Invoicing is essential for running a business. It helps you keep track of your income and offers a professional and organized way to communicate with your clients. Using a simple invoice template can also save time and eliminate the need for manual data entry. On top of that, a well-designed invoice can help establish your brand and leave a lasting impression–free invoicing templates can help you accomplish this.

The Details

A simple invoice template should have all the necessary information, including:

• The client’s details
• A description of the goods or services being invoiced
• The total amount 
• Your payment terms

Whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or startup, you can use this template to generate invoices in just a few clicks. By using Invoice Ninja, you can save time and generate invoices online, so you can focus on what really matters—growing your business.

Creating Templates

Creating invoices can be time-consuming, especially if you start from scratch every time, but with a simple invoice template, you can save time and ensure all your invoices are consistent. With Invoice Ninja’s user-friendly interface, you can design invoice templates easily and customize your invoices to match your brand, highlight your logo, and specify your payment terms.

Step 1: Sign Up for InvoiceNinja

To start using InvoiceNinja, sign up for a free account—you just need an email address and a password. Once you’re logged in, you can access your dashboard and start creating your invoice template.

Step 2: Customize Your Invoice

Invoice Ninja has a default invoice template that you can customize to fit your brand. Go to the ‘Invoices’ tab and click on ‘Create Invoice.’ From there, you can edit the invoice.

Step 3: Add Your Company Information

In the ‘From’ section, enter your company’s name, address, phone number, and email address. This information will appear at the top of your invoices and help your clients keep their payments organized.

Step 4: Add Your Client’s Information

In the ‘To’ section, enter your client’s name, address, and contact details.

Step 5: Enter Your Invoice Details

Now, add the details of the work you’ve completed. Start by giving your invoice a unique number and specifying the date. Add a description of your work, the hours you’ve worked, and the rate you’re charging. Finally, add any expenses or additional costs, such as materials or travel.

Step 6: Preview and Send Your Invoice

Once you’re happy with your invoice, click the ‘Preview’ button to see how it’ll look when printed or sent to your client. If everything looks good, click ‘Send.’

In Summary

Creating a simple invoice template doesn’t have to be complicated or costly. Invoice Ninja gives you access to a free and user-friendly platform that makes invoicing a breeze.

With customizable templates, automated payments, and the ability to track invoices, Invoice Ninja has everything you need to create a professional-looking invoice in minutes.

An online invoice system is a digital way of creating and sending invoices to customers. It allows businesses to create, send, and track invoices electronically, with the added benefit of providing customers with an easy way to pay their outstanding balance. 

Online invoicing tools are typically cloud-based and offer features such as automated payment reminders, expense tracking, work hour logging, and more. If you’re an established freelancer or a small business with multiple clients and billing cycles, you would hardly have the time to create and keep track of all your invoices. 

How Does Online Invoice Software Work?

There are many types of online invoice software, from basic to highly sophisticated platforms. A basic tool would simply provide editable templates you can use. Once you’ve completed a project for a client, you can choose a template, add in the necessary details, and generate the invoice. 

More advanced tools, like the best free invoice software available from reliable platforms like Invoice Ninja, will automatically notify the client about your invoice so they can pay you in time. Invoice Ninja can also help you to automatically generate unique invoice numbers, store your invoices, and offer additional tools, such as team access and permissions so you can have various team members invoice different customers. 

What Are the Benefits of an Online Invoice System?

An online invoice system has many important benefits, especially for freelancers and small businesses. These benefits include:

• Increased efficiency–by automating the invoicing process, you save time and eliminate manual errors that can cost time and money.  

• Quicker payments–by digitizing invoices, you make it easier for customers to pay and stay on top of their bills. You can also collect payments through online invoice tools, so that you get paid quicker.

• Reduced costs–as many of the manual processes are eliminated, you’ll save on labor costs. Plus, you won’t have to print and send out invoices physically, leading to an even greater reduction in material costs and usage. 

• Improved security–when you use an online invoicing system, all your data is securely stored in the cloud. This reduces the risk of losing invoice details and important information due to a computer crash or theft.

• Easier tracking–an online invoicing system makes it easy to not only generate and send invoices, but also to track each payment that is due. Some tools also send automatic payment reminders to clients, which eliminates the awkwardness of having to follow up on payments. 

• Greater convenience–most online invoicing systems have mobile apps that allow you to manage your invoices while you’re on the go. This makes it easier to send out and track invoices, even when you’re away from your desk.

