Happy September! I don’t know about you, but September always gives me the ‘back to school’ vibes even though I haven’t had any kids going back to school since 2021…
Anyway, I hope you’ve had a great summer and are raring to go again. I slowed right down in August this year. My son was home on leave from the army, so I didn’t want to be buried in work while he was here, and we had some lovely days out together. I didn’t stop completely but I did block out my calendar so nobody could book a call or a podcast recording with me. I tend to find that August is slow anyway, as a lot of my clients are on holiday or have kids at home, so why not go with the flow!
Having said all this, I did still get work coming in, despite the fact that August is usually quiet, and one of the reasons for this was simply keeping in touch with clients.
I have a mailing list that I send an email to once per month. On the list are current, former and potential clients, plus a few other people who are interested in what I do. My emails are never salesy but contain useful or interesting information about my world.
Not everyone I would like to keep in touch with has signed up to my email list however, so I try to stay top of mind other ways. One way is by sending a quick email to all my current and recent clients if I am going on holiday, so that they know when I will be unavailable and when I will be back. That sometimes elicits a flurry of last-minute work for me.
I didn’t have a holiday booked this summer, so I didn’t have this excuse to get in touch. Instead, I sent out an email explaining that I wasn’t going away so I was there if they needed me!
I usually spend some time every week connecting with new people, either on LinkedIn, or through email, but this summer I decided instead to re-connect with people I already know. I started off with people who have been clients in the past but not bought from me recently (and who aren’t on my mailing list), and then moved on to people who haven’t bought from me yet but have expressed an interest.
I had some lovely replies from people who appreciated being kept up to date, and I also had some work!
This came from a company that I have recorded quite a lot of projects for in the past, but not recently. My contact’s reply was rather sheepish – she admitted that she had forgotten about me! In the same email she attached a project that needed recording, and she has sent me a further two since then!
It just goes to show how important it is to keep in touch with people – and that it’s easier to get work from people you’ve worked with before than it is to land a new client, because they already know, like and trust you.
I will definitely keep repeating this exercise of getting back in touch with people who I know are already interested in what I do, alongside reaching out to new prospects. Who knows, maybe there are other former clients who have forgotten about me too……If you want to see who I’ve worked with in the past, have a look at the client logos on my homepage!