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According to the 2006 hit movie, The Secret, attraction marketing is an extremely simple process. There are three easy steps for chasing down your greatest dreams:
- Ask – Know what you want and ask for it – by creating a clear image of your dreams and visualizing them as being real, the universe will give you everything you could ever wish for.
- Believe- Act as though your dreams are about to come true, even if you have to trick yourself in order to do so.
- Receive – Be open and ready to receive – if you align yourself with the Universe then your dreams will come true.
Unfortunately, this system is utterly useless for freelance writers! You could sit on your butt thinking you’re the king of the world and it will never happen. You could ask to be the richest writer in your city, believe it to be true, and prepare yourself to accept – but nothing will happen unless you actually do something about your situation.
While The Secret was an inspiring movie, it doesn’t provide the tangible answers that can help you today. In the movie, even Jack Canfield talked about “imagining riches” before his book caught the eye of a publisher and went into print – but nothing would have happened if he didn’t take the previous action of actually writing a book!
In my experience, the harder you work the luckier you get! The more you put yourself out there as a freelance writer with marketing and networking, the more success you’ll see in the end.
Instead of following the ask, believe, and receive principles of The Secret – I’d recommend following a different set of rules.
Here are the Freelance Writer’s 5 Laws of Attraction – the five actions you can take right away to attract more projects, more clients, and more money…
1) Create a Website and Blog
If you’re a freelance writer and you don’t have a website and blog (or at least one), then you need to take action immediately.
Hundreds of thousands of prospects exist on the internet, it’s not good enough to have a Facebook account or Elance profile page. You need more!
In order to come across as a professional, you need to set yourself up like one. Your blog will show off your personality while also showcasing your writing ability and your website will provide prospects with a place to find out more about your services. These are must-haves for any freelance writer.
2) Participate on Bidding Sites
The easiest kind of writing project to obtain comes from people that are already looking for a writer.
If you know local companies that actively use freelance writers, submit a proposal or request an interview. If not – hit up the bidding sites (click here for a list – look under “job postings”).
Bidding sites provide a valuable opportunity to establish new relationships with people that hire freelance writers. However, if you take yourself seriously and want to make it in this business, do not try to win on price…it won’t pay off in the end.
3) Create a Sales Letter For Your Services
You’re a writer, so why don’t you use your skills to convince prospects to work with you? As writers, we use our strengths every day to help our clients make a fortune – but how often do we use our writing for ourselves?
By creating a sales letter that can be distributed to key prospects by direct mail or online landing pages, you can attract a lot of work. For a complete blueprint for creating a successful direct-mail package, see Pete Savage’s eBook, $64,000 Direct Mail Self-Promotion Package.
4) Network Online
Before people buy your services, they want to know, like, and trust you. So how does this happen? By building relationships!
You don’t need to meet people face-to-face to get to know them – the internet has plenty of venues for interaction. Blogs and forums are two of the biggest online hangouts for freelance writers, marketers, and prospects!
You already know the blogs I recommend…so here are a few forums to add to that list: Digital Point, The Warrior Forum, CopywritersBoard, and SitePoint.
5) Network Locally
One mistake many web-based freelancers make far too often is to hide behind their keyboards. While I don’t recommend convincing local businesses to use your services if they don’t outsource or even understand the idea, I do recommend building local relationships.
I’ve chosen to have 20% of my clientele based locally; not only do they provide a consistent flow of work, but they also provide me with a chance to get out of the house during my work day.
Instead of sitting around and begging for the universe to give you what you want, get off your butt and chase your dreams! By constantly dedicating yourself to meeting new people, providing quality work, and developing your expertise you’ll discover that success isn’t a secret after all.
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Hello, this is a great post. I agree that if you want the universe to help you make your dream come true, you must be active in pursuing it. I’ve also heard over and over again that work and clients come from building relationships. Thank you for reminding me, yet again.
Thanks Melissa -
I forgot to add one thing to the post. I was wondering if you – or anybody else – had any other “laws of attraction” for freelancers. If so, how is it important to your business?
Limiting to 5 seems unjust, surely there are hundreds of ways you can build a business from the ground.
Hey guys, I found http://www.Yaaze.com to be SUPER useful for getting freelance work quickly and easily. You can make a portfolio, interact with other members and put in availability so employers in your area or anywhere in the country can hire you directly for jobs!! It’s really perfect for freelance and short-term work.. Just wanted to share my recent discoveries with fellow freelancers
check it out!!!
Good tips that I already use.
About using bidding sites though – I’m on People per Hour and Guru and find them both to be full of badly paid projects, or even worse projects that never actually come to anything. Which are the best bidding sites to join?
Hey Neil,
With bidding sites, it’s always going to be hit and miss. Plenty of people think they can get great work for pennies, which you and I both know is not the case.
I’ve found Elance to be pretty good – but like anywhere else, you need to sort through the trash to find the treasure.
Thanks for stopping by the blog!
You’ll face serious competition on the job boards, (more so than ever with so many redundancies and people going freelance) so bare that it mind. I find it much more effective to follow the other techniques listed here.
Never put all your eggs in basket as they say
Good points Paul…the job boards are becoming increasingly difficult. At this point, I’d definitely recommend the other options – and add one more: “Ask For Referrals”.
@neil There are many sites. Personally I have used elance for coding with much success. On the other hand, I didn’t have much success at all with getafreelancer. You could always try the new startup, ArticleBuff. People have been saying it looks very promising, even though it is very new. Best of luck!
@Paul- That is absolutely true! The competition at job boards is immense. But sometimes it is a necessary evil.
@Neil – Full disclosure, I am the owner of ArticleBuff a freelance marketplace for writers. So I obviously think mine is the best. However, I have personally used elance to much success. One of the sites I have had endless problems with would be getafreelancer (could just be my luck, though.
I love the universal laws, the law of attraction being one of them. I also loved the movie The Secret, and I think you have hit the nail on the head when you offer your 5 action steps.
Without action, nothing happens, most people get stuck in procrastination and take very little action and wonder why the law of attraction is not working for them.
What results have you got using the above 5 action laws and using visualisation as well? I would be really keen to know.
Thanks
This is my first time commenting. Great post! I hope to come back and read a lot more here.
The power of positive thinking is a fantastic thing. Great post.
This is really nice. Understanding the law of attraction is easy. But using it in your life is the hard part. Its a developing process. It doesn’t happen overnight. You need to take action in order to succeed. God bless!
Great article! I love it! I learned new things with this article. Thanks for sharing this one.
Wow. Nice article. This is so true. Thanks a lot for sharing.