Freelance Writer, Have You Assessed Your Reputation Lately?

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As freelance writers working online, our success relies more heavily on reputation than other professions. We rarely, if ever, meet clients in person. When people want to find out about us, they have to depend on what they find on the Internet.

It’s good because we can be found easily. A single article retweeted by the right people can bring in long-term, high-paying clients without extra promotion on our part. On the other hand, it can be disastrous. One irate client who posts negative reviews, tweets, or comments about us, and we may miss out on the best projects.

While I am confident that most freelance writers know this – at least in concept, I am not so sure that we all take proactive steps in ensuring our reputation is intact.

Ask yourself when you last googled yourself with the intention of assessing your reputation for work’s sake (as opposed to vanity). [Read more…]

As A Freelance Writer, You Need To Protect Your Brand

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Building a successful freelance writing business is far from the easiest job in the world. It takes skill, dedication and a commitment to quality. The hours are long, and you have to manage every aspect – finding the work in the first place, keeping the customer happy at all times, actually doing the work, and making sure that you get paid in the end. There is no way that you would put in all of that effort if you didn’t have a true sense of pride in what you do. When it is 2 o’clock in the morning and there are still 2000 words to write, you need to be dedicated and believe in what you’re doing just to keep on going.

Because of this, your reputation is the most precious asset that you possess. You want to be known for high-quality output and for your focus on doing the right thing for your customers. It’s not just about pride – getting things wrong just costs too much time and effort. Not only does poor work lead to lost business, it often means endless revisions until the client is satisfied. It makes it hard to get work, and it takes all of the profitability out of the work once you get it.

Given the amount of effort you put in to build and maintain your reputation, it is incredibly galling when you see negative feedback – or even outright attacks – online. The truth is that you are going to have the occasional unhappy customer no matter what you do, but when this happens, you put in the extra effort to get them back onside. With most customers, this delivers results. However, there is always the nightmare customer – the one who really doesn’t know what they want. No matter what you do, they don’t like it – but they can’t or won’t tell you why. Even worse is the customer who is pleasant and positive to your face, and then stabs you in the back at the first opportunity.

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However, negative online sentiment doesn’t just damage your ego – it damages your business as well. If people tweet critical comments about your writing, post scathing reviews, or cast you in a bad light in marketing forums and chat rooms, then it can have a serious impact on your ability to bring business in the door. For example, a survey carried out in early 2013 by Dimensional Research showed that 90% of consumers say their buying decisions are influenced by positive online reviews, and 86% say they are influenced by negative reviews. In other words, what your customers are saying publicly can make a huge difference to how much work you are going to win.

Of course, when prospective customers are looking for information about you online, they are expecting to see positive feedback. While they may be swayed to go with you because your feedback is exceptional, there are going to be other writers out there who have also built a positive reputation. On the other hand, if you get a single negative review, it stands out like a sore thumb. Put yourself in the client’s position – would you rather choose a writer with uniformly positive reviews, or one with some outstanding ones and one or two disasters? In general, people are looking for a high probability of success, rather than a genius who delivers most of the time – but not always.

The problem is how you keep on top of what people are saying online. You are too busy to keep tabs on the hundreds of different corners of the web where people may be talking about you – and yet negative comments in any one of these can do real harm. Even worse, these comments may start to show up in search rankings – and unless you know what your prospective clients are searching for, you may never know this is happening. And, when you can’t see what you’re up against, there is no way you can do anything about it.

Fortunately, there is a way to keep track of online sentiment without spending all of your time doing it. A good Online Reputation Management (ORM) company can give you the visibility that you need, as well as help you to maintain a positive image online. In the past, ORM was primarily the domain of large enterprises and senior executives – and was even used in Barack Obama’s election campaign in 2008 – but now it is readily accessible to small businesses and individuals. For example, Reputation.com is one of the leading ORM firms, and has many corporate customers.

To start with, an ORM agency can provide you with alerts when you are mentioned online, so that you get an immediate view of new information as it is posted. The coverage provided is typically very broad – including static web pages, searchable databases and social media. They can also provide you with regular reports on what shows up about you in search results. Getting this type of useful information pushed to you is inexpensive, but makes a real difference.

If you do find unflattering or misleading information about your writing online, then an ORM company can also advise you on the best approach to dealing with it. Obviously, sometimes the right thing to do is to make a polite request to the website owner to have the information removed – along with an explanation of why they should do this. However, in many instances, this approach just doesn’t work – particularly if the website is posting the material maliciously. In this case, the agency will be able to drive down the offending content in the search engine rankings, so that it doesn’t show up on the results pages that people actually read.

 

Your Freelance Writing Clients Know You’re Lying

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Freelance writing clients are smart cookies. Most of them know when they’re being conned or lied to. In today’s public and open world of freelancing, you can’t call in sick and head to the beach. You can’t claim an aunt died when you really just want a few days off. If you’re going to lie to your clients, keep in mind that in most cases they’ll find out.

