Top five mistakes to avoid when pitching your freelance services

Time to read: 1 minute

Sam Howard dispenses some sage advice to would-be freelancers. Or, how to pitch a pitcher…

The Comms Crowd has been growing recently our little team has just about hit double figures and what a fab little team we are. I knew from the get go when each person got in touch that they would be a great fit for us, our culture and our clients.

But over the years I have been contacted by quite a few individuals hoping to join the gang and not all of them made such a brilliant first impression.

Here’s my top five mistakes to avoid when pitching your freelance services:

1) Telling me (in some detail) how much you hate your 9 – 5. Firstly I’m not that interested, secondly we don’t do negativity in pitches EVER, thirdly it demonstrates no commitment to freelance.

2) Telling me how  (in more detail) you can’t get any real work and you’re desperate. Freelancing is real work and desperation doesn’t smell so good.

3) Clearly not understanding what we do, who we are and who we work for. We are B2B tech ergo if you are not B2B tech it’s not a good fit, honestly. Sending me some vanilla pitch about my ‘organisation’ has me lost at organisation.

4) Not demonstrating you have the four core skills: client management, content production, media or analyst relations, social media management. The rest is neither here nor there. And by demonstrating I mean send me a link to something you’ve written, send me coverage, show me a channel that you run…

5) Taking too long to tell me anything at all – this is a pitch right?  

 Truly if you can’t pitch yourself,                                                                   how in the hell you gonna pitch our clients?                                                     (Can I get an Amen?)