What a Rude Response to a Cold Pitch Taught Me as a Freelance Writer
And how I used it to boost my writing business
I have been sending out Letters of Introduction (LOIs), cold pitches, warm emails, whatever you want to call them, for over a year in an effort to grow my freelance writing business. I took this step at the recommendation of pretty much all writing gurus I adore, from Ed Gandia to Lindy Alexander, as a way to find new clients. Like many professional writers, I try to find consistent content marketing gigs to accompany writing for publications where I can see my name in the glittering byline lights. So I’ll send out emails to agencies, businesses in my niche, organizations I think are cool, asking if they work with freelance writers.
I’ve gotten some positive responses, built professional relationships with creative people in my area, and gotten a few gigs this way. It feels good to have a concrete step I can take to find new clients, and it feels like less of a shout into the void than applying to job boards for gigs I’ll never hear back about—even though I often get crickets, even with a follow-up.
A lot of writing coaches recommend sending out five LOIs each day as a way of marketing your writing business, but I can tell you right now that there’s no surer way to make me feel defeated and tired than knowing I have 25 opportunities to be ignored or rejected in any given week. Still, I’ve been pushing myself with a daily goal for expanding my network and sending introductory emails.
And that’s how I came to have an unpleasant email interaction that gave my confidence a big hit.
The dreaded email
The email in question followed my standard format—a little bit about me following a first line or two tailored to the recipient. In the first paragraph, I said “Your sleek and colorful aesthetic combined with a bold voice and clear penchant for creating ROI for your clients drew me to your team at X. Do you ever contract with freelance writers?”
I liked the website’s blue color palette, and they made an effort to explain the value of content marketing with web copy about how it would lead to conversions and clear ROI for the business, which I like because a lot of small businesses don’t see the value right off the bat.
In response, this pings into my email inbox: “I get it… copying and pasting the same thing to every business is easy… but it won’t work! Appreciate the offer though.”
Finding the truth in a swamp of anger and insecurity
I’ll admit, this response hurt. I’d spent time looking at the website, trying to find a point of connection, and had put together a paragraph I’d thought was personal enough if I was only sending an email to get silence anyway.
My thoughts swirled and angry tears fell. “This guy is a mewling flap-mouthed strumpet (thanks to the Shakespearean Insults Generator for helping me out on that one). Honestly, taking the time out of his not-so-busy day to respond rudely to a nice-if-mechanical-sounding message from a random writer?”
But as I wrote angry responses in my head, what it kept coming back to was a snarky, “Maybe he needs to evaluate his website. If my tailored message seems generic, maybe it’s because his business is generic.”
After my righteous indignation stopped spinning, I was able to pull out some perspective on the exchange. We weren’t a good fit from the beginning, though that became abundantly clear after his message — I’m just not interested in working with people who communicate like that. If he would take the time to respond that way to a simple and complimentary email, how would he respond when I pursued additional details on a brief, or followed up on unpaid invoices?
But beyond my defensiveness, what had my impression of the business been? Blue, and ROI. Not care for the environment, a playful brand voice, important causes elevated to new heights, innovation and being bold enough to try something new, or any of the other things I love about working in the content marketing world.
Why did I send the email? To meet my daily goal. Did it show? Clearly.
Honestly, there wasn’t anything in his website that inspired me, really made me jazzed to work with him. And while I did like his color palette, I realized I’d used the words “bold and colorful” in an email to another agency in the area as well. Yikes — so maybe there was some truth to his comment, as much as I cringed to admit it. And as I looked back over my LOIs from that day, even though they were custom-written for each business, they did start to sound generic, even for the businesses I was most eager to work with.
Obviously something wasn’t working here.
Where my LOIs have found success
The cold emails I’ve sent that found the best success were to companies I was legitimately excited about. And how did I get excited? From looking at their work, seeing how cool it was, and communicating that sincerely.
Blue man here had a website that felt impersonal, like I didn’t get to know the brand at all from it. I found the business because it was in the state I grew up in, so I felt like I had an insider’s knowledge. But location isn’t everything. I realized that the feeling of connection is really important to me, having something to geek out about when I’m hitting “send” on an email that takes me out of my comfort zone. Instead of emailing every company in x niche in x city, it will probably pay off more for me to only reach out to the ones I think are really cool, for a specific reason, even if it takes more time. And as I start to feel like I’m running out of options locally, I need to cast a wider net to find those connections, rather than powering through the Google search results on half-fitting companies within a few hundred miles.
I’d been relying on proximity as a crutch, a way to get me in the door and build connection. And while I love working with local Montana businesses near where I live now — and want to continue working with them and building new relationships in my community — I also need to be willing to look farther afield for places I connect with.
How to move forward
One rude response out of…50?
Alright, my first thought was of course, “I can never ever send cold emails ever again I hate myself and I’m a terrible person and maybe I'm the generic one and oh god artless dread-bolted hag-seeds like this guy lurk around every corner waiting to tell me how terrible I am for putting myself out there and not being 100% authentic every time and hiding behind a veneer of shiny professionalism and repeated turns of phrase to protect myself from the fact that sending out cold emails can be really really scary.”
But even when striving to find that connection with businesses to pitch, LOIs are a bit of a numbers game. So instead of crawling under my desk to wallow in insecurity and self-hatred, I pulled my shaken confidence around me and wrote another LOI for the day.
I sent it to an agency a few states away that had a banging blog, a sense of humor, and a lot of really friendly-looking employees on the About page. I let my enthusiasm show in my email, and it was easy to make my interest sincere because it was.
What I said to him
Okay, the juicy details of the drama’s resolution: how did I snap back? Not so dramatically, to tell you the truth.
I try to be direct, deliberate about speaking up for myself, and also positive in response to situations like this. It’s important to always behave professionally, but not to be a doormat.
“Hey,
I tailored message to my impression of [your company’s] style, and the emphasis on direct conversions for your clients seemed pretty clear in your web copy. Sorry if colorful and bold wasn’t what you were going for!
Have a great weekend.”
I hit send fast, then realized the big glaring zit of a mistake in that email. “I tailored message”? Oh dear.
My insides melt into a toxic sludge of embarrassment when I think about that typo. I’m a writer and copy editor with advanced training and certifications! Yet I still can’t even write a professional retaliatory email with precision! This felt like karmic retribution for not having the mental energy to write a better LOI in the first place.
But again, I let the agitation spin to a stop. In the end, what would I have done differently? Waited five minutes and proofread it one last time.
My takeaways
I need to slow down. Hitting a quota and playing the numbers game might work for some people, but it isn’t my approach anymore. Sending a lot of pitches is good blanket advice—if you don’t pitch and put yourself out there, you’re not likely to get many gigs. But for me, a more measured approach will be the way forward.
As I embrace taking it slow, following my enthusiasm is my new top priority now. I’m not going to pitch places I’m not excited about, period. And you know what? It works out better in the long run, because I don’t want to write for outlets or agencies I’m not excited about, and they don’t want me to write for them either.
For me, it works. That get-back-on-the-horse LOI got a positive response asking for my rates, almost immediately. The best part? I know I’ll still get ghosted, I’ll still accumulate a pile of rejections, but when my enthusiasm comes across in my carefully thought-out email, the jerks can keep their snarky words to themselves.
