If you're in freelance, you're in sales

An argument that’s often made in favor of writing for content aggregators – my term for sites like Demand Studios, Helium, Associated Content, Studio101, etc. that pull together works created by a multitude of providers- is that it’s easy to get work. You sign up, in some cases, go through some type of try out or training period, then grab whatever articles are available for writing, or write on the subjects of your choosing.

By writing for content aggregators, proponents argue, writers can bypass the often lengthy query process – sending pitches, waiting for answers, and dealing with rejections. Instead of plowing their time and brain power into queries and other marketing endeavors, they can immediately direct all their energies toward paying work.

But settling for easy money is a mistake.

Freelancing isn’t about writing. It’s about sales.

To be good at freelance writing, you have to be good at sales.

You have to be able to sell a concept. You have to be able to sell how a concept fits a particular audience. And you have to be able to sell yourself as the best person to do the work.

By bypassing the sales process, you shortchange yourself from the very beginning by accepting work that’s easy to get – and carries a low rate as a result.

If you’ve ever written about business, you may know about sales cycles. Some products have short sales cycles. Consumables like food or fashion have short sales cycles. A farmer picks apples, sells them to the wholesaler, grocer or farmer’s market and people buy them. Other products have incredibly long sales cycles. Pharmaceutical reps may call on a doctor’s office for months before getting them to agree to recommend a certain type of prescription medication to their patients. Boeing may spend years – years – courting a major airline or a country before convincing them to buy a fleet of multi-million dollar airliners.

Sales cycles for freelancing articles for print or online publications – not including content aggregators – fall somewhere in the middle. It’s not often you email a pitch to an editor and hear back the same day – it may happen if you write breaking news or work as a contributing editor for a publication on a regular basis. But if you’re pitching cold – the equivalent of a sales rep cold calling prospective accounts – it’s pretty rare to hear back right away. Sales cycles for freelance pieces could be weeks, maybe even months, and include multiple rounds of email conversations with potential clients. As I noted here recently, not long ago I heard from an editor I’d sent a letter of introduction 18 months before. I ended up doing a big project for her and more work could be ahead.

Another reason freelancers avoid selling: they can’t handle rejection, or they’d rather not deal with it. Nobody likes hearing “no.” But in sales, rejection is par for the course.

So freelance sales cycles can be long and the outcome isn’t guaranteed. Is that a reason to chuck it all and grab low-paying work, simply because it’s the path of least resistance? For some that answer is yes. For others, the rewards of higher paid work outweigh the risk of waiting out a long sales cycle, and the risk of getting a “no” instead of a “yes.”

Good salespeople know, the key to limiting your risk is doing adequate due diligence on potential clients ahead of time to understand the needs they might have that you could fill, all the better to target your “sales” pitch – that also includes researching which markets aren’t buying right now, so you don’t end up bumping your head against a wall of rejection. Also important: having enough proposals in the pipeline so the deals you land are enough to keep you busy working at the income goals that you’ve set, and continuously prospecting new markets.

Next time you’re getting ready to go after new work, don’t think of yourself as a writer. Think of yourself as a salesperson, and writing is the product you’re selling.