How to Deal with Rejection as a Freelance Writer
Lots of people aspire to be freelance writers. They love writing, and they dream of making their own schedule and being their own boss. But they never actually start. Why? Because they’re afraid of rejection!
It’s true: when you’re a freelance writer (especially a newbie), you experience A LOT of rejection. When you’re applying to freelance writing jobs and cold pitching all the time, you’re really putting yourself in a vulnerable position. Most people will ignore you, and others will tell you no. And if you’re not used to rejection, that can sting. A lot.
The good news? You can lessen the sting of rejection by changing your perception of it. Keep reading to learn how to deal with rejection.
HOW I GOT OVER REJECTION
When I was in the early stages of my freelance writing career, I made it my mission to cold pitch five potential clients every single day. I had no prior contact with these clients. I was just sending them an email and telling them why they should hire me to write their blog posts!
As you can imagine, I did not get a whole lot of “yes”’s from this exercise. At least half of those potential clients ignored my emails, even when I followed up two or three times. The ones who did answer usually told me that they weren’t interested. But every once and a while, someone said “yes”. And it was on those “yes”’s that I was eventually able to grow my freelance writing business from $800 in the first month to $4000 in the sixth month.
However, I would have NEVER built my business if I had been too afraid of rejection to cold pitch. I’d still probably be rotting in a 9-to-5 if I hadn’t summoned some courage and got down to business.
My secret? I reframed how I thought of rejection, which gave me the courage to act despite my fear. Eventually, I lost the fear altogether.
Rejection stings, but you can’t it stop you from going after your freelance writing dreams!
REJECTION DOESN’T AFFECT YOUR WORTH
So how can you learn to deal with rejection?
First of all, realize this: rejection doesn’t affect your inherent worth as a human. You are not your work, and your work is not you. If someone says no to your cold pitch, they are saying no to your work and not YOU. One hundred “no”’s won’t diminish your worth.
You are inherently worthy, and no amount of rejection can change that.
REJECTION MEANS LESS THAN YOU THINK IT DOES
Second, just because one person says no to what you have to offer, doesn’t mean that what you have to offer is less valuable.
You do not know what is going on with this potential client. They may be struggling financially, and they’re unable to hire a freelancer. They may be too strapped for time to read your email. They may want to hire you, but they just haven’t gotten around to responding yet (I’ve received responses MONTHS after sending my cold pitch).
So, if you don’t hear back, don’t take it personally. There’s a very good chance that it has nothing to do with your portfolio or your pitch. You don’t need to massively overhaul your strategy, change your portfolio, and lower your prices just because you sent out ten cold pitches and didn’t hear back from any of them.
That being said, if you send out one hundred cold pitches and don’t hear back, you may need to take a further look at what you’re doing. If you haven’t already, read my post on how to cold pitch and download my cold pitch kit, which includes the exact templates I used to launch my freelance writing business.
Then take a look at your freelance writer portfolio and make sure that your work is high quality, error-free, and professional-looking. If you’re not sure if your portfolio is good enough, let’s talk! We can set up a coaching session to review your pitching your materials, and I’ll help you develop a portfolio that’s sure to win clients.
Need help with your freelance writing business? Set up a 1:1 coaching call with me here!
THE STING OF REJECTION FADES WITH EXPOSURE
Third: understand that with time, rejection will hurt less and less.
I feel like everyone has seen this TED Talk already, but if you haven’t, please watch it. Speaker Jia Jiang describes a personal experiment where he purposefully sought out rejection every day for 100 days. Why? To see if he could become immune to rejection. And the awesome thing is that he really did become numb to rejection.
I promise you, if you keep reaching out to potential clients and getting rejected, you will not care about rejection anymore. Immunity to rejection will help you in so many other areas of your life. You won’t be so afraid to try to befriend a coworker or ask out a date. You just won’t care anymore, because you’ll realize that rejection isn’t that bad. It’s the fear of rejection that is so bad. And once you expose yourself to enough rejection, you will lose that fear.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO COLD PITCH FOREVER
Finally, realize that you don’t have to do this forever. You only need to cold pitch to build up a book of recurring clients. Once you have those clients, you can stop cold pitching.
Honestly, you probably don’t need as many clients as you think you do. If you’re charging fair prices (for both you and your clients), providing great content, and retaining your clients, you only need about seven clients to make a decent living.
Let’s price this out. The average US salary is $31,133. To meet that salary, you’d need to make $2611 per month. If you charge $100 for weekly blog posts, you need seven clients to meet that salary goal. If you cold pitched 100 potential clients every month and only received a yes from ONE of those clients, it would take you seven months to make a full-time salary as a freelance writer.
And that’s a worst-case scenario. If your portfolio is good, you’re using an effective cold pitch template, and you’re targeting potential clients who actually need your services, your conversion rate should be much higher.
Don’t let your fear of rejection be the one thing that holds you back from making your freelance writing dreams come true! Remember that rejection isn’t a reflection of your worth, and that this phase of your freelance writing career will not last forever. Trust me, the pain of rejection is worth the freedom on the other side!