Confession Time:
I worked a little yesterday. Yea, I know. Yesterday was the post about taking time away.
I have a good excuse: I took off early on Friday. And I’d forgotten to schedule this week’s posts.
So at 6:45 am on a holiday, I was here making sure this post would be waiting for you this morning.
You’re going to be glad for it, too. Jenn Mattern is back. This time, she takes on freelancers faking it –not those faking it to make it, either, but those freelancers who just plain fake it in order to help you part with your money.
Colleagues + Competition = Crippling Fears & Doubts(?)
By Jenn Mattern
In addition to facing fears in my own freelance writing career, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past 12 years or so helping newer writers. They come to me with their questions, and they often come to me with their fears.
One of the biggest fears I hear from newer freelancers is the fear that they aren’t good enough to compete. While, sure, there are cases where that might be true (like someone still working on their language or basic writing skills), it’s often not.
The Issue of Competition
The drive to compete is natural, especially in business. There’s nothing abnormal or unhealthy about it.
Frankly I find it preferable to the Kumbaya crap I hear from far too many writers – “we’re all colleagues, not competitors, and we should all support each other, blah-f*ity-blah.”
Newsflash: Other writers are both colleagues and competitors, and competition and support are not mutually exclusive.
But while, yes, other writers – especially if they target the exact markets you do – are your competition, that doesn’t mean you need to judge yourself by their standards. Chances are, you don’t even know what you’re actually measuring yourself against.
Tough Love Time
This reality check might be tougher for some of you to hear than others. But here’s the thing when it comes to the writers you’re comparing yourself to:
They often aren’t as good as you think they are.
The writers you think are super-duper-special because they’re braggarts – chances are, you’re being gamed. You fell for their act. And now you’re comparing yourself to something fictional.
I can think of two in particular who are master bullshit artists in the freelance writing community – hyping themselves up being their real expertise. They built popularity largely through lying, sometimes through theft, partly by ass-kissing, and by spending a lot of time talking out of their asses.
I’d bet at least a half dozen regular readers of Lori’s blog (including Lori herself) know exactly which two writers I’m talking about. And I’m betting most of you who started freelancing within the past 6 or 7 years know both of them, and probably look up to them because you fell for their bullshit and have no idea how they built their reputations because you weren’t around when they did it.
That’s how the game is played.
These two are particularly toxic. When a writer reaches out to me, distressed feeling they’ve tried everything and done everything the “right” way, there’s at least a 90% chance they’re coming to me after falling for the crap one of those two freelancers is selling.
I hear it all the time:
I took so-and-so’s course, but none of it is working for me. They’re so successful, so there must be something wrong with me.
No. So-and-so is a dipshit who got most of their info by ripping off and exploiting more experienced colleagues (who, surprise surprise, talk to each other!).
You aren’t learning much from them because they barely have a day’s more experience than you do and they don’t know the subject matter well enough to teach others.
They’re one of many of what I usually refer to as “insta-experts.” But their only expertise is in tooting their own horn.
These aren’t folks who care about earning a living as a freelance writer. They’re people looking to make an easy buck off newer writers’ backs – often coming out of courses or membership programs run by marketers teaching them how to con their way into looking like experts when they’re too lazy to put the work into becoming one.
If they can skate by doing this for a few years, they’re golden – new freelancers keep flooding in, not knowing any better. And the longer they stick it out, the longer it looks like they’ve been running an actual sustainable business doing what they claim they can teach writers like you to do. Only in reality, they’re often making the bulk of their income selling these things – not actual freelance services.
I also hear things like this:
So-and-so makes $XXX,XXX per year… wow! (Or $XXXX per article, or $XXX per hour…) I’ll never be as successful as them.
This tends to come around regarding the same people. They’re the ones who can’t stop stroking their own egos and trying to look bigger or more important than they are by throwing numbers around without context (one reason I’m not a fan of freelancers posting income reports – it gives newbies a skewed look at reality).
Most recently I saw this from a freelance blogger I (used to) follow. She posted her income stats for the month, bragging about earning five figures.
That’s awesome, right?
Sure… until you find out she’s only earning about $50 per article.
Do the math. I’ll wait.
Newer writers see things like this, then try to model a career on something they don’t understand. They wonder why they can’t hit the same targets before they totally burn out.