For the best, most efficient online invoicing software, Invoice Ninja has you covered! Create your account today and see how we can make your next invoicing process a breeze.

“What are your rates?”

This common first question from a prospective client is one freelancer dread.

It signifies immediately that the prospect perceives your freelancing services as an expense rather than as an investment. They see the price first and foremost rather than the value behind what it is you do.  

For any freelancer looking to earn good money, it’s essential to position the value you will bring to your clients’ lives as the primary reason for people to get in touch with you. Pricing becomes a secondary matter as they see your skills and talent as essential for their project. 

Value pricing

The above positioning is what is known as value pricing. Value selling is pricing determined by the value of the outcome of your freelancing skills to your client’s business. It’s the opposite of calculating your price solely based on how many hours a project will take. 

Value pricing involves estimating how valuable you will be to the client’s goals. For example, if a client is likely to make x5 more money as a direct result of your services, then it makes sense to charge at least 15% (if not more) of your client’s estimated revenue for year one. 

If a client expects to profit by an extra $100,000 after 12 months due to working with you, then a value-based freelancing fee starting at $15,000 is entirely reasonable. 

Benefits of value pricing for the freelancer

Pricing based on value – or value selling – is beneficial in several ways for you as a freelancer. 

As a value-driven freelance professional, you get rewarded for speed and efficiency. As you gain more experience and expertise in your craft, you are naturally faster and more effective at producing excellent results. 

You’re also able to earn more and work less, as you can move through your billable tasks at a greater speed. This per project pricing strategy is the best way to achieve a dream freelance lifestyle. 

Value-based projects naturally attract the best clients. These clients are usually a lot more respectful of you as a professional than those who seek the cheapest freelancers around. They are also more likely to remain long-term or repeat clients. 

And finally, there’s less admin to do and fewer invoices to send when charging by the project instead of hourly. You simply need to send a deposit invoice before work begins and then a final invoice at the end.

Benefits of value pricing for the client

More and more people are beginning to understand the merits of value-based pricing as opposed to time-based fees. Prospects realize that freelancers who race against the clock will be more likely to produce less than stellar results. 

Clients increasingly prefer a professional who will take time over their project and deliver excellence based on experience and expertise.  

Clients also appreciate value pricing because they know the price of their project upfront. It’s a challenge calculating how long a project will take, and there’s a lot of uncertainty about just how much the final fee will be. 

There are no hidden costs with value pricing.

How to position your services based on value

Positioning yourself based on value instead of affordability is about modifying the way people perceive your personal brand. If you don’t focus on presenting yourself as the best value, then prospects only have price left with which to judge you. 

The more you focus on the value your services bring to your target audience, the less important price becomes. This mindset is key. 

Your market’s perception of your value all starts with your brand and its messaging. 

Develop strong brand messaging

When you think of branding it’s easy to picture a nice logo and color scheme. Yet branding is a lot more than the design. The most essential aspect for successfully selling your value is in the words you used. 

Clear, consistent, and benefits-focused messaging positions you as the expert your clients need. With strong copywriting, intelligent positioning, and consistent marketing, the perceived benefit of working with you should far outweigh any issues relating to your fees.  

Carve out a niche focus

Another way to attract attention and position yourself as an expert is by developing a niche focus. People trust those they perceive to be experts. Prospects pay experts accordingly. They expect the specialist expert freelancer will help them achieve the best results they need. 

Value again automatically comes before price. 

Build a portfolio and create case studies

Part of creating a perception of value is showcasing how you have helped similar individuals or businesses in the past. A successful track record is highlighted in a carefully curated portfolio, glowing client testimonials, and informative case studies. 

Intelligent brand positioning, combined with genuine professionalism and proof of past results, is an effective way to position yourself based on value first and price second.  

Attracting clients with value selling

The best clients don’t buy services. Instead, they buy the results those services will give them. When you market your freelance business based on your value, you will begin to attract the clients and fees of which you dream. 

Selling value instead of focusing on pricing allows you to charge what you are worth. Price becomes a secondary or tertiary consideration, with prospects often enthusiastic about paying whatever is required to get you on board with their project. 

Remember, if you don’t focus on value, the only differentiation left is price. With price, it’s always a race to the bottom.

