Marketing Now as a Freelance Writer For The Upcoming Holidays
Thanks so much to Shaistha for suggesting this topic! For this week's livestream, we're going over the exact steps for how to do your marketing for Q4 plus the upcoming holiday season (November/December/January).
That means what to do right now, what to do over the next four months plus how to manage seasonal time off, how to not keep waiting for work, and how to be proactive so you can have an amazing end of 2022 and start of 2023.
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Marketing Now as a Freelance Writer For The Upcoming Holidays
The holidays are coming . That means we need to refine our freelance writer marketing machine right now. So Shta put this in and she asked that we go over this. So I think this is a great topic. Hey Vicky, And we are gonna go over it. So, The things that we're gonna talk about are basically helping you pre-plan a bunch of things, helping you understand how the end of the year and the beginning of next year works and giving you kind of like an, Oh, we've got an, we got an ambulatory blanket creature.
Where are you going? And figuring out what we should do now and how we can stop waiting for work. Can you go back to your ho hole? Not already. We just started. We just started. Go back and lay down. All right. There we go. Be a be a blanket princess over here. All right. Why don't you lay down and be snuffy for a little bit.
1) Exact steps for how to do your marketing right now plus the upcoming holiday season (November/December/January)
Yeah, you, I like that. Uh, so let's go through number one. Hold on, let me pop this up. Let me get my old lady brain working. Okay. Hey Brianna. Welcome . Uh, so number one, we are gonna talk about how to do your marketing. So we're gonna talk about how to do your marketing right. And then the holiday season. And the holiday season could be October to January.
It could, it's most of the time like Thanksgiving till like after New Year's kind of in that timeframe. So I think this is a really important thing to go over because a lot of freelance writers don't preplan enough. They're like, I have work for the next two weeks. Everything's great. No , no. You need to be thinking three to six months ahead.
And that's why this is really, I. That's why we're going over this. So number one, when you're doing your marketing, I always kind of give that recommendation of 50, Hey Getty, welcome 50 to 75 Lois a month, or doing at least an hour every day of marketing. And those activities can be sending Lois and pitches following up, connecting with people on LinkedIn.
And those people could be writers, potential clients, um, it could be anybody that you feel like might be a good fit for your. It could be, you know, joining groups. It could be asking questions, leaving comments, posting stuff. It could be a whole bunch of things. So as we're kind of going through our marketing, I have my notes down here.
Just so you know, as we're going through our marketing, we wanna make sure that we're keeping up with that. So a lot of people, a lot of writers slow their marketing down. Cause there's like, they're just have this idea that like, nobody's gonna answer. Everybody's off. They are not. They are not. I have had, um, My, like, I've had friends who have gotten answers on like Christmas or Thanksgiving or New Year's Day or New Year's Eve.
Like everybody answers all like whenever they want. I've had answers, um, Christmas Eve. I've had answers on Black Friday. Um, I don't remember. I think I got someone answering me on New Year's Day or New Year's Eve, but I've had answers on like all the days where people are supposed to be off and we all know that people spend time with their family and then they kind of scroll their inbox, right?
There's like a pause or you know, they're just kind of bored or they're just like, whatever, and they scroll their inbox and they reply. So do not slow down your marketing. Okay. The whole point is that when you market now through q4, That really helps you get some end of year projects and some beginning of next year projects.
So even if you do your marketing and it turns out that they're like, Hey, let's, let's go back and talk in January. Yeah, you might not get money now, but it may be a big project that you end up getting in January to start your next year off really well. Like it's, it's, it's always this kind of thing where people are like, nobody will answer.
It's like, that's okay. You can be in their inbox, like you can still do the work. We wanna make sure that we're taking time off, which we'll go over in a little bit, but don't slow down your marketing. Okay? So keep up whether no matter how much work you have, right? You need to do at least like an hour a day or 50 to 75 Loy a month.
And right now I'm doing a lot of marketing because things are shifting. So even me who I was doing my marketing quarterly, I'm changing that because the market stuff in my niches is changing. So, If you have a ton of work and you can't mark it every day for an hour, Monday through Friday, at least send five to 10 Lois a month.
