J.E.E. CONTENT & COPY

Why Hire a Freelancer? So You Can Breathe a Sigh of Relief.

12/18/2018

By Janeen E. Ellsworth

Freelance writers help organizations tell their stories.

Whether it’s through:

managing the release of well-written, regularly scheduled blog posts,
sprucing up website copy to pack in more punch with SEO,
ensuring consistent upkeep of social media messaging, or
preparing other marketing materials…

…in this gig economy, more and more freelancers are coming to the aid of large and mid-sized corporations, small startups, and nonprofits of every stripe.

But often, freelance writing services—and consultants, generally—are sought only after the in-house team has tried every which way possible to accomplish all those tasks themselves. Which is where their problems begin.

Managers have meetings to run. Partners are busy generating sales leads. CFOs monitor investments while CEOs build capital. Someone on the team crunches numbers while another takes care of payroll and schedules; still another is covering compliance, or fielding calls, or pitching to investors.

And when that team is small, it might be just one single person doing all of that, alone. Add branding into the mix, and you can see how easy it is for a company to get overwhelmed if they don’t already have their own marketing team.

How are they supposed to run multiple social media platforms successfully, and write blog posts, and create compelling direct mailers, and send newsletters, while managing to run a thriving business?

Some heavy lifters will attempt to make this work—and a couple of them actually succeed, somehow. Most entrepreneurs will at least try, especially while budgets are strained.

I’ve been freelancing for four years, and one thing I see over and over is that my services are called in when the organization’s leaders are at their wits’ end. They’ve tried telling their story themselves--it sounds like it should be an easy-enough thing to do, after all—but somewhere along the way, things went south.

Their verbiage missed the mark so no one clicked on their articles. Writing content was time consuming. Writing isn’t what they were trained for so they saw the act of doing it as a real drag. They couldn’t come up with enough ideas they thought were worth sharing, and once putting pen to paper, they didn’t know where to begin or where to end. In other words, their objectivity was gone.

It’s also not uncommon for CEOs to not really know how to use key words and phrases, or when to schedule posts to maximize open rates. They don’t always know where to find good images or how to craft great headlines.

They’re running a company, and their expertise lies elsewhere—often, in many realms. It’s just that they don’t spend their free time studying brand messaging.

Freelance writers do. We live and breathe it. At least, we’re supposed to.

Good leaders recognize this limitation most apparently when, suddenly, out of the blue, a national publication asks them to submit a white paper or contribute an article that could lead to widespread name recognition and possible new leads.

But what CEO has time to scrape together a well-written, compelling narrative when they’re out there leading a successful company?

Or, the team decides to go after a big grant, but it dawns on them that they’ve put branding on the back burner for the past year. If they’re savvy, they’ll know that once they put that proposal out there, then they’ll get Google-searched and LinkedIn-hunted by funders. That means it’s crunch time to get the company profile and every partner’s professional profile perfectly polished—but time’s a-wasting.

Or, a manager gets asked to deliver the keynote address at an upcoming conference, but because they’re crushing it in their field, they don’t have time to organize their thoughts—let alone put together pretty slides with concise bullet points and interesting images—into a cohesive, entertaining presentation.

For a whole bunch of other reasons, companies find themselves in dire need of a clear message but aren’t able to articulate it.

At that point, time has passed and their needs are urgent.

What they want is for someone to swoop in and save the day. Take the pressure off so they can breathe a sigh of relief. Come in with a plan and start executing to make things better so that they don’t have to deal with it anymore.

(Not every time, but I see this scenario play out more often than not.)

If we’re lucky enough to get hired, the last thing our client wants is to have to manage us. We should be prepared to go in there and lead.

Think of that old TV show, Nanny 911. Jo, who was the queen child-rearer of all child-rearers, would enter a scene of chaos, she would observe the goings-on for all of ten minutes, and immediately begin spotting the flaws. She marked everything down on her clip board and checked off the boxes: this, this, this, and this are all going wrong, she’d whisper on the B roll.

And for each flaw she detected, she already had a plan in place for how to start fixing it. Because she’d seen it all before. Each episode, she may have been helping a different family, but the problems they faced were transferable and translatable to any other.