• Step One: Find Potential Clients (aka prospects)
• Step Two: Nurture/Close Clients
• Step Three: Onboard Clients

For freelancers, a lapse in any of these stages can be detrimental to your business. However, most sales content is solely based around step two — closing the deal.

In this post, I’m going to cover all three evenly.

Here goes.

Step One: Find Potential Clients

If you find the right prospects to pitch, your services will be more attractive. If you’re a medical copywriter, your current client base and samples will be a huge sales tool, making closing the deal that much easier when pitching those in the medical arena.

But you need to find medical facilities who need copy. And finding healthcare clients already using services like yours would be helpful, right?

This makes, in my opinion, finding the right prospects more important than closing them (although, it’s still important).

So, how do you find them? It starts with data.

The Four Key Things to Look for in Potential Clients

I’m going to be using the LeadFuze app to show the four different attributes to look for when finding your perfect clients.

1. Find the Right Person

You want to talk to the person in charge, often called the “decision maker”. If your targets are smaller businesses, you’ll probably want to talk the the owner. But once an organization reaches a certain size, there could be another person with the purse strings.

I’ve already mentioned a copywriter in the health/medical field, so we’ll keep with that throughout.

Many practices or rehab centers are going to be smaller, but to cover my bases I’m going to search for both the owner and a marketing role.

See it done in the LeadFuze app in this gif.

Notice that the app filters out titles that you wouldn’t want contact data for, like “assistant” or “intern”.

Other than the app, you can find most of this information on LinkedIn, but first, you’ll need to narrow that market down.

2. Find the Right Markets

Give your current clients a good search through. Notice anything?

Our example is a health copywriter (or maybe a content writer). If our fictitious person looked at his/her client list, there were hypothetically a lot of medical customers. These clients paid on time, they were friendly and forgiving.

When you look at your current list, do you have customer you really like to work with?

How about those certain clients in your inbox and you cringe?

Find out which industries (and other factors) those clients work in and replicate those customers.

One of the best ways to do this is to choose the industries or markets.

Here’s LeadFuze (gif below) pulling all of the companies in the “Hospital & Healthcare” as well as other health companies.

Once you have the markets and the roles you want to target, you’ll have to start finding those decision makers in the companies within your target niche.

Once you have a name (and probably a LinkedIn profile), you’ll need to use a tool to find those emails.

3. Find the Right-Sized Businesses

You have the who and the where, but now we’ll need to see the how…big. How big is the right company.

LeadFuze allows you to choose between small, mid-sized and large businesses. You can also filter each further once selected (see gif below).

Doing this on LinkedIn is possible. You can find the company’s page and notice the number of people who have claimed to work there currently.

4. Find Out if They’re Interested

One of the coolest and effective ways of finding a potential client is whether or not they are currently using things that you use to do your job.

For a copywriter, this could mean landing page software or other marketing tools. Or, for other content, it could be a blog.

With the LeadFuze app, you can choose to pull companies that use, or don’t use, just about any tech on the market. Optionally, you can even choose to only see companies who are actively hiring certain roles.

Unfortunately, there’s not a great way to do this without using other paid tools.

Using the app, you can scroll down and click “Start Searching”. It seems that these filters brought up 2,640 different matches.

Now you have closer to 3000 different emails of people who likely have purchasing power at companies who are using tools that indicate they may want a copywriter.

Nice.

Step Two: Nurturing/Closing Clients

With LeadFuze, you can save this search and automatically pull a number of leads each and every day.

You don’t just want to send 2,640 emails in a week.

It will put you on the spam list and you won’t be able to test and see which offers help you get clients.

The leads will still be there and LeadFuze offers an unlimited lead plan to help you never run out.

Of course, just having the emails and names won’t help you. You’ll have to do outreach.

For this:

• You can cold call
• Do email outreach
• Add them on LinkedIn

I’m not a fan of cold calls, but love email outreach. And adding the contact on LinkedIn can be a helpful tool, depending on the industry.

LeadFuze offers two deep, powerful integrations with Mailshake and Orca.

So, you can take those 25-50 leads that you gather every day and send them to Mailshake. In Mailshake, you can automatically send a sequence of emails to your leads getting them to open up and pay attention to you.

With Orca, you can send those same leads and Orca will view their profile and even request to connect automatically.

Here’s what that looks like:

Day One: 30 contact are sent to Mailshake and receive a cold email.