Like you wanna make sure that you're putting things out there so that you have work for the next year. This is how you also stop waiting for work, right? So that's why , that's why this is really important. We're setting, we're planting the seeds now so that we can harvest them in November, December, January, and.
And we all know that you might send an LOI in November and they may not get back to you until July, but the point is that you planted the seed. That's the critical piece. So when we're doing our marketing right now and through the holiday season, we need to make sure that we have that time off right, but that we're being consistent about continuing our marketing.
If you don't have projects or you're not, you know, your money is, is short for the next few months, then you need to make sure you're doing your marketing. And also, this is another reason why I'm doing more marketing is cuz my niches are kind of shift. So I wanna make sure I'm kind of like doing more marketing to plant more seeds just in case, you know, things go weirder,
So I think that's a really important point. So that's number one. We wanna make sure that we're doing our marketing now. We wanna make sure that we're following up. We're wanna make sure we're making those connections, that we're joining groups, doing whatever we have to do. Um, and then we also wanna make sure that we don't just ignore the holiday season.
Like if you think about it, this. , If you are ignoring November through January or like let's say Halloween until after New Year's, that's like, like two and a half. Maybe even three months of the year, right? You're ignoring a quarter of the year. That's a big problem. , right? People like, forget that. They're like, Oh, it's only the holidays.
You know, no one's answering, but it's like now you've lost a quarter of the year of your marketing activities. That's a problem, right? You need to pay attention to that. There are lots of things that we can do to automate it, um, to send Lois to follow up, all that good stuff, but we need to make sure we're making that consistent effort.
This is how we have a good end of the year and how we start the next year off. Really good. So that's the first point. That was number one. Now we're gonna do number two. Number two, if I can pop it up and be a regular person. And then also we have our little friends over here, . She's just so sad. She's just like sitting over there being like, Why won't you give me, Oh gosh.
2) How to not keep waiting for work
Now she knows. Don't quick. Don't look at her. Don't look at her, cuz then she'll come up and make some noise. All right. Our second thing, number two is how to not keep waiting for. This is how we do it. We have to do the marketing. We have to remember that we are pre-planning things. I think a lot of times what ends up happening is freelance writers make it so short, they make the runway show so short and they expect their clients to reach out to them.
Or when they send an LOI for them to be like, Yes, let's do this right now. They're used to a lot of red light clients who don't pre-plan, so they end up having this constant string of like, Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Or hurry up and wait. Hurry up and wait. Good green light. Clients are planning way ahead.
They've already put things in motion, right? They're thinking by quarters. They're thinking about, like right now, they're thinking about Q1 or how they're gonna end the year well, or what things they need to put into planning for next year. So if you've been with a lot of red light clients who are basically like immediately, every time you contact them or every time you get an inbound lead, they're like, Do it right.
You're, That's the wrong pool. Okay. Your green light clients are gonna be the ones to pre-plan. So we're not waiting for work. We wanna make sure that we are doing our marketing and planning three to six months ahead, but that we're also aligning with those clients who are planning three to six months ahead.
And this is the difference is like sometimes you'll send an LOI and get a green light client who's like, Oh my gosh, we have this end of the year project. We would love to work with you. Please help. And then you have immediate work and money, right? But then you have a lot of clients that are like, Yeah, we're planning December, January, we wanna talk to you like in November about that.
And that's what you really want. That's how you end up extending your projects and, and getting clients who are on the right bus, like you're on the right path with them. It feels frustrating at first cuz you're like, I need the work in money right now. Right. Like a lot of writers I talk to are like, I need it now.
That planning ahead is better for you. Okay. Yeah, you need the work in money right now, which is why you're doing more marketing. But the other piece of that is that you want to begin to align and plant those seeds with those companies that are like, Let's talk in November for work in January, because that feeds into itself over time, and now you have this beautifully planned schedule that's three to six months out, right?
Or at least like at minimum two months out or one month out instead of like two weeks or a week. Right? We wanna start aligning with those right people and you shouldn't be waiting for work. That was the interesting thing I thought about this question is like how to not keep waiting for work. You shouldn't be waiting for work.
