Steps for Effective Freelance Follow Ups to Generate More Warm Client Leads
I always wondered where other writers were getting these “warm client leads” or “hot potential clients” or “I have at least 100 potential leads to follow up with.” HOW?!
So that you don't have to live behind the ball like I did, this week's livestream is going over what a warm client lead is, how to do an effective follow up, how to generate more warm leads/potential clients, and the mindset shift you need to go through if you feel like you're “annoying” everyone.
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Steps for Effective Freelance Follow Ups to Generate More Warm Client Leads
How do they have so many leads? I used to ask myself this question all the time, like I used to say, like, I used to have all these conversations with freelance writers, Hey Vicky. Um, and they would be like, Oh yeah, I have, you know, 50 people to follow up on, or I have a hundred people to follow up on, or I have all these potential client leads.
And I was like, How do these even happen? You know? And there would be a lot of talk about like, Oh, here's how you do like warm follow up and here's how you do this and here's how you do that. And. First I need the clients. Like first I need to have people to follow up with. Like how do I do that? So that's what we're talking about today.
And we only have one fur friend right now. Oops. Because our other fur friend there he is, has treat a squirrel. So she's out there treating a squirrel and it's just us today, . So I tried to get her in. Oh wait, maybe she's here. Welcome. Let's just talk about how you treat a squirrel. Do you have a, Can you grab a blanket for.
Hello. Welcome, Minnie. There you go. So Charlotte, did you get the squirrel? No. Yes. Maybe. Maybe. Hello? She's here. Hold on.
All right. We got a blanket for her. Thank you. All right, Minnie, I'll wrap you up in the blanket, just like a little bit a taco. There you go. Build blank. A taco. Good. All right. The whole crew is here. We're ready to start . Hey Marie, We're all here now. We're all ready to be snugly, except Barry's like I should get something for being a good boy.
You will, Barry. You will. Don't you worry. Okay, so, Ooh, my hair's. What? Hey Holly, welcome Holly. So, just , just as an aside, um, in our freelance writer Wealth lab, um, community, Holly put in this recipe for, um, garlic tea and Holly, it helped so much. I just can't tell you. I can't believe it. So it, for me, Tommy liked it.
He liked the taste of the garlic. I did not, I thought it was terrible . I, I had to plug my nose while I drank it, but it worked. So I do still feel not great today, but I feel a lot better than I did. So, Holly, thumbs up for the garlic tea. Uh, even if it tastes bad, you should drink it cuz it, I don't know how it works, but it worked.
I had two cups of it, um, and it worked really well. So let's get back on topic. . Let's get back on. Um, so what we wanna talk about is like figuring out how we get all of these potential client leads. So the first thing is number one, Where's my one? There we go. So, number one is we're gonna talk about how does this actually happen?
1) What is a warm freelance writing client lead?
So like, what is a warm client lead? Like that was something that I didn't even understand. I didn't get it. Um, when I was starting out, I was like, what is a lead and what's a warm client? So your warm client lead. Is just any client that you've talked to before. Right? So a cold lead would be someone you didn't talk to yet.
You don't know them. Like you might have reached out with an L LOI and never got a response. Um, But you're Yeah. That's so weird with the garlic teeth that she said, like, the first time I ever had it, it was, I, I was the same. I'd gotten more used to it over the years. Yeah. The taste is non-ideal. . Um, it's a little bit like drinking.
Sweet pledge. Like it's, you know, pledge the cleaning stuff. And it's, it's weird, uh, because it, it's like so garlicy, right? It's garlic tea, but, uh, it's, it definitely has its own flavor, but it worked. So I don't know. It worked. I will be using that in the future. So the deal is what is a warm client lead.
Okay. You wanna sleep over there? Feel free. Um, our warm client lead is anyone who you've talked to, right? So if you send an LOI and you got a response now, where are you going? Or, um, you had a call with someone or you set a proposal. Anything where you've communicated at least once with a client, that person is now warm because they connected with you, right?
Oh, now you wanna, now we're doing this. Now we're switching our, our venues. Would you like your support duck to switch your venues? Oh, Fancy. There you go. Now you can put your head on your support deck. So that's what I was confused about was like, how are they getting these warm client leads? So the warm client lead just comes from sending those Lois.
