Freelance writing businesses fail. Take any dozen freelance writers starting out their first year of business and line them up. Half of them won’t make it through their second year of business. Half of those remaining won’t make it to year five.

It isn’t that the folks that fail aren’t talented. Many of them are amazing writers. But it takes more than the ability to string words together in a pleasing way to stay in business. It takes things like desire, tenacity and business sense.

In short, it takes something special to succeed. While the details can differ from one case to the next, over and over again there are common characteristics you’ll find among successful freelance writing business owners:

A successful freelance writing business owner is motivated by personal and family concerns.

Many folks start out as freelance writers because they want the flexibility that running a small business affords. This, in part, explains the proliferation of work-at-home moms in the business.  The other side to this is a desire to work for yourself, to not be beholden to a corporation or to a boss.

This isn’t to say that someone motivated by other things won’t be successful as a freelancer, but it’s these personal issues that tend to make the difference, rather than a desire for profits.

A successful freelance writing business owner is dedicated to the business.

To make this whole thing work, you kind of need to eat, sleep and breathe freelance writing. Yes, you have the kind of flexibility you need or want. But to be successful in the long run, you’re probably going to work more hours in a given week than an employee somewhere else. Yes, you should do what you can do work smarter and not harder, but growth and success take elbow grease.

A successful freelance writing business owner plans.

I’ve harped on this before, but it’s worth repeating: you need to have a business plan if you’re going to be successful. You need to know where you’re going, and how to get there. Your business plan will change as time goes on, but if you don’t have one at all you’ll find yourself flailing around in the ocean, tossed about by every wind that comes along.

A successful freelance writing business owner reacts quickly to change.

You need to be able to think on your feet. Change, whether it’s the loss of a client or a new trend in web writing, affects the small business much quicker than it affects larger business. You need to react quickly to make the best of new opportunities and to guard against threats to your business.

A successful freelance writing business owner projects confidence and competence.

I had an experience just yesterday that illustrates this point. My wife and I visited a local dining establishment for lunch. I ordered the Tuna Melt, which is typically a toasted tuna salad sandwich on rye with a slice of cheese (melted, of course). When the server brought the sandwich, I saw it was missing the cheese. When I asked the server whether the sandwich should have had cheese, she wasn’t sure. Minutes later, she brought out a small plate with a single slice of cheese on it. She explained that the cook (who was also the owner) forgot the cheese, but here it was if I wanted it.

Now, this wasn’t a major setback for me, but I can tell you this: the server didn’t know the menu. The owner didn’t know how to make a common, basic sandwich. The server had no clue what kinds of food she was selling. I’m not especially confident in this business. I think the odds of getting the wrong order again are pretty high, unless I order the daily special. I won’t be back.

A successful freelance writing business owner sticks to it.

In many cases, lasting those first few years as a small business are just about tenacity. Being dedicated enough to do the job and do it well, and having enough financial security to handle those famous “famine” portions of the “feast or famine cycle” is essential.

The good news, which I can tell you from personal experience, is that as time goes on there is a lot more feasting and a lot less famine. As you build up a solid client base, you get to the point where your freelance writing business is relatively safe and there’s enough work to keep the doors open.

So, I’ve talked for the past few weeks about some of the challenges facing freelance writers when it comes to disaster recover. I broke down the various dangers facing a freelance writing business into three distinct categories:

• Data Issues
• Communications
• Production

I’ve also talked about some of the things you can do to prepare for a disaster, from creating a data backup system to more effective management of your contacts and projects. If you follow the advice in those posts, you’ll give your business a good chance of surviving all but the most horrific disasters.

Today, I want to leave you with a few overriding principles to keep in mind while you’re making those preparations:

1. You can’t prepare for every disaster

There are situations you can’t anticipate. Disaster recovery is about looking at possibilities. You want to cover yourself for those situations that are most likely to occur and for those that do the most damage. You could spend years trying to identify every problem area and a solution. Don’t. You have more important things to do.

2. Learn risk assessment

In the business world, there’s an idea known as “risk assessment” that can help you when it comes to disaster recovery for your freelance business. Risk assessment is a process whereby you examine the likelihood of an event (such as a disaster), the impact of that event, and what it would take to prevent or recover from that event.

Unlikely events that don’t have a huge impact and wouldn’t take much to recover from should be identified, but not necessarily addressed. An event that is likely to happen that could completely destroy your business and can be prepared for with relative ease – that should be addressed.

