Blowing a Deadline or Saving the Day?

The deadline’s approaching, you haven’t started yet – or worse, you did start and you’re stuck. Each time you sit down to write, nothing comes. Well, something comes, but it’s pretty awful and you can’t send that to the client.

Your heart starts pounding. Your stomach twists. It’s the project from hell… and it’s due for delivery. You’re not going to make it. What do you do?
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Where Are All the Good Writers?

I had a recent conversation with a peer who mentioned that finding good writers to work with was more than a tad difficult. She’d been disappointed time and again by writers who just weren’t what they seemed to promise.

That’s a problem. When you don’t deliver on your promises, you end up costing yourself repeat business, long-term clients and better jobs. You move from client to client with no stable customer base and no guarantees of future work.

You also screw up business for your customers as well, leaving them facing extra expenses and cleaning up a mess. You create a bad reputation for yourself – and quickly, too.

Here are three issues that my peer and I discussed so you can make sure you aren’t one of those writers who falls short and disappoints.
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Want More Work? Don’t Pitch Your Diplomas

What traits, characteristics, and qualities make for a good freelancer?

Well, they have good attitudes. They’re positive people who like to help clients while providing fast service. They often have an ability to think ahead and suggest alternatives or better solutions. Sometimes they propose new ideas to make the client’s company better.

There are plenty of other qualities on the list. If you had to put them in order of importance, where would you put ’skilled’?
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Are You Creating Your Own Bad Reputation?

What’s your attitude? Are you the type of person that takes everything as it comes and thinks, “To each his own”? Or are you the sort to get indignant, light on fire and go around smacking people when they’ve insulted you?

If you’re in the latter group, you could be costing yourself work.

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