- One of the greatest challenges a lot of freelancers face
is how do you get clients,
especially when you're just
getting started, right?
You don't have a track record.
You don't have have a lot of experience.
Maybe you are new to this whole industry.
What could you do?
Now, today I'm going to introduce you to
my Director of Copy, Peter here.
Now, Peter also started off as a freelancer, right?
Not knowing a lot about what
he's getting himself into.
So I want him to share his story with you
of how he got started.
More importantly, I'm also gonna bring
more mentees onto my channel.
Have them share what they have learned from me
and how some of the lessons have applied
and affected their life.
So, enjoy.
- Cool.
Hey, guys.
My name is Peter and you've probably seen me
on couple other videos with Sifu,
where I'm getting beat up in Wing Chun videos.
But really I got my start in the world of
copywriting and freelancing, where for the first
few months I got beat up
by clients and rejections.
So today, I wanna teach you guys a bit more about
what I went through,
how you can your first clients as a freelancer
and really what not to do.
So one story that Sifu told me when I first came
onto the team, was about his first business.
You see, Sifu had a lawn mowing business where
he was first trying to get his clients,
he knocked on every door in every neighborhood
and he said "Hey, can I mow your lawn?"
and of course they all said "No".
So one day Sifu saw this lawn and
it had this tall grass and it was unkept,
it was really messy and the owner wasn't home.
So, Sifu did something really dramatic and he
just mowed the lawn for them, he sat on the porch
and waited for the owner to come back.
When the owner came back, they drove by and they
actually didn't even recognize it,
so when they drove back they're like,
"What the hell is this?"
They look at the lawn, they saw Sifu
on the porch, they're like "Oh, did you do this?"
and Sifu Dan he says,
"Yes, I saw this lawn was very unkept,
I just did it for you, I thought you were busy."
Like, I'm just a young kid trying to get
started in business and the owner,
she was so surprised but she was really,
really grateful and she paid Sifu
his first 100 dollars.
So from that lesson you learn one thing.
When you want to get more clients,
more freelance clients,
the first thing you will have to do is to add value.
This is very similar to a story of
how I got started, because when I first started,
I got a list of every business owner
in Vancouver, from you know, the yellow pages,
from directories, from Google and I emailed them.
I said "Hey I do copywriting, you're a business,
do you want my copywriting services?", and guess
what they said? "No."
'Cause I didn't add any value upfront.
First 3 months, that's all I did,
I got one phone call, we got on the call and
they rejected me.
So that strategy obviously, does not work.
So, what did I do? I changed up my strategy and I
started delivering more value to more clients,
I saw their website and I emailed them,
"Hey, I went on your website,
I saw you can make these changes,
these changes, these changes,
and I think it'll really improve your business,
improve your conversions,
it can get you a lot more revenue."
So I saw different areas on websites that can
be improved and I said,
"Hey I can help you with this for free."
Right, they took me up on it, I did the work, and
they kept me on retainer and that's how I actually
got my first client.
Now, for all my future clients,
I did the exact same thing.
I looked at areas of their business. I saw where
I could actually help them get more value,
more revenue, more conversions. I did the work
upfront. I showed it to them and said,
"Hey, if you wanna use it, use it.
If you don't want to use it, that's
perfectly fine, no strings attached."
And that's actually how I got my first
10 clients too.
So, what you can get from this video is that
you always want to add value upfront.
Don't be one of those people that asking for
things. Don't be one of those people on YouTube
comments asking for a loan from Sifu Dan.
Don't be one of those people asking me to be a
mentor for free. Don't be one of those people
who are asking for more value
by doing nothing, right.
You really wanna be a person of value,
that's adding more value to other people's lives.
And that's really how you get your first clients
as a freelancer.
So, if you like this video, leave a comment
down bellow, smash the like button,
And we've actually prepared a training
for you guys if you wanna know learn how
to become a more financially confident
freelancer, earn more money, get more clients.
There's a link in the description that you could
click down below.
So, click that if you wanna learn more
and that's it from me for today.