Question: „Let’s be honest, Simone! Everyone can write. Why would I spend money on a freelancer doing this job for me? Especially if I’ve just started my business and my budget is tight.”
Answer: Sure, everyone can write. It’s also true that everyone can renovate their home, raise their kids, and clean their house. Still, there are professional painters, trained kindergarten nannies, and cleaning services.
Sometimes we need professionals because they are better at the task at hand. Sometimes we simply lack time to do the job ourselves.
Question: “Oke. So what exactly does a professional freelance writer add to the task at hand?”
Professional writing is much more than just stringing a few words together, which communicate a business idea, mission or offer. It comes with the skill to deeply understand the different target groups and communication channels.
To create concise copy for a website, substantial content for a blog, even relevant posts on social media requires experience with the different types of text, the tone of voice and overall character of the copy.
How do you want to accomplish this while running your business at the same time?
Plus, it’s an amazing asset to have someone mirror your ideas. A professional writer supports you in boiling the content down to the essence. It can go as far as having a sparrings-partner for the development of your Corporate Identity.
Nothing can be as refreshing as a change of perspective on something you thought you know in and out.
Question: „So I would engage you even if you have no clue what my business is about?“
Answer: Generally speaking, yes. There is necessarily a partiality in each business or project owner. While you burn for your mission you naturally lack the bird’s eye view to describe it quick and easy. Or in a language, the ideal client would understand.
But there are also limitations to what I would write about. A friend asked me the other day if I were interested in writing regular specialist articles on cryptocurrency. I would have loved to work with him and a bunch of former colleagues from my time in web business. But the topic is just too far out for me.
Question: “Why would I hire you exactly?”
Living abroad in a foreign culture as well as explaining foreign culture to my compatriates as a tour-guide and blogger has trained me beyond any formal education to shift perspective over and over.
The study of Eastern wisdom traditions has played an important role in that. To acquire the ability to think out of the box it really helps when you’ve actually been out of the box for some time. By this, I mean to step out of the system you’ve been brought up in, question your beliefs and routines and see the inherent validity in each concept.
Question: “Interesting. But what does that mean?”
Speaking on a more technical level my different professional endeavors make for a pretty rounded job experience.
Taking on the perspective of the ideal customer is something I used daily in the time when I added conceptual design to my portfolio. In any kind of marketing, you will always need to turn the tables to understand how you get the message through to your prospective clients.
And the craft of writing, the technical skill, I have learned from scratch in my first career. I became a journalist and editor right after school. With 18 years I had my first assignments as a freelance writer to report about concerts by the local choir or weekend events of the sports club in town.
For many years I wrote for newspapers and magazines, freelancing a little bit in public relations on the side. Some online-editing followed once the first few internet newspapers were published.
Question: „And what turns an average content or copywriter into a text artist?“
Answer: As with each craft there is a lot in writing you can learn through study and practice. Like most people would be able to cook a meal from a recipe book, many could also attain a certain proficiency in producing phrases and ordering them in neat paragraphs.
But there is something to the rhythm and tone of voice of a text and to the agility and fluidity of a professional writer that can turn the sheer compilation of words and phrases into more than just a collection of facts, arguments, and conclusions.
It’s like painting stories in the minds of your readers, crafting a piece of art with sentences and sounds, form and flavor.
„Thanks a lot for this change of perspective, Simone.“
