1) Confidence. That only comes from knowing your product/service inside and out, you can’t learn confidence IMO.
2) Caring. It helps a ton if you genuinely care about your clients. Making some connection about kids, sports, books, etc. goes a long way. They start seeing you as a friend and you’re typically much more forgiving of your friends, which inevitably comes in handy at some point. Read the room though and if the client gives you short answers, move on to business talk. If they light up, keep conversing until there’s a natural break and transition back into business talk.
3) Reputation. A solid portfolio and written testimonials are huge. It’s worth it to pick up a cheap projects to get a good reference when you’re starting out.
4) Speed. Time is money. Write people back as soon as you read the email. My response times were sometimes only a few minutes and it impresses people and gives them confidence that they’re a priority for you.
5) Follow through. If you say you’ll get a proposal out by the end of the week, be willing to make sacrifices to meet that commitment if necessary.
6) Write super simple proposals. Your client cares about what they’ll pay and when it’ll be done and the scope of work. The rest is fluff, which isn’t bad, but make those 3 things front and center because that’s what they’ll be scanning for.