You should be doing the marketing, you should be putting things in. You should be paying attention to what's going on in your niches, whether they're getting funding or whether there's changes with the venture capitalists, or there's different trends, or there's new types of companies coming in. There is no waiting for work.
In the freelance world, it's always about sending your marketing, following up with people, getting new connections, joining groups, learning more about your niches, all that good stuff. So if you find that you're waiting for work, there's something off, something is wrong, okay? You should always be thinking about how can I plant more seeds?
And I always think about like, right, that there's that quote I I, it's by, um, isn't it Robert Stevens, Lewis Stevenson that says, like, the, the seeds you plant today, like you, you don't harvest in the same day or something. So you're not planting seeds to harvest. Now you're planting seeds to harvest them later.
And the way that I like to think about it is irons in the. So you never know when those irons in the fire are gonna work out, but you're putting more and more and more and more of them in there. That's something statistically it has to work out, right? So if you send a hundred Lois, between now and November, you send a hundred Lois, right?
Be between the next two and a half months, right? The odds are that zero of those would work out are very, very small. Right. I and I, and I used to tell myself this and this, like this is a little self deprecating, but I used to tell myself like, even a blind squirrel finds a nut. I used to tell myself that.
I'd be like, It doesn't, I'm sending these Lois, Somebody has to trip and fall into the whole of working with Mandy. Like somebody's gotta figure it out. Somebody has to like, Oh, even a blind squirrel finds a. So you're sending all these Lois, right? And the other thing is like, make sure your lois are good.
So that's really important and I have a bundle for that. If you're interested, I'll pop it up. So if you were trying to figure out how to make good lois, go to mandy s.com/bundle and you can get my LOI templates that I use right now in my business. Um, but as you're kind of going along, somebody has to answer you whether even it's a, a no or we'll get back to you later, or like we'll put you on file or some somebody has to say, so, So there is no waiting for work.
You should not be waiting. And I think that comes from working with clients that are like, there's this extreme immediacy to their, to their cycle of work. You don't wanna be aligned with that. You wanna be aligned with the people that are thinking ahead. And that comes from you marketing, learning how to connect with people in your niche, learning how to like, figure out what's going on, what types of companies to go after.
All that good stuff. So the holiday season, you may have less work or you may have a ton of work, but there is no waiting. So I know some people get really busy October through December, uh, because of their niche. Like their niche runs a lot of promos or sales, or they need a lot of help with, uh, brochure copy or, um, there's a lot of things that just happen in their niche that usually happen in the last quarter of the year.
So they're filled with work and some people, like everybody kind of shuts it. So it, it really depends on what niche you're in, but there's always work available. Like, don't forget that there is somebody out there who needs you to help them. Always, always, always. Um, so do not wait for work. Do your marketing, make your connections.
Get out there and remember that the plant, uh, the plants, the seeds you plant now are the ones that will bloom next year or that will bloom in November and give you work next year. That's really important. Let's talk about three people. Where's three? Also, we're gonna do a little creeper action. Okay?
3) What to think about over the next four to six months in your freelance writing biz, including how to be proactive so you can have an amazing end of 2022 and start of 2023
Everybody's sleeping. Everybody's, This is good cuz now I actually get to get through the material while they sleep. Okay? So the third thing, number three that we're talking about is what to think about over the next four to six months. So we wanna be proactive, right? We wanna be proactive to end our 2022 and start our 2023 off really.
So what are the things that you can do in your business to be proactive? I've already mentioned a bunch, but there are niche specific things and there are things that you know about your clients or things that you know about working in your niches that you should be active in. So when you're thinking about the next four to six months, you should be planning out your work schedule.
Like what does that look like? How many deadlines do you have over the next four to six months? How much money is coming in over the next four to six? How many li uh, how long is your list of companies? Like, I always do this with my students is like, you have to make a list. This is the easiest way to get your marketing done really quickly.
Have an ongoing list that you add to. So if you only have 25 companies on your list, There's a problem there. You need to go surf around and find some lists, find some companies. The ink 5,000 is out. Go look at the ink. 5,000 to grab companies off of there. Uh, make sure you're getting the right revenue.
