Best advice is all negative, and may not be applicable.
Don't go a month without your biggest clients hearing from you.
- Just pick up the phone. Doubly so if you bill monthly vs hourly.
Don't send a shitty boilerplate email to keep in touch with clients.
Don't forget old clients when new ones come along.
- I cant count the number of times I have seen a variation of "We spent 500 dollars a month on your product for the last 4 years, but when we wanted to renegotiate we couldn't get any time, now I pay this guy 300 per month on a new 4 year contract"
Don't leave a customer with a problem alone. Solve the problem, or get them to someone they can.
- Like for real, the number of successful businesses I have seen where the person making all the money overall spends time discussing and referring support for problems that have no bearing on their product is immense. Be the expert, lest another expert comes along and suggests they cut costs via removing your service.
Don't push a solution that's not viable.
- The number of times I have seen customers effectively quiet quit a service is crazy. If they cant get it to work, and they stop trying, they are leaving.
tl;dr for the above is that sales doesn't end when a contract is signed.
Good sales leads will come through your network. If you have a good product and you treat your customers well, they will recommend you.
Keep an eye on upwork and similar sites. Facebook industry groups too. Lots of people who don't know what they want ask someone on upwork to make a plugin or macro or patch some hole or something. You will recognize that they might have a problem for which your product can be the solution. These people know they don't know what they want and often respond well to a pitch. Something like 1 in 10 will give you some time. Again these people probably don't want to pay for a stopgap solution, but will want someone who can talk about their problem and offer a permanent solution.
If you land a big fish, and they have needs outside your product scope, consider changing your product scope to suit the fish. Generally these businesses love something bespoke, and they have competitors in the same verticals with the same needs. Especially if you have experience in their vertical. Partnerships can also work here. The number of times I have seen "We used to be a XYZ business, we developed our own software in house\with a partner and now we are a software company to the XYZ industry" is enormous. Legal. Geophysics. Manufacturing. Solve one problem, and go horizontal.
Dont be afraid of the big fish either, even if you need help landing them. I have seen a few instances of small guys getting really scared to offer their product to a large customer. With a push it has turned out that these large customers had large suppliers and those large suppliers were delivering really shitty products and the large customer was actively looking for alternatives. Friendly advertising is just information, and people with limited options love having information even if they dont action it.
Don't go a month without your biggest clients hearing from you. - Just pick up the phone. Doubly so if you bill monthly vs hourly.
Don't send a shitty boilerplate email to keep in touch with clients.
Don't forget old clients when new ones come along. - I cant count the number of times I have seen a variation of "We spent 500 dollars a month on your product for the last 4 years, but when we wanted to renegotiate we couldn't get any time, now I pay this guy 300 per month on a new 4 year contract"
Don't leave a customer with a problem alone. Solve the problem, or get them to someone they can. - Like for real, the number of successful businesses I have seen where the person making all the money overall spends time discussing and referring support for problems that have no bearing on their product is immense. Be the expert, lest another expert comes along and suggests they cut costs via removing your service.
Don't push a solution that's not viable. - The number of times I have seen customers effectively quiet quit a service is crazy. If they cant get it to work, and they stop trying, they are leaving.
tl;dr for the above is that sales doesn't end when a contract is signed.
Good sales leads will come through your network. If you have a good product and you treat your customers well, they will recommend you.
Keep an eye on upwork and similar sites. Facebook industry groups too. Lots of people who don't know what they want ask someone on upwork to make a plugin or macro or patch some hole or something. You will recognize that they might have a problem for which your product can be the solution. These people know they don't know what they want and often respond well to a pitch. Something like 1 in 10 will give you some time. Again these people probably don't want to pay for a stopgap solution, but will want someone who can talk about their problem and offer a permanent solution.
If you land a big fish, and they have needs outside your product scope, consider changing your product scope to suit the fish. Generally these businesses love something bespoke, and they have competitors in the same verticals with the same needs. Especially if you have experience in their vertical. Partnerships can also work here. The number of times I have seen "We used to be a XYZ business, we developed our own software in house\with a partner and now we are a software company to the XYZ industry" is enormous. Legal. Geophysics. Manufacturing. Solve one problem, and go horizontal.
Dont be afraid of the big fish either, even if you need help landing them. I have seen a few instances of small guys getting really scared to offer their product to a large customer. With a push it has turned out that these large customers had large suppliers and those large suppliers were delivering really shitty products and the large customer was actively looking for alternatives. Friendly advertising is just information, and people with limited options love having information even if they dont action it.