Freelance Game Plan: April

So you’re sitting there with a few gaps in your workweek. Nice, but how big is that gap? And how long do you think it will last?

That long, huh?

It’s the start of the second quarter of 2021. If you’ve been waiting for something to gel, it’s time to stop waiting. Seriously. It’s not happening.

Well, it’s not happening on its own, is it? If you know me, you know I push for you (and me — I’m no different) to market somehow, some way ever day. Social media, emailed letters of introduction, article pitches, forum conversations, LinkedIn connections, webinars, Twitter chats ….

There’s no reason why you can’t be in front of a potential client every single day. You’re already there, I’d bet. Just narrow your focus to engaging someone new who might hire you.

That’s your first assignment for this month.  That will get your feet wet and get you thinking about your next client. Easy peasy.

And your primary assignment this month is almost as easy. It’s this:

Update your testimonials.

I hope you have a website by now. If you don’t, do it. Take the time to either learn how to put up a basic site or pay an entity like WordPress to put one together for you.

On that site, you need some testimonials.

You can use them in your marketing materials, too. Sales letters, media kits, anything formal you might send to a client prospect could do better with a few kudos from your favorite clients.

And right there is the crux of your assignment:

Reach out to existing or past clients and ask for a testimonial.

That little move is going to be the shot in the arm your idle freelance writing career needs right now. Why? Because:

• You get back in front of people who liked your work
• You could be reminding them that they have projects they can’t get done without help
• You get a testimonial that speaks to why they like you
• You can use that info to give them even better results

Just getting in front of a client can result in a project. In one case, a regular client of mine had changed accounting companies. My invoice didn’t get processed, so I reached out, asked how everyone was, asked for help in getting that invoice paid.

The result: The invoice was paid and four more projects came my way.

Yes, those projects may have landed in my lap eventually anyway, but sometimes the tap on the shoulder about something else pushes those projects to the front burner. The same can happen with the request for a testimonial.

That testimonial does something else, too: It tells you what keeps them coming back.

[bctt tweet=”Your #freelancewriting clients are telling you why they hire you. Are you listening?” username=”LoriWidmer”]

That, my writerly friend, is a major gift your clients are giving you. They’re telling you exactly what it is you do that has caught their attention in a good way.

Back in the day (before internet), I had a gig as a newspaper correspondent. I was one of several hired at the same time to do contract work, but I was one of just a few who stuck with it. The news editor referred me to the special sections editor. She funneled more and more work my way, and one day, she told me why: “You’re reliable.”

If that were your feedback, what could you do with that? You’d make that your calling card, just as you would if a client said “You understand how to breathe life into this topic” or “You manage to write the way I think.”

You can work with that. You can pay more attention to how you’re making these people say these nice things, and you can find ways to improve on that even more. And since every client might have a different attribute of yours that they like, you can introduce those attributes to your other clients, too.

So ask for the testimonial. Then act on it.

Writers, what have client testimonials revealed to you about your own skills?