011: LEADS, LEVERAGE, LUCK

Hey Freelance Friend,

Welcome to episode 11 of FreelancerOS, let’s dive right in.

1. LEADS

The fuel of your Freelance business.

You need them, so let’s figure out how to get them.

When you are starting out, generating leads should be your #1 priority.

Now I know what you are thinking:

• But I need my pricing strategy in place

• I need to work on my brand

• I need my website

• I need to ensure conversions will be high

While all of these things are true, and ideally you would have them all in place, when starting out you need to make decisions about where to prioritise your time.

The fact is also, that without leads, you can’t really see if your conversions are good, if your website is right, if your pricing strategy is good, because there is nobody to even show this to.

One way of testing the hypothesis of your Freelancing business is to give something for free.

(This does not mean, work for free)

This thing can be like an intro to your services.

A downloadable guide.

A “lead magnet”

Something to test and see if there is appetite for what you are going to do.

The conversion rate of this offer should be very high.

If the conversion rate of offering this thing to people isn’t high, then you can bet your actual offering will not convert either.

During this phase you will inevitably hone your skills in terms of finding the right people, targeting, getting your messaging right etc etc in order to get in front of the right kind of people.

But, how can you get your message out there?

There are three categories of ‘traffic’ to keep in mind:

• Free / Organic: Outreach (Warm / Cold), Social Media, Content

• Paid: Social Ads, Sponsorships, Influencer Marketing

• Earned: Features on Podcasts, Articles, Blogs, Press

Show up where makes most sense for your services.

Pros / Cons

Free / Organic

PRO: Cheapest
CONS: Time Investment

Paid

PRO: Fastest
CONS: Costs

Paid ads should be an amplifier of organic marketing.

If you aren’t getting leads organically, and they aren’t going through your process successfully (converting) then PAID ADS are not going to do much, as they will only amplify the successes (or failures) you are seeing with your organic traffic.

There are levels to this game depending on where you are:

Not generating ANY LEADS yet?
WARM OUTREACH is your friend. (Friends, Family, Network, Referrals)

Generating SOME LEADS?
WARM + COLD OUTREACH time, pitch your services to those who need it, but just don’t know it yet.

Converting from Warm and Cold outreach?
Time to get social. Make content around your offering, connect with the right people.

Organic, Warm & Cold Outreach going well?
Your conversions are good, time to amplify that with paid ads.

Smashing it and got plenty of leads but want to grow?
Use a portion of your income to spread your content around various channels (hire someone, you don’t have the time)

With enough leads, you can now go back to what we discussed in the beginning and start obsessing over conversions, having the right website, tuning up your branding, making sure your pricing is right, redoing your LinkedIn profile etc etc

You can now test things and start to see that conversion % grow.

Doing this without leads coming through is productive procrastination.

You are one person and unless you are hiring right away, you need to understand that you have to prioritise.

You will still be doing your actual job alongside all of this, so while it would be great to do it all, there are definitely tactics to growing while not being overwhelmed and doing a half ass job at everything, instead of a great job at each part iteratively.

This process should be one of validation of your service offering.

Validating your offering also looks like:

• Offering a freebie and seeing if you can ‘sell’ it. (You should be able to)

• Offering a step up offering (A small investment, like an audit or a consultation)

• Offering your service at an intro rate

You would then follow a process of price increases until you see a negative impact on your conversions, this is where you find the sweet spot.

I can almost guarantee that the pricing you start with, will be way, way undervaluing the service you are offering.

So, go out there and get your leads.

2. LEVERAGE

Part of the whole process of being a Freelancer is worrying about what we talked about in the previous section.

Is my offer right?

Is my website good?

Is my social content on point?

All of these constant nagging questions, alongside comparing yourself to the best points of every single other person you come across, to the points of you as an individual (spoiler, you can never win)

If you compared your whole Freelance offering like for like with just ONE person on the internet or LinkedIn, you would probably be fine.

You probably have some really good points.

Maybe you have an unbelievable amount of great reviews.

Maybe your website is incredible.

Maybe your social content is fire.

Whatever that is…leverage it.

Stop going to black holes of the areas you are not good at and trying to spin too many plates.

Maybe you are amazing at 2 plates.

Maybe your social content sucks but you are great at what you do, and your clients love referring you.

Leverage that!

Usually people who see being successful have got to where they are by finding out something that works, and leveraging it as best they can.

Those people who are really popular on LinkedIn?

Maybe that’s the 1 thing they are really good at.

Maybe they tried cold outreach but flopped.

They tried to get referrals but nobody wanted to pass them onto their friends or network.

Whatever you are good at, I can guarantee you will have a lot more success and have a great time doing it if you concentrate on what you are good at, and keep doing that.

When you are seeing success and have money to reinvest, hire others to do the parts you aren’t good at.

But right now, if you aren’t there yet, smash whatever it is that you are good at, leverage the shit out of it.

3. LUCK

You make your own luck.

I’ve been told so many times in my life that I am “so lucky to be doing this” or “really lucky to be able to work wherever I want”

It’s not luck. It’s getting outside of your comfort zone and doing something not many people are prepared to do.

By going it alone and staking everything on working on the thing you are passionate about, while not having a safety net of a salary, sick pay, pension schemes, insurance etc etc you are certainly not ‘lucky’ to have a bit of location independence.

If you have a bad month, or feel down, or underperform in your freelancing, there will be no luck there to keep paying you or put you on a performance plan and give you some training.

When Freelancing you make your own luck every day,

Every day you show up and:

• Post on the internet

• Network with others

• Do a great job for a client

• Upskill yourself

• Put yourself out there

• Motivate yourself

This is all creating the luck you need to keep going as a Freelancer and create the life you want.

I felt like I got lucky recently.

I saw a post by someone and thought what they were doing was super cool.

I sent them a DM and got a nice response back.

An hour later they messaged me asking if I can help them with a web project.

The next day I landed the project.

Luck?

For sure, timing and everything else to see the post.

But if I didn’t take action myself and reach out, nothing would have happened.

I made my own bit a luck.

So go out there and make yours!

Next Week

012: CONVERSIONS, CONVERSATIONS, CELEBRATIONS

With you next Thursday at 11:00am (UK TIME)