Do You Wear Fuzzy Slippers to Work?

Deciding what kind of freelancer you are can help you define the type of clients and projects that suit your personality. If you can alternate between buttoned-up and buttoned-down, that could be a really good thing. If you can’t, or don’t want to, that can be ok as well. Considering the type of writing work you want will give you the freedom and type of career you want.

Dressing for Your Client’s Personality

Voice is an important aspect of being a writer. Finding the right voice can help you write something your clients will love.  Finding the right voice might also be necessary in terms of dealing with your clients in a productive and fruitful way. Some freelancers do well because they’re casual, approachable, ooze with irreverence, talk about personal stuff, and their clients love them. Others reveal nothing about their personal life, and exude professionalism and their clients love them. Where do you fit?

Are you dressing for your client’s personality? If you do, you may develop stronger relationships with them.  As a freelancer, how you approach your professional image will dictate what sorts of clients you attract.

There aren’t necessarily black and white lines in terms of how to deal with your clients in general but you may want to consider your voice in your client approach.

Buttoned Up

Positives: Very professional, becomes known as an expert in their field. Often commands higher rates.

Potential Drawbacks: May seems unapproachable. Does not always fit with a client’s corporate culture.

If you’re approaching buttoned-up professionals, you may want to keep your top button firmly in place.

Buttoned Down

Positives: Hip and 21^st century. Casual Friday is often the way businesses who use freelancers operate today.

Potential Drawbacks: If approaching corporate clients, you may not be taken as a serious professional. Clients may also think they can pay less because you’re a ‘freelancer’ or because you work from home. Work from home professionals often have a higher overhead than their clients realize.

If you’re approaching buttoned-down professionals, you may be able to be more casual with them.

Note: Casual Friday doesn’t mean missed deadlines, lack of quality, and doesn’t mean they don’t have to pay you a fair wage— on schedule.

Is Your Dress Code Hurting Your Business?

Some of today’s freelancers advertise that they are work at home moms or Dads or that they work in their pajamas and fuzzy slippers. Some of those freelancers have problems getting their rates up. Some joke about working in the buff and swear like a trucker on their blog but still command really high rates.  What’s the right approach?

It all depends.  It depends on what type of client you’re going after. If you’re going after another solopreneur that works in their fuzzy slippers, buttoned down might be the way to go. If you want to do corporate copywriting for fortune 100 companies,  you might want to sit up straight and button up right to that top button.

I worked for GE Capital for ten years but today I’m wearing pink and fuzzy slippers. But I don’t tell all my clients about the slippers. For me, I find  alternating from suit to slippers depending on what sort of client or prospect I’m talking to and who I’m approaching works.  I don’t typically swear on my business blog but I do try to understand what my client’s personality type is after starting to deal with them and then I button up or unbutton accordingly.

If I’m dealing with a corporate client I tend to avoid the phrase freelance writer and I never ever call myself a work at home mom. But if I’m talking to a small business owner about their SEO, we may discuss our families and the personal connection we make could strengthen the relationship.  I try to let the client take the lead and adjust my approach accordingly. It’s kind of like ghostwriting.

Use Ghostwriting Skills to Find the Best Client “Voice”

Versatility is a good trait when you work for yourself. And, if you’re a ghostwriter, you might find that putting those ghostwriting skills to good use could help you exponentially.

Because people often relate to their own personality type, as you get to know a new client, assume their personality type in terms of how you deal with them and chances are, you’ll find the right voice.

So, are you wearing fuzzy slippers today?

(photo: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/prototype7)

Are You A Buttoned-Up or Buttoned-Down Freelance Writer? is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Last week I shared five tips for filling gaps in your writing schedule and this week I wanted to suggest  specific ways to go about drumming up writing work quickly. Maybe you’ve got a gap in your schedule or maybe you need to make some extra money quickly. Not everyone will agree with me about these methods but here are some things I do when I want to drum up some work.

1. Bidding Sites

Not everyone loves job bidding sites but what I like about them is that when I have a gap or foresee one coming, I can often find a gig in 24 hours or less. I can bid on small and fast jobs to make fast money as well. I use Elance and their escrow service makes doing this a minimal risk. I have a rate I won’t go below and they have recently raised their membership connects so that you can bid on up to ten projects with their free membership.  I’ve given up my $20/month premium membership (which some months had been wasted due to lack of use) because the need to resort to this (thankfully) happens rarely for me. I’ve had scenarios where I’ve started bidding in the morning and had cash in hand that evening. A few of those quick projects have developed into regular clients as well.