The more Lois you send, the more you have warm client leads because you increase the chance of someone responding. Anybody who responds now becomes a warm client lead because you can have a back and forth. You can follow up. You might have a call or send a proposal. So your warm client leads just come from sending Lois, right?
Like that was, I know it sounds very basic to some people, but I didn't get it. Like I didn't understand where all these warm clients came from. And it's just like, do your marketing, do the things you know that work, right? Send your pitches, send your lois, and then now you have all of these warm clients to follow up with.
Because if you're sending, you know, you're 50 to 75 Lois a month, or you're spending an hour every day on market, You're gonna end up with a whole bunch of people who are warm leads, like people who respond, people who are, um, interested in working with you in the future. People who say things like, Um, I'm gonna put you on a list and we'll get back to you if we have work.
Like that just means not right now. Follow up later. Every single time, like that list thing, every time you hear someone say, We're gonna put you on a list, or I've put, I've filed your information, or like some version of like, We'll put you on the back burner. That just means follow up with them because they won't remember to follow up.
That's every single time. Or that person leaves the company and you follow up with someone new and they're like, We need. So always remember that. So your warm client lead is just somebody who you've communicated with. It's someone who responded to an LOI or responded to you in some way, or, um, reached out to you via your website.
2) How to do an effective freelance writing client follow up
And you know, they're, they, after hearing your projects, they're like, Oh, we're not ready right now, but let's do this later. That's all it is. So that's number one. Our number two thing, if I can figure this out also. You're so cute. Oh, good. Update on Bo before we move to number. So we took Bo back to his specialist appointment and they were like amazed with his progress.
So Bo is doing better than like is could be expected. He's just like a little magic dog that has healed himself. But he is gonna have to have surgery on his other eyeball. Uhoh. . I didn't know you knew that word. . Don't worry Bo, you're gonna be fine. He's gonna be awake. We can't really put him under cuz he's about to be 16.
He's one month away from turning 16. I didn't know you knew that, that word. Anyways, , he's gonna be, it's gonna be like just, he has this little like, bump on his eye that has really like, spiraled out of control. But the eye that we took him in, that we were, that we've been dealing with for the last, like two and a half months has been, um, has just improved incredibly.
Like it's, it's ba it's amazing. Here you go buddy. You're doing great. So, That's a little bow update. Charlotte's over here being a snug. She's got her blanket on her little mermaid leg. there go. Good job. All right, we're gonna minimize the amount of things that you guys get today. Cause last time I gave you too many and everybody had an upset stomach.
All right, let's get back to our real stuff. Well, not that my dogs are imaginary. They are in backfield. Oh, bless you, . So here's the thing. Number two is how do we do an effective follow up? So now that we've sent all of our Lois, right, Now that we've sent Ouris and we have our warm client leads, how do we follow up?
This is my schedule. I use this all the time, so write this down. Okay. I tell my students this, Holly, you're gonna get this. So I tell my students that this is my follow up. So let's say I sent a proposal or I had a call and they just like ghost to me. I don't hear it from them. I'm like, Alright, the follow up is two weeks.
Two weeks. Two weeks. Uh, one month. One month. Now we're gonna put them on the three month follow up schedule. Okay? So that's two weeks. Two weeks, Two weeks. Now we're at six weeks after our first contact, and this is when they don't answer. All of these are your follow up schedule for when someone just goes you or doesn't, you know, get back to you.
So two weeks. Two weeks, two weeks, One month. One month. Then put them on your quarterly follow up schedule. Okay? And how do we do this? Hi, you're cute and Snu. How do we do this? Boomerang, I love Boomerang. So, um, I think I have an affiliate code somewhere, but I'll put that in the description if you wanna use my affiliate code.
But if you don't, just go to Boomerang for Gmail. I think it's boomerang for gmail.com. Um, and the way that you do that is you just boomerang the message. So there's a little check box that says if no reply right, I hear you. Sas, I hear you sas, you, can you gimme a high five? Can you gimme another high five?
