Between here and other freelance platforms, you probably hear a
lot of talk about building “relationships” with your clients. That’s because when you ditch the employer relationship, it’s a bad idea to just leave a vacuum. Freelancers have to work to build new relationships that pay off better than the old ones. One of times you really get to feel that is is when you need money fast.
The first thing I did when my retainer client dropped me was to go through all my old client folders and see if they needed any support. Those few
“How’s your X going?” emails turned into a couple of conversations that I was really glad to have.
If you’re new and don’t have a roster of old clients to go through, this is just something to keep in mind for the future, but if you do, as soon as money looks shaky, roll back around to some old friends…sometimes they just need to be reminded that you exist as a business resource.
Most importantly though, a money crunch means moving fast and
covering as much ground as possible. Refine and be precise, but use things like templates and scripts to make the work you do as effective as possible. What’s even more important than that though?
Prevention. You don’t want to EVER end up in this spot again. (I know I don’t. Lesson LEARNED.) Even if you make it out on top, the scramble and compromise generally just isn’t worth it.
So even if you’re in a good spot today, make sure that
you’re…
- Putting real time into your marketing…at LEAST a couple hours a week that you don’t let production time steal.
- Focusing on high-paying work. That makes it easier to build up your reserves and easier to bounce back quickly if an emergency hits.
- Nurturing relationships so that you’re in a spot where you’re rejecting work (even with other freelancers who sometimes pass extra work on…so come by the Skype group!)
- Starting to build passive lead generation methods like content marketing.
Have a great
week!
Megan
P.S. Here are the Academy resources that you’ll want to check out this month…