Wages. You need that three to 10 million for startups at least, and you need five to 50 million for regular companies. But you need to be starting to think about how you can add to things that make it easier for you to connect with more companies. . So the other thing that that's helpful is to connect with thought leaders on LinkedIn and like thought leader, like, you know, you use that as your own, at your own discretion, but there are people who constantly post about your niche and what's going on, whether it's companies getting funding or companies doing layoffs or companies doing this.
Follow those people and you'll get more information. So just because a company is doing layoffs, like there's a lot of, um, like if you don't subscribe to crunch based daily, you should, There's always good information in there. Uh, that's how I find a lot of clients crunch based daily, um, is giving you information about like, Oh my gosh, like there's so many tech.
Okay. The deal here is that that's actually an opportunity when people get laid off, that work has to be done right? So we still need to help them get that work done. There are lots of opportunities to help a company, because working with freelancer is almost always nine times outta 10 cheaper than working with someone full time.
So those layoffs, although unfortunate, right? And we, you know, it's really shitty that people lose their job, right? However, For us, we have the opportunity to still help those companies create that content, get that work done, and it could be done right now when they're like trying to, you know, figure it out.
The other thing to think about is when we're thinking about the next four to six months, remember that now is when a lot of companies are setting their budget for next year. If you can send a proposal right now that gets approved for next year, you're in good shape and most of the time you can get your upfront deposit before the end of the year.
So then you get to end your year on a nice upfront deposit. So good companies are planning their budgets right now for next year. They're doing all that stuff. So, and whether that has to do with layoffs, right? They're laying people off and they're like, Now our budget is this, or they're changing their business, or they're doing.
All of the things that you can do to be proactive are really important to pay attention to right now. And you need to think four to six months out, like that's what I'm doing right. Like, I want at least three content strategy projects over the next four to six months. That means I need to be really particular about my marketing.
I need to be paying attention to what kinds of responses I'm getting. Like am I getting people interested, um, in content strategy or they more doing content marketing efforts. I need to pay attention to who's getting funding in my niche and what types of stuff they've been creating. Um, and there's a lot of stuff that we need to kind of know in the accordion effect of our business.
And the accordion effect of our business is kind of like when we are gonna take on a bunch of work, when we're not, how we're gonna, like, when we're gonna have a bunch of money when we're not. Right? Um, and it doesn't necessarily mean feast and famine, it just means like things go up and down. Right? So, Um, as we're going along, think about what you can do now to set yourself up for success for next year.
Can you pre-plan your time off? And this is something that, um, we'll talk about a little bit after this. So can you pre-plan your time off? That's what I do, is I have this big. Dry erase calendar over there and I go pre-plan my time off for the next year. So if I get an answer in November or December where someone's like, Yeah, we would love to work with you starting in February, I'd be like, Cool.
Sounds good. Also wanna let you know I'm gonna take this week off in February just as a heads up. So you keep people kind of up to date on like what you're doing and how that's like how your schedule is. Um, you're also being proactive about giving yourself rest time, cuz you could end up with a ton of.
But there's a lot of things that we wanna just pay attention to, write things down. Okay. If you start noticing different things, write them down. If you start seeing that your marketing is paying off, write that down. Kind of pay attention to like, do I really need to send 50 to 75 Lois? Or am I now filled with work that I could send 20, you know, over the next two months and still plant some seeds?
Right? All of that stuff is really, I. Um, anything that you can think about in terms of being, uh, proactive with, Um, let's see. Like, there's a lot of things that I do at the end of the year in terms of reviewing too. So if you're being proactive for the next year. You can end up doing your end of year review and that tells you a lot of stuff you need to change in your business.
So if you feel like October is a good time to do that, I usually do it in December. But if you feel like you're kind of like, Ugh, I really wanna make the last end of the year really good, do your business review. Look at the things that are really, um, like how many clients really gave you five to 10 K?
