Written by: Sapphire Li
Communications director, 10+ years writing for companiesMany businesses are open to working with freelancer developers or dev agencies to bring projects and features to life and out of backlog. The key is to proactively reach out to the owners or department directors of companies you want to work with and share a few ideas of what you can help them build that'd help achieve important business goals.
These ideas are just a way for you to show them what you can create with your skills (they likely have existing ones they dev help with), you stand out from most of the other developers who just list the programming languages they know.
1. Make a comment about an aspect of their business to show them you've done your homework about what they do.
2. Share a few valuable ideas of what you can build for them that would help achieve an important business goal (more conversions, signups, paying customers, so on).
3. Briefly describe what tech stack you specialize in and mention a recent project you built for a client and the metrics it helped them achieve to get them excited about the potential of working with you.
4. Ask for an initial call, framed as a brainstorm to pique their curiosity to learn more.
For this approach, reach out to the owners or marketing managers of businesses that either make money with their content (such as affiliate marketing, paid courses, so on) or offer a paid product or service and capture leads with their content. This means they likely have the budget to hire a freelance writer.
The key is to share a few content ideas you can write for them that would attract their target audience. This really helps you stand out from writers who simply link to a few pieces they've written and list topics they can write about.
1. Set up what you'll be sharing with them and the business goals they'd help achieve.
2. Briefly flesh out a few interesting topics you can write for them so they can see the potential of working with you.
3. Give a bit of background about yourself and link to a few of your best content pieces so it's clear what you offer.
4. Ask for an initial call framed as a brainstorm so they're intrigued to learn more.
1. Make a comment about their product or service to open the conversation.
2. Set up the idea you'll share by mentioning what they'd get out of it.
3. Share a fresh, engaging way they can talk about their product or service to show them the potential of working with you and explain why you think it'll convert and engage better.
4. Ask for an initial call, framed as a brainstorm to entice them to jump on one to learn more.
1. Describe what they're doing that you're sharing an idea about.
2. Share with them an idea they can implement right now to improve their SEO. This will really help you stand out from other SEO consultants who just make vague promises, which many prospects are skeptical of.
3. Ask them for their thoughts to open the conversation.
For this approach, reach out to agencies and offer to take on their overflow work, which can be a steady source of paid projects. The key is to highlight what would matter most to agencies in this scenario, your communication skills, reliability and ability to adapt your style to what their client needs.
1. Make a comment about the agency's work to open the conversation.
2. Explain why you're reaching out to them, and what they'd get out of hiring you so they can understand the potential right away.
3. Briefly describe your communication skills to reassure them you won't be flaky or take forever to reply, a worry that many agencies have about working with freelancers.
4. Since agencies often work with clients from different industries, show them that your work is adaptable and share a few examples of results you've achieved to show them how you can help the agency with their clients.
5. Ask for an initial chat, framed in terms of you wanting to learn more about how you can help their agency.
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