Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

I hope you've had a great two weeks. I'm back from sipping cocktails on a Greek beach and I'm pumped for everything I've got coming up over the next couple of months (except, obviously, reinstating the bathroom ceiling which still isn't up).

P.S. This week on LinkedIn, I spoke a bit about how I went from 0-10,000 followers over the past two years. See it here.

ALSO.

I'm doing a fireside freelance chat with Sarah Greensonbach, Stacy Corneau, and Jenny Gritters next Tuesday. We'll be hanging out and chatting all things freelancing. Join us!

Anyway, here's what I've been up to this week work-wise:

👉 I wrote 5 pieces for clients (including Salsify, EmailToolTester, and Experlogix)

👉 I refreshed 1 piece for Shopify

👉 I had a monthly meetup with a group of fellow freelancers

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~22

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~2

💰 Total revenue this week: £4,620

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Check out my three practical courses that have helped 500+ people get more clients, earn more money, and create better content.

Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

Sometimes pitching plain old sucks. It just does.

No one likes reaching out cold to prospects and basically begging them to work with you (this is why I always recommend warm pitching over cold pitching).

But it’s often the only way to get in front of potential clients until you’ve built a presence online and have some legs in your industry. It’s par for the course for the vast majority of freelancers (not everyone, of course, there are always exceptions). But most freelancers will, at some point in their career, send a pitch.

I used to labour over EVERY SINGLE word I put in a pitch. I’d re-read, edit, and re-write over and over again until it was taking hours to send one pitch. It wasn’t a good use of my time, and I’d often not get a response regardless of how much blood, sweat, and tears I’d put into it.

When I tell you I’ve tried a LOT of different formulas and pitch structures, I mean a LOT. I’ve tried everything from short, sharp “do you wanna work with me’s?” to lengthy, highly-personalised pitches that took me the same amount of time to write as a full-on blog post.

But there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past 10 years. Pitching never gets easier, but it DOES get less soul-destroying. And, the more pitches you send, the more insight you’ll have into what does and doesn’t work for YOU.

Because, look. There are so many people out there saying you should write THIS EXACT PITCH. But that pitch might not work for the clients you want to reach.

This is why in Pitch & Prosper (remember you get £20 off as a Friday Freelance Tips subscriber!), I show you how to find your USP and how to explain that in your pitches to potential clients. There are templates you can pull from, but a large part of successfully pitching is finding what works for you.

Despite switching up my pitch over the years, there are always five core elements I try and include in every single pitch. The way I include them might vary, but you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll be evident in each pitch I send.

The recipient’s name

If I had a pound for every time I got an email addressed to “Dear Sir/Madam”, I’d be rich. I’d also be rich if I had a pound for every time I immediately binned an email that started that way.

Always remember another human being is on the end of your pitch. If you wouldn’t say “Hi Sir/Madam” in real life, then don’t include it in an email. It’s really that simple.

Tip: To find the name of the person you need to contact, use LinkedIn to search for [role] + [company].

A unique connection

I never completely cold pitch. Well, very rarely anyway. I think it’s far more productive to create connections first and lean into our wider networks. So, I always try and include something that’s unique to mine and that person’s relationship. It might be a colleague we have in common, an event we attended, or something else.

Exactly what I do

I know it’s fun to be creative with your job title, but you have literal seconds to get a prospect’s interest. If they’re confused about what you actually do, there’s a very, very slim chance you’ll get a response.

There’s nothing wrong with saying “I write blog posts for SaaS companies” or “I design email campaigns for sustainable ecommerce brands”.

Tip: if you’re struggling to figure out what it is you do (and sometimes it’s hard to put it into words!), do the “what does that mean?” task. Once you’ve written a sentence, ask yourself “what does that mean?” and keep going until you have a sharp, straightforward one-liner.

Extra value

A lot of pitches make it all about the freelancer—but the prospect is going to be looking at what’s in it for them. The extra value here doesn’t have to be something crazy, it can simply be “I’m offering three clients 10% if they book in the next month” or “I’ve done some quick keyword research and found some content gaps between you and [competitor]”.

Social proof and past work

There’s nothing more powerful than a recommendation. But when we’re reaching out to new prospects who may or may not have heard about us and our work, we need to get creative with this. I always include a link to my testimonials and up to three relevant samples.

Note the word relevant here. I’m a big advocate of not linking directly to your portfolio because this adds an extra step to the prospect’s plate. They need to click through to your portfolio and THEN find relevant pieces themselves. If you’ve got a lot of pieces, that can be pretty time-intensive.

Instead, pick 2-3 super-relevant pieces and link directly to them. Even better if you can explain why these pieces are relevant.

​See what this full template looks like here.

We need more Freelance Money Diaries entries!

I'm in awe of how many people have been open enough to share their freelance finances with us, but to continue the series we need more submissions.

Just a reminder that you can do this anonymously if you prefer :)

I appreciate every single one of you and I want to continue my mission of financial transparency in the freelance world. Can you help?

As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

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