thedorf
Elite Member
- Oct 1, 2008
- 2,558
- 1,819
This was recently asked on a different thread of mine but I thought the answer was worthy of its own thread. I'll link the original thread at the bottom of this post.
Prospective clients probably know absolutely zilch, nada, nothing about you. A website helps but anyone can fart a website these days so you only get limited credibility for having a website.
To look like a pro you have to teach others to do what you do, step by step. Like I am doing for you right now.
My technique is to make revelant FORUM posts explaining exactly what I do so others can do it themselves. Do I lose business this way? No, no and no again. I gain business by doing this.
Listen, taking the example of a logo designer from my first thread I wrote a second thread as such: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...-images-less-than-60-seconds.html#post8148200 where I explain to people how to make their images nicer by rounding the corners on an image.
Very few people will actually take the time to round their own images, they will just know it can be done easily. People who are not graphics designers DO NOT want to round their own image corners - they are too focused on their own business to download a new program, figure out how it works blah blah blah.
This is also an excellent way to generate business - show people how to do something manually then offer to do it for them for a decent price for the time involved. To round corners on an image I would probably charge $5 for up to 10 images. This takes me no time, less than 10 minutes. Others will find it takes more time because of trial and error, downloading the program, blah blah blah. This is where I get my business.
Otherwise find a way to automate the process and after explaing the manual way to do it say "Or just go here, upload your images and get your corners rounded automatically by my website (this can be done with PHP).
By writing up a thread describing how to round image corners I show people 1) that I know how to round image corners quickly (so I probably know some other graphics tricks as well) and 2) I just got my own logo and domain name displayed to everyone who reads that thread.
After I put up 3-4 good threads on high traffic forums I can link to those posts in PM's and emails I send to prospective clients so they can see for themselves that I know what I am doing, outside of some blanket claim that "I design logos for $15") (and no I do NOT design logos, I wrote that post as an example for a logo designer ).
Put the links to the threads in a P.S. at the end of your communication. The postscript is the third most read item in a communication. People will skip content but read a P.S. (see how I do this below).
Phillip aka thedorf
P.S. The original thread that started all of this (titled: How to find customers) is at: http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...16-method-how-find-customers.html#post8092069
P.P.S. A second postscript looks like this with two "P"s.
P.P.P.S Do I need to write up a sample pm/email I would send to a prospective client and show you how to use these there? Let me know.
Last edited:
