Today it's not my career that needs kickstarting, it's my editor. (Not the Favorite Editor, but not the least favorite, either.) It took three e-mails and nearly five days to get her to provide some contact info needed to work on an article due Friday. Her excuse was she's trying to get their February issue finished. Fair enough. Then why did another writer working with her say they had several e-mail exchanges over the past few days….while I was spinning my wheels waiting for key information?

Sorry, but that did it. This may be my only project this week, but if it's not my editor's priority, it's not mine, either. If I finish on time, great, but I'm not working late or breaking my neck if she can't take two minutes to reply to an urgent request. If I don't make the deadline and she dares to complain about it I won't hesitate to (rightfully) place the blame on her.

You can find tons of ideas to get more work going, but sometimes, you need to kick-start your confidence to get some of them done.

This nice thing is, I'm busy. So if they don't like my rates, I don't have to worry about it. They'll find someone else. Now if I could have that attitude all the time, it would save me a lot of anxiety.

Devon, there's the key – follow up. Without it, your mailer is tossed without a second thought.

Jake, I like learning lessons from your dog. 🙂 Good advice. Approach the contact as a friendly conversation.

I'll add this: Sometimes it requires a shift in your internal monologue. Our family jokes about how our dog always gets excited about everything, because she assumes that it's going to involve her (until reality dictates otherwise). Same thing when I contact someone I've done work for in the past — I assume they're at least going to be happy to hear from me, and so much the better if there's work. And even if you're cold calling or direct mailing to strangers, you have to do it with the mindset that you can understand and help them, not that you're selling your services. May sound Pollyanna-ish, but it's what works for me. YMMV.

There have been a few times in my career when I've made a big direction change in my business and need to capture business from a different market segment. When you need to rebuild business from scratch, I don't think you can beat direct mail. I create a custom contact list, and send lumpy mail with a soft offer for a special report. I haven't had to do that in about 3 years, because it works so well.