Three basic mindset tips for freelancers

Last month’s March Marketing Madness challenge group was a lot of fun, and I always enjoy learning from the group participants and coming away from the month with some new ideas. I’m always trying to refine and improve my mindset tips around marketing and business management, because I think it’s an area that a lot of us struggle with: we want/need more/better work, but we tell ourselves (incorrectly…but we still tell ourselves…):

• marketing is spammy; if we were really any good at this job, we wouldn’t need to market
• marketing won’t work anyway, so we just keep working on what lands in the inbox
• we need to feel motivated; inspiration has to strike us before we do any marketing

Instead, I think most of us are happier, more productive, and we find better and more lucrative work when we embrace these three truths about freelancing:

1. We do our best and most successful marketing when we ask ourselves these questions: Who should I be serving? Who needs me but doesn’t yet know about me? When we start from there, we’re automatically looking for clients who will not perceive our marketing inquiries as spam; they may even say, “We really need someone like you!”
2. We do our best and most successful work when we actively pursue work that we enjoy and are good at, rather than waiting for dream clients to come to us. Doing work we enjoy and are good at helps us stay motivated, avoids procrastination, and pairs us will clients who need and value our skills rather than seeing us as replaceable.
3. We need to stop relying on motivation and instead, just stay consistent with our marketing. You don’t wait to feel inspired to brush your teeth or do laundry; even if it feels like a chore, you do it without even really thinking about it, so that your teeth don’t fall out and you have something clean to wear. Treat marketing the same way: set a timer for 15 minutes at the beginning or end of every work day, work on marketing for just those 15 minutes, and you’ll see a big difference in your business.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that these tips are helpful to you! If you’d like to add anything, just drop a comment below!