Okay. You can have a little bit. As you go through Boomerang, there's a little checkbox that says if no reply, you know, so you're boomeranging the message back to your inbox. You are telling Boomerang to put the message back in your inbox in two weeks, and then you follow up and then you say, Okay, cool. If they don't respond, you check the box.
If they don't respond, put it back in my inbox two weeks. And you do that on your schedule. So two weeks, like you have your first correspondence, they ghost you, right? So when you have your first correspondence, click a button, like already booming it. Like, Hey, if they don't respond, put this in my inbox two weeks later, right?
Because if they didn't do respond, it just never puts it in your inbox and you're good to go. But if they don't, now you have started your follow up. Then it boomer rings it back two weeks later. You're like, Hey, uh, hope you're doing well. Wanted to follow up on our call or wanted to follow up on our proposal.
Um, wanted, if you wanted to chat further if you have questions. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, this is something that like, you just wanna kind of change the message every time you follow up about like, do they have questions? Do they wanna move forward? Do they have next? Um, as you kind of go along. So then you boomerang it again for two weeks.
Reply, two weeks, reply. Um, two weeks. Two weeks, two weeks. And then a month later, follow up, reply, Hey, what's going on? How are you doing? ? Then a month later, follow up and then now you're gonna put them on a quarterly follow up schedule. So that means if they don't respond on that month one, right? So two weeks.
Two weeks, two weeks, one month. One month on your. One month follow up if they don't respond. So now we're, we're what, like three months out? We've already followed up for like three months-ish. Right. And they're not responding. Just boomerang it out three more months. That means ev, like not every quarter, like where you're like, It's September.
Just boomerang that message three months out and then respond and boomerang it out three months and follow up. This schedule works. Like I can't tell you how many times, It's not really this schedule, it's just being persistent. I just found that this schedule works because it's fresh enough in their mind, like two weeks later they still remember it two weeks later.
Like that kind of helps. And then if they're really. Having scheduled stuff, you're like, Okay, I have other things to do. One month, one month. And then you're like, All right, you're kind of in your own planet right now. I'll follow up in three months and see if you need help. So as you're kind of doing this schedule, it's really about persistence.
Hello. It's really about being persistent and I can't tell you how many times I've had potential clients and current clients. Thank me for following up. Okay. I know this sounds crazy. But I've had it happen so many times that people are like, Thank you for being persistent. Thank you for following up. We do wanna talk, like we do wanna do this thing.
I've gotten a bunch of clients this way. Um, this is really important for, um, just following up with people who have already shown interest. And then, you know, the deal is that if you follow up every three months, it's really easy to see when that person has left the company or, um, whether that person, you know, checked, um, Like added content to the website because like every time you're like following up with them, go look at their stuff, see what they're doing, say, Hey, I saw this new case study.
It looks really great. If you ever need any help with case studies, I would love to help. So you can do kind of like a recon every time you follow up with them, right? I hear you. Woo. I hear you. I hear you. Woo. You're being a SAS machine. It's clear cuz you didn't get that squirrel, um, . But it helps you kind of pay attention to what they're doing and it helps you pay attention to who.
Working at the company, right? So if that email bounces, right, If your follow up email bounces, now you know that that particular here you go mean that that particular person doesn't work there anymore. Now it's time to find a new person. This is how you end up following up. Like I have followed up with people for like two years.
Like this is a real thing. I have followed up with people for two years and I've gotten work from that and the person has continued to respond or they're like, Hey, thank you for following up. Like, we're not ready yet, but we're doing this other thing. Like I have followed up for a long time and gotten really great projects from that, and I know it.
Like a long time, and these are kind of back burner activities. So when you're following up and you're kind of going through the steps of a really good follow up for your freelance business, These things. Um, these are like eventually when someone gets to the quarterly follow up, they're just something that you hope works out in the future.
It's not something where you're like putting all your hopes and dreams into it. It's something where it's like, All right, I know you've shown enough interest for me to keep following up. I hear you. Woo, I hear you. Do you wanna come up here? You, you just wanna gimme a high five. Thanks. Um. I know you think you should get something that is more about like, this is how we end up with a hundred people to follow up with.
Right? So I started this off by saying like, I didn't know how people had like a hundred potential leads to follow up on this is how is they just keep gathering more and more of these people to follow up with and they gather more and more here go. Follow up opportunities, they're sending their lois and then they have a bunch of places to follow up with and they just keep following up until someone says, Please stop.
