5 High-Paying Skills Freelance Writers Must Have
We wear a lot of hats a freelance content strategists and content marketing writers, but what specific skills garner those big juicy projects? And how do you get, then refine, these skills to up the quality of your work as well as the quality of your clients?
This week's livestream is going over the top 5 high-paying skills, why freelance writers need to work on honing these specific skills over others, what changes they can see in their business from a focus on these skills, and maybe a few secret bonus skills six-figure freelance writers always keep in their back pocket :).
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5 High-Paying Skills Freelance Writers Must Have
These five skills are probably a little bit different than what you're used to hearing for freelance writing. There's probably a lot of other weird little technical things that come up that a lot of people recommend as skills, but these are the skills that I think really bring you high paying projects over time.
And I think these are the skills that really make a difference in your quality of work, in how you work with your clients, and then also how you translate stuff to your business later on. I have to go,
okay, fixing that. So we're gonna go from five to one, and I'm also gonna drop in some other things as we go along. And then we have our cute little snug friend here. She has brand new collar that we're featuring today. So we'll look at it later. But she's sleeping, so we're gonna let her sleep a little bit so I can get some stuff done in here.
So let's go to number five. Let's go to five here. Okay, so number five. This is the number five skill. And I think that for me, when I'm thinking about this, this is why I think, uh, for me it's changed a lot of stuff in my career and it's helped me a bunch with getting new clients and writing in new niches.
So this one is you need to make sure that you are expanding your niche expertise and that you are also paying attention to competitors. So what this means is that you're not just expanding the niches that you start out with. It's also about, uh, the niches that you get into over time. So it ends up being niches that you get through an editor asking if you'll take an assignment like in a new niche, or if it's something that, um, you started looking into and you just get deeper and deeper, right?
You get more clients, more articles, more work. And I think expanding your niche expertise. And this is the same thing where, um, it doesn't necessarily have to be. One niche, it could be many, many niches, or you could just be kind of a generalist. This is something where I think over time, really doing a bunch of different things in a bunch of different fields really helps to kind of help.
Um, it helps to help. Um, it's something that helps you have a deeper understanding of why you're creating certain content types for your clients. It gives you a deeper understanding of what the pain points and struggles are of your audience for your niches. It gives you a lot more insight into how to help your clients create better content that actually works for them.
There's a lot of different things that come into, um, expanding across a niche. So for me, when I started out in, uh, freelance writing, I started out with food and travel. That was all I did was food and travel, and that then boomed into real estate and prop tech and hospitality tech and insurance and health and all these other random things that I've written about pet.
Obviously pets because of these, this guy, this girl here, but also cuz of Barry. Um, but when you are using this skill, this is something that works over time. So the more that you do quality research, the more you pay attention to what your clients are saying. The more you do a good job of, um, like being thorough in your work.
The more you work for clients in your niche, the more you kind of refine what things are working in that niche. What aren't in terms of content types or in, uh, in terms of like what resonates with that audience. That's really a positive things because as time goes on, your clients are gonna want more niche expertise.
So for me, one of the things that happens is they seek me out because they've seen me in a bunch of publications and they've seen my work. Um, or they check out my portfolio and I've written for a bunch of their competitors or other companies. So this is something where someone's paying for your niche expertise, right?
You have a bunch of clips or you have a bunch of work in that niche and they're paying a premium to work with someone who understands their niche, um, really well. And the other thing is that because you understand their niche, you also understand their competitors better. So how does this product or service from your clients stand out from competitors?
Or what are the other options out there so that you can create better content or if you've worked with other businesses, what things are working, what are not working? There's a lot of things. Hello? There's a lot of things that end up, um, being really useful for expanding your niche expertise and then also seeing your competitors.
And also being able to, um, understand where your clients are coming from with their struggles, how they're, um, putting their content together, how to help them with a, like anything from an editorial calendar to content strategy, to brand messaging, to blog posts, to white papers, all that good stuff. So for me, I feel like this is something that just happens over time, but it's something that really ends up being a, a high paying skill.
Like just having something where you have a lot of experience. Hey Vicky, I always love the wave. It's something where if you have experience and you're building that over time, that's building a strong foundation for the future. So you're getting a wide swath of experience clients clips, and then you can leverage that to get more high paying work.
