Finding dream clients

When building a sustainable freelance business, you must find your dream clients. Clients who will choose you over the endless list of freelancers who might be charging less or sometimes even doing a better job.

We know that clients are a moving force for any freelance business. We learned how to use job boards, write cold emails, talk to clients, and turn one-off clients into clients for life.

But when building a sustainable freelance business, you must find your dream clients. Clients who will choose you over the endless list of freelancers who might be charging less or sometimes even doing a better job.

How do you do that? There are a few parts to it. Let's explore each in more detail. This is going to be a long read.

Getting started

Reputation

When clients are researching you, what would they find? Use testimonials or recommendations from previous clients to back up your work and reputation.

When you do great work, getting a good testimonial should be easy. But in case the client isn't proactive on that front, here's what you do.

Explain to your client how reviews will help your business grow. I frequently use the phrase "Your testimonial will assist people who are similar to you to find me" during our conversation or via message.

Often people avoid leaving the recommendation because they don't know what to say. If that's the case, help them address the feedback by providing a list of questions to consider. Here's an example:

• Why did you choose me as your service provider?

• What service did I perform for you?

• How would you rate the service you received? (Provide a rating scale)

• In what areas did I meet or exceed your expectations?

• In which areas can I improve?

• Would you recommend me to others?

Another good way to assist your client in writing a review is to provide an example or template. Those guys are usually busy and don't want to spend too much time writing an extensive testimonial. I wrote a review from their point of view about our working experience. And then sent them for review and approval. This reduces the friction and saves the client time. Win-win!

Portfolio

Not the one you create to impress freelance peers, but the one that converts. It doesn't have to be a website, but it's good to have a link that you can share with anyone.

To this day, my public portfolio looks like this:

The portfolio that got me hired for 6-figure projects: pic.twitter.com/FTEiZ1GPkw

— Alex Dovhyi (@dovhyi) February 14, 2023

You can host your work using your Dribble, Behance, or social media platform. That's not the most important thing.

What's important is that a great portfolio is relevant to the client's project.

It's a crucial part of landing your dream clients — providing them with something they can associate with and giving them confidence that you can deliver the same results to them.