Episode Transcript
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Treasa Edmond (00:00):
Hey there,
welcome back to the Boss
Responses Podcast.
I'm really excited about theepisodes that we have lined up
for this week and especiallyabout my guest host.
Lizzie Davey is aBrighton-based freelancer who
works in marketing, saas ande-commerce.
She's worked with some of thebest names in the business and
she's very good at what she does.
(00:20):
I'm excited to learn from herthis week, and I hope you are
too.
Today's question deals withreaching out to potential
clients and actually gettingresponses back from them.
I hope our responses arehelpful to you as you reach out
to your future clients.
Let's go ahead and get into it.
If you're a freelancer,business owner or anyone who
(00:42):
deals with clients, you're inthe right place.
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
(01:03):
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.
(01:24):
Lizzie, thank you for beingwith us this week.
I'm really glad you're here.
I'm glad to be here.
Thanks for having me, all right.
So what is the question for dayone?
Lizzie Davey (01:35):
So, today we have
a question from Jenny from San
Diego, California, and she saysI'm trying to niche down and I'm
having some trouble.
I want to specialize in casestudies and more
audience-centered content forB2B environmental tech.
I have a decent portfoliostarted, but I'm having trouble
getting a response back frompotential clients.
I've sent out several proposalsand followed up, but it seems
(01:59):
like my emails are getting lostin the shuffle.
What strategies can I use toeffectively market myself and
get noticed by the right clientsin this niche?
Treasa Edmond (02:08):
This is an
interesting question and it's
also a really complicated one,because without knowing
specifically about the niche andwhat seems to work, it's hard
to give a specific strategy.
I can talk about generalstrategies.
The first one I would recommendis make sure that those people
are actually hiring individualfreelance writers.
I know there are a lot of techniches especially that work
(02:30):
almost exclusively with agencies.
So your best way to get inmight be and I hardly ever say
this because I'm not a hugeagency fan, but it might be to
reach out to agencies that dowork with those companies and
see if you can get a couple ofclips into your portfolio from
them, and then that might giveyou an in.
It might also give you a way towork directly with clients.
(02:53):
If it's more complicatedprojects and they mentioned case
studies and audience centeredcontent I would recommend
starting there.
I would also recommend tryingto form relationships with
people who are in marketing inthat niche.
I'm big on relational marketing.
I struggle with LOIs.
They make my soul want toshrivel up and die, but I do
(03:16):
like reaching out to people andI like forming relationships and
supporting them and doing whatI can do and doing what I can do
.
Sometimes those don't lead to adirect client relationship, but
they almost always lead to somekind of referral or at least an
extended version of aconnection that will get you
where you want to go.
They take more time, they takemore effort, but if you're
(03:38):
already trying to do it and it'snot working, then keep up with
that and be diligent about it.
I have someone from my communitywho's doing a LinkedIn
experiment right now, and one ofthe things she's doing is she's
connecting with people everysingle day, she's interacting
with their posts, and she'sdoing all of that so that her
(03:59):
name is familiar before she everDMs them.
And then she's not DMing themabout working with them.
She DMs them to ask them aquestion or to get to know them
in some way, or even just to setup a call and learn more about
what they do, and from that shehas a steady stream of work
coming in, and she's in tech.
Hers isn't B2B environmental.
She is B2B tech, though.
(04:20):
So I think those are reallygreat ways to do.
What would you recommend?
I know promotion is your thing,lizzie.
Lizzie Davey (04:26):
Yeah, I completely
agree about building out your
network thing.
Lizzie, yeah, I completelyagree about building out your
network and kind of I call itwarm pitching, where you warm up
prospects before you actuallyreach out.
So I know that Jenny says thatshe's been sending proposals
already and I, for me, proposalsare quite a hefty chunk of work
if I'm not guaranteed to landthat client.