And also the people who are coming to you want you to have that expertise right down the road. And they're paying extra for that. They're paying extra, not extra, but they're paying more for someone who is, um, has sharpened their niche expertise. So I think these things are also really good, um, to think about for the long term.
So if you're someone who's doing freelance writing, just blog posts and articles and um, you haven't really moved into long form copy or you're someone who has been a freelance writer for a while. And you wanna end up, um, moving into content strategy or brand messaging or messaging and positioning or marketing strategy.
Uh, these are the kinds of things that help you get there. You have to have kind of like a, a deeper understanding of their niche, how things work, um, how competitors are working, because we do a lot of research that has to do, uh, that has to do with their niche and competitors when we do content strategy or brand messaging or any of those kind of strategy like projects.
So when I'm thinking about this stuff, I think that expansion of your niche expertise, and this could be, like I said, this could be someone picking three to five niches and expanding that over time, or someone who's more of a generalist and they just keep growing as a generalist, getting more kind of skills, getting more, um, different types of clips.
There's also a lot of overlap. So this is something where, um, I was telling my wealth lab students yesterday where there's a lot of crossover. So like it's not just that this thing is real estate. It could be that it's real estate, iot, ot, which is internet of things, iot, ot, hospitality tech, and it could be smart buildings or something like, there's a whole bunch of different crossover things, especially as a generalist or someone who works in a variety of different places in a niche that end up really helping you get different types of projects or help build your knowledge base.
So that's really important. So that's number five. Let's go from five. Let's go to four. So number four here. Number four. Oh my gosh, she just made like this. You're so cute. Good girl. I love all your tail wags. She just made this funny little harumph noise. I don't think you guys can hear it, but now she's bug eyeing me with her Betty Davis eyes.
All right, let's talk about four. So four. Um, this is consistency. I wrote down consistency in terms of your quality of work. You have to have a consistent quality of work. You need to have a consistent quality of clips and a consistent inflow of clips and you need to be consistently marketing and pitching and you need to be consistently not giving up.
So consistency, I think this is for me, like one of those skills that people just don't pay attention to, like the writers and the strategists like that I know that are still freelance after quite some long period of time is because they didn't give up. They kept trying new things and they were consistent.
They consistently did the hard stuff. They consistently upped the quality of their work. They were consistently getting clips. They were consistent in, um, doing a bunch of different hard stuff like marketing and pitching and following up in their business. And that leads to high paying gigs. Hey Vesna, that high paying gigs like consistency, like they like reliability.
They like people who are able to deliver over and over again on quality content. That's the whole point of our job, right? So for me, whenever I think about that, I feel like being consistent helps you move up. To better gigs. By being consistent with your marketing, you get to be pickier about projects. Um, by being consistent with pitching, you get to work with better publications, with being consistent about maybe, um, improving the quality of your work by reading other, excuse me, reading other people's work or, um, getting feedback or, um, working up to like bigger companies or doing bigger projects.
All that consistency leads to high paying work. It really changes your business. So for me, one of the things that, um, I realized when I was burning out was that just because you're doing something regularly doesn't mean it's getting better. So there's a consistency thing where like, so when I burned out, it was like I was doing a ton of work all the time, but I wasn't like paying attention to, like, I just was trying to get it done.
Like I was trying to do the best I could as fast as I could in a short period of time. Rather than worrying about like, how do I make this piece a little bit better and how do I make this piece a little bit better? And there were times when I was burning out where I was so tired, I couldn't even remember what I wrote.
Like I couldn't remember. I turned in a piece and I would get edits and I'm like, I don't even remember writing this. So the consistency piece isn't just getting on the hamster wheel. So that's, I wanna make sure we have a distinction between being consistent and being on the hamster wheel. Okay? This is not the hamster wheel, this is consistency in being somebody who reliably creates good work.
As someone who, um, comes back. Like when someone comes to your portfolio, you're continuing to get clips because you're going after work, you're consistently going after the things that you want. Whether that's bylines, certain clients, um, uh, your determination when things get hard. Um, or understanding that a lot of clients will give you good feedback and implementing that into your work.
