Poll: Where Are You Finding Clients?
The last survey was quite fun, and seemed to generate some great discussion and results. This time, I’d like to suggest that we share where the majority of our clients are coming from. If you have any tips or tricks on ways that you convert a prospective client into a paying client – we’d love to hear that in the comments.
Having a professional website is key. Word of mouth is great as well. That was my number two.
One example I would share – My wife and I were looking for a photographer for our wedding. Every time we went to a site, if they had a good professional website we’d look around. If it was out dated, bad branding, ugly in anyway shape or form, we would click off immediately.
I would imagine this is true in just about every industry. Just sayin.
Having a professional website is definitely key. I think step 2 is making sure your generating as many leads as you can with your website. I’d recommend trying our the free edition of our Olark project (http://www.olark.com), It should be free for most freelancers who don’t get a lot of traffic, but definitely useful for people who want to engage with the people who are on their website.
Basically with olark you can see all the visitors on your website (right in the buddy list of your IM program), and be there to answer questions from prospective clients, and close sales.
My Two Cents,
Ben
Olark.com
My main source is oDesk. Then there’s Facebook which account for a small number of clients.
Where’s 99designs on that list? Haha, just kidding. but I tend to find little projects on job boards such as the one here on freelanceswitch.
Word of mouth is where most of our clients come from. Of course we do great efforts in social media, mostly because we like the idea of being close to the people we work with and be accessible in every way possible.
As a freelance EDITOR, it’s much more difficult for me to find clients. Freelance writers seem to have it much easier. I’d be extremely grateful for any tips on the best ways/methods/venues for finding clients interested in hiring a freelance editor. Thank you!!
Shari in California
Amazing, we’re all finding work the same “old way”…
My best finds have been through word of mouth. Nothing beats reputation and networking face to face.
Yeah, I get more volume off of my ads, but the biggest, and most lasting clients definitely come from referrals.
Unfortunately marketing, the most important part of my business, is also definitely my weakest point.
I get some referrals, maybe 25%.
But the majority of new clients find me online. Either through DeviantArt or more often my Craigslist ads. (weak, I know).
I suppose that’s why I was excited to read this post.
-cd
I get most of my work through LinkedIn, I found social media the best fit for that option. Interesting to see that word of mouth is still such a big hitter in this.. I personally didn’t expect that.
Cold calls and e-mails. Warm calls and e-mails too. Not to mention a lot of keeping in touch with people I’ve previously contacted. (Tip: Persistence leads to sales.)
I don’t think most of my clients come from word of mouth, but a majority of my best clients do. It is almost like a reverse referral. If a good client refers someone else, chances are they are a good client as well.
WOW, I was expecting word of mouth the strongest one and here it is.
craigslist has been a huge one for me – the 2 clients that feed me the most work i found on craigslist.
All word of mouth.
I’ve had a few clients via word of mouth, one through a fellow designer, kinda a co-project.
The rest have been through Craigslist…you may not get the most ideal clients but if your just starting out I find its very effective.
I post ads in Major US Cities and I also apply for jobs via the ‘gig’ board in major US cities. I’ve found some very good clients that way.
I’ve gotten some hits to my website from google searches but I’ve never actually got a client through a search engine.
Also another source for advertising is backpage.com, I’ve found them fairly useful thou they are not as popular as craigslist.
You’ve gotten results form responding to gigs on CL?
Wow. I must be doing it wrong.
I have never once gotten a response from a CL gig ad. Weird.
i get most of the client from Odesk and Scriptlance and then its like word of mouth…but for word of mouth ofcourse one needs to have excellent portfolio
While word of mouth is by default the way most clients may find you, the question was, “Where do you find your clients?” To me, that implies going out and looking for clients, not waiting for them to find you.
Here’s an excerpt from an article I wrote recently, Word of Mouth Ain’t All That, about what happens when you rely on word of mouth:
* You are at the mercy of others, but you don’t know who. Word of mouth is essentially taking whatever comes along and relying on someone – anyone – to spread the word about you and your services.
* You are forced to take projects and clients you might otherwise decline. When those referrals come in, you are in a difficult position. You have to take them, whether they are right for you or not, because you don’t know what’s coming next or when it’s coming.
* You are not in control of your business. This is the worst position to be in because you are in a reactive, instead of proactive, mode with no strategy underpinning your efforts. You don’t control who finds you, when they find you, what they need, how much they need. It’s serendipity, not strategy, leading the way, determining who you work for and what you do for them.
* You are not in charge of the quality or the quantity of the referrals that find their way to you. And sometimes the work is of such low quality that you may not even want to show in your portfolio.
Read the rest here: http://www.adbase.com/Articles/WordOfMouth
Word of mouth by far.
Using Twitter and Facebook to find clients have been my most successful efforts so far. On-going relationships and word of mouth referrals have created some great projects, as well as local networking. I try to diversify my efforts and use a few different avenues. My best advice is to follow up with people and be persistent, it’s been one of the greatest deal-winners for me!
100% of my business is word of mouth. In fact, all of my current clients came from one previous business owner who absolutely fell in love with the design work I did for her. Who needs a sales person when you have fans like these?
There’s no doubt that word of mouth is powerful, but a poll like this is a bit misleading. Someone who hears about me through someone else still checks out my website – and is usually handed my business card, which has a clear description of what I do (and testimonials on the back). Or they get a recommendation at a networking event to come and talk to me.
Sometimes the person who passes on a referral for me is reminded of it by seeing me in a social media channel like Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.
No one source drives your business. If all is working as it should, there’s a synergy created among multiple sources and that’s what really builds your business quickly. I use six of the seven sources listed in the poll to drive my business – they work together.
I’ve never had the luxury of being able to depend on word of mouth.
So, that’s why I keep thumping the tub for warm calls and cold calls. I can’t wait for business to come my way because someone else said something nice about me. Drumming up the biz is my job.
I tried many ways, but word of mouth worked best for me.
All my business so far have come from word of mouth so far. I’m looking into different marketing opportunities so I can gain more clients.
Google for me.
Interesting how few have had success with social media.
6 out of 10 of contracts we get come from word of mouth