When (& How) to Update Your Freelance Writing Business Plan

If you’ve been freelancing for a while, you probably have at least a rough freelance writing business plan in place. But when was the last time you dusted it off, reviewed it, and updated it?

Your business plan isn’t something you create once and forget about. If you want to stay in business, and be profitable, that plan needs evolve alongside your career. More than that, it should guide your freelance career.

The good news? You don’t need some formal, 20-page business plan that feels like a chore to keep updated. What matters is that you find some way to record your goals, strategies, and benchmarks in a way that you can keep track of your progress and adjust plans as your circumstances change.

Your freelance writing business plan helps you figure out competitive advantage (or unique selling proposition), map out your marketing strategy, stick to a budget, and more. And now is a perfect time to update that plan.

Why Update Your Freelance Writing Business Plan?

Even the most seasoned freelance professional can get off-track if they don’t regularly review their business plans. Markets shift. Tools come and go. Client, and personal, budgets change. What worked for you years ago might not work as well today.

Getting into the habit of reviewing and updating your freelance writing business plan will help you adapt, refine your long-term goals, and stay competitive. Here are three reasons you should update your business plan now if you haven’t recently done so:

1. Your business goals no longer serve you well.

This could mean you set unrealistic goals initially and you can’t meet them. If you routinely struggle to meet most of your goals, consider scaling them back.

Sometimes it helps to take steps, such as smaller income growth each year until your reach your larger goal.

And sometimes goals are set before fully understanding something, such as setting unrealistic traffic goals for your professional site because you mistakenly compared it with traffic from publication-style sites instead.

At the same time, if you’re meeting every goal with ease, that’s not great either. It might mean your original goals weren’t ambitious enough so you aren’t anywhere near your potential.

In either case, consider making adjustments to your expectations and your plans for reaching them moving forward.

2. Your available budget changed.

A business plan isn’t just about goals. It’s a budget-centric document that helps you make the most of your available resources, no matter how great or scarce they might be.

If you’ve hit a financial setback and can’t invest as much in your business as usual, that calls for an update to your freelance writing business plan.

You might have to cut out tools or marketing tactics you’ve been using in favor of free or more affordable options. That, or you’ll know you need to adjust income goals to account for those expenses.

The same is true if you’re at the point of being willing and able to invest more than you have in the past. That could mean hiring help, getting access to better research and reporting tools, or upgrading your home office.

3. Your competitive situation changed.

I know plenty of writers who don’t like the word “competitor” in freelancing. They often parrot something along the lines of “other writers are my colleagues, not my competition.”

But that’s BS.

They’re both.

If you can’t acknowledge who your competitors are, you can’t accurately identify your competitive place in your market.

If you haven’t accounted for competition before, now’s the time to update your freelance writing business plan to do that. But even if you have, your competitive situation might have changed.

Some competition might have left your market. New competition can emerge. Or you might find changes to competitors’ business and marketing strategies (like new tools you hadn’t considered) that can influence your own plans.

It’s OK if you like your competition and respect them as colleagues. That’s a great thing. But that doesn’t change the fact you’re competing with writers in the same specialty areas.

Keeping an eye on the competition and using that research in creating better-informed business plans is a simple reality of being self-employed. Does your business plan reflect that?

What to Review & Update in Your Freelance Writing Business Plan

Your freelance business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. It just has to be useful. Here are the main things you should review and update on a regular basis.

1. Services & Pricing

Do your freelance writing services still make sense based on your experience, credentials, and existing target clients? How do your rates compare with the value you provide?

Consider this:

• Do your clients want services you aren’t providing?
• Do you offer services no one is buying anymore?
• Are there any complementary services you could offer (such as consulting or content strategy)?
• Where do your prices fall compared to your key competitors?
• When was the last time you updated your freelance writing rates?
• Do your rates help you meet your income goals, or are you due for an increase?

2. Your Target Market(s)

Your ideal clients when you started might not be the same people, publications, or companies you want to work with later in your career. So take a look at your target market and update it to reflect the industries, client types, budgets, and project types you most want to work with.

Consider this:

• What type of projects do you most enjoy?
• Are there any project types you’d prefer not to take on anymore?
• Do you like working more for digital or print markets?
• Do you prefer working for smaller or larger clients? Middlemen (marketing firms, SEO agencies, etc.)?
• What kind of budget do you expect target clients to have for your typical contracts?
• Is your niche or industry saturated?
• Do you have subject matter expertise in an area that would make for a good additional target market?
• Does your existing market need to expand or contract based on the consistency of gigs you find?

3. Your Marketing Strategy

Think about how you find most of your clients now. Referrals? Inbound marketing? Query letters? Job boards?

Now think about where you’d like to find more leads. Figure out what your ideal marketing mix looks like, then update your freelance writing business plan to reflect that.

Consider this:

• Where do you have the most visibility, and where would you like to expand your visibility?
• Where do most of your leads currently come from?
• How are you budgeting your money and time when it comes to marketing?
• Do you have available resources that could help you market more effectively (your network, portfolio pieces to showcase, recent testimonials, etc.)?
• How are you positioning yourself against the competition?

Your freelance writing business plan isn’t set in stone. It’s a guide that should adapt and grow with you as you move throughout your career. It can take whatever form suits you, but no matter what form that is, it’s important to regularly refer back to it. And it’s important to keep it up-to-date so you stay on-track moving towards your professional goals.

Why not now?

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This post was originally published on January 6, 2020. It was updated, expanded, and re-published on its currently-listed publication date.