Here’s all my thoughts on sales. I’m tightening this up into a full article so bear with me, it’s messy just now.
It’s a big topic. I hope you get value from this.
The key to develop sales skills as a freelancer is…
Never hard sell.
Those high pressure sales tactics work great if you’re selling 2nd hand cars, or banana peelers on Temu.
But you’re not selling cheap services, you’re selling results, so you must position yourself as a trusted advisor.
If done right, after a short 30min call, you’ll have the prospect pitching to work with you, instead of the other way around….
——
Planning
- Flip the dynamic- Make them pitch to you
- Qualify carefully, don’t waste time on bad fits.
- Prepare your offer and pitch, but don’t be afraid to tweak it on the fly.
- Get a small commitment, little decisions lead to big decisions
- Consider your Pricing
- Feel out their budget before you commit to a price
- Always close on the call, get a firm yes or no before you waste time on proposals
- Finish by linking your services to their desired outcome
——
Ask good questions
The person who gets the job is often not the one who can solve the problem best, instead it’s the person who can define the problem the best, and explain it back to the prospect clearly.
Getting to the heart of this problem is an artform.
When they say they need a logo, they don’t, they actually need to stand out from their competition,
so they can make more money,
or so their identity as a successful person can be confirmed.
Get to the CORE pain point,
reiterate their current insufficient state, present your offer as the bridge to the solution.
That’s how you set yourself apart from your competition, charge your worth and stop competing on price
How to make prospects ready to buy, instead of window shopping forever
Prospects must have ALL these to buy
- Pain
- Doubt
- Cost
- Desire
- Trust
- Money
Pain
The prospect must believe they have a problem which needs solved.
This pain must be sufficiently painful that they will pay to solve it.
There is no point pitching branding services to a business owner who doesn’t understand or appreciate that they have no brand.
Without considerable education, they will never be ready to buy.
Doubt
They must believe they don’t know the solution to this problem, that they can’t fix this problem on their own, or it will be too time costly to do so themselves.
Cost
Doing nothing must be more painful than time/ money to fix the problem.
If necessary, expand their mental horizon or timeline to highlight long term costs of not fixing this issue.
Stagnation is more expensive than investing in good marketing.
Desire
The prospect must believe solving the problem will allow their business to grow, save them time, or generate more money than it costs.
Trust
The prospect must believe your methods will work,
see your solution as superior and unique to what they’ve tried in the past,
and believe the proof of your results.
Money
Even if they tick all these boxes, they must have resources and willingness to solve their problem.
If they don’t have the money to afford your solution, it’s not your job to make it affordable for them.
It’s their job to come up with the money.
Harder and bigger problems cost more money.
If they don’t have the money, they may have to settle for solving a smaller problem.
Sales call structure
Discovery calls, scope calls, coffee chats, sales calls…
Call them what you want.
Sales calls are a mix of a science and an art. No sales call follows the same pattern or order.
Like a good sailor you have to react to the fickle winds and shift your strategy based on cues you pick up from the prospect.
But most sales calls follow this overall format and formula.
When sales calls are follow this structure, the prospect will sell themselves for you, and tell you exactly what you need to say & do correctly to win their business.
If you’re really good, they may also tell you…
- how much your competitors are charging
- What your competitors did wrong.
- how much they think it should cost,
- how much they are willing to pay for it
- how much money it will generate for them
At the start of a sales call there is no point talking or telling them how great you are, as there is no reason to trust you, or to listen to what you say.
The prospect knows you are there to sell.
So give up on selling, and instead focus on being helpful.
So the first half of your sales call will be spent asking good questions & listening.
You want them to talk twice as much as you.
Only in the last half of the call will you start talking more, and by that point they will be listening carefully,
because they will want you to solve their problems.
You can offer guidance on solving the first part of their problems, to demonstrate your value,
And use that bridge to lead into your paid services.
PreSales call Planning
Asking & Listening
- Greetings
- Break the ice
- “Where are the calling from?
- “Busy week?
- Build rappor
- Deepen connection quickly by defining their core motivations
- Quickly profile the prospect using DISC
- This is an advanced move, but it helps to tweak your sales approach and strategy to the prospect’s DISC profile…
- 🔴 Reds – talk as little as possible, and talk about results.