Or until they have work or until someone leaves and they start following up with somebody else. Like there's, This is something that I learned from real estate agents, so. I've talked to like thousands of real estate agents, um, for all the work that I've done, and they always say the same thing. They're like, I follow up until they tell me to stop.
And it gets them clients all the time. It keeps them top of mind. Or it has them kind of like planting the seed with someone. Um, or they're, they're kind of like always around. Like they add them to their newsletter or they're following up about, they're like, Hey, I saw this thing that might be a fit for you.
Um, this is something that they do all the time, and if someone tells you to stop, you obviously stop. But most of the time, like people appreciate that, They're like, Oh yeah, we should think about that. Or, Oh yeah, like, I'm so glad that this person is like paying attention to our needs. Or, um, what Maurice said, which is, um, you can send them an email with, um, yeah, it's like, so she sends an email to the person who is out with Covid or someone who's on vacation, right?
While you're following up with them. Um, you follow up when they come back from, You can also send them articles, right? Something that works for me is when I'm doing my follow up, is I'm like, Hey, I saw this article about you. Congrats on this thing. Or, Hey, I saw that your competitor's doing this. Um, or I saw, Hey, like I see that this is kind of like coming up in your niche.
Maybe you wanna consider this type of content. You can always add something helpful to the follow up rather than like asking questions or like, Hey, what about the proposal? Or what about these things? It just depends on, you know, what you're kind of putting in those baskets. Woo, woo. I see you. Woo . I know.
Woo. You're like, I'm only here for the snacks. You're like, I am only here for the snacks. What about Barry? Barry, are you only here for the snacks? You and your support doc? There you go, buddy. We're doing little pieces today, Barry. I know it's like harder for you to chew, per se, but we can't do huge piles of trios.
All right, so as you're kind of going through this, when you're doing this effective follow up, remember this, Okay. Persistence pays off and these are back burner things. So once you start getting to the quarterly follow up, this is how we're gathering hundreds of people, or 50 to a hundred people to follow up with, is like, we have these people on this quarterly follow up that are like kind, you know, warm leads.
3) How to generate more warm leads/potential clients
They're like, Yay or na, but persistence pays off. That's really, I. Hey, Chase. Welcome. Welcome in. All right, let's go to three. So let's talk about three. If you've found this helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a, hiring, freelance writing business, or building a freelance writing business that you adore, subscribe.
All right, let's talk about. How to generate more of these. Basically, it's really simple. You're generating more, more warm leads by being more persistent and doing more marketing and following up more often. Like this thing, I think this for me sometimes is really, uh, a hard thing to remember because you're like, Oh, I should just stop following up cuz they didn't answer.
Just cuz they didn't answer doesn't mean they won't be interested in six. Or doesn't mean that they won't be interested next quarter or doesn't mean that they'll change their, like they'll pivot, right? There are so many changes that happen all the time that being persistent, sending your lois being consistent, right?
Consistent with sending your lois so consistent and persistent, you're co consistently sending those lois, which is consistently bringing in more le more warm leads and more people to potentially answer your lois. And then do you wanna come say hello to everybody? You wanna come up? You're like, Don't touch me,
You're like, Don't do that. Um, so you're doing more marketing, you're making sure that you're staying consistent with your marketing, then you're staying consistent with your follow up schedule and you're being persistent. This is why we have tools and you can snooze messages in. Um, I'm gonna pick you up.
Come here. I'm pick you up. Mini, No, no mi you're a sas. Being . Um, Yeah. Yeah, I know the trios thing that always gets me. Here you go fi go be and there. So as you're kind of going through this, your consistency with your marketing helps get more warm client leads and not giving up on the follow up. Like this was something I've followed up with people who have gone on maternity leave multiple times.
I followed up with people who. Have like switched hands like two or three times. Like I followed up with one person, then another person, then another person, and I got some work. But this is kind of like for me, always the possibility these are those, those hot, those warm irons in the fire that I talk about is like the more of these you have, the more likely something's gonna work out and the more persistent you are with following up.
