SpyreStudios

Web Design and Development Magazine

  • Design
  • Showcase
  • Inspirational
  • Tutorials
  • CSS
  • Resources
  • Tools
  • UX
  • More
    • Mobile
    • Usability
    • HTML5
    • Business
    • Freebies
    • Giveaway
    • About SpyreStudios
    • Advertise On SpyreStudios
    • Get In Touch With Us

Business Relationship Basics for Freelance Designers

April 18, 2012 by laura

Freelance designers and other freelancers often miss the boat when it comes to finding new customers and building their freelancing business.

That’s because they don’t understand how building healthy long-term business relationships fits into their marketing plan. In the eyes of some freelance designers, a contact is either an immediate prospect or they are not worth pursuing. Often, this means they miss a lot of business opportunities.

In this post, I’ll discuss the importance of building relationships and what it can mean for a freelance designer. I’ll explain why long-term relationships are important and also provide you with five tips for meeting and building business relationships. If you like this post, you may also enjoy reading Why Online Friends are Important to Freelancers.

Why You Need to Look Past the Short-term

I totally get it. You’re afraid of the feast or famine cycle. That’s why your focus is on finding short-term freelance design work.

You’re right. You probably do need short-term work right now. You need to keep that cash coming in.

But, you also need long-term business relationships. Trust me, one day those long-term relationships are going to become the source of some of your best projects.

Why are relationships so important? It’s simple, relationships with business colleagues and contacts grow trust. People prefer to do business with those people they know and trust.

Plus, you are more likely to get repeat business and referrals if you have a strong business relationship with the client.

So, if you want more design work, develop more relationships based on trust. How can you do that? Try building long-term relationships.

Your Once and Future Prospects

Most freelance designers severely underestimate the value of long-term business relationships. The prevailing attitude is: if you don’t hire me today I have no time for you.

Some freelancers are even downright rude to contacts who don’t hire them–talk about burning your bridges!!

The thing is, people move around. They change jobs. Some people move back and forth between freelancing and the corporate world.

That business contact you mouthed off to today may one day work for your ideal client. If you’ve already burned your bridges, what do you think the odds will be that he or she will hire you in their next job?

You need to shift to long-term thinking. Try to remember that the business friend you make today may have work for you in a few months or even a few years.

At the very least, try to be polite to almost everyone.

You may not be sure how to go about establishing the long-term business relationships you need. So, let’s move on to some tips that will help.

Five Business Relationship Tips

Here are five tips to help you find and develop long-term business relationships:

  1. Participate. Before you can develop long-term business relationships, you need to meet people. The way to meet people is to participate. Leave meaningful comments on blogs. Connect through social media. Go to meetups and conferences.
  2. Remember it’s not about you. Too many freelancers think that asking for something is connecting. It’s not. Contacting a stranger on Twitter or Google+ who has never heard of you to ask them out of the blue whether they’ll hire you isn’t building a relationship.
  3. Add value to the relationship. You need to give people a reason to want to connect with you. Perhaps you are able to answer a question that they have posted. Maybe you can point them in the direction of a resource that they need. Look for ways to add value.
  4. Stay in touch. It goes without saying, you can’t build a strong relationship if you don’t check in regularly. Of course, you also need to respect your contact’s time. Customer relationship management (CRM) tools may help you to insure that nobody falls through the cracks.
  5. This is for business. The contacts you make may or may not be the same folks you’d invite to your pool party. That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter as long as there’s trust and respect because you are not looking for new BFFs (best friends forever). These are business relationships you are nurturing.

Your Turn

How do you nurture long-term business relationships? Every freelancer handles this differently. We’d love to hear your tips.

Image by Trekking Rinjani

Filed Under: Article, Business Tagged With: Building Trust, Business Relationships, Client Relationships, Long Term Relationships

Recent Posts

  • What Factors Determine the Best Digital Marketing Agency?
  • 31 Fresh Design Elements for Spring and Easter
  • 10 Templates for Music Concert Flyers
  • How to Build a Web Scraper Using Node.js
  • Best PHP Books, Courses and Tutorials in 2022

Archives

  • June 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008

Categories

  • Accessibility
  • Android
  • Apps
  • Art
  • Article
  • Blogging
  • Books
  • Bootstrap
  • Business
  • CSS
  • Design
  • Development
  • Ecommerce
  • Fireworks
  • Flash
  • Freebies
  • Freelance
  • General
  • Giveaway
  • Graphic Design
  • HTML5
  • Icons
  • Illustrator
  • InDesign
  • Infographics
  • Inspirational
  • Interview
  • Jobs
  • jQuery
  • Learning
  • Logos
  • Matrix
  • Minimalism
  • Mobile
  • Motion Graphics
  • Music
  • News
  • Photoshop
  • PHP
  • Promoted
  • Rails
  • Resources
  • Showcase
  • Tools
  • Tutorial
  • Twitter
  • Typography
  • Uncategorized
  • Usability
  • UX
  • Wallpapers
  • Wireframing
  • WordPress
  • Work

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

SpyreStudios © 2022