How to Get New Clients with Old Work

Imagine getting new clients all the time using old work you’ve done in the past. How easy would that be? Wouldn’t it be nice?

You can do just that – by having a great portfolio.

Do You Really Need to Show Off?

Yes, you do. When you operate an online business, you need to provide potential clients with a portfolio of your past work to show your abilities and skills.

A portfolio is the equivalent of a resume or CV. Your resume reflects your experience and work. Often, it represents a lifetime of your achievements.

A portfolio is no different. This is your life’s work now. Your portfolio shows off the best of your best, and it’s a representation of your personality and style.

Without one, you’re all talk. You could promise the client the moon and regale them with the marvelous projects you’ve done, but it’s only bragging if you can’t back it up.

Where Should You Start?

If you’ve been working for a while, you already have the start of a portfolio right under your nose. In fact, you probably have the start of several portfolios.

Yes, several. You could lump all your past projects into one portfolio, but that makes for a sloppy, confusing presentation. Clients don’t know what to look at, and they may choose to view something they don’t need – then they’ll leave.

Think of organizing your portfolio as you’d organize outfits for different occasions. Here are the suits, here are the evening gowns, here are the casual sporty clothes, here are the shoes.

Here are a few types of portfolio sections or pages you may want to consider:

• Web design
• Copywriting
• Print graphics
• Logos
• Sales Letters
• Audio
• Blog posts
• Ebooks
• Animation

I could go on forever, breaking each section down further into specific types of work. Once you start to organize your portfolio, you’ll see just how easy it is – and your clients will see how easy it is to find what they’re looking for, too.

Do You Have Diversity?

Your portfolio is all about you. Within the space of a few minutes, or even seconds, your portfolio says more about you than you could possibly imagine.

No one wants to see the same thing over and over. Take a look at the work you want to put in your portfolio. Will it make you look like you have a diverse set of skills? Does it show off everything you can do?

If you’re a graphic designer, examine the overall impact of the images as a single group. Do the images all look the same? Or, do they represent a wide range of variety? If you’re a writer, is each document the same style? What diversity can you display? Can you add other pieces that show you have multiple skills?

Keep It Sweet and Simple

We all want to show off our flash and bang, but in some cases, it’s just overkill. It distracts from the purpose of showing a client you’re qualified and know what you’re doing.

Most likely, your client is busy. You’re probably not the only freelancer he or she is considering for the job. That person wants a fast look that makes him or her think, “Yes! This is exactly what I need!” Keep your portfolio simple, get to the point, and don’t waste time.

It may be best to have one primary portfolio page with a few of your best projects displayed front and center. Add headlines to tell clients what they’re looking at. If you have a large portfolio, offer a link to another page where visitors can view the whole selection, if they have the time or inclination.

Back it Up with Information

You do good work, great. So what? People examining your portfolio don’t want to know how fantastic you are. They want to know whether you’ll achieve the goal they seek, and they want backup that you’ve already done it for other people.

Show them the results. What did your work accomplish for your past clients? What problem did clients have, and how did you resolve it? If they wanted more sales, how many did your work help achieve? If they wanted more exposure, how did your skills help them attain that?

Remember that people don’t buy great writing or flashy graphics. They buy the future, the results that the writing or images are going to bring. And they want to know how you changed the lives of others before they trust you to change theirs.

Change Is A Good Thing

Your portfolio isn’t a static object that never changes. As you get better, work more and gain experience, your portfolio evolves right along with you.

If you’re brand new at freelancing, create portfolio pieces for yourself and your business. Your business is your client, after all, and the work you do for it is experience. When you’ve built up a client base, start switching out your pieces for client work.

Even after you’ve been working in your field for a while, you still need to keep your portfolio fresh and updated. Go back and weed out the old work. You update your résumé, don’t you? You update your portfolio the same way.

3, 2, 1…Contact!

Whether you present your portfolio in person, mail a disc, send links in an email or show it on the web, make sure your potential client can see your contact information. Nothing loses a sale faster than a client seeing something he or she wants – and having no way to tell you it’s a go.

Can you think of any other tips for a great portfolio? What would you want to see, if you were a potential client looking for the right person for the job?

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