Transcripts
1. Introduction: So if you're a creative
freelancer and you're looking for ways to
find clients to work with, then you're on the right
course because I want to share with you my
effective strategy and five methods
that work for me as a freelance product photographer
and a concept creator. And not just any
clients. Oh, no, nay. Clients that value me, my work, my time, and that trust,
my creative ideas. Those are the best
clients to work with. However, it does take quite a bit of work to
get to the level where you can meet those
clients and not only fulfill their expectations,
but exceed them. I am here to streamline
this process for you and share my strategy
step by step and talk about all of those
methods in detail to set you up for a
successful journey as a freelance creator. Hello, Michael Creator.
My name is Stance and welcome to a brand
new skill share course. I started with freelance
journey four years ago, taking product photos
in my bedroom, and my journey had a
really rough start because I had very
few clients and not enough self
worth to charge what I deserve for the high
quality that I produce. I had to learn a lot of
things the hard way, and I figured out this strategy for building a successful
freelance business, and I'm so excited to
share it with you. I work with jewelry brands. I work with skincare brands, and with health and
wellness brands. I also started my own
YouTube channel where I share my lifestyle as
a creative freelancer. And for the last two years, I've been living the
dreamiest digital moment life in the Canary Islands. Now I am so happy to share what I've learned
in my journey with you. And, you know, there are very
few people who are ready to share this kind of
insights with others. There are a lot of gatekeepers, especially in the
creative industry. I don't believe in that. I live in an abundant world where there is enough clients, enough resources, and there
is enough work for everybody. It's up for you to
go and grab it. So without further ado, let's deep deep into that.
2. Course Project Write your pitch email: Object of this class is to write your own sales pich for
a potential client. Learning how to do that is
incredibly important because this is the first point of contact between you
and your clients, and you have only one chance to make the first impression. So make it well. Honestly, I wish at the beginning of
my freelance journey, I would be able to create a sales pitch and send
it over to someone with more experience to help me figure out what's the best
way to approach them. I'm so happy to offer
this to you now. In the resources section
under this class and providing you with a loose
structure that you can follow, as well as some Excel pos
that have worked for me. So download the PDF
file and check it out. Something interesting
that I've learned in my journey is that being a creative freelancer is not just doing the
creative work. Also, it's coming up with
creative ways to find clients. Using creativity for
every single aspect of your freelance business. You can choose a real client or a hypothetical client to
pich your services to. It doesn't matter what matters is that you actually do it. Very few people are ready
to put in the work. But if you want to be
creative freelancer, you better start being comfortable with
pitching yourself. This is a safe space
for you to do that. I will read it,
I'll go through it. I'll provide you with
constructive feedback to help you increase your chances of
securing those amazing, trusting high paying clients. To complete this project, watch this course till the end, learn about all the methods, all the strategies,
all the tips, then write a short concise
straight to the point, pitch email to potential client and submit it to the
project gallery down below. Then wait for my feedback. You can improve it
and submit it again. Go ahead now and download that PDF guide with
additional resources, and let's move on
to the next class.
