How to introduce yourself to a potential client with a video

Picture a client who posts a brief for a brand refresh and has a pile of replies by lunchtime. Many of them open with "I am a passionate and detail-oriented designer." Somewhere around the twelfth, the client stops reading.

A fifty second video of a person saying the client's name and pointing at one relevant piece of work does something those written replies rarely do. It makes the client feel as if they have met you.

What the client is deciding while they watch

Clients do not always choose the most skilled freelancer. Often they choose the one they feel safest handing money to. That sounds cynical, but it is mostly about risk. Hiring a stranger is scary, and anything that makes you less of a stranger lowers the risk.

While they watch, they are asking themselves three questions. Is this a real person, or an agency with a template? Did they read my brief, or paste the same thing to everyone? Would I want this person on a call every Monday for the next two months?

There is a fourth question, which is whether they can afford you. The video should not try to answer that one. Pricing belongs in the written reply, after they have decided they like you.

If your video answers those three in under a minute, it does something a written reply struggles to do.

What to show instead of say

Many freelancer intros are all talk. The person sits in front of a bookshelf and lists adjectives about themselves. The client learns nothing they could not have read on a profile.

The fix is to say less and show more. Record with your screen and camera together, and spend part of the video walking through one piece of work that resembles what the client asked for. Pick one piece rather than your whole portfolio. Scroll through it slowly for fifteen or twenty seconds and say what the problem was and what you changed.

The things worth saying out loud are short: your name, what you do in one plain sentence, one detail from their brief that shows you read it, and how you would start if they said yes.

Skip the adjectives, such as passionate, dedicated, detail-oriented and results-driven. Many replies use them, so they carry little information. If you are detail-oriented, the client will see it in the work on your screen.

If you have nothing relevant to show, stay on camera and talk about how you would approach their brief instead. That is still better than adjectives.

A template you can record today

Here is a script for a made-up client called Ravi who has asked for help with a slow Shopify store. Adjust the specifics and say it in your own words rather than reading it.

Hi Ravi. I am Pranav, and I build and fix Shopify stores for small brands. I read your brief about the checkout drop-off and the product pages that load slowly on phones. I had a similar problem on a store last year, so I want to show you what that looked like. [Scroll to the old product page] This was the product page before. Six seconds to load on mobile, and the add to cart button was below the fold. [Scroll to the new one] This is it after. The main change was moving the images to a lighter format and removing two apps that loaded scripts on every page. [Look back at the camera] If we worked together, I would start with a one hour audit of your store and send you a short list of what to fix first, before we agreed anything bigger. Reply to this if you want that and I will send over times. Thanks, Ravi.

At a normal pace that runs about fifty five seconds. It names the client, proves you read the brief, shows one relevant piece of work and ends with a small next step. It leaves out the fee.

Before you record, raise the laptop so the camera is at eye level and face a window. There is a longer guide on how to look good on camera with a laptop if the first take looks worse than you expected. Most first takes do, which is what retakes are for.

What to put in the note

When you publish a video on hi.video you add the client's name and a short note, and both appear on the page above the video. The note has one job, which is to tell the client why there is a video and what to do after watching it.

Ravi, this is a short walkthrough of one store I fixed with the same checkout problem you described. The button below goes to my email if you want the audit I mention at the end.

Two sentences is enough. If you want a call rather than a written reply, point the button at a calendar link instead and say so in the note. There is more on this in what to write in the note with your video.

Where the link goes

Paste it where the conversation is already happening, whether that is an email reply or a marketplace message, and put it in the first two lines with one sentence saying how long it is. "Here is a fifty second hi from me about your brief" is enough.

The client opens the link on whatever phone or laptop they have in hand. They do not need an account or an app, and the link is unlisted, so only people who have it can find it. You will see when it has been watched, which helps when you are deciding whether to follow up or move on.

Record one video per client. A generic reel sent to ten clients reads like a profile, and clients notice when their name is missing. The free plan on hi.video allows five published videos a month at up to a minute each, with no credit card, which should be enough for a freelancer who is selective about what they pitch. If you pitch more than that, the Pro plan raises the limits and puts your own username in the link.

If the client says yes and asks for a proposal, the next message is a slightly different one. Video introduction before a proposal covers what changes.

Why a real recording beats a polished one

It is tempting to script the video until it looks like an advert. Resist that. The client is trying to work out what you are like to deal with, and an advert tells them little about that. A slightly imperfect recording of you, in your actual workspace, tells them more.

The same goes for avatars and generated clips. If a client later finds out the face in the video was not you, the trust you were building is gone. hi.video has no AI avatars and no uploads: you record in the browser, and new accounts get a quick camera check before the first recording. The trust page explains the reasoning. Add captions if you can, because some clients will watch on their phone with the sound off.

If you have a brief in front of you right now, the quickest test is to record your first hi for that client, watch it back once and send it. One real reply will teach you more than an afternoon of polishing.