So for me, while I'm doing kindof that background warm network
(04:50):
building stuff, like you said,someone in your community is
doing with the commenting andthen reaching out, I would also
recommend qualifying potentialclients before spending time
creating those proposals.
So it's like you said do theywork with freelancers?
Do they have a need for thoseservices and other things?
I'm not quite sure what it wouldlook like in the B2B
(05:11):
environmental tech kind ofindustry, but there are usually
certain things that you can lookout for that tell you if
somebody works with a freelanceror might need services like you
offer, will reach out, andusually it's not a long pitch
(05:32):
like it's, because I, like you,like LOIs feel really stuffy and
a bit corporate for me.
So usually it's just like aquick email or a quick DM on
LinkedIn.
That will just be like do youwork for freelancers?
Are you looking for any morehelp?
Just to get that conversationstarted, because I think it's
less about getting someone tocommit to working with you right
here, right, because very fewpeople will if they don't know
who you are and they don't haveany kind of proof or trust in
(05:54):
you.
But you want to open up thatconversation, so you basically
just want to aim for a reply atthat point.
That's what I would do if I wasin Jenny's situation.
Treasa Edmond (06:04):
And that kind of
a strategy.
I think one of the majorbenefits is they see your name
and then they become familiarwith your name and they're
probably going to go check outyour profile and then the next
time you comment on one of theirposts they're going to say oh,
this is a familiar name, sothey're going to interact with
you and those interactions buildup and eventually they form
some kind of a relationship,even if it's a very casual
(06:25):
relationship.
I think that's incrediblypowerful.
Now I want to dive intosomething, if you don't mind,
lizzie.
I seldom do that on these dailyones, but I really think this
is important.
I'm blessed in that most of myclients are inbound, so I
qualify them as they come in andI have a qualifying
questionnaire that they can fillout and it asks what the
project is, what the deadlinesare, what their budget is, all
(06:47):
of that stuff.
When you're qualifying,pre-qualifying a client before
you ever even have any contactwith them, what's the process
you use for that?
Lizzie Davey (07:01):
So there's several
different things I look out for
.
The main one is do they workwith other freelancers?
And I can tell that if I goonto their blog and they've got
bylines from other freelancers.
If they post like a lot ofcontent, so if they're regularly
posting new blog posts, if theyshare a lot on social media, it
usually means that they've gotsome kind of marketing budget
there.
And I know that at the start ofmy career I would often pitch
(07:24):
people that didn't have blogsbecause it was like, okay, these
people don't have a blog, theyneed a blog, so I'm going to
pitch them my services.
But usually there's a reasonthey don't have a blog and often
it's because they don't see thevalue in it.
So I spent a lot of my timetrying to convince people why
they needed a blog before Icould then convince them to work
(07:45):
with me.
So I added a step to theprocess.
So now I only pitch brands thathave a really healthy blog or a
really healthy kind of socialmedia output.
I also look for on LinkedIn I doa company search just to see
how many people are working that, particularly in the content
department, and whether theyhave any in-house writers or
(08:07):
whether it's just a contentmanager who's overseeing
everything.
Those are the three main thingsthat I do.
I can't think of anything elseoff the top of my head, but it's
mostly looking at do thesepeople need my services and do
these people already work withfreelancers?
Because I'm really not about toeducate a brand on why they
(08:28):
should work with freelancers.
I don't have the time for that.
Treasa Edmond (08:31):
I used to be so
into that and then I just
realized it's not an effectiveuse of my time, and that's a
good point as well.
When you are qualifying yourclients, not everyone is meant
to be your client.
Some people don't value content, some people don't value
freelancers.
Just don't work with thosepeople.
It's never good for your sanityin the end.
(08:51):
All right, jenny, I hope thatwas all helpful information, and
if you want to know more aboutpromoting yourself and reaching
out to clients, make sure youcome back for our episode on
Friday, because we're going todive deep into promotion and I
think that would be very helpfulhere as well.
All right, thank you, lizzie.
Thank you.