I marketed even though I was busy…then had to turn down work!

Breaking Into the Subtitling Market: registration closes on Sunday

Registration for guest instructor Molly Yurick’s self-paced class (with live question and answer sessions), Breaking Into the Subtitling Market closes on Sunday (November 23). Registration is $110 and gets you six months of access to the course materials (see the course web page for a full description of all of the modules), plus two opportunities for a live session with Molly to get your questions answered (recordings provided). We have a good group signed up, and there’s room for anyone who is subtitling-curious! 

**The November/December session of Direct client research lab is sold out; reply to this e-mail if you’d like to be on the wait list for the December/January session. 

Bonus blog post: How business Amex points got me a free ticket to London

I’m not a huge miles and points person (I’d usually rather just shop for a deal), but here’s an easy win that you might want to look at. By charging only my normal business expenses on an American Express Blue Business Plus card that I opened in May, I was able to get a free ticket from New York to London for my summer 2026 Europe trip. Here’s how I did it! 

This week’s topic: I marketed even though I was busy…then I had to turn down work. Should we really keep marketing when we’re busy? 

Thanks to a reader for suggesting this topic. Here’s what they wrote to me: 

“In the Spring of this year, I did some targeted marketing, and quite quickly received an inquiry that would have taken about 3 weeks to work on– time that I really did not have, because I was so busy working for other clients. [Aside from Corinne: this reader notes that she joined my March Marketing Madness challenge group and had a couple of clients offer her large, ongoing projects during that group, but “out of the blue,” not because of the marketing she did: interesting!]  So I had to turn that client down, which was unpleasant, but inevitable.

On the one hand, it makes sense to continuously market, but on the other hand I may be unable to accept the work new clients offer. For that reason, in the past, I only marketed in periods in which I did not have enough work (which is suboptimal for the reasons we know and does not ensure continuity/stability in the workflow).” 

The reader asked if I could address this in a future newsletter, and it’s a great topic! There’s no one, single answer (if only, right???) and it really depends on the type of work that you do, your financial resources, and how much it stresses you out to not have work in the pipeline. Let’s dive in! 

First: Why market consistently? 

This reader correctly uses the term “suboptimal” to describe the way most of us market:

• Yikes! I don’t have enough work! I need to do some marketing!
• [Markets like crazy for some period of time, resulting in an influx of work from existing or new clients]
• Yikes! I’m scrambling to keep up because I have so much work!
• [Immediately stops marketing, until…]
• Yikes! I don’t have enough work! I need to do some marketing!

Wash, rinse, repeat, right? Most of us know that avoiding this cycle is the reason we should market consistently. But it’s also not that simple! Because…

A few truths about freelancing 

• As a freelancer, it’s very rare that you have just the right amount of work. Typically you have a little less than you’d like, or a little more than you’d like. Personally, because I hate worrying about money and like to maintain a healthy buffer in my business and personal finances, I’d prefer to have a little too much work, rather than a little too little. 
• If we want to work 40 hours per week, we should set our rates so that we can reach our target income with 25-30 hours of paid work. That leaves some buffer time (are we starting to sense the importance of the word “buffer”??) for non-billable tasks like marketing, accounting, professional development, following up with dormant clients, etc. but it also allows us to take on some extra work without having to work 80 hours week. However, a lot of us aren’t doing this: we’re working for rates that require us to actually generate income 40 (or 60, or 80) hours a week. Personally, I aim for 25 billable hours a week. This means that even if I worked “full overtime” for a week, I could let my non-billable work go and work 50 hours. Not my first choice, but not the end of the world. 
• FOMO is always a factor. You’re never going to have a zero risk of having to turn down a great-sounding project, and being too busy is only one of the reasons that can happen. 
• At the end of the day, the real question about work flow and work volume is, are you earning what you want or need to be earning? If you’re going through busy and not-so-busy business cycles, that’s not necessarily a problem and can even be desirable, as long as your total income adds up to what you want or need to make.

OK, but what do we do?? 

Hah, darn, I was hoping I could get away without answering that! Here’s what I think you should do:

• If, right now, you don’t have enough work and you’re not earning what you want or need to be earning, you should be marketing with every second that you don’t have paying work. Don’t worry, at least right now, about a sudden onslaught of work that results in you turning down the project of the century. Worry about that after you have enough work. 
• Accept that total equilibrium as a freelancer is difficult to impossible to achieve. As referenced above: you’re almost never going to have the perfect amount of work, and you’re almost always at risk of turning down a really good project, unless you have unlimited availability and zero need for sleep or time off. 
• Always be marketing, but not necessarily always actively marketing. Here’s the subtlest but perhaps most important part. I firmly believe that you should always be marketing, because if you’re not putting the word out about your services, you’re at a serious risk of stagnation. But this doesn’t always mean applying to five new clients a day. Back in 2023, I wrote a blog post on this topic, detailing my marketing efforts over a two to three-week period, very few of which were what I’d call active marketing. Right now, I’m not actively marketing for interpreting work, because I’m already turning down my regular interpreting clients more than I’d like. But I’m still doing many of the things I describe in that blog post. 
• All of this also depends on your financial situation. Honestly, the best protection against bad business decisions is a business savings account, in which you leave (and don’t touch) three to six months of expenses. That means that when work slows down, you’re not panicking, because you’re earning the money that pays the bills in three, four, five, or six months, not the money that pays the bills in two weeks. Personally, I enjoy working at a fast pace; I’m easily bored and I love what I do. But if you enjoy working at a slower pace, where you think, if given the choice between working a little too much or working a little too little, I’d pick “a little too little,” then that’s what you do. Beef up your business savings account and dip into it when work slows down and you’re marketing for some new stuff. Instead of thinking of it as your “rainy day/emergency fund” (which is what I do), think of it as your “recharge my batteries” fund! 

I hope these tips are helpful! Have a great week!

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