3 Easy, Free Client Rentiontion Tips for Freelancers

This week, I’m celebrating two years of being fully self-employed. As of June 1, I’ll have been at it as a full-time freelancer for 24 months.

It’s wild to look back on what I’ve learned. I attribute a lot of my success to quality connections and strokes of luck. Really, I feel grateful for every client with whom I work or have ever worked. When they first hired me, they took a shot on me and I hope I delivered each and every time.

The hardest part of starting a freelance career was, for me, getting those clients in the first place. I definitely don’t enjoy the sales process and if I never have to make another cold call, I’ll be thrilled. Today, I don’t do much sales anymore. That’s thanks, in part, to the fact that I get referrals semi-regularly. But I also attribute it to the fact that I’ve had very, very few clients leave.

Looking back, I can pinpoint three areas where I’ve made an effort to keep clients and saw great return. If you’re a freelancer and you want to make strides toward improved client retention,

here are my top three suggestions.

#1: Be responsive.

Look, I know part of the dream of freelancing is complete control over your own schedule. But that doesn’t mean you can just turn your phone off when you walk away from your desk. Clients want to work with freelancers who they feel are reliable. Want to know an easy way to be perceived as reliable? Be responsive.

When a question arises, be there to answer it — or at least say, “I’m looking into it and I’ll get back you shortly.” When a client wants to bring you a project, be ready to receive it. If a last-minute edit is needed, hop on it. None of these are high-effort things. You just need to be around to get on the ball.

I’m not suggesting you spend all day shackled to your desk. Don’t! Taking breaks and maintaining a flexible schedule has been a big part of making freelancing sustainable for myself. But even if I hit a yoga class in the middle of the day, I check my phone the second I get out. A client never waits more than an hour to hear back from me on a pressing matter.

Executing this tip is really as simple as setting up your phone to push you notifications. A few of my bigger clients use specific project management software so I have those apps on my phone. A few other clients have specific email address for me (myname@theircompany.com) so I forwarded all those addresses to my primary work email, which I have pushed to my phone. Set up your systems to do the work of alerting you and all you have to do is respond. And I mean that. You don’t always need to present a full-blown, pages-long solution. Send a simple, “Thanks so much for letting me know. I’ll explore this further and get back to you tomorrow morning with next steps.” The client just wants to know you’re with them, working toward the goal at hand.

And, look, if you’re getting pinged at all hours of the night, maybe that’s a sign this isn’t a good client. Quality clients respect normal business hours. And I can tell you from first-hand experience that the freelancer isn’t a top priority for any company. You’re not going to get pinged unless they’re already at their desks or something truly urgent has come up. I very rarely get emails on nights and weekends.

#2: Be organized.

I really can’t say enough about this. Again, clients want to — really, need to — know that you’re reliable. If they’re going to go outside their company boundaries and count on you for a project, it’s important that you follow through. And I’d argue it’s equally important for the client to feel like you’re going to do that throughout the process of working with you.

In other words, even if you deliver the promised goods by the due date, if the client was wondering where the heck you were in the two weeks prior, you missed an opportunity. Delivering and helping the client feel great about working with you the entire time is the real difference-maker. How do you help them feel psyched they hired you? Show your competence by being organized.

I can only speak to my specific type of freelancing (content writing), but I know that my process requires organization from start to finish. When I get approached about a project, I know which questions to ask. (What’s the word count? Who’s the audience? What’s your budget?) Equally as importantly, I organize the answers I get. I know from experience that there’s nothing worse than knowing a client gave you a price over the phone, but it’s time to invoice and you can’t remember what it was. Not quite as bad, but still a big bummer, is knowing they gave you specs for a project but you didn’t organize them properly so you’re guessing at the project as you create.

Take diligent notes each time you talk to a client on the phone. Archive emails instead of deleting them so you can always look back on them. Find a system that works for you and stick with it.

Also — I’ll say this just to make sure I’m covering my bases in full — make sure you have an organized system for keeping track of project due dates. Obviously. (I love Todoist and can’t imagine freelancing without it.)

#3: Be warm.

This is so simple. But it’s also extremely effective. I know for a fact I’ve retained clients even after extensive edits to a piece I’ve submitted because of how I responded to those edits. I’m garbage at taking feedback so there’s nothing worse for me than opening a Google Doc and seeing it marked top to bottom. But I tamp down my inner panic and say, “Thanks so much for sending me all this feedback! This will go a long way toward helping me learn your brand voice. If you have time, I’d love to hop on a quick call so I can best understand these changes and how I can integrate them moving forward.”

See how much better that is than, “OK.”? With a little warmth and openness, I’ve invited the client to continue working with me on this project. And, ideally, that translates to them wanting to work with me on future projects.

I know warmth seems like a fuzzy nothing, but it matters. Extensive research has shown that warmth is something people look for in individuals with whom they work. Plus, don’t we all want to work with people who are nice to us?

I’m not saying I’ve cracked the code on client retention, but I will say this. I just looked back on my very first invoices. I still work on a weekly or near weekly-basis with four of the first 11 companies I invoiced. In the last two years, I’ve only had two of my primary clients leave. One closed the specific brand for which I was writing but invited me to write for other brands in their portfolio. (The other cited budget issues, but that could be the “It’s not you, it’s me” of the freelance world.)

All told, I’ve seen responsiveness, organization, and warmth take me very far in just 24 months. And I’m pretty confident they’ll work for you, too. Let me know if the comments if I’m onto something here.