2. Existing Clients

It never hurts to touch base with an existing client to see if they need help with anything. A quick email to a client to check in has brought me large projects on more than one occasion. If you can, develop a relationship with at least one really busy but flexible client that pays fast.

3.Marketing  the Writing Website

Working to drive traffic to my website regularly brings in a flood of new traffic and inquiries. I build links to my site through blog comments, linking to my site through other articles, through article marketing, and through social bookmarking and networking and this often helps me get writing gigs.

4. Other Writers

I’ve made some great friends in the past four years as a freelance writer. I have developed great relationships with other busy writers and at times have drummed up a project quickly through writing friends with overflow work. I have a writing friend that regularly offers me overflow, I have a lower-paying client / writer friend that offers an almost all-I-can-write buffet. Although it’s lower paying work, she pays fast, and I have several friends that have given me job leads or referrals when I’ve mentioned a lighter workload. One writing friend recently helped me learn a new writing skill and referred me to a new regular gig where I can use and develop that skill. Developing relationships with other writers can be beneficial. For me it has been very symbiotic.

5. Social Media

Talking about my writing work on social sites, linking to articles, and networking via sites such as Twitter and others has frequently brought in new queries and writing jobs quickly.  I highly recommend social media as a great tool to get writing work. You can also post ads about being available on writing forums, internet marketing forums, and social media sites as well.

What do you do when you want to find work quickly?

Five Ways to Get Writing Jobs Fast is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

How has your writing career evolved?

When I started freelancing, I said yes to pretty much every job that came along. My reasons for doing so were that:

• I needed the publishing credits for my resume
• I needed the money
• I didn’t know when the next job was going to come along

It made sound financial sense to accept everything that came my way. There was only one problem. After about a year of doing that, I began to feel fatigued and less excited about my life as a freelancer. You guessed it – I was suffering from burnout.

Writing – The Second Year

The next year, I took a more balanced approach. I still mostly said yes to jobs, but I began to be more discerning about what I could actually do within a given time. I knew that I wanted to spend time with my family, look after my health and manage some other personal priorities, so I started to get a little bit pickier about what I accepted.

The Third Year

That trend continued into my third and fourth years of freelancing. In fact, I actually began to turn down work from time to time. The longer I freelance, the more aware I become of this reality: I can’t do it all. That means I have to pick the projects which:

• pay well
• fit my time frame
• match my expertise

Five Years On – A New Approach

Heading into my fifth year, I’m finding that things are changing again. I have a fairly stable client base, but I don’t take that for granted. That’s why I’m starting to say yes again to projects that interest me and offer some variety. Unlike the first time round, I am doing this in a phased way, trading up writing jobs so I get closer and closer to freelance writing nirvana.

How has your approach to your writing career changed over the years?

(Photo: Kaptain Kobold)

The Evolution Of A Freelancer is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Are you sick of the talk about New Year’s resolutions yet? I’ve written quite a few resolution-related posts for clients in the last week as well as for my December 31 post here on Get Paid to Write Online but I’m not sick of it yet. I am ready for action, though. In fact, I am acting. I’m planning to make some moves this year to ensure I meet my goals. I need to work fewer hours. I also need to earn more. I deserve both! I’m talking to potential clients that are going to help me meet some of my 2010 writing goals already and it’s only the first week of January. Go me. (Hey, I’m self-employed. If I don’t pat myself on the back, who will?) I’m already doing things outside of my comfort zone this year. I’m acting with the belief that these things will pay off and help me elevate my career to a higher level.

So, what do you want to do with your writing career this year?

• Earn more?
• Work less?
• Be able to afford to get rid of your lowest paying pain-in-the-butt client?
• Write more in a niche you love?
• All of the above!

Have you figured out how you’re going to get there or are you like a lot of people who write down goals and never actually do anything to make them happen?

Here’s what I suggest:

• Spend more time marketing
• Talk to other writers
• Enhance your skills
• Step outside of your comfort zone

Marketing

How much time do you spend marketing? I’m not talking about applying for jobs alone; I’m talking about marketing yourself. As I’ve said here in the past, marketing can become passive so that efforts you take today can pay off repeatedly for you.

Do you use social media? Are you using it to your advantage? I’m not talking about telling people you make the best grilled cheese in the world (although it’s perfectly fine to give a shoutout to your culinary prowess sometimes on Twitter. Ok… yes, I admit it—I sometimes tweet about my awesome grilled cheese sandwiches), I’m talking about using social media to network and to drive traffic to your website or blog.