Risk assessment is as much an art as it is a science, and you can’t be expected to master it right away. Still, you need to be aware of the formula and put it into practice.

3. Ignore disaster recovery at your own peril

Disaster recovery isn’t a flashy topic, I know that. But being able to pick up the pieces in rapid fashion after a disaster will do more for the long-term success of your freelance writing business than saving a few bucks at tax time. Don’t assume your business is safe just because nothing bad has happened yet, and don’t put all of your eggs into any one basket, whether it’s an Internet Service Provider, your laptop computer or a single client.

Be diligent, take the time to address the possibility of disaster, make some basic preparations and you’ll save yourself plenty of trouble in the long run.

One of the trickiest areas to handle when disaster recovery strikes your freelance writing business is the area of production. You have clients that rely on your product in order for their businesses to function and grow. If you have a client who intends to launch a website using your copy and you can’t complete the copy because of a disaster, the client may be in a world of hurt. She has to go back through the search process to try to find a writer who can do what you were going to do, and do it quick.

Fortunately, there are some ways you can help your clients out and demonstrate to them that, even in a time of crisis, you will meet their needs.

It all starts with communications, of course. As soon as is reasonably possible after a disaster, you need to assess the status of open projects and begin communicating with your clients. Let them know what’s going on, and what business impact it could have in terms of delivery.

Subcontractors

Beyond that, however, you have several options for providing your product to a customer even during a disaster. If you’re a growing freelance writing business and part of your business model includes subcontracting with other writers, you may be able to subcontract the job out. You might break even if you do it this way, or you might even lose a couple of bucks. All worth it to keep clients, I promise you.

Make sure, of course, that you let the client know about the change. Many clients want your writing, and not a close imitation. However, as long as you’re confident in your subcontractor, your client may be as well. What you don’t want to do is have the writing bounced back on complaints that the work is not the same as previous work.

Also, a disaster isn’t the time to choose a subcontractor, by the way. If you don’t have one when the disaster strikes, you need to go another route.

Referral

Another route you can go is referral. Rather than subcontracting the work to another writer, you can connect the client with another freelance writing business. This is a viable option if you don’t have an established relationship with other writers already.

The danger, of course, is that the client will like the new writer better, or that the new writer will offer to cut her rate in order to steal your client. It’s a risk, to be sure, but no riskier than not providing the product to your client.

Delay

I’ve saved the most obvious option for last, because I don’t think it’s always the best. It’s the one most freelance writers go for during a disaster. I’d suggest to you that this is, in the long run, often as detrimental as hiring out the work.

Asking a client to push back his deadline isn’t uncommon. If you don’t make a habit of doing it and the client’s business process won’t be severely impacted, you may be able to easily get the client to push back a deadline. However, if you frequently push deadlines back, you don’t want to be forced to during a crisis.

Next time, we’ll take a step back again, look at the whole disaster recovery process, and recommend some specific resources you can use to get ready for when disaster does strike.

In many ways, making sure your freelance writing business data is safe in the event of a disaster is the easiest part of disaster recovery. Really, it’s just a matter of determining a workable solution (such as an online backup subscription) and turning it on.

Today I want to look at something a little more difficult and nebulous. I want to talk about disaster recovery for your business processes and systems. By “processes and systems” I simply mean the basic day-to-day things you do to keep your business going. These activities fall into two categories: communications and production. We’ll take a look at each one individually.

Communications

Perhaps the most important aspect of disaster recovery is communication. You can always recreate data, in a worst case scenario. But if you can’t communicate with your clients after a disaster, your business is going to take a severe hit.

Simply put, your business needs a way to get information to your clients when an emergency strikes. If you’re in a car wreck and unconscious in the hospital, your client needs to know that you won’t be delivering that eBook on Thursday. If the client doesn’t know what’s going on, they may take their business elsewhere. Even if the client likes you and is understanding, once the business is gone you run the risk it will stay gone.

In this case, it’s a matter of having someone who’s familiar enough with your business to be able to identify where a given project stands and communicate with your clients when you can’t. An administrative assistant can do this, if you have one. Many freelance writers don’t, however. Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) can be a way to address this issue, as well as handle some of your other business tasks.

