When you cruise social media, you see some pretty weird stuff.
I’m talking about business stuff mainly. There’s plenty of other weird stuff, but business stuff — specifically, how people are presenting themselves and their businesses — makes for some head-scratching moments.
Maybe it’s the hashtags I follow, but lately, I’m seeing some appeals/advertisements/begging that falls so flat and so hard I can feel the tremors.
If there are any better ways to avoid getting hired by a potential client, I don’t think they’ve been tweeted out.
Yet.
But my philosophy is that everyone has something to teach others. Yes, maybe these marketers (in many cases, writers) are doing so indirectly, but their slip-ups and gaffes create a reaction in us.
That reaction is where we’re learning something — we’re learning that there are limits to what business people can or should say.
Let’s look at a few I’ve seen in the past few weeks:
Let me do the work so you can spend more time with your love ones.
That misspelling isn’t mine, by the way. Anyway, someone is appealing to his or her audience by telling them a benefit of hiring this person’s company. Great, right? Only …. this marketer isn’t sending a message to people they’re targeting. I looked at the portfolio. They’re targeting editors.
You see the problem, right? The message, which might be great for someone who is a small business owner running a sole proprietorship, is promising what it can’t deliver, saying “Hey, editor! My work is so great I’m going to let you go home early tonight because it’s so good!”
If this writer is targeting global corporations, this message is also woefully underserving. No one writer can deliver a great work-life balance to a CEO. What they can do is team with internal marketing and get the job done right.
So if I were to revise this writer’s message, it might look like this: “Let me partner with your team to deliver results that align with your goals and branding.”
And for God’s sake, proofread.
Consider a WAHM for your next project!
Does this tag still exist? Yes, I was surprised, too. Look, I’m a mom. I’m a writer. The two do not have to relate. I’m proud of my family, but they are not — and in my opinion, should not — be central to my business identity. You want to make $100,000 a year freelance writing? Then write something that tells your potential clients you’re putting their needs first, not writing their annual report between soccer games. You can be, but do they really need to know that?
Unless your job is writing about and for work-at-home moms, this doesn’t belong anywhere near your title. Do you see it next to the titles of those work-at-home dads? No? That’s because that while being a dad is something they’re proud of, they know how to keep it separate from client work because — and here’s where I hope the WAHMs are listening — it’s not relevant to the client.
Furthermore, it’s confusing to them. What does being a mom have to do with being a professional writer? And please do NOT sell me on the “Well, all these mom skills translate … blah blah blah”
Yea, they do. But the message your client is getting is that you can’t commit 100 percent to their project. Your focus, thanks to your title, is still on raising a family, not finishing their website revisions.
Looking for a freelance writer? Hire me!
Why? Why hire you? Because you said so? This kind of mass-marketing plea may work once, possibly twice, but it misses the mark on so many levels. And I’ve seen one account that has this on repeat.
Why it doesn’t work for the masses — it doesn’t tell a potential client a thing other than hey, this writer is looking for work. It doesn’t say what the writer’s specialties are, what their background is (except not marketing), what their work ethic is, how long they’ve been working with clients like them …. And it feels just on the edge of desperate. Not the impression any writer should leave with a potential client.
That’s not to say writers shouldn’t market — we should. Just be smart about it. Send a message that appeals to the person you’d like to hire you. “Delivered a targeted business case study to another satisfied client! What can I do for you?” Make it about what they need, not about the work you need.
Looking for full-time, remote work.
Jeezuz, welcome to everyone else’s wish list, right? You’re a freelance writer. That remote stuff is already a given. But saying in your marketing that you want to be their employee is …. well, it’s wrong. Either you want to be full-time or you want to be freelance. Clients want to hire freelance writers who can take on those last-minute projects or be someone they funnel occasional work to. They don’t want a freelancer coming into the conversation with demands on how much work they’ll require.
Most of us piece together a full-time existence by working with several clients. That’s freelance writing. That’s the nature of it, and it’s how we survive. It’s work. It requires having more than one client, regular marketing, and the ability to roll with the punches. If you’d rather have a full-time, guaranteed income, freelancing is not for you.