This. . Anybody who's not really in that bubble, that can be a problem. That can be someone that you may not want to continue working with because it's just like a lot of time spent, right? Because we all know that you have to learn a style, you have to learn how to do the work. You have to submit the work it has to get published, and all of that time, if it's for very little money, the investment of time is a lot, right?
So we wanna look for clients that are kind of giving. A, a reasonable bubble right of work. And then your, your end of your review will also have you, like, you should be looking at your calendar. So look at your calendar. How many calls did you have? How many appointments with potential clients? If it wasn't a ton that needs to go up, you need to look at how your income was.
Cuz I know from my business there's like certain months that it's really quiet and certain months where it's really busy. So look at that in your. Figure out the things that you wanna improve in your business. Like how do you want your 2023 to look? How much time do you want off? How many more fun projects do you wanna do?
How are you organizing your work? Are you trying to move more into complicated projects like higher up projects like case studies or white papers or eBooks, or do you wanna do more blog posts? Are you trying to move into content strategy? All of these things, mapping that out will really help you be proactive for the end of the year, the upcoming part of 2023.
That's really, I. So we kind of need to review the last, you know, what is October, Like nine months of our business, right? Cause like if you're doing it in October, you have September through January. So nine, 10 months of your business. Look through all that stuff, Find the trends, find the things that are breaking, find the things that could be optimized, right?
And a lot of times that ends up being like systems and processes where freelance writers take forever to onboard their clients. They don't use a tool like Deb Sodo to help them. They have like 85 lists in 85 places. Instead of putting them in one place, they don't have a good streamline system for marketing.
They're not using like LinkedIn to its full potential. Go look at all your stuff. Where are your pitfalls, right? And even if you wanted to do a SWAT analysis, which is strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, right? Even if you wanted to do that, like make sure that you're kind of looking at all the different things that happen as you go along.
Okay? That's really important. And make sure you're. Don't be like, Oh, I'm doing great when it's really not great. Like you need to be honest with yourself. Okay? There's times where people like it, it hurts. Like, I have done this where it hurts, to be honest, it hurts to look at it and be like, Ooh, I really screwed up on marketing.
I definitely should have done more of that. Or it hurts to be like, Oh, I made a mistake doing this and this and this. Yeah, it hurts. But if you're not honest with yourself, your business isn't gonna grow. You're building it on like a foundation of cotton candy. Okay? Don't do. . Brianna says, I'm so bad at planning vacation as a freelancer, I always end up working during my time off because I didn't plan ahead.
4) How to manage time off with marketing and your freelance writing business
How in far in advance do you let your clients know that you'll be unavailable? Brianna? Excellent question. Let's move to four, Cuz four is where we're talking about vacation, so hold on, let me go put that back. One second. Hello, Tiny Titan. Hello. All right, so here's the. I let them know as close as possible.
So like I said, if I got a client in November and they said we wanna do work in February, I would let them know immediately, like, Hey, I know you wanna do work in February, I wanna let you know ahead of time. I'm gonna be off in February as early as possible as you can let them know if it's over the course of you working is the best.
Sometimes even I make mistakes and I'm like, I thought I told them that I would be out and I. But this is why I have, um, Hi, go. This is why I have the dry erase calendar and my Apple Calendar. My Apple calendar runs my week to week. So Brianna, this was my problem. I used to work on my time off because what I would do is I would just move the time off.
I'd be like, Oh, you know, I have a deadline. I can't take the time off. I, I need to like, you know, continue working. Right? And that just doesn't work. You end up burning out. So when you're looking at your stuff, you need to treat that as real time off, as like nothing is going to happen during that time.
Okay? And this is something that really helped me. Five business days does not matter. Okay? If you take a week off, like it doesn't matter, it's five business days outta the whole year, okay? Or however many business days you take off, right? If you take a week off, it's five business days. Nobody cares. It's so short.
So treat that time as like you need that time off and in the scope of a year, it's a really small amount of time, so don't worry about it in terms of work or marketing or whatever. I let my clients know like as soon as possible. Um, and sometimes if we're like doing a bunch of deadlines or stuff, like, I let them know ahead of time.