For other freelance writers, a spouse or other family member may be able to step in. Regardless of who is going to be handling communication in your absence, it’s worth it to take a few minutes ahead of time and brief them on your record keeping system. Provide them with access to your business email account, your contacts database and your editorial calendar. If possible, send them a weekly update to your editorial calendar so they know where exactly everything stands.

Next time, we’ll look at the production aspect of your freelance writing business and how to keep the words flowing in the event of a disaster.

When it comes to disaster recovery for a small business, there are usually two types of issues that you must address: data issues and systemic or process issues. Today, we’ll look at the first of those two, and what the freelance writing business owner can do to minimize the impact of a disaster on her business.

A freelance writing business relies heavily on electronic data. Most of this data falls into one of three categories: product, communications and financial records. Each of these types of data is critical to the continuity of your business if a disaster should strike. Let’s tackle each in turn:

Product

The freelance writing business’ product is, of course, the writing. Whether it’s ebooks, magazine articles or web copy, the text you produce is the lifeblood of your business. It’s what people come to you for, and it’s what makes you money.

When a disaster – such as a crashed hard drive – occurs and you lose your saved files, it’s akin to having a tornado hit a warehouse and wipe out all of your inventory. Depending on the kind of work you do, you could be looking at days or even weeks of rewriting material. If your hard drive crashes in the final stages of a 150-page ebook, you’re going to lose valuable time and money if you don’t have a disaster recovery plan.

The good news here is that disaster recovery for your product can be relatively simple. You might have a dedicated backup hard drive, for example, that backs up your files every night. You might instead subscribe to an online backup service. If you can manage it, I recommend the online backup service, just because the local hard drive option still leaves you in the lurch if, for example, you have a house fire.

Communications

Another key element in your freelance writing business is your communications records. Freelance writers deal with things like contracts, orders and client communications on a daily basis. If you lose all of this type of data, you wind up having to go back to your clients to try to recreate it. While most clients will understand if you say, “My house flooded and I’ve lost my records, can I fax over a second copy of this contract,” how much more impressive would it be to those clients if they know your house flooded, yet you don’t miss a beat?

For the most part, your communications are probably electronic. Here again, a backup service is probably the best way to protect this type of data. If you use an email client on your PC to POP your mail, a backup service should cover you.

However, understand that if you use an email service – such as Gmail – you’re at the mercy of that email provider. If Gmail experiences a huge data loss tomorrow, you could lose valuable client communications. You need to have confidence in your email provider. Think long and hard about what email service you choose to use for your freelance writing business. (I, for the record, am completely confident in Google today. I use Gmail for the vast majority of my communications.)

Financial records

The last type of data you need to keep tabs on in a disaster is your financial records. This includes everything from your monthly bookkeeping to your receipts for expenses. Portions of your financial records can be electronic, while portions of your financial records will be paper. The electronic portion can be handled just like your electronic communications, while the paper records deserve a few extra thoughts.

You have a couple of choices when it comes to dealing with paper financial records. One option is to eliminate paper records by scanning everything into electronic format. This can be time-consuming, but it can also save you worry (and the clutter of a physical filing system).

Another way to deal with paper financial records is to invest in secure storage. This could include a fireproof and waterproof filing cabinet, or it could include an offsite storage option, such as a safe deposit box at your bank. This method isn’t as time-consuming as scanning all of your records, but it does require regular, manual use of the secure storage. In other words, you have to take your records regularly to your safe deposit box for this method to be effective. For me, the fireproof cabinet is the way to go, but I do know some small business owners who prefer offsite storage.

Next time, we’ll take a look at disaster recovery planning for your freelance writing business’ processes and systems.

When you read about disaster recovery, you probably think less about your small freelance writing business and more about bigger companies. Indeed, most of the advice you’ll find on disaster recovery has to do with things like redundant data centers, off-site storage facilities and cross-training. There’s big money in disaster recovery planning, and the a small freelance writing business isn’t usually the target of marketing efforts.

Still, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be ready for when disaster strikes. Just ask the folks at Equipment Express.

Equipment express was a small startup founded by an Indiana man named Jeffery Ake in his garage. Ake designed some specialized way to bottle water, and he traveled the world promoting his product. Equipment Express was a small business with just a few employees.

April 2005 was the last time anyone saw Jeffery Ake. He appeared on Al Jazeera TV with two radical Islamists pointing rifles at his head. He’d been kidnapped while doing business in Iraq. He was never seen again.

