Category: Communication Skills

Haiiiiiiiiii! It’s December, and you know what that means! TIME TO RAISE YOUR RATES. You need to send the following email to your clients RIGHT NOW. (Like, right now. Especially because today is Friday, and this email is always served best on a Friday with a beer.) Now then. *clears throat* This miraculous email that you’re going to write, that you’re almost kind of shitting a brick to write, but that you’re going to write anyway because you are a

“So, what do you do?” These are the words WE ALL DREAD, FAM. Even professional communicators—cough cough—who work online and write inappropriate blog posts and whose job titles can’t easily be corralled onto some adorable fucktard pin. This past week, however, I had the opportunity to reflect on the personal intro more than ever when I found myself at not one, but TWO separate dinner parties with two sets of humans who were decidedly not indoctrinated in the online world.

Psycho is a good word, isn’t it? Ditto psychobitch, which I really gotta use more. (WE ALL KNOW SOMEBODY…) But when cold-emailing a potential client whose money you would love to have—ahem—we don’t want you to be that person. Not only will you be deleted faster than Barr. David Newton Esq. of Nigeria, you’ll be wasting all of your precious time palm-sweating your way through an email not even you would read. Which brings me to an important point: isn’t

It’s the moment you’ve been dreading. You’re there, on the phone. It’s almost time to wrap up. There’s THE awkward silence. You know you’re suppose to try and sell them some kind of 3-month package—or some other salesy bullshit—but how do you transition the godforsaken conversation?! This is so not natural for you. The whole thing feels forced, contrived, totally fake. You’d rather lose the business than have to ever utter the words, “And now, for a limited time!” But

When I worked in magazine advertising sales, every year we were sent a copy of the new rate cards from corporate. And every year, we account executives would then proceed to send an email to our clients that would say: “Hey, Janey-babe! Here’s this year’s new rate card for your records.” It wasn’t personal. Nor was it a big deal. It just was what it was: the new rate for the new year (with higher prices). And yet, most freelancers

Her name was A. She had funk to her; style. She was a bohemian turned business woman, and a proper English girl, at heart. She was tall, self-assured, and the kind of woman who refreshingly said, “no thanks” without worrying about hurting your feelings. No thanks, I don’t drink. No thanks, I’ve got to get to bed. No thanks, I’ve got my own ride. But perhaps the “no thanks” I appreciated the most related to a story she told as

“Let’s hop on a call” strikes VAMPIRE-LIKE-TERROR into the heart of new business owners and experienced ones alike. When I took a survey asking why, here were some of the answers: Just puhleezze buy it…don’t make me ask!! The first 10 seconds are so awkward! I hate small talk but never know how to start the conversation right. I want to sound like a girl with brains and someone to be reckoned with—but I have no idea how. I hate

“Why don’t you tell me what you think would be appropriate?” Useful language for handling complex situations like: A customer is unsatisfied. An employee is complaining. A friend is upset. Your sister is angry you don’t see her enough. A gorgeous Italian man is holding a very serious grudge because you denied his advances as you pranced into the sunset before you realized you were very, very stupid, and now you’re begging his forgiveness. (Torturous, I am sure.) Most of

“Why won’t you kiss me?” he had asked. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Didn’t he understand what I was going through? Didn’t he have the same worries?! He inched closer. I inched backward. I couldn’t kiss him. Not there. Not with the faint smell of burnt popcorn swirling in my nostrils; the scent of sweaty leather fighting for an equal opportunity to infiltrate my senses. There was suppose to be candlelight. And a bowl of spaghetti. And Whitney Houston’s I Will Always