Okay? So consistency is a hard thing to do. So one of the things that when I send out, I send out like an annual survey to my subscribers. So if you haven't joined the email list, you can join it by going to mandy ellis.com/pricing guide and grab my free pricing guide. It's pretty, it's really extensive for content strategists and freelance writer writers.
If you grab that, you'll join the list, but every January, I'm sending out a, a, a subscriber survey of what they want covered, what they want for free and paid classes, what kinds of, uh, struggles are going through, all the good stuff so I can write helpful emails every week and do helpful live streams. So when I sent that out, the number one thing that came in when I said like, what do you think of of Bandi Ellis?
Or like, what do you think of the brand or like, what, you know, these emails that you get every single week. They said consistency. That was the thing, almost like everybody said was consistency. That's really hard to do because you have to do it when you don't want to. You have to do it when you're tired.
You have to figure it out. Even when you don't really have that much time, you have to make time for it. Yes. Hello? Did you feel personally offended by that? No. You're just, okay. Alright. Don't look at me like that. Okay. Um, when I was like, being consistent about that, um, is really hard to do because we have to do it all the time.
Consistency doesn't mean a hundred percent of the time. Consistency means you continue to do it despite Right. You continue to do it despite, and you get better at it. So it's not the hamster wheel of doom. It's something where you consistently show up for your clients, you provide valuable content, you get better at your work.
You are consistently marketing, and this leads to high paying projects, people who refer you out. Consistency is one of those things where people are like, yes, every time this writer turns something in, it's great. I love it. And then they refer you to other people. Um, and it's really a strong way to get testimonials because they're like, every time, you know, every time we, we get their work, it's always great.
So consistency is one of those things that I think just the determination and the ability to keep creating quality in your content, I think that's really important. Um, and it's a high paying skill. It's something that, like, this is something I see quite often is people fall off the wagon and then they just don't get back on.
They're just like, I guess I couldn't do it. That's not consistency. Consistency looks a little bit different every day, but you are consistently showing up for all the little pieces in your business that need sharpening or that need changing or your clients or your work, right? Getting better at that stuff.
So for me, I can say, I know this sounds cheesy and I've read this from many entrepreneurs, is like one of the things that. Helps them get through it is just being consistent. Like, the reason that I've been able to build all this cool stuff, like freelance Writer, wealth Lab, or Runway, or my email list, or the free classes that I run, or this live stream or any of the stuff that I've built or my, my six figure business is because I was just consistent.
Like I consistently tried to figure out the puzzle. I consistently made my work better. I consistently was taking feedback. I was consistently marketing. Um, I was consistently like trying to, um, push myself even when things were hard. Um, and I was consistently reevaluating my processes. So that consistency, e it, it's sort of like that same idea where, um, I can't remember who said it, it was like it's, I don't know if it was Archimedes or it's one of those old Greek people and uh, those Greek philosophers that said like, um, excellence is a habit.
Like excellence isn't like a quality, excellence is a habit. So when you're thinking about consistency, you should be thinking about excellence. You should, like, how can I do something with excellence every single day? Like, how am I bringing excellence and excellence is not perfection. Okay? A lot of times when I talk about this, people are like, excellence just means you do get a hundred percent, you get an a plus on everything.
And that's just not the case. It's just not the case. Excellence means doing the best you can and improving quality over time. And it, it, it is absolutely a habit. Like it is something where every little piece of your life, you're trying to do things as best you can. You're trying to improve the process.
Um, and I feel like excellence is something that you continue to strive for and you strive through your habits. So when you're thinking about consistency, you are searching for excellence. You are trying to do better in your field. Um, you are trying to create better content. And a lot of times when I see a lack of consistency, it's marketing, right?
Lois, letters of introduction or pitches. But I also see lack of consistency in people pushing themselves to do better work. Hey, Getty. Um, oh yeah, Getty has a performance tomorrow, everybody. So if you guys, you know, Getty, you can share a link in the chat if you want, but Getty has a performance coming up tomorrow.
Um, he's in a chorus or she's in a chorus. Sorry. Um, and uh, so in any case, your stuff when you're thinking about excellence should be kind of like something that you are looking at in your work. Like I've seen a lot of people produce the same kind and same quality of work for the same types of clients for like five years.