It’s the same with companies and brand messages. We can apply what we’ve learned before to each new project, spotting similarities and using the tools we’ve worked so hard to gather to solve their problems.

When great leaders hire us as freelance writers, we need to rise to the task of delivering what they want: calm, confident, strategic problem-solving. Capable skill. Ease of execution.

No drama. No million-emails-per-day. No tons-of-questions about when we’ll get paid.

Listen. Internalize their vision. Grasp their end-goals for the project at hand. Reiterate that in a written proposal that lays out all that you’ll do for them to address those goals, and be clear about how much you’ll charge for it.

Build in two rounds of edits. Charge for half up front, but be willing to negotiate. Stay open to flexible fees and contract amendments down the line, because this could lead to more work, which is always worth it in the end.

And just get the job done. Get it done right, get it done on time, and make them look ah-may-zing in the end.

Don’t just wing it, either. If they want apples, give them apples. It doesn’t pay to recommend oranges instead. And, by all means, stay in your lane.

Be receptive to feedback along the way. Give them the chance to say what they didn’t like about your first draft, and fix it until they do like it; but stay true to your craft and be confident in your skills. Remember: you’ve built in two rounds of edits. Don’t shortchange them of that courtesy, but don’t overextend yourself by offering more.

When companies look to freelancers to lead, we should do everything in our power to demonstrate that they made the right decision in trusting us.

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The 7 Habits of People Who Are Crushing It at Work (& How Timid People Can Crush It, Too)

3/15/2018

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I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately for a professional branding services firm. In English, that means I’m writing LinkedIn profiles.

Our clients come from all over the country & their fields range across sectors, from aviation to big pharma to nonprofit to insurance. They have distinct goals for why they want to tweak their professional brands.

They want to boost their business by attracting new customers; get recruited by a better company; establish expertise after accepting a new position; or they just don’t have time to write about themselves & their jobs objectively.

But one common thread I’ve discovered since working with them is that they each boast a downright staggering list of accomplishments.

Over and over again, as I read through their résumés and listen to them regale me with their career path stories, I keep thinking:

Damn, this cat is crushing it!

Then, what always follows:

How do they do that?!

After careful study, I’ve realized that, as it turns out, the key to crushing it is pretty straightforward, actually.

People who are crushing it just happen to conduct themselves & think in ways that timid people don’t.

People who are crushing it act, well, bold.

If you’re timid, I realize that presents a problem for you. Social anxiety is real. And it can be devastating to any hopes of landing your dream job.

Same with having low self-esteem. It’s downright crippling. Counseling helps, but I’m not a doctor, and you know yourself better than anybody.

But what I do know is that everyone is good at something. Maybe it’s drawing beetles. Or folding paper airplanes. Or writing code. Or banging on drums.

You might say, “Yeah, well, who’s gonna pay me to fold paper airplanes?”

To which I reply, “Someone. Someone out there is going to pay you to fold something with precision. Or to teach them how to fold paper airplanes. It’s up to you to go find them!”

Timid friends, you're free to decide at this point that you’d prefer to continue folding paper airplanes in private, thank you very much.

Or, you can try to crush it, too.

Because people who are crushing it at folding paper airplanes do so on the street corner, with a cool sign advertising what they’re up to. They invite others to watch, they even charge others to watch! In their free time, they challenge themselves to get better and better at it. And then?

They become the World’s Leading Expert Paper Airplane Folder.

That’s how you crush it.

So, timid people, if you want to crush it, too, do what you need to do to trick yourself into being bold, even if it’s just for those few moments when you’re on that paper-airplane-folding high.

Once you get that far, then you’re ready to incorporate these other seven habits of people who are crushing it into your own work and lifestyle.

Go!

1. People who are crushing it look for problems at work. They might look for problems in procedures or systems or processes in the way things get done done.

What sets them apart from you and me, however, is that when they spot a problem, they don’t just whine to their coworkers about it at happy hour. They don’t resign to the “That’s just the way we do things around here” mentality.

They speak up, call out the flaws, even if it means making waves. People who are crushing it know that shaking things up is often the only way positive improvements are made.

So they draw attention to a problem, but then they take it to the next level. They mull over that problem and actually come up with a solution. Can you imagine?! Then they present that solution to their boss! Oftentimes, in a PowerPoint or with an attractive-looking infographic.

