The Easy Way to Become a Better Marketer

If you can say “yes” to 2 questions, then you can become a better marketer and build a stable, successful freelance business. And that’s important because if you don’t market your freelance business—and do this well—you’ll struggle to succeed.

Maybe you’re already struggling. Or maybe you’re the rare freelancer who’s making a lot of money with little or no marketing.

But at some point, all freelancers will need more work and more clients—because bad things happen to good freelancers. We lose clients or get less work from clients without having done anything wrong. Projects get delayed or cancelled. Clients who say they want to work with us never hire us.

No matter how long things go well, eventually, bad things will happen and you’ll need more freelance work. That happened to me in 2016 when I lost my biggest client. This client paid me well and gave me as much work as I wanted. We had been working together for 18 years. Then a new boss took over—and decided to stop the work.

Because I knew how to market my freelance business and already had a client-focused LinkedIn profile and website, and a strong network, I got 4 new steady, high-paying clients within a few months.

Succeed by Becoming a Better Marketer

So if you want to be prepared for the inevitable ups and downs of freelancing and turn struggle into success, then you need to become a better marketer.

“I believe — and my experience coaching hundreds of leaders in hundreds of different circumstances proves — that anyone can get better at anything,” says Peter Bregman in his article in the Harvard Business Review. “But in order to get better — and in order to be coached productively — you need to honestly answer “yes” to both those questions.”

Answering “yes” to wanting to do better is easy.

But it’s much harder to be willing to do your marketing, which is uncomfortable for most freelancers. And it takes time to see the results of marketing.

If you’re like most freelancers, you never had a chance to learn about marketing. When we don’t know how to do something, it’s uncomfortable. And we all avoid things that make us uncomfortable.

Learn How to Be a Better Marketer

What holds you back from being a better marketer is not a lack of marketing knowledge.

Learning what to do and how to do it is the easy part.

10 Steps to Your Freelance Success: The Ultimate Guide will show you how to find and get steady, high-paying clients—so you can build a stable, successful freelance business. It’s based on a proven, step-by step process. And the guide has links to more content and free tools on each step.

You will need to work hard—because marketing takes time and effort. But you won’t waste your time or effort because the guide is based on what works best for freelancers.

Develop the Fearless Freelancer Mindset

What holds most freelancers back from being a better marketer is what they think. Because it’s really hard to be willing to “feel the discomfort of putting in more effort and trying new things that will feel weird and different and won’t work right away.”

To be a better marketer, you need to have a growth mindset and be determined to succeed (have grit). I call this the Fearless Freelancer mindset.

If you have a growth mindset, you believe that you can change your freelance future by learning new things, being persistent, and taking the right actions. You’ll be willing to work hard to reach your goals.

Grit is the perseverance and passion to stick with your long-term goals—like building a stable, successful freelance business—until you reach them. If you have grit, you’ll be able to keep going even when you make mistakes or don’t feel like you’re making progress.

You can develop a growth mindset and you can grow your grit.

Learn how to develop a growth mindset and grow your grit

The Superhero Power You Need to Know About: Grit

Build the Marketing Habit

Knowing how to market your freelance business and having a growth mindset and grit will help you become a better marketer. The knowledge will help you get more comfortable with marketing. The right mindset will make you more willing to try new things and work hard.

Doing things that “won’t work right away” is the last part of Bregman’s second question. Marketing doesn’t work right away. It takes time to get new clients, make more money, and build a stable, successful freelance business.

And we’re wired to do things that give us an immediate reward.

Building the marketing habit will make it easier for you to do your marketing and to wait for the results.

A habit is something you do automatically, like tying your shoelaces. When you were little, you learned how to tie your shoelaces. In the beginning, you had to really think about what you were doing. And it was hard. But the more times you tied your shoelaces, the easier it got—because tying your shoelaces became a habit.

Practicing any new habit rewires your brain. It becomes easier for you to make the right decisions and take the right actions.

If marketing becomes a habit, it will be much easier for you to do your marketing.

Learn how to build the marketing habit

The Habit that Will Make You a Freelance Success

If you want to be a better marketer, keep learning and working on your mindset and the marketing habit until you can say “yes” to these 2 questions:

“Do you want to do better?”
“Are you willing to feel the discomfort of putting in more effort and trying new things that will feel weird and different and won’t work right away?”

As Bergman says, “anyone can get better at anything.”

Learn More About How to Be a Better Marketer

Content from The Mighty Marketer

FREE TOOL: 10 Steps to Your Freelance Success: The Ultimate Guide