3. Before you start pitching yourself...: Before you start looking for
new clients and pitching your services and
providing your services, you need to cover a few basis. You skill level, portfolio, reviews and the legal stuff. Let's start with
your skill level. Why do companies even
work with freelancers? Why don't they just hire people and have them in their
team at all times? There are a few
reasons for that, and I want you to
understand those. Reason number one is that
they are small and they can't afford to have a new team member and pay them salary
consistently. Reason number two is that they don't need this work
to be done consistently. It can be something seasonal or a couple of times per year or see they need something to
be done by a professional, somebody who really knows what they're doing and
what they're worth. The third type of companies is the best companies
to work with. This kind of
business is going to get the highest
return on investment, and they will want to continue investing in the
freelancers work. Of course, they are only going
to work with someone who really knows what they're doing with someone
highly skilled, very professional, and
incredibly reliable. It's your responsibility as a freelancer to keep improving. Never stagnate. Keep taking courses,
keep experimenting, keep expanding your
tool kit because that will ensure that you can
make a lot more money. Now let's move on
to the second base that we need to cover
your portfolio. Create a strong portfolio
of at least five projects. It's really important that you showcase the work that
you want to be hired for, choose the best of the best. And if you're offering a few different skills or if you are unsure about the niche that you really want to focus
on in your portfolio, it seems like a bunch of
miscellaneous projects, it's best that you create
separate portfolios for separate niches or
for separate skills. A free and professional way to display your work is to have a PDF presentation that
you can send via email. You can also create a website. For that, you will need to pay for a domain and
for a subscription, and of course, you'll
need to design it. And let me remind you that
having your photos on Instagram is not a
professional portfolio. It's good to have that, but it's not a professional
portfolio. If you want to be
taken seriously, create a PDFle representation. Let's move on to the next
base client reviews. Client reviews are incredibly
important to establish a trustworthy relationship
with your potential clients. They are more likely
to hire you if they saw some positive
reviews of your work. Even before you start getting paid for your work
as a freelancer, you can create projects
for people and for brands in exchange
of those reviews. And after you complete
every single project, it's incredibly
important that you request a review
from your client. You can showcase those
reviews in your portfolio, on the website or on
the social media. Let's move on to the
fourth base that we need to cover
the legal stuff. Yeah, I know. It's daunting. But look at the beginning
of your freelance journey, all you need is to just understand how it works.
Just research it. No need to open up a
business just yet, just restart everything
you need to know and to do to open up a business in your country and
to run it legally. Here are some questions that
I recommend you to research. How to run a business as a
freelancer in your country? How much it costs, how long it takes to open it? What documents do you need? Where do you need
to go or how can you apply online to
open up a business? How to invoice your clients? Do you need an
extra bank account? You can find the full list
of questions to research in the legal staff PDF in the
resource section down below. Okay, now we are
ready to talk about my effective strategy of building a successful
freelance business, so I'll see you in
the next class.
4. The Freelance Business Strategy: Let's talk about
the strategy for building a successful
freelance business. The first step is
pitching yourself to a lot of potential clients. At the beginning of
a freelance journey, you may find yourself
working sporadically. You might have a lot
of small projects, a few big projects. You might work with new
clients all the time. You might have a lot of clients, and then no clients at
all. This is normal. This is exhausting
and time consuming. And that's why a lot
of people prefer to start their freelance gig on a side so they can
rely on their income from the day job while they're
improving their skills, creating a portfolio,
getting some client reviews, and figuring out
the legal aspect of doing a business
as a freelancer. This is also the
stage where a lot of people give up because they think it's going to be like that for the rest of their
freelance career. Spoiler alert, it's
not. It gets easier. On this stage, you need to learn the best way to pitch your
services to potential clients. You need to make a
lot of sales pitches. You need to make mistakes. You need to learn
from those mistakes. And this is where I will
be so happy to help you. I really hope that the project gallery under this
course is going to become a great resource for a community of
creative people. I really hope that we can learn from each other and
help each other grow. So don't forget to do the course project after you
finish watching this course. The next step of the strategy
is to provide high quality, amazing work to clients
consistently and price it fairly. This is also a very lengthy
step because you do need a lot of time to be
the best at what you do. You do need a lot of time
to gain the experience, and only through experience, you can become the best and you can provide
the best service. Learn from every single
project that you do and apply what you've
learned to the next project. Otherwise, you're
going to be stuck in a pattern of working for
clients that don't value, that don't trust your vision, that don't want to pay
you what you deserve. And this can lead to burnout and quitting your
freelance dream. If deep down, you know that this freelance
journey is for you. You will keep finding
inner strength and persistence to keep
going and keep reaching your dreams
and keep improving and keep experimenting and
expanding your toolkit. Step number three of
