How to Find Better, More Consistent, Higher Paying Clients
Vol. 078
How to Find Better, More Consistent, Higher Paying Clients
Navigating the client world as a freelancer or creative entrepreneur.
A quick bite:
How do you find the right clients? How do you find your first client? How do you find consistent, high paying clients? There’s a lot of client talk this week.
Continue reading below…
Over the year or so I’ve been writing, I’ve sent out a handful of questionnaires to receive feedback on what you want in these articles.
“Clients” has been a big theme: how to find paying clients, how to attract your first client, how to find the right high paying clients. Having run a multi-6-figure client-focused business for many years now, I have some thoughts on these questions.
While there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to client acquisition, I have learned a few secrets about finding new clients who value your work and therefore would be likely to pay you what you deserve. Today we discuss 4 topics:
How do you find the right clients?
How do you find your first (or, more) clients?
How do you find higher paying clients?
How do you find consistent clients?
How do you find the right clients?
One of the best ways to find the right clients is to be authentic.
Finding the right client is kinda like dating. On a date, you shouldn’t lie about how much money you make, act differently than you normally would, or talk about hobbies you don’t actually have. Likewise, you definitely don’t want to make up crappy lies about your services or business for your prospective clients either.
If you want to find a client who is truly right for you, you need to truly be yourself?
For 6 years now, I have been very much myself online, and this is one of the best decisions I ever made for landing “the right” clients. Get comfortable talking about your thoughts, feelings, opinions and perceptions openly on the internet. You don’t need to “overshare” your life, but you should be more proactive about vocalizing your stance on professionally-related content and materials, and you should do so in your own voice.
I landed a collaboration with Sharpie a few years back, and when I asked one of my contacts why they had selected me, they mentioned: “we reviewed a bunch of your work on Instagram and we loved how candid you were. It feels like we know you.”
Being candid builds trust before you ever communicate directly with your clients.
Not every client that you have will be the right fit. I still have bad clients. But, the more wrong clients you have, the better you’ll be at selecting the right clients.
How do you attract and land your first client?
If you’re just starting out a freelance creative career, you need to be proactive in finding clients.
If you don't already have clients coming to you, you need to go to them.
The number one reason all of us aren’t receiving more client work than we can handle is simply because our ideal clients don’t know that we exist. There’s A LOT of noise and distractions out there, and we must get better at cutting through the noise. It’s as simple as that.
It’s also possible that your ideal clients do know about you, but they simply don’t really understand what you do or how your work could provide them value. Get better at succinctly articulating and conveying your value whenever you post or talk about your work.
If you’re still trying to land your first client (or, consistent clients), you need to stop waiting for them to find you, and you gotta go find them. Get up, get off Instagram, and go find some businesses who could benefit from your services.
There are over 250,000 people in the US who are in the graphic design/art and creative direction professions. If you want to attract clients, you must do more than simply posting on Instagram twice a week.
Here’s a few ways to find new clients:
Ask friends/colleagues for referrals
Go to networking events
Cold outreach: send emails to companies or businesses you want to work with (and explain how your work is valuable)
Reach out to old clients and show them new work + ask for more work
Invest in SEO
Post your work with a CTA — prove and promote your expertise and value
Do a giveaway
Collaborate with another creative in a slightly different industry
There’s no wrong way to find new clients — sometimes you just need to think a bit differently. Consider who your ideal client is, where do they hang out (in person and online) and go be active there.
How do you find high paying clients?
This is a bit trickier.
At Vicarel Studios, we often land our high paying clients through referrals or through our cold outreach that has been validated by our “be everywhere” approach to marketing our services and value. In order to be seen, you must first market your work.
How do you land high paying client work with referrals?
Be good. Simple as that.
Do good work, be a good person, and be good about presenting your work, articulating your process and explaining your value. When you do good work for someone, the Law of Reciprocity comes into play. Because you gave them value (through good work), they’ll in turn want to give you value through referring someone to you.
Referrals often result in higher paying work because referrals are a warm lead. They come to you with some level of trust already, so it’s less of an uphill battle.
If you want your clients to refer you more business, be sure that their experience with you is amazing. To give an amazing experience, be a fantastic communicator. LISTEN to your clients, and create, deliver, and present work catered directly to the wants and needs of your clients. If you do this, they’ll have a fantastic experience with you, and they will recommend you to their friends and colleagues.
How do you land high paying clients with the “be everywhere approach”?
Embracing the Rule of 7, you can organically attract the right clients by consistently marketing yourself and then vetting your leads.
How do you find consistent clients?
I hate to break it to ya, but you gotta do a lot more than just creative work to build a successful creative business.
Whether you’re a freelance graphic designer or running a small creative business, you must wear a lot of hats: CEO, salesman, marketing, creative director, account manager, project manager, art director/graphic designer, and production designer… There's a lot to be done!
Marketing is one of the many hats that you need to wear, and it should probably be a pretty big hat, particularly if you’re in need of more client work.
There is A LOT of noise in the world — advertising, social media, tv shows and entertainment, etc. The world is distracted. YOU MUST MARKET YOURSELF RELENTLESSLY.
Finding consistent clients takes time. And when you don’t have client work, that means you have time to market yourself. Don’t stop working when the work stops.
When you don’t have time to market yourself… find time to market yourself. I really try to prioritize this, even when I’m incredibly busy.
Struggling to keep consistent client work does highlight a good reason to focus on diversifying your income streams. Multiple income streams helps ease the burden of lulls of work. Whether that’s through education, digital product sales, affiliate marketing, print sales, or wholesale and consignment sales — there are tons of ways to supplement your income.
If you’re wondering how to start an online print store, we have an extensive article on how to start an online print shop here.
Overall, finding the right, high paying, consistent clients is an art form in itself. But, thankfully, you’re an artist, so you got this. Get clever, get creative and get experimental! You must find what works for you.
If you take nothing else away, take away this: learn to communicate better, help your clients (or prospects) better understand what you do, what your process is like, and why it's valuable. This is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome.
Good luck out there!
Cheers!
Adam