There's a point where you have to let go of like the consistent income and go for something more. And we can do this by trading them off, right? We consistently move to higher up clients. We, um, are in this process of we have great clients and we raise our rates. And maybe that client is eventually get to this point where you have like a client at one end and a client at the other end.
And then you realize like, I'm doing this same work for the client at the low end as I am at the high end and I'm getting paid more. They value my, my opinion more, or they value my expertise more. And you're like, I need to cut this client. Right? Um, so there's always all these changes that you need to think of in your business, but don't get stuck in kind of the, the hamster wheel of, of like comfortableness.
We want to be on the consistency train of excellence, right? Every train needs maintenance, but we are consistently updating it and, uh, making it better and improving it. So that's number four. Number four is our consistency, our consistency in our quality of clips and improving our quality of clips, um, and improving the quality of just how we work and our onboarding and how we put everything together in our business as well as our marketing and pitching and just not giving up.
There's a lot of times I've wanted to give up, but I think the reason I'm still a freelance writer, um, and a freelance content strategist and I teach other writers is because of consistency. You're welcome, Getty. Uh, okay, let's go to three. Let's talk about three here. What do you think would you like to share?
Would you like to wag for everybody? Yes. You're so cute. Um, yesterday, so just a little pup date. So before, oh, I know. We're so excited. Um, yesterday Charlie went to the vet and she did great. She was super good girl, good girl. Oh no. Can you get it? She was a super good girl. She got, uh, a bunch of, you know, her vaccinations that she needed and she had all these other things that have been going on.
Um, she has a little tooth that we noticed. One of her front canine teeth, uh, has been turning grayer and grayer. So we were like, that's not good. And it turns out that it's basically decaying, so her tooth is dying off, and that can be from a whole bunch of other things. She's a rough and tumble dog, so she's like outside all the time, running around be wild or getting herself into something.
So she's gonna have to have her tooth removed, so she'll be. Less toothy. And when we adopted her, um, one of the things that we noticed, and this was years, so we adopted her about seven years ago now. Can you catch it? Good job. Um, she had three broken teeth when we adopted her. So when we took her in for her first vet visit, they were like, it doesn't seem like they're bothering her.
So Charlotte may end up losing more teeth than just the one. Do you do a little good girl, good job. Um, she might end up losing more teeth, but just cuz she's more gummy doesn't make sh mean she's any less beautiful. Right. Charlie? I've also been working on, um, a new thing with her. Oh, hold on. I've also been working on a new thing with her.
Can you show everyone? Belly. Belly. Good girl. Good job. So one of the things that, uh, Charlie doesn't like is like trying to do belly stuff at the vet. Like she's, she just wants to be on her feet all the time and she will sit or like, Do something so you can't look at her belly. So if she ever has allergy spots on her belly, like it's really hard to see 'em.
So I'm kind of like, just like I was teaching her around so that she could get around small spaces when she felt nervous. I'm teaching her belly so that she's able to kind of like more, show her belly and be comfortable. Can you show 'em your belly, belly, belly. Good girl. Good job with a good girl. All right, Charlie, back to our stuff.
I see that Albert is got some comments in here. Getty. You're gonna do great. Um, writer. So Albert says, I look at consistency first as the ability to replicate work, articles, pieces, other material. If you can't produce written materials on a persistent basis, you won't be able to survive. Yeah, it's also about consistency in getting work and creating good work and being able to repeat that process for sure.
Uh, and then Albert says, once you're able to work consistently, you can learn from your work and thus improve the quality of your materials. It's also like getting that feedback too, which is what we're gonna talk about in a little bit. But I feel like once you're having this consistent stuff and working, it's kind of like sharpening like, uh, whatever, like iron sharpens iron kind of deal.
So like if you get good editors or good clients who can give you good feedback. And then also as you're working consistently, you're constantly kind of practicing your writing habits mu much more frequently. That helps you end up getting better work, more high paying gigs. And then also like you're getting, you have like this natural growth from reading a lot more high end materials as you move along and more high quality stuff.
Okay, let's talk about three, right? Let's talk about three. She's like, I've got my interest ears on. Okay, let's talk about three. So three is the ability to thoroughly comprehend and follow directions as well as examples. This is a high paying skill. This is something that I see as a mistake many, many times.
