I just looked at the calendar and realized that it has been way too long since I’ve posted. This happens to me every summer where I seem to slack off with writing my blog. Maybe next year, I will just take a planned break to save myself the guilt and have the same result. But anyway, I am back now and gearing up to speak at Content Marketing World in Cleveland in a few weeks. Many of my upcoming blog posts will be about the conference so if you aren’t able to go, you can follow along at home.

But before I head into focusing on Content Marketing World, I wanted to look back on the past two months.

Here are a few things I wanted to share about what I’ve learned (or relearned) this summer:

1. You never know when a contact will circle back with a gig. In April 2015, I met with an editor at the ASJA Client Connections at the national conference in New York City. I followed up and heard crickets. I got busy with work and didn’t follow up again. Fast-forward to July 2016. I wake up one morning and in my inbox is an email from that very same editor offering me three very well-paying assignments for the magazine handed out to attendees at the upcoming Advertising Week. You never know when a potential client will have an assignment that fits your skills and you will get a similar email in your inbox. But I do wonder if I could have sped up the advice by following my own advice of following up.
2. It’s OK to turn down work. It’s so hard and I wince each time I do it, but I have gotten better at it. Yesterday, it was because the rate was too low. A few weeks ago, I was too busy with clients. And before that, I just had a bad gut feeling about the gig. The secret for me is to reframe the question when I am presented with a new client. Instead of having to make the decision to turn down work, I ask myself if this is a good client for me in terms of money, stress, and experience. I find my standards are much higher when I approach it from this perspective than having to justify turning down a client. And when I present it this way, I find that it is much easier to listen to my gut feeling about a client. Which brings me to…
3. Tone is everything in content marketing. OK, well not everything, but I do think that tone is what typically makes a client love your work or not. I’ve struggled recently with one of my newer clients: edits, rewrites, and generally missing the mark. I haven’t been able to figure it out. I started to think I was a fraud and all my past success was luck (yes, that is my go-to place), but then I got a glowing email from another client. The last line gave me the lightbulb moment: “You really nailed the tone and voice.” Aha! That is what I was missing with the other client. I need to put a sticky note on my computer (or maybe my forehead) to remind myself that if someone doesn’t like something I wrote, then it is most likely a problem with the tone.
4. Personal contacts are key. Three years ago, I interviewed the head of a content marketing agency in Raleigh for a newspaper story. We had a great time on the phone jabbering about content marketing. Afterwards, I followed up about freelance work, but they said they didn’t use freelancers often. I kept in touch. I introduced myself to several of the agency employees at a local conference last year. I emailed every so often. And then a few weeks ago, I got an offer to write case studies for the agency. It’s a lucrative gig, but more important, I love writing case studies, and it is fun to work with a local agency. It was worth the three-year wait.
5. Ask for more money. I am the world’s worst negotiator. Hands down. I hate talking about money with clients. Recently, I negotiated a rate with a new client and quickly realized that it was too low for the project, especially when the client agreed too quickly (and eagerly) to the rate. After I did one project with the client and they sent me an email telling me I did a great job, I gathered my courage and asked for a rate increase on the remaining projects. I did it in a way that felt authentic to me and said it was fine if they kept the old rate, but lo and behold, the client quickly agreed to the increase. The real lesson is quoting right the first time, but it’s good to know that you can still course correct.
6. Listen to your gut. Almost every time I didn’t, I ended up regretting taking a client. I had a gut feeling that it wasn’t a match from the beginning. It might have been too low-paying or the work was outside of my expertise or I just didn’t click with the client. This summer, I have been super happy with my clients, and that is because I have had the courage to turn down a few gigs that didn’t feel right. And honestly, those are the ones that turn out to be McDonald’s projects – you know, the ones where you know you could have earned more manning the drive-thru down the street.

I look forward to posting again regularly and am excited to get to know my new readers.

What have you learned this summer? And what has your experience been with my recent six lessons?