Introduction

I currently run two productized services: Product Alchemy a UX/UI design subscription and Motion Gurus bundled-based custom animations service.

It is a no-brainer that being a freelance designer gives you all of the freedom of the world you can desire. Yet, many freelance designers fail to survive the death valley and have no option but to return to their full-time jobs. 

In this blog post, I'm excited to share insights into how I've managed to keep my pipeline full with new projects through 9 simple tactics.

This is not advice. It's what has worked for me.

Yet, these tactics helped me in 2024 generate €96k in revenue, and there may be things you may find helpful here.

I don't want to simplify the process. Getting your first clients is tough, and every freelancer faces the grind and struggle.

If you are struggling to grow your freelance career, you got this: it takes time. Just. Don't. Stop.

If you are in a rush, you can skip this entire article and scroll down to the 9th point. You will find there the one and only thing that matters: grit.

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Who is this article for:

✅  You're a freelance UX or product designers.

✅  You may feel stuck and looking for new tactics that could potentially help you increase revenue.

✅  Your are curious to learn what's worked for me when it comes to getting new clients.
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Preface: How sales works

Over the last 5 years I've obsessed myself with understanding how sales and marketing works. And, after reading countless books on this topic, sales for me can be distilled to the following process:

When freelancing isn't working one of those 3 things isn't correctly executed:

• Getting people's attention: You aren't getting enough eye balls on your website, Linkedin profile, etc.
• Make them an offer: You offer is not strong and unique enough. This causes that the potential client has doubts and doesn't feel confident enough to try you out.
• Give them a world-class experience: The quality of your service is not convincing enough.

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From all the books I've learned on sales, if I were to give myself a reading like 5 years ago to speed up my learning, it would be the following thee books:

1. "$100M Offers" by Alex Hormozi
2. "SELL LIKE CRAZY" by Sabri Suby
3. "Start with NO" by Jim Camp

The best sales education

I hate to give advice because we are all different and what works for me, may not work for you. But, if I could give you once piece of advice is to obsess yourself on how sales and marketing work.

Going to business school is overrated for this, all you need is a to consume this topic voraciously. Whether it's reading, listening to audiobooks, or watching youtube videos on sales and marketing, the mechanics of how to sales works have been well explained.

The one book that I feel explains how sales works better than any other is Alex Hormozi's $100M offers.

To have a successful freelance career, being good at your craft is not enough. Personally I'm a decent designer, there are people out there easily 100x better than me. What helped me breakthrough was learning to be lethal at selling myself and my services.

Obsess yourself on the topics of sales and marketing and success, I believe, is guaranteed.

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My 9 tactics that bring me new clients every month

Having laid the ground to how I see sales and the 3 common issues why freelancers can't get enough income, join me as I unveil my process of getting new clients whenever I want.

Here are my 9 tactics – in order of effectiveness.

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1. Offering free work

As crazy as it sounds, the crux of my process of making money and growing Product Alchemy is doing free work.

This marketing hook does 3 things for me:

1. Gets me new leads
2. Gets my foot in door early
3. Gets me compelling testimonials I can use on my website.

The trick to this marketing hook is to keep it lean. My max limit of free work is 1 hour. In that time, I'll help a founder redesign a section of their website, a screen of their app, or help them interview a user to uncover unmet needs.

Offering free work helps me standout.

The number of agencies and solo freelancers who would do free work is minimal. So what do I do? I exploit this and turn it into a differentiator.

The more people that dogmatically buy into the advice "Never do free work" — the better for me.

Whatever you do, make sure to stand out.

Offering free work helps me get my foot in the door and quickly start building a relationship with that possible future client. Since they have tested my design and communication skills, they know precisely what they will get if they subscribe to my design service.

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Social proof and testimonials

Testimonials are the ONE and ONLY thing that matters when you are starting out.

The first 5 testimonials for Product Alchemy came through free work and the first 9 video testimonials for Motion Gurus came from doing free animations.

Offer free work and you will be able to quickly get the kick-ass testimonials your freelance business needs to thrive.

If offering free work feels strange to you there are other way to attract leads, you can create a free ebook, webinars, guide, etc. Whatever you do make sure you get people's attention.

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2. Connecting on LinkedIn

Whenever I need to press the gas on new clients I add a couple hundreds contacts on LinkedIn. From this single tactic, a new client a month is guaranteed.
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How I do Linkedin outreach

I'll search for "founder," "co-founder," or "chief product officer," and I'll send them an invite without a message. I simply add them.

Once they accept my Linkedin invite, I'll go through their site or product, scan for UX issues that could easily be fixed and I'll send them the following message:

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If I can't find anything on their product or website where I could easily add value I won't send them a message. No one likes to get spammed.

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Making my free offer extremely visible

My marketing offer, "Free UX/UI design help", is front and centered on my LinkedIn profile. Every once in a while a few of leads that land on my profile will proactively send me a message asking for my free help.

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3. Marketing in slack channels

Slack can be extremely powerful for networking and lead generation.

I'm part of a few Slack communities where every once in a while I'll post on the random channel my free offer.

I always put the URL of Product Alchemy on my Slack handle, thus increasing the chance of someone entering my site and my sales funnel.

