Photo by Silvia di Natale.

Brought to you by Ilise Benun of Marketing Mentor and the Creative Freelancer Conference (August 27-29, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Chicago). Find out more at: www.CreativeFreelancerConference.com

1. Look Closely and You’ll Find Your Market. When building your market, don’t start from scratch if you can avoid it. The foundation of your business should be rooted strongly in something you know well and in which you already have some expertise. Even if you’re just starting out, you’ve got a history. Past employment experience, a recent pro bono or side project, or even a hobby can be used as a diving board.

If you’re making the transition from corporate work, it’s important to build on that investment, even if you are sick of the field you are coming from. It will be much easier to leverage the relationships and the knowledge you already have than trying to do everything at once. Starting a business and approaching a new market simultaneously is double the work. Once you have a business underway, then you can move toward new markets.

2. Cherry Picking The Best Prospects. One of the benefits of being a freelancer is that you don’t need hundreds of clients. You can afford to target your market very specifically. If your market is non-profit organizations, you don’t have to reach out to thousands of them. Instead, you can choose the ten or twenty-five or fifty you want to work with and pursue only them.

Always keep your eyes open for the choice prospects whose names you come across online and in magazine articles. Then, take a moment to write them a letter, send them an e-mail or just pick up the phone and call to introduce yourself. This is a cold call, yes, but what makes this kind of cold call instantly warm is your genuine interest in this company.

Plus, it’s very flattering to your prospect to hear that you are calling because you have chosen them based on what you’ve seen and what you have to offer. If there really is a fit that you can describe clearly, they just might agree to meet with you. And that may well develop into a lucrative and productive working relationship, either now or later.

3. How to Get Out of a Conversation. Some people have no trouble getting into conversations; it’s getting out of them that presents the problem. So if you don’t start conversations for fear of not being able to stop them, here are 3 strategies to experiment with:

1. Get a refill. If there’s food or drink involved in the event, you can always say, “I think I need a refill.” Or you can smile and say, “Excuse me. I need another one of those Swedish meatballs.”
2. Involve another person. Introduce another person into the conversation. Then say, “Excuse me while I let you two get to know each other.”
3. Stand up. Sometimes you don’t have to say anything. Just stand up! Your conversation partner is likely to take the nonverbal cue.

4. How to rate your prospects. Not all prospects are equal. Some are better than others. Some are worth more effort than others. But how to keep track of it all when the phone is ringing and the email is piling up?
The first thing to determine a rating for each prospect. For example:

• “C” = prospects with a casual interest
• “B” = prospects with a qualified need and a possible project
• “A” = qualified prospects with an actual project
• “A+” = prospects who have given you a verbal commitment but haven’t yet signed on

Once you know where all your prospects stand on this scale, you can then determine the best way to contact each (and the proper frequency for each prospect). A creative solopreneur typically pursues a “C” opportunity three or four times in the course of one month. A “B” lead is worth a few more tries (and for a bit longer). While an “A” opportunity deserves more persistence for a longer period of time.

Be sensitive to each situation, and temper your persistence with your gut feeling. If the prospect in question travels a lot, or is an extremely busy executive, it’s unlikely she will drop what she’s doing when you call, but she still may want you to stay in touch.

5. What is Your Money Mentality? Are you one of those freelancers who is detail-oriented about words or images, but fuzzy when it comes to money?

Do you know how much income you need to generate in order to pay your bills every month, or do you just cross your fingers and hope enough money comes in?

For many creative types, dealing with money is an obstacle to doing business. “I’m bad with numbers,” is a common refrain and, frankly, a common excuse used to neglect essential business tasks like billing.

One fundamental aspect of the financial end of running a design business is the mental attitude you bring to the process. Which of these statements is most familiar to you:

“I can’t stand dealing with money.”

or

“This financial thing is a challenge, but I’m going to learn it and make it work for me.”

How about these:

“I can’t afford to spend money on marketing.”

or

“What do I need to do in order to afford the marketing I know I need to grow my business?”

It’s up to you. You can choose between an open or closed mentality. Open is better and will facilitate the growth of your business. With this positive mental attitude as a foundation, you can begin planning a business that will support you, your goals, and your future.

6. Why You Must Not Reveal Your Hourly Rate. In order to run a healthy and profitable business, you must know how long it takes you to do various tasks and projects. In essence, you must know your expenses, and time is a major expense. (That’s why it’s essential to track your time.)

However, your hourly rate is not your price.

It’s one of the building blocks of your price, so you need to know what it is, but use it only for internal purposes. Use your hourly rate to determine what to charge for a project, but never reveal that hourly rate in a proposal or in conversations with your client. Not only is it none of their business, it also wouldn’t mean anything to them. An hourly rate is only relevant in relation to how long a project takes, and they have no idea how long your design process takes. By talking about your hourly rate, you open the door to their assumptions.

So when a client asks you how long a project will take, never say, “This will take X hours.” The only thing they need to know about time is when they can expect to receive the deliverable.

Instead, you say, “Let me check what we have on the schedule, and I’ll get back to you with a time frame. In the meantime, let me know your deadline and I will do my best to accommodate it.”

7. Use Your Web Site to Weed Out Tire-Kickers. As a freelancer, you don’t have a lot of time to spare. So you don’t want to waste your time with prospects who can’t afford you. But how do you know that before talking to them?

Your web site can serve as a filter.

Post a form on your web site that prospects fill out if they want an estimate or proposal. The serious prospects will take the time to fill out your form. Tire-kickers and those shopping for price will not.

The form, once filled out, also will give structure to the request, help to focus your potential client and put in one place all (or most) of the information you need to get started preparing a proposal.

Beyond that, this structure also gives your prospect a sense of how you work and some of the requirements of working with you. It’s part of your positioning as a professional.

Here are some of the questions you should include on your web site’s proposal request form:

• How did you hear of us?
• Briefly describe your company.
• What is your immediate need?
• Do you have a budget?
• What is your deadline?
• How and when is it best to contact you?

8. How to Deal With Scope Creep. Scope creep — when uncontrolled changes affect the scope of a project – can be the bane of a freelancer’s existence. If you don’t address it with a client, you easily could squander all your profit on a job.

Scope creep sets in when a project is not well-defined, well-planned or well-managed, or when there is a change in direction. If this happens early in a project, it may be a sign that you didn’t ask enough questions at the outset, or that you underestimated the project.

When this happens, above all, don’t procrastinate. The most important aspect of managing scope creep is communication. As soon as you see that a project is veering off course and that you will be spending more time or more money, you must advise your client immediately and decide together how to handle it.

If, for example, in a status meeting or phone call, it becomes obvious that what you are being asked to do is outside the scope of the project, say so right away: “That is outside the scope of the project as we outlined it in the proposal, so we’ll need to review that and possibly revise the pricing. Are you aware of that?” Then, initiate a “change order” to document the changes.

It’s also a good idea to include a reference to scope creep in your contract so there are no surprises. A simple paragraph that outlines the process if scope creep starts to happen will plant the necessary seed so that you can bring it up much more easily later.