Welcome to Week Two of Writers Worth Month!
Even amid our annual celebration, there’s room for a Marketing Monday or three, don’t you think? That’s because marketing never ends, particularly as we’re learning to overcome fear.
This Week’s Marketing Move:
Lose Your Fear of Competition
How many times have you said or even thought something like this:
“There are so many writers doing that, I can’t possibly compete.”
Wow, that many times?
Well, fear not! No seriously — fear not your competition. As you get further along in your freelance writing career, you’ll realize a pretty enlightening thing —
Competition, if it exists in your orbit, is a good thing.
That’s a pretty loaded statement, isn’t it? Let’s unpack it.
If competition exists
Yes, we do have competitors — other writers, marketing firms, etc. But do we really? By that I mean are you constantly looking over your shoulder or are you working hard at being your best? See how that shifted your thinking a little? If you’re focused on the competition, you’re not really doing your best, but you’re probably trying to copy someone else’s best.
Think about the Cola Wars back in the 1990s (if you can remember them). Coke and Pepsi were tripping over each other to convince each others’ customers that they were better. What happened? Not a lot other than a ton of taste tests, smack talk, and carbonated debates. And then there was 7-Up, which slid right in there with the “un-cola” advertising. People weren’t swayed for the most part because, for some reason, the advertising seemed to create more of a loyalty toward what one was already drinking. See, blind taste tests are great if the person testing isn’t already a regular user of the other product. No one wants to be proven wrong, even if it’s just about cola…
An extreme example, but it illustrates one thing — if you deliver what people want, you set the bar for other writers. Yes, others may try to take your job, but they’re not going to be too convincing if you’re already delivering excellent results.
I often argue we don’t have competition. It’s not entirely true, but there are so many clients out there that it’s never happened to me that I’ve lost a gig because another freelancer swooped in and stole the client. So while we may compete on a much larger scale, the competition looks a bit different.
It’s a good thing
Yes, it is a good thing to think you have to compete with others. Why? Because it removes your temptation to be lazy. You don’t want to assume those jobs are yours because guess what? They’re not until you earn them. And you earn them by pretending you’re one of six writers contacting that new client this week. How are you going to stand out?
Don’t fear it. Embrace it.
Here’s how removing fear of competition helps you:
You keep the power in your corner. Yes, fearing who’s going to surpass you means you’re not focusing on what’s important, which is how you’re going to surpass them. They’re not worrying about you, so who has the most oomph in that scenario? Stay a powerful force by not looking over your shoulder all the time. The goal is forward. When was the last time you watched a car race where the drivers all drove in reverse to keep an eye on their competition?
You don’t waste time chasing the wrong thing. One thing I’ve found over the years is that some of the writers I thought were successful were just the best at talking themselves up. Imagine building your entire marketing and business model on trying to outpace one of those writers who talks a big game, but doesn’t really do much more than talk? Instead, chase your dreams and forget what the others are doing. Create your own, personal way of getting to where you want to be, competition be damned.
You aren’t afraid to try. If I’d thought that the columnists I’d first come across in my specialty had said and written all there was to say and write, I’d never be where I am right now. They had a voice and an opinion. Mine was 180 degrees from theirs. I wanted to mimic their style, but it was so dry and technical. So I gave it a what-the-hell moment and did it my way, figuring I already had a job, so no biggie. That netted me the job and consequently my current specialization. Had I been afraid to try, had I tried to be them instead of myself, I’d still be a data coordinator. Your voice, your style, is exactly what someone out there is looking for. Don’t be afraid to try your own way. Embrace it.
Writers, how did you overcome fear of competing with others?
Besides job boards, have you ever had to compete with another writer for a client?
What kind of client was it, and would you do it again?
6 responses to “Writers Worth: Fear and Competition”
Okay. I’ll admit it. When I was first starting out I was one of the first freelancers to write for a locally-published national trade magazine. And for some (possibly OCD) reason, I kept a running tally of bylines in each issue. I wrote a list of names and added their latest bylines to whatever total they’d had the issue before. I usually had the highest total, but every so often another writer would catch up.
I have no idea why I did that – it’s not as if they accepted queries. The editors made the assignments, so it wasn’t as if seeing another writer catching up to me motivated me to send in more ideas. It was probably a way to placate a beginner’s insecurities: they wouldn’t assign me so many stories if I weren’t good. Whatever the reason, it motivated me to be thorough, dig deeper, and turn in clean copy that ran almost verbatim in most cases.
I know it was a silly thing to do. I don’t remember when I stopped doing it, but it may have been when the publisher replaced the entire (all female) editorial team with an all-male editorial team led by a former local sports writer who was in over his head. I gave the new guys a shot, but “fired” them after a few months of dealing with their new dysfunctional system.
It’s not silly, Paula. It’s what we do to validate our efforts, I think. I used to do something similar — I’d browse the issues and see who got the cover feature. Even if I had three articles in that magazine to someone else’s cover story, I had to resist letting it bother me. After a while, I realized cover stories weren’t really the do-all-end-all goal. Payment was. LOL
I don’t know why people get so hung up on whether something is a cover story or not. I’ve never been paid a bonus when one of my articles made the cover, so it’s just an ego thing. But saying you wrote the cover story sure sounds good.
I remember a coworker who’d been at the company longer than I had. He stopped in my office doorway and was all worried. “I have the cover story next month! It’s so much pressure! How do you do it?”
I resisted the urge to say “I stop complaining and sit my ass down and write.” But I did tell him something similar. It’s just a story, and if you worry it to death, it will be your last.
You just jogged my memory on a long-ago lost competition. I’d submitted my name to be in contention for some project, can’t remember what. But here’s the fun part: The woman who rejected me accidentally cc’d me in an email to her team–and said something not-so-nice that I could have taken offense to. Instead, I was very pleasant and thanked her for her time & consideration, while letting her know I’d been cc’d.
Good for you, Jake. I think the response itself, with her own words attached, were punishment enough. By being gracious, you underscored her lack of the same.