Getting your first client for your business is often a pretty big challenge. Figuring out how to get the right people to notice you online to want to book you can feel daunting, overwhelming, and at times, discouraging. But I'm here to you…it's not impossible! With the right strategies in place, you can absolutely attract your first few clients pretty quickly, as you’ll see once you dive into the tips below…

Announce your services to EVERYONE you already know to get your first client.

Oftentimes, as new entrepreneurs, we often start out by working with someone who we know, when we’re getting our first client. This is the easiest way to get started because all you have to do is get clear on what services you’re going to be offering. And then announce it proudly to the world to the people who know you already, on your personal Facebook page, your personal LinkedIn profile, your personal Instagram profile — everywhere where you have a social media profile set up online.

Making the people you know already aware of the fact that you have a business works wonders for getting your first client because you never know if anyone you know may have a need for your services and you never know who THEY may know who may have a need for your services. Just because you may think that no one you know needs your services, it doesn’t mean that they don’t know of anyone else who needs the services! But they can’t refer anyone to you, if they don’t even know what services you offer in the first place, because you didn’t announce it.

Announcing a new business to the world is something that a lot of new entrepreneurs are often scared to do because they may be scared of people judging them, but don’t let that fear hold you back from getting your first client and making money! Go for it anyway and put your announcement out there today.

Getting your first client can also be done with a strategic online marketing plan to become more visible online.

Online marketing is really the best way to get clients these days. With online marketing, you can literally get clients from the comfort of home. And this is so convenient because this opens up the entire world of people to you, who could be potential clients of yours.

When I was selling web design services full-time for two years, I was able to work with clients all over the U.S. I'm based in Atlanta, Georgia, but I had clients in California, Chicago, New York, New Jersey, DC, Texas and more — all because I was able to do online marketing effectively!

I have this three Cs formula that I recommend that you use to make sure your online marketing efforts actually help you in getting your first client.

The first C is credibility. As you’re developing your online marketing plan, you want to create content that positions you as a credible expert at what you do. You’d do this via your social media posts and the content (blog posts, podcasts, or videos) that you create.

In your social media posts and content, you’ll want to offer tips or strategies in your area of expertise that are helpful to your ideal clients. Showing potential clients that you know your stuff boosts your credibility immensely online!

A mistake that a lot of people make is just staying in “announcement mode” from my first tip above. They keep announcing they have “X Services Available Now,” but when you're trying to appeal to strangers who don’t know you, you have to take a more strategic approach to show off how amazing you are to persuade new people to want to work with you and trust you. Just making generic announcements isn’t persuasive to strangers.

So you have to use an online marketing approach that teaches, serves, and shares knowledge with your ideal clients online to gain their trust and pique their interest.

The second C is connection. You shouldn’t be making your social media content all about business all the time because that causes people to get bored with your content. This also makes people feel like they don't know you as a person. So one of the keys to success with online marketing and getting your first client is to open up and share some personal info that makes your target clients feel like they know you and they can connect with you.

This could mean sharing stories of the challenges and frustrations you’ve overcome along your journey in life that your ideal clients could relate to. It could mean sharing things that you like to do outside of business to show your “human-ness.”

You don't have to share your everything about your personal life, of course. I just recommend choosing two or three areas of your personal life that you may want to open up about and sticking to those themes, when you want to share a posts that create connection.

For example, maybe your three themes are food, family, and travel. So you could rotate around those three topics to mix them in with your business content and personal stories of frustrations and challenges you’ve overcome.

The last C is calls-to-action. Your social media posts and even your content (blog posts, podcasts, videos) should always have calls-to-action to tell people what to do next to work with you. You must be very explicit about telling people exactly what to do to find out more about your services to take the next step to book you, when getting your first client! After people consume your wonderful social media posts or content sharing tips that really helped them out, your next step for clients to book you, should be scheduling a discovery call, so you should encourage clients to schedule a discovery call to work with you at the end of the post/piece of content.

When clients love the content you’re creating, they’ll naturally look for the next step to hire you, so you want to make it EASY for them. Potential clients don’t want to do “detective work” to figure out how to work with you! LOL

So I hope those tips were helpful for you in knowing how to announce your services to the world and how to create an online marketing plan for getting your first client! For more help, make sure you grab my free download on the five easy steps to attract more high paying clients via the banner below!