make that shift well then the types
of clients that we're coming to you previously are a great place to start
with these processes because again you have that abundance mentality that you
know you're prepared to walk away and you don't need to chase these you know
low budget clients so test out on them test out your your strategies test out
these techniques see if you can educate them on what real branding is see if you
can get them excited about their business see if you can talk to them on
a high level about their business and shift their focus and their idea of what
value you can bring to their business and as I said this is where you can cut
your teeth and improve your conversations that you have and really
move towards a place where you're a lot more confident to have these
conversations with your prospects and you'll see over time more and more will
start to warm to you and it won't take you long before you're
able to deliver strategies for higher ticket prices but I'd love to hear from
you about your experiences with your clients and trying to transition into a
more strategic role and you know trying to sell the idea of brand strategy and
trying to sell strategies to your clients do you have these types of
clients that really don't understand branding they don't understand the value
of brand strategy and it's difficult to really convey that to them to convey
that value do you have those types of clients push them back on price and
telling you that they can go and get this done cheaper on Fiverr or Upwork
I'd love to know your experiences in the comments below if you've got any
specific challenges in relation to talking to your clients about strategy
then let me know in the comments below if you like this video please give it a
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I'll do my best to answer all of those questions until next time brand like a