So if I start a contract and it's for four blog posts a month, and I know I'm gonna be off at some point, I'm like, Hey, I'm gonna be off these two weeks or this time. Uh, can we front load this month so that, you know, we get all the work done. It's all handled. So basically you're just letting them know as soon as possible.
And it's non-negotiable too. You're not telling your clients like, Let me know if you really need me to answer emails or do this stuff. Like, No, no, it's non-negotiable. This is the time off. I'm letting you know ahead of time. You know, let's see if we can get the work done early so that we don't get behind.
I see you grumpy. I see you. Do you wanna be up here? No, not today, . So yeah, Brianna, you have to treat your time off as like a real thing. And you have to remember, even if you're gonna take two weeks off. So this was something that I did when I took a month off. Like I told people I would be out, I would be coming back on uh, January 18th or whatever it was, and I was like, Oh man, like everyone's gonna come back to work.
I hear you. Everyone's gonna come back to work after New Year's Eve and everyone's gonna be raring to go. And I'm gonna be so behind because I still have two weeks off and nothing happened. Nothing happened because everyone comes back to work and they're tired or you know, it's, it's slow going or whatever.
So like even if you took two weeks off, that's 10 business days. Like the world isn't gonna change. Okay? It's not a big deal. But this is why I have the two systems. This is why I have the dry erase calendar and I have my Apple cal. My dry erase calendar lets me start in January, and I do this every year.
Well, this year I need to fix that one, but every year I plan it off in my calendar, so if it is on my dry erase, I say, These are the times I'm taking off, and I put it in my Apple calendar so I know it's already blocked off and it's blocked off on my appointment calendar, so no one can book any calls or anything during that time off.
It's done in January. So all of the time, now that it's September that I've had off this year has been pre-booked in January. Okay. And then as I'm going along, I look at my schedule. So if a client says, Here's what we're doing. Look at your calendar, right? Like, tell, don't, don't get caught up in the immediacy of like, I have to tell them right now, or else, or like, Oh my gosh, I have to give them immediate answer on the call.
No, you have to think about it. You're like, lay out. Let me look at my calendar. Let me see my deadline schedule. That also means looking at your time off, like how much time, um, ahead, like are, is the, are. Let's say you work with a company for two months and then your vacation's on month three. You probably don't need to tell them.
You know, you never know if they'll renew the contract or not, but, Oh, hold on Barry. There you go buddy. But you need to at least have that planned out. So you need to treat it as real serious time off. You need to remember that a couple of business days isn't a big deal. Plan it out in two places. If you need to like plan out big picture on a dry erase calendar, it was like 15 bucks on Amazon.
Um, and then. Put it in your like weekly calendar and then let your clients know like as soon as possible, um, what the deal is. Okay. So the time off thing is really important, and this is why I recommend people like writers put their time off in their calendar at the beginning of the year because if it's in your thing at the beginning of the year, it's really a lot more difficult to.
Feel the pressure of a client saying like, answer some emails or do some work. It's already been pre-planned in advanced. You're already kind of looking forward to it. You've scheduled other things around it. There's so many other things that kind of happen. That one client asking for something, you're like, No, I have time off.
Like I let you know. And it's a lot harder to break into that once you've already done it so far in advance. So I think if you do it way in advance, like January plan all out for the year, I think that really helps a. So time off when we're doing our time off. Plan that out, right? So hold on. Yes. Hello. Go back to your haa hole.
You sa sas. Go back to your haa hole. There we go. You lost your blanket. Now you can't be a blanket Sherpa. All right, Ready? There you go. All right for you. Good job Charlotte. Maybe someday we'll be able to show 'em our new, our new tricks. Good job. Other one other. Other one. Good job. Why do you look so fuzzy today?
Bear, you look great. Your eyes leaking a little bit, but you're doing your best. And I. Good job. Other one. Good girl. Good job. Oh my goodness. Little those jealous . Nope. You go back to your ho hole. Cause all you wanna do is stand on my feet and tell, Tell me that you should get more. Go back to your haa hole.
