30-Day Marketing Challenge: Query rejections and the economy

I don't know about you, but all this financial news is bumming me out. And causing me to associate every query rejection with the Titanic-like demise of the publishing industry.

Last week, I was at my nadir. I received four rejections in a row, and I knew--just knew!--that it was a sign of the financial times. There's this little voice in my head that kept chanting, "Give it up kid--you've had a nice run, but this economy is too tough for you."

Now, you'd hardly be human if the current economy weren't making you at least a little on edge. For the anxious among us, myself included, that edginess can translate into constant worry--and worry to ascribing meaning to all kinds of things in a way that is both useless and damaging.

If you, like me, are having a hard time getting queries out--or bouncing back from rejections--because of the economic stress, don't shoulder it alone and let yourself get paralyzed.

Share the fear

I posted my concern--along the lines of, "Is anyone else taking rejections more personally in the current economy?"--to a freelancers' board to which I belong. There, I got all kinds of great encouragements ("If anyone will make it through this economy, it's you!" and "I see your byline everywhere; you'll be fine!") and reality checks.

Here's what I learned:

Rejection is less personal now than ever.
If a company doesn't have a budget, it really isn't personal if they don't accept your story idea. So if you are taking it to mean something about that company, it doesn't.

However, it may mean that you need to refocus your marketing efforts toward markets with money. Right now, I'm asking my clients as I query them if their budget is in tact for 2009. Most don't see to mind answering, and it's helping me query with more confidence.

Replace the negative with a positive mantra.
Jenny Cromie, who wrote a fabulous post on her blog, The Golden Pencil, about feeding fear or the faith in your career, encouraged me to create a mantra that can replace the "Give it up kid" one that pops in there naturally. The one she suggested went:

I know I got four query rejections yesterday, but I also have confidence in my abilities and know that these rejections probably have more to do with the economy and less to do with me. Eventually, someone is going to say "yes" so I think I'll send out four more queries today and maybe a couple of LOIs ...

The short version that I've created for myself of this is, "I accept that if I keep querying, I will get assignments."

And guess what? I did get an assignment and other editors are considering more of my queries as I write this. Querying is still a numbers game. Just because the market has changed doesn't mean that essential fact has.

It may mean the numbers will change. I'm considering upping my weekly minimum of three queries a week to higher-paying markets to four or five. I met that easily last week and am on track to do the same this week.

Turn off the news.
I've said it before. If the economy is freaking you out to the point where you interpret everything as a sign of a coming Depression, it's time to wean yourself off the CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, NPR, NYTimes.com and any other news source that transmits trauma directly to your eyeballs. Unsubscribe or skip blogfeeds that focus on job losses, etc.

Keep the focus on what you can control. The economy? That's not one of them.

Keep your expectations sane.
Every writer goes through cycles in their business: Sometimes you're so busy that you have to turn away work. Other times, you have so little work that you can devote all your time to business development. That cycle is probably going to continue in 2009. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with this market.

Here's what I know from my own experience: I earned more last year than I ever have in my journalism career. Most of it came in the last half of the year during the bailout hearings and foreclosure nightmares. If I look at my business--not the economy as a whole--I see that my business is fine.

Take a look at yours and look to see if you have real cause for alarm or if you're just absorbing cultural fears.

To sum up:

• Don't keep it to yourself. Check in with other self-employed folks.
• Ask clients if their budgets have been affected and adjust your marketing plan to accomodate the new reality.
  
• Create a mantra that reaffirms that if you keep querying, you'll get work.
• Turn off the news.
• Get a reality check based on your business, not the stock market.

How do you cope with rejections in the current economy?

Photo by reubenaingber.

Choose the next 30-day challenge

It's that time again. Not only is it a new year, full of unique challenges we can't begin to fathom today, but it's time for a new 30-day challenge. I'd love to see in the comments below which of the following challenges you'd like to tackle next?

Financial Challenge

2009 will be a stressful year for most of us, given the state of the world economy. So now's the time to put our finances in order. This challenge will address credit card debt, cashflow issues and other financial freakouts that suck the serenity right out of us.

Marketing Challenge

The key to my success is always marketing, whether that means networking, sending letters of introduction, or generating and reslanting queries. In this challenge, I'll lay out ways to make marketing easier, challenge you to send more queries and maybe even offer a prize to the person who sends the most queries.

Another Self-Care Challenge

The beginning of the year is always a time to come down from the excesses of the holiday season--too much spending, too much eating and too much drinking. So how do we realign and focus for the new year? In this challenge I'll consider some options.

Let me know which you'd like to see--and even feel free to suggest other challenges if none of these spark your interest.

The next challenge will start in mid-January, after I get back from a well-deserved vacation.

30-Day Biz Planning Challenge: 2009 Modules Part 3

This is the fifth in a series of modules you can choose from to start making a business plan as you go. The first post laid out modules for your values and mission. The second laid out modules for assessing 2008. The third laid out your financial goals for 2009. The fourth helped you come up with a plan for reaching your financial goals.

Today, we'll complete the modules--and help you meet your goals.

Remember: You can start anywhere. I've suggested an order, but please don't let it stop you. Pick one, do it, and go back to work.

Coverage Areas 2009
Looking back on your breakdown of the types of stories you do and the beats you cover and assess. And look at the financial health of your current clients.

Now, make a list:

• Coverage types you love;
• Coverage types you tolerate; and
  
• Coverage types you want to quit in 2009.

Maybe you're sick to death of service pieces. Maybe you love profiles but only did one this year. Make a goal to find and pitch more of the types you like and to let go of the ones that drag you down. Be specific. Do you want to do five profiles? Cut service pieces down to 10 this year? Just make a goal.

Do the same for beats.

New beats 2009
Now that you know what you want to cover next year, look at what new beats you want to add in 2009. Are there areas that are more profitable into which you want to expand? Are there topics that you don't cover but would like to? Maybe there's a coverage area that seems more profitable that you want to explore.

Make a list and spend a few minutes brainstorming stories and markets.

Market Changes
Now that you know who you've worked for this year, how much you like them and how much money you need to make to support your dreams, revisit your list of current clients.

Divide it into:

• Clients you love;
• Clients I'm on the fence about; and
  
• Clients to let go in the coming year.

Target Markets
You may have discovered that you need to pitch. Where will you do it? Look at the magazines, custom pubs and corporate clients you want to break into and choose five primary ones. If they're consumer pubs, subscribe to them and study them. If they're corporate or custom pubs, make a list of 10-20.

Hey guess what? You've done it!

Now go reward yourself!

30-Day Self-Care Challenge: Day 6

Today's plan for self-care:

Limit my exposure to the financial crisis.

I have personal experience with financial crises. Yes, I spent years hiding in denial and having trouble paying my bills, even when I was earning more than I am now. That was less a crisis than a chronic period of mismanaged priorities.

No, what I think about as I listen, watch and read about the economy reorganizing itself is 8th grade. While I was concerned with whether to wear the acid washed shorts or the acid washed skirt to class that day, the country experienced Black Monday. I was young, and it was exciting. We had just been reading about the Great Depression and the day in 1929 when bankers were flinging themselves out windows because they had lost everything. It was morbid, but alluring to me as a young writer. What an evocative image. It told us everything we needed to know abut what was happening then.

I felt like something significant was happening, that history was being made, that what was happening mattered. I had a lot of teen angst. I felt like everything was meaningless. This reoriented me.

Not long after that, my father, an entrepreneur himself, had to close his business. There was always low-level tension in my home as my parents struggled to balance their very different approaches to money, but when his business failed, the tension broke and crisis ensued. My dad, a proud, brilliant man, took a job at a retail store to keep bringing in money. My mom, a hardworking and diligent person, buckled down and worked summers and nights. As long as I can remember, my parents have always had more than one job.

My contribution to the family financial crisis was to worry. I had insomnia. I tried to help my parents by cleaning the house and listening to their worries. I wondered if we'd keep our house and what would happen to me.

The fact was that our family was fine, but the feeling was quite different. Just like in a lot of homes today, the feeling was of imminent doom, and that heroic efforts were required to avert disaster.

I share this story not to be self-indulgent but to illustrate a point: In times of crisis, we all revert back to our earlier selves. We revert to our primal instincts, and mine is to worry. So I don't see the news today and say, "Huh. Well, I'm doing fine. Just keep swimming."

I panic. I start feeling the need to rush about and fix things. Or, failing the ability to fix the national financial markets (of which I understand little), I feel the need to exert a lot of attention and energy on worrying and thinking of the worst thing that can happen.

FOR TODAY my plan is to:

* Switch off the news, delete news emails sight-unseen and avoid the great financial blogs I read daily.
* Focus on the truth for me: I have great work, great clients, and plenty of income.
* Focus on what I can control:
-- Building my savings in case of a downturn.
-- Increasing my marketing by a manageable amount.
-- Expressing gratitude to my regular clients.
-- Diversifying clients so if one goes under, I have others to pick up the slack.

What are you doing to take care of yourself around the economic crisis?