I’ve been a freelance writer for English businesses for over a year now.

During most of that time, I set up my title on my website and social media pages as a freelance writer.

No specific niche. No unique title.

Just another “freelance writer”.

I had an employee mindset that made me underestimate my value and beg for writing jobs vs offer them.

The more cold pitches I sent, the more discouraged I got.

I barely got any responses, and if I got any, they’re usually “no thanks” emails.

Until…

I made the switch I needed.

I transitioned from an employee mentality to a business owner mentality.

I started representing myself as someone who drives sales, rather than writes blog posts.

I offered more value and began presenting everything professionally .

This change has dramatically increased my response rate and has helped me land new, well-paying clients from my cold pitches.

Thanks to this switch, I’ve been – and I’m still – in talks with tens of clients, and have recently landed a $1600 gig for conducting keyword research and writing 9000 words of blog content split to eight posts. See the screenshots:

Now you might be wondering, “How do I position myself?”

It’s simple: pick up which services you’ll provide (blog content, ebooks, SEO strategy, sales letters, content calendars, etc.), choose what type of businesses you’ll work for (by niche, revenue, etc.), then position yourself as an expert in your area.

Before we dive in, you’ll first want to set up a LinkedIn account and learn some basic techniques such as how to write a successful LinkedIn pitch, how to bulletproof your LinkedIn marketing presence, etc.

Without further ado, let us dig into the practical steps I followed to land this $1600 contract.

Step #1: Cold Pitching

Cold pitching via LinkedIn has been the most effective, yet easiest marketing method I used for my freelance writing business.

LinkedIn is a holy grail of writing clients. If you cannot find your target company’s contact information, you can always search their name on LinkedIn to have a list full of all workers in almost any business – with whom you can connect very easily.

Along with these advantages, LinkedIn’s well-crafted website design boosts my appetite and encourages me to spend more time marketing my services – unlike email.

To get started, I’ve connected with hundreds of professionals in companies in my sphere eand sent most of them the following welcome message:

While this usually doesn’t get me any responses, it can drive prospective clients’ attention to my business – which might eventually lead to a lucrative gig.

Alternatively, when I connect with individuals I aim to work with (likely CEOs, Founders, Marketing Managers, and Heads of Content), I send them a LinkedIn pitch that involves quite a bit of research on their company and some persuasion. Here is the pitch that landed me this $1,600 contract:

Hello {insert client name},

I’ve been using {insert company name}’s online courses for about two years now, and I really love their {insert advantages of their product}.

I used your courses to {insert what their product helped you with}.

I’ve recently noticed that you’ve a blog – which hasn’t been active recently. And I’d love to bring it back to life.

I’ve put together a few possible topics below that I think would be really compelling to your audience and will help you rank well for a few keywords on Google.

1. Blog post idea #1

2. Blog post idea #2

3. Blog post idea #3

If you’d like to check out my previously published posts, I’ve listed several relevant examples of my work below:

1. Sample #1

2. Sample #2

If one of those headlines stands out to you, I’d be happy to send a full outline so you can verify I have the supporting information to deliver a well-rounded article.

Thanks for your time and consideration,

{Your Name}

Of course, you can always tweak the template I used above based on what you offer and what your prospective clients look for.

WriteWorldwide co-founder Richard Rowlands advises sending a well-written, one-size-fits-all message to prospects on LinkedIn. While this will probably get you fewer responses, it surely will allow you to send more pitches in less time.

Step #2: Set Up a Consultation Call

Although many do not dare to talk in-voice with prospective clients, cold calls are proven to be more influential and effective given their tendency to be real-life interactions compared to text conversations.

Even if you’ve never had any consultation calls or meetings, I highly recommend taking the leap and talking audio with your prospects. Because trust me, it probably will convert into a new writing contract.

If you’re an ESL writer and you’re worried about your accent or language, I highly recommend reading my recent post on how to cold call when English is your second language.

For the call, you’ll need to come up with a cold calling script and prepare a call-to-action to end the call with. It will consist of asking your client to sign a contract, review a proposal, pay an invoice, or any other action you can hook them with during or after the call. Otherwise, you will risk losing their attention or wasting tons of time following up.

Step #3: Send a Proposal

Based on my client’s needs, I used Qwilr to create a custom proposal that will suit their business and budget, and match my rates and requirements.

If you don’t know how to create your proposal, I recommend tweaking Qwilr’s pre-made templates in your account dashboard.

If you want to do it my way, take a few hours to write a persuasive, good-looking, and short proposal template that will include your services, packages, and pricing in three separate sections, along with an introduction and conclusion.

This will enable you only to take a few minutes to create your proposals, as you already have a template in place.

Proposals also enable you to shorten or skip the discussion and negotiation part and quickly close the deal with your client.

Fortunately, my client has directly chosen a package after reading the proposal.

And the rest is history.

Conclusion

Using the steps above, I’ve been able to land this potentially long-term $1,600 gig after only two weeks of starting to use LinkedIn for marketing my services.

Here are a few messages from prospective clients in the pipeline after only one month of cold pitching using LinkedIn:

See?

In fact, I have only sent less than 30 pitches via LinkedIn and now have more than five clients interested in my services.

All you need is to take action and play it smart, not hard.

What’s your excuse?

Share any ideas or questions you have in the comments below. I’ll be happy to join in the discussion.