your strategy is to build a solid client base. The best scenario for a successful freelance business is when you're working with a handful of high paying returning clients that need
work from you consistently. This is not easy to achieve, but it is so possible. Nurture the relationships with
your clients and make sure that they are getting
a really high return on investment from your work, not by decreasing
your hourly rate, not by working for free, not by decreasing your
project price, no, by providing high quality
work and supporting them to get the most out
of what you produce. Example, as a product
photographer, I can offer an
additional service of designing ads with
my product photos. So the clients can run those
ads that are engaging, beautiful, and that
are attracting the right audience
and make more sales. Think about what
you can do to help your clients make a high return on investment from your work. Step number four is to continue
working on fun projects, doing something
just for yourself, doing something just
for your portfolio, doing something
challenging and learning a new skill so that
you don't stagnate. You are not an employee. You're a freelancer,
so it's very easy for your clients
to let you go. You need to be ready for that. You constantly need
to be ready for that. I can't emphasize that enough. Work on yourself,
work on the project, and don't lose the spark
for your creative work. And final step of
this strategy is to outsource the boring
parts of your work, scale your business,
and pursue your dreams. To recap this strategy, the first step is to pitch your services to a lot
of potential clients. The second step is to
become the best at what you do and
price your fairly. The third step is to build a solid client base and work
with them consistently. Step number four is to continue
taking on challenging, fun and creative projects to develop yourself
further in this career. And the step number five is to outsource the parts
of this work that you don't want to do and scale your business so you can
pursue your other dreams. Now we are ready to dive into the five methods of
finding clients. I'll share them in
the upcoming classes.
5. Method 1: Cold outreach via
email or Instagram. Cold outreach means reaching out to people that know
nothing about you. You can find their contact online and get in
touch with them. Tell a little bit
about yourself, show your portfolio, and
offer your services. This method requires a
big time investment. It can be very exhausting
and not very rewarding. But this is the way to take your first step into the industry and start establishing yourself
as a professional, especially when you don't have any connections around you. Need services that you provide. The response rate for such
messages is incredibly low. For me, it's been one
out of 100 messages. It can be even lower. But this is just the
reality of cold sales. Because the truth is,
nobody owes you a response. But the good news is you don't need to do this till
the end of times. This is just at the beginning. This is just when you're
taking your first steps. Soon enough, you
will be able to have a really nice and solid
network of clients who will come to you over and
over again for new projects. But how to even research clients to pitch
your services, too? I recommend you to
focus on one, two, three niches and find
small companies, local companies that are on
the same level as you are. You can find them on Instagram, Tik Top, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, Google
depending on your niche, different channels
may be more relevant. You can search by keywords, hash tags, and locations, and when you find a company that you can see
yourself working with, you can Google what
are their competitors? What are the similar
companies and check out if you want to work
with them as well. So before you even start
crafting an offer, you see speech to this
potential client, ask yourself a few questions. How can I help them? What kind of value can I
bring to their business? Are they already
working with someone? What is their decisive factor? Is it a portfolio?
Is it a style? Is it a prize? Is it reviews? Is it credibility or experience? What do you think? This brand going to
really pay attention to when selecting a
freelancer to work with? Is your portfolio ready to show to them and start
working with them? If not, how can you improve it? After you answer
these questions, you can start by crafting your individualized offer
to a potential client. This is a very good
time in this course for you to start working
on your final project. Remember that an
individualized offer has much higher chances of getting a response than something that you just send to everybody. Here is the basic
offer structure that I recommend you to follow. Start with Hello.
Tell a little bit about yourself and clearly formulate what you do and how you can help and
what your strengths are. Next, provide some
proof of expertise. It could be one or two
best cases of yours. You can link your
portfolio here. This paragraph
should explain why the client can trust you
and what are your skills. Next paragraph is the
goal of your email. Answer the question, how can this client benefit
from working with you? What will you offer? The final paragraph
is your offer. You can offer your services, you can offer to do a project. You can provide them
with a budget already or you can sell the next step, which can be hopping
on the call with you, or you can offer them to make a mode board for the
project for free, or you can ask them to check
out this website page, or you can ask them to fill out a form or something like that. You can use this
basic offer structure as the skeleton for your offers. You can make them difference
for every client, add some things in,
leave some things out. You can change the
order of things. It's really up to
you. Keep it short. Be really concise and
straight to the point because nobody has the time to
read essays these days. The next thing to do
would be to perfect your offer and do use AI tools because this is something
that can help you to do a lot of those sales pitches in a very short amount of time. But it's so easy to lose your personal tone of
voice when using AI tools. Make sure that you leave some of your
personality in there. Guess what? Every other creative
freelancer is using AI tools. How can you stand out?
