Freelancing & the independent worker: 5 tips to market yourself well

Are you a freelancer looking for new clients? Effectively prospecting is essential to ensuring your financial health. However, you still have to know how to market yourself. Positioning yourself as an expert, setting fair prices, calling upon a management company; all of these are important concepts for learning how to sell yourself well. Here are the key steps to position yourself effectively in the consultancy marketplace.

1. Determine your qualities and competencies

Do you work as a freelancer, but aren’t really commercially-oriented at heart? Rest assured, you are not the only one, and knowing how to market yourself is not innate. Before learning how to canvass your future customers, it is important to get to know each other through two exercises:

• Perform a skills assessment – alone or with the help of another (a professional coach, for example). This exercise allows you to analyse your professional and personal skills, aptitudes, and motivations. It will help you define your professional project.

• Ask yourself the right questions to get to know yourself: what is your added value, compared to other freelancers in your field? What results will you bring to your future client? What subjects do you like to work on? What are your hard skills? What are your soft skills?

These exercises help to determine not only your qualities and skills, but also decide precisely what you want to specialise in. Knowing yourself helps you gain confidence, something that is essential when you need to prospect future clients.

2. Know your value and define your offer

Depending on your level of experience and skills in your area of specialisation, you need to determine your market value as a freelancer. We often speak of average daily rate (the infamous ADR). This is the average amount of remuneration awarded to a self-employed person for each day worked. How do you fix your daily rate offer?

• Set a minimum “basic daily rate”, as well as a more attractive offer, for customers wishing to test you at a lower cost.

• Set an “average daily rate” if your offer provides additional services.

• Set a “premium daily rate” if you want to offer several services and more advanced support.

• Set a “floor daily rate” in your negotiations: in fact, you can more easily offer a significantly lower daily rate to a client that is offering you a full-time assignment over several months.

Note that an ADR must also be set to cover the time spent canvassing or the periods between assignments. This is why you can keep a little leeway when you are offered long assignments.

Are you still in doubt about which daily rate to apply? Compensation grids, based on studies, are published every year and give an overview of prices according to the activity sector. You can also discover our guide on “How to fix your ADR”.

HOW TO KNOW IF YOU’RE IN LINE WITH THE MARKET?

The Golden Rule: don’t undersell yourself! Do you have any doubts about the legitimacy of the service you offer? Call upon a management company and you will benefit from advice on positioning yourself. If you wish to be advised and supported by expert teams, contact us!

By signing with us, you will also benefit from personalized coaching and potential exchanges with your peers. We will take care of everything and offer you a wide range of advantages for the consultant, including integration into a powerful network of experts.

3. Increase your visibility to market yourself well

We often talk about the term “personal branding”, the means of communicating and promoting yourself like a brand; sometimes a very effective means of self-marketing as a freelancer. Here are some essential tools that will help you increase your visibility and credibility to land your next assignment:

• A LinkedIn profile and regular activity: writing articles, interactions with professionals, updating your profile, etc.

• A small, simple and fast, easily-referenced, one-page website. You can use existing templates or request the services of an independent developer. This investment will quickly pay off.

• A presentation or a demonstration of your offer.

• Brochures to be distributed digitally or printed.

• A standard document consisting of a solid argument, serving as a support during any interviews. Asserting yourself with a strong argument will undoubtedly help to set you apart and convince others that you are the ideal candidate for a project.

Note: Do you work in the IT sector? Know that we help independent consultants to better position themselves to land more profitable assignments. Just contact us and request a call back!

4. Valuing your references to market yourself well

It is reassuring for your future clients to receive evidence of your achievements when you apply for a project. Indeed, selling yourself by showing achievements of your work is a very good proof of your skills. Thus, it is advisable to create a portfolio (or book) offering access to all or part of your projects. This tool really unlocks the prospection potential of many freelancers.

5. Find assignments and get in touch with the right clients

How do you target the ideal client when you are a freelancer? Are your expectations and your offer defined? If so, you can take action and offer your services. Do you prefer small, medium companies or large groups? Optimally targeting future customers requires taking certain essential actions:

• Analyse the job market by sector and region. Gauging supply and demand saves time when first making contact. Certain sectors have growing needs and they should be identified. For example, due to the digital transformations common to multiple sectors, IT is not experiencing the crisis. The needs of the business areas should be identified at any given time.

• Go to job posting platforms for freelancers and filter potential clients according to the sectors and activities they seek.

• Word of mouth remains a foolproof method. This is why maintaining your network is the key! The quality of your work will, therefore, help you in the long term thanks to the recommendations or proposals of your former companies and network.

• Join the European network and decide to partner with a management company! We will follow you and support you in negotiating your contracts directly with your clients, as well as act as an intermediary for all administrative management. Additionally, all consultants belong to our European network of IT experts, enabling an exchange of assignments and recommendations with client companies.

Knowing how to market yourself when you are independent is ultimately attainable for everyone, provided you apply good methods. Some freelance workers choose wage portage. Others opt instead for an alternative solution that gives them access to a powerful network and advice to optimise their activity: partnering with a management company.

If you would like to know more about our support, ask to be called back or contact us directly by requesting an online income simulation.