Photo by jot.punkt.

This is the third of four articles on New Year’s Planning. The previous two articles covered:

1. Next year’s tax bill. For many freelancers, this bill can be a nasty surprise. But it doesn’t have to be. The trick is to get prepared now. Have you met with your accountant and started setting aside money for your taxes? If not, please do so!
2. Next year’s budget. Here, we looked at budgeting as an exercise in goal-setting with numbers.

In the course of doing your budget, you projected next year’s gross income. Nice looking number, isn’t it? Now it’s time to turn it into reality. The first is step is to do some client acquisition planning. I prefer to limit my client acquisition plan to one page – no sense in writing War and Peace when I don’t have to.

I divide this page into three sections:

1. What I do. This is where I list the services that I offer to clients. In my business, it’s design for the Web and print, editorial stock photography, and consulting, with emphasis on Internet strategy.
2. Who I do it for. Here, I define my Ideal Client Profiles, which I discussed in depth in Step One of this article. Tip: If you offer more than one service, you probably need more than one ICP. I have two – one for design clients and the other for publications to which I’d like to sell my stock photography.
3. Go get ‘em! This part merits some in-depth discussion, and here it comes…

In Martha-speak, “Go get ‘em!” means that it’s sales and marketing time. And in Section Three of my client acquisition plan, I say how I’m going to sell and market. I like to classify my efforts according to the impact that they have on potential clients. If you’re familiar with CJ Hayden’s book, Get Clients Now, I’m using her three-part classification system:

1. Outreach. Here, I’m using a strategy that Hayden calls Direct Contact and Follow-up. This strategic toolbox includes the following four tactics:
   • Cold calls
   • Warm calls
   • Meetings with prospects. The goal is to qualify them so as to make the next tactic worthwhile.
   • Preparing and submitting proposals to qualified prospects
2. Increasing Online and Offline Visibility. To implement this strategy, I use the following tactics:
   • Attending events and meetings out there in The Real World. (Remember that place? If not, you need to visit it more often. And, fear not. You don’t need to frequent those Networking Olympics mixers.)
   • Posting comments in forums and on blogs. On forums, I try not to be the thread-starter. Instead, I offer a succinct, helpful answer to the question posed in the original post. I also try to include a link back to my website. If I’m on a blog, I add a comment that furthers the discussion that the blogger started in his/her post. Tip: Due spam concerns, many forums and blogs are banning site links. But some of them will allow a site link in your member profile.
   • Posting to my blog. Although I’m neither a search engine expert nor someone who plays one on teevee, I’ve heard that regular updates to your website’s blog can boost its rankings.
3. Increasing Credibility. If clients are going to hire you, you need to show that you know what you’re doing. Here are my favorite credibility boosters:
   • Entering industry competitions. Portland, Oregon designer Jeff Fisher has built quite a successful career out of winning awards. It could work for you too.
   • Keeping in touch with clients and prospects via my monthly e-mail newsletter. Although it’s primarily a relationship-building device, newsletter recipients do hit Control-R to contact me about work they’d like me to do.
   • Public speaking. Although there are many organizations that are happy to trade a free meal for a 20-minute talk, I limit my efforts to audiences that fit my Ideal Client Profiles.

So, there you have it. Ten tactics to keep Martha busy. They may not be the ones that motivate you to action, but let me let you in on a little secret: You’ll be more likely to take action if you set some goals and track your progress toward them.

Late last December, I created a spreadsheet application that would show my progress toward the goals I set for each of my 10 tactics. And what happened? Here’s a synopsis:

I didn’t come anywhere near the number of cold and warm calls and e-mails that I planned to make. Why not? Well, the reason has four letters: w-o-r-k. I got very busy during the latter half of this year.

Which leads me to a point that commenter Klaus made about my budgeting article: “You also need to budget your time to achieve the numbers you plan. As freelancer, this means to budget your time for marketing, customer acquisition and doing the actual project work (among others).”

This is not to say that I’ve given up on reaching out via phone and e-mail. I try to do a little of it each day. I’m also making quarterly calls to the 100 or so people on my “Leads – Keep in Touch” list. Just did that a few weeks ago. Right now, I’m wrapping up a project for one of the “KITs.” (He’s just been promoted to “Client.”)

As for meeting with prospects and writing proposals, I’ve learned (the hard way) that there are people who enjoy meetings. And they love reading proposals even more. Unfortunately, these people seldom turn into clients.

What’s the solution? In my case, it has been to pull that copy of Jacques Werth’s High Probability Selling off my bookshelf so I can bop myself over the head with it. Am I’m re-reading it. I’m paying extra-special attention to Werth’s 13 Discovery/Disqualification Questions. They’re designed to help you determine if there’s a solid basis for doing business. If there isn’t, you politely end the meeting – and you don’t write the proposal.

Back at the beginning of this article, I talked about the first step in turning your projected gross income number into reality. That step involved doing some client acquisition planning. Now that we’ve covered this planning process, it’s time to reveal the second step: Work your plan.

Doesn’t sound like a very profound step, but it is. You’ve probably known people who are forever planning this thing, that thing, and the other thing. Or they’re always going to motivational seminars or reading self-help books, but they never seem to get around to doing anything to improve their situation.

Then there’s you. You’re going forward with your 2009 tax plan, you’ve prepared your budget, and you’re about to implement your 2009 client acquisition plan. In a year, you’ll be enjoying success that you’ve created by working for it. And isn’t that better than planning and wishing for it?

The fourth and final article in this series will cover your 2009 learning goals.