The more likely you're gonna get some work. And this persistence is really important because we're not annoying people. We're not bothering people. We're just sending a nice note. Maybe you wanna send them an article, maybe you wanna send them something cool that happened in their niche. Maybe you wanna send them, you know, I don't know, something informational or, um, they got some funding or they, um, you know, passed a big milestone in their business.
You can congratulate them on that. But the deal is that you're not bothering them. Right? You're following up because they made contact with you and maybe they need help. Your whole goal is to help them, right? Obviously the goal is also that you're getting work, right? But you're trying to help them and they're, you know, maybe they were interested enough to send a, for you to send a proposal.
Maybe they were interested enough to hop onto calls with you. Uh, but I've, I've found that this kind of, um, The actions, like the consistency with marketing, the consistency with following up, being persistent with just kind of following up. And eventually there are some companies where you're just like, You know what?
That's not really my niche anymore. Or I don't really wanna, you know, work with that company anymore because they're creating stuff I don't wanna create. Um, or maybe there's some changes that have happened and you don't wanna do that. Like, I've dropped people out of my follow up schedule before. Um, and that's just kind of, Part of your business growing.
Like you drop people out of the schedule when you're like, Ugh, like, I don't think this is a fit for me anymore. Or, I don't wanna do 10,000 blog posts anymore, or something like that. So you can always reevaluate every time somebody comes up. You don't have to be persistent for the sake of being persistent.
You can just kind of reevaluate their content, reevaluate what the company's doing, reevaluate their pivots, or like what directions they're going in and see if that's still a. Uh, Shta. If you watch the beginning of this video, I go through all of the follow up stuff. So Shta, when we get off here, you can watch the beginning part and it, I'll tell you all about my follow up schedule.
4) The mindset shift you need to go through if you feel like you're “annoying” everyone
So, uh, the last thing that we're gonna talk about on here is four, and we're gonna do a quick pop date just because Barry looks super cute with his little, his little support Duck. Charlotte, you're just gonna get a little piece. All right, Charlotte, you have to go back to your Hobbit. Go back to your HOA hole.
Go back over there. Nope, that I know. Bears in your HOA hole. Go over there. Go over there. That's . Charlotte. Are you? Oh gosh. Why are you guys so weird? Sometimes they are sitting on each other. I think it's hard to see them both. Charlotte, go over there. Charlotte, go over there. Charlotte. Use your noodle. No, don't sit on Bo.
That's . Okay, Now she's a no, not over there. Come here. Here. You flew the loop. I know you're trying, You're like, I'm trying to follow directions, but I don't get it. Here you go, buddy. You guys look so funny. Charlotte, can you go get this one? You don't wanna go over there cuz that's bears spot normally. Okay, go.
Good job, Barry. Oh, it stuck to my finger a little bit. All right, Charlie, can you do a high five for me? Good job, otherwise. Good job. All right. The pups like to be in here for like, they usually fall asleep if they're in here when I do a live q and a for the course and they usually fall asleep. So if one of them is in here for the live q and a of the course, um, I, uh, , they usually fall asleep cuz like, I'm, I'm, uh, talking in a different way.
But Bo's usually in here for the live q and a's, um, even if he's not on camera. . Good job buddy. You look great. Yes, You played a superstar. You're a superstar. All right, let's go to four. So, um, here's the deal. If you feel like you're annoying everyone, this was a problem that I had. So when I started out, I thought that if I followed up, um,
That's funny. Holly says, One of my cats always sits on the other's head. And I'm like, Why are you doing that? So, uh, they, I, they don't, my dogs don't even really like sitting on each other. Like they, they will sit near each other sometimes and sometimes they will snuggle, but like bo most of the time like steps on Charlotte or like ignores her presence or, you know, so they rarely ever sit on each other.
Um, except for on the live stream for some reason. Charlotte, I just gave you something. You sass, Oh my gosh. Why are you so cute and sassy? I like your little high five. What about the other one, though? The other one? Good job. All right, so if you feel like you're annoying someone, this was a problem that I had when I started out was I was like, Oh, following up is just, you're in someone's inbox all the time and you're bothering them.
