This video features Kim Hye-in, CEO of content marketing agency Media Palette, as a guest on the "Sajang Summer" channel, sharing sales know-how for solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and professionals striking out on their own. The conversation covers how to land your first client when you have no portfolio, strategies for approaching large corporate clients, tips for writing proposals and inbound sales, and the importance of enduring inefficient stretches of time while nurturing genuine, personal relationships with clients.

1. Sajang Summer's New Challenge: Learning Business from People

Sajang Summer has spent years studying business through books, but at some point came to realize the importance of learning from people and decided to start a new series. Many subscribers had shared the worry of "not knowing how to do sales when starting work on your own," and Sajang Summer was grappling with the same question while planning a new business model. So in this video, Kim Hye-in — who built a marketing agency entirely on her own and is known as "the master of sales regulations" — is invited to work through these concerns together. 😊

2. Kim Hye-in's Origin Story and First Client Win

Kim Hye-in launched her content marketing agency "Media Palette" in 2016, at the moment Facebook video was just beginning to take off. Watching advertising videos, she thought, "I could make something like that," and since she had a strong interest in beauty and the skills to shoot and edit, she started with a light attitude: "If it doesn't work out, at least I'll have portfolio material for my next job."

Her first client came through a platform called Kmong. At the time, Kim differentiated herself with the message: "Facebook ad videos made by a woman in her twenties." The ad industry then was dominated by large agencies or production houses focused purely on video, and she wanted to carve out a middle position — someone who could plan commercial-quality videos in a trendy, affordable way.

But as a university student with no portfolio at all, she made three portfolio videos from scratch:

• First: A one-minute self-introduction video

  "It's a one-minute intro and I'm saying all kinds of things that probably don't hold up — because I had nothing. But I think what it communicated to clients was, 'What would it feel like to work with this person?'" Through this video she aimed to convey her energy, tone, and positivity to build trust with potential clients.

• Second: A video about the industry she wanted to work in (beauty) She made a self-filmed makeup video in the style of a beauty YouTuber to signal her passion for the beauty industry.
• Third: A video in the style she wanted to create (SNS advertising) She produced a sample video in the style of a social media ad to demonstrate her capabilities.

One month after uploading these three portfolio pieces to Kmong, a Korean medicine clinic reached out about a cosmetics ad. Kim immediately thought, "I have to land this," and secured a meeting. Competing against other agencies, she made a direct, honest, and aggressive pitch:

"I'll be honest — the other agencies probably have better portfolios. But right now, making your video is what's going to become my portfolio. I will put everything into this. I want to do it more than anything. Please give me this job!"

That urgency won her the first contract. Sajang Summer highlights two key takeaways: creating something tangible that clients can actually see, even if it's just a sample, and making it clear just how much the work matters to you.

3. The Secret Behind Landing Her First Big-Brand Client: Amorepacific

After building her portfolio through smaller clients, the opportunity to collaborate with Amorepacific, a major conglomerate, came about in a more serendipitous way. Someone Kim had worked with during a corporate extracurricular activity in university had been quietly following her on social media and eventually reached out for coffee. At that meeting, Kim mentioned she was working as a freelancer, and the contact proposed a web drama production project.

The Amorepacific project brought Kim over ten million won (KRW), and even though she was short on capital at the time, she committed fully with the mindset: "If anything goes wrong, I'll refund it out of my own pocket." The web drama was a success — it was featured at a content marketing conference and made a significant impression. 🤩

From this experience, Kim emphasizes that "you never know when or how an opportunity will come." Just as the extracurricular activities she poured herself into as a student eventually led to a major corporate client, giving your all to every moment of what you're doing right now is what matters. Sajang Summer echoes the point: "A big business doesn't start as a big business — it starts with a freelancer or a solo operator."

4. Three Sales Tips for Getting Your First Business Off the Ground 🍯

The video shares three core tips for anyone who wants to start working for themselves.

1. Craft a single sentence that defines your own persona. This becomes your positioning in the market — a powerful message that fixes your identity in the minds of potential clients.
2. If you have no portfolio for the work you want to do, make one yourself. Following Kim Hye-in's example: a self-introduction video, a video about your target industry, and a video in the style you want to create — three pieces that look and feel like real work.
3. Upload your portfolio across as many platforms as possible. Whether it's a freelance marketplace like Kmong, a résumé browsing site, or any other channel, put yourself out there on every available platform.

Kim points out that most people already know this — and still don't act on it, because they're paralyzed by the fear of wasting time or spinning their wheels. Her response:

"But to me, the time you spend just worrying is time passing anyway — that feels like the bigger waste. Even if it's not exactly the thing you wanted, other opportunities come along. Once you just start doing something, opportunities always seem to show up."

