How To Grow Your Freelance Business As Quickly As Possible
Do you want to learn the proven way to quickstart your business? Thousands could be coming your way overnight if you are willing to eat some humble pie and make some friends in the process.
Why do I know this is proven? Because I have done it before. When I first started my business about a decade ago I went from $300/month in business to $5,000/month overnight (being able to quit my job and never return).
What is this miracle model? Drafting. A lesson from professional racing! During an auto (or even a bicycle race), you will often see the person in second DIRECTLY behind the person in first. Second place is drafting off the success of the first place. The lead car is breaking all the friction, burning fuel, and heating up its engine. Then trailing car uses all the work from the first car to cruise with less stress. They are drafting off the first car’s success.
You have seen this strategy in many daily variations: collaborations, influencers, partnerships, etc. In essence, you find someone/a business/an account with an audience you want, and you draft off their success.
Now, I will teach you how to do it, explain how my business benefits from it, and give you the next steps. But first….
Are You Even Ready?
Are you ready to scale? This is the biggest issue. If you don’t have a plan on what to do with the influx, it isn’t worth it to start. You will miss out on money or you will end up spending a ton of money trying to play catch up. Scaling fast leads to new problems.
If you are a freelancer who drafts off a larger agency in your field, you will see an influx in business. However, you won’t be doing all the work by yourself anymore, so you need to know how to teach a team to do what you do very quickly. Or, you must have software or white-label providers ready to be activated.
If you think, “I just want to be popular on social media,” great. But, this new popularity brings on the responsibility of producing quality content. Also, if it encompasses your life, you may not have time for your job anymore. How will you make money if you are forced to choose your popularity over your 9-5? We will get into monetization, don’t worry.
This isn’t to dismay you, this is to empower you to focus on success. Now, let’s talk about how to draft and how to succeed.
How to Draft For Quick Business Growth
What is the exact service you are offering? Make this simple to say and explain like an elevator pitch. Many people offer SEO, social media ads, web development, branding, etc. Choose your unique positioning, and focus on that. For instance, my branding focuses on minimalism which usually includes four colors, two fonts, and logos on dark, light, and transparent backgrounds. This is great for businesses in the contractor niche as they don’t need elaborate branding a restaurant would for its menus, signs, social media, etc.
Have proof of your success. This can come from your current clients, your own growth, or even a series on the topic you post on social media. I suggest you pick up a client for free or very minimal payment to get something to showcase. If you are looking to start your own business in the industry you currently have a 9-5, use that as your starting point. Their success is your success.
Make sure you have every step of your process written out. Take it one step further and make tutorial videos. These are called standard operating procedures (SOPs), and they should be done so you can hire anyone anywhere and they can fulfill your service.
Find a business/person offering a similar/adjacent service to yours. I offer search engine optimization, so I find branding, design, web development, and even social media companies. They have clients, and I have a service they could upsell to add value to their agency. The benefit to me is obvious (clients), but the benefits to them are more important: hands-off service, huge money-to-time ratio as they just need to sell the service, my successful portfolio as proof, all of my tools, and my SOPs for pitching the service.
Contact that company/person with the benefit to them. This is all personal preference. Cold email is usually garbage, but you can create something useful for them, send it to them, and see if you can start up a conversation. This is all a strategic dance to show your value and benefit to them.
Cold calling is stressful, but it is very direct. Gatekeepers (like assistants and front desk operators) suck if you treat them badly. Be sincere and ask them questions! Try to get the information needed to speak to a real human. Be a human! I’ve cold-called before, and after the initial anxiety, you go numb and just dial.
If you want to run ads, you must have the budget and process to work on inbound marketing. This is a whole different style of marketing. For me, I like to choose who I want to work with and attack.
Want my (not) hidden secret to getting a client today to build your confidence? Contact me here!
Other ways to contact companies - MeetUps, Chambers Of Commerce, online groups like webinars/zoom calls/Facebook groups, Twitter space, Clubhouse…there are tons of em. Get in there, introduce yourself, find the key players, make friends.
One of the easiest ways to find a business similar to yours is to look through your inner circle. Do you have a friend who works at an agency you can draft off of? Do you have someone who can introduce you to an influential person and be an advocate for you? This cuts out step 5, which is usually the hardest step.
Need help with creating a drafting method for yourself? Time to hit me up to create a plan with you!