2. They champion for their causes by - gasp! - believing in themselves and their work, which, in turn, helps them convince others that their idea is the smarter/better/cheaper/whatever-er method than the old way was.

They demonstrate with evidence how well their solution works, and they even track outcomes:

Did their quick-fix save the company money? How much?
Did their idea make the process more efficient? How so?

Then, boom! That little chunk of measurable data goes right onto their résumés under the category “Major Accomplishments.”

*If they’re really smart, they write a blog post for the company about it and use that precious link forever to send to prospective employers under the heading “Publications.”

3. People who are crushing it plan ahead. Way ahead. It’s called being ‘strategic.’ From their earliest years, they think ahead about the kinds of people they’d like to get hired by, or the kind of person they’d like to be someday.

I wrote for one client who knew that someday he wanted to be rich, so guess what? He surrounded himself with rich people as a freshman in college. He chose not to wait tables for spare change like his buddies were doing and, instead, got himself hired at a luxury clothing store...where rich people hung out.

I wish I’d thought like this when I was in college. I waited tables at a crappy pizza joint where drunken frat boys hung out. I should’ve probably been, at the very least, serving coffee to editors or news reporters.

But guess who got my client his next job at a luxury resort…where he met even richer people? Some rich dude he happened to impress while he was folding shirts at the boutique. Go figure.

4. People who are crushing it invite smart people to join them on projects. Knowing the limitations of their own expertise and the demands of their busy schedules, crushers aren’t afraid to ask for experts outside their sphere to contribute creative energy so that the job gets done right.

That’s why they seek expertise like mine for help writing their LinkedIn profiles in the first place.

That’s not to say that they hire just anyone. They do their homework first. They vet, ask for proof, and gather knowledge with a discerning eye for quality talent.

5. People who are crushing it find a niche and stick with it. No matter what field they’re in, successful people find that one thing they’re super good at, the topic they’re jazzed about & that they know a ton about, and they milk it for all they’re worth.

Whether it’s breeding compost worms, building pop-up greeting cards, or writing copy for pet insurance brochures, they do it and keep doing it, with gusto.

6. They aren’t afraid to try something new. Just because a project or opportunity falls outside the confines of their well-honed niche, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth taking a shot at, even if it means failure!

People who are crushing it internalize the idea that any effort is worth at least the value of its inherent experience. You gain some nugget of wisdom, even if that wisdom is proof that you suck at something. At least now you know that for sure!

Getting out of your niche—or comfort zone—might mean taking on a leadership role to manage people. For a timid person or introvert, that might sound impossible. But it also might turn out to be magical, because quiet, perceptive, intuitive thinkers can be some of the most effective people-managers of all time.

7. People who are crushing it get involved & connect with people in real life; not just on the internet. Most of us know by now that the best way to climb the ladder to success is through utilizing your network. Some estimates show that up to 85% of us got our jobs through someone we know.

But how do you build a network of knowledgeable people in your field if you don’t already have one? Better yet, where do you find those folks who are going to get you that next, kickass job?

People who are crushing it go out and join the local chapter of their professional associations, or they volunteer their time at an organization that aligns with their career goals.

Whether it’s the Chamber of Commerce or the local food pantry, they show up, in person, at meetings, fundraisers, or even happy hours, and they introduce themselves, ask questions, contribute their time and their voice to the conversation.

They roll up their sleeves and ask, “How can I help?”

They attend networking events that are announced on social media. Then later, they call up one or two of the people they’ve met at these events and ask them to meet for coffee or a beer, just to pick their brains.

I know, timid you, this sounds dreadful. But you’ve got to work on those people skills, find that common thread that connects you to someone influential, brush up on some small-talk tips and practice ice breakers at home with family until you feel confident enough to fly solo. Because once you score a couple of explorative coffee meetings, Poof!, connection made. Impression sealed.

Before you know it, you’ll have a list of respected names in your field, with reputable organizations to back them up. You’ll add those names and those orgs to your résumé. You’ll ask those connections for references later on. Then, because you suddenly realize you're starting to crush it, too, you’ll start getting better gigs & making better money.

There are likely dozens more habits that people who are crushing it have that I don’t know about yet. The minute I learn about them, I’ll be sure and share them with you!

