Sustaining and growing a freelance-writing business takes much more than knowing how to find clients and write for them.
Just like any business, your clients are interested in your “soft” skills, too… those skills that make you easy to work with and that bring value above and beyond the words you craft and the results you deliver.
Let’s take a look at five skills that contribute greatly to running a freelance business, but that often go overlooked.
1. Your Ability to Work With People
Success as a freelance writer depends on how well you can build and sustain relationships with clients, partners, and vendors. People skills take center stage, as you grow your business.
Being able to empathize with and relate to people benefits you in many ways…
- Getting referrals from past clients allows you to spend less time on marketing. Referred prospects already trust you, because someone they know and like vouched for your skills. Once you see how easy it is to land referral clients, you’ll be looking for methods to bring more referrals your way.
- Creating strategic partnerships with other professionals (such as designers) lets you deliver packaged services and bring more value to clients while saving them the hassle of talent hunting.
- Setting up a peer-referral network can help you find and land clients. Freelance writers pass on prospects when their plate is full, or the project isn’t a good fit for them. And you do the same. Everyone wins.
- Networking events can boost your freelance business and turn you from the best-kept secret to a known and trusted expert.
All of these opportunities are based on good people skills.
People skills open up possibilities for growth, collaboration and success. Take a minute to journal ideas about working on and leveraging your people skills… and put specific actions in your calendar.
2. Your Sense of Initiative
When I started as a one-person operation, I struggled with the fact that no one was around to tell me what I needed to do. Coming from a corporate job, I was used to receiving marching orders and knowing exactly what I needed to do daily.
I slowly realized it was all about proactive action from this point onward.
As a businessowner, you can’t wait for permission or directions to go after your dreams.
Here’s how to start taking proactive action:
- Journal – Journaling (written, spoken, or through art) allows you to drop down into yourself, remove all distractions, and be honest about what kind of work you want to do and how you want to do it. Journaling also lets you explore the things that may be holding you back and address limiting beliefs. It can give you clarity on your purpose and direction. And that can help you see what steps you need to take next.
- Decide – Become clear about your vision and the tangible goals you want to achieve, and then make decisions based on what supports them. For small decisions, practice making them quickly. Check in with your overall goals and how the decision fits in, and then decide. For big decisions, practice taking a day to consider, and then moving forward, again based on what supports your goals.
- Act – Next, break down your big goals into doable monthly, weekly and daily action steps. Add these tasks to your calendar. To stay motivated and on track, I use to-do lists, accountability partners, and a simple reward system every time I reach a milestone.
Use this framework to determine what you want and start working toward it.
3. Your Level of Self-Awareness
When you’re running a freelance business, it’s normal to develop some blind spots about your skills and capabilities.
We all fall victim to limiting beliefs sometimes. That can lead to underestimating your capabilities. And that can lead to self-sabotage. You may also overestimate your capabilities and get overwhelmed, if you fall short of what you think you should be able to do.
Cultivating self-awareness can act as an antidote to these pitfalls and help you be a realist in running your business.
Pay attention to the value your work brings to clients. Look objectively at what you help businesses achieve. If you consistently help them grow and reach their goals, then it’s time to consider raising your rates or expanding the services you offer.
If there have been instances where you’ve fallen short (we all do!), being self-aware means analyzing what went wrong, working on your skills, and closing the gap.
One way to work on your self-awareness is to hire a business coach who will be objective about what you need to work on, dismantle limiting beliefs, and help you progress. Another is to find a peer-support group of freelance writers (or create one!) to help each other navigate the challenges of running a solo business.
4. Your Ability to Manage Finances
Managing your money is talked about less than ways to earn money. While making more money is a noble goal, it’s also important to be conscious of how you’re handling the money you already have.
Here’s an example from my experience…
My revenue was low in the first few months of freelancing. Even so, I started building up an emergency fund by limiting my expenses. The savings were small each month, but they eventually added up to a significant amount.
Having an emergency fund enables you to say no to projects that aren’t a good fit for you. It cushions you and ensures that your survival does not depend on every project that comes in.
When you learn how to budget your expenses, invest your money, and grow your wealth, you have more power to shape your business. You also have more opportunity to live your desired lifestyle.
I encourage you to start reading up on good financial management, and to even seek advice from a financial advisor who understands your situation and who you resonate with.
5. Your Level of Consistency
Learning to be consistent is no cakewalk. It’s hard to get your mind and body to do the same boring stuff repeatedly when the results aren’t immediate.
We value instant gratification and forget that most things worth building take time and continuous effort.
You can hone your level of consistency through practicing these three simple steps:
- Habit stacking – Stack a new habit on an existing one. For example, every day after your morning routine (existing habit), you write a post on LinkedIn (new habit). The existing habit helps trigger the new habit, and over time, the new habit will get wired in your mind and become second nature.
- Rewarding yourself – Acknowledge when you’re being consistent in the ways that you desire. Giving yourself a simple appreciation — like listening to a favorite song, saying thank you to yourself, reading a poem, or playing a game — can go a long way in making you feel good about taking difficult or dull actions again and again.
- Bouncing back – New habits take time to form. It’s normal to miss days because of a pressing commitment or lack of motivation. Remind yourself how you felt when you were doing the habit. Chances are, it felt good to work on something worthwhile consistently. Let that positive feeling bring you back on track, rather than listening to any negative self-talk.
It took time for me to learn that building a successful freelance business relies on more than just writing skills and the ability to land clients. My hope is that after reading this, you’ll begin to develop these often-overlooked skills. When you do, they’ll help you sustain your freelance-writing business and set you up for more success and satisfaction.
