Freelancing Tips

Keep Your Clients Happy – Offer a Courtesy Service

One of the tricks I have found really effective in my own freelancing business is to offer a courtesy service to my clients. It’s inherent in human nature to want to feel that we’re special, that someone is thinking of us. That is why gifts work.

When you offer your clients a courtesy service, this gesture communicates to them that you are thinking of them as more than just a source of work and money, but rather that you value them and the relationship that you have with them. Courtesy services, like gifts, add an element of warmth to the client-provider relationship, and can be the key that keeps your clients coming back to work with you.

A courtesy service can really be anything, and will depend to a large extent on what particular services you offer and what your clients needs are. For example, one branch of my freelancing services is that I offer document creation, database creation, editing, and templating services. A courtesy service that I offer all my clients is that I will save and recover all their files for them at no extra cost, no matter how many years later they need them. Another courtesy service that I offer some of my clients is an online portal where they can securely log in and access all of the documents we have ever worked on together. I will also periodically send them DVDs with all the file backups. There are many other courtesy services that I offer in my other freelance ventures, so these are just examples.

Of course I choose and pick which clients to offer what courtesy service based on my observations of their needs and the requests that they make.

If you are a plumber, one courtesy service you could offer would be a periodic free follow-up on any job you do, or a diagnostic check up on other fixtures in the house. If you’re a web designer, you could offer the courtesy service of free updates for the first 3 months, etc. If you think about what you do, and what your clients could potentially need, you will probably be able to think of courtesy services that you can offer.

Below are some general guidelines that I follow with respect to selecting and offering courtesy services:

Make the courtesy service something that your clients need but may not have thought of asking for. This will make more of an impression to them.

Do not announce your courtesy services until you are ready to offer them, and only to the client you are extending the offer to. The reasoning behind this is that you want to make it special, you want to make your client feel special, and you want to be a step ahead of your competition.

Choose a service that appears costly or intensive, but that you know you can deliver at minimum loss to yourself. For example, I have a lot of storage on my hard drives and servers that I don’t use, so the cost to me to offer a retrieval service is minimal.

Be consistent and follow through with your courtesy services. This will make an impression on your clients especially because they are not paying you to do it, so it will show them that you place value on them.

Make sure that you mention that this is a courtesy service to a valued client. By having that on paper, there is no risk of future misunderstandings should you decide to withdraw the service.

If you decide to terminate the courtesy service, accompany the termination with a polite note, and if you’re willing to continue to offer the same service on a paid basis, make sure the client knows that it’s their choice. Ideally though, it is better to continue to offer it as a courtesy service so that your client doesn’t feel deceived.

What courtesy services can you offer your clients?

How to Market your Freelancing Services in Online Forums

How is your freelancing business doing? Are you making progress? Mine is going well, thank you for asking.

I talked before about harnessing the power of the internet to build and maintain your freelancing business. I was preparing a more detailed post about the different ways you can do this when I came across this fantastic post on ways to market your services in forums. Now I’m not the type who is big on reinventing the wheel, so instead of regurgitating what someone else said, as bloggers seem to like to do, I will point you in the direction of the original post. Read and enjoy!

20 Ways to Promote Your Freelance Services Using Forum Marketing Techniques

Do you have any ideas to add to these?

Introducing The Freelancer’s Store

We are proud to announce that, in association with Amazon.com, we have now officially launched The Freelancer’s Store. This is a place where you will find productivity tools for the freelancer, including interesting books on various aspects of freelancing, useful gadgets and software, and anything else you may need to make your life as a freelancer more successful. We are constantly adding, updating, and refining our categories, so if there’s a new category of products that you would like to see please leave us a comment here or at the store (scroll to the bottom) and we will do our best to oblige.

You will also find more tips there from other great blogs on how to become a freelancer and continue to grow and sustain your freelancing business, so visit and bookmark The Freelancer’s Store today for all your freelancing needs.

Using the New Year to Get, Keep, and Reclaim Clients

How do you make sure that your old clients remember you? Maybe you have some clients that you discussed potential projects with and then they sent the work elsewhere, or a client you worked with and never heard from again.

