

It leads to a more balanced relationship.” Divide your time: support existing clients and look for new work Then we look at how we can accelerate that and customise our services to meet their needs. Mike Cockburn, director at Sogno, a positive psychology coaching company, says, “It’s important that we understand what our clients are trying to achieve: their mission, their goals. Because I source the produce and pack the boxes, I know exactly what’s happening and can provide a fully personalised service.”Īnd it’s not just consumers who like this approach. I have a good relationship with our customers and I know the business. “This is where we have an advantage over bigger suppliers. Our service is completely personalised to their needs. She says: “We know our customers really well and know their preferences so we can tell them when certain things are coming – when they’re in season and in stock. She’s managing director of Bodice of Holt, which offers a home delivery service for fruit and vegetables. It can also help you stand out from your competitors, something that Alice Boden understands. Understanding your customers’ needs can lead to better insights into your audience and allows you to develop services that are matched to your clients’ needs. There’s a lot of talk about personalisation and customer insight – that’s because it works. We spoke to two small business owners and asked them to share their experiences of growing their customer base. But doing so is often a concern for businesses, with more than one in three companies saying that generating new business is their biggest worry.
Tool to expand client base free#
Have you attended the free webinar on "Meeting Clients"? Visit the Site Guidance Centre for loads of information.Customers are the lifeblood of any business, so it’s vital you can keep generating leads and retaining your existing customers. Talking about your profile, it's certainly better than many, but perhaps it can be improved on. Maybe Twitter and Facebook could help too? I'm too old to be up to speed with it all.ĭo you belong to the ATA? It doesn't say so on your profile. At the very least that should include a website of your own, a presence on LinkedIn with membership of relevant interest groups there, and maybe writing a blog, or at least responding to others'. As a young person (I imagine), you should be making maximum use of all the possibilities the web gives you for networking and making yourself known as the (or at least "a") go-to person for Japanese to English patent translation. It does seem that you're leaving a lot of avenues unexplored.

You may only get one job from a hundred agencies! But make sure you only target those who want to be contacted, and by their preferred method. As a relative beginner, you should be contacting dozens of agencies in a tailored, personal fashion every single week. At least target the specialists in your pair/specialisation. But what about all the agencies you haven't worked with so far? There are literally thousands out there. Maybe you're being a bit pushy, emailing so often? I'm not sure really - it's something I've never done, but that doesn't make it bad practice.

My current activities for finding work include inquiring to any job I see on ProZ which I am qualified for, as well as on translatorscafe, and emailing my prior clients every month or so to see if they have any new jobs. I don't have a background in business so this is a bit of a learning process for me. In any case, I would appreciate any help that you can give me, as I feel like I'm at the end of my knowledge here. I specialize in patent translation, if that is relevant to answering this question. I am almost certain that I am missing something here though because most of the clients I meet only net me one or two jobs and then I have to find a new client. However, I am currently not sure what I should be doing that I am not doing currently. So, that tells me that I need to expand my client base. I cannot guarantee that I will have more than 1 job a month at the moment. It took a long time to get the clients that I currently have, but work is still fairly inconsistent. It has been my primary source of income for about a year and a half now. I have worked as a freelance translator for about 3 years now in the Japanese to English language category. Hello, this is my first time posting here.
