Freelancing

The broadcast medium formerly known as social media.

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Being social at a partyBefore it became commercial, the web was social.

By the late 1990s it was definitely more commercial than social.

Then, with the fast growth of dedicated social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, it became seriously social again.

The arrival of the smartphone in 2007 made the web even more social. Smartphones are, by definition, social devices. And many of the most popular apps for these devices are hard-core social.

And then…

And then social media became a commercial broadcast channel.

OK, that’s the short version.

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Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. It fed the cat.

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A curious catI’m a pain in the behind when I first start working with a new company.

I have a zillion questions I want to ask about their business and their marketing. And most of my questions reach out way beyond the scope of the project they want me to work on.

Why do I ask all these questions? Is it part of some cunning plan or process I use?

Nope. I ask them because I’m curious by nature. Business fascinates me. Marketing fascinates me. Business people and entrepreneurs fascinate me.

I read books about business and entrepreneurship.

I invite business people to lunch so I can find out what they are doing and what they are thinking.

It’s not about working smarter. It’s not about prospecting.

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Employees wait. Freelancers shouldn’t.

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In a waiting roomAs an employee of a company, you’ll often turn up for work and then wait to be told what to do.

That’s the nature of being an employee. You have supervisors and managers who draw up lists of what needs to be done, and then you get allocated items from that list.

I have worked with dozens of “newbie freelancers” who find it hard to shake off the habit of waiting.

They put up their website, do some promotion…and then they wait. They wait for someone to call them and offer them work.

Or they wait for a response to a bulk email they have sent out to dozens of prospective clients.

Or they make fifty cold calls, waiting for someone to say yes.

Always waiting…and acting as if they were still in that comfy cubicle.

Can you make a living as a freelancer by putting yourself out there and waiting? Possibly. But I wouldn’t recommend it.

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To do your best work, you have to like your client’s products.

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dog laughing on monitorThis is true whether you are writing copy or writing content.

The more you like the product you’re writing about, the better the job you will do.

Conversely, if your next gig is on a product, service or topic you don’t like, you’ll find it impossible to do your best work.

In other words, if you think the product is cr*p, you’ll be hard pressed to do a good job promoting it.

Sure, you’ll be professional about it. You’ll put in the hours and apply all your skills the best you can. But I bet your writing won’t shine as brightly as when you are writing about something you think has real value.

If what I say is true – and it is – what does this mean for your work as a freelancer?

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Love your message, and watch your freelance business grow.

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Love your message.I have been saying this for years, and have woven the thought into various talks I have given, webinars I have created and posts I have written.

But I have never written a single post that focuses solely on the power of finding the right message for your freelance business.

So here goes. Here’s what I want you to do…

Stop trying to sell yourself.

And start selling a message that excites you.

Selling yourself is really, really hard. Emotionally it’s hard to stand up or get on the phone and sing your own praises. Most of us feel uncomfortable doing that. We do it very badly, if we do it at all.

Also, trying to sell yourself and your expertise is a terrible way to differentiate yourself from other freelancers.

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Fire your two worst clients, twice a year.

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Fire your freelance clients.I spent some time with a fellow freelancer recently, and he showed me a spreadsheet of his recent and current clients.

Better still, he showed me how profitable each of those clients were.

I have created spreadsheets like these myself, and was fascinated to see how similar his was in terms of the spread of profitability.

Let me explain.

On his spreadsheet he had a couple of really profitable clients, several middle-range clients, and a couple of clients that were barely profitable at all. His mix of clients was very similar to what I have seen in my own career as a freelancer.

So I asked him the obvious question, “The two least profitable clients take up way too much of your time for too little reward. So why not fire them?”

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