After the kidnapping and disappearance, Ake’s business struggled. Without him at the helm, sales dried up. Within a year and a half, Equipment Express was more than a million bucks int he hole and the company was liquidated.

Equipment Express had no plans in place to allow their company to recover in the event that something happened to its founder and primary salesperson.

Even if your freelance writing business is just you, the story still illustrates how vulnerable your business is. One big client goes under, and you could be struggling for months. And, while you can’t plan for every kind of disaster that your business might face, there are some you can plan for.

Over the next few posts, I’ll talk a little bit about the risks facing your freelance writing business and what you can do now to help protect yourself and your family if something bad should happen.

The story of Equipment Express has a somewhat bittersweet ending. In 2007 one of the employees purchased the business’ assets and opened a new company called Liquid Packaging Solutions. They hired most of the old Equipment Express employees and opened up a new plant in Laporte, Indiana. Today, the company has around $5 million in sales annually.

One of the most important factors in determining the trajectory of your freelance writing career is how you see yourself and what you do. I’m not suggesting for a minute that positive thinking always leads to success – I’ll leave that whole concept to other folks to debate. What I am suggesting is that how you picture your work and your business will, in some part, determine what kinds of choices you make. How you talk about what you do reflects what you hope to get out of your work.

Here are two of the most common models I’ve seen freelance writers talk about over the years:

Work-at-home freelance writer

There is a whole segment of the population that labels themselves WAHMs – Work at Home Moms. This category, in my mind, actually includes more than just moms (there are dads, too) and more than just folks with kids. For whatever reason, though, there are a ton of moms who see themselves in this light. Freelance writers are only a small segment of the work-at-home population that includes everything from professional eBay-ers to in-home craft businesses.

These folks got into freelance writing for a number of different reasons. Some wanted to be able to stay home with their kids. Some live in an economically depressed area and sought out freelance writing after they couldn’t get a job locally. Work-at-home freelance writers often (but not always) consider their work a secondary source of income, one that supplements their spouse’s income.

Work-at-home freelance writers tend to see themselves as employees. They might work for a hundred different customers, but they will talk about those customers as “bosses.” If you ask a work-at-home freelance writer what his vision is for his business, he might tell you that he wants to “provide for his family,” or “make a little extra money on the side.”

Small business entrepreneur

There’s another type of freelance writer, however. This category includes folks that talk about themselves in business terms, such as “small business owner” or “entrepreneur.” They are often men (although many women I know also identify themselves this way, too). They talk about their work in terms of their business. They probably work from home, but don’t really talk about that aspect of things.

Freelance writers who see themselves this way often came into the field from another direction. They might be professionally-trained writers: English majors, or out-of-work journalists. They might be someone who started a small business doing something else and found out they could make more money copywriting than whatever it was they started doing.

This type of freelance writer tends to see herself as a businessperson or an entrepreneur. In fact, that’s how she talks about her work – in business terms, not in terms of a “job.” Customers are “clients,” not “bosses.” If you ask a small business writer what her vision is for her business, she might tell you “to grow my client base to the point where I have a steady flow of business” or even “to become the McDonalds of the freelance writing world.”

Which is better?

To be honest, I’m not sure either model is always better. For some folks in some situations, the work-at-home model is just fine. For others, an entrepreneurial approach is better. I tend to gravitate toward the second category myself, although I’ve been in the work-at-home camp too.

I do think that seeing your freelance writing business as a business has significant advantages, and is a key element of growth. However, entrepreneurs tend to lose sight of some of the reasons they started freelancing in the first place – to be able to spend time with their families.

I don’t have all the answers on this one. What do you all think?

What you’ve heard is true: you have to spend money to make money. Yes, you can get your freelance writing business started without really putting up much cash. You can do like I did, and start writing for a friend, or you can hire on to one of the larger content creation shops like Demand Studios. Both are viable, free ways to get into the freelance writing business.

However, if you want to grow your business and move into new and different types of opportunities, you need to spend some cash. Specifically, you need to spend some money on marketing. But, where do you spend it so as to get the most bang for your buck?

Here area few places you can drop some coin that will, ultimately, increase your freelance writing business income:

1. Get some business cards. I won’t go into all the merits here (click the link if you need convincing) but I will say that a business card with a quality design can bring you both attention and new business.

