Always keep looking for new clients, and new writing assignments.

by Nick Usborne

Whether you are just starting out with your freelance career, or have been doing this for years, you always need to be looking out for new work.

Yes, even when you have as much work as you can handle right now. And even if you have three or four clients who have been providing you with regular work for years.

Here’s why.

Things can change. And they can change overnight. One day it looks like you have all the work you can handle for the next few weeks, and then suddenly a particular project or assignment disappears.

How can a job simply “disappear”?

There are plenty of reasons. Maybe your contact at the company you are working for has quit his or her job. Maybe another writer has been chiseling away at your client and has finally got work from them. Maybe someone higher up in the company has made some policy changes and decided to hire an in-house writer.

Put simply, no assignment and no client is ever completely “safe”. There are always reasons why you can lose that work. And sometimes quite suddenly.

It has happened to me a number of times over the years. In one case in particular I lost my largest and most profitable client overnight. Well, I had a two week notice period. But I lost the client quite suddenly, and through no fault of my own. The company simply hired a new marketing director, and he decided to change the way in which his department handled copy and content production.

Always keep looking for new work, and keep building new relationships...

Even if you are working to capacity right now, you need to protect yourself by working on relationships with new clients, all the time.

You can and should be honest about it if you can’t do any work for them immediately. But you can keep talking and building the relationship.

That way, if and when you have some time free, you have a hot prospect you can phone right away.

Take on small projects at any time...

Even when I am busy and my time is fully accounted for, I will sometimes take on a small assignment for a new client. I’ll make it clear that I can’t do a great deal right now, but I will find time for some smaller projects.

By doing this I have developed one or two “new” clients I can turn to if I suddenly lose one of my larger clients. I will have already proved myself with the smaller projects and, if I have handled things well, I will have a new client who is anxious to give me more work.

Concluding thoughts

What I am describing above is an ideal scenario...being able to keep new clients warmed up on the back burner at all times.

It doesn’t always work out exactly as planned.

However, it is always a good idea to develop relationships with prospective clients in advance of being able to work with them.

A warm prospect is always easier to get work from than a cold prospect.

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