Fear Selling? You Can Still Successfully Freelance

A huge part of growing into a successful freelancer is learning how to sell yourself and your services. I know what you’re going to say: “What about those of us who have an ingrained fear of selling anything?” I have great news for everyone who asked that question.

If you’re preoccupied by selling something, you’re doing it wrong.

Obviously, you need to literally make sales—in other words, get clients to hire you. Relying on clients coming to us is a bad idea since you need to be proactive to grow your career. And pitching freelance clients is essential.

But the high-pressure sales tactics? The ones that make your potential client uncomfortable and make you feel gross? That’s not what your interactions need to be about!

Overcoming the Fear of Selling

If you’re afraid of pitching, you’re not alone. Humans in general are nervous about talking to strangers. Add the task of trying to sell them something, and you’ll find even fewer people get excited!

But the good news is, it’s easy to overcome this fear.

First, here’s what not to do: constantly message your audience, wearing on them until they finally break down and hire you.

Great! That’s done and dusted! Hopefully, that terrible tactic is easy to avoid.

If you think pitching is approaching strangers with your business card, or cold calling businesses, it’s no wonder you want to avoid it at all costs.

Those methods are less effective, and less impactful. And they’re hit-or-miss.

Your Non-Salesy System for Landing Freelance Clients

1. Construct an offer that is irresistible.

What do you do that appeals to your target audience (ie. potential clients)?

And then dig a little. Figure out what deeper problems your service solves.

When you can connect with the needs of your audience, there’s absolutely no need to fear selling. You’re simply putting yourself in front of the businesses that could truly benefit from your talent.

Here are four questions to answer as you get started selling your services:

Who is my ideal target audience? Who do I want to be working for? (Get as specific as you can.)
Why are my services so necessary for their business growth? How can I help them reach and exceed their goals?
In what ways am I the best person for them to work with? How am I different from other freelancers in my field?
How can they get started? What’s the best way for them to reach out and hire me?

2. Add your offer to key client touch points.

As you write your portfolio site, make sure you’re hitting these key points. If you use a blog (content marketing) or social media, convey these messages. And optimize your LinkedIn profile and email signature to let people know the what, why, and how of hiring you.

You can come up with a short spiel for your in-person interactions, too. And of course you’ll incorporate this value in every pitch you send.

Essentially, you overcome your fear of selling by putting your helpfulness out into the world as often as possible.

3. Use a proven system for pitching clients.

There’s no way around it: you need a system. You’ll find your biggest successes when you pitch freelance clients regularly—instead of when you feel like it or when you remember.

In the Freelance Success Framework, we teach a series of steps to go through repeatedly and regularly. Rather than knocking on doors or cold calling people, you just follow our simple system.

First, reach out to prospects.
Then, nurture them.
Finally, close the deal.

And you can adapt the system to your preferences. Maybe you’ll decide that Mondays are prospecting days. So, every Monday morning, block off an hour or two to prospect, following these four steps.

Do your research.
Craft your pitch emails.
Send your emails.
Follow up.

This system means you won’t have to talk yourself into actually doing your prospecting. It becomes a standard part of your week. With time and practice you’ll realize there’s nothing scary about prospecting.

What Pitching is and Isn’t

With this system, you don’t have to talk to anyone until they’ve shown interest.

You’re not walking up to strangers. You’re not cold-calling. All you’re doing is simply reaching out via email.

And you only get on the phone with them once they’ve told you they’re interested in your services.

When you’re already confident that they might hire you, the phone (or Zoom) call is much less intimidating. Certainly you’ll still hear “no” from some people.

But you won’t have to worry about bothering them or selling them something they don’t want. When your services are the solution to someone’s problem, you don’t need to use sketchy sales tactics.

At the same time, you’re not going to convince every single person on the planet to hire you. Whether they simply don’t recognize the problem or they’re just not ready for your solution, it’s not necessary to spend time trying to convince business owners. Respect their time—and yours!—by focusing on the people who are ready for you.

Hone in on exactly how you can help your ideal audience and make sure you tell them all about it.

So, your turn: How are you going to up your pitching game? Let us know in the comments below!

Last Updated on July 1, 2023.

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