Working For Clients: The Basic Setup And How To Get Clients

Before you get clients, you want to get your basic business setup in place. What you do here depends on your profession and area of expertise.

Everything should be ready to rock the day that first client walks in the door. To make this happen, you’ll want to prepare all the supplies, systems, teams, and delivery methods that will keep your clients satisfied and happy.

This will take time and will also cost money.

But also know that your business setup is very scalable.

If you don’t have a lot of startup capital, there are ways for you to cut corners and do a lot of DIYs in your business. Also, know that basic website marketing won’t break your bank. 

You can put all the must-haves in place — yearly price on domain, web hosting, email autoresponder, logo – for about the price of a few trips to the grocery store. 

The rest is your decision to create all on your own – or hire a freelancer to help you market to the right people.

What’s an example of taking a shortcut to save time or money in your business setup to serve clients?

Some freelancers who are well established use QuickBooks or some other type of budget-balancing software to keep the books in their business.

But if you don’t have or want to allocate the funds for this because your brand new in your client based business, you can certainly send a simple invoice out that you create yourself, print as a PDF and email to clients manually without the help of any type of software.

Here’s a simple checklist of what you should put in place before hanging your shingle and announcing that you’re currently accepting clients.

Computers.

Yes, you might work in an industry where the computer is your main source of income and the bulk of your work is done on the computer. That would encompass professionals who work in marketing, tech support, writing, design, client management and such. Having a working computer with all the basics in place is of course imperative.

However, even if computers are not where you spend your days providing a service to clients, the world is totally computerized nowadays. It’s inevitable, even if you do something like cutting lawns for a living, that a computer will be an essential part of your business life. 

So put some basics in place for the computing part of your job. 

That could be a word processing program (Google Docs is free), the internet, email, antivirus protection, a way to take payments online and other necessary tech-based tools.

Business phone.

Separation of personal and business life is important when you work for clients. Yes, you might be tempted to just start giving out your cell phone number that you already have. But blurring this boundary in such a way can really add stress to your life.

FYI, you don’t need to sign another cell carrier contract to activate a second business phone. Avoid the hassle and just head over to Walmart’s technology department to purchase a business phone and pre-paid card.

Any other essentials that will be necessary to perform work for your clients. This seems straightforward. If you work as a seamstress, you need dedicated space for your sewing machine, supplies and customer garments. If you design landscapes, you’ll want to stock up on graph paper, pencils, books about plants and such.

The more essentials you put into place before taking that first client, the more relaxed and at ease you’ll be when the time comes to begin work… and of course, the more capable and professional you’ll come across.