Pitch Perfect- Tips for Pitching Clients as a Freelancer
Ahh pitching, you either love it or you hate it! As business owners, it’s crucial to continue pitching to potential clients so you can continue to have a steady flow of freelance work allowing your business to thrive. To help you improve your pitching and land dream clients, we’ve included a few tips to help you nail your pitching:
1. Pitch to Your Niche
Freelancing Freshmen often begin by being generalists and applying to various jobs to build their profile and income. However, a more effective strategy is to choose a niche and specialize. This approach allows you to quickly identify jobs that align with your expertise, emphasizing quality over quantity. Unlike generalists who may target multiple skills and industries, specialists can more effectively pitch clients and win gigs. Your proposal and profile should clearly communicate your expertise to make you stand out to potential clients. Having a niche allows you to build a reputation in your speciality this helps you attract clients as your freelance business grows. If you don't know what your niche is and are moving to freelance from a full-time role, think about what aspects of your job you enjoyed doing best.
2. Personalize Your Pitches
For us the hardest part of pitching is knowing how to adjust our messaging for a particular client. We tend to be so passionate about our mission and capabilities that we want to talk about EVERYTHING we’re doing.
While loving what you do isn’t a bad thing, it’s important to remember that a potential client has a vision of their own they are striving to realize and the best way to engage is to focus on a select number of areas that would add the most value to their organization. Highlighting one or two projects in depth that are most similar in scope to the one you are vying for will help the client envision how bringing you on will benefit them directly and allow you to wow them with your knowledge and abilities. It’s also crucial to understand if the client is looking for a visionary or a taskmaster and position yourself accordingly to demonstrate that you can quickly achieve alignment and establish good working chemistry.
Remember clients are hiring you to help their business grow, showcase how you will be an asset to their team by solving the problem they’re facing.
3. Leverage Your Portfolio
Your pitch is where you explain your skills and knowledge, and then your portfolio allows clients to see for themselves. Portfolios help clients sample your work quality and style, many people view portfolios primarily for the creative industry. This is not the case, while a graphic designer may include designs specific to the client they’re pitching to, a project manager will showcase case studies.
4. Track Your Success
Perfecting your pitch takes time, however, analytics can help you improve much faster. We like to make a Google doc and sheet with all our previous pitches, along with how far we got in the interview process. This helps you hone your skills and know what is and isn’t working.
5. Fortune is in the Follow Up
Following up can help you stand out from the crowd, which in turn could land you an interview or contract. Sometimes following up can feel uncomfortable, especially as women we’re taught to not seem pushy. Just remember clients are busy too, and following up after a pitch or interview could be the reason you land a job as it shows your genuine interest and initiative.
No matter how comfortable you are with pitching, remember that it is a skill like anything else and the more you put yourself out there, the easier it will be. Happy Pitching Freelancers!