Early in my freelancing career I used to get frustrated because I had all these people on my contact list that I wanted to ask if they had work for me, but I couldn’t figure out how to approach them without sounding like I was spamming them, or I was desperate for work. Then it was December, and I was sitting there sending new year greetings to all my friends when *ping*, the light bulb went on! I could send all these people a new year greeting!! It’s the polite thing to do, right? And everyone is sending new year greetings to everyone else, so it won’t be construed as spamming.

So I sat down and wrote several message templates, one for current clients, one for old clients, and one for potential clients that I never really got a chance to work with. Guess what happened? Each and every one of these people sent back a new year greeting, AND all but one of them actually sent me work in the new year! I am still working with some of them to this day, and every end of year I do the same thing, I send a new year greeting to all my present, past, and potential clients, and it always works well in my favor.

Here are some pointers to help you make this work for you:

Keep a contact list of all your clients and anyone you talk to that is a potential client. I have found that Excel works well for me because then I can make notes about each person and their business and what we discussed.
Make your new year greeting brief and to the point, and formal but cordial. Make it professional but make sure you come across as friendly. Avoid loud and flashy animations and colors, as these can be off-putting to people. Remember the goal of this email is to re-initiate contact with a potential client and you want to be remembered as a professional.
Mention, again briefly, who you are. This is especially true for an old client or a potential client. You could say something like:

Hi, my name is Peter Smith. we spoke briefly earlier this year about your company’s needs for photography services. I hope that you have had a good year, and that your magazine launched successfully, and would like to wish you success and best wishes in the coming year for you and your business….”

In just a few words you have mentioned who you are and shown interest in their business, which is always a selling point. Remember you want to be brief but memorable.
End the email with a mention that your services remain available. Make sure that you let present clients know that it’s been a pleasure to work with them, and old clients that you look forward to working with them again, and for potential clients that your services remain available and you would welcome the opportunity to work with them. The idea is to plant the seed and to remind them that you exist.
Make sure that you have your contact information at the end of this email and if you have a website, add your link in there too.

I thought of giving you a template to work with, but then I think you need to make it with your own voice and communication style, so that it comes across as being authentic. If you keep the pointers above in mind, you may find yourself with some new clients for the new year.

Here’s to your prosperity and productivity in your freelancing in 2008!

Harnessing the Power of the Internet as a Freelancer

One of the most powerful lessons a freelancer can learn is how to harness the power of the internet to find clients, advertise, and build a business with a vast and far reach.

The internet of today has evolved and become a dynamic giant with great potential. No longer is the web comprised only of static informational pages that users read and have no interaction with. Today the internet is based on the concept of interaction, whether it’s as simple as clicking a button to take a poll or survey, or as complex as creating communities and profiles and joining vast networks with people that you will most likely never meet face to face.

This interactive nature of the internet can be a wonderful resource for the freelancer, and it is important to learn to harness the power that is available at your fingertips. Most often when people think of the internet in the context of freelancing, they usually think of computer professionals, such as web designers, programmers, writers, etc. But the internet has great benefit also for freelancers in other disciplines that are not as computer-involved, such as carpenters, masons, plumbers, weavers, carvers, etc.

Let us explore how the internet’s power is available to all trades and crafts:

Education: You can use the internet to learn more about your trade, whether it’s picking up new skills, or honing your current skills, learning new tricks, and so on.
Networking: There are groups and forums for almost every imaginable thing under the sun. If you don’t believe me, just Google whatver interests you and add the words “user group” or “discussion group” or “forum” to your search, and you’ll be surprised by what you find.Just to prove this point, I searched for Basket Weaving discussion groups, and pulled up over a million results! These kinds of groups are a wonderful resource for the freelancer because they serve as a place to exchange ideas, build relationships, and sometimes, find clients, as discussed in the next point.
Finding Clients: Of course this is the most important thing for any freelancer, is to find clients. No matter what your craft or trade, there is someone looking for just that, and usually, the first place most people look today is the internet. In future posts I will be talking more about how to leverage the power of the various internet resources to find those people who need your services, and how to make sure they find you, and I have touched on this before, but one way is also through the networking opportunities I mentioned above.

There are many other ways you can harness the internet and leverage it for your benefit as a freelancer, and the point of this post is to get you exploring and provoke you to put your thinking cap on and look at the internet as more than you currently imagine it to be.