my dirty little secret

I want to let you in on a dirty little secret.

When I first started freelancing, I assumed clients were paying me for my raw creativity, knowledge of grammar and the mechanics of writing, or even a clever turn of phrase. This assumption I brought with me from my graduate creative writing program, where the emphasis on originality bordered on obsession.

The last thing a poet or fiction writer wants to be was?unoriginal, or derivative.

“Yeah, she’s like Mary Oliver, only half as good. A little prosaic and plainspoken if you ask me.”

Heaven forbid the poet's influences be obvious! For shame! Revoke her pen and writing app!

The impetus to be original creates immense pressure, which in turn causes creative paralysis.

I now understand why some modern poets have reverted to more formal meter, verse, and form, such as sonnets, villanelles, and sestinas. You limit the choices available to you so that you’re not stumbling around in a free verse forest of words until you find a little grove no one has visited before.

Poetic forms are templates, and in grad school a small part of me felt relieved when I was tasked with stuffing words and ideas into a sonnet’s nooks.

I now have a similar appreciation for how templates bring order, efficiency, and sanity to my freelance business.

I do still improvise sometimes, but templates are my dirty little secret. I reach for them all the time. Let me share 3 specific examples of templates, and explain how they came to be.

1. Content Strategy & Homepage Template for Freelancer/Consultant

I was writing some web copy for a business consultant. Each of those 6 pages needed its own content strategy, but having written content for consultants’ websites before, I already had a good starting point.

Instead of reinventing the wheel for the homepage, I reached for this template:

1. Hero Section (Headline focused on main problem + qualifying copy + call to action)
2. Short Value Proposition
3. Problem(s) I Solve
4. Brag Bar (with current and/or best client logos)
5. Testimonial Tiles (which link over to full case studies)
6. Juicy Offer + Main Benefits
7. Call to Action (e.g., Start the conversation →)
8. Footer

Whenever you land a new project, ask yourself, “What do I already have I could repurpose?” You can shave off hours the project this way and generate better outcomes too.

2. Short Service Offering Page Template for Freelancer/Consultant

Three of the other pages were focused on specific service offerings, and I didn’t already have a template for them. So what did I do?

I combed through a bunch of other consultants’ sites, took note of the choices they were making with their copy, and asked myself questions:

• Which of these choices do I like?
• Which ideas or content blocks are predictable, boring, or lazy?
• Which ones strike me as strategic or fresh?

For example, some consultants list their fees for productized services on their websites. Bespoke services obviously vary in price based on scope, timeline, and other factors, but they might still list the starting price to repel price shoppers—"Engagements starting at $15,000.”

After reviewing multiple service offering pages, I synthesized my notes into 3 different templates.

One of them was on the shorter side. Two were longer, and one of those included a detailed breakdown of all the process, logistics, and price. A reader who read all the way to the end would know exactly what the service was, how much it would cost, and how the consultant would deliver it.

Here’s the short service offering template:

• Quick overview
• Bullet point list of 3 primary benefits (benefit name + short 2-3 sentence explanation)
• Agitation (Transition + 5 questions that help the reader diagnose that she has the problem)
• Belief statement to introduce solution (e.g., “Getting new customers shouldn't feel like a heavy lift.”)
• Solution statement (“If it has for you, let’s develop a working hypothesis for product-market fit and conduct the rigorous market research required to validate it.”)
• Call to action (“Start the conversation here. →”)

I think of this phase of my writing process as Ax Sharpening. Rather than start hacking away at the tree, I first sharpen my tool. That is, I develop the strategy then create the tool or template to go with it.

Ax Sharpening has 3 benefits:

1. Once I have a “sharper” tool, the actual hacking, or writing work, goes faster.
2. My choices are more defensible. When I explain to the client the rationale behind the content strategy and specific choices made during writing, I receive less pushback.
3. The templates travel with me to the next similar project and bring more efficiency, and therefore a higher effective hourly rate.

The trick is remembering to save templates like these along the way! I use GDrive and Notion for that.

3. Email Template for Requesting Client Feedback

The worst thing you can say when submitting work for review is “Let me know what you think.”

