In this post before I went on holiday, I gave you a whole host of quick social media and blog post ideas, but I want to go into some of them in more detail.
Today let’s talk about turning people off from working with you.
Don’t Work With Me – What?
I know, I know, it’s a weird one, but bear with me.
We’ve all had the potential clients that come along and want to work with us, and they’re just not the right fit.
Sometimes we know that right away – they may be a one man band and we only work with SMEs, they may be in an industry we just don’t want to work with, or they may have misunderstood what we offer and need something completely different.
But sometimes, we DON’T know straight away – and that’s when it becomes time consuming and costly for everyone to find out.
Which is why it’s a great idea to occasionally post a blog or social media post saying who you don’t work with, rather than just focusing on who you do.
There are a few ways you can go about this; for a blog post I went with 6 reasons not to work with me and covered things like industry, budget, up front payment, work and company structure, and what I won’t do for free.
But this also works well as individual LinkedIn posts. Each of those 6 reasons could be expanded upon (or even copied and pasted) to make LinkedIn and social media posts that set out your stall as well as generating discussion.
Other LinkedIn Post Ideas
You could also use them as starting points for other social media posts – here are a few ideas:
- This is what happened when I took on a client I would usually say no to (this could be good or bad, whatever you feel works best for you).
- Why I chose X niche for my business.
- Why I don’t work with X/Y/Z (one man bands/construction companies/whatever).
- Let’s talk about budgets for X/Y/Z (copywriting/change leadership/whatever).
- Why too many cooks spoil the broth.
- Every freelancer should request a deposit up front – discuss.
- Staged payments – what puts you off? (Good for starting discussions on any platform, but put your hard hat on!)
- Never work with children or animals (again, this could turn into a positive or a negative).
- Jack of all trades, master of none? (Focus on why you chose to provide one specific service instead of offering a half hearted attempt at 50.)
And that’s just off the top of my head.
Why Do ‘Don’t Work With Me’ Posts Work?
Put bluntly, posts and blogs like this stop people wasting your time.
You get rid of the tyre kickers, those that want to pick your brain but will never have the budget to pay for your service, the people that you spend an hour on the phone to, then 3 hours preparing a proposal, only to be told you’re too expensive, or find out that your work has to be approved by 5 people, or even that your invoice can only be paid on 45 day terms.
You pre-DISqualify people that you don’t want to work with, which means you have more time to focus on finding those you do.
It’s a bit of a brave move, but it works. Try it, and let me know how it goes.
P.S. If you struggle writing your own blog posts or content, then a freelance copywriter might be just the ticket. (Me, it’s me.)