Sajang Summer agrees: "Rather than just worrying, doing even one small thing is less anxiety-inducing." Both emphasize the courage to act without fear of failure as the foundation of eventual success.

5. How to Win Corporate Clients and Write Proposals That Work

When Sajang Summer raised the question of how to persuade and sell to the enterprise clients she wants to work with, Kim Hye-in zeroed in on the importance of reliability when going after large companies.

5.1. Building the Baseline of Trust for Corporate Clients

• Business cards: The basic signal of professionalism.
• Company introduction deck: A clear presentation of your vision, services, and strengths.
• Website: The face of your business — it needs to be polished.

When these fundamentals are in place, corporate contacts feel: "If I hand this over to them, nothing will go wrong." For solo operators looking to expand into corporate work, making your business feel real and solid is non-negotiable.

5.2. Proposal Writing Tips That Consistently Win ✍️

Kim Hye-in shared her confidence in proposal writing along with two core tips.

1. Put the single most important outcome the client wants on the title slide. Most proposals open with something like "A Proposal for ——," but Kim argues for leading with the client's deepest concern and its solution right on the first page — something like: "We'll make people consume not movies, but the movie theater experience." This makes the client think: "This person actually understands exactly what I'm struggling with."
2. Visualize and present the benefits the client will gain. Using Sajang Summer's café shop-in-shop concept as an example, Kim explains that showing outcome-focused content — how much revenue might increase — is what matters. The secret weapon here is heavy use of images.

   "When I include those outcome-focused elements I use a lot of images. I make it almost like a thumbnail. What kind of comments will people leave, how you're going to become popular, what that looks like — the images are actually the real tip. I also include photos of us working on-site, photos of me, photos of team members. When I put in a lot of images like that, I genuinely closed a lot more contracts." The focus should be less on introducing your own company and more on what the client stands to gain — presented visually and compellingly. Even when making a brochure, Kim advises leading with what itches for the client, not what you want to say about yourself. Sajang Summer resonates deeply and commits to revising her own brochure immediately.

6. Inbound Sales: How to Make Clients Absorb Themselves Into You

Beyond winning new corporate clients, Kim Hye-in emphasizes that converting inbound inquiries into contracts at a near-100% rate is equally important.

6.1. The Core Elements of Inbound Sales

1. Speed: How quickly you respond to a client inquiry matters enormously.
2. Number of touches: The more frequently you communicate with a client, the better.

To increase the number of touchpoints, Kim makes a point of ending every email with an easy question designed to guarantee a reply.

"When you send an email, you need to get a reply. I always end with a very easy question. For example, if I'm trying to sell to a clinic, I'll close with: 'Right now, is your concern closer to option A or option B?' — and the person basically has no choice but to reply."

Using multiple-choice questions like this lets her pinpoint the client's actual concern and tailor the next communication around it. This aligns perfectly with Sajang Summer's own belief that "the answer is always in the customer's voice (VOC)."

6.2. The 'Personal Touch' That AI Cannot Replace

Kim acknowledges that this kind of sales work is time-consuming and drains energy — but insists it is the one domain where humans still have an irreplaceable edge over AI.

"These are things I don't think AI can substitute for. The act of a human making contact, a human opening their heart, a human reaching out with a personal touch — that's a space AI can't occupy. So I believe that going forward, the people who are really good at this will capture far more opportunities."

Clients care not just about quantitative results but also qualitative ones. Kim continuously checks in with clients about their concerns and proactively sends them useful information, like trend reports.

"I'll message a contact: 'Hey, have you seen this content LG H&H just put out?' — and after I send things like that, that client can't help but become absorbed into me. Like, this person thinks about me to this degree — no one else would do this for me — so even if the numbers aren't perfect, it would be a hassle to switch to someone else. I put an enormous amount of that kind of qualitative effort in."

The key is to make clients feel like no one else could do what you do for them — to become truly irreplaceable. But Kim also offers a sobering note: no matter how close the relationship becomes, never let the quality of your work or your sense of professionalism slip, or the contract will eventually end.

7. Conclusion: Find Courage and Sell Your Own 'Ordinary Things'

To close, Kim Hye-in offers an encouraging message for anyone wanting to start their own venture:

"The truth is, this market wants surprisingly ordinary things — and that's where the money is. So stop telling yourself you don't have anything. Have the confidence to go out and try selling those ordinary things you already have."

Sajang Summer agrees: we tend to think we don't know how to do anything, but in reality we're each like an unopened treasure chest. The video wraps with encouragement to find your own strengths — the things that scratch someone else's itch — and to muster the courage to go sell at least one thing out there in the world.

For freelancer tips from Kim Hye-in on an ongoing basis, follow her on Instagram (@palette.hyein)! 🤝