Every freelancer wants to get massive clicks, impressions, orders, and earn up to $6000 per month. As a freelancer, the most significant way of getting massive orders is by converting your potential buyers into actual buyers. You will, in turn, get massive orders from the returning buyers, and the cycle continues. So, keep in mind that a returning buyer must first become a buyer.
One important thing to understand is, it is a lot easier to convert an actual buyer into a returning buyer than to convert your potential buyers into actual buyers. This is because you need to apply a lot more convincing skills to play your cards right and persuade your potential buyers to believe in you and choose you for the job. But in contrast, your actual buyers already know if you’re up to snuff without further conviction.
[ads]Now you understand the psychology, the next question is, how do you get your first set of orders or convert potential buyers into actual buyers?
Summary | In this Wiki Freelancing guide, you would discover the six effective steps to convert your potential buyers into actual buyers in any freelancing platform of your choice and start earning huge.
Who’s Your Potential Buyer?
A potential buyer is practically anybody who can buy from you; not yet an actual buyer or returning buyer. Recall that even your buyers and returning buyers can also be referred to as potential buyers on some occasions.
Simply put, your potential buyer is someone who is likely to start a gig with you or place an order with you. Let’s dive into the six basic steps you should observe to get things right.
» MORE: 63 Fantastic Reasons To You Should Start Freelancing Today
6 Guidelines To Convert Your Potential Buyers To Actual Buyers
- Set up a professional freelancing profile
- Create a persuasive description for your services
- Send out offers to buyers request
- Respond quickly to potential buyers
- Provide sufficient samples of related works
- Convince your potential buyers
1. Set Up A Professional Freelancing Profile
As a freelancer, you work remotely from anywhere in the world. So you do not have to physically meet with your buyers before starting up a project. You practically do everything online, including chats, calls, and discussing the project. How then do you prove you’re up to par to be able to convert the potential buyer? The first step is setting up a professional profile.
[ads]Your profile plays a significant role in converting your potential buyers because it has a lot to say about you. It ideally contains an overview of you and the services you offer. It’s more like the first impression you’re displaying for the potential buyer. So, your clients will think of you according to the message you display on your profile.
10 Requirements for creating a professional profile for freelancers
A professional profile should contain:
- A good profile picture
- An interesting profile description
- Detailed service description
- Relevant Tags
- Skills Acquired
- Certificate acquired
- Social media integration
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Requirements for projects
- Catchy Service/Gig images/media
2. Create A Persuasive Gig Description For Your Services
What is a gig?
A gig is a job type, usually for a specific time. To be more precise, a gig is any service or skill you can offer in exchange for money as a freelancer. For example, if you are a graphics designer, you would want to create graphics designing gigs that advertise the category of graphics services you offer. Keep in mind that different freelancing platforms may use other terms to refer to a gig.
[ads]How to create a persuasive gig description
To create an interesting gig, you would want to use your convincing skills to compel the buyer to start a gig with you.
In preparing your gig description, it’s important to consider these:
- Welcoming the buyer
- Use a straightforward description of your major services
- Indicate your achievement in the field
- Convince the buyer that you’re up to snuff
- Recheck the gig for grammatical and spelling errors
- Encourage sellers to contact you
- Include your closing tag, and your name
3. Send Out Offers To Buyers Request
What is a buyer’s request in freelancing?
In the freelance industry, a buyer’s request is a post of service published by potential buyers for freelancers to see, send their offers while expecting to hear from the buyer to start the project. It’s simply a post request for a job.
In most freelancing platforms, the buyers are allowed to post their requests publicly for sellers to bid and send their offers. And when they do, the buyers would simply pick any of the sellers that they think is up to par. This is the whole idea behind the ‘buyer request.’
Alternatively, other buyers can easily search and choose from the freelancers on the result page and start the project with them.
[ads]Benefits of sending an offer to buyer requests
A freelancer who always sends a superb offer to buyer requests would stand a better chance of getting new buyers; potential buyers. However, many freelancers will also send their offers to the same buyer request. But, this shouldn’t discourage you. Your major aim should be to send a persuasive buyer request as fast as possible.
4. Respond quickly to your potential buyers
When your potential buyers send you messages, your first impression should be to give them fast and accurate responses. According to recent studies, about 70% of potential buyers send the same first message to about 5 freelancers they are interested in. Each of these freelancers responds in different durations, and the seller is likely to choose the freelancer who responds faster than others for the project.
To cap it all, your potential customers would want to work with highly efficient freelancers, and if you want to be favored for the project, you need to respond quickly to steal the heart of the potential buyer. This will always create a good impression on the buyer’s mind and continue to attract him to you for future projects.
In addition, some potential buyers have urgent projects and need super fast freelancers to handle them. If you respond fast and accurately and deliver promptly, they will favor you for the project, but you will be the buyers’ favorite freelancer for more urgent projects.
