#46: Turning One-Off Clients into Repeat Business with Jessica Walrack

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What if you could transform your one-off clients into loyal, long-term partners? Join us on this episode of the Boss Responses podcast as host Treasa Edmond sits down with Jessica Walrick, the mastermind behind All Things Freelance Writing.

Jessica and I tackle Leigh's question of how to create repeat and retainer work. Whether you're struggling to keep clients coming back or simply want to refine your approach, we promise this episode is packed with actionable strategies to strengthen your client relationships and secure ongoing projects.

About Our Guest
Jessica Walrack is the founder of All Things Freelance Writing—a community that helps freelance writers build their ideal businesses through its blog, weekly jobs newsletter, and other resources. She’s also a freelance finance journalist with 11 years of professional writing experience. You can find her work regularly featured in national publications including US News and World, CBS News MoneyWatch, Newsweek, and Wallstreet Journal BuySide.

Links You Might Want
Sign up for the free All Things Freelance Writing weekly jobs newsletter 

Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn 

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Episode Transcript

Treasa (00:00):
Welcome back to the Boss Responses podcast.
Our special guest host thisweek is Jessica Walrack.
That's a name you might know ifyou follow freelance writing
topics on LinkedIn.
Jessica is the founder of AllThings Freelance Writing.
Now, that's literally the nameof her community All Things
Freelance Writing.
She's created a community thathelps freelance writers build

(00:21):
their ideal businesses, and sheoffers a blog, a weekly jobs
newsletter and other resourcesthat you're probably going to
want to get a hold of.
We're going to answer questionstogether for the first four days
of this week and then on Friday, we're going to take a deeper
look at the topic of nichingdown.
So, if that's something you'vewondered about, maybe you're

(00:51):
thinking of niching down and youhaven't yet, or maybe you've
niched down and you feel likeyou've made your pawn just a
little too small.
Make sure you join us for thatFriday episode.
Trust me, you do not want tomiss it.
Today we're going to talk abouta question I've been seeing
more often lately how do youturn one-off clients into repeat
or retainer work so that theykeep coming back?
Are you ready?
I am.
If you're a freelancer, businessowner or anyone who deals with

(01:12):
clients, you're in the rightplace.
I'm your host, teresa Edmond.
I've been dealing with clientsand running my business for
nearly two decades and in thattime I've dealt with my share of
doubt, imposter syndrome andnot knowing what to say when a
client asked a question I wasn'tready for.
I created this podcast toempower you with the boss

(01:32):
responses you need to grow yourbusiness.
Each week, my guest co-host andI will bring you five episodes
packed with practical insights.
Monday through Thursday, weanswer your questions, and
Fridays we dive deep to explorehow our co-hosts embrace their
role as the boss of theirbusiness.
Welcome to Boss Responses,jessica.

(01:57):
What is the question for dayone?

Jessica (02:01):
Okay, so we have Leigh from Chicago and she says that
she's having a problem that mostpeople probably won't see as a
problem.
She's had pretty good successlanding clients.
She keeps a full schedule andis meeting her income goals, but
can't seem to keep clients longterm.
So she wants to build a steadystream of repeat and retainer

(02:22):
work so she can have a moresteady schedule with less
marketing and prospecting.
She's wondering how can shebuild longer term relationships
with clients.

Treasa (02:32):
It almost seems like she has two different things going
on here.
One I would never recommendless marketing and prospecting,
and maybe not prospecting, atleast the marketing.
You need to keep that going atall times.
You need to keep that inboundclient list happening and they
won't come if they don't knowthat you exist.
So you really can't ever stop.
On that you can fall back alittle bit.

(02:53):
I recommend always that peoplemarket for at least one day of
the week, that's just.
I have mine set up, so onFridays I have four hours that I
do business stuff and it'salmost always marketing.
I think that's a separate issueand I don't want to go too deep
into that.
But building the long-termrelationships with clients, I
think that all hinges on value.
What value are you offeringthem and how are you approaching

(03:17):
them?
So when you're doing thatinitial discovery call with the
client, is it for one blog postor is it for the potential of a
long-term relationship?
And you can set that boundary.
You can say I only work withclients on an ongoing basis
because and then you give themthe benefits to them so, because
it helps me understand theirbusiness more fully, I can help

(03:38):
them meet their business andcontent objectives, blah, blah,
blah.
So you can really do that andit's all in how you position
yourself and then how you offervalue to them.
And I think that's huge,because I've worked with writers
from the other end of thespectrum that they're like are
you working with freelancewriters?
I'd love to write a blog foryou, and then they never come

(03:59):
back and I don't have time, ifI'm the content manager, to
chase them down to see if theywant to write another article.
I think if you're running abusiness, you have to be
proactive and you have to tellyour clients hey, here's the
article.
Let me know if there are anyedits.
I'm ready to start on the nextone whenever you're ready to
send it, and you can be aspositive and optimistic as you
want.
Or you can say I'd love towrite more articles for you.

(04:23):
Do you have another thing thatneeds done right now?
Or did you know I also do casestudies and white papers.
So if you offer them continuedvalue, then I think that will
build those longer termrelationships.
If you're doing one and doneprojects and you're not offering
anything else, then you're notgoing to get a longer term
relationship.
How do you handle this, jessica, because I know you're big on
inbound clients.

(04:43):
You don't do.

Jessica (04:46):
Yeah, first, I would agree with you that the
marketing should stay consistent.
You need to figure out somesort of schedule that you can do
on a sustainable, long-termbasis, and we'll talk a little
bit about that more on day five,about how that can shift over
time to not being so demanding.
I used to have this problem too, because I was doing like

(05:09):
branding, brand voice guidelinesand getting startups set up
initially in their contentmarketing strategy and getting
their websites set up.
So I do the homepage, a servicepage, and once those are done,
that's it.
I think switching into offeringa service that they need on an
ongoing basis is hugelyimportant.

(05:31):
So, like now, I offer onlyblogs and articles to companies
that need more than I can evenprovide on a monthly basis, so
that, or maybe if they need anemail newsletter every week or
twice a month or somethingsocial media posts are another
one they're going to need thoseon an ongoing basis.

(05:52):
So, even if that's not the onlything you offer, I think
building in a base of thingsthat do require repeating is
hugely helpful.
And then, like you said, Iwould agree that sometimes you
need to follow up.
You need to take the lead onensuring that they know you're
going to offer it on an ongoingbasis.

(06:13):
It's like hey, I need a blogpost.
Sure, we can do this as like apaid test and then see where it
goes from there and you canexplain to them.
I have my regular clients whomake orders every month.
If you wanted to get on in thatkind of program, you can let me
know each month how many youneed up to this amount or
something, just kind of primethem for that ongoing experience

(06:34):
.

Treasa (06:34):
Yeah, that's brilliant, and I hadn't even thought about
the fact that there are peoplewho specialize in things that
are just one and done.
There is no way to do a repeatwork.
So if you are doing a one anddone project website design or
something like that I mean youneed to find an add on or
something that can generate thatlonger term relationship,

(06:56):
because they can't really do anew website every week, or right
, and companies might not wantto do more than a couple of case
studies a year or more than acouple of white papers.
So you need to diversify alittle bit if you do want that
long termterm relationship.
That's really great.
All right, come back tomorrowand we are going to talk more
about finding your limits.

(07:17):
How much client work can youactually do before you crack?