Marketing to Other Freelancers: You’re Doing it Wrong

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” said Jem pleasantly.

“I’m Charles Baker Harris,” he said. “I can read. ”

“So what?” I said.

“I just thought you’d like to know I can read. You got anything needs’ readin’ I can do it….”

“How old are you,” asked Jem, “four-and-a-half?”

“Goin’ on seven.”

“Shoot no wonder, then,” said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. “Scout yonder’s been readin’ ever since she was born, and she ain’t even started to school yet…..”

A writer friend of mine reminded me the other day of this exchange among Jem, Scout and Dill from To Kill a Mockingbird. We were discussing a note she’d received recently. Another writer, one whom she’d never come in contact with, wrote to introduce herself and to ask — on first contact — if my friend would pass any “overflow” work her way.

Couple of things wrong with that.

I’m going to repeat this one more time for those writers sitting in the cheap seats:

There is no such thing as overflow work.

Stop calling the work other writers market for and receive as “overflow” anything. Nothing signals to me, or any other professional writer, amateur status like calling a heavy workload “overflow.” It isn’t. It also does not exist.

Do we sometimes get more projects than we can handle? Yes.

Does it happen often? Yes and no, depending on our marketing efforts and the time of year and client whims and whether the wind blows east or west and….

Do we turn to other writers when we can’t find the time to complete all our client work on time and accurately?

Yes, sometimes.

But not to strangers.

Repeat:

[bctt tweet=”Successful #freelancewriting pros will not hand extra work to a #writer they don’t know.” username=”LoriWidmer”]

That’s what’s really wrong with this. Well, that and another thing:

The writer, who is a wellness writer, asked my friend, who covers cross-border finance, international business development, and global business topics, to send projects and client trust her way.

Yep. She did zero homework.

That was a point my friend drove home by asking her for samples of her work in the areas in which my friend works. The conversation became a bit strained as the other writer came to the realization that yes, reaching out with that kind of request without knowing who she’d be talking to might not have been a good idea.

Ya think?

Like Dill, this writer assumed that because she could write, it made her special.

She also assumed my friend would be eager to sacrifice all that trust she’d built between herself and her client and just hand it over to a stranger.

Oh, and another thing wrong with asking a writer you don’t know to give you work:

It’s incredibly rude. And lazy.

Imagine you just signed six new clients as a result of a lot of marketing and relationship-building effort. Let’s say you spent about 3 months trying to secure work from each one by actually doing your job and attracting their interest, having the conversations, doing the negotiating, and making the sale.

How eager are you going to be to hand one or more of those client projects over to some unknown whose entire effort was writing a note and clicking Send to a perfect stranger?

And yet every successful freelancer at some point has been asked to share the fruits of their labors with someone who thinks marketing is begging work from other writers.

It happens with writers who certainly know better, too. I had a writer who was putting together a course ask me once to write a case study for her. So I wrote up the proposal, complete with my price, and sent it over. “Oh, I don’t have a budget to pay you! But other writers have been okay with helping out.”

Then other writers are fools or too damned kind. If you are charging money for a product and you’re asking me to provide content for that product, you damn well better expect to pay for my time and talent.

Most of you would never do something like what either of these writers have done/are doing. You know the boundaries, you respect other people’s time and effort, and you don’t expect a handout.

But if there are newer writers reading — writers who are desperate for that big break, who are at their wit’s end wondering how the hell they’re ever going to make a living freelance writing — this is how you approach veteran writers to ask for work:

You don’t.

Harsh? Yes. But it’s honest. Fellow writers are not your clients. Spend your time marketing to people with deeper pockets and larger needs. There are plenty of clients out there for you. This blog and plenty of others have free marketing advice for you. Do some homework. Decide who you want to work with. Decide how you’ll reach out to them. Do it. Repeat.

That’s your formula for success.

And do ask for advice. Ask smart questions — not the “how do I get started?” lazy question — and listen to the answers. Befriend other writers. Knock ideas around with other writers. Be willing to do the work. If you can present yourself as a trusted colleague, your freelance writing friends will come to you when they need help with client projects they themselves cannot complete. You’ll get referrals for work that doesn’t fit them. You’ll be able to fill in for a writer friend when their lives don’t allow for work.

And you’ll have a thriving business that was built the right way — with hard work and networking based on an actual relationship, not on begging.

Writers, do you get requests like my friend’s or like the one I had?
How have you handled the “overflow” work request?
What advice would you give a writer thinking of marketing to other writers?