For now, timid reader, I hope these get you started in the right direction toward achieving a better, more fulfilling work life.

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Where, Oh, Where Have You Been?

3/27/2017

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Actually, friends, I've been here all along!

I know, I know, it's been over a year since my last foray into the journalism world, but J.E.E. Content & Copy is back and primed for the next adventure. And I'm so thrilled to be back in touch!

Back in June of 2015, I began writing a novel -- a series of mass-market fiction books in the contemporary romance genre, in fact. The first one's been published!

I'd advertise the heck out of it on here but because of my contract guidelines, and because I'm using a pen name, I'm bound to keep those identities separate for now, but I wanted you to know what in God's name I've been up to these past many months so you can rest assured I haven't fallen off the face of the earth:)

I've just finished the draft for book 4 in the lineup, and lemme tell you, it's going to be a smashing good read! I'm co-authoring with my sister, a NYT bestselling author with over thirty titles published going back to the nineties. She's a hybrid, meaning she does both traditional and self-publishing, both with enormous success. Because of her, I've learned LOADS AND LOADS about the industry and the process, and I can't wait to build on my new skills and share them with you here.

See, once I jumped on the bandwagon to try out fiction writing, I realized that I LOVE IT. So I'll be doing more as time goes by, but now that I have a few novels under my belt I'd like to get back to my roots -- of nonfiction article writing, meticulous proofreading, processing all the real-life problems we content producers encounter, and finding solutions for them as creatively as possible.

So I hope you'll keep in touch with me here and follow along as I begin to post articles on self-pubbing hacks, the nuts and bolts of bringing the germ of an idea into a compelling narrative, and making that a polished manuscript.

With the new beginnings of spring and sunshine bursting in our midst, I am eager to refresh and reignite energy for the things I've always loved.

And I look forward to sharing them with you here!

Until next time...

Janeen

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The Secret to Success Is...

5/12/2015

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I hold the secret to success!

I’ve finally cracked the code!

Almost.

Maybe.

Sort of.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have interviewed a handful of Very Incredible People now with the goal of finding out how they got to the point where they could actually get paid to do what they love.

They’ve shared their stories of meandering through life, struggling after false starts, overcoming past failures and, ultimately, to finding true, professional fulfillment.

None of them is a bazillionaire. None of them did it by a stroke of luck. And most certainly, none of them did it without a ton of hard work.

But, so far, they all seem to share one common, and rather notable, element in their journey to success: a little voice whispering from behind them, saying, “YOU’VE GOT THIS! YOU CAN DO IT! I KNOW YOU CAN!”

Could it be that simple?

That all we need to achieve our goals in life is someone cheering for us?

Julie J. Exline, Ph.D., writes, on Psychology Today, “When we ‘en-courage,’ it’s as though we actually infuse courage into another person. Encouragement can provide people with strength to look ahead, move forward, and reach for the next goal.”

Maybe it really is that simple.

Heck, we’ve been cheering for football teams since the 1800s. There’s a darn good reason that squads of chipper gymnasts appear at sporting events, and it’s not just because they’re pretty ladies.

The first cheerleaders were strictly men, after all. And they began their sis-boom-bah-ing to spread positive affirmations so that their teams would do well.

So, who’s telling you that YOU can do it? Who’s responsible for giving you the mental boost that got you through hard times?

Today might be a good day to go buy them an eclair.

If there’s no voice telling you you’re tops, it might be worth your time to start hanging around a different gang of folks.

Better still, who are YOU telling that THEY can do it? Are you a source of encouragement in someone’s life? Do you believe in someone enough to tell them that they’re doing a good job; that they can achieve their goals?

Rock on, if you do!

If not, perhaps it’s time to start. Because if you’re not encouraging, you could be discouraging. And the last thing this world needs is another Negative Nellie.

Coming up next in my Conversations With… interview series will be my chat with one amazing woman who followed her heart around the globe and landed in downtown Port Au Prince, Haiti, after the devastating 2010 earthquake.

I hope you’ll check out her inspiring story and visit me for more in the future.

And, as always, cheers to you for following your heart!

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The Secret to Loving Work: I'm-a Find Out!

4/29/2015

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Do you love the work you do every day?