Saying “Let me know what you think” invites opinions and requests you don’t really want. Most clients aren’t experts in your craft or discipline, but that doesn’t stop them from bird-crapping uninformed opinions and ill-advised changes on your clean work.

I made that mistake multiple times with everything from writing projects to identity design to websites.

Me: “Let me know what you think about these web page mockups.”

Client: “Hey, can you make the logo bigger?”

Me (privately, later, regretting my lack of a client feedback template): “Yeah, sure, let’s do that and ruin the whole composition, and while we’re at it, let’s ignore timeless design principles and pack all the pleasing, effective negative space with chintzy clutter. You know, jazz it up a little with design knickknacks.”

If we’ve gone to all the trouble to make strategic choices, we should, when requesting feedback and getting approval, ask strategic questions that highlight our incisive thinking. We should also provide clear guidelines and help clients give meaningful feedback that actually moves the project forward and brings higher quality, not mediocrity.

Here’s the email template I now use when I’m asking for feedback on writing projects:

Hi [FIRSTNAME],

I think this turned out well: [link].

You’ll notice the content strategy outlined at the top of each page and how the specific blocks or pieces of content lead to the call to action you said was most important.

When you have a moment, give me some feedback along these lines:

• Does the content sound like you (tone, personality, word choice)?
• Now that we've got a first draft, do you notice any missing pieces, inaccuracies, or new opportunities to clarify and educate?
• Does anything on this page deserve more emphasis?

Thanks,

Austin

You can obviously go as light or dense and thorough with these feedback request templates, and this is the lighter version of mine.

As satisfying as wild, roving creativity is for freelancers, we increase our effective hourly rate through efficiency, and we increase both our efficiency and efficacy through templates and other forms of well-defined process.

Now that I’m 14 years in, my freelance library has dozens of templates and templated processes. If you’d like to add to your own, grab my Freelance Business Toolkit, which includes the following:

• 1-Page Website Content Strategy
• My 12 Go-To Follow-Up Emails
• Juicy Offers Worksheet
• 5 Critical Discovery Questions + Proposal Sections
• Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your
• Marketing Plan Template, including Step-by-Step Guide

You can get the whole toolkit, templates included, for $49 .

Finally, if I were to share more of my templates, which ones would be most valuable to you?

Hit reply and let me know.

Here are some initial ideas I had:

• Communicating with Clients (project inquiries, saying no, onboarding, project status updates, etc)
• Sales (postioning deck, questions, proposal, sales call scripts, master service agreement, et al)
• Project Management (project brief, project presentations )
• Marketing (email nurture sequence, cold email outreach templates, pitching yourself as a guest to podcast hosts, LinkedIn cheat sheet)
• Specific Projects (brand development, web copywriting, various types of copywriting, SEO-focused blogging)
• Process (how to create streamlined processes, what to document first, SOP templates)
• Misc playbooks (hiring a VA, creating your first product, time management)

Want more of a good thing?

Most of us are protective of our inboxes. I get that. I'm an aggressive unsubscriber and custom-filter-setter-upper. (?????Legal title in the state of Tennessee.)

That said, if you benefit from reading this LinkedIn newsletter, you should definitely try out my regular newsletter (delivered with the help of my friends at?ConvertKit ).

Each week, I share 3-5 of the best tools, tips, and terribly helpful things I've dug up during the week.

Short and sweet. Always on Fridays.

Give it a try .

About Austin L. Church

Hi, I'm Austin, a writer, brand consultant, and freelance coach.

I started freelancing after finishing my M.A. in Literature and getting laid off from a marketing agency. Freelancing led to mobile apps (Bright Newt), a tech startup (Closeup.fm), a children's book (Grabbling ), and a branding studio (Balernum ).?

I love teaching freelancers and consultants how to stack up specific advantages for more income, free time, and fun. My wife and I live with our wrecking balls and two cats in Knoxville, Tennessee, near the Great Smoky Mountains.

You can learn more at?FreelanceCake.com . You can also connect with me on?Twitter .