Go back to your haa hole. Go back to your haa. Ha a hole. All right. Go hang out in your HOA hole. . Good girl. You guys like, every time we do this, you guys just love to not sit on the Oh thing. There you go. Yeah. I thought, No, you can't eat a big one. Big girl. Good job. All right. Brianna says thank you. I'll be getting a whiteboard.
Yeah, so it. So it's just, um, I'll put the link down there. I'll go find the link and I'll go put it in the description of the thing I have. Um, but it's just like this, it was like 15 bucks. It's like this little thin, like, um, this little like dry erase calendar so that you, you know, you just erase it every year and start over.
But it really helps you plan it out. And remember, like your time off is really important to you being creative and being able to write good copy. Not burnout. So when you're planning your time off, so ideally for holiday time, November, December, January, you should have already planned this out. Ideally, you should already know how much time you're taking for however many holidays you celebrate or how much time off you want, right?
If you have it, do it now. . So Brianna, if you haven't do it now. Plan your holiday time off now don't wait till the last second because there will be people, there are always people at the last second that are like, Will you do this work? And you're like, Oh my God, I'm so tired right now. I need the time off.
So do it now. Book your time off for November, December January, or however many holidays you're celebrating over the next few months. Book it off now and then when you get pressured, right? Cuz there are, there's always clients that will pressure you being like, I need it. Like, you can either decide that you really wanna break into your time off, which is not good, but if you did, um, you can do that.
But it's already pre-planned off. The other thing to remember, go back to your h ahold, you're a sas. Being, you're a sas speed, you're a SAS being the last thing. Uh, the other thing to remember is that, did I already give? Your client's problems are not your problems. So if your client comes to you and they're like, I need it now, and you already have time off scheduled, that's like you're doing your best and you need time off.
So if you've already told them ahead of time, if you've already pre-planned your time off, like stick to that. That's part of integrity of running your business. So don't make even, especially new clients who like you don't know yet and don't have a relationship. If they're coming to you and like asking you to fix their own bad planning problems, that's not a new thing.
That will continue on. That's not a holiday thing, so, Oh, did you find it cool? Yeah, this is it. So I'll put it in the description, , but if you go to this random link, if, if you wanna like, I don't know, I don't think you can copy it from the tag, but here it is, , um, I'll put it in the description. But, um, that's the calendar I use.
It's like you just post it on your wall, get some dry erase markers, but yeah, don't make your clients' problems. Your problems. And the last thing I'm gonna say is that if you do wanna make extra money over the holidays and you do wanna kind of get some work done, yes. You could say yes to some quick stuff and some sorry, projects that you wouldn't normally say yes to, but.
That is with the caveat that you have time off, that you've already pre-planned, that you've already been planning your seeds with marketing, that you've already done your irons in the fire. That you've already already already, okay. This is like you just kind of wanna do a fun project. You might want a little extra money, you might wanna do a few things, but it's not this ultra pressurized, like you have to do it now or else.
Okay. That's really important. Your time off. Like your time off is really important to you. Keeping going. As someone who has burned out a couple times, I can tell you it's really important to pre-plan this stuff. Take the time off. Um, don't let your client's problems become your problems and really think about things ahead of time.
Like the way you get a stronger business is that you're thinking further ahead and it makes it so that you don't make poor decisions in the, in the present. You actually have things planned out. So it's like, Yeah, I already have this. Like, I could do that or I could do that. It gives you more freedom. To kind of think about how you want your schedule and how you want things to go.
Yes. Hello. Would you like to say hello to the people you wanna come up here? She's like, Don't pick me up. here. Squeaky come. Squeaky. All squeaky. All right, well, you have to go back to your haa hole. Go back to your haa hole
beep. Good job, Barry. Yes. All right, Charlie, show everybody your skills. Good. Good girl. Good job. Good girl. Oh my gosh. What? You're so fluffy today. Good job, guys. Good job. Oh, I got a, Oh, Charlotte, you really drooled on me. Oh my goodness. Charlotte definitely recommends getting as many holiday treats as you can.
Make sure you get all the trios that you can fit, that you can get. All right, so here's what I wanna leave everybody with. Those were kind of my main points. Um, but the deal is pre plan, okay? You are thinking three to six months ahead. You need to do marketing now. People answer emails every day of the year, all the time.
