Grow Your Freelance Business Faster With Bigger Clients
Photo illustration by Gerd Altmann
Whether you’re a freelance copywriter, designer, programmer, or filmmaker, a key goal should be to grow your business.
If you’re not growing, you’re shrinking. There’s no standing still.
But there’s a catch. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you don’t want to work all of them. The goal is to grow while working reasonable hours.
Growth Does Not Mean Working More Hours
In the short term, and in bursts, you may have to work more hours to grow. But that’s not a sustainable strategy. You’ll burn out, and the rest of your life will go down the drain. You won’t be happy, and neither will your friends and family.
If you’re not busy enough to fill your work hours (8 hours a day?), then yes, you need more clients or more work from existing clients.
But what if you’re working all your work hours but want to earn more money?
You need better-paying clients to earn more for every hour you work.
You Need Bigger Clients to Grow Faster
Many freelancers will say some version of, “I like to help small businesses grow”. That could mean local businesses or small start-ups.
That’s fine, but it’s essential to realize that most will never be bigger clients with more significant budgets. A local shop or service tends to remain that way.
Many small start-ups are funded by “friends and family” and have little or no budget for marketing or communications.
In some cases, their bootstrap mentality leads them to believe they can do everything themselves (not an ideal client).
If they’re lucky, they get acquired by a larger company, and you lose a client.
If you work with smaller clients, realize you’ll need a lot of them, and you’ll likely get quite a bit of churn as they come and go. It adds up to many unbillable hours.
The proven and easier way to grow is by working for larger clients.
Bigger Clients Have Bigger Projects, Bigger Budgets
Look around you, and you’ll know this is true. Large companies, organizations, and well-funded start-ups have bigger budgets for the type of work you do.
They work more professionally, with dedicated marketers on their staff. They value marketing and have the budget to pay for it.
They also have a greater need for marketing. In my experience, this often leads to a steady flow of business. As soon as I finished a project, they had another for me in the pipeline. Sometimes I’d get briefed on two projects at once.
With larger clients, you could put in the same amount of time but double or triple your billing.
Why Don’t You Have Bigger Clients?
It’s easy to talk about working with larger clients, but if you don’t have any, how do you get them?
There are three reasons you don’t have larger clients:
You’ve never pursued them
You’ve pursued them but weren’t successful because your portfolio is all “mom and pop” businesses
They’ve never fallen into your lap because they don’t know you exist
The Fastest Way to Access Bigger Clients
The fastest way to access bigger clients is to freelance for agencies and their clients. It doesn’t have to be all your work, but it should be some of it.
Generally, agencies will have bigger clients than you’ll be able to attract on your own.
More and more agencies are working with freelancers. It gives them flexibility, they don’t have to pay benefits, and they can afford a more experienced freelancer than an employee.
What Do You Learn by Working With Agencies and Their Clients?
The most important thing you’ll learn is what it’s like to work at a different scale. Rather than $500 projects, you’re working on $5,000 or $20,000 projects. You’ll understand how they think and what’s important to them.
Depending on the agency and particular client, you may become their go-to writer, designer, programmer, or filmmaker. Although you’re a freelancer, they’ll increasingly see you as part of the team.
Find Agencies With Clients in Your Niche
Ideally, in your freelancing, you’ve developed a niche. Find agencies that have clients in that niche. It will take some research, but you should be able to find them.
Look for them on social media. Follow them, engage with them, and become known to them. Subscribe to their blogs, and find their work. LinkedIn will give you the names of people who work there. Through connections, get to the creative director.
If you have a website with your portfolio, it’s easy to introduce yourself and send a link. Be sure to point out that you have experience in a niche that’s relevant to them.
If they don’t have any work for you, ask whether they can recommend someone who might.
If you’re still working on developing your niche, I wrote how to pick a high-paying niche here.
What Do Agencies Want? Professionalism
If you start working with an agency, remember they’re counting on you. That means 100% reliability in meeting deadlines and deliverables.
That’s no different from your other clients. I wrote about what clients value most in freelancers here. (Hint: it’s reliability.)
Working with agencies can also be demanding as they respond to requests from their clients. It may mean more flexibility from you. But I think it’s worth it for the work you’ll get.
You want to become their “go-to” supplier for your services. It’s so much easier than constant hustling for work.
Build Your Network In the Agency
Aside from bigger projects, working with an agency allows you to network at a higher level. You’ll meet other creatives and likely account people who have deep networks of people at other agencies.
This can lead to further opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise get. It’s an opportunity to work your way up, getting more prestigious portfolio pieces.
Improve Your Portfolio With Your New Client Work
Your goal is to build a portfolio of work for recognizable names. When you’re approaching a new prospect, you want to be able to say you’ve worked for clients A, B, and C. They should be familiar with those names and, based on that, will meet with you.
There’s magic in those names. Put them to work for you.
Avoid Signing Restrictive Agreements With Agencies
Some agencies may want you to sign agreements that don’t allow you to publicize the work you did for them. Try to avoid signing such an agreement. It’s not fair to you and restricts your right to promote yourself.
If you sign such an agreement, you may choose to leave the portfolio sample off your website. You could add it to a portfolio PDF and email it to a prospect. That way, you’re not promoting it in public.
Be Honest About Your Work
Always be honest about the work you’ve done. If you put a piece in your portfolio, it should be clear you worked for Company A through Agency B. Don’t pretend that the end client was yours.
Also, if you do a project for a client, do not claim you do all of their work. Keep it real. A few projects for Apple through one of their agencies doesn’t make Apple your client.
Work Those Agency Relationships
If you get into one agency, your first job is to do outstanding work and deliver reliably. You want that agency to come back to you again and again.
Your second job is to build on that relationship both within that agency and outside of it. Remember, any medium-sized or large agency has a regular turnover of staff. If one of your contacts moves on, try to follow them to their new agency while keeping the old agency as your client.
If you’ve done great work, your reputation should bring you new clients. It’s as simple as that.
Create a List of Target Clients
Once you start getting bigger names into your portfolio, think about who else you’d like to work for. Then do the research and either approach the company directly or through their agency.
Your goal is to work your way up to more prominent clients with bigger budgets. Once you start working at a higher level, clients and agencies will find you. Your reputation and connections will get you new business. That’s where you want to be.
I wrote another blog post about the pros and cons of working for agencies here.
Learn about growing your business faster in my book, How to Start a Successful Creative Agency. It’s the essential business guide for graphic designers, copywriters, filmmakers, photographers, and programmers.
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This chapter covers essential areas such as Clients vs. Projects, Corporate Clients vs. Small Business Clients, How to Create an Opportunity Document, Benefits of Finding a Niche… and much more.
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