How to Upsell Your Services as a Freelancer
Are you doing anything to develop your current clients into bigger clients? Do you have a few small clients that you enjoy working with, but they aren’t giving you quite enough work to keep you busy? You might think I spent a bit too long working under the golden arches, but I think it’s better, and easier, to develop the clients you like working with instead of finding new ones. It pays to learn how to upsell.
Here are a few ways to to upsell and turn a small client into a bigger client:
- Offer Referral Fees – Give something back to your client for every time they refer a new client. I offer a one hour discount on their next project, which should provide additional value as my rates increase over the years.
- Look for Opportunities – If you see something that you can do to help your client be successful, share that with your client. If you’re a writer, a contest might be good tool. Outline what you can do and how it will benefit them. If you’re a designer, take a look at their current collateral – is it in line with their graphics standards? If you’re a coder, is their website doing everything it should be doing?
- Customer Loyalty Program – Just like airmiles, reward your clients for doing more business with you by offer client discounts. For every 20 hours you bill them, give them one hour of credit for future services.
These are just a few suggestions that should apply to most freelancers. What are you doing to help develop the clients you like to work with into more profitable endeavours?
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I really like the image that you selected for this post ‘sell sell sell’ lol.
And I think there is a typo here: ‘reward your clients for doing more business with you by offer (offering?) client discounts.’
Kindest,
Nabeel
Sorry to say, but there’s a limit to how much business you can do with small clients. For one thing, they’re small.
For another thing, they’ve probably been upsold by just about every other vendor they’ve run across. And, since their resources are limited, they’ve gotten very resistant to this approach.
The solution? Go big. Yes, this takes a lot of effort, but it can be done. Big clients are out there, and they can use our help. Just don’t get sucked into the permalancer trap.
“Sorry to say, but there’s a limit to how much business you can do with small clients.”
Absolutely not true at all. Anyone who is serious about their business – regardless of size – is more than willing to listen to an expert’s advice about what can be improved, and they are usually willing to spend the money if you are competent in your explanation and a good salesperson. Every big business started small, and sometimes its people like us who help them along. Perhaps you’ve been having a hard time communicating the value of your services if your experience has been different.
With an attitude like that about small clients, you’re just handing off business to other people who are more than willing to pick up your slack. It doesn’t even sound like you really read the article.
“For every 20 hours you bill them, give them one hour of credit for future services.”
That is a great idea!
Remember small clients one day become big clients. I have had my share of them and I am happy to help them grow as they do the same for me. Also small clients can spread the word about your services, they might know bigger businesses and so on.. Why miss out on serving them. Your should always take on projects that will challenge you, it is not about the money. If you ask most successful people in business, they say that they love their job and they got rich doing what they loved best.
Thanks for commenting folks – glad you like the article.
Just want to mention that small doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a small business – just the work you are currently doing for them isn’t made up of large projects.
But more importantly, I want to let the clients that I enjoy working with (the ones that are comfortable with new ideas, and understand that risk can be a good thing) know that they are the type of people that I would like to do more business with.
I forgot to mention another technique i’ve started to use – offer a 5% discount on future work when payments in full are received within 30 days of invoicing. This helps me regulate my income, and provides another incentive to choose my services. I have this written at the bottom of the invoice.
Good luck to you – and thanks for the comments!
@brandscaping
I really love the idea of a “Client Loyalty Program”. I bill by the hour so offering free hours of service as incentive to continue using my services is quite clever.
Thanks for the tips, as always
Excellent article. Small favors does means a lot to small and big businesses alike. Very interesting approach in getting the regulated income while working with likeminded people and doing the stuff you love.
i live by the good old “80 – 20 rule” (80% of your business from 20% of your customers). nice read!
yeah totally agree with this. it was hard to believe in it as new freelancer, but starting to see this come into effect.
referral fees – I would not offer them. If they like working with you, they don’t want you going elsewhere. It also makes you seem cheap. Also, what are they gonna save, $75? Not worth the effort for clients of any significance.
Look for opportunities – Good advice.
Customer Loyalty Programs – It makes you seem cheap. Also, what are they gonna save, $75? Not worth the effort for clients of any significance.
interesting outlook on referral programs – i offer some of my clients an incentive for recommending me, i am really selective on who i offer this too and have always viewed it as a compliment to me/them that they would want to recommend me to their friends and that i enjoyed doing business with them and would like the opportunity to help their friends/colleagues. i havent ever looked at it from a cheap or negative angle before, makes me think i should re-visit that idea and put some more thought into it…
I don’t offer a referral fee, at least not one that actively promote. I do, however, give clients who refer work to me a present, usually in the form of a gift-certificate to a local restaurant, although on a few occasions (when I knew the client better) I’ve included spa treatments and Anthropologie gift cards.
I agree with “dp” – I don’t want to have an actual referral program because it feels too “commerical.” I’d rather bask in the glow of the surprise and appreciation my client expresses at their unexpected and thoughtful gift from me
These are great ideas! I’m working with a small client at the moment for almost three months now and I’m not stopping till she’s able to grow her business and finally succeed in her niche. These will definitely help me come up with something that will make her and me happy.
I think this article has phenomenal content, the client rewards program is a great idea, but I think it’s not titled correctly. These aren’t really up-sells as much as they are customer retention/service tools. An up sell, at least as I understand it, is selling a client on a bigger project than what they were originally considering. For a website this can include things such as adding a content management system, a blog, or including more e-mail addresses with their hosting package. I think the content is truly great, but I was hoping to find some info on helping customers find value in other services.
– Wendy
very valuable information!