2. Put up a website. A website gives you a way to display your writing portfolio online, and you can direct folks to it via social media, your email tagline or even your business card. You can get web hosting for a few bucks a month. You can put up a blog on your site if you want to try to create attention or if you’re trying to break into the blog writing market, too.

3. Hire a professional designer for your website. You might have a good eye for design, but your website will look amateurish unless you hire a real professional. If you can’t afford a designer yet, do the best you can, but this should be a priority.

4. Join a freelance marketplace. Elance and Guru both come to mind. Both offer very limited “free” memberships, but putting a little bit of money into an actual membership can really pay off.

5. Educate yourself. I’ve been talking a lot about Seth Godin and Zig Ziglar lately, I know. Don’t worry, I go through phases with these sorts of things. The point is, learn what you can from marketing and sales experts, as well as from other freelance experts.

I’ve already told you how to lose your freelance writing clients. There are plenty of things you can do to tick clients off and send them packing. Unfortunately, when you do, they take their business elsewhere. There are plenty of other freelance writers waiting in the wings.

Still, not all clients that don’t come back stay away because they’re unhappy. Sometimes, you’ll work for a client with big ideas and dreams. They really like your work, and want to hire you to do a bunch of it. They’ll laud you with praise after you give it to them. After a little while, though, they stop coming back.

What happened? Sure, it could be you screwed up and don’t know it. Some clients speak with their feet instead of their lips. But, especially if the client seemed satisfied with the work, there’s probably another reason.

In many cases, they just ran out of money.

Now, you might not think there’s anything you can do about that. After all, you need the client to give you money. If they don’t have any, there’s nothing you can do for them. But, that’s only true to an extent.

Those of us who write primarily for the web usually create content that generates revenue. It may not be sales content; it might be brand-building, perhaps, or traffic generating. If that content doesn’t do its job and generate revenue, your client can’t afford to keep coming back.

Let me say that again, this time in big, bold letters so that the people skimming this article don’t miss it:

If your writing doesn’t generate revenue, your clients can’t afford to keep coming back.

Now, I’m not just talking about sales writing. If your SEO articles don’t attract search engines, if your blog posts don’t engage the reader and establish your client as an authority in their niche, or if your ebooks don’t provide real value to those that buy them, your clients won’t make money.

Yes, you need to do all of the other customer retention stuff. Meet deadlines, communicate effectively, and everything else. But at the end of the day, if your work doesn’t produce the desired results, it doesn’t do you a lot of good. Your client might feel plenty of warm fuzzies about you and give you a glowing recommendation, but they won’t give you any more cash.

Something I’ve been talking about a lot lately (and that you’ve been talking about in the comments) is this idea of treating your freelance writing business like a business. That means learning business management techniques the same as anyone else in small business. While the freelancing writing business certainly has its unique aspects, in many ways it’s not much different from a building contractor or a traveling IT guru.

So, in addition to following some of the great freelance writing blogs, you ought to have at least a few business-related blogs in your feeds. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and it intentionally leaves off those freelance-specific blogs you’re probably familiar with:

Entrepreneur Daily Dose

http://blog.entrepreneur.com/

I absolutely love Entrepreneur.com, and the Daily Dose offers quick insights into the business world. They hit on topics of real interest to freelance writing business owners, from social media to negotiating rates. Some of my favorite posts include:

How to Save Money and Draw a Crowd

Are Your Customers Talking Behind Your Back?

Negotiating in Shark-Infested Waters

Duct Tape Marketing

http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/

While short, this list of business blogs would be incomplete without at least one marketing blog. I almost went with Seth Godin here, but I’ve covered him recently.

Duct Tape Marketing is the blog of John Jantsch. Jantsch tries to deliver “simple, effective and affordable small business marketing.” More often than not, he succeeds. Here are a couple good ones:

The Simple Way to Innovate and Differentiate

The Three Natural Phases of Successful Small Business Growth

GTD Times

http://www.gtdtimes.com/

GTD Times is the blog of David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. Allen is the master of productivity, and whether or not you use his system, the tips and tricks here are amazingly useful. I am especially fond of the Live Blogging the Master Workflow Seminar series.

Some sample posts:

Live Blogging the Mastering Workflow Seminar: Are there any b…y actions on your current lists?

Looking at those monsters in the closet

So, what about you? What business-related blogs do you find useful?