Sometimes it’s a simple lack of context.
The last example was only one where context would have come in handy – especially the fact that this writer had only ever accomplished this goal once (which is often the case when insta-experts think they’re qualified to teach others something). Here’s another from earlier in my own career:
One writer I used to know would brag about earnings from their “freelance writing” business. If you didn’t know them, it would look impressive, and perhaps intimidating.
If you did know them, you’d also have known they weren’t just a freelancer. They were operating more of a content agency – attracting the clients, but outsourcing most of the writing to others.
They would brag about their company’s gross earnings, but not tell others they were actually paying most of that out to the writers they outsourced to.
So new writers would see things like this being touted publicly, fear that they’d never be a success because their own numbers looked nothing like that and they didn’t see how they ever would, and those fears and doubts were all based on an incomplete picture.
Who cares if someone grosses a massive amount per year and only nets $30-40k doing something that’s not what you want to do in your career?
Managing others who do the writing is not freelance writing. You can earn more than they saw independently. Or you can earn less. But they aren’t comparable because they aren’t actually the same job.
Yet that’s how it was promoted – earning well into six figures “freelance writing” — because it sounded more impressive than admitting they were some middleman underpaying actual freelance writers to make a buck off their backs.
Sometimes it’s outright lies.
One of the two insta-expert types I mentioned took this a step further.
If you kept a closer eye on the community than only reading this person’s own blog, here’s what you would have known from what they were sharing publicly:
- This writer earned only a very small percentage of their income from actual freelancing, even though they were setting themselves up as a role model for freelance writers.
- This writer had publicly disclosed a few months prior that they were spending an absurd amount of money to reach the gross income levels they were sharing (money most freelancers don’t have to spend, and when counted, left them with a pretty mediocre net income – not something that would have impressed the folks they were trying to sell their “expertise” to).
- This writer had outright lied about income stats. Within one week, they’d shared their gross income on their own site, and then shared their gross income on a third party site with a miraculous 5-figure increase. Why? The site they were writing for after their own had a huge audience. There was more in it for them if they made themselves look like a bigger deal.
If you knew this writer well enough to have had private conversations with them (like I did), you would also know exactly how much (meaning “how little”) their clients actually paid them – often because they assumed they earned more than you and would boast while giving you unsolicited advice, not realizing you were already being paid more than twice what they were. I wasn’t the only colleague they were “graciously” bestowing that unsolicited advice on either.
And this is the problem newer freelancers face. They see outright lies without knowing any better. And the people who brag the loudest, and lie the most, often end up becoming fairly well-known because they spend more time kissing ass and hyping themselves up than doing the actual work.
So again, you end up in a situation where newer freelancers doubt themselves, or are afraid to target certain markets or compete in certain areas, because they’re so blinded by bullshit they fail to see they’re either on equal footing, or sometimes even better off, than the people they idolize – the very ones who make them feel not good enough.
And sometimes, it’s all about the bylines.
When you see someone say “I make $100,000+ per year, so you should buy my course/book/whatever so I can teach you how to be like me,” it’s easy to forget about context and be impressed even if they might actually be netting closer to what you are.
But income isn’t the only place where you need to think about context before feeling impressed or intimidated or before you start comparing yourself to another freelancer.
There’s also the issue of bylines.
I’ve had newer writers come to me saying they can’t possibly compete because they don’t have the kinds of credits competitors do.
When I ask what they mean, it inevitably comes down to the same “big” names, over and over again. Care to guess which they are?
Look, if you see these kinds of credits and fear you can’t do similar or better, I only have one piece of advice for you:
Get over it.
There is nothing impressive about getting some site that doesn’t pay the people it exploits for income to “hire” you. (They changed that this year – by cutting off the unpaid program because even they couldn’t justify the crap quality anymore after being put under the microscope.)
And there is equally nothing impressive about working for some online content network – Content Mills 2.0 – from print magazines willing to sell out their reputations to flood their site with often half-assed content at lower editorial standards because the more pages they have, the more pages they can serve ads on.
Fun fact:
I have a close family tie to an editor and regional bureau chief at one of those magazines. They’re as disgusted by what the sub-par online contributors publish in their name as anyone, because it’s a direct hit on the credibility some of them have spent decades building. So don’t assume it’s doing your reputation any favors if you think writing cheap content for them online might score you points to pitch them in print later.
