So far, January is starting out well. Not that there’s a ton of work in my “pipeline”, but that there’s a lot more planning on my part. Today I’m off to visit a potential client a few hours away, and I hope the connection will be successful in terms of work. If not, I’ve made one more friendly contact in this world, and that’s never a bad thing.
Another thing I’ve done – I’ve dropped a low-paying client. This one made it easy because the pay was quite low, but I never like turning my back on steady work. I’m convinced, however, the time I’d otherwise spend working for peanuts will be used for higher-paying work.
Therein is the change from last year. Last year, I was content to stick with low-paying regular gigs. Nay, I was more nervous about losing the small paycheck. But I’m employing a new strategy this year. It’s called actively searching every week for new clients or work. Too often, we get overwhelmed by current work and the marketing and networking disappears. I’m of the opinion that we writers would not have down times if we spent much more time on our job searches.
So that’s what I’m going to do. You’re welcome to join me. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going and what is working for me. I’d be thrilled to hear what’s working for you, as well. The more we help each other, the better off for all of us, right?
6 responses to “The Year of Better Work Habits”
Yeah, we’re kind of on the same track. I finished the work for Problem Client, I’m waiting for the check, and I am DONE! I can spend my time doing higher paying work for better clients.
I also realized, during a discussion on Deborah Ng’s board, when a woman defended a crap-paying organization saying she could make “$100/day if she wanted” — heck, that’s my HOURLY, and that’s what I’m paid when I seek jobs on my own, rather than the job boards, where most of the listings pay absolute crap.
Important realization.
And motivation.
Amen, Devon. Amen.
I wonder if the people who think $100 a day is a huge sum live in the middle of nowhere where the cost of living is insanely low. It’s the only explanation, save for this being someone who just started freelancing and thinks $100 a day is a huge windfall. I can’t justify spinning my wheels for that little each day. I’d just as soon go back to bed.
My goal is to send at least one marketing related letter out each work day this year. Last week I went through some old files and contacted everyone who had given me a positive response or I worked with in the past. I’ve already picked up four new-to-me clients in 2008.
Way to go, Sue! That’s a great idea.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD:
http://jmwriting.blogspot.com/2008/01/giving-away.html
I’m with you, Lori. I got laid off on Friday (sounds bad, but honestly it will be good because the job was KILLING me stress-wise) so I am back to my writing.
I have a lot of experience writing about legal topics and have written about 500 pieces of law-related content (DUI, personal injury, pharmaceutical litigation, etc.) so I decided I would start sending out queries to law firms each day offering to add content to their sites.
I have found that lawyers tend to pay more for their content since it’s more specialized, so I can make more money doing less work than if I were writing run of the mill generic content.
We still have to have coffee sometime soon – I got busy with my job, but now my schedule is clear!