How you can be different? Ask those questions to HAWPT and see what kind of advice
it gives to you. Of course, don't forget
to add your portfolio. You can add a link
to your website. You can make it a hyperlink,
so it looks really nice. You can also attach a PDF file, something that I do to
showcase your portfolio. And something really
interesting that I recommend is to create
a portfolio highlight. Me as a product photographer, this is just one
JPEG picture with five to ten of my best
product photos that I want to show to this
particular client. So when they will
open up my email, this is something that they're
going to see right away. They won't need to open up
a file or click anywhere. My portfolio highlight
is just going to be there for them.
So what's next? After you hit that Send button on the sales speech
to a potential client, I recommend you adding
their contact and the date of when you contacted
them to your own database. You can create a table in Google Sheets or in
Excel file notes notion, anything that works
for you, just to track who you contacted, when you contacted them, and what is the status? You can go ahead and start
crafting your sales speech. You offer to a potential client. That can be a real client
or an imaginary client. It's up to you. The
most important thing is you get started with it. Now, use this knowledge while it's still fresh,
don't procrastinate. Don't wait till the last moment. This is a great
opportunity that I really want for you
to take advantage of. And if you need extra help, I'm really happy to
announce that from now on, I'm offering skill share
one on one sessions. You can book a private
online session with me by following the Lincoln
description of this class, and I'll be so happy
to help you craft your sales pitch and to price your work
together with you. Personally, I struggled
with pricing my work fairly and getting paid what I
deserved for a very long time. I failed a lot and
I learned a lot. Looking back at my
past experience, I think I was
subconsciously looking for the clients that
wouldn't value my work, my time, and my creative vision. Now I'm going to tell
in different place. I don't work with
clients like that. I look for clients that
value me and I know how to keep those clients satisfied and keep wanting more. So I'm really happy
to share with you what I've learned during one of our private online skill
share one on one sessions. You can book it now
after we finish this course by following
the Lincoln description. So to recap, research
your potential clients, then write a pitch email following the basic offer
structure that I provided. Perfect your offer. Don't
forget to add your portfolio, and then add this client and their contact to
your own database. Let's move on to
the next method.
6. Method 2: Word of mouth, my
favorite method. This is the opposite of the cold outreach that
we just talked about. This is when you are
being recommended as a professional by your clients to their friends or
friends of a friend. Business owners tend to have business owner friends and they tend to share when
something amazing happens. So when your work brings
them amazing results, they would be happy to share you with their entrepreneur friends. This method is so good because you don't
need to do anything. The clients just come
to you and they trust you because they saw how well you did your job
with their friends, because they saw the results, because they trust
their friends, and they want in on this. However, you can't really
control it, can you? It's a little bit difficult, but what you can control is
the quality of your work. You can control the quality
of the service you provide, how you communicate,
how reliable you are. You can control all of those little things
that will create one big picture and make you a super desirable
freelancer to work with. After you gain some
experience as a freelancer, this can become your main
channel of getting clients. I know how difficult it can be to find your clients
at the beginning of your career to find those first clients to
get the ball rolling so that you would have
at least somebody that will recommend
you to someone else. At the beginning of your career, I recommend you to do some
work in exchange of reviews, not an exchange of money, but just an exchange of reviews and to get some work
into your portfolio. When you have nothing to offer, when you don't have a portfolio, when you don't have
any proven results, when you're just starting
just figuring out things, it only makes sense to do
some projects for free. This might seem counterintuitive to what I was
talking before about charging your own
worth and how we all deserve to be paid well
for our hard work. However, let's face it, in the beginning of your career, you're probably not that good. You probably need
to learn a lot. You need to gain experience. Looking back at my
work four years ago, I can see that my photos and the technical aspect
of my work were good. But when it comes to presenting
myself, communicating, conducting my business,
doing some after sales, maintenance, that all
could have been improved. And the big difference between an amateur freelancer and a professional freelancer,
is those details. They can really,
really set you apart, but you could only learn how to improve those details
by experience. So don't shy away from
doing some free work. This is an investment
into your future. It's just important to
understand when to stop. So, word of mouth is
my favorite method. It's when you get recomnded
to friends of your friends. You can't control it fully, but you can control the
outcome of your work. Reliable you are, the quality of your work and the quality of the services that you provide. So focus on those. If you want to do nothing and get clients just
sliding into your DMs. Let's move on to
the next method.
