How to Turn One-off Gigs into Long-term Clients
As a freelancer, one of the most challenging and time consuming parts of your career will be finding clients and projects, especially in the beginning. Networking, marketing, and negotiations all take time, and that time is not chargeable to your clients. One of the best ways to cut down on non-paid time and become more efficient is to take on long-term clients.
The more long-term clients you take on, the less time you will take each month finding clients and negotiating project deals. Your working relationship with long-term clients will become more efficient as you learn more about their communication styles and expectations from you. If you can fill your entire schedule with long-term clients, you will not only know just how much you’ll get paid each month but you’ll also spend much less time on tasks that aren’t paid.
At CreativesAtWork, we strive to help our freelancers turn their one-off gigs into long term relationships with clients. Through our years of experience working with both clients and freelancers, we’ve learned a highly effective formula for converting single jobs into long-term gigs. In this blog, we’ll share this strategy with you!
Turn your One-off Gigs into Long-term Clients!
Not every client will be worth keeping long-term, so before you go about trying to keep a client, make sure you want to work with them continuously. If you like working with them, feel that your offering matches their needs, and that they pay you well, you’ll probably want to start thinking about how to keep working for them. Once you’ve identified a client as a potential long-term partner, you can start setting the stage for a deeper partnership right away. Let’s break down all the ways in which you can do this.
1. Communicate Clearly
Good communication will go a long way with your clients. Being clear and setting realistic expectations will help your clients know what to look for from you. Clients love working with freelancers who are independent and don’t need their hands held as they work through a project. That being said, if you have questions about a project, try to ask them all in one go, so you’re not continuously bothering your client. Being available to your client during business hours will also help them see you as a reliable team member.
Pro tip: When communicating with your clients, use ‘we.’ You are part of their team and this gets them used to thinking of you as a member as their team.
2. Turn out quality work, without fail
People will forgive you if your work is slow but good, however, you will lose clients if you are turning out deliverables that aren’t high quality. Strive to deliver the best, all the time. If you need more time on a project to make sure it’s up to par, ask as early as possible for an extension. Phrasing something as, ‘I would really like to make sure this [deliverable] gets the results you are looking for,’ will help clients to see that this is an investment that is worth waiting for.
3. Tell you clients why you are happy working with them
If you really love working with a client, let them know! If you let clients know why you like working with them, you can begin to build a great working relationship with them. Stating why you choose to work with them also reminds your clients that you do have the power to choose who you work with and encourages them to be good clients in order to keep you! Talk about a power move.
4. Act as a Consultant
Put yourself in the shoes of the business owner and try to learn and understand their needs. You can show your value to your client by meeting with them regularly, once a week if possible, to discuss their problems and needs. Come to the meetings with one or two ideas for them, as well as industry news that you can share with your clients. By coming to these meetings with suggestions and education, you’ll illustrate how involved you are and identify yourself as a necessary part of their team.
5. Connect where you can
One thing that distinguishes freelancers from employees is that freelancers know many people within an industry and even across multiple industries. Your reach is wider than the average employee, so use it to your advantage. You become valuable when you connect your clients with each other or other industry players, so don’t be shy about it! You can be a centre point for clients to meet other people in their industry, and that’s a unique value point for you.
6. Talk About Missed Goals
If a project that you’re a part of doesn’t garner the results that the client was looking for, don’t ignore it. Bring it up yourself and make some suggestions for how you might tweak things in the future to get a better outcome. Draw on your expertise to advise them if you have the experience. By facing the shortcoming head on, you show confidence in your work and willingness to be malleable to client’s particular needs.
7. Learn your clients’ long-term goals
One of the best ways to gain long-term clients is to understand what your client’s bigger goals are and insert yourself in the process. Usually, clients will express their linear goals or short-term goals to you and tell you exactly what they want you to do. However, if you understand what they need in the long run, you can make suggestions about what type of content and collateral they need going forward. Towards the end of projects, you can suggest next steps that will help get them to their bigger goals.
Ready to Get Started?
Now that you know some of the best strategies to retain clients, we hope you’ll start seeing your schedule fill up with familiar faces. Having long-term clients can take much of the stress out of a freelancing career and provide you with much needed continuity and steady income.
Want to learn more about converting one-off gigs to long-term agreements and making freelancing a viable career? Check out CreativesAtWork’s ebook, The Business of Freelancing, for a ton of industry info from our experience in the freelancing world.
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