It’s OK if You’re Not an Expert
Credit: Novic on Photodune
As a freelance writer, you have probably created a niche around your expertise. Maybe it’s healthcare, knitting, or finance. And I bet you spend the majority of your time writing about things you know a lot about. But what happens when you are asked to write about a topic you’re not all that familiar with?
No one expects you to be an expert on every topic. However, if you truly are a professional writer, you should be able to write about anything. And tackling a topic you don’t know anything about can be a good exercise in research.
Why Doing Your Homework Leads to More Sales
I recently received a prospecting e-mail from a Tucson photographer I’ve never heard of. His message noted that I’m included in the website developers directory in this city’s Book of Lists.
If you’re not familiar with these books, they’re published by the weekly business journals in many American cities. They list the top 20 firms in various fields, but truth be told, I wasn’t nominated for such an honor. I filled out the business journal’s information form, and, lo and behold, my studio appeared in the Book of Lists a few months later.
Enough about the Book of Lists. Back to that photographer’s e-mail. He referenced his website and concluded with an invitation to contact him regarding my photography needs.
Continuing Your Education 140 Characters at a Time
You know you want to tackle that new standard for CSS you’ve been hearing about. Or, you know that you should understand how overrides enhance Joomla! extensions and templates. You’ve heard the term “MVC” or maybe “SDK” but you have no clue what they mean. Maybe you want to learn a new style of writing so you can build that personal blog. But excuses pile up, for instance: you don’t have the resources, or your current work load doesn’t give you the time, or the best excuse — you lack the brain power. And really, if a client isn’t paying for it how can you legitimize the time?
Yet, to stay current and competitive in our cutthroat freelance environment, you must keep learning the “bleeding edge” of your chosen profession, be it design, web development, programming, or writing, or something else. The challenge is to continually keep learning while working. Otherwise, with the tools of our trades changing so rapidly we can quickly get outmoded. So, how can we at least stay on “speaking terms” with new techniques and technology?
