Ashley Gainer is a part-time freelance writer and editor, a full-time mom, a life-long Tar Heel, and a knitter during stolen moments. On paper, her greatest accomplishment might be building a successful freelance business as an at-home single mom in her son’s infant-to-preschool years. In reality, though, she’s more likely to tell you about the blue ribbon she won at the State Fair. When she's not writing or being "mommy," she's at parent-preneur.com teaching other parent-preneurs how to build a business around their family lives. You can find more about her at her website, or hang out on Twitter.
As you learn more and more about being a successful freelance writer, you may come across advice about displaying your client testimonials. They’re labeled as “important” for your business, but how do you actually get them? And why are they so important in the first place?
Client testimonials are important for a host of reasons. Most of these reasons boil down to things like “marketing.” Here’s what that looks like –
One of the main benefits of freelancing is the ability to set your own schedule.
You work when the hours work for you, you choose what to work on, and you manage your own commitments. With this setup comes a lot of freedom, but it can also be challenging – especially if you aren’t accustomed to this much autonomy.
Isolation is common when you’re freelancing – no more coworkers, no more water-cooler, no more guaranteed daily interaction with others. For some, it’s fine. For others, it’s torture.
Even if you’re more introverted or you tend not to need a ton of social interaction to feel ok, you do need some interaction with the outside world if you’re going to stay mentally balanced. And don’t think that the people (and animals?) living under the same roof will give you “enough” interaction, day in and day out.
As writers in this electronic environment, we run the risk of our words being republished without our permission and/or passed off as the work of someone else. The benefit of our environment, though, is that there are targeted ways of fighting back.
If your blogs are ever re-blogged elsewhere without your permission or your writing has been stolen and republished online otherwise, there are a few steps you can take without things getting too crazy.
