Productivity Strategist + Romance Novelist
So you’re getting ready to pitch a prospect—that’s awesome! When you’re preparing to make the pitch, it’s helpful to know some of the most common mistakes to avoid. We’ve made plenty of business pitching mistakes over the years that we don’t want you to have to repeat.
These are the top 5 biggest business pitch mistakes we’ve made, and how you can avoid them:
1) Cold-calling a prospect.
Let’s be real: no one likes to be “sold” to.
So you’re getting ready to go in for the pitch… but are you prepared for pitching a client? There are a few key things you need to know before you pitch clients!
Getting clients for your freelance business goes something like this: first, you identify your ideal client and build a prospect list. Then, you cultivate relationships with clients, prepare for the pitch, and make the pitch.
While you’re marketing your business and starting to pitch to clients, one of the things that can be most helpful for reducing overwhelm and staying focused with your end goals is to create a directory of potential clients. When you know how to build a prospect list, then you can be much more organized in your business management and marketing efforts!
The idea behind creating a prospect directory is that you can brainstorm ideas for all of the clients you would LOVE to work with,
In this episode of the Candid Conversations small business podcast, your co-hosts Dan and Sagan share a behind-the-scenes look at how their business, Juxta Communications, has grown over the last 10 months. Dan and Sagan chat about shifting directions in business, tips on managing bookkeeping, what it’s like to have an intern, the importance of recognizing your own strengths and weaknesses, and the hard truth if you’re struggling with quitting your 9 to 5 job.
The following is an adapted excerpt from Pitching Clients 101. You can learn more about how to market your business, including get a fillable worksheet for your very own marketing strategy template, in that e-course.
Marketing is a REALLY important piece of any business. As Stew pointed out in episode 7 of the Candid Conversations podcast,
“The better product doesn’t always win… A great product that is marketed well will win.”
How very true that is!
In this episode of the Candid Conversations small business podcast, your co-hosts Dan and Sagan interview Amanda Kinden of Oh Doughnuts. Amanda shares what it’s like to start and manage a doughnut shop, her tips on branding and marketing in business, how to have sustainable practices in your own business, challenges unique to the food and doughnut industry, and how she balances her love of making doughnuts with the needs of running her business.
Perhaps you’re just starting out as a freelance writer, or maybe you’ve been trying to *make it* as a freelance writer for a while, but you just can’t figure out how to find freelance writing jobs.
You know you want to write for a living… but how do you go about LOOKING for the awesome freelance writing gigs you know are out there?
This article, excerpted from the super-affordable Monetize Your Blog With Freelance Writing e-course,
In the next couple of months, I’m launching a brand-new book, featuring guests and the behind-the-scenes journey of Season 1 of the Candid Conversations small business podcast!
Here are a few of the launch tips I’ve picked up along the way and what I’m doing to preparing for the upcoming book launch…
Grab your business goal planning workbook now >>
What you need to know when preparing for a launch:
1) Who your ideal client/customer is
If you don’t know who you’re marketing to,
So you want to challenge yourself and grow your business. Awesome! But before you dive right in, you’ll want to make sure you’re doing it in a smart way… and that means focusing on small business growth strategies.
You KNOW that I’m big on strategy and action-oriented planning prior to implementation. After all, if you don’t take the time to create a concrete strategy, then you might make choices that aren’t right for your business.
Before you begin marketing your services as a freelancer, you need to know WHO you’re marketing to! And that means identifying your ideal client.
A big mistake that too many business owners make is to begin promoting themselves and their work, without considering who they’re trying to target. Without having an ideal client in mind, you can’t be strategic about the way you talk about your services, and you won’t be able to reach out to your ideal client.
When most students sign up for one of my freelancer programs, they often do so because they feel overwhelmed and they don’t know what they should focus on first, or what they should spend their time on. It’s hard to know how to manage your time well when you feel as though you’re being pulled in too many different directions! So today, I want to share some of my top time management tips to help you out…
Got another freelancer case study for you today… this time, Yael of An Organized Mommy is sharing with us her story of becoming a freelancer, and how she’s been able to bring in $1,000/month with her VA business within just 4 months of starting her business from scratch! Want to know how to make $1K each month? Read on and find out… 
But first, a quick background: Yael joined Set Yourself Up For Freelancing Success back in June 2017.
Last month, one of my students messaged me with a question about dealing with unhappy clients: she wanted to know what she should do, because she had made a tiny mistake with a client (not related to the work itself that she’d been doing; it was simply the case of miscommunication), and her client as a result wanted to negate their contract.
Unfortunately, this kind of things happens to all of us (yes,
Last week I launched a free video training that’s now available year-round for your viewing! It’s all about how to create a strategic plan of action for your freelance business, so you can get more done in less time and be intentional about every step you take in your business. Even better, it includes an example plan of action for how to get retainer clients in 12 weeks that you can basically copy and paste into your own business!
You really like the idea of quitting your day job… but you’re not sure exactly how to make it HAPPEN. How will you ensure you have enough money coming in? What kind of systems do you need to set in place before you quit your day job? How can you get past the fear and make that leap with confidence? In this case study, we’re going to look at how to quit your day job in just 3 months.
