Prospective clients are all around. They are out there and they need you. But they aren’t going to know that you can provide the specific help that they need if they don’t know that you exist. These prospective clients might not understand the full scope of their problem, or how hiring a consultant could solve it for them. Instead, they keep hitting their head again the same wall, over and over. Such folks need the help that you can provide. Strategic marketing will help the two of you come together.

Marketing your business strategically also helps you 

• to avoid being exploited. Platforms that exist to connect freelancers and clients—places like Upwork and Fiverr—make a profit off your hard work, and their clients expect a lot of work for, generally speaking, as little money as possible.
• to develop your professional credibility. The marketing strategies that you employ to get your name out there establish your authority as an expert in the field, helping both potential clients and colleagues to find you, get to know you, and begin to trust you.
• to set your own terms. Effective marketing rules out the potential clients who aren’t a good fit with your skills and interests. Marketing yourself allows you to set the guidelines that govern exactly what a client can expect from you in terms of labour and time.

Some people think that marketing their business is icky. They instead make the decision to rely on word of mouth and trust that the quality of their work will speak for itself. It’s great to take pride in your work and your expertise! And certainly word-of-mouth is one of the best ways to grow your client base. But few business owners can afford to depend solely on referrals—especially as they’re newly starting out. 

The good news is: there are lots of prospective clients out there! If you limit yourself to the “six degrees of separation” approach, you’ll be confining yourself to the paddling pool when you could be in the olympic-sized lanes. “Strategic Marketing for Consultants and Freelancers” teaches an approach to marketing that enables you to reach prospective clients who don’t even know that they need help, and who don’t understand how you can solve their specific problem. Combined with word-of-mouth referrals, this approach will enable you to sustain your business in the long term, avoiding the boom-and-bust, feast-and-famine cycle too common in freelance and small business circles.