The Power of Repeat Clients
By Stephen Godfrey - Reading Time: 4 minutes
Source: Photo by rawpixel.com on Unsplash
The Power of Repeat Clients
Repeat clients are the best kind of clients to get. When you have repeat clients you don’t have to worry about proposals, onboarding, and building relationships. You simply work for them and get paid.
This frees you up to do a lot of things. Instead of spending time finding new clients you can spend that time honing your craft. Even better, you could spend it improving your business, earning more revenue, or taking a vacation.
Best of all, long-term relationships are better for your clients. If you don’t like looking for new clients do you think they like looking for reliable help? So when you start building long-term relationships it’s a win-win. They get the help that they can trust, and they don’t have the hassle of finding another freelancer. And you get a client that trusts you, so you can now have less stress and can spend time doing better things.
And that’s what I try to do. Last year I only had 7 clients but I had a banner year with just those 7. So instead of trying to get 25 or 30 clients in a year and win with volume why not try going for quality? If you do this might hear something like I heard from one of my clients last week:
“We want to have a long-term relationship with you. Just plan on us giving you $20,000-$60,000 worth of work year after year”.
I have a friend Branden who runs a micro-agency and who also shoots for long-term relationships. One of his clients keeps signing him on for more work, and Branden keeps delivering. This client gives him 32 hours worth a week month after month, and he’s killing it. Branden gets to make a good living, but still has some time to do work for other clients.
How to get Repeat Work
So how do you turn your regular clients into long-term clients? First, ask them what they struggle with. Ask them about what their problems are, listen carefully, think about what they need. Then you might say
“You know, I could fix that for you. We could turn [the problem] into a success by doing [list of tasks] that should lead to [awesome result]”. - You, the awesome freelancer
Again, you aren’t pitching them but suggesting ways that you can help.
Second, look for ways where you can help. A while ago one of my clients had trouble with their ads. They spent a vast sum on ads but they didn’t have their lead flow setup right. The landing page didn’t convert, and all those ads were a waste. So I wrote up a short list of what I thought they should change, and though nothing is signed yet, we have a plan to revamp the site in a few months. All because I looked for ways to help and suggested something to them.
For you, this might look like:
- Visually reviewing their site and noting issues
- Checking their speed with Google page speed tools.
- Running a SEO scan on their site
- Checking to see if their site is ADA compliant
- Running a security scan against their site
- Making sure they have a SSL cert.
- Test their site on mobile
- Checking the page for Conversion Optimization
- Anything else that fits under Usability, Accessibility, Security, Scalability, and Speed.
Cons
To be fair, having long-term clients can be a bad thing.
Source: Photo by Tomo Nogi on Unsplash
First, if you have a long-term client that pays really well, you might be tempted to just work for that one client alone. This is what we call a “whale client” where you have so much work that you don’t need to work for anyone else. But this can be dangerous. Some whale clients run out of work, or sometimes the relationship sours. Or even worse the client goes bankrupt and can’t pay their invoices.
Second, finding new clients is a skill that can fade over time. It’s like a muscle that atrophies with the lack of use. In other words, if you don’t keep up the skill of nurturing new leads and gaining clients your skills might be weak just when you need them to be strong.
Third, You can also get in trouble if you are just starting out. If you only have one client then your portfolio will be small. You won’t have a broad range of experience, and it will be harder to gain new clients.
Protective Precautions
But you can protect against these problems. In truth, you can have all the whale clients you want, but only if you do it right.
Source: Photo by Sho Hatakeyama on Unsplash
The first thing you should do is keep networking. Make sure you go to meetups, conferences, and the occasional networking group. Ask people about their problems, and be ready to tell them what you do. If someone wants to hire you then you can often schedule work out in advance. Or if you don’t have any room for clients at all you can always refer the client to a friend as a token of goodwill or for Karma points. This helps keeps you sharp, helps you build new relationships, and even gives you a chance to help others.
The second thing (and best thing in my opinion) is to have a financial reserve. At the time of writing, I have 10 months worth of expenses saved up. Imagine how different your life would be if you didn’t have to worry about surviving next month. The next three. What if you had enough for a whole year? It’s a total game changer. It allows you to: start a side project, take a sabbatical, raise your rates, find more prestigious clients, build out an audience, launch a product, take daily naps, and take time off to spend in the mountains (my favorite).
Wrapping Up
So seek to get long-term clients. They’ll appreciate your dedication and your freelance practice will improve. Most of all you’ll have a better life. Just make sure you keep networking and have a financial reserve and you’ll be fine.
P.S You deserve to have better clients, higher-paying clients, and better projects. And I can help you get there. Join over 1000 people in my freelancing community, and learn how to make $10,000 a month through freelancing. -Stephen Godfrey
About
Stephen is a fulltime consultant who builds websites for Banks, Lending Firms, and FinTech companies. He specializes in building ultra-secure websites which are ADA accessible, lightning-fast, and that help bring in more users. You can learn more about what he does at mountainfreshmedia.com.
Stephen Godfrey lecturing at BRAID in Provo in the Startup Building