Follow the directions, just do what they told you to do. There's a lot of times where I've seen writers who are like my creative freedom and I'm like, you can do that for a personal essay. You can do that for some other story, but most of the time follow directions. Ask for an example. Go do that Example.
Like this is what ends up getting writers in trouble, is they, um, end up getting a piece accepted, right? They, they end up pitching an article and then they let that article spin out of control. They don't keep that article to like the main nugget. And I always think of it as the, like this, your article is like one page of a book, not two sides of one page of a book.
Like just the front page of one part of a book. So not the chapter, not the whole book. You get one printed like, you know, whatever it is, eighth of an inch, piece of paper size, 10 font or whatever. So it's one, just one little page in a book. Um, and I always think about it as like the following directions is like, when you work for a magazine, you need to read a lot of the other ones that are like yours, right?
Go read other articles that are in the same vertical as yours or that are in the same, uh, from like the editor worked with those people, or, um, they're different like pieces that are, um, explaining the destination that you're writing about. But there's a lot of times where people don't ask for examples and they're just like going into something blind.
You can always ask your clients for examples, and especially when your clients give you a content brief. Follow directions. Follow directions. I get it. We, there are plenty of things that we wanna do as writers that give us creative freedom or that have us being able to express different parts of, um, things that we care about.
But there's also a part where, like you, you need to follow the directions. The success of your content usually depends on following directions. So when we are looking through stuff, if you have questions, ask questions. If you have a client who then says like, it's too late to ask questions, they're not your client, finish up the work in abort leave.
So there was, I used to have clients, and I'm saying this from experience, I had clients early on in my career where like they were like, you need to ask me questions by X date. And I'm like, no, no. Like what if I'm working on it and I have a question now I just magically can't email you with questions. Or like, if I would have the assignment for like two days or three days and then I would get started on it, right?
And I had two weeks to work on it and I would send questions. They're like, why are you just sending questions now? It's like, cuz I have questions now. So questions are a really important thing. We need to understand them, you need to ask questions about it. Um, and you need to see the examples of what they're looking for.
Because I can tell you from experience, I have had clients come to me and say, I want a white paper. And I get something and I'm like, that's not a white paper. That's like a blog post. Or it's like a reported article. Um, So it the idea of what your clients think, something is like sometimes someone will say, I want a guide.
And you're like, this is not a guide. Or someone says like, I want an um, like I want an ebook. And you're like, no, no, this is not an ebook. Um, there's a whole bunch of stuff where you need to see what in their mind that thing means. Because white paper or case study, or reported article or infographic means lots of different things to lots of different people.
We all have a general understanding, right? So when we're kind of creating content, we're like, what's the best case study we can look at? Or who teaches about case studies or, um, who can help me with reported articles? Or how many magazines can I read, right? To then understand more of journalistic quality quotes, who I should be interviewing, how to put everything together, right?
But a lot of times when we work with businesses, like Business A has a totally different idea of it than business B or whatever your past clients were. And I, like I said, I've had people say like, I want a case study. And I'm like, that's not a case study. And then I have someone else that's like, I want a white paper or a guide, or I want this or this.
And I'm like, that's not what that is. But you just kind of roll with it. You're like, you know, and you don't, you're not charging for a white paper, right? It's not a white paper. It's like a one pager. Right. So the other stuff is like, if we can, um, comprehend the directions, if we can understand what our needs are for our client and we can create good content, we're all in good shape.
Right? And this is something where like there are time, there is a time and a place for personal. Creative freedom that is reserved for specific projects. Um, this is something that I think a lot of writers, when they get into writing, they're like, I'm just gonna write about stuff I'm passionate about. And it's like, there's a lot of things that you're interested in that you don't even know exist.
Like when I started, I had, I was interested in real estate, but I didn't like get it. Like I didn't seek it out that much. And I had an editor who asked me to do it, and now I love it. I think it's so fascinating. I love writing about all the tools and the prop tech, um, and the mortgage tech and like how all those things worked together.
And for me, I didn't even know those things existed. Like I didn't even know that was like a fun thing for me to write about. And a lot of times people get start started in niches, right? I started saying like, I started out in food and travel and now I write in all these different niches because they're more interesting, they're fascinating, and people just like immediately write them off, right?
They're just like, that doesn't, you know, I wanna write about this very specific thing. And there's just a lot of different interests out there. So if you're able to kind of, um, follow directions, if you're able to do good work, and if you're able to take those examples and follow the example, you're in good shape and you get to do a lot of really interesting stuff.
And there's big changes. Like there's lots of, yes, hello. She's over there. I'm making grumbling noises at me. Um, there's a lot of stuff that's changing, right? Like one of the things I like is Ag Tech. I think Ag Agri, it's agricultural technology, ag tech, ag. So good job. Ag Tech, um, is really interesting to me because they have robots and they have all these different tools that they can use to grow better crops, uh, or reduce use of water or help animals live better lives.
And that is something that's really important to me. And I just didn't realize, you know, until I started looking into it, all of the things that AgTech does. And that also includes little robots that, um, do vertical farming, right? So like they have this huge building with all of these vertical farms, right?
It's just like a farm on a little, um, it's like a set of rows of like little plants. Um, and the robots just take care of them, right? They check on them and do all this stuff. And that's really interesting. It's kind of helping a lot of different systems stay in place in our ecosystem. It's helping reduce water, uh, usage.
It's doing a lot of stuff. That's really cool. And if I had just kind of stuck in my, like, I only want creative freedom, you really have to be more open-minded to like following directions. You have to be more open-minded to creating the piece that your client is looking for. We are trying to help an audience.
That's one of the things that helped, uh, I think helps turn it around. Instead of thinking of it as creative freedom or writing what you wanna write, think of it as how do I best help this audience succeed? So if you're writing a piece, hi, you look super cute with your little interested ears on. So if you're writing a piece, right, you're writing a piece and you're interviewing people for it and you're learning a lot about that niche and, um, we are kind of trying to look for the pieces of advice that helps that audience move forward or make changes or see the future or do stuff that impacts their long-term business.
That audience part is more important. They're the ones reading it. We wanna make sure we relay the right message and to actually help them rather than worrying about creative expression. I know there, like I said, there is a time and a place for creative expression. There's a time and a place for, um, Doing projects that are just kind of allowing you to express more of your own opinions or your own, like how you want the piece to flow.
And that's totally fine, but there's a lot of times where we need to follow directions. We need to follow the format. Like you can't go pitch a piece to a magazine and get it, uh, get it accepted and then send in copy that doesn't fit their magazine at all, right? We need to pay attention. And this is like, I've seen this in writers, is like a resistance to it.
Just follow the example. And I can tell you from my own experience, this is one of the things that improved my writing. The more examples I read, the more better quality publications, the more, um, better quality content that I read by writers who were ahead of me, or writers who did better case studies, white papers, whatever, the better my work got.
So really you're kind of double dipping. You get to not only pay attention and do what the client is asking and also help your audience. But you get to double dip on making your writing better because you're reading tons of examples all the time. You're reading better quality work, right? And you should be learning kind of from osmosis from that.
And I think that for me was a big thing. Like a lot of times when I tell my wealth lab students, I'm like, read a lot, like read widely, read a lot of different sources. You will be able to very easily pick out the good stuff from the bad and then follow the good stuff. Learn how to write better, learn how to describe things better, learn how to, um, look for trends or look for, uh, specific people who are really doing a lot for the industry or, um, there's a lot of little pieces that I think really matter when you're, you're, you're reading widely and understanding the example or understanding the format that you're gonna be putting your content in.
So for me, when I think about that, that's like, you gotta follow directions. You gotta like, every piece is just one side, right? It's just this. All you get is just this, this one side of the page. You don't get both pages. You don't get front and back. You get this. That's your article. You don't get the whole book.
So if you think about it that way, it's such a small slice that if you start veering off course, what ends up happening is you end up distracting your reader. You end up not helping them as much as you wanted. And Anne just ends up becoming this, like, you get stuck in the weeds, like I've seen it a bunch, uh, and I've done it a bunch, right?
So it's a really important thing. Follow directions, get examples from your clients. Read widely, learn from a lot of different sources. Pick out the ones that are high quality and kind of learn from osmosis too, and reading those. All right? Um, let's go to two. But also I have a sassy bean over here that we're gonna say hello to Yes.
