Welcome To Freelancing, Your New Sales Job

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When a lot of people think about a salesperson, they hold in their mind an image of the Sham-WOW guy, a geeky teenager hawking laptops at a computer store or maybe a slightly greasy person attempting to sell a used car. Freelance Writers may turn their nose up at these images, thinking, “Well, I’m certainly NOT one of those.” Ahem. To a degree, yeah ya are. Freelance writing is all about sales.

Every article you write, every blog post, every news article involves selling something either directly or indirectly. The other obvious sales component is the salesmanship that comes with hanging your shingle out on the web and trying to lure in new contacts and clients.

Salesmanship in Your Writing

Most any of the writing that you engage in is going to have a sales component. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve a product or a service. Sure there are specific kinds of copywriting that involves producing content that is pure sales. Writing that is designed to entice the reader to purchase something directly. This is highly specialized and can take quite a bit of practice to make for steady work. When a freelance writer is not engaged specifically in writing direct sales copy, they still need to sell their writing.

Good writing  – no matter what the format – engages the reader. There is some salesmanship here. A strong opening, well written will have the effect of enticing the reader to finish reading the piece. If we say that the end result we want from writing something is to have people read it, then we have to sell them on the merits of the article right away. This is done through strong writing skills, knowing your audience (market) and effective follow through to close the sale. In this case closing the sale means writing something powerful enough to make an impression on the reader.

A good novelist employs sales tactics throughout their book. They have a strong opening, they build anticipation and they ultimately have a product that people care about. A boring story line with flat characters will create apathy amongst the readers and in this case a tic needs to be added to the “no sale” column.

As you write, remember that you are selling something, each and every time. Even if that something is just your reputation as a writer.

Salesmanship as a Freelancer

Being a freelancer means being responsible for bringing in and retaining new clients. The good news is that you don’t have a boss to report to. The bad news is that you are a sales force of one. You absolutely need to have a degree of sales skills to be successful as a freelance writer. Every query letter, every response to a client query, every change you make to your web site needs to be done with a sales result in mind and a sales focus in your heart. This doesn’t mean that you are in the face of people screaming, Buy! Buy!  If you let your natural personality shine through and show folks that you are the right person for the job, then you will certainly earn the freelance writing success that is rightfully yours.