My So-Called Freelance Life - Michelle Goodman [31]
I can’t stress this enough: A personal connection or recommendation trumps applying for a gig cold every time. So before you start scouring the jobs boards and blindly applying for gigs, make sure you’ve looked in every nook and cranny of your personal and professional network.
I know this chapter covered a lot of ground, so don’t feel like you have to try every last client-hunting tactic mentioned here. When it comes to trolling for gigs, anything goes. One freelancer might be a referral whore who loves to hobnob at industry parties (guilty as charged), while the next might thrive on scouring the business pages, job boards, and discussion lists and swooping in on some of the more promising-sounding opportunities she sees.
“Seventy-five percent of my new clients come from referrals, either from existing clients or editing colleagues,” says Sherri Schultz, a freelance editor in San Francisco who’s worked solo for sixteen years. “So all the initial stress of sending out resumes and calling to follow up—or not calling to follow up because it was so nerve-racking—or stressing because I felt I should send out resumes but was putting it off—it’s pretty much a complete waste of time.”
As Sherri points out, shoulding yourself is highly overrated. If you keep striking out with Craigslist, are loath to use LinkedIn, or would rather eat a pile of paper clips than contact a creative agency, by all means skip it—especially if your dance card’s filling up fast with projects that make you swoon. Just promise me you won’t skimp on building a community of freelance comrades. Believe me, after six weeks of working solo in your skivvies, you’ll be grateful for the company, digital or otherwise.
Chapter 8
Choose Clients Wisely, Grasshopper
Don’t just tread water-cherry pick your projects
“Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step—it’s an old
business procedure.”
—Fran Lebowitz, The Observer, 1979
I’ll forever remember Mrs. Crowell, my grade school music teacher with the bleached blond hair and psychedelic neckerchiefs, for two things.
One: She pissed off my feminist mom by making all the girls in my class perform Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” complete with jazz hands, at one of those evening chorus recitals music teachers like to make children and their parents suffer through.
Two: The movie Superman had just come out, and everyone was creaming their jeans over Christopher Reeve. Apparently Mrs. Crowell had a tall, dark, and dashing brother with a cowlick who was a struggling model/actor and a dead ringer for Reeve. And apparently her brother had been second or third or perhaps two-hundredth in line for the part of ole blue tights, a fact Mrs. Crowell never missed an opportunity to share with the class. Thing is, we didn’t care.
Even as a kid, it struck me as sad that Mrs. Crowell couldn’t let go of the gig that got away (from her brother, no less). From the way she went on and on about it, I wondered if her brother had been boozing it up in some dingy hotel room for the past six months, his cowlick unsprung from lack of showering, a Chris Reeve dartboard on the wall, and the Brando line “I could have been a contender” looping in his head.
What Mrs. Crowell failed to realize is that you can’t hitch your entire creative career on one big break—or one fat failure. When you don’t get a callback, you can’t dwell on the defeat too long. And if you do land the starring role, you can’t let yourself get