A friend of mine told me over lunch the other day how her being a hyperactive child had been a nightmare for her parents for years. This being India, her mother asked every neighbor, friend, and relative for advice, even dragging her along to astrologer after astrologer to find out what was wrong with her daughter that made her behave in this way.
Finally, years later, worn out by the many solutions offered by well-meaning relatives and not getting anywhere, my friend’s parents took her to the doctor.
“What on earth am I to do with this child?” her distraught mother asked. “I can’t get her to sit still for more than three seconds.”
“Stop giving her sugar,” the doctor said.
My friend never had trouble with hyperactivity again.
My friend’s parents took her to astrologers, but I know many Western doctors who would have been quick to label and diagnose my friend with this disorder or that one. That’s because, as a society, we tend to believe that the solution to a complex problem has to be complex as well, and we sacrifice the simple solutions in favor of more complicated solutions that make us feel like we’ve made a bigger effort.
In my soon-to-be-launched e-course 30 Days, 30 Queries, I talk about how there are only two ways to get more assignments: pitch more and pitch better. This may seem pretty simplistic and to the average writer, perhaps a bit of a letdown. Is that all, we say. But I already knew that—what do I need you for?
The problem is that even though we know the basics—to lose weight, you must eat less and exercise more and to have more money, you need to save more and earn more—it’s in the implementation that we fall down. Instead of saying, well let me send out a query a day for the next month, we send five queries, get no response or feedback, think it’s not working and go on and find a more complicated task to perform, like joining a new social network that a friend recommended or redesigning our website from scratch. Then we stress over how much time and work we’re putting into our business and how we’re not reaping any proportionate rewards.
This year, my advice to you is to keep it simple. If you want to get more assignments, there are only two things you need to do: Pitch more. Pitch better.
If you want the added motivation and push, join me for my course 30 Days, 30 Queries, in which I’ll share with you techniques, ideas, and strategies for sending more and better pitches. The course will provide you with support and a community that will push you to get this done, but by no means is it impossible for you to do this on your own. I’ve been sending 30 queries a month every few months for several years now, and there’s no reason you, too, can’t inspire and motivate yourself to take action.
But as you do, don’t let the hundreds of strategies, techniques, and tips distract you away from your main goal, which is to write and send as many topnotch queries as you possibly can.
I’ll be pitching more and pitching better in 2014. And you?