Grow Your Video Business SSP 057: Why You Need To Be Choosing The Clients You Want To Work With w/ Hayley Akins
How are you approaching growing your client base? Are you focusing only on what your needs are? Often when world searching for our ideal clients we tend to focus solely on what we need, and not what we can do for others. This is a big mistake. Today we’re talking about the power of community, and how there are more important skills than simply being good at your craft that will keep your pipeline full.
Haley Akins is a motion designer with 9+ years of experience which includes 4 years at Google’s internal production company in the UK as Senior Motion Designer. She’s worked with clients from the BBC to the United Nations, and has made the shift to a thriving freelance business, most recently launching the podcast and community Motion Hatch.
We get into why choosing clients who match your values can lead to amazing (and lucrative) relationships, how putting yourself and your work out there will help you build a community, and why we should never be afraid to get paid what we are worth. It can be scary to raise your rates but the more open and honest we are within our communities about pay scale, the more power there is in doing just that.
When was the last time you raised your rates? If you haven’t recently, what is the biggest thing standing in your way from raising them? Leave a comment below!
In this episode:
- The power in peer and community referrals, and why you shouldn’t be afraid to recommend a “competitor”
- How to reach out to the clients you want to work with to start a relationship
- How to stand out from the crowd in whatever you do
- Hayley’s “Occupy Inbox” strategy for getting in front of big potential clients
Quotes:
“I think it is really important to get the message out there that you should build your client base up so that you can say no, so that you have opportunities to do projects that you really want to work on.” (18:36)
“Building your business up isn’t just about making money, it’s definitely about improving yourself and then if you have more freedom to choose your clients, then maybe you can choose clients whose values align with your own and hopefully have a more positive impact on the world.” (19:10)
“The most important things that I think about in freelance and business is to not just go out there and do things for yourself, try and think about other people because you will find that people will want to help you and they will want to work with you. Just be a nice, cool person.” (37:29)
Links:
Follow Motion Hatch on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Email Hayley at Hello@MotionHatch.com
Follow Hayley on Facebook | Twitter
Bingomation http://www.bingomation.com/
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