Day Two: 30 different contacts are sent to Mailshake and the 30 from the previous day are sent to Orca.

And so on.

What to Send Leads

You should NOT just send a blind, direct pitch for your services.

If a copywriter sends a forward email that says who they are, what they do and what they want — said copywriter is just talking about themselves.

Instead, you’ll want to find an enticing way to show how your services can improve their main objectives.

Keeping that health copy example, you could send something like this:

Hi {Name},

Want to know how other rehabilitation centers, just like {Business Name}, are attracting more patients?

I’m {Your Name} and have been talking with dozens of office managers just like you, {Lead Name}.

If you’d like detailed report I’ve put together showing how all of these rehab centers doubled performance, let me know!

Best,

{Your Name}

P.S. If you’re not interested, let me know and I’ll stop emailing.

Why You Need Automation

This automation is powerful and vital for freelancers and those working solo. Delivering on your promises to clients can take up a lot of time. Getting new clients can also be a full-time job.

Using the right tools in finding and closing clients can help you continue growing your business and setting forecastable revenue targets.

But that’s not all.

Step Three: Onboarding Clients

When you do close those perfect clients, you can still mess it up. This is where onboarding comes into play.

Getting a client to say “yes” or “send me a proposal” is awesome. But keeping clients and getting referrals comes down to two things:

1. Setting the Right Expectations
2. Meeting or Exceeding Those Expectations

You can set the right expectation by;

• Having a call or personal meeting: This goes a long way toward setting timelines and specific numbers clients can expect to see. Without this, they may not be impressed.
• Sending a well-crafted proposal: This is something InvoiceNinja knows a lot about
• Keeping In Touch: Sending an invoice shouldn’t be the only communication past the sale. Keep your clients up-to-date with regular reporting.

Meeting and exceeding those expectations is up to you. It’s wildly based on what you do and how you do it. Of course, setting the expectations is the number one way to ensure that you can meet them.

Using Tools Makes Things Easier

There are people who tear down houses using martial arts. It’s a novelty, but it’s not effective.

Finding your clients used to be pulling out a phonebook and a phone. Nurturing used to be, well sending real mail (which still works if you do it right) or calling again and again. Invoicing clients used to be via Excel or some software you bought at Staples.

Now, most of those sales tools are novelties. Use tools and grow your business.

Author:
Justin McGill is the Founder of LeadFuze, B2B lead generation software that allows you to find anyone’s contact information in your target market with unlimited access. Entire lead lists built for you.

Yet there are some drawbacks. Traveling can lead to lost or damaged digital equipment. Moving from place to place can be distracting. Without proper organization, you can soon find your work-life balance disjointed and your all data in a chaotic mess. A nomadic life needs order even if its essence is one of spontaneity.

Whether you’re frequently traveling from one country to the next, or simply taking your work with you between coffee shops and co-working spaces, there are certain essential online tools you’ll need to keep your business running smoothly.

Here are 8 types of essential tools we know the digital nomad needs:

1. Invoicing software

Invoicing is an essential component of running a business. When you’re potentially sending out multiple invoices every week, from a variety of different locations, then you need invoicing software that can handle your lifestyle.

Invoice Ninja, for example, is a cloud-based invoicing platform which allows you to send professionally designed invoices from your laptop or Android device. All your data is stored in the Cloud which allows you to securely access your data from anywhere in the world.

Gone are the days when you needed to manually update excel spreadsheets on your laptop. Now you can quickly create and send invoices, and get paid, all while on the go.

2. Cloud storage tools

Speaking of the Cloud, it’s imperative as a location independent digital nomad to store as much data outside your laptop as possible. You never know when the worst can happen while traveling, like your computer being stolen, mislaid, or damaged by some inconsiderate fellow traveler. You’ve suddenly just lost a week or a month of client work, or worse.

There are a number of Cloud storage tools you can use to keep all your work safe and accessible from anywhere and any device. Some of the most popular include Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, and iCloud. There are various different price plans which are relatively inexpensive compared to the peace of mind and functionality they provide.

3. Data integration and syncing tools

Life as a digital nomad can be hectic. You’re not only running a business but you’re also busy enjoying the sights, sounds, and adventures in the places you visit. There’s accommodation to find, tickets to book, and fun to be had after a hard day of working. This means the last thing you want to be doing is manually updating multiple different apps every time you receive payment or gain a new client.  

