When speaking with freelance writing clients, you need to listen and listen well. While you may think that this goes without saying, some people have a difficult time taking direction from clients. To be a successful freelance writer, you need to learn how to listen to clients and then translate what you hear into the successful completion of the project at hand.
Many freelance writers have a difficult time listening to clients because email has more or less taken over their business. When it comes time for them to speak on the phone or meet a client in person, they are either intimidated or so excited that they jump way ahead of themselves. As you can imagine, this can be an easy trap to fall into the first few times that you personally speak with a client.
The best thing that you can do is to calm down, keep your mouth closed, and listen to your client’s needs. Of course, when appropriate you will also want to lend your insight and answer any questions that are being asked of you. Generally speaking, you want to be a useful piece in the conversation without interrupting and making the client feel inferior. Believe it or not, this is easier said than done.
The first few times that I talked to freelance writing clients on the phone I was quite nervous. This led to jumpiness, speaking out of turn, and often times getting ahead of myself. Basically, it reminded me of all those bad public speaking classes that I had to take in high school. Over time I became more comfortable speaking with clients, and now I know exactly how to act.
All in all, it is important to listen to your freelance writing clients. If you are not communicating by email, it may take some time for you to catch onto your “part†in the conversation. But remember, everybody makes mistakes. Do your best to communicate well and listen to everything your client has to say. After a few phone calls or meetings you will be a pro!
From time to time, I am going to post miscellaneous freelance writing tips. They may not be full of in-depth details, but they will be quick, efficient, and helpful in your everyday career.
For today: make sure that you know your day’s work before you get started. When I began my freelance writing career I worked on projects from emails that I received from clients. As you can imagine, this got quite sloppy, and as I obtained more work, things got even worse.
Now, I always have a sticky note next to my keyboard outlining all of the jobs that I have to complete for that day. When a project gets completed I simply scratch it off the list. This is much easier than trying to remember what needs done, and hoping that I don’t forget something important.
If you are not already doing this, try it out on Monday. You will be surprised at how much easier it makes your job!
Regularly keeping in touch with past freelance writing clients is sure to increase your future earnings. The old saying “out of sight, out of mind†definitely holds true. In other words, if your past clients do not remember you they are not going to call on you when they have a new project available. This is why you need to make it part of your business to keep in touch and follow up with them every so often.
First things first, you need to remember that you should always be friendly when following up. This is in contrast to coming across as a bother, or using high pressure sales tactics. If you begin to get on your client’s nerves, they are simply going to ignore you from there on out; and that is never a good thing.
How can you keep in touch with your freelance writing clients?
1. Believe it or not, calling on the phone is a great idea. Even if you primarily use email to communicate, a phone call can take your relationship with the client to the next level. Just make sure that you keep the conversation short and sweet, and as mentioned above, don’t pressure the client into giving you more business.
2. You can send a simple, and to the point email. For most freelance writers this is the easiest way to keep in touch because it is quick and efficient. Although email is a great way to follow up, you should remember that a generic note is not nearly as good as one that has a personal touch. In other words, do not write one email and then BCC all of your clients.
3. Put together a newsletter that explains what you have been up to, etc. This is a great way to stay in touch with clients in a non-direct way. The nice thing about a newsletter is that you do not have to personalize it to each recipient. To go along with this, you can use either snail mail or email for distribution.
This is a subject that I have touched on time after time. The reason that I do so is that following up and staying in touch is a great way to take your business to the next level. Repeat business can go a long way in helping you to reach your goals. And with the proper follow up schedule in place, your chances at repeat business are a lot better.