And it's just not true. That's not the case. . Um, the deal is that people aren't thinking about you. They don't care what you're doing. They don't like when you show up in their inbox every two weeks, and then you show up every, you know, every month, and then you show up every quarter. Like they get so many emails that that is such a low volume of you showing up in their inbox.
You're not annoying them. And if they responded, say like, Please stop. Just stop following up with. Um, I just find that for me, when I thought I was being annoying, I was just like, Oh my gosh. Like, this is so many emails. It's not that many emails. They have people get like hundreds of emails every week and some people get thousands of emails every week.
Your one email that shows up on a very spaced out schedule, right? You're not emailing them every day . Um, it just, it's like a blip on their radar. So don't worry so much that you're annoying people cuz you're not like, I don't think. I don't think I've ever been told like by someone to stop following up.
Like, I don't think I've ever been told to stop following up or that it was, that it was annoying or that I shouldn't be doing it, or that I'm bothering people. I don't think I've ever been told that, and almost every time when I'm like, you know, questioning it, I get an email where someone's like, Thank you for being persistent.
Thank you for following up. We so appreciate you, you know, following up with us. This fell through the cracks or so and so thing happened like I've been. Way more, I don't think I've ever been told, like, Please stop it . Um, because it's so far away. Like it's so separated. It's so, um, it's so, the schedule is so spaced out that you are, um, you're not like flooding their inbox.
Like, I, I remember I've had, um, I've talked to students before and I've talked to freelance writers before where they're just. Oh, I didn't hear from them in 48 hours. So I followed up and then I didn't hear from them in 48 hours. So I followed up like even on the weekends and I'm like, No, no. Like businesses move really slowly.
Okay. And publications move really slowly. So your regular schedule, right, your two weeks, the first part of it, that piece, , that's like way fast in the business world. Like we are trying to get work, right? We're trying to move along, we're trying to, um, get more clients. We're trying to, you know, move. Excuse me.
Move our business forward and get more work. Right. But businesses move really slow. That's another reason we have to be consistent with our marketing and persistent with our follow up, is they go really slowly, Like it could be six months to a year before they ever figure their shit out. Right. Okay. Go buddy.
It could be forever before they actually get everything in place or before they hire the people they need to hire or before they're like ready to find the right marketing person to actually start working with you. Right? There's all of these things that happen that have nothing to do with us. So every time you feel like you're annoying, there's just nothing going on, like they're not thinking about you.
You pop in and you're like, Do you need help? And they're like, Not right now. And then you follow up and you're like, Do you need help? And they're like, Not right now. Like it's not this thing where, um, Everybody's thinking about you and what you're doing and what they're not like passing judgment. And if they are, they either don't get back to you or they might tell you like, Hey, don't follow up.
But that has never happened to me. Like, knock on wood, Right? Like, that hasn't happened to me yet in 10 years of being effective with, Hey, go buddy. I didn't. It's right here. There we go. Oh my gosh. It's in the Support Duck's armpit. Oh no, we've lost it. We've lost it here. There we go. All right. So , just as my young, my youngest cat, my eighth month old does this to his brothers too, that he sits up on them.
That's funny. Um, So like if you ever worry about that you're bothering someone, or that this follow up schedule is like too aggressive, it's really not. You have to imagine that this is like a drip in the pond of emails, okay? Every time you follow up, it's like one little drop going into an entire fountain that's running all the time.
Like these people are getting emails all the time, so you following up or you sending a LinkedIn message. You like asking if they need help with something, And these are, there are people that already responded, right? These are warm leads where you either sent a proposal or had a call or they said, Thanks, but no thanks and try again.
Or they said like, We'll put you on a list. Like these are people who already responded, right? They're not cold people who never answered your LOI in the first place. These are all people who answered and replied and, um, made contact with you in the first. So the idea here is that, sorry, this color of this shirt is like folding in for some reason today.
I think it's cuz my hair is wet . Um, so the idea here is that you need to focus on being consistent with your marketing and being persistent rather than worrying about annoying people. If someone wants to say something like, Hey, stop doing that, then they will do that, right? And then you can stop doing that.
