It’s been a good start to the year. Maybe a little too good. Clients new and old are surfacing (or resurfacing) by the gross, and conference calls are lined up all week long.

I’m writing like the wind. I’m trying to keep it all straight in my head. And I’m going batshit.

I’m not the only one. Carson of Content done Better said:

All freelancers want to stay busy and profitable, fearing the droughts and dancing for a rain of jobs. When the deluge hits, however, we often find ourselves secretly craving afternoons when aimlessly ambling around the net passes for work.

That passage about covers it (except I aimlessly amble around rivers and lakes instead of the Internet).

Work is good. A lot of work is gratifying. But too much leads to The Dreaded Boom & Bust Cycle – the one where you’re too busy to market, then find yourself on the far side of the glut, no marketing in place, staring at a checkless future.

Beating Boom & Bust

I counsel a lot of small businesses. I tell them marketing is a process, not a project. It’s rare to solve your marketing problems with a single ad, campaign or direct mailer.

You need to regularly acquire customers – and you need to market to your customer list to maximize their value. Both require regular, ongoing marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, those are precisely the efforts that are so difficult for any self-employed person – who has a limited amount of time – to maintain.

Hence, Boom & Bust.

You can beat it today. Not by “doing something” once, but by deciding on a regular process that becomes a part of your routine.

Grasshopper and the Ant

I’m reminded of a couple writers who went freelance during the dot.com boom. They wondered out loud why they hadn’t done it before. “This is so easy” they said.

And for a short time, it was.

Clients of startups would pay almost anything – if you could get their Web site written by the end of the week. Ad agencies – who normally sought clients like hyenas seek roadkill – were interviewing clients for acceptability.

Crazy stuff. You didn’t need a marketing process. Then dot.com went dot.bomb.

Those who didn’t have a process in place suffered. One of the two writers I mentioned above produced a print newsletter, and kept acquiring clients.

The other didn’t, figuring it would always be this way. It wasn’t. One day the easy clients dried up – as did his cash flow.

The point of all this?

Things are pretty good right now. The need for content is exploding. But will they always be this way?

And if they aren’t, do you have a process in place now that’s generating business for the future? Something like my Friday Fifteen Minutes Pitch Post? Or a blog? Or?

I’d love to hear what’s worked for others during the slow times. I’ve never done a newsletter, but see them everywhere. Obviously, they work. What else?
[tags]copy, copywriter, writing, writer, marketing, freelance, newsletter[/tags]

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