12 Brilliant Articles on How to Get More Referrals

So if referral business is the Holy Grail for freelancers, why do so few freelancer know how to get more referrals? How do you ask for referrals? When do you ask for them? Are there actions you can take to make it easier to get them? I’ve searched the Internet high and low and discovered 12 brilliant articles that answer those questions and much more. Browse the selection below and start learning how to get more referrals.

Influencers

Please stop worrying about your Klout score, or your stock price on Empire Avenue and on all kinds of other measures that don’t have much to do with anything related to your real world. This is akin to still being in the Matrix, but thinking you have free will. Worrying about whether or not you’re an influencer by someone else’s measures is like having a toy steering wheel and thinking you’re driving the car.

Should You Really Call Yourself a Consultant?

These days, it’s cool to be a consultant. Everyone’s becoming one. Hey, it’s the easy path to fast cash, right? You write a sales page, you promote your new service, and you become an expert. Simple. And most likely, you rock. Your fans and friends tell you that all the time, so it must be true. And they’re great too, and you tell the world all the time about your fantastic consulting clients. It’s a nice way to market your services and get other people wanting to sign up, but it’s true! You love them!

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View awesome conference lectures, engaging how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Web Development from Scratch Video: Helpful Dev Web Apps by Jeffrey Way of Nettuts+. In this video (aimed at beginner web designers) Jeffrey takes a step back from coding just long enough to bookmark ten very helpful web apps that you should be familiar with. This is part of a video series on Web Development from Scratch.

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In this issue of Ask FreelanceSwitch, we look at getting back into working and overhead. Ask FreelanceSwitch is a regular column here that allows us to help beginners get a grip on freelancing. If you have a question about freelancing that you want answered, send an email to askfreelanceswitch@gmail.com.

Question 1

I’ve stayed home for the last 10 years raising my boys. Picked up a few projects and have done volunteer work. How should I charge for my work? Where I left off? My portfolio is not very strong, but my work ethic is. I’m trying to catch back up.

With a ten year break in your freelancing career, it can be tough to get back into the swing of things. You’ll feel like you need to catch up with freelancers who were working throughout that whole period and the fact of the matter is that you can’t. Your freelancing career will look very different than other peoples’ and that’s perfectly fine.

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Any experienced business person can tell you that the best way to generate better leads and make more sales is to get more referrals.

Referral leads are more likely to be interested in your services. They are more likely to believe in what you are selling. And they are more likely to stick with you — even if you botch the sales pitch. In short, referral leads are ready to buy.

Oh, and one more thing — referral business is often free. And that’s a big deal for freelancers like yourself (I’m guessing you don’t have a marketing budget like Apple).

So if referral business is the Holy Grail for freelancers, why do so few freelancer know how to get more referrals? How do you ask for referrals? When do you ask for them? Are there actions you can take to make it easier to get them?

I’ve searched the Internet high and low and discovered 12 brilliant articles that answer those questions and much more. Browse the selection below and start learning how to get more referrals.

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Being a freelancer by nature, I’ve learned early on that producing great work is only half the battle. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve sat idly by clicking the refresh button on my email client, waiting to hear from the prospective client that my bid has been accepted.

If you don’t get the job, you don’t have any work. Although confident that my portfolio could convince even the most skeptic decision makers, too many exiting and interesting projects were slipping through my fingertips.

Rather than continuing to allow great prospects to drift over to an unknown competitor, I put my problem-solving abilities to work to correct a flaw in my business structure. What I discovered is that while portfolios are a good start, a well written proposal is the icing on the cake that seals the deal on sales, turning that hopeful shot in the dark into a trusting client that is excited to hire you.

While a good portfolio peaks a prospect’s interest in your work, they can often be left with a feeling of uncertainty if that is the only basis they have in choosing you. A customized proposal will show the client exactly how your work history applies to their specific needs.

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“Free” is both exciting and scary, always followed by skepticism. If something is free we wonder what the catch is, so no wonder the “free” in “freelancer” makes us shady people. I mean, how can we say we work if we don’t have jobs, if we just sit at our computers all day…at home! I mean, the only people who do that are lazy bums, right?