7. Method 3 : Finding clients
through job postings. You can find potential
clients to work with on job search websites. Companies are constantly
posting opportunities on websites like Linktn
Indeed, and Glassdoor. Those are pretty international, but you can find some specific
websites for your country. And even though the majority of offer not for freelancers, they are for part time work
or for the full time work, you can still offer your
services to those companies. If they're looking
for someone like you and you found them, maybe they will want to work
with you until they find a full time employee or they
just haven't considered yet, working with a freelancer, and they are offering
you services and everything is good and they understand that it's
exactly what they need, and they will love working
with you so they will be your consistent client. If you can't find the exact
position on those websites, you can expand your
search and offer some specialized skills
to those companies. For example, it is
difficult for me to find product photographer
opportunities, but I can search for content creator or for
social media manager. And I can offer my product
photography services to those companies really
emphasizing the importance of producing high quality
work and trying to persuade them that hiring me for this service and hiring a social media manager
for everything else is going to be a much more effective way
to achieve their goals. After you find an opportunity
that you want to apply for, you can apply directly through
that job search website, but specify that you're willing
to work as a freelancer. Alternatively, you
can try to find their contact on their
website or on Instagram. You can contact them via DMS or request a contact of somebody
from the HR department. So when researching brands, don't forget to check
out their websites. There's usually a career page. They might already have an
opening for someone like, so don't miss out on that
opportunity, as well. Always check it out,
and it's really good to follow the brands that you
like on Instagram TikTok, on some social media where
they would be likely share new opportunities or new
openings because you might be the right person
at the right time for them. So to recap, find job search
websites for your country, look for companies that
need your services, apply for positions
as a freelancer, follow brands on social media to monitor arising
opportunities. Let's move on to the
method number four.
8. Method 4: Growing your social
media channels. This method can help you to get more incoming inquiries
from potential clients. This method can also help you to create your own community and to build trust between you
and your potential clients. You might have a bigger
outreach and people can get re inspired from
you and learn about you. At the end of the day,
people are hiring people. It's not companies hiring your skills or your expertise
or your experience. People are hiring people. If you open up
through social media, if you show some behind
the scenes of your work, if you talk about
your work ethic, if you share your values, if you share your work and what inspires you and what you
want to work in the future, you can attract the
right clients to you. This method can also help you to establish yourself as an
expert in your niche, and by creating the community, you can expand your freelancing
income streams by doing online courses or by doing mentorships or by
coaching somebody. There are so many different
opportunities out there for those who build their
social media channels. With growing your
social media channels, your goals would be to
consistently show your work, show the behind the
scenes of your work, and show a little bit of your life to let your
personality shine. Hving a professional social
media page can be really, really helpful because
it makes it easier for people to learn
about what you do, what you like as a person, and it can help
them to understand if they want to work with you. Here are some social
media tips for you. Make posts, showcasing projects that you are most proud of. Create short form
videos to show your behind the scenes and final
results of your work. Share stories to give people
an insight into your life. Share clients reviews
in Insta highlights. Add links to your website
or projects in your bio. The first line of your
bio should be searchable. Something like product
photography Pg. Even though I don't
post so much of my work and my results and my
projects on my social media, I've got some NDA sign people
still find me and they inquire me about potential
projects because they watch my YouTube videos or
they find my TikTok page, or they connect with
me on Instagram. So to recap, present yourself as a professional
on social media. Create a new professional page or start posting on
your existing one. Show your work and your
personality consistently. Make it easy for a potential
clients to connect with you. Create content to attract
your dream clients. Okay, now let's move on to the next method of
finding clients.
