Tag: LinkedIn

If you’ve dabbled in freelance writing — or freelance anything — you’ve seen post after post touting the power of cold pitching. It’s reportedly the best way to find high-quality clients and grow your business to new heights.

Unfortunately, a lot of the content out there is super promotional. And much of it involves successful bloggers selling their expertise to those with less experience or savvy in the space.

So what’s the story with cold pitching? The concept is as straightforward as it sounds — you’re reaching out to strangers to sell a service.

The thing we found more challenging was the research process. Where are people finding these lists of prospects, in the first place?

Here, we’ll look at some tips for compiling a list of your own prospects.

How to find new work opportunities

What is cold pitching?

Cold pitching is the process of reaching out to a targeted list of strangers to convince them to give your company a shot. In most cases, you’ll do this via email — though you could try using the good old-fashioned phone.

Basically, you’re sending a company/person a personalized email after doing some research on your own. This means you’re qualifying leads on your own.

Pitches should be as concise as possible. Nobody likes to field a cold email, after all.

Why you should cold pitch

For one, being a freelancer means that you generally don’t have the luxury of taking home a reliable, bi-weekly paycheck. Your earnings depend on how much you work and how much clients are willing to pay for your service.

Among the biggest challenges for independent workers is locking down a steady stream of paying gigs that provide a predictable income.

So there’s this constant need to be prospecting, even when you’ve got enough on your plate. You can apply for jobs through job boards, go to networking events, or ask existing clients for referrals.

Cold pitching, however, offers some distinct benefits over the usual channels, and here’s why:

Easy-to-measure results

When you’re emailing cold leads, it’s easy to see which pitches get results. You have a record of sent messages that you can review to see how many conversions you’re getting compared to what was sent.

It’s easy

Well, sort of. Cold pitching requires that you write customized, well-researched emails to strangers, so it’s not this mindless effort. But, once you’ve got your list of leads, you’ll have a quick way to reach out to prospective clients — even just a few each day.

Freelancers can get busy, but keeping up the business development part of their job means they’ll be less likely to experience work droughts down the line.

Contracts are on your terms

Because you’re sending the email, you’re in the position of power.

While you are at the mercy of collecting enough yeses to pay your rent, those who sign on are agreeing to the terms you put out there.

One of the key reasons that freelancers tend to like this method is, it’s an effective alternative job board.

There’s nothing wrong with job boards, per se. But, the process of applying for multiple jobs and hoping the rates work out to more than $0.0008 per word can leave you feeling like your fate is in someone else’s hands.

How to identify the right clients

First of all, you should only approach clients that you can imagine yourself working with.

If you’re a writer with experience in writing about technology, your ideal clients might be software companies, cybersecurity firms, or web apps. You won’t want to approach roofing companies or fashion brands, otherwise, it looks like you’re sending mass emails with little thought as to where they land.

Niche matters, too. Stay in your lane. A generalist might have the right skill set, but they risk falling into the “jack-of-all-trades” category. Instead, you narrow your area of expertise.

As you start hunting for leads, you’ll want to ask yourself a few questions as you comb through each lead:

• What can you offer this client?
• Why will you be a good fit?
• Does the subject matter interest you?

Where does one find these companies in the first place?

Okay, there are a few different ways you can start conducting your research. We’ll start with platforms. While the sites we’ve listed here are job boards, they’re actually a great place to conduct research.

Now, we’re not suggesting that you apply for the jobs. Rather, you can head over to a site like AngelList or LinkedIn and filter by company type. AngelList also allows you to email people directly through the platform, bypassing the actual job application part.

Some ideas:

• LinkedIn
• AngelList
• We Work Remotely
• Indeed
• Cloudpeeps

Alternatively, you might want to Google startups within your niche. Startups need help getting the word out about their brand and may not have the budget for a full-time writer.

Tread carefully, though. Sometimes, it’s hard to work with new companies as their status changes from one day to the next.

• Quora — Create an account that highlights your business. When someone posts a question you can help with, you can swoop in to help.
• Social media — Twitter and Facebook both have decent search functions. Look for trending topics within your niche and reach out to companies that might be a fit.
• Groups — LinkedIn and Facebook groups are another good resource for collecting leads. Facebook’s platform has a group for anything — local business owners to industry-specific offerings like digital marketing or tech startups. Joining groups means you’ll be able to make new connections and identify companies to reach out to outside of the platform.

Make a spreadsheet of the companies you find during your research. Create tabs for email addresses, status, notes, and anything else that might inform your messaging.

Find the decision maker

Going in cold usually means you’ll be reaching out to a company, not an individual. Chances are, the director of marketing won’t post their business email on the company website, but doing some research before sending an email to “Dear First Name” is a good idea.

Do some research on the company page and social media accounts to see if you can identify who is in charge of marketing, social media, or whatever your area of specialty is.

Be sure to address this person by name in the email — even if it’s just going to “help@company.com.”

How to get people to read your message

• Make it personal — skip the template; cold pitching is already, well, cold. Instead, make it obvious that you’ve done some research. And skip the spammy salutations. No one reads an email addressed to “Sir/Madam.”
• Create a great subject line — Spend some time coming up with creative subject lines. A good subject line makes the suggestion that there’s something worthwhile in the email. A bad one means you’ll get marked as spam. Check out Hubspot’s tips for some inspiration.
• Include social proof, if possible — share links to your best work, endorsements, awards, or positive reviews from happy clients.

