Are you totally awesome?
I’ll bet that someone thinks you are. Heck, it’s possible that I think you are. What’s really important, though, is that potential clients think you are.
Q. How do you convince potential clients of your totally awesome status?
A. Have someone else do it for you.
It’s true that freelancers in general, and writers specifically, sometimes have a little trouble tooting their own horns. We’ve talked before about how we sometimes get self-conscious about our abilities or nervous about charging an appropriate fee. If we have trouble getting ourselves to buy our work, how on earth are we going to get other people to do it?
One of the tools that Tamara and I really believe in is the client recommendation. In a perfect world, our clients would think we’re so totally awesome that they’d just tell everyone they know to hire us; and we’d never have to look for work again. In reality, though, it just doesn’t usually cross their minds that they should be advertising our services for us. I’m quite certain, however, that it’s not because they don’t think we’re totally awesome.
How do I know what they think? I know because we ask them. Again, it takes some gumption to ask a client to endorse you, but it is so worth it in the long run. Here’s how we do it:
When Tamara and I finish up a project, the client will generally thank us and say something like, “This is just what I wanted,” or “Thanks for getting it in ahead of the deadline.” This is the perfect opening. We like to follow up with an email that says something like, “I’m so glad that you’re pleased with the project. I had a lot of fun working on it. My partner and I are currently updating our company website, and we would be pleased if you would be willing to contribute a few words about why you liked working with us.”
We usually just ask them for a sentence or two, and then we file it away for future use. We love putting them on our website, and they can be quite persuasive when included in a cover letter, too. We’re pretty protective of our Guru.com client feedback, and we’ve gotten some wonderful reviews there that we lift to use in other contexts. They come in especially handy when you’ve been staring at a submission for way too long, convincing yourself that you’re just not a good writer. This is the best time to read over the positive feedback you’ve received from past clients and bolster your self-esteem. Let them convince you (and your future clients) that you are, indeed, totally awesome!
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I’ve started to ask for client feedback, as well, and I post it on my website once it comes in. I notice it’s one of the most popularly clicked pages on my site, evidence that people do care what other people think.
I have to confess, I have a hard time asking clients to write a few sentences to endorse me. As with asking former employers for letters of recommendations, I have more than once heard, “Sure, you write it and I’ll sign it.” I recently started offering a discount on a future order to clients who submit testimonials. We’ll see how that works out.
You may want to consider asking other writers (those you have subcontracted for or maybe some who are otherwise very familiar with your work) for some feedback.
Many clients hate writing (hence why they hired you in the first place) or they feel that it would take too much time. Few writers use that as an excuse!
Great comments. If you haven’t already, I recommend signing up with LinkedIn, and soliciting for recommendations on their network.
It’s fairly easy to get praise this way, and it’s out there in a medium where other people in overlapping networks (who may not know who you are) will see it.
In turn, you could take these positive takes and use them on a testimonial page on your own website, or if a potential client asks you for recommendations.
It’s okay to ask people for recommendations. After all, don’t you really want to know what they honestly think of your work?
One last thought: You could send your clients a Starbucks card, thanking them for the recent work, and that you would appreciate it if they filled out a short survey on your website. You can create surveys online at SurveyMonkey.
There are easy ways to ask for this type of feedback. Get enough positive feedback spinning for you out there, and you could move to an entirely work on referral business.