This is where a data syncing tool comes into its own. You’ll wonder how you managed without it. At Invoice Ninja we’ve partnered with a number integration partners including Zapier, PieSync, and Integromat. Your data is automatically synced between multiple apps when an update is made in just one. This boosts productivity no end and ensures every facet of your business is bang up-to-date.

4. Project management tools

Working in different locations can be challenging. One day you’re working from a hotel, Airbnb rental, or friend’s place, and then suddenly you’re upping sticks to a city in another country for a few weeks. And the cycle continues. Maintaining a productive work schedule and remembering the myriad of tasks you need to complete becomes even more difficult.

That’s why, as a digital nomad, you need a good project management tool. Wherever you go, you can check what needs to be done and when, together with various deadlines and ever-changing scheduling. There are various apps you can use including Trello and MeisterTask.

However, with an Invoice Ninja account, you can connect with our very own Kanban board app. This allows you to keep track of all the tasks you need to complete with a clear visual overview of your workflow.

5. Time tracking tools

A big factor in successful project management and productivity is accurate time tracking. When you know how long a task or project will likely take, based on past experience, then it’s easier to better manage your work time. The same also applies to your leisure and travel activities.

At Invoice Ninja we have our very own time tracker which integrates seamlessly with our invoicing and project management tools. You simply press a button or two and your time is recorded. This data can then be automatically added to invoices and other applications you integrate and sync.

All this time data can be very handy when trying to decipher whether to stay put and work or down tools and enjoy the local markets, museums, or nightlife.

6. Collaboration tools

Collaboration is essential for most freelancers and solopreneurs. You might be working alone for most of the week but there are times when you need to collaborate with colleagues, delegation partners, and clients. When you’re on the go and moving between different locations, it can be challenging to stay connected with the latest updates and communications.

Thankfully there are a number of great collaboration apps available these days. Most of which are highly suitable for the on the go laptop business owner. Popular collaboration and communication apps include Slack, HipChat, Google Drive, and Yammer.

7. Social media scheduling tools

Social media is usually part of an ongoing successful marketing campaign. Whether you’re a freelancer, solopreneur, or part of a bigger team, you’ll likely need to be publishing frequent social media updates every week. This can be tricky when you’re working hard and often traveling.

Social media tools can make your life a whole lot easier. They allow you to automate and schedule many of your updates ahead of time. Your followers will see you publish on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Pinterest, even while you’re in the air jetting off to some far flung location. Popular social media apps include Hootsuite and Buffer.

8. Locational information tools

As an adventurous digital nomad, with the world at your feet and a laptop to earn money with, there are a million and more places to go. Yet there’s still the tricky part of arranging accommodation, finding places to work remotely, buying tickets, meeting people, and generally getting the best out of the locations you visit.

There are apps for all of these challenges! The traveling freelancer and solopreneur can arrange nearly everything even before they arrive at their destination. For example, NomadList gives you a ton of crowdsourced data detailing costs, internet speeds, safety, fun, walkability, nightlife and numerous other graded attributes of pretty much every big city in the world.

There are also apps for finding great places to work. Compass helps you find the nearest co-working spaces while Workfrom helps you find the nearest work friendly cafes.   

Take Invoice Ninja with you wherever you go

You can integrate many of the above apps and tools with your Invoice Ninja invoicing account. Our platform allows you to track every second of your work day and automatically transfer the data to relevant client projects and individual tasks. Our Kanban Boards help you to organize your work hours and plan tasks ahead of time.

What’s more, you can automate many invoicing processes, such as recurring billing and late payment reminders, thereby boosting your productivity. The life of a digital nomad has never been easier. Invoice Ninja – via desktop or Android device – has been designed to make your modern online location-independent lifestyle, even more simple.

Great communication is not just about what is said but how that information is conveyed. This can include things like body language, tone of voice, timing, composure, and the words used in particular circumstances. When combined together effectively, with the swiftness of a ninja, selling your products or services becomes a whole lot easier.

For solopreneurs and freelancers, sales communication can take place across a variety of mediums, including via video meetings or phone calls. Good communication is imperative, whatever the setting, when you’re sharing decision-inspiring information with a prospective customer or client.

What is persuasive sales communication?

Strong sales communication is all about conveying value, cultivating trust, and making persuasive points that guide the prospect into making a purchase. Anything that distracts from this process is something that needs to be modified or removed.

