Freelancers: Here’s how to quickly build trust with your clients (and win repeat business)

Sam Liberty
Bootcamp
Published in
4 min readDec 16, 2024

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Here’s the scene.

You just finished a huge contract. The work was stellar. You delivered everything they asked for, and you know there’s so much more you could do to help them succeed. But instead of extending your contract, they thank you politely and say they’ll take it from here.

What went wrong?

Chances are, it wasn’t your expertise that fell short. It was trust.

The Magic Formula

Building trust with anybody comes down to two critical components: competency and reliability. Clients need to believe not just that you can do the work, but that you will do it exactly as promised, every single time.

Here’s the one thing that will dramatically increase your consulting income: tell people exactly what you’re going to do, then do exactly that thing. No more, no less. On time or early.

That’s it.

Trust From First Contact

The trust-building process begins the moment a potential client reaches out. That first email exchange, that initial scheduling dance — these aren’t just administrative tasks. They’re your first opportunities to demonstrate reliability.

When someone inquires about your services, respond within hours, not days. When you say you’ll send a proposal by Friday, send it Thursday. When contract revisions come in, turn them around immediately. Show them exactly how working with you will feel.

These early interactions set the tone for everything that follows. A client who sees you hustle during the proposal phase will expect that same energy during the project. One who has to chase you down for a signed agreement might wonder if they’ll have to chase you for deliverables, too.

Start Small, Level Fast

Want to rack up trust points with a new client faster than anyone thought possible? Start with the tiniest opportunities to demonstrate reliability:

  • Send clear agendas before every meeting
  • Deliver concise, actionable meeting summaries within two hours
  • Review documents a day before they’re due, with thoughtful comments
  • Reply to emails within one business day, even if just to acknowledge receipt
  • Show up 1–2 minutes early to every call
  • Submit invoices exactly when you said you would

Each of these small actions is like completing a minor quest that builds relationship points with a crucial NPC. Stack enough of these up and you’ll find yourself unlocking new dialogue options and questlines faster than you thought possible.

The key is to find many ways to demonstrate competency and reliability, big or small, and to practice them consistently, repeatedly, and right away.

The Rules of the Game

ALWAYS:

  • Be exacting and specific about what you will deliver
  • Give precise timelines for every deliverable
  • Alert clients immediately if you spot a potential delay

NEVER:

  • Miss a deadline without warning
  • Promise something you aren’t 100% sure you can deliver
  • Let more than 24 hours pass without responding to a client

This might sound a little type-A or overblown, or just another way to give yourself a headache. But this advice isn’t just based on my own experience, it’s been proved by gold-standard social science.

The Science Of Trust

In his landmark paper “Toward Understanding and Measuring Conditions of Trust,” researcher John Butler Jr. identified competence and consistency as two of the most critical conditions for building professional trust. His research, which remains highly influential today, showed that these two factors were essential predictors of successful business relationships.

“Trust between professionals,” he found, “develops primarily through repeated demonstrations of competent and reliable behavior.”

Yes: it must be consistent. But like a cocktail with only two ingredients, it’s almost impossible to mess up.

Master this, and you’ll find yourself winning contract extensions without pitching them. Clients will expand your scope of work because they know you’ll deliver. You’ll field inbound requests from people who’ve heard about your reliability from others.

The best part? This technique works even if you’re not the absolute top expert in your field. Being the consultant that clients can count on is often more valuable than being the consultant with the deepest expertise.

It sounds simple, but this is how I built repeat contracts with clients like The World Bank, The International Red Cross, and DARPA when I only had a few years of consulting experience.

To put this into practice today, start treating every interaction with your client as an opportunity to demonstrate reliability. Be specific about what you’ll deliver and when. Then move mountains to honor those commitments. Your reputation (and your bank account) will thank you.

Sam Liberty is a gamification expert, applied game designer, and consultant. His clients include The World Bank, Click Therapeutics, and DARPA. He teaches game design at Northeastern University.

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Bootcamp
Bootcamp

Published in Bootcamp

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Sam Liberty
Sam Liberty

Written by Sam Liberty

Consultant -- Applied Game Design. "The Gamification Professor." Clients include Click Therapeutics, Sidekick Health, and The World Bank.

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