Freelance Writing | Make money writing | Writing career

Clients are the lifeblood of your writing business. Last week, in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, we discussed getting writing jobs in the online world, and while that’s great, most writers forget that three’s a whole world of writing clients offline.

Over the years, especially with my copywriting students, I’ve recommended that you get clients locally, because it’s relatively easy. You’ll usually be the only writer who’s ever approached your local businesses.

Philip Gegan is a Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) member. He’s building his client list by focusing on local businesses, and he’s sharing his journey with us.

Here’s Philip’s first article for us; look for more articles from him in the months to come.

Freelance Writing: On The Road

by Philip Gegan

Like many new writers, I was finding it difficult to get clients to write for. I knew the work was out there, so I decided to go out “on the road” and ask for it.

This post is an account of how I started.

It was going to be difficult to sell a writing service to business owners who didn’t know me. Then I realized – they don’t think “writing”, but they do think “marketing”. I would “market” myself – as someone who could increase their profits for them. This, of course, was perfectly true.

I would therefore introduce my prospects to the idea of increasing their profits by using blogs and the social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to relate to their prospects and customers. Once they accepted that was a good idea, so my reasoning went, they would realize they needed my writing services, even if only to handle short blog and Facebook postings (to start with).

The first step, then, was to prepare a Guide in PDF format, downloadable from my web site via an aweber form. This wasn’t too long – 7 or 8 pages – but explained concisely how I could help them use the new social media sites to increase their business.

The first sector I chose was beauty salons. These have the following characteristics – their clients are private individuals who need beauty treatment regularly, they are naturally seeking new clients all the time, and they price their services very highly. They therefore, generally, both need and can afford my writing services.

I researched my local beauty salons and made a list of them, including whether they had a web site or blog, and if they did then whether it was a good site or a poor one. I noted the address and phone number, and if I could find it, the name of the owner or manageress. I avoided very small salons, as they would be less likely to be able to afford a monthly fee to a writer.

This research was easy online. I went to Yell.com and typed in the kind of business I was looking for, and the name of my locality, and got a list, with links to the web site, if there was one, and a location map.

Alternatively I could have gone to Google.com and typed in the type of business and the area name, and obtained a similar list.

I didn’t want to pay for expensive business cards, so I drafted an A4 flyer, printed on yellow paper to leave with each business person I visited. This is big and noticeable enough not to get lost easily. Not too many words – just a headline that hit between the eyes, and a few bullet points that punched home the benefits I could deliver to them.

My first headline was, “Make The Next 12 Months The Most Profitable You’ve Ever Had”. When that proved not to be particularly successful I changed it to, “100 New Customers Each Month”, which seems to be doing better. Then just my logo, website URL and contact details.

When I started visiting businesses, I would simply say who I was and that I believed I could help them with increasing their profits. I would hand them my flyer and explain, indicating the URL, that they could download a free Guide that went into more detail. Then I would say I would ring them or call back in person in a week.

That approach was not successful. Business people are very busy and have to guard against time wasters. I would telephone them after a week, or call back in person, and find the owner had not even looked at the flyer. A different approach had to be found.

With the second version of my flyer, I would hand it to the owner and ask, “How would you like to get 100 new customers a month any time you wanted?” I would then say that I knew they were busy, but they really must download my free Guide which shows them how to do just that.

A week later, I would telephone them. This isn’t always easy, especially for me as I hate telephoning people, but it has to be done. I would then remind them of my visit and, rather than asking them if they had read my Guide yet (usually they hadn’t), told them that I had prepared a really useful CD-ROM full of business information that was invaluable for business people in the area, and that I would like to call in the next day, if convenient, and give them one.

This is definitely a better method, as the CD-ROM, which is basically just an auto-loading web page with links to local and global sites of use to businesses (plus three prominent links to my site), makes for building trust and interest.

Yes, going “on the road” is a hard way of getting business in that it means getting out of the house, meeting strangers and trying to develop a relationship with them that can lead to writing work. And of course it’s 90 per cent disappointment, like most of life (or am I just being pessimistic here?).

It also takes time. It can easily take a month from the first visit to the time when the business owner commissions your first task, and that is more likely to be the setting up of a blog or a Facebook profile rather than any real writing. But all the same it’s something that only has to be done once for each new client, of which you probably only need a dozen or so to keep you fully occupied and well paid.

Try it. All you need to do in preparation is

* draft an A4 flyer

* put together a PDF guide explaining how businesses can use blogs, Facebook and Twitter to get new customers all the time, and make this downloadable from your web site via an aweber form

* prepare a local business resource on CD such as that described here.

Then go to Yell.com or Google and start your journey.

Become a Copywriting Master Fast

Copywriting is writing for business: promotional writing. Copywriters write material like advertisements and compared to most writers, they’re VERY highly paid.

The explosion of the influence of the Web means that copywriters are flooded with offers of work. Even new copywriters find it easy to get copywriting gigs and to build their copywriting services business.

If copywriting intrigues you, join me in my Copywriting Master Class. I’ll take you from copywriting novice to pro.

“Copywriting Master Class – Ten Weeks to Copywriting Genius” gives you a comprehensive copywriting course, as it helps you to set up your copywriting services business.

Twitter This

Usuario: Password:

{ 0 comments }