- 🔵 Blues – talk about facts and data
- 🟢 Geens – talk about community and support
- 🟡 Yellow – talk about ideas and vision
- More on this in Chapter 4 ‘Know your dogs’ in my book “how to train your clients“
- This is an advanced move, but it helps to tweak your sales approach and strategy to the prospect’s DISC profile…
- Break the ice
- Set the agenda
- Establish that you are leading the meeting
- Set a time limit
- Let them know what you’ll cover
- “It should be a 30min call, we’ll scope up your project, triage your business, I’ll give you a strategy and if we’re a good fit I’ll send you a proposal at the end. First I’ll ask some Qs if that’s ok….
- Vet and Qualify
- This is your chance to uncover core motivations, pain points and value indicators.
- We’re also going to widen the gap between where they are now and where they want to be.
- Ask about the business
- Ask if they are happy with where they are at.
- “What’s not working at the level it truly could be?
- Ask the biggest problem they are having right now.
- “So what is the bottleneck? How long has this been the case?
- Ask what they’ve tried to solve the problem.
- “What else? Why do you struggle with that?
- Ask what’s stopping them from solving this.
- “So can I ask a more personal question? What do you think has been stopping you from figuring this out on your own already?
- Ask why they got in touch with you specifically.
- Ask why NOW
- find out if there was a “breaking point” for the prospect.
- Ask where they want to be by next year.
- “So what’s the goal for you? Let’s say within the next 6 months to 1 year, where do you want to take this business?
- “What’s your long term vision with this business?
- If they mention anything noteworthy, ask them to elaborate on that.
- Tell me more about that. (go deep)
- You mentioned you struggle with X, why do you think that is?
- Take mental note of any pain points, motivation or signals on what would close the deal.
- Ask them if they have any Qs.
- Triage their current situation
- What do you sell?
- Who is the target customer?
- Who are your competitors?
- How many leads they get a month?
- How much is each customer worth?
- (These last x2 will give you a rough ballpark of how much value your services can deliver)
- IF you feel they are tyre kickers, or can’t afford you, drop in a minimum level of investment
- Ask them if they have any Qs.
Talking
- Summarize
- repeat back to them their current situation, their problem, and their desired state.
- Widen the gap
- share a case study of a client in similar situation
- Give examples of results you’ve had
- Drop ballpark figures of budgets for each case studies, gauge their reactions.
- Preaddress objections by peppering your chat with your most common roadblocks:
- “we’re not the cheapest but we get results”
- “we won’t be a good fit if price is the priority”
- “we guide our clients through the process”
- Ask them if they have any Qs.
- Pitch
- Pitch your offer and price confidently, as the bridge or solution to the desired state
- “the focus will be to help you achieve (goals they have mentioned) and solve (pain points mentioned) within (timeframe). We’ll (deliverables)
- Outline your process or method (broad strokes only)
- “does that sound like what you’re looking for?”
- Clarify the value: if a new customer is worth Y, and you can deliver x5 new customers at X then it’s good value
- Tell them how to proceed and secure a spot in your work queue.
- Ask them if they have any Qs.
- Ask them for a firm yes or no on if they are interested in the proposal
- Pitch your offer and price confidently, as the bridge or solution to the desired state
- Handle Objections
- Take a temperature check
- “Any concerns with what we’ve talked about?
- “How does this compare to other proposals you’ve had?
- “Thoughts? (this is a good general nudge)
- “On a scale of 1-10, 1 being I hate this guy and want to get off the call, and 10 being 100% this is exactly what I need – where would you be? “
- “What’s keeping you from being a 10?
- Take a temperature check
Followup
-
- Always set a specific date and time to get a final decision
- Always follow up multiple times (you can automate this)
- Ask them if they have any Qs.
I’ll go into each of these stages now…
——
Talking about Pricing
If you want to know more about how to price freelance services I have full guide on that.
Talk about prices early, but not too early.
Throw in some ranges or ballparks
Don’t talk about prices too early.
Have a conversation not a sales pitch.
Give them lots of advice freely.
Even tell them the best way to shop about for a web designer
This allows you to warn them subtly about all the other cheap digital cowboys or horror stories you’ve heard.
