The professional danger of being an introverted freelancer 03rd, 2020

Being a freelance copywriter is often less about your “copy skills” and more about your ability to network and make friends.

Case in point:

Yesterday I was on a call with voice specialist and direct-response celebrity Susan Berkley who hired me to write some of her emails.

Even if you’ve never heard of Susan, chances are you’ve heard her speak.

Because she’s the signature voice of AT&T and is the voice you hear whenever you call Citibank. She’s also done work with Google, Sears, Home Depot, Agora Financial, and was even a cast member on Howard Stern.

So she’s kinda a big deal.

She’s also a consummate extravert. And when I asked her if she had any horror stories from hiring copywriters (a question I ask on all my sales calls) she told me something that made me lol.

She told me that while she didn’t have any horror stories from hiring freelancers, she did have some horror stories from talking to them on the phone.

She told me (and this is what made me laugh) that some of my colleagues are “sociopathic”.

Now obviously she was just being silly.

But she does bring up a good point. Which is that lots of copywriters are anxiety-ridden wallflowers who, while near poetic at the keyboard, struggle to hook up their vocal cords to make any sort of enjoyable, engaging, or even human-sounding conversation.

It’s why copywriting seminars are second only to Comic Con in the amount of dorky awkwardness you will see.

The problem is, to get clients you have to put yourself out there. Whether that’s networking and meeting new people, reaching out to contacts and staying in touch, or marketing yourself on podcasts and the like.

Either way, you have to be ok with being in the spotlight, and you have to be even more ok with being told ‘no’.

And don't worry if that doesn't come naturally to you.

It didn't come naturally to me.

Anyway, I share a lot of tips like this on my email list. If you'd like to join and come along for the ride, just head here:

https://www.copybymccune.com

Tyler McCune