» MORE: How To Make 6-figure Income With Amazon Publishing – Secret To Success
6 Amazing freelancing tips to respond quickly to your buyers
- Check your inbox every 30mins or earlier
- Connect your freelancing account to your mobile phone
- Refresh your message page often
- Set automatic & tailored responses
- Check your inbox whenever you wake up at night
- Create custom messages to boost your efficiency
5. Provide Sufficient Samples Of Work
After shooting your shots through the buyer requests page and after responding quickly to give a good impression, your potential buyers would want to discuss the workflow of the project with you while observing if you are the right freelancer for the job.
This is the time to prove that you are up to snuff. At this time, one effective way to convert your potential buyer into an actual buyer is to provide them with sufficient samples of your work relating to the type of project they want you to handle. Here you would want to provide a good portfolio containing the best of your previous/recent works.
How to provide work samples without having a portfolio
It’s crucial to have a portfolio as a freelancer. But, if you’re a beginner or intermediate freelancer who doesn’t have a portfolio contemporarily, don’t let the panic set. You can manually send your buyers some samples directly to their inbox with some persuasive lines that will get them into your game.
However, as a beginner or intermediate freelancer, some of your buyers would present new projects that you’ve not done before. Here, you’ll need to employ the alternative method of providing work samples to your buyers without having one locally or in your portfolio.
Here’s what you should do:
- Inform the buyer that you know your stuff and would like to show him a sample from his project in a short time.
- Quickly run a sample with a part of their project and present asap.
- Ensure to keep it professional to steal the buyer’s heart.
Remember, if the buyer insists on seeing previous works, you can inform them you’ve tons of previous works, but they are not allowed to be shared by the owners. Then, request to run a quick sample with a part of the project. By this, you don’t only engage and delight your buyers, you also create an impression that you’re the best freelancer to handle their projects.
6. Convince Your Potential Buyer
In 2021, about 87% of the potential buyers start a gig with freelancers who can convince them that they are up to par. But, it’s a challenging moment for some beginner freelancers who ask, ‘how do I convince my potential buyer’?
Now, whether you’re a beginner, intermediate, or expert freelancer, you can convince your potential buyers through the methods below.
5 ways to convince your potential buyers for freelancers
- Excellent communication skills
- Good portfolio
- Show them you’re up to snuff
- Fast responses to the buyer’s concerns
- Application of critical thinking to solve complicated challenges, and a lot more.
Therefore, to convert your potential buyers to actual buyers, you need to steal their hearts and prove to them you are the perfect person for the job, among other freelancers.
The Bottom Line
Behind every successful freelancer are buyers and returning buyers who enjoy working with them. As a freelancer, especially for beginners, your first challenge should be ‘getting new buyers and keeping them.’ And so, you would need extra effort to put everything in good shape while observing the whole ideas discussed in this wiki freelancing guide.
[ads]Your freelancing journey would always be enjoyable if you’re able to convert more potential buyers into actual buyers daily and, of course, delight them with your professional skills/services.
Remember, some buyers would send you direct messages through the gigs/services you created. So, you don’t always need to send out offers via buyer requests all the time.
In the case of a direct message, there’s a higher possibility of you getting the job if only you respond fast and convince the potential buyers that they are in perfect hands with you.
One more thing! After converting your potential buyers into actual buyers, it’s time to convert those buyers into returning buyers. This way, they repeatedly come back for more projects with you.
FAQs About Freelancing
These freelancing frequently asked questions will help you further understand how the industry works.
Q: Can I Do Freelancing As A Teenager?
Indeed, you can! As long as you are up to 13 years, many freelancing platforms can accommodate you to freelance, such as Fiverr. However, you would need to be up to 18 years to create a PayPal or Payoneer account to withdraw your funds. To handle this situation, you can open an account with your parents to withdraw your funds…read more
[ads]Q: Is Freelancing A Career?
Absolutely yes! Freelancing is a super interesting and lucrative career that everybody can do. It is convenient for both full-time and part-time freelancers. It is simply making money by offering your services to people all over the world and making cool money…read more
Q: Which Freelancing Platform Is The Best?
The best freelancing platforms are Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, from their level of popularity. They have the largest number of buyers and sellers, reputation and all that. Remember, they are also the most competitive freelancing platforms. However, for one man’s food is another man’s poison, many other freelancing platforms are also the best for some people, especially the platforms that focus on specific services.
Q: How Can I Freelance With No Experience?
Freelancing is super easy to start. It takes only a couple of minutes to register on a freelancing platform, and some more minutes to set up your freelancing account. You don’t need special experience before starting to freelance. You only need good communication skills and services to offer…read more
[ads]Q: How Much Do Freelancers Earn?
Freelancers earn differently according to the type of services they render and the projects they handle. For example, a transcriptionist can earn lower than a writer, while a developer can earn more than a writer. However, successful freelancers make up to $2000-$6000 monthly. Your location, skills, communication, profile, samples, freelancing platform, can significantly affect your earnings…read more
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