Unfortunately, when many people become freelance writers, they fall into the pajama-dress-code mentality, which leads to being unprofessional in their business dealings. After all, when you're casual at home while you work, it's easy to feel casual in all aspects of your work.
The Internet has only compounded people's casualness. Emails are often much less formal than memos or faxes, and even some of my clients drop smiley faces at the end of their emails to me. So for freelance writers, who often work entirely online, there's one more element to combat in trying to maintain professionalism.
Even freelance writers--scratch that...especially freelance writers--need to be professional. Some clients see freelance writers as being less professional because of the nature of freelancing, so it's important to show them the professionalism is still very much a part of your work ethic.
You may work from home, but you're still working, and you're still dealing with men and woman who dress business professional and go to an office every day. That's the level you need to meet when you work with clients.
And yet, I see profiles on freelance sites that are incredibly casual. They use their pet's pictures for their profile picture, and their usernames are things like "turtleluvr316" or "princessgia."
Princess Gia? Really? That may be the image you'd like to portray in your favorite fanfic chatroom, but when you're seeking clients, it's not exactly the best idea. Since your online image is most often what you have to represent yourself, it needs to be as professional an appearance as you would be in person, should you meet with a client over lunch or for coffee. (You wouldn't wear your pajamas to meet with a client, would you?)
I spoke with a friend recently about professionalism. She works in an office that frequently uses freelance graphic designers and writers for their marketing materials, and she mentioned that a lack of initial professionalism is a red flag to their office. She said:
Generally, if they're casual when we first contact them, they're casual in their work ethic, too. We don't have time to mess around with missed deadlines or sloppy work. If they're professional when we first contact them, we're much more likely to take them seriously and work with them.
That's pretty clear, isn't it?
Blogging is another area in which freelance writers blur the line between work-at-home and pajama-dress-code mentality. We're told keeping a blog is a good way to have an online writing presence or to begin to build writing samples, but too many writers see a blog as a public navel-gazing opportunity that doubles as a writing sample.
If you're going to point to your blog as a writing sample, make sure it's the kind of writing you want used as a sample.
Let me say that again.
If you're going to point to your blogs as a writing sample, make sure it's the kind of writing you want used as a sample.
That's why I have two blogs. This one is my writing sample blog. I try to keep it professional. And while, yes, my personal life is injected into it to help round it out and show who I am as a whole person, I keep my personal stuff out of it. Instead, I have a personal blog that I use to share family/friend info, complain about situations, and be casual. I don't use my personal blog for writing samples because that's not the writing image I want to portray of myself.
How do you want potential clients to see you? You never know who might be reading your blog or your profile and look at you as a potential freelance writer for their company. And you never know who might be turned off by the picture of your new tattoo as a profile picture.
You can work from home and still be professional. You can work in your pajamas and still be professional. The important thing is to think about the image you portray online.
Treat your business as a business.
Sit at home in your comfy clogs, but keep a stiletto mentality.
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Picture source: http://workforce.fullcoll.edu/students/professionalism.htm
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