Like stop following up. But the deal is that almost like every single time I've gone through this, being persistent and following up has worked out in me getting. Um, with a bunch of clients, not all of them, obviously, but with a bunch of clients. And it's really stuff I love doing. And that was me more being like following up and being, you know, consistent and persistent rather than me worrying about bothering everybody and annoying them.
Like, that's not a thing. That's a thing we think about ourselves. That's not a thing that other people, like, other people don't spend that time, that time thinking about someone they don't know. Right. And if they did, they would just tell you like, Please stop. Right. I hear you. Woo, I hear you. I know. Your SA machine today, you got your SAS Jos on
So I just wanna kind of point that out, like, I think it's really important to remember that, um, we are trying to run a business and part of that business as freelance writers is following up. And part of that business is marketing and part of that business is understanding that when someone responds to you or when you have a warm lead, that's really, I.
That's way better than all the hundreds of people who will never answer you. Like that's, you send all of these Lois, right? You send hundreds of Lois a year, and like some portion of people get back to you and some smaller portion signed projects. You're gonna have a way bigger portion of people who just get back to you and are warm leads than the number of people who sign projects.
But now you have this big clump of warm leads to now continue following up with so you can get projects in the future, right? So now you have more momentum and more things to work with, rather than just everything being cold and everything being, you know, taking forever for people to like get on board the bus.
All right. Um, Holly says My favorite boundary thing is, um, my job. It's my job to enforce my boundaries, not yours, uh, to guess what they are. That's really good. Uh, you can apply that to other people and they can tell you to stop or send all your emails to spam. Yeah, so that's the thing is like we are not guessing what other people's needs are or what their boundaries are.
Right? We're doing our own thing and we're worrying about enforcing our own boundaries, and we're worried. Not guessing what they need or don't need or what they think or what they don't think. Our job is to do the things that work for growing our business. Our job is to take a step every single day with moving our business forward.
Not on the weekends cause we need rest time, but our job is to make sure that we're making consistent progress with moving our business forward. And if someone has a boundary where they're like, Please stop doing that, they will let us know. Right. So I think that's really important to mention. I love that.
I think that's really. Hello. All right, let's do a quick pop date. My wet hair's all over the place. All right, let's do pub date. Can you go back to your HOA hole? No. You gotta go back to your HOA hole here. Go back to your HOA hole. You don't wanna go over there. Go over there. Good job. There we go. Let's see if we can get everybody.
There we go. We did it. All right. Gimme high five. Gimme another one. The other one. Good job. All right, Barry, are you. Good job. Good job. All right, let's do a little bit more. That was just like a little, a little bit. Woo. We almost had treat extravaganza going on and I almost dropped all the treats outta the ground.
Charlotte, you look so cute and interested. All right. Ready? High five. High five. Good job. All right, Barry, are you ready? The job, You guys look great. You guys are like the cutest. Hello. I know all the licks are because she's like, Please give me more. She's like, I'm only here for the. She's like, I don't wanna be here to support you.
I'm only here for snacks, Charlotte. Is that true? Charlotte, did you put that on the forums? Did you go in and tell everyone that? That's the only reason you're here. Otherwise out Gentle dental. You're doing the claw. You're doing the claw, Charlotte. But you look super cute. . She's like, More please. I know, huh?
Yes. All right, just a little bit more and then we're gonna be done. Cause I'm breaking little bits off so that you guys. Tell me stuff here. Go buddy. All right, ready?
Let's see how many you'll do. Let's see. That's a good number. Good job. Good job. All right. That was a good pop date. We got a lot of things accomplished. , you'll teach her another treat or another trick, and then we'll do that too. So if you found this helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you wanna learn more about building a hiring freelance writing business, or building a freelance writing business that you adore, subscribe.
And if you ever have any questions, you can always go and pop them in. Hold on. You can go pop them into here. So if you go to mandy ellis.com/question, I have questions that people submit there and we go over those in the live stream, or I make little YouTube shorts out of. So if you ever have a question, you can always pop 'em in there.
Or if you want me to cover a topic like this was a topic that people have asked me about a ton, you can always put it into Mandy yells.com/question and we'll go over on the live stream. This was something that I feel like is really confusing when you don't understand the process of marketing or following up, or how long or what to.
