Wednesday, March 4, 2015

In like a lion

My inbox has gone a bit quiet this week, which of course led to the typical freelancer worrying that work was drying up (the plants definitely are, in this weather). Rather than fret and check said inbox every 30 minutes, or surf even more, I tracked down some dusty online accounts and forgotten passwords, tidied up some blog accounts, reviewed my résumé, and turned to the time-honored and thoroughly terrifying practice of cold emailing.*

Do people even cold call anymore? I don't know, but contacting a complete stranger out of the blue, by whatever means, is never easy. More so when you're contact phobic** like me. It's not as if you're disrobing in public; you're just telling the (hopefully) nice stranger that you're [insert freelance occupation here] and that you were wondering if they were looking to add another person to their team.

However scared you feel, just do it (let that email sit overnight though, just to be certain), and the practice is always worthwhile. The wait for replies is actually worse, but you'll get through it and possibly gain a new contact! Ina worst case scenario: treat yourself to a nice bottle of red (or white, as I do; or chocolate. Whatever you like).

*I'm not sure about what it takes to have honed it into an art.
**I work long hours alone, so spoken English is almost a second language for me now D: 

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