How to Quickly Scale Your Business
When I started my business in 2019, I had one client paying $300/month. Two years later, I make $5,000 each month with 5 amazing clients! Clients who value me and have businesses I'm passionate about supporting. I've learned what I do and don't want to do, I've learned my boundaries and my capacity, and I've learned my worth.
I want to share with you a few best practices for scaling quickly and sustainably. These are primarily applicable to social media managers, virtual assistants, copywriters, and similar fields, but each has general principles that are useful for any service-based business!
Here are a few tips for scaling to a sustainable income as quickly as I did, or faster (considering I wasn't always the best at implementing these!):
Be Willing to Try New Things
I went into this whole self-employed thing intending to be a copyeditor for fiction novels, and for the first four years of freelancing that's all I did! I enjoyed it, but it was next to impossible to find clients who would pay me fairly, and I would make a few hundred every few months at best. It worked well as a small side gig for a little bit of extra spending money, but wasn't scaling into a legitimate business.
I eventually took a social media course to learn how to better market my editing business, and ended up loving social media strategy and wanting to try that too! I began shifting toward marketing myself as a Social Media Manager and Virtual Assistant, and through that broad lens I was able to try a lot of new things - some things that I still do today, and others that I tried for a while but moved away from because they just weren’t for me.
Trying new things helps you figure out what you do and don't like, so you can either niche down to a specific area or have a wide and impressive resumé of skills to market yourself with!
Study the Brand
When pitching yourself to a potential client, take your time to really study their brand. Review their current website and social media content, and take notes on the colors, the styles, the language they use. Think about what their goals are, who their audience is, and how you specifically can help them. Don't just send a resumé with a cut-and-paste cover letter that will work for any company - show them that you understand their brand and their vision!
Tell them what you like about their product, service, or mission. Show that you're passionate about helping them grow by sharing some broad concepts and ideas you have. Don't criticize where they are now, but focus on what you love along with some ideas for expanding upon it.
change your rate to match your experience
I don't typically like to raise my rate current clients unless necessary. I prefer to honor the rate we originally agreed to as much as possible, and if I do need to increase it I give a few months' notice. That said, each time I take on a new client, I review and recalculate my packages and rates, because:
Every client wants a slightly different package, and
I have learned more each day in this career and with each new client, so my value as a Social Media Manager has continued to increase.
The longer you're in the game, the better you are as a player! Know your value and be confident advocating for yourself. Don't be afraid to say no to a potential client who wants to pay you less than your proposed fee - even if you need the income, wait until it's with the right person! A client who can't afford your rate may not be able to afford you for long even at a lower negotiated rate, and a client who is just undervaluing you is not the kind of client you want to work with in the first place. Trust me, I've been there!
Collect Testimonials and Work Samples
When you're first starting out, you won't have a lot of ways to prove your skill. So be sure to collect testimonials from those first few clients that you can use to showcase your talents to future clients! If you're still struggling to land that first client, create your own work samples/
Social Media Managers: Get in Canva and design some Pinterest pin or Instagram Story samples either for yourself, for a brand you love, or even for the potential client to show what you would do for them. Share the designs along with sample captions and even a few curated hashtags you would be likely to use. You don't need a dozen clients or thousands of followers to prove your capabilities!
Copywriters: Time to start your own blog! Practice writing by writing for yourself first and capturing your own brand style and language. Then when you have a potential client to pitch to, you'll have an online portfolio of works to share!
Don't make Promises you Can't Keep (and learn the ones you can!)
You can't promise results when it comes to social media - it's the nature of the beast, so don't try to or you'll get bit. What you can promise is to design a brand presence they'll be proud of, to research the algorithms and best practices and implement those, and to create a set amount of posts, Stories, etc. each month.
My biggest commitment I make to my clients is to create social media content that represents their voice and their brand. If they don't feel like my writing or designs are representing them, I ask for feedback so I can pivot and learn what they want it to be like.
I ask for feedback like this the most in our first few months together, so that I can get a firm grasp of their voice and style before we're too far in. I never want to be six months in with a client and find out they haven't been satisfied with the content I've been creating!
Clients are People Too
A lot of scaling quickly comes down to client retention and referrals. Many of my best clients have come through referrals from other clients, and they wouldn't refer me if they weren't happy with our relationship and the work I do for them! When you treat your clients like people and give them grace and compassion, they will give you the same in return. It's just the Golden Rule: Treat others how you would want to be treated.
I've had clients hit unexpected crises and need to take breaks or quickly pivot our work together, so I'm always willing to listen and be flexible. In return, when I've had family emergencies that have caused me to push deadlines, I've been vulnerable and honest with my clients and they've always been understanding.
During many of my meetings with clients, my kids are running amuck in the background. I always make sure my clients are okay with this and it usually results in us bonding and even gives them permission to let their own kids or pets interrupt our calls too.
In addition to acknowledging that your clients are real people, be real yourself! Don't hide your personality or your faith or your lifestyle from them - post about it on your social media, share it openly in meetings. Show them that you can be a completely different person from them and still represent their brand well! And if what you share is something you have in common with a potential client, then you'll already share that bond from the get-go. Those are my favorite moments!
Need More Guidelines?
I'm working on a quick little "study guide" to help you pitch to potential clients effectively. Click here to subscribe to my newsletter, and when it's ready you'll be the first to get it!
