As bad as my 10+ year stint in traditional employment was, I did walk away with some skills that were particular to the work I did. One of those was following up.
I’m not a natural “chaser”, so having to learn to officially schedule and plot time to run behind clients was something I had to be conditioned to do. It was painful, but it’s an essential skill in my (and your) work as a freelancer.
No matter what you do, your clients have hundreds of alternatives to answering your email, reading your blog, or signing that contract you sent over 3 days ago. It’s your responsibility to get their attention (this is one reason I set my marketing time apart, so that I can pretend to be someone I hired to do my marketing work and get myself in the right mindset.)
It’s Getting Clients Month here at BlackFreelance, and this month, if you want to start getting more, and better clients, you’ll need to put yourselves in their position–This means taking a really objective look at every piece of contact you put out there. Imagine yourself with a manager, and a huge project you’re working through, annoying coworkers, and an email box that you’re painfully behind on, and ask yourself if they would have any reason…any good reason at all…to prioritize the proposal you sent 4 weeks ago.
If they don’t, it’s time to send an email…maybe even make a call.
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