A Slice of Heather’s Best: Freelance Copywriting

Greetings and welcome back!

Today we’re introducing a new feature to the blog, highlighting the “best of Heather” under various themes. Today’s theme is small business freelance copywriting.

If you’ve been following Heather’s blog posts, then you know that she often discusses the challenges facing the small business freelance copywriter. Digging into her own experience and sharing her own stories – good, bad, and everything in between – Heather helps us gain a perspective on our own struggles, offers counsel and practical advice to help us through them, and joins us in celebrating our triumphs. And perhaps most importantly, she reminds us that we are not alone.

Enjoy this collection of five posts penned by Heather, on small business freelance copywriting:

1) Surviving the business dark times

Heather shares her own experience with those dark times, where the money isn’t flowing despite your investment of mondo hours, and you’re wondering whether you should just close up shop. Noting that “running a business – like everything else – is cyclical,” Heather defines specific strategies for surviving the business dark times, and encourages struggling business owners to hold true to their passion and to their dream, because like all things, the dark times do pass.

2) Does your online writing business own you?

Starting off with her own confession of laughing at those headlines that scream, “Imagine the freedom you’ll have being your own boss!” Heather discusses the common freelance copywriter’s conundrum: rather than owning a business, it quickly turns into the business owning you. Here she shares specific ways to break free of being a slave to your own creation and reclaim your life.

3) How a personal crisis shaped my business

In a very intimate post, Heather discloses how a personal tragedy shaped her business, SuccessWorks, when it was barely two years old and SEO copywriting was a brand new concept. In a state of grieving, “psychologically comatose,” and deeply in debt, Heather had to “suck it up” to keep her business running. Here, she shares the lessons she learned from this awful experience, which shaped her business “more than any book, conversation, or mentor” could.

4) How to kick adversity’s ass

Noting that “adversity is one of life’s constants, like death and taxes,” Heather talks about how paradoxically, her most successful times have proven to be the direct result of “crappy things happening.” Understanding that there may be times that you’d rather give up than fight when adversity is weighing down your world, she shares ways she found to deal with it – and ultimately kick its adverse ass.

5) How to conquer career burnout

Sometimes, building a successful freelance writing business or becoming an in-demand employee can be a double-edged sword. The experience of achieving mastery may eventually bring on boredom, dread, and a feeling of being trapped. Heather relates her own experience with surviving career burnout, and notes those warning signs that you’re approaching “the big crash.”

photo thanks to psd (Paul Downey)