How to Jumpstart Your Freelance Writing Career
How to start small and get yourself ready to scale up.
If you love to write as I do, my guess is that the dream of freelancing is incredibly enticing to you. The thought of picking your own clients, setting your own hours, and working in your pyjamas is enough to make you giddy with excitement.
One of the best parts of working as a freelancer is that you can skip your commute, focus your most productive time on work that makes you happy, and say goodbye to your boss.
These things are all big perks of choosing to work for yourself and pursuing your freelancing dream. But they don’t come easy and there is a lot of work that needs to be done before you can fully reap the rewards.
In 2019, I started my own full time freelancing business and I’ve learned a lot along the way. There have been successes and failures, but it’s all a part of the process that has shifted the direction of my career in ways I never would have imagined.
Deciding to take the leap and build a freelancing business can be a lot easier if you know what you’re getting into, have a plan in place for where you want to go, and how you’re going to get there.
These five tips can help you achieve your goal — if you’re willing and ready to do the work.
Decide What Your Niche Is Early On
If you’re new to the world of professional writing you might wonder what a niche is. You probably see the term used all the time and thrown around on Medium and other websites.
A niche is an area of expertise or a specific skill set that you bring to the table. It could be your knowledge of the tech industry or your special insight into entrepreneurship — whatever it is, it’s something you can leverage to work with your ideal clients.
When you’re on the lookout for new business especially in the early days, it can be REALLY easy to just throw everything you have at the wall and see what sticks.
You might think that being a jack of all trades will mean that more opportunities will come your way.
At first, this makes sense, right?
The more opportunities you take advantage of the more work will come your way.
Surprisingly — this is wrong.
When you don’t choose an area to niche down in and build your skill and expertise, it sends a message to clients. It tells them that anyone could do what you do.
By default, clients think that if just anyone can write the way you do, or has the same background experience as you, your skills are commodified and your value decreases.
Take the time early on to think about what your niche is and then plan to offer your services based on your expertise.
You’ll be able to better serve your clients and quickly demonstrate your value.
Set Up A Profile On LinkedIn
As I’ve worked through my cold outreach and sales processes, I’ve tried a few different strategies and had mixed success.
But nothing is perfect, right?
This experience has been invaluable as I’ve learned how to do prospect research online and started to work on the art of the cold outreach email.
While email is a time tested way to generate business, the best tool I’ve found for connecting with clients both new and old is on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn continues to be underrated and underutilized, but this is a mistake.
If you want to connect with decision-makers, build your brand, and find potential clients, building and maintaining a great LinkedIn profile is an absolute must.
LinkedIn has brought me multiple four and five-figure clients in the last nine months — which is when I decided to take the platform more seriously.
The key is to optimize your profile and start to connect with people in your industry or an industry you’d like to work in.
Join groups, write and share useful content, and help others solve their problems.
Leverage all the free features that come with your profile, and consider upgrading to Premium if your budget will allow for it.
Build Relationships And Allow The Work To Follow
You might be tempted to think that because you’re now a writer in the professional sense that business will just come knocking on the door.
The hard truth is that it doesn’t.
You’ve got to get your skin in the game and build a business that lets you meet and achieve your goals.
This is not something you can do in isolation. Your success depends on the relationships you build with people inside and outside your industry.
Your goal as a freelancer is to build relationships as if your life depended on it.
Because in truth your life as a freelance writer does live and breathe based on your ability to build, cultivate and sustain relationships.
No matter how skilled or technically competent you are, if you’re spending your days in a home office and only take the occasional phone call, your business will suffer.
Join your local chamber of commerce, find a co-working space to drop down in, and make it a regular part of your routine to work from a coffee shop once a week.
You never know who you might meet.
In a similar vein, find an online community of freelancers that can help support you. These people are invaluable resources to share and bounce ideas off of. They’ll make you a better writer and a stronger business owner.
When you focus on relationships, work and opportunities will naturally flow to you. Think about how more likely you are to work with someone you know or have at the very least had a conversation with.
The same principle applies to you as a freelancer. People work with those they know and trust.
Invest In Your Own Learning And Development
I know what you’re thinking… why would I waste time and money on myself when my goal is to pay the bills and eat something other than Ramen noodles?
While this is true in theory, when you delay investing in your own learning and development, you’re basically shooting yourself in the foot.
Producing quality work is a way to ensure that clients are happy and that more opportunities come your way.
But the only way to produce quality is through practice AND enhancing your skillset.
There is a lot you can learn for free on the internet from writers and thought leaders in your niche.
But there is also something to be said for taking a paid course, joining a membership community or hiring a coach.
These opportunities are going to give you the edge you need to get better.
And getting better should be your goal.
Don’t delay in setting aside a part of your budget for ongoing learning and development. This investment will pay back in dividends both short and long term.
Market Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It
You have a responsibility to market yourself. If you don’t do this actively from the start, you will fall behind and fail to reach your personal and professional potential.
You might be tempted to think that writers don’t need to market themselves. Or that marketing distracts from the craft of writing — and that it’s not your vibe.
Ask any successful writer on Medium or elsewhere what their keys to success are — and they will tell you that an effective marketing strategy is essential.
Consider researching some of the key components of building an effective personal brand. These include things like the photos you use, the tone of voice you use in communicating and being consistent with your offering.
Effective marketing is an art and science, and you need to master both.
Things to consider when marketing yourself include what social media platforms your clients use, and where they get their news and entertainment from.
Plan to spend time where your clients do and build an audience with them.
Start an email list and create an attractive lead magnet. Think about your sales funnel and the client journey to get from a to b.
‘A’ being a prospect to ‘B’ being a new client.
This might sound overwhelming at first but plan to start small and scale up your efforts as your business grows.
Focus on doing one thing, like mastering LinkedIn, for the first few months, and make sure to track your effort and the results.
Collecting this data will allow you to adjust your strategy and make changes as you go.
The world of freelancing is as exciting as it is challenging. With the right plan in place, you can set yourself up for long term success by focusing your energy on activities that will grow your business.
Pick your niche and dedicate your time and resources to getting really good at what you can offer to clients. Once you’ve done that, remember that the relationships you build are essential to your ability to make it. Be prepared to market yourself online — even if it makes you feel uncomfortable. Your success as a freelancer depends on it!!
These five strategies will help you start your freelance writing career on the right foot — and get ready to scale your business.