Business magazines were quick to jump on this.
Then broader-interest magazines.
Online-only publications got on board, going one of two ways – valuing quality and paying for it, or going the free-equals-more-content-and-ad-revenue way.
Newspapers have been involved the longest (remember when the NY Times bought About.com – if you haven’t been around for at least a solid decade, probably not; they’ve long since sold it off). Newspapers have actually been through all the crappy models – buying content mills, using content farms to source some of their writing (think USA Today getting travel content from Demand Media), then the “let’s all ‘hire’ a bunch of low-paid or unpaid writers to run hyper-local news sites” craze only to start shutting them down a few years later… they’re really trendsetters.
It’s not difficult to build an impressive-looking list of credits if the people you’re trying to impress don’t know much about the industry. And the insta-expert types use that to their advantage to appeal to newer writers who don’t know that history. It’s why so many of the newer ones have nearly identical credit lists.
Look. I have no doubt this era will be over within the next few years. Writers never want to hear this, but it’s proven true every single time – it’s a cycle. If you’ve been around long enough to see the last few incarnations, you know how this story ends. And while a few leeches manage to hang on, it usually doesn’t end well for the people who exploited a manipulative system.
So don’t let “big” names slapped on someone’s site make you feel like you have anything to prove before you’re as good as them, or worth as much as them. In some cases, the publications they wrote for didn’t think they were worth all that much anyway. Writers will do a lot of things for credits they think they can monetize in other ways – from writing for much less than they usually charge to writing for free.
And in other cases, who cares? Even the most experienced freelance writers started somewhere. You practice. You build relationships. You make yourself someone clients want to work with in one way or another. And you will eventually land the kinds of gigs you want, whether they come with a shiny byline or just a fat-ass check.
Comparing yourself to other freelancers is a nasty habit. You will never have a full picture of anyone else’s career. And you can’t replicate something you can’t see.
And FYI… that goes for me, it goes for Lori, it goes for every colleague you come across. Whether they’re trying to get one over on people because they see money in it, or not… no matter how open or reserved they are… you will never know everything.
So if you’re the kind of freelance writer who feels like they have to measure up to someone, there’s only one place you should be looking – in a mirror. I’m betting you didn’t go into business for yourself to be anyone else’s reflection.
Others can help you along the way. They can motivate you. They can inspire you. They can sometimes teach you.
But ultimately, you decide your destination.
You come up with a road map to get you there.
And then you get your ass in gear, and you go.
Fears. Anxiety. Doubts. You can navigate them all as long as you keep your eyes on the road in front of you, and stop seeking validation from people who may not be everything they seem.
Surround yourself with colleagues who see where you want to go and want to help you get there – not those hoping to sell you an over-priced map to nowhere.
—
Jenn Mattern is a freelance writer, blogger, and PR consultant. She runs All Freelance Writing, where she’s helped new freelance writers launch and grow successful businesses since 2006.
31 responses to “Writers Worth: Your Freelance Competition”
Well said, Jenn. Those “insta-experts” really are the worst. I had one of them try to persuade me we should work together on something, but quickly figured out that the draw was being able to promote my decades of experience to make what s/he was selling look better. I walked away fast.
For new writers: it pays to do some research – you’ll soon find the people who really have got the chops like Jenn, Lori, Anne Wayman, Cathy Miller (and me), who are usually willing to point new writers in the right direction. (What we have in common is that there’s nothing instant about our expertise – we all worked hard for years!) If you’re prepared to do the work, then you can build your career without an “insta-expert” in sight.
Sharon, I had the same experience. I wonder if it was the same insta-expert? The one I had an encounter with was asking for guest posts. Only … those guest posts were there to somehow prove she had more experience than she had (at the time, it was just over a year’s worth). I pushed back when the request came to give free content for a course she was offering — and charging for.
That right there is sleazy. Yes, you can sell your expertise to someone who’s willing to pay for it. Selling someone else’s work that you’ve no intention of paying for? Yea, no.
Lori, I’m guessing it’s the same person. That sounds like the identical approach.
I know which scenarios you’re both talking about, and it’s definitely the same person. See insta-experts? We talk to each other. Word gets around about you. And your equally-new friends can only get you so far when you’re building an awful reputation for yourself among more experienced colleagues.
This same person came to me for a guest post… just a few weeks after I’d already published one on the site. I shot them down in no uncertain terms.
This is the same one who, when Lori told them “no,” said no one else had a problem contributing to things… right after I’d also told them “no” about it, so yeah, someone else did have a problem. They lied to justify them using more experienced colleagues. They made a point to ride other people’s coattails, and quickly moved to the whole “buy my shit; I can teach you how to succeed with my whopping ONE year of experience!” spiel. Honestly, that’s not the worst I’ve seen. I saw one selling a course with only six months under their belt. And a colleague pointed another to me (was it you maybe Lori?) where the person giving career advice (I don’t think they were charging in this last case) admitted they’d JUST STARTED. It’s truly nauseating sometimes, and we notice these red flags. I feel awful for new writers exposed to all this garbage when they’re trying to find legitimate sources to trust. It’s equally the fault of sleazy marketers teaching writers to sell without real experience under their belts, and Google’s repeated failures when it comes to online “authority” and making it easier in the past few years for con artists to game the system. But that’s another issue all its own.
Oh, I remember that one, Jenn. Yes, I’d mentioned that one to you. In fact, Twitter is littered with the same “Look how much I made on my first try” tweets. Great! Now replicate it monthly and we’ll talk.
I really feel for new writers these days. It’s crazy to see what they’re exposed to (that we weren’t), and I almost can’t blame them for falling for the BS, because it usually comes from the loudest people — the ones newbies see first. But they do have to try harder. And they have to be careful not to over-rely on any single source. And if someone’s approach doesn’t work for them, they need to be much more willing to walk away and do something else. This is one of the biggest issues I see around this — they come to me not right after they realized so-and-so’s advice is getting them nowhere; they come to me months, sometimes a year or more, later because they assumed something was wrong with them and they had to stay someone else’s course. And that’s fine. Not every legit expert’s strategy will work for everyone either. But when I see newer writers struggle with this, it’s nearly always after they’ve been following one of those same two people.
I didn’t mention this in the post because there’s so much I could say about insta-experts that it slipped my mind. But basically, like you said, it’s about years of hard work. Those who build visibility quickest are often the most suspect — promoting themselves is fine, but if you don’t already know them like some of us did before they skyrocketed in popularity, you don’t see how they really do that. In one of the two cases I mentioned, it was largely using black hat tactics — buying undisclosed links, doing link exchanges to rank well (offering nofollow links while demanding dofollow ones — a link scheme that you can be penalized for), using fake followers to initiate public discussion when others aren’t talking about them (one who’s no longer around thankfully even did that here on Lori’s blog — they commented under multiple names to support themselves when literally NO one else could support their variety of selling newer writers out)… the black hat list for some of these folks is long.
The newer variety (which is pretty old in the marketing and PR community, but writers have been slower to catch up) often involves “tribes” (a term I despise). It’s largely about that circle-jerk variety of promotion. It can involve automatically promoting content from certain people in your little play group before you’ve actually read it (which is completely irresponsible and makes you an untrustworthy source of information). It’s such a gross development in professional networking.
The folks new writers should be paying the most attention to are:
– Offer plenty of information without locking everything behind a pay wall.
– Are willing to answer questions like Sharon said — especially if they’re running sites for other writers; if they can’t handle even basic questions from community members without nickel & diming everyone, that’s a serious red flag. (Though if you go to them with generic questions like “where can I find gigs,” you need to get off your lazy ass and search first, and you probably won’t get much of a response.)
– Are ideally focused on a similar specialty to yours. Someone writing for magazines primarily isn’t who you should be learning from if you want to be a freelance copywriter, and vice versa.
– Have been at it a while (when I accepted guest posts, I have a 5-year rule — if you hadn’t been earning your living freelancing for 5 years, you weren’t in a position to offer career advice; that’s the point where about half of small businesses fail in the U.S., and to advise on others on careers you should be proving you can manage a sustainable one).
– Have strategies that are compatible with you. If you’re a high-anxiety type, someone who constantly pushes pitching and cold calls won’t suit you as well as someone who focuses on inbound marketing and PR, and vice versa.
– Writers who are honest with them — not just those who constantly boast and try to make themselves look important, but those who come out and tell you equally about their struggles so you see they’re human and they understand where you are or have been. Someone who only toots their own horn has a little too much hot air to burn off.
There was a time when you could simply rely on who others were recommending rather than who was hyping themselves up. But those days are over too. I watched this a while back with a newer group of writers who came in. It became a constant game of promoting each other to maximize exposure until they could get on others’ radar. It was gross. It was obvious. But if you didn’t know how they were all connected, it would look like natural, legit promotion. These are the types who go beyond exchanging links to calling each other experts long before any of them are. Some of those folks are no longer freelancing already. Some spend their time parroting one of the biggest BS artists around. I had one of them ask me for advice privately only to share it on their blog w/o permission the next day (no credit — sharing it as if it was their own advice). I’ve had them try to use me in a way like Sharon mentioned (and I know Sharon’s been hit by this group too) — they get more experienced pros to provide content so they can monetize it and market based on someone else’s expertise. I watched some give advice that left out bare bones legal issues that any amateur would know — basically advising newer writers to do something they can’t legally do because this person had no real expertise.
This is the kind of thing you’ll pick up on, but only when you’ve been at it for years. In the meantime, you have to learn to trust your gut. And you have to exercise common sense. It’s usually pretty clear if someone is speaking from experience versus just parroting some advice they heard somewhere for example. And not everyone’s every experience will apply to you. It’s okay to get email marketing advice from one place, and pitching advice from another for example — no single freelancer can teach you everything you need to know. This is why I frequently tell writers, you need to start with the fundamentals. Then you’ll know where you have gaps to fill. But you’ll also get much better at sniffing out the bullshit.
See? This is a topic I can talk about way too much. 😉 It’s been terribly sad seeing what’s happened to the freelance writing community in recent years — mimicking many of the sleazy marketing bubbles I’ve spent a long time countering in the PR community. It’s not something I originally thought I’d see repeat itself. ‘Tis the cycle I suppose.
I think I’ve only told Lori so far, but I’m planning to do more to counter some of this nonsense moving forward. While I already have an extensive collection of free resources at All Freelance Writing, I’ve been wanting to add courses for a while. And now that I just finished a big market directory overhaul, that’s the next big project on my list for that site. It’ll begin with a free course (resource for readers, and a way for me to let people test the course platform). And it’ll directly target a topic I’ve seen far too many insta-experts sell courses and e-books on.
That won’t be a one-off either. If I see an insta-expert selling expertise they don’t have to the detriment of new writers, I’m going to be working harder to make sure they have free resources available to teach them instead. If it’s one small thing I can do to help discourage this crap, I’m going to do it. While I have no issue with pros selling things — they deserve to be compensated when they put a lot of effort into a valuable resource — I do have an issue with those who exist primarily to make a buck off newbies’ backs. And that’s an area where I have the advantage of not needing to do that. While I’ll have more paid and free e-books coming, and paid and free courses, I can keep making beginner-level material free (only charging when people move up and need something more advanced that involves more effort on my part). Most of my income on my freelance writing site doesn’t come directly from readers at all. And it was designed to work that way so I could always focus on creating for readers over creating for sales. I remember a colleague (not a newbie) talking to me about one of those notorious insta-experts a while back — they saw an email tied to some other content and were like “Well, I guess so-and-so’s going to be selling a new product next week.” It had become so obvious that everything this person was writing “for readers” was all about the pre-launch for the next sale. I couldn’t live with myself running a skeazy business like that, constantly pretending to care about a larger community when in reality the interest is shoving the next product down their throats. No thanks. The ones you want to learn from are the ones who teach and encourage because they care about making a difference and giving back to a community that helped them. And frankly, when you do that, there’s still a lot of money to be made without selling readers out constantly. Lori is a good example. Sharon is a good example. Peter Bowerman is a good example. These are people who have long been involved in the community, helped newer writers out, and have real expertise backing up what they teach.
And this comment is probably longer than my post now. 😉
But so valuable, Jenn. 🙂 Looking forward to hearing more about your course.
Ugh… I need to stop speed-typing in little comment windows. Missed so many typos here. Sorry about that. 🙁
LOL It may well be longer. But it’s needed info, so thank you, Jenn.
I would much rather see a writer hire a business coach than plunk down hundreds for questionable content. I remember one other insta-expert actually charging for “courses” that turned out to be old blog posts that were readily available. Maybe save some cash and just cut-and-paste it yourself?
Great list of what to look out for. Exactly what I’ve seen, too.
But Lori… don’t you know how hard it is to lump all that old content together? I mean… they saved someone having to *gasp* SEARCH!
Well said by you, as well, Sharon. And thank you for the shout-out. We’re a regular mutual admiration society. 😉
Pretty sure I know one of the two insta-experts you noted, Jenn.
The one I have in mind is someone I’d connected with on LinkedIn many years ago, probably about the same time they were launching some of their first courses. The messages were innocuous at first, but I soon started seeing inconsistencies and that braggadocio bubble to the surface. A condescending boastfulness, really. They’d noticed that I write for couple of pretty well-known publications and told me they’d written for one of them too. Small world, huh? Not really. That publication has a searchable database going back several decades, and this person’s byline was no where to be found. I causally mentioned that I couldn’t find their byline anywhere on the database, and boy did they reverse course fast. “It was so long ago I can’t remember – it must have been for….” that publication’s rival. Sorry, but you wouldn’t forget writing for either one of those and you certainly wouldn’t confuse the two if you had.
Not too long thereafter, they sent a spammy message inviting me to take their course. Seriously? I’d already checked the credits this “expert” claimed to have, and the few that checked out weren’t that impressive, and it was clear they’d only been freelancing a handful of years. So I replied asking to be removed from their mailing list, pointing out that I had far more experience than they did, so I wasn’t really in their target demo of gullible newbies. (Okay, so I probably didn’t say “gullible newbies” but I implied it.)
Later, I leaned this same person (who’d once posted to a LinkedIn Group that they would NEVER work for less than 50-cents a word) was a regular contributor to one of those websites Jenn mentioned that’s the online-only arm of a major business publication. A publication I turned down because their pay rate was pathetically low.
I remember you telling me about that one Paula, and I’ve heard similar stories about them from other colleagues, and have had similar interactions myself. If I’m guessing right, it’s the same person who contacted Lori to give her unsolicited webinar advice after they’d done ONE. And it would be the same person who told me one of their clients was out of my league (when they paid less than half what I made on a typical article at the time). Always assuming they’re a step above everyone else. Thankfully that doesn’t account for the vast majority of freelance writers though.
Probably – this person was sort of simultaneously fishing for contacts while insinuating that I’m not up to their caliber. Yeah…right. Who was the one fishing? Not me.
Right there, Paula. When someone is telling you they can help you earn oodles of cash and they’re taking low-paying work, why would you trust them? Oh right — you wouldn’t.
I can’t believe I have to add this, but on a related note…
Sometimes the folks posts like this are about see themselves in it. And there’s a long history of them jumping on the posts full of support. It’s a way to distance themselves by the content — after all, if they’re supporting the message, newbies won’t assume they’re the subject.
It’s just something new writers need to be aware of.
Good points. One of them accused me of not being a “real” freelancer because I work across topics instead of niche. Not even worth engagement.
Ick. I’m sure their ignorance will take them far.
I believe wholeheartedly in specializing. But where some get that concept wrong is thinking it only means choosing a niche or industry. It doesn’t.
Some specialize in an industry. Some specialize in a niche. Some specialize in certain types of clients (like taking on subcontracted work from marketing firms). Some specialize in certain project types (or groups of project types).
For example, I specialize in blogging and marketing & PR copy (not direct sales copy) for solopreneurs and creative professionals.
The other mistake is thinking you can never make exceptions. You’re always the one who gets to choose. For example, sometimes I work with middlemen clients for their own small business clients. Sometimes I work with mid-sized companies (including some I’ve been with since their solopreneur days). Once in a while I’ll even take on a corporate client if the project feels like a good fit.
Most freelancers I know who think they’re absolute generalists aren’t. They just haven’t though enough about what they primarily take on and how they market themselves. It’s often less about them changing the kinds of projects they do and more about them changing the way they think about the kinds of projects they do. But no one needs a niche in particular to specialize.
Seriously? They accused you of not being a real freelancer? Clearly not someone who knows how much you do in one day. Between you and Jenn, I’m always feeling like a slacker.
You’re right — not worth your time.
I considered taking a long absence (perhaps permanent) last year. I was discouraged, burned out, exhausted. But I couldn’t imagine not writing. I just wanted to approach things differently.
A lot of the advice wasn’t working for me.
So I sat down with people I trust and we figured out a plan, most of which we’ve implemented in the past year. I’m still tired, but it’s working better for me.
It doesn’t stop the insta-experts from getting up in my face, but that’s their problem, not mine. My way is ONE way, not THE way. And when it doesn’t work, or there’s an obstacle, I adjust. I learn, I grow, I evolve.
I listen to people who know more than I do (and there are plenty, you among them).
Then I make the best decision I can and give it another shot.
I know that feeling unfortunately. I’m glad you figured out a plan forward that works for you.
And what you said is really the key. You learn. You grow. You evolve. Nobody knows everything. And everyone makes mistakes, regardless of how long they’ve been at it. But mistakes only stop you if you stop learning from them, or if you’re determined to repeat them. If I ever get to that point, I’d definitely walk away. No real point in moving forward then.
“My way is ONE way, not THE way.” Amen!
Advice works when it fits the person, place, and circumstance. What worked for me ten years ago probably wouldn’t work for me today.
That’s a great point Lori. Even though we tend to see cycles in some way, markets constantly change. The best part? New markets seem to arise all the time. What worked well for me when I started would never work as well for someone now in that same specialty because it was a specialty I carved out for myself when no one was yet. Once something saturates, it takes a totally different approach to getting in. It can be done. Just differently. Or with a new specialty to make your own. And new folks are sometimes surprised to hear this, but there are still untapped markets out there where clients go with generalists out of necessity because there aren’t any specialists yet. You can be THE person clients in these areas turn to first.
It all comes back to fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals.
When you focus on fundamentals, you can adapt to changing markets, competition, industry trends, and pretty much anything else thrown your way.
Jenn, picture me in the standing O position. This is the tell-it-like-it-is post that first brought me to your site’s shores. It boggles my mind that it’s almost 10 years ago. As you know, I started my freelancing business after 30+ years in the corporate world. As you said, you do the math. 🙂
I encountered the freelance “manager” I’m pretty sure you’re talking about. Maybe it was my *ahem* advanced age that had me catching on to her lack of credibility fairly quickly. I do not have the journalism background my fine colleagues like Sharon and Lori do, but I’m old enough to appreciate real professionalism. It saddens me to see such a loss of standards.
As I approach 10 years of freelancing, I am so grateful for all you do.
It makes me just ill, Cathy. I really worry about the world if the ethics and the care we take to do our jobs right are being ignored by other writers who are more concerned with making money than with acting ethically.
Lori, you have no idea how much what you just said actually reflects back on my other post this month. That’s a big part of one of those opportunities that was taken away where I had a chance to make a huge difference. And professionally, I have no bigger regret in my life.
Thanks Cathy. You know… I realized the other day the site itself will be 12 years old in barely more than a few months. It feels like yesterday, but that makes me feel so old. LOL Think of it all as more experience Cathy. It’s what sets you apart from the insta-expert lot. 🙂
The manager one I had in mind was a guy. There are just too many to keep track of these days. LOL
Oh, but you’ve accomplished quite a lot, Jenn. I think we all have regrets, no?
Not like this.
I just wish every single new writer could memorize this:
“You fell for their act. And now you’re comparing yourself to something fictional.”
Think about that. Someone is puffing up their importance, embellishing their resume, and selling it to you. Just because they say it doesn’t make it true (post-truth era my ass).
Do your thing. Look for advice from more than one source. Don’t rely on one person who overdoses on exclamation points to be your savior. Chances are they’re out to save only themselves.
Amen.
The weirdest thing about it is that I rarely see these same people hype themselves up in the same way for freelance prospects. They tend to share the least info publicly to build their image (rates, service details, and such), so who knows what they’re saying privately. But it’s like two very different public personas, where they just assume new writers are going to be gullible. I wish fewer proved them right.