Landing your first freelance consulting project made simple

Your existing network is the best place to start looking for your first clients.

Friends, friends of friends, and ex-colleagues all are potential clients and excellent sources of leads. Referrals are the most powerful way to connect with new clients. So, building a network of advocates who believe in your ability is a great way to generate high-quality leads.

You have already shown your network what you’re capable of. So, they’re likely to trust and recommend you in your early days as a freelance management consultant. When working as a freelance consultant, work will often come from unexpected places. Keeping your eyes open and spreading the word about your new business is a good habit to get into. For example, a parent you speak with when collecting your kids from school can easily end up being your first major freelance client.

Be careful not to overwhelm your network with excessive levels of self-promotion. This can put people off. Make sure you continue to provide value to your network by sharing your knowledge and showing some of your personality.

If you don’t already have a website, build one. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy to begin with. There are lots of tools out there that can help you build a website without needing to learn a line of code. Your website will provide a platform to showcase your past work and client testimonials. It’s also the perfect place for people to learn more about you and a platform you have complete control over.

Focusing on a niche helps you find and engage with a specific audience. For example, if you’re a Salesforce consultant becoming an expert in a very specific section of Salesforce like Salesforce Marketing Cloud will help you speak to a more specific audience.

There are different approaches you can take when selecting a niche. You may want to specialize in working with clients from a specific industry. Or, you may decide to specialize in a targeted skill or a piece of software that you can master. You can even combine the two to get laser-focused on what you do and who you can help. Picking up the Salesforce example again, you may choose to specialize in Salesforce Marketing Cloud implementation for B2C fashion retailers.

Gaining trust and building credibility is far easier with a niche audience than a broad and general one. When hiring management consultants, companies want specific expertise and not consultants who do a bit of everything. Becoming the go-to expert for a specific solution will make it much easier for potential clients to find and trust you. Due to the specialized nature of most consulting projects, the more specific you can be, the more confident clients will be in trusting you to help them.

A tightly defined audience of prospects will reduce the cost and effort required when marketing your freelance consulting business. It will also make your marketing activity more powerful by speaking directly to the needs of your audience.

Selecting the right niche will reduce the number of competitors you are up against. Becoming a go-to expert for clients in your area will also allow you to increase how much you charge. It will make it easier for you to position yourself as offering genuine expertise that speaks directly to the needs of your clients.

In your first few freelance projects, it’s a smart idea to look at what you get from the work beyond how much they offer to pay you. In the early days, it’s often more important to build experience and contacts than charging top fees. Doing a project for your dream client can give you solid experience to talk about as you take on more clients in the future.

As a consultant, you bring a lot of experience to the table. Have confidence in your ability when speaking to prospects directly or through online consulting marketplaces. Don’t be afraid to sell yourself and tell people what you can do. Brush up on consultative sales techniques as you will need to sell yourself to potential clients. How can you expect clients to have confidence in your ability if you don’t show them that you have confidence in yourself?

Price is one of the most powerful ways to differentiate yourself in the early stages of your freelance management consulting career. But, be aware that going too low will risk raising questions about your competence. Research your competitors to make sure that you are pricing your work appropriately. In some cases, low pricing can put your clients off and reduce their trust in your ability.

When speaking with your first few leads, it’s good to show that you have a flexible approach to work. And a willingness to step outside your comfort zone. However, stay aware that you are a specialist so don’t promise to do things that you can’t deliver. Shoddy work is always bad, but it is especially dangerous on your first few projects as it can ruin your reputation at the worst possible stage of your freelance career.