Sales 101 for Creatives: 4 Core activities for steady work and sales

Renee Brisson-Khan

This is the fifth article in a series called “Sales 101 for Creatives” aimed at helping creatives decrease the highs and lows for a steadier flow of activity and sales.

Sales and opportunities for new projects don’t just walk in the door in a steady stream. With these four fundamental activities you create opportunities.

Avoiding the Peaks and Valleys

We hear about a cycle of “highs and lows” in business and freelancing quite often. While some are legitimate seasonal challenges, most “peaks and valleys” in business and sales are directly affected by how much time you invested in selling activities two months prior. In other words, if you were slammed busy in September and weren’t looking for business, you’ll find November will be slow. It’s not a hard fast rule but it’s uncanny how accurate it often is.

To avoid Peak and Valley fluctuations for a steady flow of opportunities and sales, scheduling time for four core selling activities will help stabilize for steady influx of opportunities and income.

4 Activities to Keep the Work Flowing

All selling activities are meant to help you move potential clients or opportunities forward in your Sales Funnel.

Activity 1: Make potential clients aware of you

Being visible and letting potential clients know who you are and what you offer is critical to bringing in new clients and deepening business with existing ones. Scheduling time to keep your site updated, your samples relevant and creating content to increase your traffic will keep new opportunities coming. These activities are all about increasing visibility and educating potential clients about what you provide.

Examples of actions: Building websites and social pages, videos and portfolios, contribution in social media and groups, connecting on social networks, face-to-face networking, cold calling, ad and marketing campaigns, speaking engagements.

Support article: Education, Active Buying and Closing 

Activity 2: Qualify the people who are interested and explore potentials

Not all opportunities that come along are the right fit. Dedicating time to researching and following up with prospects to assess the quality and the fit of leads will ensure you aren’t missing out on a good opportunity. At this stage it’s also good to find out who the buying influencers are and whether you are the right fit for what they are looking for. These activities will help you avoid wasting time chasing business that won’t be profitable.

Examples of actions: Reviewing company websites, researching contact profiles on LinkedIn, follow-up calls and coffee meetings, reviewing competitor offerings, hosting online forms for lead capture.

Support article: Knowing the Buying Influencers to get a “Yes” 

Activity 3: Follow-up to help them with their decision

They’ve seen what you have online and you’ve met with them, but that’s often not enough. Stats say that a buyer needs to connect with you no less than 7 times before they consider buying from you, so follow-up activity is critical to convert leads to sales. You want to find and help bring clarity to their situation by asking open-ended questions and following up with activities to provide information, whether it be pricing, breakdowns of services without jargon, or samples for previous projects that match their needs.

Examples of actions: Holding project need and scope meetings for deeper needs discovery, assembling pricing, service breakdowns, portfolio and case study prep.

Support article: Harness the power of “Tell me more” 

Activity 4: Move them to action so you can close the sale

Your clients aren’t likely to be creatives, so putting together a quote, proposal, or presentation that answers their needs in language and structure your customer will understand takes time. Scheduling time to simplify your proposals, eliminate jargon, edit presentations, and review contracts will convert your leads into clients.

Examples of actions: Estimating and quotes, assembling and presenting proposals, contract review.

Support article: A Postmortem on the Pitch that went wrong 

Dedicating the time

While you need to be doing a little of all of these activities regularly, they don’t all have to be prioritized equally. You can be flexible and allow your activities to re-prioritize based on the season or need. The trick is to not stop selling activities even when you are busy. I have found it can be as simple as scheduling blocks of time in my Outlook calendar so I don’t book project meetings or work during set times.

With steady activity you’ll find those Peaks and Valleys aren’t quite so sharp.