Here are our best practices to follow in order to receive more relevant opportunities on your dashboard.

This article covers each one of those best practices for you to maximize your amount of relevant opportunities.

Let's dive in.

First and foremost, you'll need to set up a monthly budget that you're ready to invest in your opportunities.

Indeed, your Sortlist+ membership allows you to receive opportunities on your dashboard, but you'll need to pay a certain amount for each opportunity you'll want to apply to.

Applying will allow you to get access to the entire opportunity's briefing and to contact the company behind it in order to set up a meeting. The price of the opportunity, which depends on multiple criteria, will be debited from your monthly budget.

In other words, no matter how many opportunities you receive, if you don't set a monthly budget, you won't be able to apply to them and you won't be able to win new clients on Sortlist.

Now, let's see what you can do to receive more relevant opportunities on your dashboard.

It all goes with one principle: complete your profile as much as possible. The platform uses all the elements of your profile to calculate your relevancy score for an opportunity. The better and more complete your profile is, the better matching the opportunities you receive.

The higher your relevancy score, the more chances you have to be matched with the opportunity.

Furthermore, know that if you miss one element, an agency having the same expertise but a more complete profile will have a better relevancy score and will therefore be matched in priority with the opportunity.

To get started, go to the “Profile > Services” tab of your dashboard and select the services you provide to your clients.

Be careful to only select the ones where you truly are an expert.

We understand that it might be tempting to select as many services as possible, and to receive as many opportunities as possible. But that’s not the best way to go about it. Instead, you'll receive irrelevant opportunities, that don't truly match your expertise.

To add a service, just click on the “+ Add service” button. You’ll then have the possibility to choose which one you want to add:

You can choose between 34 services, split into 3 families:

Once you’ve chosen a service, you can complete it with relevant skills, either by choosing the ones suggested or by directly searching for the one you want to add:

Again, just like for the services, only select the ones that are truly relevant.

Furthermore, you can also add a description and the starting price you ask your clients for the chosen service:

If you want to add another service, just repeat this operation. Services are the first thing we see when we select you for an opportunity. So take the time to tell us what you're good at.

Once you've selected your services, we still need to know who you would like to provide them for. This information will allow us to match you with companies you want to work with, who are looking for the kind of services you offer.

To do so, select the “Target Markets” tab of your dashboard:

You’ll then be able to configure multiple criteria, that will define the type of clients you want to target:

To edit those criteria, just click on the “Edit” button specific to each of them.

Again, the more precise you are, the better. This will allow the platform to know what kind of clients you want to work with.

Companies looking for an agency can say what structure they prefer to work with, whether small (1-10 employees), medium (11-50 employees) or large agency (51+ employees).

Make sure your team size is updated to fit the client criteria:

The client can specify the languages that must be spoken by the agency. Make sure you fill in the languages that you speak in order to receive those opportunities.

Know that language is a strict filter, so if you don't precise about what languages you speak, you won't be able to receive any opportunity!

Companies looking for an agency can specify if it has to be located somewhere in particular. We give that possibility because some companies prefer to work with a partner that's based in the same location as them.

Therefore, we recommend you configure your prospection area, by defining the cities in which you'd like to receive some projects.

By adding all these pieces of information, you increase your chances to be matched with relevant opportunities. However, even if you've been matched, you've applied, and you've contacted the client, there is still some work to be done.

You need to get a response from the client and actually meet him.

Clients can see your agency's profile through multiple channels:

In both cases, you need to have a profile that's convincing enough, so that the client wants to know more about you, to meet you, and to work with you.

That's even more true if you've contacted an opportunity you've applied to. The client behind it will definitely check your Sortlist profile before giving you an answer.

So let's see how to set up a convincing agency profile on Sortlist.

First, be careful to customize your profile with your agency's brand assets.

This includes:

Make sure to also add a convincing description, explaining what you do and who you do it for. By reading your description, the Ideal Customer Profile you're targeting must directly know you can help him.

This is how it will appear to clients checking your profile:

Once you're satisfied with the result, go to the next step.

Did you know that a profile with 3+ reviews gets hired 75% more than others?

Indeed, nothing's much more convincing than past clients praising your work. Reviews play a crucial role in reassuring prospects considering hiring your agency.

As you can see, you have two possibilities to add reviews:

The first one will allow you to add a review a client already wrote and shared somewhere else:

The second one will allow you to invite your client to write a new review:

In both cases, the review will be added to your public profile and will build up your credibility. If you can, make sure that your clients mention the kind of services you’ve provided for them. That way, anyone who views your profile can get an idea of what it’s like to work with you.

This will reassure your prospects that you’re the right agency to accompany them on their projects:

The final piece of the puzzle: show your prospects what you're capable of by adding past works to your profile.

To complete your portfolio, click on the "+ Add work" button. You will then have the possibility to add your work and fully customize it with the following information:

Just like reviews, adding works will reassure companies visiting your profile. Make sure you complete them as much as possible.

This is what prospects will see:

Final advice we can give you, we consider an active agency as more recommendable than passive agencies that never log in or never refresh their work. An old project from 2018 is not as relevant as a more recent one.

Being active means regularly logging in, adding new works and adding client reviews to your profile!

Not only will you receive more opportunities, but you will also be more convincing to potential clients.

If you want to receive even more relevant opportunities, we highly recommend setting up a budget for your Visibility Module as well. This will allow you to be visible on relevant directories, which are browsed by thousands of potential customers each month.

Watch this video to learn more: