Your Freelance Identity Crisis

Saw this on LinkedIn the other day (details altered to spare the guilty):

Jane Doe, Expert in Business Consulting and Grant Writing – Speaker and Author

Founder of Rapunzel Business Consulting LLC

Client-focused business consulting and grant writing for nonprofits and small businesses. I free up your time so you can spend it with family. I work with businesses of all sizes and shapes, making sure they don’t trip over their modifiers. Let me handle your writing — you can go to your kid’s soccer game!

Independent Tupperware Consultant

I’m a mom and an entrepreneur who has built a successful business selling Tupperware. As an Independent Consultant, I advocate for better storage solutions, and educate my clientele on proper food storage. If I taught my kids, I can teach you! Let me book your party today!

Couple o’ things wrong with that, Jane.

I’m not sure why someone so “mom-focused” would want to approach an organization that needs a serious professional with the family-first verbiage. Yeah, in a perfect world we’d all like to spend more time with family. But during business hours, we need to get down to business. Not soccer. Not food storage.

There’s the second thing I can’t wrap my head around. While I appreciate that everyone seems to want a side gig these days, does your side gig deserve equal billing to your main gig on a LinkedIn profile?

No. It does not. If you want to peddle plastic products, do it on Twitter. Under a different business name. Please. Oh, dear God. Please.

[bctt tweet=”Are you mixing pleasure with your #freelancewriting business? ” username=”LoriWidmer”]

It’s so easy to think “Hey, I do all of this — let’s list it!”

But stop. Let’s think about this first.

Do you need to list everything? Um, no. You don’t. Not everything is relevant. If you want to make a living freelance writing, plastic sales isn’t going to get you there. Unless you write for the plastics industry, that is. Well no, even then it won’t.

Jane here made the mistake of putting on her “mommy” persona when she put together her business profile. For her Tupperware business, that works. For her grant writing and business consulting, it’s a major miss. They’re not trying to hire a mommy or a Tupperware consultant — they want to hire a good writer who isn’t going to show they have split loyalties (in three ways, it seems).

Are you seeing it? Are you seeing she’s a mom first, a Tupperware salesperson second, and a business consultant last? That’s what her tone says to me.

Some things just do not belong on your profile. For example, I once sold real estate. I once worked at two fast food joints. I once worked at a small insurance agency, sending out marketing letters to the neighborhoods in the area. Does any of that belong on my profile? No. Not even the last one, which does relate to what I do now (insurance and marketing).

Look at your own background. Oh wow, you worked a carnival in the eighties! What fun! Keep it off your profile.

Rodeo star? Yippee-ki-yay! Off the profile.

Paid review writer for Amazon? Ick. Definitely keep it off your profile.

Still stumped? Remember this —

Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.

If you want to attract people who are looking for just any writer, go ahead and tell them about your stint as a bartender in college. Just don’t expect tips.

Better yet, just keep the stuff off your profile that doesn’t relate to the job you want. What should go on there:

• Your focus areas
• Background (in writing in those focus areas)
• Jobs that relate directly (and don’t go back further than 10 years)
• Accomplishments that relate to the job you want
• The benefits of working with you

If you still can’t figure out what belongs and what doesn’t, ask a friend. Or pretend you are that friend and you’re reading their profile. Would you hire them?

If not, time to do a little update.

Writers, any examples of Professionals Promoting Badly?