Speaking of your website, when is the last time you updated yours? The act of updating your site alone will ping the search engines and could send fresh traffic your way. Maybe it’s time to take a look at your online profiles and fine-tune them a little. Want to be a well-known niche writer that commands top dollar? Start advertising that service and writing about it so that you can get the attention of people (and search engines) looking for that key phrase.

Bottom line: Allocate 1-2 hours to marketing next week (or, there’s no time like NOW…if you have the cycles today) and every week and watch what happens. I’d almost bet money you’ll see great results.

Talk to Other Writers

Other writers can help you with your career. I have a few close writing friends and we often help one another. We bounce ideas off each other, get sanity checks on contracts, sub work to each other when one is busy or the other is dead slow, and we even share writing leads and referrals at times, too. Some of us are even talking about potentially profitable joint ventures in 2010. Talking to and networking with other writers can help you tremendously with your writing career goals. (Plus having writing friends who understand your lifestyle and your work challenges really really helps when things are rough and tough.)

Bottom line: Join some writer networking groups. Make some writing friends.

Enhance Your Skills

How do you continue to develop your writing skills? Keep writing. Keep reading. Read about your craft, do writing prompts, take a writing class, read some writing e-books, follow an online writing course, follow some great writer mentoring blogs. Want do learn to do whitepapers? Want to learn to do press releases or e-books? Take time out of your schedule to work at developing these skills. Not only can they pay off, they help you move forward in your career. Too many freelance writers (myself included) find themselves losing the love with their work at times because of repetition. The “free” in freelance can mean you’re free to pursue any category of writing you’re interested in trying. You may not be a master at every topic or every writing style but why not dabble and see where it leads you? Avoid complacency in writing (there’s a 2+ year old post from me in that link that still applies today)! Is it time to step out of your comfort zone?

Bottom line: Only you can decide whether 2010 will rock for you or if you’ll just survive and float through it.

More Writing Resolution Talk – But this Time with Action is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

What are your writing goals and plans for 2010? Do you have writing resolutions?  I have resolutions every year about getting healthier, getting more organised, making more money… Here are some of my 2010 writing career resolutions — off the top of my head.

1. Organise my taxes and accounting as I go, rather than wait until tax time to scramble.
2. Put money away for taxes throughout the year so tax time doesn’t result in a big shock.
3. Be more ergonomic. (Dana uncrosses legs and straightens up) Spending so many hours a day isn’t so good for the back, the wrists, etc.
4. Do more marketing. Marketing is a vital aspect of self-employment and every time I take the time to do it, it pays off. (You can get marketing and promotion for writers tips here.)
5. Work more at my passive writing income efforts. Isn’t it nice when an article you write once pays you many times over? The more I do it, the fewer hours I have to work so I’m going to try to get back to spending a few hours a week on my own monetized websites.
6. Exercise more.  Sitting at the desk 40-80 hours a week ain’t conducive to maintaining svelte.
7. Stop eating at the desk. Taking breaks is good for the brain, the belly, the muse, and better for the electronics. (Dana taps keyboard gently over garbage bin. Ewww)
8. Raise rates. My expertise has been elevated in many areas and just like those working for others, self-employed freelancers need a raise too.
9. Manage my time better. When it’s 5:pm and I have only earned $44 but have been at the computer all day I know I’m doing something wrong. Being more conscious of time suckers will result in fewer nights at the computer until (and past) midnight. I’ve gotten away from setting a schedule and need to do more of that.
10. Start taking most weekends off. I generally work almost every day. One of my goals for being self-employed was to have more time for my family so in the next year, I’m hoping that my marketing and passive income efforts, along with some personal goals will allow me to do that.

We all know that a lot of resolutions don’t last past the first week in January. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set goals and work to achieve them. Even one or two achievements out of a list of resolutions will result in continuous self improvement.

What do you want out of 2010?

(photo credit: www.sxc.hu/profile/ilco)

A Freelance Writer’s 2010 Resolutions is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Some writers use social bookmarking tools to follow the bloggers that they regularly read and to occasionally chat with other writer friends.  Social networking can be a great way to take some of the isolation out of working from home alone. But if you’re not also using social media tools to your advantage to boost your writing business and to help you attract new clients, you may be leaving money on the table.  Here are a few ways that social media has helped me with my writing career:

Bookmarking for Writer Self-Promotion and Earnings

When I write a blog post or article that promotes my writing business, my passive income efforts, or one of my niche blogs, I might take an opportunity to Stumble it, Tweet, or Yahoo Buzz it. I might also link to it on Facebook, Friendfeed, and Plurk as well as link to it from another blog post or article of mine, too. Those extra bookmark links can drive up the popularity of the post both from search engine optimisation perspectives as well as the fact that many of my online friends or followers will then give the link their own nod by voting it up, re-tweeting, etc. An article or blog post gone viral can be a very good thing.

