As I have said time and time again, making cold calls is one of the best ways to increase your freelance writing workload. Of course, many writers think that this is a bad idea because they would rather write and not act as a salesman. While I can agree with this to a certain point, you need to look at cold calling as a marketing technique. In other words, when you cold call you are attempting to drum up new business. Sure, you are trying to sell yourself, but at the same time this is a great way to market your services and spread your name throughout many industries.
If you have yet to look into cold calling but want to move forward soon enough, the tips below should be able to help you get started:
1. Make a list of companies that you want to cold call before you get started. This way you can move from one to the next without having to waste time finding companies and contact information between calls. By doing this, you will be able to get 10 or more cold calls done in an hour or less. Of course, you may end up spending a lot of time on the phone if you locate a few companies who are interested in what you have to offer.
2. You want to get in touch with the decision maker on the first call. In most cases, you will have to go through at least one person, usually a secretary, before you have the chance to speak with the person who can actually hire you. Although this can take some time and creativity, it is very important. Unless you speak with the decision maker, you have no chance of actually getting hired.
In many cases you will not know who is in charge of hiring freelancers. When you run into this situation, a receptionist or secretary can be your best friend. Tell them who you are, and what you are trying to accomplish. Although not always the case, the majority of receptionists will at least put you through to the appropriate party’s voicemail.
3. When you get the decision maker on the phone, be ready with your pitch. You should quickly tell them who you are and what you are selling. For instance, “My name is Chris and I am a local freelance writer. I wanted to touch base with your company to see if you hire freelancers in any capacity.†This is short and sweet, and will put the ball in their court.
With these three tips, making cold calls for your freelance writing career should no longer seem intimidating. Instead, you should be confident that this is a great way to find new work.Â
You do not need a long, comprehensive resume in order to become a freelance writer. Unfortunately, many aspiring writers never follow their dream because they think they don’t have the necessary background. The fact of the matter is that you do not need a long resume in order to get started. Even though I studied journalism in college, my resume was not full of tons of relevant experience when I decided to look into freelance writing.
Here are three details that prospective clients consider important. They may look at your resume as well, but if you can perform in these areas, you will be in a good position to succeed.
1. Even if you do not have formal writing experience, your past work experiences can put you in a good position to succeed as a freelance writer. For example, I worked in the background check industry for a couple of years before becoming a writer. With this experience in tow, I began to contact publications catering to human resource professionals. Soon enough, I was landing feature article assignments because these editors were interested in my past industry experience. Believe it or not, many of them never asked to see writing samples.
2. There is no denying that some clients may ask for work samples. But guess what? In many cases you will be able to get away with sending them anything. This can include an article that you wrote for a college newspaper, or a sales letter that you put together at your last day job. Generally speaking, prospective clients just want to make sure that you have a good grasp on the English language. If you can prove this through one sample, that may be all that you need. In other words, a long resume is not the end all.
3. If you are a good sales person, you may be able to talk your way into a job. In other words, once you get a prospective client on the phone, you can talk yourself up until you get what you want. Of course, you need to be careful when doing this. You do not want to annoy a potential client, or come off as a used car salesman. If you talk a good game, you may want to use this skill to obtain work. Just remember, you are going to have to perform for the client sooner rather than later.
As you can see, having an impressive resume is not the only way to break into the freelance writing industry. Try the three tips above when attempting to land freelance writing jobs.
As of late, I have been receiving a few emails a week from freelance writers who are frustrated with the work being offered on bidding sites such as GetAFreelancer, Elance, etc. Although I do not bid on nearly as many jobs as previous years, I still like to keep up with what is going on within this industry. From what I can gather, the majority of jobs being posted are of low quality and those that seem promising are being awarded to those offering the lowest rates.
If you are not finding any jobs on these sites, there is no point in spending a lot of time on them. Instead, you should rethink your marketing plan so that you can begin to increase your freelance writing workload. Believe it or not, there are other ways to find work. This is not to say that you should do away with bidding sites altogether, but you should definitely consider other options; especially since these services seem to be going down the tubes.
The main reason that many aspiring writers stick with bidding sites instead of other options is because it is the easiest thing to do. In other words, it is much easier to bid on jobs than to write a query letter or cold call local businesses. But guess what? If you want to achieve a high level of success, you need to break out of your comfort zone and begin to search for jobs in other ways. Soon enough you will realize that bidding sites are good for nothing more than finding small jobs from time to time.
The bottom line: if you are relying on bidding sites and nothing more you are probably going to find it difficult to earn a decent living as a freelance writer. You can still check these sites everyday for new jobs, but do not rely on them to make or break your career. Instead, revamp your marketing plan so that you are generating new leads in many different ways.
