Hey everyone, I hope you are getting the most out of the lazy days of summer. We are coming up on August here and it’s time to try a technique that has been borrowed from the fitness craze: Quick bursts.

A quick burst is simply adding into your workout routine a brief period of time where you work much harder and then return to your normal activity level. If you are a walker, then you jog for 3-5 minutes. If you are a jogger, you run it. Just a quick burst of energy to amp up your workout. It gives faster results to your overall fitness plan.

This translates well into freelance writing. Let’s face it, we love the freedom of being a freelance writer, the ability to work anywhere and the few restrictions is incredible. But you don’t often enjoy the lack of a steady income. There are a large number of ways to avoid the inevitable slow periods and one of them is by using a quick burst to improve your writing income.

For the next week, use quick bursts of time to boost your bottom line. None of this takes much effort or time from your day and they are not intended to replace working. You can use the ideas as often as you like to expand your client list. But please remember to have a life along with your career.

Monday

Spend a few minutes setting up an email system that you can use to contact potential clients. The ideal system will let you contact many people at once, based on a custom list that you create.

What kind of list? Determine the target clients that you want to have. Then select a geographic region and Google your prospective clients. Find the company phone numbers and email addresses. Use the email addresses to create a client list based off of the email address you find. Here is more on direct email marketing.

For this to work, you need to spend the time to create a custom pitch to that matches your potential clients very closely. Once that is done, set your email system to send the email out at 8am on Tuesday. Tuesday is the best email-marketing day for gathering prospective clients. The best pitch to use is one that tells the client what you can do to improve their business. Do not tell them you are a great writer; they don’t care. They care about their financial bottom line so play to that.

That’s all you have to do on Monday. Keep adding to your list of email clients for later use. Then in the future all you have to do for a quick burst is to write a new pitch and send it on its way!

Tuesday

There are a couple of things for a quick burst on Tuesday. First, look for potential network possibilities. This should only take about 5 minutes of your time. You want to check Meetup.com for both freelance writing networking as well as networking opportunities within your writing specialties. Check for local community meetings such as School board and city/county council meetings. All of these are great places to meet potential clients. It’s important to do this on Tuesday so that you can make plans to attend. Most networking meetings tend to fall on Thursday nights in my local area. Once you have established when these meetings take place, add them to the calendar app on your phone. Most meetings are set up on a regular schedule so this makes it easier to track them.

Networking is very important to the freelance writer is this is the best day of the week to see what is available.

The second thing you need to do today is write a friendly Letter to the Editor note to your local newspaper. Praise some community beautification project, or other local and non- controversial project. Sign it with your name and the fact that you are a freelance writer.

I know that may sound strange. However you might be surprised at how many potential clients are behind such projects and how frequently they read those letters. This gets your name out there and, if like most freelance writers, your website is your name dot com, they can easily find you. I’ve gotten dozens of local clients doing this and it’s something I stumbled onto by accident.

Wednesday

Take a deep breath and pick up the phone. Yes, today is the day for cold calling. Most people don’t particularly enjoy this aspect of marketing but it is extremely valuable. Use the list you made on Monday and call each company. Introduce yourself, remind them that you sent them an email the day before and expand on what you can do to grow their business and increase their revenue. It’s simple and straightforward. Cold calling is valuable largely because few people bother with it anymore.

To avoid taking up much of your time during the workday, make your calls between 8-8:30 in the morning OR between 6-6:30 in the evening. This is important because as Timothy Ferriss discovered when writing The 4-hour Workweek, you get through to your target much faster if you call during this time. I suggest making your calls in the morning so you have the entire remainder of the day for other things, like the new project you just landed!

Why today? The best days of the week for cold calling are Tuesday through Thursday. Today is great because they got your email yesterday and any projects they a writer for are weighing on them and by now they know whether or not they need help. Thursday would be pushing it for a project due on Friday.

If they are in need then your call is has perfect timing. If they don’t then you can have a nice chat and you can be sure that they will remember you the next time they need help. After all, you are probably the only freelance writer they actually had a conversation with; the others just sent an email.

