There you were, working away building sites, and one day you realized you were pretty good. Good enough that you should be doing this for yourself instead of letting someone else enjoy all the profits.

So you started a business, and then reality hit.

Running a business meant you needed to convince people to pay you money for your services.

You suddenly realized you ran a marketing business not a web design business!! Now you actually have to go out and convince people to pay you money for your services, and then find more people to pay you money.

Here is the hard way to market

When I started my business, I had no idea how to market. I overcame this lack of knowledge with so, so, so, so much action.

What action? I’m glad you asked.

I’d send ten contacts a day to what I considered ‘decent’ leads. That may have been ten contacts to people on Craigslist, or random job boards, or if nothing there piqued my interest I’d search my local chamber of commerce.

I’d reach out to these ten contacts five days a week, and out of all of that action I’d turn a small fraction of the contacts into viable clients.

Looking back, 90% of those leads were actually terrible. I ended up with clients who wanted everything possible and really didn’t want to pay anything if they could get away with it.

I lived chasing payments and arguing with clients who wanted just a few more hours and a few more tasks (no big deal, right?) and held payment over my head.

No it wasn’t fun, and I know some of you are there still.

The easier way

Instead of wasting so much of my marketing effort on leads that weren’t worth my time I should have been smart about marketing.

[Tweet “Are you wasting marketing efforts on leads that aren’t worth your time?”]

I should have built out a good client vetting process.

I should have figured out what my niche was and where the clients in that niche were so that I could target my effort and show up where they were.

As I coach freelancers now, I realize that so many of you don’t know how to market your services effectively. The most asked question in email or coaching calls is:

How do I get more clients?

So I wrote Finding and Marketing to Your Niche so you didn’t have to try and solve this problem from scratch.

Head on over to find out more about the book and how it can help you bring in more clients who are willing to pay for the awesome value you provide.

Go get Finding and Marketing to Your Niche now!

photo credit: bobsfever cc