Networking with Potential Customers

Over the years, I’ve had quite a few different queries from new clients who initially found me on social media sites instead of in the search engines. While I actively promote in places I believe clients go looking, it doesn’t just take someone looking for my services to decide I might be a good fit for a writing project. There are times when people randomly happen upon  something I wrote and decide from there that maybe they’d like to hire me.

Tip: Because nearly everything you say and do online has the ability to be seen by others, particularly if you use your own name, it’s a really good idea to remember when socializing online that potential customers may read your words. Social search engines are increasing in popularity and so are background checks by potential employers.  Some social sites are really fun and casual but I typically remind people to behave in a “business casual” manner, rather than as if it’s perpetually “casual Friday”.

Social Marketing as a Service

Because of the power of social media and all I’ve learned about it, I’ve also taken my knowledge and used it to my advantage by making it part of my solutions offerings.  Some customers have me manage their own social media campaigns as well as pay me to post their links on certain accounts of mine.  While there are times that I have to force myself to back slowly away from Facebook or pry myself off Twitter so I can be productive (they are fun as well as useful), social media tools  typically do provide great results for me and I highly recommend that writers explore using them for self-promotional purposes.

Writers and Social Media Tools – Are You Using Social Media to Further Your Writing Career? is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Is your writing career wearing you out? How would an extra hour a day help you? New freelance writers often go through the following cycle:

1. Take every writing opportunity that arises
2. Write all day and all night
3. Run out of time to spend on other aspects of life
4. Burnout or wonder whether this career is right for you after all

Writing Career Goals

A fellow writer who writes marketing copy said to me the other day: “When I said I wanted to be a writer, this was not what I had in mind.”

We all write because we enjoy it, but that doesn’t mean that we enjoy every aspect of the job. Talk to many freelancers who have been writing for more than a year and you will often sense fatigue and some disillusionment. That’s because they are working too hard on things that don’t match their personal goals.

Often, we are so used to the lifestyle we had as new freelancers that we don’t stop to consider whether we really need to keep working that hard. The first year of freelancing can be tough, but by the end of that period, we usually get a couple of regular clients. If we have done our job right, they will also pay more than the rock bottom rate we started with.  That means working fewer hours to achieve the same income.  Take a moment to look at your client portfolio and earnings and see if you have reached this stage without even realising it.

Putting Balance Back Into Writing

If you have, then you can put some fun back into your writing career and achieve a more balanced existence. You can:

• spend more time with friends and family
• take time off for personal pampering and fitness
• work on some of those writing projects that are on the back burner

Getting Things Done

So, how do you achieve this extra hour? One of the key things is organisation. You can:

• manage your email in two or three batches a day instead of looking at each email as it arrives
• work during your most productive time each day
• set a schedule and stick to it
• take on only the work you can do within your set working hours
• reduce the time you spend on social networking and online distractions

Automatic Organisation

This last one may sound simple but it’s amazing how often we forget to do it. Think about it. Anytime you need to go to a medical appointment, have an offsite meeting, look after a sick child or handle one of the other interruptions to your schedule, you still manage to get your work done. You automatically discard the non-essentials and focus on the necessary tasks to achieve your goal. Work like that every day and you will find that you can still keep all your clients happy while having more time to work on personal projects and design the lifestyle you want.

Case Study

I discovered this a few weeks ago when I was visiting a family member who was recovering from surgery. Because of the additional responsibilities I had, I was forced to focus on key tasks. I got all my clients’ work done on time and on spec. I was ruthless about discarding non-essential email and was concise in responding to urgent email. I cut down on time spent on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (and everyone’s still speaking to me) and hardly looked at my RSS reader. I saved about two hours a day.

How It Works

In the past week, I’ve put this system into practice. While I still need to refine it, I managed to carve out a few hours to rearrange and declutter my office space. I know that if I keep going, I will have the time I need for my personal writing projects. What would you do with an extra hour a day?

(Photo: http://morguefile.com/archive/display/52356)

Writers, Are You Working Too Hard? is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

When you work as a freelance writer, job hunting can be a big part of your day and because time is money, doesn’t it make sense to handle it in a way that saves you time and increases your income? I try to handle job hunting in the same way as making passive income. Here’s how I do it:

A lot of writers augment their income with passive article writing sites like eHow, Askables, InfoBarrel, and HubPages. If you’re making time to do that, you can also make a little time for self-promotion —  which can be an even more profitable way to increase your income.

