How to Find Clients: My Strangest Referral Stories
By Kelly Schrank, Bookworm Editing Services LLC
As a new solopreneur (three months into my second year), I am still trying to figure out how to find clients. I’ve done many of the things everyone tells you to do: I let everyone know I started my business; I got a previous employer as my first biggest client; I created a website and a strong LinkedIn profile; I got referrals from people I used to work with; I’m active in professional associations and speak at conferences.
But what’s surprised me are the clients that have come out of nowhere or through such a circuitous route, it’s a wonder they found me at all. To illustrate this, I will share two of my strangest referral stories.
The first referral story initially sounds familiar – the client came to me through someone I know through a professional association. Yes, but…we’ve known each other for years and never worked together. Last year at a conference, he said, why don’t we work together on some projects, and given he has been at this much longer than I have and he is well-respected, I said, yeah, of course, let me know when you have a project where you need a medical editor. Early in the year, he sent me a couple of emails about projects that never panned out. Then he forwarded me an email from a colleague, someone I know but not as well, who was being asked to work on a project she wasn’t really interested in. She offered it to him; it wasn’t really his cup of tea, so he asked me if I was interested. It was interesting to me, so I contacted the client, and it was a good project. So, a referral, but not the type of direct referral you expect when people talk about getting referrals.
But the strangest referral story is one of my more active clients this year. His assistant emailed me to see if I was available, with no mention of how she found me or a referral, and it was during a time when there were a lot of scam emails going to freelancers. I was very wary, and I had no idea whether this person was real. When she left me a voice mail at the end of the day (after I had not responded all day), I finally emailed her back. It turned out she and he were legitimate, but when I asked how she found me, she listed a person’s name and company I had never heard of! So I looked up the person who referred her to me on LinkedIn, and I wasn’t connected to her, her name seemed only vaguely familiar, and I couldn’t find any record in my emails or the forum that we had conversed. I sent her a message thanking her for referring me, and she was equally vague about how she knew me well enough to refer me to him. I’m really enjoying this new client, but it’s crazy how he found me.
So, while it’s hard to “plan” for landing these types of clients, the one connecting thread with these two referral stories is to be active in a professional association where people like you hang out. So whether it is AIIP or another professional association, figure out where your tribe hang out and get involved. You have to be known to be referred.
Kelly Schrank has been in technical and medical communication for over 20 years. Her business, Bookworm Editing Services, has two focuses: medical editing of manuscripts, dossiers, and slides for pharmaceutical and medical clients and creating and editing policies and procedures for information technology departments.
