Advice for following up potential clients

[thedcoder]

Hello everyone!

I need some advice regarding the proper/professional way to follow up potential clients. When I get interviewed, some of my clients finish the conversation by saying thanks and won't send any messages after that. I normally check all the jobs with my proposals to check if the client has hired someone, on most cases, they don't hire anyone.

That strikes a bit strange to me because during the interview they seem to be very eager/desperate to get the job done, but they don't hire anyone...

I would like to see how our community of upworkers manage a situation like this. Please mention your message(s) that you would send to clients in a situation like this, I would like to see how professional we can get without pestering the client too much

Thank you in advance!

[bleighdesigns · Accepted solution]

Hi Damon!

I have had this issue even to the point where someone said "Great I will hire now!" Then they never do. I just send a short and sweet message about a week later saying "Hi ___ Just checking in with you to see if you were still looking to get this project done. I would love to get started on this for you!"

Unfortunately, it seems as though more often than not they don't respond after that. Just give them a little time before withdrawing your propsal because you never know what could be going on in their personal lives. I once almost gave up on a client then she let me know she had a family emergency. She loved that I didn't pester her and went on to hire me a few weeks later (and left me a glowing review). 🙂

[prestonhunter]

They know where to find me.

I don't pester them.

The truth is that sometimes after talking to me, clients take weeks or even months to hire me.

Until they hire me officially, I don't work for them.

[lysis10]

yeah, they know where to find me too. 

I just say hmu when you need something, breh.

[thedcoder]

Thanks for sharing your experience Britney. It indeed seems to be that way, I have only had a handful of jobs, so I do not have any such clients. Also, I almost never withdraw my proposals and I let them expire on their own. And again, thanks a lot for the valuable advice!

Preston and Jennifer, I have been following that policy since I started freelancing more seriously 🙂

I was just pondering about getting more jobs by following them up because I have always felt like I wasn't doing it enough and was having problems with coming up with good follow up messages. I am fully aware that bothering clients is a bad thing, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to do it just once?

[prestonhunter]

It won't hurt to send a follow-up question just once.

[boshoffirene]

I don't withdraw anything...it has happened that a client has spoken to me and come back outa the wide blue yonder and hired me a few weeks later...asking...hey, are you available for......

[tlsanders]

I agree with what most others have said--no reason to follow up, and clients sometimes come back after several weeks with an offer. I'm working with a client right now who first contacted me months ago, then went silent for somewhere between two and three months, then came back with an offer I had to turn down because I was booked, then came back again with a different project after another month or two.

The one situation in which I would follow up would be if it was a large project that had been billed as time sensitive and I thought the client was under the impression that we had an agreement. In that case, I'd send a brief message just letting them know that I was booking for XX dates right now (I usually book 7-10 days out) and wanted to make sure that they knew I would need at least a week's lead time when they were ready to proceed. 

[tlbp]

How long are your interview discussions? Are you giving them too much information so that they no longer need a contract? 

I sometimes follow up using the "filling out my schedule" inquiry. But usually I wait for the client to get in touch with me. 

[thedcoder]

Generally my interviews are short, to the point and I get hired immediately. I try to extract as much information as possible, so large project interviews take around 1 or 2 hours for me.

As I have mentioned above, I also give as much information as possible, offering multiple ways to do the job and letting the client choose the best option for them. I don't think my clients can figure it out by my recommendations because most of the time they are not programmers 😉

I am a software developer so my opinion is solely based on software-centric jobs, I guess it will be a different experience for non-programmers.