Don't forget that taking a few days off five business days. Go away. A little notification. Taking five business days off, or 10 business days off, it does not matter. In the course of the year, notify your clients as early as you can about your time off. And if you need extra time off or you need something over the holidays, like, don't make your prob your client's problems, your problems.
Notify your clients that you're gonna take this time off. And if you need extra time, just tell them like, Hey, I, I, you know, it turns out I'm gonna take this time off too. Let, like, let's figure out how we can get this work done ahead of time or change our schedule a. So your good clients should be able to work with you.
Um, and you wanna make sure you're remembering that you're planting the seeds now for end of the year and for January for the beginning of next year. So irons in the fire, planting the seeds. Um, I think those are kind of the main points. So even if you're, even if you get busy with work, remember to plant those seeds, cuz they usually come out in like January, February of next.
So even if you're busy, send five or 10 Lois. Just get it done. Add to your client, like add to your, um, potential client list that you're gonna use for marketing. Make sure you cut it down by revenue. There are lots of lists that come out at the end of the year for you to look for clients in your niche.
So look for all those lists. There are end of the year conferences that you can use to go find lists of conference attendees or um, people who sponsored the conference and you could send Lois to them to look for that. . All right. Yes. SAS being, if you feel like this was helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you want to learn more about building a hiring freelance writing business, or building a freelance writing business, you adore subscribe.
Yes. SAS being What is going on? We're gonna do one, SAS being update, and then we're gonna hop off. Cuz you're being a SAS being, I would pick you up, but you're being, You're being wild. Can you go back to your hoba hole? Now you have to go back to your HOA hole. You know how this works, Charlotte? We've been here long.
Good job, Barry. I know Barry, your vision's not great today. It's okay. We're close enough. Whoop. All right. How many can we do before you try to, Oh, it's only four, five.
Sorry. Okay, well we got to five. That was pretty good. Here you go, buddy. Good job. All right. Ready? That's another one.
Why are you looking at bear? Are you looking for bits? Oh my gosh. You wild being. Wild beam. All right, so I hope that this was helpful. I hope that we went over all the stuff that you've been thinking about for end of year marketing. Stuff to think about in terms of analyzing your business, having time off, planning ahead, getting all your stuff together.
I definitely, I know this sounds crazy, but the physical calendar plus your day to day digital calendar, I feel like that works so well because when I look at my ICO or my Apple Calendar or whatever it's called now, , when I look at. , um, that helps me day by day, week by week, and it's really easy to get caught up in deadlines and client responsibilities and calls and all that other stuff.
When I have the physical dry erase calendar, which is over there, that helps me stay on track with like, Oh yeah, it's March. I'm taking time off in a couple weeks. Oh, I need to remember that. That helps me plan further ahead. Right. And I also have the calendar up in my little office headquarters area where I look at it all the.
Raquel says, Hi, Raquel. Welcome . Raquel says, Such great advice. I definitely need to start actually putting vacation dates in my calendar rather than just waiting until I'm free to rest. Yes. Don't do that. . Don't do that. Raquel, you okay? Remind yourself that you're working hard. Okay? You're working hard and you deserve time off.
Okay? Or even if you're like, Feeling lackluster about it, right? You can still take time off and yes, you need to put it in your calendar because if you don't, you will do what I did, which is where you're just like, I'll just move it a week. And then it just gets erased. Like you just stop moving. After two months, you stop moving that vacation, you know, off your calendar.
Um, so yeah, put it in the calendar. Treat it as like a true sacred time that other people are not allowed to impede. That's really important. All right. I'm glad that this was helpful. I'm glad that we went through all this stuff now because now is the time to implement it and do it. I will put the link to my dry erase calendar below, even though we had it up here, which I'm pretty sure you can't click, but.
I'll put it in the description so everybody can see it. And, um, good luck with all the marketing. Do it now. Plant the seeds, get the connections, plan your time off, put it all into place. Okay. All right. I hope everybody has good Friday. I hope this was helpful and uh, I'll see you next Friday. Bye.
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