Let’s get into selling your freelance services. Turns out – selling isn’t hard. Selling only becomes hard, if:
- You’re selling something nobody wants.
- You don’t believe in the product.
- You don’t solve problems.
In this lesson, we’ll go through 4 quick-win sales strategies you can use right now, to launch your freelance business. You can choose either one, but more importantly, make a choice and execute.
The 4 quick-wins to getting customers now.
- Email/Messaging outreach.
- Do a pre-sale.
- Run a webinar/event.
- Strike a win-win partnership.
Lesson 1 - Email/Messaging Outreach
Pre-selling a service or product is a great way to identify if people actually want your product! I encourage all new freelancers to do a pre-sale for their services.
Don’t make the mistake of spending time/effort designing a service, only to find that nobody wants it when you launch it
Lesson 2 - How to do a Pre-sell
A webinar is no different from an event, done online. Running a webinar is a great way to quickly grow an audience list and sell to many prospects. You save time because you don’t have to sell one-to-one.
The secret to running successful webinars is to be in the shoes of your customers. Most people join a webinar, if:
- It solves ONE problem.
- The problem is painful. It must be solved now.
- They like & trust the presenter.
- The webinar is transparent. (No shady selling.)
Thankfully, webinar systems are affordable now, and you can use platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Webinar Ninja, etc.
Lesson 3 - Run a Webinar
Pro Tip: Use the platform that your users are familiar with. In this case, it’s usually always Zoom.
Email Script
Contrary to what many people think, the invitation email you send to your audience doesn’t have to be fancy. But, it has to clearly state the benefit (of what they’ll learn) when they join the webinar. I like using bullet points for this, because most people scan emails.
Subject line: [WEBINAR TITLE]
Hi NAME, [Short intro]
Next week, learn [TOPIC OF WEBINAR]
You’ll learn:
[BULLET #1]
[BULLET #2]
[BULLET #3]
Read this to attend: When: [DATE AND TIME]
Where: Click here to register: [LINK TO REGISTRATION PAGE]
Sorry, this will not be recorded. One night only.
Lesson 4 - Strike a Partnership
If you are new to freelancing, my best guess – is you don’t own an audience. That’s why the partnership strategy can be very powerful here.
Look for a non-competing business or person who has an audience you want. Figure out a win-win-win deal and propose that.
The partner I mentioned in the lesson is Coffee Break, a Malaysian newsletter. They help me promote my business, I help them promote their newsletter, and both our audiences get special deals. It’s a win-win-win situation.
You can join their newsletter here.
Lesson 5 - Sales Framework & Being a Trusted Advisor
Tell me if you have been to such an event: A speaker is on stage telling you his story of how he was so poor and on the edge of losing everything, but then suddenly overcame it with one mindset shift. Then he proceeded to pull up a timer and say you can buy his course for RM4997 (but wait, slashed to RM1997), but only if you take action NOW.
As I was putting up this lesson, I had a conversation with my father-in-law who told me about super salesmen. Apparently, super salesmen are people with a superhuman ability to convince people to buy a product or service.
I believe the art of convincing is important to an extent – but I’ve also learned that people who got convinced to buy something they don’t need, eventually develop buyer’s remorse.
But why doesn’t anyone speak up against their remorse, especially, if they got hustled into buying something they don’t need?
First, it’s because they are ashamed of admitting they bought into a hustle. Second, they don’t want to appear as the only person complaining – and risking a public backlash from a super salesman.
You don’t have to be a ‘super salesman’.
The way to sell, whether you sell online, on the phone, or in person – is to think of yourself as a doctor. A doctor listens attentively to their patient, diagnoses the problem, and then suggests the treatment (solution).
As you sell to your prospects, I want you to practice active listening. Your customers hate to be sold to. But they love buying. Position yourself as a trusted advisor. If you are in the cat grooming business, be the first person your customers think of when they want to groom their cats.