Persuasion requires you to be a great overall communicator and these skills can be learned, practiced and perfected. So what are these skills that you need in order to be more persuasive when engaging in sales communication?

(1) Relaxation techniques

If you’re nervous and you show it, then all persuasive power will go out of the window. It’s essential prior to any sales communication that you learn to relax and developed a balanced composure. This can be difficult when you’re new or naturally highly-strung but spending some time practicing and mastering relaxation techniques can go a long way to building a public aura of confidence and expertise.

The unfortunate truth is, you can be the most talented professional in your field but if you come across as nervous and unsure, then you’re more likely to lose the sale.

(2) Know your subject

When you know your subject matter inside and out, you’ll have an increased ability to sell prospects on a particular product or service. Communication is free-flowing and when every potential problem a prospect brings up can be answered immediately, with knowledgeable confidence, the sale is yours.

Nothing can floor you when you have the knowledge to roll with every possible question thrown at you.

(3) Prepare for the meeting

People are diverse and have differing needs. When you meet with a customer or client, they will likely have unique requirements that are different to the last person you spoke with. Before every new meeting, it’s vital to spend a little time preparing for that particular person and their particular situation.

Consider beforehand some of the challenges they are facing and potential solutions you can deliver. When the call or meeting then takes place, you’ll be in a better position to move closer to the sale.

(4) Active listening

Nearly everyone can give the appearance of listening but surprisingly few people actually actively listen. Most sales people are waiting for their turn to talk and thinking about what they’ll say, which means they fail to pick up little tidbits of vital information. Clients will then sense this.

Actively listening means placing your full concentration on what the other person is saying and showing you have heard what they have said. You can do this by repeating some of their most salient points back to them and then asking directly relevant questions that show you really care.

This will not only ensure you pick up important information but also increase the level of trust and likeability the other person feels when in your company. They’ll begin to believe you really will deliver exceptional services or products.

(5) Empathize

Active listening is not just about tactical listening for better information intake. It’s also about genuinely caring about the wellbeing and success of the other person. When it comes to sales, empathy is about placing yourself in the prospect’s shoes and seeing things from their point of view.

It’s about discovering what their everyday reality is, the primary problems they are facing, or dreams they are wanting to nurture. When you see things from their angle, you’re in a better position to nudge them towards the sale.

Tell stories

One of the most persuasive types of communication is storytelling. When you can connect the value of your product or service with an interesting story, then people will better remember the points you make. They will also be more likely to associate themselves with the message. Find or develop stories that are relevant, entertaining, and that will appeal to your target audience.

(6) Body language

The majority of communication – when you can see the other person – is actually non-verbal. There are hundreds of little movements we make with our faces and hands that can support or detract from the verbal messages we want to convey. For example, if you’re trying to persuade a client to trust you while folding your arms defensively, then your body language is letting you down.

We can’t control every aspect of our body language but it’s important to remember the most important aspects such as remaining open, smiling, engaging in friendly eye contact, and using calm and measured hand movements.

(7) Voice tone

Just as body language is critical to persuasive sales communication, so is your voice tone. If you’re speak in a dull monotone, then people will be left uninspired by your sales message. They’ll also worry about the effectiveness and authenticity of what it is you are selling.

Vary your tone to match the content of what you are talking about at any given moment. Show playful surprise and enthusiasm where appropriate and gentle vocal reassurance or calm understanding when needed. Match the tone of the person you are speaking with.

(8) Start and finish with equal sincerity

It’s easy to start a meeting in a friendly and happy manner, especially when you can sense a potential new customer or client on the horizon. The key to successful selling is to not only start well but also finish strongly, whether you achieve the result you need or not.

If you have a new client, then it’s vital to maintain a caring attitude throughout the rest of your time together. If you don’t close the deal, then show exactly the same amount of politeness and warmth as you would a new client. This benefits your image and brand as a whole.

People, even if they don’t choose to work with you, will be more likely to recommend you to others who they think might benefit more from what you offer.

(9) Persuasive sales communication in a nutshell

Persuasive sales communication is vital to the success of your business, whether you’re a solopreneur, freelancer, or small business owner. Strong communicating skills can give you an advantage over your competition, especially if they are more established or larger.

Good sales communication is about engaging in a mutually beneficial conversation, rather than giving a speech or a lecture. It’s two-way and friendly, and when done well forms a bond of trust and a sense of likeability which provides an excellent foundation for a long-term and successful working relationship.

