Ongoing business success has a strong correlation to building good business relationships. For freelancers or solopreneurs, relationship building is key to ongoing prosperity. Good relationship building can open new doors, lead to lucrative opportunities, win new clients, and boost your brand reputation.
With that in mind, here are some relationship-building strategies for you to consider.
1. Know your business goals
Before you explore relationship-building tactics and strategies, you need to know the outcome(s) you want to achieve, i.e., have a clear idea of your business goals.
In your relationship-building strategy, it’s a good idea to first decide who you’ll target and who you want to build relationships with for a genuine win-win connection. You should also consider how many clients you can currently take on and the steps required to achieve your goals.
For example, if you decide to use cold email outreach, how many emails will you need to send to effectively land one client? This all boils down to knowing who your ideal client is, where they hang out, their challenges, and how you can best solve them.
Once you’ve done the groundwork and have a plan, you can start reaching out.
2. Give and receive referrals via your network
Your current network, i.e., people you already know, including friends, family, and former colleagues, is a good starting point for seeking referrals and continuing to build relationships.
There may already be someone in your current network who could benefit from your services. Alternatively, they may know someone in their network who would be a good client fit.
Create a list of people in your network who may know individuals who fit your ideal client persona and reach out to them. Ask them for an introduction or ask if they can connect you with their connections on LinkedIn.
It’s worth remembering that this strategy is also a two-way street. You’ll build a good brand reputation if you are also known as someone who can refer trusted, skilled professionals to those looking for them in your network. It will also help you stay ‘top of mind’ with your network.
Once you’ve been referred or made the connection (and thanked the referrer), you can start the conversation.
And remember, you can also ask current clients for referrals. This can be during a project or at the end when they are in a positive frame of mind, as a result, of course, of your stellar work on their project!
3. Cold outreach
Cold outreach is when you contact someone with whom you’ve had no prior contact or relationship. It can seem like a daunting task to some freelancers, but once you get good at it, you’ll see how beneficial it can be.
You can reach out via telephone (which might not be convenient) or send a message or email – you could even send a video message if you want to stand out! Whatever cold outreach method you adopt, make sure your communication is relevant, concise and demonstrates that you understand their problem. You can find some cold email tips for freelancers in our blog post here.
The key to success here is to contact people who are most likely to need your services and who they would be relevant to, or those who already purchase services like yours.
Just make sure you do your research and contact the person with the decision-making authority to hire you.
And don’t forget to follow up!
4. Attend and host events
While networking and joining relevant online communities is a great way to build relationships, there’s nothing quite like meeting in person. Following the years since the global pandemic, when in-person events were off the cards, events are now very much back in vogue. People have an appetite for human connection.
Attending relevant industry events is a great way to start conversations with potential clients and build your network. But you don’t need to stop there. There’s nothing to stop you from hosting your own event, whether this is a workshop or a masterclass, a meetup or something else entirely. It’s a fantastic way to get you and your brand out there and can lead to all sorts of partnerships, collaborations and opportunities.
As for scheduling and promoting your event – there’s an app for that!
EventSchedule is an app for talent, vendors, venues, and curators where you can create your schedule calendar, promote events, register attendees, and issue tickets. Try it out for free here.
You can manage sales and invoices in one place with the seamless integration between EventSchedule and Invoice Ninja. Offer your attendees a wide range of payment methods, including credit cards, bank transfers, and online wallets.
Try Invoice Ninja for free here.
5. Work with others
A good relationship-building strategy is collaborating with others in your niche or industry. They could offer a service that complements yours, allowing you to provide a joint service or product that would be attractive to clients.
Collaborating with others doesn’t need to be restricted to creating a product or service; it can work in other ways. For example, you can be introduced to their audience by being a guest on their podcast or a guest speaker as part of a workshop in their paid membership community. You could even host a joint event so you both benefit from each other’s audiences.
As long as their audience is benefiting from your skill sets and experience, it’s a great way to further build relationships, get seen by a wider audience and win new clients.
Again, this is something that works both ways. You could ‘resource swap’ with another entrepreneur by sharing their relevant resources with your email list subscribers and vice versa. Find out more about email marketing at our post here.
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Hopefully, you’ve found these freelancer business relationship-building tips helpful. If you know of anyone else who would benefit, please share. Thank you!