Tell them the kind of things they’ll want to look out for in a web designer (do they pick up the phone, do they stay on the phone more than 20 mins, do they know what they’re talking about etc.)
By the end of the call they will start treating you more like an advisor than a web designer selling them a website.
At that point they will be looking to you to tell them how much they should be spending, instead of the other way around.
Get a small commitment
I can definitely help you, but I’d need to know what stage your at, are you serious about make this reality?
“So what stage are you at, if we can tick all the boxes for you, are you ready to commit to growing your business today?”
We’re not like other web designers, we work long term with our clients.
I believe firmly in plain speaking and brutal honesty.
Other Web designers and Graphic designers will tell you whatever you want to hear because they are like car salesmen; they only care about selling a single product, like a website etc.
We don’t do that because we’re interested in the results.
We don’t do the hard sell.
IF you want to achieve a certain result like business growth,
we’ll tell you the best way to do it, and how much it’ll cost you to get that result.
we only offer a service if we think you’re going to make money out of it.
——
little decisions lead to big decisions
Get them to start designing or planning parts of the website or brand.
“From what we’ve talked about…
Based on previous section, you now know all their problems and pain points.
Make up their package, if they don’t understand their own brand we need to address that first.
——
The Finish
set date to follow up
“we’ve talked about a lot of stuff on the phone so I’ll drop you a proposal which as all the terms set out in writing, everything you need to know.
we only have a few slots in work calendar left, which could fill at any moment.
would really need a commitment before next week.
If you want to go ahead just reply to let me know you accept the proposal.
I’ll then send a link for you to set up your bank details and make your first payment which will secure your place in the work queue.
”
Objection Handling
- Learn to love objections
- Isolate the objection
- Acknowledge – but don’t step into their “frame”
- Not all objections are equal
- Emotion vs logic
- Condition vs objection
- Conviction matters
- Plan your process
- Discount properly (I don’t discount at all, though I may cut deliverables)
- Use non-refundable deposits to weed out time wasters.
- Use guarantees sparingly
- Recognise when to be flexible.
——
Emphasize the Solution
Rephrase and summarize all the problems they mentioned back to them.
present your service as the solution
Emphasize the RESULT and BENEFIT not the service
ie
❌ “I’ll build you an amazing looking website”
✅”I’ll design a website which will reflect the quality of your business online”
❌ “my booking websites are really powerful and good”
✅ “I’ll build you a powerful booking website which automates your admin, saves you hours every day”
❌ “I’m a good web designer”
✅ “A stress free service and we’ll guide you through it one step at a time.”
——
Show Results
make sure to give examples of projects you’ve done where the client got the results you’ve just sold to the client.
make sure to emphasize the great ROI they got.
It’s all about real results.
if on a video call, (you should always try get them on video) SHOW them the sites you’ve done. show them the back end, show them analytics or whatever to prove it.
——
Offer / Pitch
Ask “what level of budget do you have to invest in this project?”
the phrasing of that is key
talk about investment not price
you’ll often be blown away at what they thought they were going to pay.
adjust your prices on the fly accordingly.
IF they won’t give you their budget give them a price range.
say “well the budget can vary depending on your needs and scope, I’ve done projects like this before anywhere between X and Y, where do you fall in that range?”
Gauge their reaction to see how much they are expecting to pay,
adjust your pricing for freelance services on the fly accordingly.
Closing
Finally present your service as a product which fills all the needs they already told you about at a price that they will accept and still feel is valuable for the result that they will get. Say something like:
“based on what we’ve talked about, If i can build an amazing booking website which reduces your admin time and takes seamless bookings online, would you be happy to proceed based on a budget of £X…”
When you tell them your price then go silent and wait for them to accept
IF
they ramble and hesitate to proceed, ask them openly “what are your concerns at this point?”
answer those concerns, you might need to draw the concerns out of the client at this point.
once answered any concerns you can basically repeat your closing line.
Once closed make it as simple and easy as possible for them to proceed.
If you send an email proposal make sure there is a link or button which lets them make their first payment to commit.
You don’t want any friction at this point.
Here’s my guide to productize freelancer services