Um, I just feel like this topic is, this is something I get asked about a lot. Like how long do you follow up and like, how much do you do it and aren't you bothering people and like, why are you doing it so much? Or what, you know, like writers have this very, um, this, they have very low. like ability, right?
Like they're, they're just like, Oh my gosh, not ability, but they have this very low, like, Oh my God, I'm bothering people. They have this low self-esteem a lot of times, and they're like, I shouldn't be doing that. And like, I just wanna write and I just wanna get paid for my writing. Like, instead of thinking about running it as a business and that this is a business decision to help you get more work and do more writing for the audiences that you wanna write for, they're like, I'm bothering people, so I should just stop.
No, no, no, no. Don't do. We wanna think about this as an opportunity to move our business forward. And this is an opportunity to capitalize on all the work of marketing, right? Marketing is a lot of work, right? So we wanna make sure that we follow up with those people who get back to us, who are warm leads, who are interested enough to do a call or a proposal or, or answer our, our loi, right?
That's something that we should capitalize on because it takes a lot of work to just, you know, sometimes get responses and it can take time to get responses. So when we do, we wanna make sure that we're following up and that we're being effective about, that we're not being annoying. And especially when you move someone to following up with them every three months, like one email every three months is so small.
Like they have gotten, they could have gotten 10,000 emails or a hundred thousand emails in those three months. By the time you send one, right? So one email's not a big deal, and it really does make a difference for, um, you getting work. I'm, I'm telling you like keep this in the back of your mind. I have been thanked so many times for being persistent and for following up.
Like people say like, Thank you for being persistent, not just, thank you for following up. Um, and it leads to work and it leads to really good relationships because I'm obviously the per. That I put into following up translates to how persistent I am with my own work and how like much I care about it, right?
So if I keep following up and I'm really like, I'm on a schedule and I'm doing this regular thing, that's more trustworthy because then I would obviously be able to do other things on a, on the proper time, right? Like I would be able to hit my deadlines, I'd be able to be conscientious, I'd be able to pay attention to important details.
I would be able to. You know, do all these other things. So it reflects really like, I don't know really well on your business, I think. All right, people, I've got a a w train in here and the W train's going off W train. All right, we're gonna do one more pup date and then we're gonna hop off cuz Barry's sitting over there being snugly and cute.
Okay. Go back to your haa hole. Nope, you gotta go back to the hobb hole this way. There you go. All right, let's do our last pop date and then we're gonna hop off. Oh my gosh, Charlotte, look how cute you look today. You look so cute. I think it's just cuz you guys are well lit, cuz normally you're not well lit cuz you're in the other spot.
You gotta do one more. High five, the other one. Good job. Yes, Right here. You ready? Just for bears. You look so cute today. Your eye looks great. You got a little go in your eye, your other eye, but overall you're looking good. All right, Charlotte. High five. High five. . Gentle ow. Gentle. Good girl. He's all right.
One more. All right. You go Barry for being a gentle bear. Alright, mean high five. . High Five. Other one. Oh, another one. I like your little teeth. Other one? Nope. One more. One more. High five. Good job. Good job. All right. So I hope that this was helpful. I hope it kind of like alleviated some stress and gave you kind of a, uh, a good follow up schedule to follow and reasons why you should follow up and why it's important, um, and how to actually get more warm leads.
Like you're just kind of doing more marketing and you're following up with more people and then eventually you get more clients. Like a lot of the clients I have are just simply from following up, right? Like I'll follow. . Um, like sometimes it's, I mean, obviously several years is really long, but sometimes it's a couple months.
You know, I could follow up for three to six months and then I get a really great project. It's just a matter of paying attention to those things and doing more marketing so you have more warm leads to follow up with. The other thing is that, um, remember like people will tell you their boundaries, right?
If they tell you to stop, obviously stop. But most of the time you don't need to worry about that. You need to worry about taking steps forward in your business and other people will let you know if that's, you know, they want you to stop. I know, Lou, I know you got a lot of woo feelings today. All right, So I hope this was helpful.
We're here every Friday at noon central time. If you ever wanna suggest a topic or you want me to answer a question, you can pop it into mans.com/question. And um, yeah, I hope this was helpful. I hope everybody has a good Friday, and I will see you next Friday.
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