Passive Income Benefits

When working for passive income streams, actions done today can pay you back repeatedly. I know people making $1,000+ a month cumulatively on articles that they wrote last year.  It may take time and effort now for payoffs tomorrow but it might pay you tomorrow and the next day and the day after that as well.

So, why not perform an action that can get more results more than once with respect to hunting for writing jobs?  With passive writing income sites, you can write once and get paid many times. Consider promoting yourself online with actions that you take once but that can lead to repeated results. Let’s call this…passive job hunting.

How do you do this? Self-promotion.  Self promotion for writers is vital in terms of building your brand so that clients come to you. Self-promotion can take time and cycles now but can pay you off repeatedly in the future. Some freelance writers spend an hour a day querying and applying to jobs and while you should continue to keep your eyes and ears open for great job opportunities, doesn’t it seem easier to try to have people also come to you because they’re looking for an expert at a specific niche or writing style and found you listed as an expert somewhere?

Google – A Writer’s Best Friend

Google can be used to build you up as an authority by telling people who search for a press release writer, white paper writer, legal blogger, or (insert your specialty here)_____ writer, that you are the most relevant result. Because most web writers, through writing for clients and content factories, get to pick up a thing or two about search engine optimisation and social networking, they can do a great job of promoting themselves by applying the principles they use for clients to their own promotional efforts. If you’re helping your clients rank as #1 for the widget they sell, you should be able to help yourself become #1 in the SERPS for the widget that you sell.

Here are three tips to help you do that:

1. Start a website. Create a professional-looking business website. I started mine at Hostgator for $45 ($35 for 3 months of hosting and $10 for my URL) two years ago and it has done wonders for me! The site builder made it easy to set it up and I did it over a weekend.

2. Write articles for article directories and link them back to your site. Optimise them for the keywords you want to rank for.

3. Social bookmark your articles on places like StumbleUpon, Mixx, Reddit, Twitter, etc.

4. Repeat steps two and three each and every week.

Even one article a week over time can help you. Instead of having to troll job boards every week to fill up your schedule for the following week, you’ll eventually begin to get a steady stream of queries from clients who find you online. Your one application for a job gets seen once. But your self-promotion efforts can result in articles and your site being seen by many.

When people find you, it’s much easier to land the job. They’re already partially convinced that you’re right for the job and you can often make even more money this way because you set your own pricing.

You spend time every day searching for jobs and reading the blogs you love to read so why not take an extra few minutes and write a self-promotional piece for yourself?

Passive Writing Gig Hunting – Get Paying Clients to Find You is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

Switching Off

A couple of weeks ago, I asked if you knew how to switch off. I said that I was heading off for a week without work. Dear readers, I did it – more or less. The time I had spent on preparing clients and future posting blog work really paid off, so all I had to do was check to see if everything had happened when it should have. I spent ten minutes a day getting rid of stuff I didn’t need from my inbox, and other than that had a relaxing time. I felt much refreshed at the end of it. I learned that it IS possible to switch off. Next step: travelling without a laptop. Maybe one day I’ll manage that.

Switching Off: A Quick Update is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.

A lot of freelancers have been talking about vacations recently – how to take them, when to take them, how to manage your clients. I must admit that it’s something I’ve written about in the past and quite recently too. However, I’m not sure I ever achieve the right balance.

Retreating From The World

I have some friends who take an annual six week retreat, checking email only once a week. Although part of me was aghast at the thought of being cut off for that long, another part of me found the idea strangely seductive. This won’t be the year, though, and I’m not sure I could hack it for that length of time.

I’m not sure I really know how to switch off. My brain is always buzzing with ideas I don’t have time to realise. In addition, balancing schedules for home, school and client work means it’s difficult to find a completely empty window where I can take a proper vacation.

If At First You Don’t Succeed …

This year, I’m trying again. I’m heading off on a week long trip and although I’ll be taking a laptop (there was one deadline I just couldn’t shift), I don’t plan to spend a lot of time looking at it. I have future posted content for some of the blogs I write for and have told other people when I will be unavailable. I have outsourced some work and postponed other work, leaving me with just one job to do while I’m away. I hope it won’t be too onerous.

Do you manage to switch off? How do you do it?

(Photo: Alvimann)

Do You Know How To Switch Off? is a post from Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall.