Where are YOUR clients?

From PWA Director Jen Adams  

Clients coming to you… asking for you… and eager to hire YOU?

For many writers, that would be a dream come true. Yet, it doesn’t have to be just a dream. It could become a reality for you in the months ahead, thanks to a reliable source of high-quality clients I happen to know about…

You’ve heard of it, too.

It’s LinkedIn.

This social media platform for working professionals has 1.15 billion monthly active users, with 230 million of them located in the USA. Of those users, 23.6% log in daily, using their time on the site to check in with colleagues, browse posts, and of course, make fresh connections.

That’s your opportunity, in a nutshell.

• Put yourself where the clients already hang out…
• Motivate your ideal clients to get in touch with you…
• Accept those direct messages and connection requests…
• Prosper and thrive!

Sure, Jen (I can hear you thinking this) that’s so easy for you to say. But how do I actually make any of that happen?

The answer lies within PWA, thanks to the step-by-step guide you’re about to receive from our guest expert this month, Divya Agrawal.

In 2024 alone, Divya generated over 115+ quality leads for her freelance writing business on LinkedIn. Even better? She’s willing to share exactly what she did, so that you can use her proven tactics to attract your own great leads.

And seriously, if you’re a “just show me what to do already!!!” type of person, you will love the second installment in her series. It comes complete with eight short example videos of what to type, where to click, and what works when posting so that even if you’re a LinkedIn newbie, you can see how to start benefiting right away from Divya’s hard-won platform insights.

This month is packed with good things… let’s dive in!

Motivational Minute

Your Story is Only Over if You Stop

Anyone following football knows that my beloved Detroit Lions had a heartbreaking end to their sweetheart season this year. They won more games in the regular season than ever before in the program’s history, but lost miserably in the playoffs. “It hurts to lose,” said Coach Dan Campbell, his voice catching, and even if you’re not a football fan, you know the feeling.

Losing stinks. Not getting what you want stinks. Not getting what you want and have worked very hard for also stinks.

So, should you just give up?

Hardly.

You only quit when your story is over.

Is your story over?

I doubt it.

You may be at a place in your story arc where difficulties have come upon you and the Resistance is strong.

But no great adventure — in sports, in books, or in real life — ends when the hero gives up and goes home.

Five years ago, the Detroit Lions were a laughingstock. Legendarily awful, despite having some talented players. Heck, even three years ago the Lions were pretty bad.

And then… well, things started clicking.

Their efforts started to pay off. You could see where the investment in the foundational parts of playing football (solid talent, team culture building, strong coaches) started to bear fruit. They won games!

People stopped laughing. Total strangers started to root for the hard-working underdogs. Detroit football went from awful, to bad, to decent, to pretty darn good.

Sure, the team lost this year. But, they’re no longer losers, and they’re certainly not giving up now. They’ll learn, reflect, build, and move forward.

The same is possible for us as writers. So, even if your first big push of January didn’t go as planned — or 2025 caught you off guard and has you behind — don’t give up. Channel that Lion roar, and remember: your story is only over if you stop.

PWA’s “Creatives in Business” Book Club

Our book club is a low-stress way for you to get inspiration, insights, and practical tools to improve your skills on the business side of the writer’s life. All you need to do to join in is read the book yourself along with us. 

January 1^st, I kicked off on The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Do in 12 Months, by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. It’s available at Amazon or via many local libraries.

And the plan was that rather than just reading the book, we’d collectively take a crack at doing the book.

The book has two parts. Part I is the philosophy of it all, and Part II is the implementation of the system. Here, I’ll just focus on Part I, and next month, we’ll talk about the implementation phase.

These were the biggest takeaways I had from Part I. What resonated with you?

• Ditching annual thinking. In January, when everyone seems to be setting annual goals, this felt downright subversive. Yet, I got the point of it immediately. If we act like we have all year to get things done, we procrastinate, lack urgency, and allow lots of life to get in the way. Shorter timelines are effectively a super productivity hack, just on their own.
• You have to be emotionally bought in. You can’t kinda want something. You have to really, really want it or you’ll allow other things to come first and get in your way.
• Don’t just track activity. Score it. I am a queen of doing this one — I have tons of lists and activity trackers. But, I rarely step back and rank my performance on the tasks or the impact on my life in an intentional way. I only look at done/not done, hours spent, and similar metrics. Rating myself offers an opportunity for better personal accountability/responsibility and a chance to reflect on what I could improve about how and when I do my work.

Were your takeaways the same? Who got hung up in the chapters on accountability? Where was what you read significantly different from what you may have heard in traditional corporate trainings or from other time management gurus? Share your thoughts in our LinkedIn group — I’d love to hear them!

Then, this next month, it’s implementation time. You can get sample 12-week plans from the authors’ free bonus resources page (fair warning, the free stuff is next to planners you can buy. No purchase is for our test runs.) You’ll want to set aside a few hours in addition to your reading to set up your plan… and then let’s start running one!

I realize when we circle back next month, we’ll just be 1/3 of the way into our 12-week year. That’s okay. We’ll have a sense of how the system feels for us and what we’re getting done. I’m looking forward to hearing what you choose to do, and whether or not the shorter timeline works for you!

Guest Writer Series

Finding Clients on LinkedIn

Just 3-4 clients can keep a good writer busy full-time… and last year, Divya Agrawal had more than 115 potential clients reach out to her. How did she attract so much attention? It was LinkedIn!

Divya has been a freelance B2B tech writer for over six years, but this last year she doubled down on LinkedIn as a prospecting tool. She documented everything along the way, and studied what was working for others. So, when she looked over her system and decided to share it, she came prepared with scripts, templates, samples, and results.

In her PWA series on landing clients with LinkedIn, you will learn:

• Her strategic rules for LinkedIn posts that bring in fresh clients (and you can use them if you’re new or if you just want to “upgrade” the clients you already have)
• What makes a good LinkedIn post — complete with 10 examples and 8 short video walkthroughs. This article alone is solid gold!
• How to filter your incoming client opportunities so that every client you choose to accept meets YOUR standards (rates, workload, workflow… she covers it all!)
• When to use follow-up and outreach to close client deals, including sample messages you can quickly customize and put to use right away.

It’s set up like a series but packed with information like a mini-course. So, consider this your LinkedIn Clients 101 course for 2025, and be sure to check out each new installment of this series as it goes live Monday mornings on the PWA site right here.

Monthly Action Step

Merge 12 Weeks with LinkedIn Activity and…

The core principle underlying The 12 Week Year is that what holds us back isn’t a lack of knowledge or limited information — it’s our inability to take action. If we can fix the “execution” problem, we can solve most of our other problems, too.

For many writers, the problem isn’t writing words or knowing about marketing principles. It’s getting out there and getting clients.

So, this month, my action challenge to you is to take The 12 Week Year’s action-first principles and meld them with Divya Agrawal’s how-to guide to finding clients on LinkedIn. She’ll provide the “what to do”… and you provide the “get it done” part.

Imagine what might happen if you actually sent that email to follow up with a warm contact. Or, think of what could happen if you planned out a simple set of posts to make your ideal client come calling on you. Or, what if you finished that program you’ve been stuck on and put those skills to work?

The possibilities are endless… but this month, let’s end a few “what ifs” by making them “what I did” reports!

Copywriting Opportunities

Fresh Copywriting Jobs Waiting For You…

There are over 2,000 jobs at WritersWanted.com waiting for you right now —and they do fill up fast. You have to act on what you see. So, if you spot a job that interests you, be sure to apply for it right away!

Some opportunities that caught my eye this month:

• Have a taste for soap? Well, soaps…Sportskeeda is looking for a content writer for SoapCentral, its site dedicated to all things related to soap operas and the dramas of daytime TV.
• Like cheese? Yonana Cheese seeks a staff writer for their team who has some culinary or food industry experience to draw on when creating content and marketing campaigns for their artisanal cheese lines.
• Rugiet Men is making drugs! The DTC compound pharmacy needs a storyteller to help them connect with their customers in long-form and short-form campaigns.
• Able to sail away? Norwegian Cruise Lines is looking for a writer with travel and hospitality experience to help them with high-end digital and print marketing.

Your myAWAI credentials get you full access to these job listings and many more. Plus, since it’s FREE to you and human-curated, there’s no reason not to start your job search over at WritersWanted.

Go Find YOUR Clients 

Potential and possibility become reality through action… and this month, LinkedIn is the place to take action.

Even as a new writer, you can set up a great profile and start connecting with high-quality clients. More established? Level it up! The series Divya has created for you is loaded with samples, examples, and even video walkthroughs to strip the mystery out of discovering clients on LinkedIn.

The best part, to me, is that all the steps are relatively small. You can take small bits of consistent action and reasonably expect that following the recommended process will deliver results. One post now. A follow-up message tomorrow. One reply. Bit by bit, day by day, you can move closer to the life you want and the clients you crave.

So, why wait around? Click here to read Divya’s first installment and begin your journey to finding your next great client on LinkedIn.

To your success,

Jen Adams
Director, PWA

P.S. Next month, we’ll zero in on picking better clients from the crowd (just in time to help you manage your LinkedIn responses, I hope!). By choosing better clients for your business, you can have a lot more fun as a writer… and improve your profit margins, too. Can’t wait to show you all the details!