I’ve had some interesting conversations recently with other freelance writers. I’ve heard from some who have apparently been hit pretty hard by the recession. These freelance writers talk about “weathering the storm” and about “becoming smaller and more efficient” or even the famous “feast or famine” story that every freelancer has told at one time or another.
Usually, I offer sympathy. I hate to see folks, especially talented freelance writers, sit idly by while their business comes screeching to a halt. I’ve been there, and I know it completely sucks.
I don’t tell them, though. I don’t tell them how my business is doing. I don’t tell them that October was a record month for me, as were September and August. November’s books aren’t closed, but November looks to be the same. Most of the time, folks are just venting or having a down day. No need to rub their faces in my success, and tomorrow they’ll probably be feeling better anyways.
That is, of course, unless they ask me. “How’s business?” they say.
“Booming. Never been better.”
“How’s that happen?” comes the query.
I’d love to take credit. I’d love to tell them that my amazingly superior writing skills have mystically attracted customers from across the universe to grow my business and increase my bottom line. Unfortunately, that’s not true at all.
“I’ve got a hot-dog salesperson,” I reply, almost embarrassed. “She keeps selling it and I keep writing it. In fact, I can’t write all of it so I’ve had to outsource more and more.” That’s the plain truth of it. I’m a decent writer, but that by itself doesn’t have clients banging down my door.
I recognize that most freelance writers don’t have the resources to hire a salesperson out of the gate. I certainly didn’t. I had to fight and struggle and pull to get my clients in the early days. Some of my biggest clients weren’t actually end clients, they were other freelancers who could sell better than I could.
A freelance writing business will die if it doesn’t have an effective salesperson. That doesn’t have to be a separate employee; most freelance writers have to learn to sell, and some are quite effective.
If you want your freelance writing business to really grow, you need to either hire a hot-dog salesperson or become one yourself.
I wonder how many people would have said their success is because of their talent, or insinuated as much while pretending modesty? Gotta love the 100% honesty, Bob: not only bluntly truthful, but also incredibly helpful! Now, the big question is… how do you tell the difference between a hot dog salesperson and one who just *thinks* they are? (Any onions/mustard jokes will be studiously ignored… hehe!)
I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while. My husband is an amazing salesperson (and I don’t just say that because I’m married to him), but I’m maybe only average at sales. I’ve thought about asking him to help me with the sales side, but I didn’t know how that would look, me not going after business myself.
Then again, I’m not even sure what I’d tell him when he asked me what he was supposed to do. Cold call offering my services?
Any advice?
Hire a salesperson to get freelance work for you? WOW. Seriously — it never occurred to me. I’m not asking what you pay this person, but is it a flat fee or a percentage of what you pull in, etc? I’d love to hear more about this. THANK YOU for your site and all you do!
@Everyone – Thanks for the comments! Rather than answering your questions here (and they are good questions) I think I’ll put up my next post on specific types of ways a freelance business can find and use a salesperson. I’ll share what’s worked for me, as well as some ideas about other models I’ve seen or that are worth considering.
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Hi, I’m a newbie. I don’t understand what you mean by a ‘hot-dog sales person’.