Thursday, May 31, 2012

Step Out of Your Comfort Zone

Welcome to the Comfort ZoneThe comfort zone can be a nice, cozy place to hang out for a while. It's safe, familiar, and doesn't require you to do anything that might make you feel too - well... uncomfortable. The freelance writing business, for some, is the entrance to the comfort zone; it's full of the possibility for writers to accept less that what they are worth, simply because we've become comfortable. We too easily settle into that comfortably routine groove. It's as if - now that you have work, you are less apt to going after something bigger and better. You're making money. 


Why fix it if it ain't broke?

Underachievement can be deadly to the freelance writing career.  Complacency will cause you to miss out on opportunities with the potential to bring in business that will facilitate your overall success.Once you've made the leap into writing part-time or full-time, you may think all of the hard work is over. Think again. It's just the start of a growing process than can be painful, frustrating, exciting and exhilarating as you grow improving your knowledge, skills and the way you operate your business. Here are some common comfort zones we freelancers can so easily settle into:

Stuck writing for low pay content sites

When you're first starting out and you land a couple of paying gigs writing for content sites, you feel ecstatic. Imagine: someone's going to PAY you to write! So say you're being paid $5 or $10 per 500 word article. You may spend end up spending several hours seven days a week writing enough articles to pay the bills each week. Ideally, you'll take this experience and quickly move on to higher paying clients, but many writers continue the cycle of searching out more of these low paying content sites instead, never really meeting their income goals.

Some writers get very comfortable with having someone bring the work to them rather than going out and finding it. If you're okay with the hours you work and the money you bring in then it's all good; but even if you are okay with it, what happens if the content site folds? It happens all the time, and the danger is even more prevalent in this struggling economy.

Fear of Marketing

This is really an extension of the previously mentioned comfort zone. I was once on a writer's forum brainstorming with others about how to get better rates. Most of us were echoing the same idea: market, market, market to more private clients. Again, you have a better chance of setting fair rates for your writing services this way. One writer honestly stated that she hated marketing, even though she was among the loudest complainers asking for someone to point her to the higher paying opportunities.For some it's really a fear of rejection. No one likes to hear "no." I think if you make peace with the fact that you will get a few "no's" or no responses, it won't seem so devastating when it happens. Stick with it and you will turn up some interested candidates.

Not Keeping Current with Industry Trends and Technology Changes

Big mistake. Now I'm not usually one to worry so much about competing against other writers for gigs; but if you're not educating yourself about trends and changes in the industry, you're doing your business and your clients a huge disservice because you can't give them what they need. Meeting your client's need is pretty much the basis of any service based business. When you get a new client and you can effectively explain how search engine ranking is achieved, sales conversion techniques or how they can benefit from  social networking sites to connect with their customers, you are further establishing yourself as an expert in their eyes. 


As far as technology is concerned, you ever come across something that's too technical for you to handle (web/blog set up and design, etc) hire someone to teach you or outsource it to someone who knows what they're doing.
Staying in the comfort zone is easy, but taking some calculated risks will net you far more rewards.

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