5 Ways to Recession-Proof Your Freelance Writing Business
I have the immense privilege of being able to look around and say, “what recession?” these days. My bucket of client work is overflowing, and I’m having to turn down more leads than usual to keep space in my schedule for larger projects and returning clients. I also just passed $300,000 earned on the platform Upwork — not bad as this platform only accounts for about 30% of my projects these days!
I’m sharing this with you not to brag — it’s just to show you that freelancing and solopreneurship are recession-proof if your services are need-to-have, not just nice-to-have.
I’m not alone in this: my social media communities have been abuzz lately with this idea, and my upcoming newsletter edition is about this concept of solopreneurship and freelancing as a key to thriving in any economic climate.
5 Tips to Thrive in a Recession as a Freelance Writer
Tip #1: Diversify Across Industries
As a freelance writer, I offer a range of services that stem from my core skill of storytelling. I ghostwrite memoirs, create thought leadership content, and take on select copywriting assignments. While a lot of my clients work in the tech industry, I also work for more traditional entrepreneurs and influencers/content creators.
Diversifying your client base will help you if one industry takes a big hit (see: the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the tech crash right now). The more diversified you are, the busier you’ll be.
A quick word of warning about diversifying: the goal here is to diversify across industries, not skills. It’s okay to skill stack (i.e. combine related skills to offer your clients the ability to hire one Swiss army knife generalist vs. many specialists) but if you water down your skills too much, you’ll lose jobs to more talented folks. It’s a tough balance to dive deep into your core competencies while working across a few different industries or niches.
Tip #2: Identify Your Ideal Clients’ Priorities and Pain Points
What are the main pain points your ideal clients are trying to solve? How can your core services address what their needs are?
Most people dream of leaving their legacy in the form of a memoir. It’s a right of passage, an heirloom for your family, and a way to share your knowledge so that you’ll live on after you pass. However, most people who want memoirs written about them don’t have time or the skill to capture their own story, which is where I come in.
The big mistake most people make here is that they offer services around low-priority problems for their ideal clients. If you’re not getting work, consider offering a more value-add service that will make a bigger impact on your clients’ businesses.
Tip #3: Build and Maintain a Strong Personal Brand
I credit my success in part to my strong personal brand.
Why are personal brands important? It’s simple:
First impressions matter: your personal brand is your first impression on the Internet. Winning your clients’ trust is a valuable thing. To do so, you need to perfect your online “handshake” — or, how you come across to those wanting to work with you.
Your personal brand is how you express your personality. I’ve designed every inch of my website in tune with my ~ aesthetic ~ as a human. I love the sophistication of neutral colors with warm pops of organic color, I take brand photos every so often to refresh how I show up online, and I showcase my voice and ideas on this here blog. I’ve been writing on here since I was twelve, so if you’re a longtime reader, you’ve been with me every step of my journey! I love sharing my personal story because I get so much inspiration from reading about the paths of other writers. Sharing your personality will attract the right opportunities and people for you.
Personal branding sets you apart from your competition. In the sea of freelancers, very few differentiate themselves by creating and sharing their personal “brand.” By spending time on this aspect of your business, you’re already setting yourself apart from the competition by becoming a trustworthy expert with some pizzazz in your niche. And who doesn’t love a lil’ pizzazz? (Which is just 2 z’s away from pizza — America’s favorite food group!)
I’ll be writing more about personal branding on my blog, so be sure to stay tuned by subscribing to my newsletter for more.
Tip #4: Keep Your Overhead Low
The nice thing about freelancing is that you need basically $0 to get started: just a free website or profile on a freelancing platform will do!
As you become an expert freelancer, you’ll probably add things like what I have in my freelancing tech stack. These subscriptions and any other service fees (like hiring a business manager, accountant, lawyer, etc.) will start to increase your fixed costs. This isn’t a bad thing as long as all of these additions are freeing up your time and allowing you to do more of what you love.
When a recession hits, do an audit of all your subscriptions and monthly costs. I find that when I do these audits, I realize I’m paying more than I should for subscriptions I no longer need. If you’re able to keep your overhead low, you can save more of what you earn and enjoy a European vacation over the summer with no fear of what the economy might be doing during your trip!
Tip #5: Refresh Your Systems and Outreach Strategies
If your work does slow down, use this time as an opportunity to perform some business maintenance and fine-tuning:
Improve your client experience. Is there a more seamless or simple way you can onboard clients? I break down the tools I use to onboard clients in this blog post, but it’s up to you to build the tech stack that works for you.
Create better cold outreach strategies. Cold outreach is something new freelancers need to pay special attention to — expert freelancers will often have so much incoming work that cold outreach isn’t as necessary (but still nice to do every once in awhile!) What tools are out there to help you find new clients, send cold email campaigns, and automate some of the more rote parts of that process? These tools change all the time, so it’s up to you to figure out if you want to do cold outreach on platforms like LinkedIn, email, Twitter, in-person at conferences — or some combo of all of the above.
Create your second brain. I’m in the middle of building out some elaborate Notion templates for y’all that I use for my own freelance business management, as systems are essential to tracking your clients, earnings, and other critical parts of what you do. In your downtime, refine your systems so that your weeks can be less stressful. This can be as simple as keeping track of your projects and clients in a better way, or building a contact database of all your old clients.
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