Get More Clients By Knowing What Businesses Look For In Freelancers

Hi. Nation1099 editors here. There’s a great guest post below on how to get more clients for your freelance business. But first we wanted to share some of the deep library of resources on this subject already on Nation1o99.

First, one of our most popular articles ever is a comprehensive guide to client acquisition. It’s packed with practical tips, and there’s a downloadable ebook there, too.

19 Things To Do Right Now To Attract New Clients

Second, we’ve covered this subject from a variety of other angles that you may find helpful.

• 5 Ways to Get Freelance Clients Using Content Marketing
• How Smart Consultants Network Less and Make More With Current Clients
• A Guide to Qualifying Client Leads for Freelancers
• The Path To Higher Paying Clients – An Interview with Ilise Benun, the Marketing Mentor
• 6 Essential Client Facing Skills You Need For The Gig Economy

Third, as important as quick growth hacks are, we want to emphasize that the path to real growth is through some thoughtful planning about what clients you want.

• How To Get Clients Fast With A Client Profile Strategy

Lastly, you should check out the replay of video livestream sessions where we get some practical advice on finding the right freelance clients. This one from business coach, Ed Gandia is right on point.

More Clients or Better Clients? How To Shift Gears As A Freelancer

-Editors

Get more freelance clients by considering their point of view

If you want to get more clients, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the businesses that need support and understand what they are looking for when they decide to spend money on freelancers.

Business owners want to see their brand grow to new heights. They want everything to be perfect, so much so that they end up trying to do it all. This is a big mistake, because it leads to more mistakes. They come up short on deadlines, they burn themselves out and they become the reason that they can’t achieve their goal — business growth.

These business owners realize that they really need help, but it’s hard for the to entrust their business to total strangers who might live half way around the world.

Outsourcing tasks to freelancers is never easy. They want to get some of the load off their shoulders, but they also want to make sure that they can hire someone they really trust. They want freelance help from people who are efficient and dependable. Naturally, they want to get their money’s worth. But most of all they want to make sure that their business is in good hands.

My partner and I came up against these issues when our first business was growing, which is why we built FreeeUp. As we struggled to find the right freelancers to help us really grow, we learned to understand what to look for in freelancers. As we started building FreeeUp, we learned that these top three qualities are what all clients are looking for. If you want to get more clients, make sure you are rock solid in these three areas.

1. Freelance clients demand niche experience and talent

One of the first things clients look for in a freelancer is experience and expertise or talent. Do you possess the necessary skills they need to bring their businesses to the next level? Have you actually helped a previous client’s business doing the same task?

This is crucial to understand if you want to get more clients, because experience and talent are the main reason clients hire. They need someone they can depend on to take the cudgels and produce positive results.

Technically speaking, hiring freelancers is much the same as making an investment. Just like any entrepreneur, clients want to get their money back on their investment. If you can’t meet or exceed their expectations, then you’re not worth investing in at all.

If they need an expert freelance graphic designer, for example, they need someone who has actually done it before. You should have the ability to create stunning graphics based on your own concept rather than being totally reliant on their input. You should also know what kind of designs are in demand and which ones are considered passé’.

To avoid hiring the wrong person, clients try to be as detailed and upfront as possible during the interview process. They’ll ask you questions that will showcase your knowledge and experience with the task at hand. They may even give you tests so they can see for themselves that you are who you say you are.

There’s a huge difference between simply knowing how to do a task and how to do it efficiently at an expert level. Make sure you answer each question carefully and thoroughly so that they can understand your skill level and be confident in hiring you for their project.

Related: How to Make The Best Online Portfolio for Freelance Marketplaces

2. Freelance clients want you to have a positive attitude and to be serious about growth

It’s been said that skills can be learned, but not attitude. In my experience, this is absolutely true. If you want to get more clients, you need a high level of professionalism, especially since your setup is unconventional.

A client can be sitting in an office in New York while you may be sitting somewhere in California. Your attitude toward your tasks plays a big part in whether or not the client is comfortable that you will be able to perform well and really help their business grow.

We all know that outsourcing is mostly built on trust. Clients appreciate people who take their work seriously. It shows that they are invested and not just going through the motions to get paid. This is the kind of freelancer clients want to hire.

They also want to find someone who honors agreements even if they know that clients have no way of verifying the specifics what was actually done.

Check it out: The Freelance Contract — How to Write an Effective Statement of Work

Clients love it when freelancers show initiative. Personally, I especially like freelancers who require minimal supervision and who strive to over deliver and exceed my expectations. If I ask for a blog post to be submitted three days from now, it’s great to see it in my inbox before the deadline so I have lots of time to proofread.

Most clients feel the same way. They also appreciate people who ask for additional assignments when previous ones are completed early. Going a step further, clients like freelancers who are ambitious in the sense that they are open to learning new things and not content in simply doing the same things over and over again.

More importantly, entrepreneurs love to hire people who exudes positivity. To get more clients for your freelance business, you should be respectful and optimistic at all times. You should be open to criticism and be willing to do everything to prove them wrong rather than complain and refuse to own up to your mistakes.

3. Freelance clients expect strong communication skills

It’s been said time and again that communication is key, and that can’t be any more true than when outsourcing. When clients work with a freelancer, they’re working with someone they haven’t even met, who is thousands of miles away and who is probably in a different time zone.

Related: Can Freelancers Really Work from Anywhere? A Remote Work Reality Check.

This distance can present communication problems. Clients therefore want to get someone who can openly communicate despite these hindrances.

I especially like freelancers who keep me posted on any of the projects I may have assigned. It’s a huge thumbs up for me to have someone who openly tells me where we are on a project and how soon we can finish it. This gives me an idea how far along we are and if they need my help to speed up the process. All the people I’ve met who are hiring remote workers feel the same way.

Lastly, clients love someone who is confident enough to ask questions. I personally like someone who can be up front with me when something’s not clear or is hard for them to understand, instead of just agreeing to everything I say and then going on to do the wrong thing.

Get more clients by seeing things from the client POV

In all my years in the online hiring business, my partner and I have seen the best and the worst. Clients know what they want and they aren’t satisfied until they get it. Clients don’t often settle for good enough because their businesses are on the line. When it comes to online hiring, clients want three basic qualities:

1. Someone who has a ton of experience in the task they need help with.
2. Someone who exhibits a positive attitude, both toward them and toward work.
3. Someone who can communicate with them openly and at a high level.

With these three top qualities all clients look for in freelancers, you can get more clients and turn your freelancing into a real career. If you’re looking to land more projects in the future, develop these qualities and you’ll soon be knocking interviews out of the park.