Usually, the #random channel on Slack is silent, and a post there will be visible for a while.

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If I'm not part of a certain Slack community I'll ask someone I know to post a blurb promoting my content on Slack groups.

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4. Generating free resources

Creating free resources can be great lead magnets and an effective way to position yourself as a thought leader.

My most popular free resource is a free template of the Opportunity Solution Tree — a powerful tool for product designers and startup founders.

That template ranked top on Google when you search for "Opportunity Solution Tree," it gets me free traffic to my site every week.

Companies want to work with people who are thought leaders and industry experts.

As a freelancer, you are a full-fledged business. Every business has a marketing department that is continuously positioning the brand. In your case you will need to personify the marketing department of your brand and ensure you find ways to keep traffic coming and growing to your website.

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5. Adding an embedded Loom video to my Site

I have a video presenting myself and my business on both Product Alchemy and Motion Gurus. This video appears at the bottom of the screen and is an embedded loom video.

The video does two things for me:

1. It surprises the visitor

These founder videos are significantly under-exploited and powerful for connecting with the visitor.

Humans are wired by millions of years of evolution to remember faces and voices. This video taps into that innate human capability. If shyness or imposter syndrome is a blocker for you, I hear you and I've struggled with that for years.

Just remember, shyness and achieving epic shit do not mix. It's one or the other. You can choose.

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2. It helps me identify who has visited my site.

If you are a loom user and see that video, your name, and avatar appear on the video analytics.

Since loom is widely used among my target market, I often get that data, which allows me to identify leads. I'll then add them on Linkedin and, you guessed it, offer them free work.

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6. Offering a money-back guarantee

Your potential new clients will have objections to work with you:

• What if the quality of his/her service isn't so good?
• Can I trust this complete stranger?
• What if he/she doesn't delivery on time?

To de-risk my clients decision to work with me I offer them a money-back guarantee and I explain it this way:

On emails

"Your investment is always protected by my money-back guarantee. If in any month you are not 100% happy, you get your money back. No questions asked."

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On my website

You may be asking yourself "but won't people sign up, make me work like a slave and then ask for a refund?"

In 3 years of running Product Alchemy, working with more than 20 startups across the world, I've never had a single time someone ask me for a refund.

And, if it ever happens, no problem at all. I believe that refunding someone their money is something to feel proud of.

My mission is not move pixels on Figma, is to empower my clients and giving them a money-back guarantee helps me deliver a service that is aligned with how I like to be treated.

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7. Use a CRM

A lead is a potential client that has shown interest in our service.

The better we keep track of who those leads are the more revenue we can have. A CRM is a fundamental tool to ensure we are logging our leads and ensure non fall through the cracks.

I personally use Notion as my CRM and there I have a simple table with the 4 columns. Notion isn't actually a CRM software but it works for me and it.

In addition to Notion, I rely heavily on Gmail's snooze feature. After I send an email followup I systematically snooze that conversation to a future date so I ensure that at some point I send another followup.

Don't forget, keep track of who your leads are and followup with them periodically.

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8. Encourage referrals

A referral is a lead that comes your way through a previous client or someone within your network. Referrals and word of mouth are the holy grail of sustainable growth for any business.

‍Every couple of months, I get a few new inbound clients who were sent my way by people I’ve previously worked with.

The way I encourage referrals is twofold:

1. I simply ask my clients: “If you know someone who’s looking for a UX designer, it would be amazing if you could point them my way 🙏.”
2. I reward anyone who refers a new client by donating €200 to a non-profit organization of their choice.

Referrals are golden and the ultimate cure for the feast-and-famine cycle freelancers often face.

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9. Nurture your grit

The last point in this article is the one and most important one.

If there is one thing thats helped me build a successful freelance career is cultivating grit.

Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance. In freelancing, it's the only thing that matters.

In practice, how grit expresses itself in my life is that when revenue is low and I need to catch up on my monthly targets, I'll hustle like an animal.

I'll go animal mode. In those weeks my senses are all aligned in bringing in fresh new revenue. There are no limits to effort. No limits to how many people I'll reach out to to offer my UX/UI help. No limits to how many people I'll add on Linkedin.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, is more important in freelancing than grit. And if you are curious to learn how to cultivate this essential trait I highly recommend the book Grit by Angela Duckword.

Grit is our ability to stay resourceful and optimistic when we are getting our ass kicked and we've received 50 "no's" in a month and yet there not a single new client.

The beautiful thing about grit is that it's a muscle and like any other muscle in our mind or body we can train and grow it.

If you are struggling to get freelance clients, you got this 💜

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Conclusion

Growing your freelance or agency business takes time.

Anyone trying to make their company look like an overnight success is not being honest.

I launched Product Alchemy in November 2022, and the first paying client came after a month and a half of grinding and a handful of startups I worked for free in exchange for a testimonial I could use on my site.

If I had to choose one of these nine tactics, my main is doing free work and second to that giving a money-back guarantee.

Both tactics are an extremely effective way of getting leads and get my foot in the door. They are the core of what makes my offer so good that I no longer have to worry about getting new clients.

Thanks for reading all the way through.

Do you have any questions after reading this article? Please don't hesitate to reach out. Here is my Linkedin profile.

Happy designing! 🙌