If your answer is no, welcome to the miserable majority. Career columnist Susan Adams at Forbes.com found out that, as of summer 2014, 52.3% of Americans were unhappy with their jobs.

That’s a lot of cranky-pants employees.

Yet how many of us know at least one person who gushes every time they mention a webinar they’re attending for work, or the latest white paper that’s come out about their company, or the new product they’re developing?

Believe it or not, there are people who have actually uttered the words, “I love my job!” and meant it.

So, how’d they do it? How did they land their dream job? How did they even know that’s what they wanted to do in life?

There’s a lot of buzz these days around finding the sweet spot where opportunity, talent, and passion intersect. It’s the mystical crossroads where you can actually get paid to do something you love.

It’s like this magical, elusive crevice in your life’s road map where, if only you could figure out how to find it, your dream job would just appear.

You might spend years working in jobs you hate, performing tasks that eat you up inside. With bosses you fantasize about spontaneously combusting. Coworkers you want to punch in the nose.

And maybe, after some serious soul-searching, you realize, Hey, I’ve had enough of this, and it’s high time I find a new gig.

Following current logic, then, if you can figure out what really lights your passion (fixing up old motor homes, zentangle, homeopathic pet remedies?), all you need to do is get really, really good at it, and then happen upon the right person at the right time at the right place who’ll hire you do to do that thing you’re passionate about. Right?

Wendy Spies at Great Bridge Group created a great slide show prompting us to ask ourselves hard questions as we try to harness our passions and turn them into opportunities so that we can find that intersecting sweet spot which will land us the dream job.

The Harvard Business Review has a great article on the crucial role passion plays in worker productivity.

And you can read travel blogger Sabrina’s post at justonewayticket.com, where she reveals her secret to finding her ultimate gig. “I loved traveling to the point of madness,” she writes, “and I was able to channel that into a job.”

So, maybe you’re madly passionate about scrapbooking. And maybe you go to a scrapbooking event one Saturday afternoon at the local Marriott Hotel, and you chat up the lady running the show. She takes a liking to you, and suddenly you’ve been invited to work a trade show booth for her at an upcoming craft convention.

You did it! You’ve stumbled into a golden opportunity to do something you love, professionally!

But the big day comes, and you come to find out that standing around at a trade show booth is A) a volunteer gig, and B) kind of sucky.

To top it off, you bring your favorite scrapbook – say, the one you put together of your family’s summer vacation last year in Deep Creek, MD. You show it off proudly to some other scrapbook fanatics you meet there, and then they show you some of their best stuff.

And as you’re reviewing their beautifully adorned pages, suddenly it hits you like a wrecking ball to the gut: your scrapping skills are pretty lame. You just don’t have the talent for it.

But you tried. You took your passion and jumped on a great opportunity. It just turned out to be…not that awesome. You learned a tough lesson. Now what?

To help sort through this, I’ve decided to get some answers to the looming question:

How do people find their career sweet spot?

It’ll be the new framework for my Conversations With… interview series going forward, and I’m very excited about it.

I’ll find out whether opportunity+passion+talent really is the secret recipe to career success. Because I’m not fully convinced that it is. I like to think of it as one part luck, one part clever, and one part crazy. With a whole lot of hard work thrown in.

Because some people really do just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

And other people know how to work that angle to their advantage.

And then there are still others who are just wild risk-takers, brave enough to jump off a cliff and see if they land with no broken bones.

But the theme I see repeated over and over again is hard work, hard work, hard work.

So I’ll be chatting with some VIPs (Very Incredible People) who will share with us how they found, or are trying to find, their sweet spot to get them that dream job.

And I’ll ask them for advice on how you can go about finding it for yourselves.

I'll be sending out a BIG announcement coming very soon to reveal the next VIP interviewee!

Sign up for my RSS Feed at the right or follow me on Twitter to get notified when the latest Conversations With… interview is published!

Thanks, as always, for reading!

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Why Hire a Freelancer? So You Can Breathe a Sigh of Relief.

The 7 Habits of People Who Are Crushing It at Work (& How Timid People Can Crush It, Too)

Where, Oh, Where Have You Been?

The Secret to Success Is...

The Secret to Loving Work: I'm-a Find Out!

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