Thursday

By now you are getting some serious responses to your quick burst activities. So today you want to focus on social media. If you don’t already have Facebook and Twitter accounts for your freelance writing business, this is the time to set them up. You should also have a LinkedIn account. If not, set one of those up as well. Then go into the settings of LinkedIn and Twitter and set them up to update whenever you post to the associated Facebook page. Properly setting up your social media pages is extremely important; you are selling yourself. Make it look good.

PLEASE do not use your personal Facebook page for this. You do not want clients and potential clients to see the funny faces you made during your best friends wedding reception! Use your professional Facebook page for this and close your personal page to anyone but friends. If you are thinking it doesn’t matter, look at your page as though you were the client. That should do it.

With the Internet being so personally invasive, it’s important to do everything possible to keep your personal and professional lives separate. Having personal and professional Facebook and Twitter accounts is imperative. Your professional page should not have anything to give away your personal opinions about ANY political, religious or societal issues. You want to appeal to as wide a range of clients as possible and overly political pages may put off some clients.

While we are on the subject, though not directly connected, if at all possible have a separate phone number for your business. I have one cell phone and no desire for another. So when I answer my phone, which is my business number, the first thing my friends say is “are you busy?” This despite the fact I know who they are (called ID is a wonderful invention!) You need to project as professional of an image as possible. Even though you are sitting in sweats and eating Cocoa Puffs.

Once your social media websites are set up, they are incredibly easy to maintain. Most sites now have buttons on them to share articles and photos directly to Facebook and Twitter. If your new article appears in USA Today, you can easily share it with your Facebook page. Because you have set Twitter and LinkedIn to update along with Facebook, you only have to click this one button and your article is shared with all of your social media sites. It normally takes less than 5 minutes a day to keep your sites updated.

Friday

Ok we are at the end of the week. You have set up an email marketing blitz, found and attended networking opportunities, written a letter to your local paper, cold called potential clients and set up your social media sites (and are updating them!) The only thing left is to update your Freelance Writing Website.

If you tell me that you still don’t have one, I might cry. If possible, set it up as your name dot com. If you write under a pen name, use that. If you write under a company name then of course use that. You want to be easily found so don’t get cute with spellings. You are a professional; act like it. Godaddy.com has inexpensive domain name and site hosting packages, as does 1and1.com. I can personally recommend both companies as being outstanding.

If your website has already been set up, great! Now update it. Keep 6-7 sample articles on it for potential clients to examine and make sure the site is simple, pleasing to the eye and easy to navigate. Save the complicated stuff for your personal page (do people still have those?)

A couple of things to note on updating your website: First, you want to make sure that any samples you use are those that have already been sold. Once you put them on your website, you can’t sell them as unique any longer. Be certain that you have permission from the client to use them. This can be an issue with ghost writing but is rarely one where you get a byline. Always include, under the title, where the article first appeared. Make it a link to the article on the clients’ website. It’s considered good manners. If you have the option, ask the client to allow a link to your website from their article; they generally just use your name as a link. This can be great for generating new clients and I have yet to have a client refuse to do this. Many do this without you even asking. As I just said, not doing so is considered rude.

Secondly, if you don’t have a blog on your website then consider creating one. You can update it on Fridays and be a bit more creative. Plus it gives the clients some insight into you as a person. If you are using a WordPress website it’s simple to add a blog to your page. Update weekly or even daily if you feel like it, and people will be more inclined to visit your site.

That pretty much covers Friday. To be honest, updating your website and/or blog should be a weekly task with or without a quick burst. Keeping the information fresh is important.

That’s it for the week. You have now completed a week work of quick bursts and are reaping the rewards. Be sure to get some rest over the weekend because you are going to have a busy week ahead.

One last thing, you also need to get away from your desk for at least 15 minutes every day and 30 minutes would be better. Go outside and get out of your head for a bit. Taking a walk would be great but if nothing else just sit in the sun and fresh air. This will help clear your head and improve your writing. I promise.

Happy Writing!