How can I get hired? HOW CAN I MAINTAIN A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH CLIENTS?

Dear Rowena

I’d like advice for getting clients that will hire me as a freelance writer. How would you suggest I go about this? How can I maintain a long-term relationship? What are some other ways of getting writing jobs? Regards Jacqueline Dear JacquelineI Thanks for your note. I would take a step back and assess the current situation from three angles. 1. What sort of digital profile do you have?

Focus on your digital profile because this gives you more mileage. Your digital profile, whether it is an online resume, your personal or business website or your social handles are all able to work for you 24/7. Look at how you’re presenting yourself through your website (if you have one, which you should) and social media. Look at your profile from all angles especially from the viewpoint of a potential client. - What kind of impression would they have of you based on what they see?

- What kind of work would they consider that you could manage?

What you’re aiming to do is ensure that the idea you have of yourself as a person, a service provider, a solver of problems is what is presented to the outside world. It is easy to miss things when you’re so close to the issue and when so much of what you know is based on internal information you hold and assumptions that may not necessarily be clear to the outside world.

Make sure that your profile speaks clearly to who you are as a person, what capabilities you have and what you can bring to the table. The trick lies in doing this in an attractive and interesting way. This can be addressed in a few ways. First, keep it real. Speak plainly and clearly which means avoid jargon and corporate speak. Don’t list down a flurry of attributes, tell a story. Tell your story. Make an effort to be interesting. Don’t just present a whole bunch of information and expect your reader to connect the dots the way you’d like them to – make it easy for them to come to the conclusions you want them to. Keep your reader in mind always. 2. Consider the quality and size of your network

If you are freelancer, your pipeline of work is heavily dependent on your list of clients. If instead of clients, you have customers, then it is incumbent on you to focus on network building as a core component of building your business. As a freelancer, you don’t have the luxury of palming this job off to someone else - you must do all aspects of your business, from sales and marketing to administration and finance unless you are able to hire or outsource.

Network building is simply building an audience around you but this time, it is a purposeful one. It is an audience of people who are relevant, who have an appreciation for who you are and what you have to offer. Unless you plan to buy Facebook likes or shortcut your way through this, organic growth is slow yet best because you ensure that everyone you connect to has value and is appreciated. Choose a digital platform where you will build your network – for me, LinkedIn is the obvious choice because of its size and the fact that it is a professional network. Remember that you are a brand.

But who should I connect to? Start with the low-hanging fruit. University and college mates. Look back over all of your past roles and identify peers, bosses, suppliers, partners and clients who you feel are a good fit to reconnect to. They do not necessarily need to be in the same industry or same role but if you believe the relationship is still in a good place then it could be a win for both to re-establish contact. It is also good to have a sense of diversity in your network to bring a richness to the discussions that take place in the network. Identify others who are on a similar path to yours.

Take some time to categorise your areas of specialization and then identify thought leaders in the space in which you play. You do not need to connect to all of them. You can also choose to ‘follow’ some of them. Connect also to the type of people you have developed as your customer personas. 3. Build a body of work

Much like an artist has a portfolio of projects and work he can point to, building a body of work is about capturing the essence of your efforts and ideas in a multitude of repositories. These are tangible representations of your ideas which can be developed as articles, reports, infographics, videos, podcasts or slides.

This is what leaders do when they publish a book. This is what influencers do when they post the things they have created or developed. It is far more about the act of creation than consumption. You don’t need to be an artist to do this – that is a limiting belief.

The first piece of content is the hardest. But once you start, you can then begin to create a pipeline of content in all the areas you specialise in and the areas where you want to get more customers. Do this for yourself. It is not just about doing paid work for clients. Take the opportunity to develop these pieces as a way of marketing yourself and positioning in the space you want to play in.

There’s so much more to share but to answer your question about maintaining a long-term relationship, I would say that if you can do a good job with the first assignment, you can get a second and it goes on from there. The nature of this kind of work is that there is always opportunity for more work is there is alignment. Soft skills are critical in this regard – first impressions, EQ, communication strength, ability to manage your clients, being reader-centric and client-centric in your approach all go some way to helping you retain clients. If you’re starting out or in your first few years, I would focus on doing a great job with each client. Retention will take care of itself.

Certainly, these are not the only things you need to do but these are some of things I would focus on at the start. Wishing you all the best,