The importance of ”yet”

This time last year, I had been trying different marketing strategies on and off, but I couldn’t stick to one. LinkedIn, cold emails, online networking events, reaching out to other freelancers in my area; it felt draining. I was convinced I wasn’t good at it, so I started asking for advice.

 Hearing from others that have been in the freelance game longer than I have gave me a valuable insight: you are not good at it… yet.

I kept hearing the same story. “I also thought I didn’t like marketing”, “I used to dread networking events, now I feel energized”, “I never liked my LinkedIn posts but I kept doing it”.

So, with a newfound feeling of “if they can do it, I can do it, too”, I started working on a marketing plan that focused on things that I wanted to do, even when I felt that I wasn’t good at them. I drafted a 10-page document that would become my guide to marketing my freelance business: one-hour morning workflow, LinkedIn posting schedule, outreach cadence, email templates, DM templates, topics to write about, tracking system.

The truth is that I felt less operational friction but not less emotional friction. The awkward feelings were still there, but I kept going. Little by little, I learned how to get past those feelings, even though sometimes I still feel like no one is going to care about what I say. One thing became clear: I didn’t need to reach hundreds, I just needed to start two or three valuable conversations every week. That’s perfectly doable.

While I still don’t consider myself good at marketing my freelance business, I have become good at saying “you are not good at it, yet”.