Although I know a lot of my business comes from referrals (I ask where people found me on my Hire Me form and always talk about it in the first consult call), I never took the time to actually calculate how much money I have made from referrals alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So out of curiosity this week, I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went through every invoice I\u2019ve sent in the past year-ish of business and made a list of each one that I was certain came from a direct referral. Then I totaled it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You know how much it was?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
$53,209. <\/strong>Woahhhh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fifty eight thousand dollars that I received from people that were recommended to me from a past clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s 58K I didn\u2019t have to go out and get on my own. I didn\u2019t have to blog, learn Facebook ads, put a crazy email marketing funnel in place to get it. I didn\u2019t have to do anything really<\/em>, my clients did it for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wouldn\u2019t have had that income without those clients that referred me. But they wouldn\u2019t have referred me if they didn\u2019t love working with me.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And not just with a finished product that they liked (a lot of people can produce a nice finished product).<\/p>\n\n\n\n They liked the value I provided, but also the process<\/strong> of working with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I may not have put a lot of work into getting that new client when it comes to straight-up marketing strategies. But I did put the work in to create a streamlined process that made working with me easy, fun and stress-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You may have heard me say that referral business is the best business. (I do tweet that phrase often afterall)<\/em> But I never really add why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n $58k extra income is why.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So if you feel like you\u2019re constantly needing to market yourself to get new clients in the door, keep reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure your client feels like they aren\u2019t the first person you\u2019ve ever done this service for. To do so, you need to be organized about your process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make your process clear on your website for them to see before they even contact you, and then again in a pre-written welcome email or pdf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to know (and make it clear to them) what happens and when it will happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clients are handing over their hard-earned cash and don\u2019t want to feel like you\u2019re just going with the flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the first step in having a clear process is to write down every single task that needs to be completed by you AND the client to get to the finished result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure, this might change a bit from client to client \u2013 but there will be a repeatable skeleton to follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use this list to outline your process for your client and to be able to put together a clear project outline in your project management system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clients don\u2019t want to wade through hundreds of email threads any more than you do. We\u2019ve all got a serious case of\u00a0email madness<\/a>\u00a0these days already. Projects run more smoothly, with less stress, and finish faster when steps, to-do\u2019s and deadline dates are outlined from the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using project management tools like\u00a0Basecamp<\/a>\u00a0(my favorite), Asana or Trello make this super easy for you. Plus, you can setup a template in these tools with the common elements that you can just copy and reuse with each new client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You gotta treat your clients like royalty. Without them you can\u2019t do what you do (or at least survive while doing it).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This DOESN\u2019T mean low ballin\u2019 your prices then giving them everything they ask for and not charging for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But it does mean paying attention throughout the project and always being open to going above and beyond where you can.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If it\u2019s clear at some point that a little extra somethin\u2019 or other would really help your client, and not take much extra time on your part to do, throw it in!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then be sure to tell them why you threw it in (i.e. \u201cI think you would really benefit from having this as well and although it wasn\u2019t included in our initial project, once I got in there and realized you need it, I went ahead and did it for you\u201d<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m all about getting paid (and paid well) for every minute you put into your work with clients. But going above and beyond whenever possible (for \u201cfree\u201d) can turn into a lot more income down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I recently got to meet author Lewis Schiff whose book \u201cBusiness Brilliant\u201d talks about what makes millionaires different from the middle-class when it comes to making more money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the reasons: self-made millionaires ask for what they want when others are too shy or scared.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you wrap up a project with a client and thank them for the business, tell them why you loved working with them and that you\u2019re looking to work with more clients just like them. Be open about the fact that you love referral business and ask them to spread the word about you if they were happy working with you too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They may have done that anyway \u2014 but people get busy. A simple mention of it from you will help make sure that the next time they get the chance, they\u2019ll bring up your name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re serious about growing your referral business, while saving yourself a lot of time and stress in your day-to-day along the way, my course\u00a0Stress Less & Impress<\/a>\u00a0will help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Putting together a streamlined process that makes clients love working with you doesn\u2019t have to be hard. There isn\u2019t some special super-secret tool or persuasive tactic that makes your clients refer you to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s just a matter of putting into place a few keys steps and elements at each part of your interaction to not only make them happy, but to save you a lot of time and stress too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grab my free Freelance Process Cheat sheet below!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting a brand new client is one of the best feelings a service-based business can experience. But you know what\u2019s better than a new client? A new client that was referred to you from someone else! Although I know a lot of my business comes from referrals (I ask where people found me on my … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Extra-Income-Freelancing-684x1024.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n4 Ways To Increase Your Referral Business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. BE ORGANIZED \u2014 STARTING WITH YOUR PROCESS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
2. USE A PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
3. GO ABOVE AND BEYOND<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
4. TELL YOUR CLIENTS<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
These are Just 4 Ways to Impress Your Clients<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/freelancetofreedomproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Leah-Signature.png\")
<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"