Market Yourself as a Business Support Service
One of the most important things that I’ve learned as a freelance writer is that what you call yourself can greatly impact the rate of pay that you are able to command. If you just call yourself a “writer”, people assume that you are offering creative writing services and may not even look to hire you at all. If you call yourself a “virtual assistant” then people will assume that you offer phone answering services but that you aren’t necessarily in the business of writing. If you are someone who is capable of offering all of the writing services that a business may need, you might want to seriously consider marketing yourself as someone who provides business support services.
The term “business support services” was coined when it became painfully obvious that “secretarial services” were undervalued in the market. People in secretarial positions wanted more recognition for the work that they did and began re-branding that work as “business support services” although the actual business services provided continued to remain similar to what was offered before. The freelance writer who provides services that are similar to those of a secretary - services such as transcription, basic writing, web maintenance and answering email as a virtual assistant - can also benefit from this type of re-branding.
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I like this title “business support services”, I think it’s much more in line with what support staff does. As a free-lance writer, I have to also include all the computer skills I have as well. In today’s competitive market you have to be a kind of “jack of all trades”. Especially if you are a free-lancer of anything. The more skills you offer the more valuable you become.