Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business
Development Help
A Freelance
Success Story: How One Freelancer Started to Get Queries for Work before She
Even Started to Market (and what she did about it) Let me explain. Getting Clients w/ No Marketing – It Happens! “Mary” is a long-time reader of my blog and recently purchased my ebook on SEO writing. She said she did everything I said and before she could even start to market for work, a query from an anxious SEO company landed in her inbox. She wrote:
Dear Yuwanda: So, why was she in a panic?
How to Handle Potential Clients When You’re Not Ready The client contacted Mary via email, asking questions she had no idea how to answer, so she emailed me. I called her to give her some advice, to help walk her through what to say. Following are a few tips on how to handle client queries when you’re not ready for the work, for whatever reason. 1. Wait: As in, don’t be in a hurry to get back to the client. As freelancers, we’re trained to get back to the client as soon as possible. And, ordinarily, this is a good idea. But, if you’re unsure about something, don’t rush to get back to the client. In this
case, the client had asked Mary some questions she didn’t know how to answer
because SEO writing was a new niche for her. Obviously smart and capable, with
just a few minutes of web research, she could have found the answers she needed.
Or, barring that ….
2. Ask an Expert: Mary contacted me, which is exactly what I
would’ve done in her shoes. If you can’t find what you need on the web, or
time really is indeed pressing, then ask someone. "I tell him I can certainly imbed links (but between you and me, I don't even know what that is!!!) and, trying to fudge a bit and gather my wits, ask him how many sites he has in mind for submitting to. . . Now I'm completely at a loss.” I explained to her what he was referring to so that she could compose an appropriate response.
3: Stay Plugged into a “Relevant” Writing Community: This will do two things: (i) give you an immediate place to turn to
get answers to your questions; and (ii) keep you up to date on what’s happening
in your niche. Sometimes, I don’t understand some of the technology or terminology mentioned, which clues me in that I have some more reading to do. I remember when I first read about (LSI) Latent Semantic Indexing (a big Scooby Doo “Huh” moment for me), I was like, “What the heck is that?” I looked it up, did some further reading and gained an understanding. Knowing your industry helps to convince clients that you know what you’re doing. Strangely enough, LSI came up in a conversation with a potential client. I felt as if he was throwing it out there to kind of test my knowledge.
So, this is a really
important tip, especially for SEO writing, because it is a niche that changes
constantly and rapidly. How to Create a Work/Life Balance from the Beginning As I wrote in the ebook, when you market for SEO writing work, be prepared for it to come fast. You can get busy relatively easily. Mary works fulltime and this incident kind of clued her into what to expect once she started to market. So, she’s decided to clear a few things off her plate and market slowly for clients, which I think is extremely smart on her part. As freelancers, many of us get so excited about the possibility of work that we jump into it without erecting work/life balance boundaries (I speak from very recent first-hand experience on this one). I’d told Mary to be prepared to work 2-4 hours in the evenings once she starts to market. To that she responded: Working 2-4 hours a night with my workload will not be easy. I'll have to figure out some way to do it though. . . . So I'm REALLY looking forward to your post on how to hire and work with subcontractors (the post you promised in today's (1/31) post ;-) I wrote in that post, “I’ll discuss in another article what to do when a client wants YOU and no one else working on their project. . . . To expand your business, you will have to outsource at some point. Again, I’ll discuss this in another article though.” So, Mary (and anyone else who may be interested), to get you started, here is an article I wrote on working with subcontractors last year. I’ll update it specifically as it pertains to the SEO industry on Monday (2/11). Freelance Writers & Outsourcing: How to Decide What to Pay A "Mary Success" Tip: One thing I wanted to point out that I think led directly to Mary's success is that she put up a fabulous website, which she designed herself. From her site (which I envy, quite frankly), you never would be able to tell that she was a newbie in the industry. In the ebook, this was one of the things that I recommended. It gives you an air of professionalism and set you apart from simple "article writers." Enjoy!
Sincerely,
Freelance Success Stories:
There are freelancers who make very good livings at what they love. Inkwell
Editorial's newsletter features these successful professionals who put to rest
the phrase, "starving freelancer."
Read the first issue
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