What Can You Take From Valentine’s Day As A Freelance Writer?

By Dan Smith

Yesterday was supposedly the most romantic day of the year (at least if you’re in a relationship!) and people all around the world will have bought their loved ones cards and gifts to reiterate just how much they love them.

I always like to compare freelance writing to aspects in life that people can relate to and so seeing yesterday’s Valentine’s Day as the perfect opportunity, the following explains what you can take from Valentine’s Day as a freelance writer.

Be sure you know what they want

I know my Better Half extremely well. I know what she likes and what she doesn’t like. I know what things put a smile on her face and what things don’t.

Therefore, on Valentine’s Day, I always tend to surprise her, as she loves surprises and I always try to be as romantic as possible, as she loves it when I make loved up gestures.

With freelance writing clients, you need to treat them in exactly the same respect — get to know them, understand what it is that they exactly want and be certain that every single time you work with them, you deliver what they expect.

Never be late

My timekeeping isn’t the best, but there are certain times throughout the year when I categorically will not be late and they’re giving presents on birthday’s, Christmas and Valentine’s Day.

There’s something not quite as special about receiving a gift even a day late, no matter how good it is and when it comes to your freelance writing clients, irrelevant of how fantastic the piece you’ve delivered is, if it’s late, it will always be tainted.

Of course, this tainted view of the work will fade and it’s highly likely your client will choose to work with you again — but they’re unlikely to forget that you once delivered work past the deadline.

Quality over quantity. Always.

We were away for Valentine’s Day this year, so it was difficult to give my Better Half a bouquet of roses or a big box of chocolates. However, I did get her a card and wrote a poem inside and in the circumstances, the quality of this present was perfect (and that’s not me saying that!).

We might talk about this again and again, but you should always aim to deliver quality over quantity every single time when it comes to your freelance writing career.

Remember, it’s not just your relationship with an individual client that could be impacted upon, but if you’re delivering poor quality work on a continual basis, chances are word will soon spread that you’re poor at delivering quality work.

Valentine’s Day is one of those days that people either love or hate, but like most other events throughout the year, whether you like it or not, we can always learn something from it.

Image: Michael Scott (Flickr)