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If you’ve ever struggled to find clients, you’re going to love this blog post.
In it, you’ll learn:
- Why you’re attracting the wrong clients (or no clients).
- How to attract the right clients.
- How to turn your existing wrong clients into dream clients.
And I’ll give you some resources to help you grow your freelance web design business.
Before we dive in, the reason I’m even writing this is because I was reviewing a survey I created on my website asking web designers what their number one biggest struggle is when it comes to building their business.
I had to do a double-take when I saw that over 500 people responded to this survey that I had barely promoted! As I was reviewing these survey responses, I had a major a-ha moment which I’ll share with you a bit later.
The overwhelming majority of web designers who responded to my survey said their biggest struggle is “finding clients.”
Can you relate??
Their second biggest struggle?
“Finding clients who are willing to pay me and don’t want everything for super cheap or free in exchange for exposure or a trade.”
Um, yep.
Whether you’re a web designer or not, the strategies I’m going to share with you in this blog post will help you not only attract clients but the right kinds of clients (and that’s a super important distinction).
So what do I mean by the “right” kinds of clients?
- They are more than willing to pay you what you’re asking.
- They wouldn’t dream of asking you to work for “exposure”
- You actually enjoy the work you do together.
- Communication is effortless, even when things don’t go according to plan.
To uncover how to find the right clients, first, it’s important to understand how we’re attracting the wrong clients (or no clients) in the first place!
How To Find The Wrong Clients
When I first started my web design business, I attracted nothing but the wrong clients.
The wrong clients are those who don’t want to pay what you’re worth, clients who want you to work for exposure, or working with them is just a miserable experience in general and communication is difficult.
Let me be totally clear – it wasn’t their fault they were the wrong clients, I just didn’t know that what I was doing was attracting them to me like a moth to a flame – and I didn’t know how to course-correct once I was in the midst of working with the wrong clients either!
Here’s how I attracted the wrong clients:
- By telling people I know that I’m a freelance web designer.
- By working for people you know for super cheap or free to gain exposure and build a portfolio.
- By taking referrals from people who know I’m a web designer, but don’t know the specifics of who my ideal client is or what types of websites I build.
Here are other ways I see web designers attracting the wrong clients:
- By posting their services or responding to ads on freelancer-for-hire websites
- By creating a website that talks about their coding skills and showcases their portfolio (typically of client work they’ve done for very cheap or free to build the portfolio.
Right now you might be thinking, “But isn’t that how I market my web design services?”
How will I find clients if I’m not telling people I’m a web designer, building up a portfolio website and asking for referrals? How will I find clients if I’m not going to job posting websites and looking for work? If all of that is getting me the wrong kinds of clients, then how am I ever going to find clients at all, let alone the right kinds of clients???”
Here’s the a-ha moment I had from thinking about my own experiences and reading 500 survey responses from web designers (and if you’re not a web designer but you’re reading this because you struggle to find clients, you’ll find this helpful too):
It is not about what you do, it’s about the results your clients get from working with you.
Let me say that again a bit differently.
If you are selling web design, you are a commodity – something to be gotten at the lowest possible price. Because everyone is selling web design, and in countries where the cost of living is much lower and the people are very skilled, they can charge way less than you can and make a great living.
So what sets someone who charges $5000 for a website (or coaching, or whatever it is that you’re selling) apart from someone who charges $500?
The person who is charging $500 is selling a website.
The person charging $5000 is selling results.
And when a client who really wants results spends $500 on a website, one of two things happens:
- One, they get what they pay for and end up extremely frustrated that their website isn’t getting the results.
- Two, you build them a $5000 website for $500 and feel taken advantage of and totally burned out.
I’m guilty of number two. And I almost quit freelancing and gave up on my dream of being my own boss because of it.
So it’s not your clients’ fault that they don’t “want to pay that much for a website”. It’s not their fault that they treat you as an order-taker instead of a trusted advisor. And it’s not their fault that they pay you $500 for something that you should be charging them $5000 for!
It’s not your fault either, BFF, because you didn’t know any better.
But now I’m going to share with you how you can shift from selling websites to selling results and start attracting the right clients.
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
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