Don’t Invite Clients to View Your Personal Details if You’re Going to Be Dishonest

As freelance writers we work hard, but we still maintain flexible schedules. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to take time off any time we like. Still, sometimes opportunities present themselves or we find ourselves not wanting or not able to work while still being on deadline. Instead of planning ahead or rearranging their schedules, some freelancers will make up little fibs about not delivering to clients as promised. Back in the day, clients would be none the wiser unless they ran into their writers in an elevator or something. Nowadays, it’s easy to catch on.

If a writer claims to be too sick to work yet talks often on Twitter and Facebook about having lunch with the girls or going to a party that night, the client will find out if he or she is a follower in said networks. If you’re photographed being in one place while begging out of another place, and said image appears on a popular blog or website, your client is sure to find out about it. If you publicly do or say something and others talk about it, your clients could find out.

Today’s freelance writers are living very public lives, even if they don’t want to be public people. Now, there are steps you can take to prevent private details from becoming public, but when it comes to your business honesty is always the best policy. Also, if writers don’t want their clients to find out what they’re doing during their down time, it’s best to either create a separate business account on the social networks, or don’t allow or invite clients to participate in private Facebook discussions.

How to Freelance Writers Can Be Flexible and Honest at the Same Time

So you’re working, and a friend calls and asks if you want to take a day off and go shopping. You’re on deadline and really can’t go, but the idea of going is so appealing and distracting you want to blow off the deadline anyway.  Now you’ll have to make some excuses to your client.

Or how about this one:

You have several clients. Some are more lucrative than others. As a result the “big” clients get all your attention while the smaller clients get the shaft. You often tell the people you work for your child is sick or you’re having school emergencies but discuss online how busy you are with other client projects. Eventually the shafted clients come to realize this and end the relationship.

And what about:

You’re busy. You’re so busy you can’t possible keep up with all the work. You don’t want to give up your clients because you need the money, but you’re increasingly less reliable. You have constant excuses and your client is getting frustrated.

What’s a better way to handle these scenarios?

  • Don’t leave deadlines to the last minute: Being busy is cool and all, but when you’re so swamped each bit of writing is turned in at the very last minute, you’re never going to have any time for fun. Assess your client situation and your schedule to see how you can work it so that your projects are all ahead of your deadlines. This will allow for better flexibility and if you want to blow off work for a day you’re not going to lose your client.
  • Don’t go shopping: Seriously. Flexibility rocks and all, but if you’re going to keep blowing off clients in favor of fun things to do, you have no business freelancing anyway.
  • Be flexible with your flexibility: Blowing off work in favor of a fun day is cool and all, but who says you have to blow anything off? Instead of dropping everything and running off with your BFFs, ask if you can meet in a few hours after you complete deadlines. Or leave early. Attend whatever it is you want to attend but leave yourself enough time to come back and complete the work in time to save the gig. No one says you have to miss deadlines in order to do fun things anyway.
  • Plan ahead: Spontaneity is fun and all, but sometimes you have to plan your fun. Suggest to your friend, “I really do want to take a day to go shopping but I’m on deadline today, can we do it Friday?” You can also set aside a specific time each week to do a non-writing related activity and plan your schedule accordingly.
  • Don’t talk about what you’re doing if you’re gong to lie to people: A day at the beach is fun and all, but if you’re going to screw off on a project and make a lame excuse, don’t post photos to your Facebook if your client has access to your account. Don’t Tweet. Don’t Foursquare. Don’t do it.
  • Don’t deliver what you can’t promise: Having lots of clients is lucrative and all, but blowing off one client in favor of another is only going to mean you’re going to lose a client. If you can’t do the work be honest with your clients. Let them hire someone who is more into their projects and truly has their best interests at heart.

What to Do if Your Client Catches You in a Lie

So…you decide to blow off work in favor of a day at the beach but you have a project that absolutely must go to a client TODAY. You jot a brief note explaining some vague family emergency, send it off to your client and  rush off. You check in at the beach using FourSquare and Tweet about a sandcastle contest. You even post images and updates on Facebook. Your client sees some of your activity and calls you on it. What do you do?

Apologize.

That’s it. No explanation necessary. Apologize. Let your freelance writing client know you were unprofessional. You might also offer a discount or freebie for blowing the deadline, but you have no choice but to say your sorry. Don’t lie again or make up lame excuses to cover for your original lame excuses, because now you breached the trust factor. If your client doesn’t dump you might, try offering some sort of reparation. Chances are though, that the damage is already done.

Apologize and use as a lesson learned.

Sometimes writers take advantage of “nice” clients because they don’t complain or they’re very understanding when deadlines are missed. After the first few times this happens it becomes apparent the writer has more important or interesting priorities and the freelance writing client gets a bit frustrated. Choose your clients wisely. If you find yourself lying to them or making constant excuses, it’s probably time for one of you to move on.

Have you ever lied to a client? What the circumstances? Were you ever caught in a lie?

Discuss…

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