Maintaining a strong freelancer-client relationship is an important aspect of running a successful freelance business. Part of ensuring you get repeat work from a client – apart from doing great work – is making sure all your communication and processes are smooth and problem-free.

These processes include the sending of invoices and related documents such as deposits, estimates, proposals, and contracts.

To ensure you get paid on time and you cultivate a good relationship with your client, here are just a few ways you can make paying online invoices that much easier.

Provide multiple payment gateway options

All clients love to be able to pay an invoice quickly and easily. The faster they can make the payment, the more satisfying their invoicing experience will be. This then puts your business in a good light, which is vital when it comes to brand continuity and long-term client relationships.

Part of allowing a client to pay quickly and easily is the provision of multiple payment gateway options. At Invoice Ninja, for example, we seamlessly integrate numerous automatic transaction providers allowing your client to make payments in whatever way is easiest for both you and them.

Payment options include Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, Authorize.net, and Checkout, to name but just a few. You can enable only 1 credit card options at a time, but you can offer secondary options of Paypal, Bitcoin, Dwolla.

Using attractive and easy-to-read invoice designs

Invoice documents need to be easy to read. After all, the primary goal of an invoice is to convey the relevant payment information so the client can pay quickly and accurately. Any communication errors resulting from a hard-to-read invoice can result in payment delays, cash flow problems, and a frustrating experience for your busy client.

Professionally designed invoices, like we have developed at Invoice Ninja, ensure all the important information your client needs is presented in a clear format with matching brand design elements. An attractive invoice goes a long way to solidifying the expertise and exceptionalism of your brand.

Filling in the right details

A primary reason why payments are delayed is because there are missing, confusing, or conflicting details within the invoice. For example, a business address might be incorrect, a service detail too opaque, or a payment due date may be a little earlier than a client expected. Such errors mean payments are delayed and clients can often get a little flustered, especially if they happen repeatedly.

Always ensure the invoices you create and send are free of errors. Check things like the client’s details, the payment due date, the invoice number, your itemized breakdown of services, the payment methods, and of course the payment total. Specialist invoicing software allows you to automatically save many of these details for particular clients, so you don’t need to repeatedly fill these in for future invoices.

The software also automatically tallies numerous itemized services and can even decipher between partial payments and discounts.

Add relevant third party files

You can fit quite a bit of information into an online invoice, especially when writing an itemized list of the different services you’ve provided for your client. However, there’s often more information you’d ideally want your client to see prior to, during, or after a payment process. Invoicing software, like Invoice Ninja, allows you to attach third party documents directly to the invoice itself.

The documents you can attach might include: a project proposal (perhaps included with a deposit invoice); a contract; terms and conditions; project schedules; timesheets; delivery details; project files; photos; and even translations of the invoice into another language.

Including these 3rd party files with your invoice email allows the client to easily access multiple and related documents all in one go.

Open a client-side portal

A great way to offer your clients peace of mind is by providing them with access to a client-side portal of your invoicing system. They get to see a client version of all the invoices they have paid and all the invoices that are due. They also see various statistics and information related to their payments and your time working together.

This portal lets your clients see all their transactions with you in one glance, which adds a whole new level of transparency few other freelancers or business owners will provide. This can be a great way to build extra trust and confidence between you and your client. It also makes everything easier for your client in regards to understanding exactly what needs to be paid and when.

Enable client signatures and approval checkboxes

Enabling an invoice approval checkbox forces a client, upon opening the email invoice, to approve terms before paying, either by clicking a checkbox or creating a digital signature. This benefits companies where managers might want to check and approve the payment of an invoice before handing the payment responsibilities to the finance department.

The client approval mechanism prevents any unauthorized payments being made and also ensures the client double-checks the invoice before payment, thereby preventing any misunderstandings. Such mechanisms portray your business as highly professional and make things a lot easier for companies which are accustomed to such procedures.

Making life easier for your client and for yourself

When you make paying online invoices easier and faster for your client, you receive the connected benefits. You enjoy a healthier cash flow. Your brand – your business – is seen as more professional. Your client is more likely to stick with you than be tempted away by a competitor.

People like things made easier and this includes busy clients who would rather not spend extra minutes responding to an inaccurate invoice. By ensuring your invoices are perfect, in terms of design, content, payment functions, and deliverability, you make things easier not just for your client but also for yourself.