Clients are the live wire of every business. If you don’t have clients then you don’t have a business. As a freelancer, you need to keep pitching for new clients to get the flow of clients coming in. The biggest mistake you can ever make is to start your business and wait for someone to hire you. Although one or two clients may come your way, pitching helps you increase you chances. The more clients you have, the more money you make.

Here’s a step-by-step process on how you can pitch to get new clients:

Step #1: Get clear on who your clients are

No matter how long you have been into freelancing, you need to consistently review your client avatar. Understanding who you ideal client is will help you in crafting the perfect pitch. Take note of how they think, their needs and how you can help them. Remember, your focus needs to be on your potential clients and not on yourself.

Step #2: Craft your pitch

One important thing you need to note about writing your pitch is that you have to keep it short and simple. You need to keep in mind that your potential client may be busy and would not have time to read a long email explaining all the services you offer.

Always address your potential client with their first name. It’s so much better to start on a friendly note. Emails that begin with “Hi Sally” make your client feel like they are receiving an email from a friend. Next, in one or two sentences give a short intro about yourself.

“I am [write your name] and I’m a freelance writer. I have had my work published on [write where your article was published].”

Remember to keep the tone nice and friendly. The idea is to make sure that they feel like they’re receiving an email from a friend.

The next thing you need to include in your pitch is to tell your prospective client why you’re sending them the email. You need to be brief and straight to the point here. Something like this:

“Just wanted to reach out to you to find out if you’d be interested in having someone to write your content for you. I also do some publicity work if you’d be interested in it too. I find your business interesting and I feel that increasing your reach will help you get more clients and promote your brand. Let me know if you’re interested.”

Step #3: Do a follow-up

It’s possible that you may not receive a reply as soon as you expected. If you don’t receive a reply after one week of sending them your pitch then send them a follow-up one week later. If there is still no reply then you can let it go.

The reason why it’s good to do a follow-up is that there are situations where the person you pitched to may have missed your email or wanted to reply to your email but forgot to do so. So don’t feel bad when you don’t receive a reply as soon as you send your first pitch.

How do you pitch to your clients?