If you’re making the transition from corporate to freelance, how comfortable are you in the new role?

Is it like a new pair of shoes; you’ve stepped in with both feet, but they’re giving you blisters — and you really just want to go back to those old, broken-in, full-time loafers?

I was interviewing a client the other day, for a new business website I’m helping her launch. She was telling me about the vast and varied experiences that led her to desire this new incarnation of her professional self.

She kept saying things like, “So then I had to change jobs again. We relocated to Missouri and I had to start teaching, because we had a family to support!”

My client sounded almost apologetic. Every time she mentioned a new skill that she had acquired along the way, she had to justify the experience as though it was a “bad thing.” Like she shouldn’t have changed jobs, or she shouldn’t have bothered to learn new things.

After hearing her repeatedly downplay her credentials and experience, it occurred to me why this client needed my copywriting support and marketing direction.

It was because *she still didn’t think of herself as a consultant!*

Talking with this client made me flash back to the early days. I’d just begun doing copywriting consulting work for people… but I hadn’t yet realized I was a copywriting consultant.

“What do you do?” people would ask me, and I’d blurt something along the lines of “Well, I used to work for so-and-so company, but now I’m just kind of uh, doing marketing for people… uhhh… I work on the internet.”

If you’re fairly new at being a consultant, or you’re just launching an online business… do you feel comfortable with your new identity yet? If not… what do you think you can do to change this?

I say, talk the walk.

Try on the language that will position you as an expert. Stumble around in it a little bit every day.

I realized in talking with this client just how valuable my perspective was going to be.

She was looking at her lateral moves as career blips… but I was seeing them as real-life training that gave her an edge over the next person.

Isn’t it funny the way that a simple point of view can change everything?

A good copywriter will help you turn apologetic into authoritative.

What type of language do you use to describe the career milestones that have shaped who you are today?

Copyright 2008 Dina Giolitto, Wordfeeder.com Copywriting and Marketing. All rights reserved.

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Email Dina@Wordfeeder.com for a copywriting or website marketing quote today.

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