If you’re a freelancer, you don’t need thousands of friends, followers and connections.
You don’t need to spend hours on Twitter and Facebook, trying to hold the attention of tens of thousands people who are, essentially, complete strangers.
You really don’t need to be connected with that many people.
Just three. Maybe four. Could be five.
When I look back over the last 30 years of freelancing, almost all of my work has come to me as a direct result of the strong business relationships I have had with a very small number of people.
Back when I was writing direct mail, for about10 years, I made 6 figures a year on the basis of just two strong relationships. The first was with a direct response ad agency in Toronto. The second was with a not-for-profit marketing consultant in Calgary.
Between them, they provided me with about 75% of my work. The other 25% came from other sources, most of which were one-off projects.
When I began writing for the web, right at the beginning, I did a ton of work for AOL. (Back when AOL was cool!) I had a great relationship with my contact there. That was quickly followed by a lot of work from a client for whom I worked through an intermediary. That intermediary was also someone I knew really, really well.
As for my big breaks…my first invitation to speak at a major web marketing conference, the introduction to my editor at McGraw-Hill, the call that led to the creation of the first course I wrote…they all came about as a direct result of strong relationships with a very small number of people.
None of them resulted directly from my being connected with tens of thousands of people through email lists or social media.
That isn’t to say you shouldn’t spend time on social media. You should. But you should be clear about your purpose. Your purpose is not to nurture 10,000 fleeting connections. Your purpose is to identify a very small number of connections with the greatest potential, and then turn them into deep relationships.
Sometimes people look at successful freelancers and moan about how they are lucky, because they know the right people. “Hey, if I was friends with X and Y, I would be hugely successful too.”
You’re right to say that you could be successful if you knew X and Y. but you’re wrong to moan about it.
All you have to do is get off your behind and work hard at building those kinds of deep relationships for yourself.
Making connections through social media is like filling a giant hopper. But don’t focus on the hopper…focus on identifying the very few people in that hopper who could really help your business.
Develop those connections. Build those relationships. Forget the rest.
About the author: Nick Usborne is an online writer, copywriter, author and coach. Read more…
Hi Nick,
You are totally correct. It really only takes one or two great relationships to launch the beginning of a great career. It’s not one more class, one more coach, one more pay for this or that.
All of us freelancers would do well to heed your comments, nurture our relationships, and find ways to help.
Sadly, in this era, many in my previous technical communications field are so wound up in their database driven or HR mandate world that they fail to see the true value in a long term rock solid relationship.
I’ve turned to networking with the people from my alma mater and am finding them to be the perfect resource.
🙂 Thank you for the inspiration.
Nancy
Nancy, thanks for the feedback. Interesting what you say about your alma mater…how you can actually build a solid business without having to “reach out” online at all. ; ) That said, one of the most valuable things social media has done for me is to help me reconnect with past clients who have then become clients again.
I agree with most of what you wrote — except for the part about putting 75% of your business in the hands of 1 or 2 clients. As they say in farming (I’m an agriculture/business writer) you can’t put all your eggs in one basket!
Marcia, I hear you. The eggs in the basket thing is always a concern. But sometimes that worry pushes freelancers towards having too many clients, and not developing deep relationships with any of them. So you get less repeat business, and find yourself on a treadmill, fighting to get new work each month. There is a balance we need to find.
Good post, Nick, and it rings true for me. Referrals are the single best way of winning long term business for me – whether a recommendation, or someone remembering me after they’ve moved to a new company.
What I find tricky with social media is the feeling that one or two of those many loose contacts might turn out be the contact that’ll be get me through the *next* five years. How to know which one?
Great point about not knowing which of your contacts will turn out to be “the one”. I guess you watch for people who are potential clients, and who also reciprocate and interact with you. One thing I have found with Twitter is that it’s a great place to reconnect with people I know from a long time ago.