Freelancers are the black sheep of their circles, idealist flakes, slackers who embrace laziness, and are sources of embarrassment to their corporate parents. In an article on annoying questions freelance writers get asked, right here on FreelanceSwitch, commenters mentioned what they go through as freelancers:

• A freelancer and stay-at-home mom is asked, “but you’ll go back to work once your daughter goes to school, right?”
• A guy’s wife thinks he’s playing computer games all day.
• An author is excited about showing her mom a copy of her book not because she’s proud of her work, but just so she can show her mom that she works for a living and no, she doesn’t need to borrow $20, mom.

Why do people think we’re slackers for opting for freelance freedom? Freedom might be something we all say we want, but freedom is also highly feared and misunderstood.

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Freelancing, by definition, is a solitary existence. You probably sit at a computer most of the day, writing, designing, drawing, networking, and have little face to face interaction with peers who work in your industry.

I don’t know how you write, but I need it to be quiet to be productive. Deathly quiet. I have never been able to listen to music—even the classical stuff—while doing homework, working on a paper, or writing a magazine feature or blog post. If it’s rowdy outside my office, I shut the door, and people know not to bother me. When the phone rings, I groan unhappily. A ringing phone is my nemesis.

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Looking for a new client? The FreelanceSwitch job board is a great resource of freelance gigs and opportunities. These opportunities are in various fields, from development to writing to design, and come from a wide range of potential clients. The job board is hand-moderated by dedicated staff and volunteers from the freelance community.

Each week, we’ll feature a selection of the best job opportunities posted for the week. This week, we’re featuring jobs in WordPress Development, Flash Character Animation, Photoshop Illustration and more!

To apply for any of these jobs, simply pick up a FreelanceSwitch membership for an affordable $7 a month. See something you like? Join now!

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Cross Selling More than Just Your Services

As freelancers, the main thing we can sell is our services. Clients come to us because they want a particular project completed and we have the right skill set to accomplish it. But the truth of the matter is that we have a little more room to maneuver, at least when it comes to what we sell. We can upsell and cross sell our services to further establish our relationship with our clients and improve our bottom line.

How To Sell Your Designs Without The Sales Pitch

If you learn how to sell yourself (without a sleazy sales pitch) you will be able to sell your designs more easily. This means fewer revisions, happier clients, more referrals, and a higher quality of work.

5 Apps to Improve Productivity and Collaboration

If you’re like me, your to-do list has taken on a life of its own, and after several failed attempts at taming it, you’re now simply looking for a way to peacefully co-exist. Fortunately, new apps and devices are being created almost daily to help us improve our productivity and collaboration.

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View awesome conference lectures, engaging how to discussions, and high quality freelance business advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Career Interview with a Freelance Radio Journalist by Creative Interviews. In this video Career interview with freelance radio journalist, Rene Gutel discusses the freedom and challenges of being a freelance journalist for NPR.

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Is your website delivering new clients on a regular basis? Is your site’s sales funnel optimized? Have you been meaning to make changes to your site that improve your bottom line? Realistically, how effective is your freelance business website today?

If you rely on the web for your business, then you worry about getting more people to your site, and converting more of them into clients. Most people worry a lot about the former, and a little about the latter. This is backwards, because a small amount of quality traffic combined with a high-converting website can yield much greater returns for a freelancer than lots of traffic and a poor website.

The good news is that there are many simple changes you can make to your own site to increase the bites you get from prospects. Let’s look at setting objectives, targeting headings and graphics, utilizing each page area of your site, calls to action, and more. Here are ten quick website changes that will take you no more than 30 minutes each to implement.

1. Figure out your site’s objective

What is the business goal of your website? Surprisingly few freelancers have a clear answer. If you don’t know the ultimate objective of your site, then the site is a liability rather than an asset. Any clients you get from it are purely accidental.

So the first thing you need to work out is the purpose of your site in terms of your business goals. Let me offer a word of hard-won advice here: the primary objective of your site is probably not to make sales. That’s because the vast majority of prospects will not decide to hire you on their first visit. Repeat visitors are more likely to hire you. So your site’s primary objective should probably be to get prospects to come back.

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