9. Method 5: Method number five,
the last method that I'm sharing with
you in this course, is running ads for
your services. You can run ads
for your services on social media on Google. You can run ads on
Facebook on Instagram, on Pinterest, on LinkedIn. You can run ads on YouTube
as well and on TikTok. If you are tied to a specific
location with your work, it can be really
helpful to narrow down the area where you want
to distribute those ads. And if you are
location independent, you can advertise your services to the countries or the city where you feel like there is a big demand for the type
of work that you provide. For running ads, it's
really helpful to have a professional
social media profile so that the ad can lead to it. People could see your work, people could see who you are, what you're about,
what your values are, your client reviews
everything in one place. Alternatively, you can also
run it to your website. Could also buy ads relevant groups and
communities online, like in Facebook groups, business owners prog, for
example, something like that. To run ads, you can hire a
person to do that for you, a freelancer, or you can
learn how to do it yourself. There are plenty of
courses on skill share. There are videos on
YouTube about that. Just make sure you are watching videos that were
created recently, something with
updated information because this world of ads, it changes all the time. So to recap, run ads to promote yourself
and your services. Ads can lead to a professional
social media page or to your website. Hire a freelancer to do it or learn yourself how to do it.
10. Outro: Okay, so I've shared with you my effective strategy of building a successful
freelance business. I've shared with
you my five methods of finding clients as
a freelance creative. I've given you plenty of tips, and I've given you
a course project, writing your own sales pitch
to a potential client. We're at the end of our course, and I really want you
to remember that being creative freelancer is not just offering a creative service
and doing the creative work. It's also about finding creative ways to attract clients that you really
want to work with. It's very rewarding to arrive in a place in
your freelance career where you're working
with people and brands that value you for your work. Brands that didn't hire you
because you were cheap. No, rents that
hired you for you. It does take a lot of
work, work on your skills, work on your communication, work on the ways you
conduct business. Try to get as
professional as you can. You just try to present
yourself as a business. Being a freelancer is
being a business owner. What you own is your own time. This is what you're exchanging. So make sure that you're working with somebody who
really values your time. And, hey, I am sure, I assure you, you're
going to make me sick. It can probably also
hurt your wallet. It can hurt yourself worth. But all of those difficult
and hard situations that are going to happen are there for you to learn
something from them. So you can become
stronger and more capable of doing the work
that you really want to do. Every challenge is
the opportunity for you to uplevel yourself, find the inner strength
and really tap into that. Another great thing last
tip just out on the whim, guys, understand your strength. Some people's strength
is their communication. Like, they can get around so many situations just
because they know how to talk. For some people, their strength
is their amazing ideas. Their ideas come at the right time and they
implemented in the right way. So find your strength, tap into that and use that
to pitch your services, to find the clients that you
really want to work with. Find the clients that want to pay what you deserve as well. Okay, so I'm here
on skill share, waiting for your course
projects to roll in. I'll be happy to provide
you with some feedback. If you need more help and
more support in your journey, don't forget that by following the Link and description
of this class, you can book a private online skill share one
on one session with me. We'll connect, we'll chat, and I will help you to the
best of my ability craft your offer to potential clients and price your work fairly. If you have any questions, you can start the
discussion down below. You can also send
the DM to me on Instagram at sens dot Nova. I really like connecting
with you there and knowing that you come
from Skillshare. And, of course, I have a
YouTube channel as well. You could check that
out at Stenc Nova. I mostly share lifestyle videos about my life as a freelancer, so check them out,
and I hope to see you soon in another
skill share class. Thanks again for watching
ASI Manx course, please. Oh, wait. I almost forgot. Please leave me a review on skill share
under the scores. Give me as many
stars as you want. Let me know what
you think about it. It really, really helps me. So I hope to see
you again, peace.
Stancy Nova, Product Photographer & YouTuber