Don’t forget the follow-up

People often forget to respond to emails, especially when they’re not urgent. In general, you want to give prospects about a full week to respond.

Send a short, low-pressure reminder after the seven day (ish) mark. The second email should basically say, “I sent you an email and wanted to follow up to see if you’ve had time to consider the offer.”

Make sure you attach the previous email so they can easily access the information you sent the first time around. And if you don’t get a response, move on. There’s no use in trying to pressure someone into becoming a client.

We might be on the verge of a robot revolution, but employers are increasingly looking for people who excel at, well, being human.

Sure, robots can do a lot of things better than we can: data entry, stocking shelves, even hard skills like coding or debugging.

But, bots lack the nuance, out of the box thinking, and creativity that humans do so well.

According to LinkedIn data, soft skills are high in demand.  And while things like cloud computing, coding, and cybersecurity top the list, communication, collaboration, and creative problem-solving stand to be the differentiating factors of industry 4.0.

Why the emphasis on the softer stuff?

The simple answer is, humans should focus on improving the skills that artificial intelligence will have trouble replacing.

AI is set to transform most “doing” jobs into “thinking” and “feeling” jobs. Experts say jobs composed of linear, repetitive tasks will be the first to go. These jobs include customer service, retail, fast food, accounting, manual labor, and more.

The World Economic Forum estimates that 65% of our children will end up in jobs that don’t exist today. Which certainly makes it a challenge to develop the training methods that set the youth of today up for success.

It seems the consensus is, young people should develop a skill set that they can transfer to multiple occupations. So, it’s going to be increasingly important that we move toward a culture that values lifelong learning, and that we treat people skills and creativity — intangibles — as top priorities, not “nice to have” qualities.

Here are some of the timeless skills you should start polishing now. You know, before the robots come for your job.

Skills to focus on for our robot-human future

Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s thoughts and feelings. It means you can place yourself in their shoes and that you consider others’ concerns.

This quality, often considered a personality trait, has significant impacts on productivity, engagement, and loyalty.

When you feel that you’re stuck with people who don’t care about you, teamwork suffers, there’s a lack of trust and culture of resentment. And in the future workplace, humans are going to have to band together and feel comfortable with throwing out new ideas — even if they might not work.

Improving your empathy has a lot to with taking a step back and thinking about how others might react to your words or actions. Ask questions and avoid making assumptions.

When you consistently approach coworker interactions with kindness and respect, the workplace becomes more compassionate.

Leadership

A good leader is someone who can motivate, inspire, and empower others. Leaders are assertive and likable, someone we can all look up to. But, many people believe leaders are born that way.

It’s true that traits like agreeableness and emotional intelligence come more naturally to some people. But, there are ways anyone can level up their leadership skills.

Recognizing and acknowledging others’ accomplishments, focusing on collaboration over competition, and maintaining a positive attitude, are things you can work on without enrolling in an MBA program.

Still, aspiring leaders may want to look into more formal training. Classes in organizational or project management are solid choices, particularly if you don’t have experience in a management role.

Before you sign up for a college class, though, check with your company to see if they offer tuition reimbursement or access to training programs.

Flexibility

Adaptability and the willingness to learn something new on the fly are critical in an era where tech is evolving at a breakneck pace.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to switch between one concept to another, or shift between ideas. It’s also a marker of what Harvard Business Review refers to as a growth mindset.

HBR reports that some people lean toward a belief that skills and interests are inherent — so someone might naturally be good at sports or is born with above-average intelligence. This is called a fixed mindset.

By contrast, a growth mindset stands to become a valued asset in a changing workplace.

One way to level up your flexibility is to think about yourself as this sort of package of skills. For example, you’re a project manager today, but you’re also an excellent communicator. You’ve got good writing skills, and you’re able to bring out the best results in your team by delegating.

These skills that you might use in your project management role today can help you in any position–whether that’s allocating robot labor to specific tasks or transitioning into a role that requires more writing and editing.

It’s that readiness to accept change and understand how your knowledge can apply to different areas that will serve as a backbone for reinvention.

Active listening

Listening should mean more than waiting for your next chance to talk. It’s a potent tool that can help you solve problems and build better relationships.

Active listening may come more naturally to someone who is genuinely curious about other people. Try to frame listening as a chance to learn something new or understand a different point of view.

Make an effort to understand where someone is coming from and why. This requires a great deal of focus, and you’ll need to get used to putting your phone down and looking at the person who is speaking—this indicates that you are treating someone with respect.

Listen to the words and pay attention to facial expressions and body language.

After someone finishes talking, let them know you understood what they said by reiterating the key points and asking for clarification on anything that didn’t make sense.

Final thoughts

People fear technology because they believe it destroys work. But that’s been the case for every significant shift we’ve faced as a population. Social media managers, app developers, and so on, didn’t exist until recently.

Skills like conversation, empathy, and problem-solving have always had value. But, up to this point, they haven’t been emphasized during the career training process. It might be time that changes.