So, you want to be a freelancer?

To freelance is to experience genuine work freedom – creatively and in terms of lifestyle. You own your time, maybe for the first time, so it becomes both a valuable and a key resource to you. Without the formal and perhaps former Monday-Friday 9-5 schedule, you may be wondering just how to make this freelance dream of yours work for you… and if you are thinking just this little thought right now, then please, read on, my fellow freelancer…to find out more.

Create your own schedule – remember my best of three idea? Map your time so you create your own regular routine –  perhaps on a Sunday evening, ready for the week ahead. I write solidly for two days a week – this works for me on an 8am-8pm basis. I spend my other days during the week creating content to promote what I do and how I do it, such as this blog, or invoicing my current clients, networking, supporting other small businesses, continuing my professional development or maintaining my own company records and information.

Get your own brand of professionalism going on – just because you work for yourself doesn’t mean that you take this incredible job lightly or treat the honour of writing for someone any less seriously. To freelance is to be in business. The business is to be successful once you have found your niche but the business is also to respect your clients’ business because you are paid to write for them.

Encourage, reciprocate, collaborate – rather than compete – Freelance copywriting has been a ridiculously popular choice of profession since the world opened the doors to the very first marketplace and people realised they needed to communicate their offer in words to persuade people to purchase. You will meet your peers during an event or even during a pitch. This is a good thing. Competition is healthy as it makes you rise to the challenge and deliver at a higher level than you originally thought you could. If you do meet another freelance copywriter on your work travels, say hello, take their business card if offered and offer yours in return. Be good out there – it is not just the business you are in which matters, it is the way you do it too which leaves much more of a treasured impression.

Talk as much as you write – what I mean here is to be able to explain consistently and concisely what you do and be confident enough to share your knowledge openly. Enjoy the commitment and the investment in time and money you have made to become a certified freelance copywriter. Don’t hide your skills, share a snapshot of them generously with people who genuinely wish to learn more – whether they are clients, peers or just interested fellow small business owners, just like you. To write copy is to offer your own unique brand of word magic because it can sell and sell well.

100% effort is the minimum standard  – this is what you do now. This is your product. Own it. Every word, every character, every punctuation convention, every creative concept when you set the scene at the start of your piece. Freelance copywriting is not easy but it is made that much easier when you strive to become the best freelance copywriter you can be – for yourself, for your clients and for your peers.

Have you bought your ticket? It’s a long ride –  I am sure we all appreciate that we need to progress – from starting out as a Junior Copywriter, to becoming a Midweight Copywriter which over time leads to naturally transforming into a Senior Copywriter to one day – if we are lucky – becoming a Head of Copy and a true expert in our chosen field.

Wherever you are currently walking along this professional journey; enjoy the scenery, take photos, keep a journal, ask for directions, say thank you for guidance and, when you get to each interim destination – continue to write with the same sense of joy in your heart and in every key stroke, just as you did when you first set off with your newbie backpack full to the brim with your original freelance copywriter dreams.

Passion matters.

Passion should be a non-negotiable requirement on every Freelance Copywriter advert I see, because people can feel it in your tone of voice – and hopefully you can sense mine, too, as I tried to convey it, in this little blog post, today.