Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Freelancer’s Guide to Increasing Referral Business


One of the biggest challenges involved in freelance work is reaching and maintaining a steady workload. For many freelancers finding new clients can be a time-consuming process, which leaves less time for income-producing work. 

What if this effort could be reduced or eliminated? You could more completely dedicate your focus to earning money and doing a great job.
Increasing the amount of referral business you receive can be one of the most effective ways to reduce the amount of time that is spent on no-income producing activities. Actively working to increase referrals from clients, friends, and family is often not a priority, as many freelancers feel that is not in their control. Instead, they just wait — and hope — that someone sends them a referral.

Reasons to Love Referrals

They Find You
Less work is required on your part to land new gigs via referrals. Less work for the same results is always good.
Trust
Those who are referred to you will have a higher opinion of your services and more trust for you because someone they respect has recommended you. The trust that they have for whoever recommended you is partially transferred to trust in you.
You Have an Advantage
If a client is talking to other freelancers in regards to their project, as a referral from a friend you will have an advantage over the others (all other factors being equal).
Free Advertising
Word-of-mouth referrals are essentially free advertising for you and your services. Not only is it free, but it’s actually more effective than just about any other type of advertising you can do.
They Snowball
The more happy clients you have, the more referrals you’re likely to receive. And the more referrals you receive, the more customers you’ll have spreading the word about your services. In most cases, the longer you’ve been around the more referrals you’ll get.

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