Bean. Would you like some snacks? She's like, you like some snacks? All right, can you catch it? Oh, this one broke. Can you catch it? Good job. You're a superstar. You're a superstar. Can you give it back? Oh, you're just gonna do belly. Just gonna do belly. Good girl. Good girl. My gosh. I'm so proud of you. Good girl.
The belly thing has been a many years in the making just for everybody's knowledge, like getting her to roll over and show her, like she'll roll over and show her belly all the time, but not on like, like if you ask her to do it, she gets really nervous about it. Can you show me your belly? Belly? Good girl.
Good job. She's a superstar. She's a little superstar. Let's talk about two. Um, Albert says, I never did a lot of client work in my career, but if there are clients who say they want a white paper when they really want an article, that's just plain scary to me. I couldn't co tolerate that. They just don't know.
That's the thing. It's not scary. Like they're saying. They just don't know what it is. Like they're showing you an, basically what they're saying is like, I want a. And you're like, I get you want a, A is not called a, it's called B, but like correcting them on that doesn't really matter. So really the deal is like, they just don't know.
So in their mind that thing is a white paper. It's kind of like, um, it's kind of like, oh, here's a good thing. It's kind of like toad in the holes. Okay. So for me, a toad in the hole is a piece of bread that you toast and you put an egg in it. Some people call that egg in a basket. Some people call that some other like toad in the holes have like 85 different names.
We're all talking about the same thing. Okay? So the difference here is that they're using the same name for something that's widely different. This is why we get examples. Like they're saying they want an article, you charge them for an article, like they're saying they want a white paper, you realize it's an article, you charge them for an article.
Um, you can also educate your clients too. I do this all the time. I'm like, oh, you know what, if that's kind of a non-traditional white paper, I would kind of consider that an article. And they're like, oh, okay. Let, let's just do this. What they wanna do is that thing, whatever they call it, is kind of, you can educate on them, them on that later.
But it's more like, um, the opposite is more difficult. So like if someone comes to me with and says, I need a white paper and it's actually an article that's easier than if someone comes to me and says they need an article and that thing's actually a white paper, right? That's a lot harder. But most of the time it's that they just say like, I want this thing done.
And they have an example. They show it to you and you're like, I can do that. So it's, it's not really like, there's a lot of conversation that we have with our clients and there's a lot of things that we could clear up and educate them on. Um, and most of the time, if they're coming to you with an example, They want you to do that thing.
Can you do that thing? Sure. Is it a white paper? No. So you wouldn't like the exam? The idea would be that you wouldn't take that and show that as a white paper example to other clients. You would show it as an article in your portfolio. Um, and then you can educate your clients like on what a white paper is, and you can show them like, Hey, here is a white paper I've done in the past.
And they're like, oh, not that. And you're like, okay. So we're doing an article, but it's, it's not a big deal. Like we just tell 'em. We just educate them and we walk them through the process of like what that thing is. All right, let's talk about two. Two is you need to be able to take feedback. I've already said this a little bit, so you need to be able to take feedback, but you also need to ask for feedback and you need to implement that feedback.
You can't just ignore it or you can't just implement that feedback for that one article. Right. So you need to be able to take feedback and then you need to also be able to ask for it. So taking feedback is a lot of publication stuff, right? We often get edits. We often get changes. That's why I like working with publications cuz you kind of lose your grip on your work.
You kind of like, you don't, you don't hold so tightly to say, like, my, my precious, you're kind of like, how do I make this better? This editor wants to work with me. How do I make it better so that I can write for this publication more? I really like this. Right? So you're working to make your, your writing, um, and your work better for that magazine so you can continue working with them or you can work with other magazines in their caliber, right?
But that also means when you complete a project, you can say like, Hey, do you have any feedback? Or if someone says like, Hey, I don't think this is a fit. You know, maybe we shouldn't, you know, I, I would like to cancel our contract. You're like, totally cool. Do you have any feedback for me to improve my writing?
And then you need to implement what makes sense. There's sometimes you get feedback and you're just like, oh, this is not right. But there's plenty of times, especially with editors at magazines, where you get fantastic feedback and you actually need to implement it. You need to remember those things. And if you have a trouble remembering 'em, write 'em down.
I have like, a whole bunch of stuff. Uh, back in the day I had a whole bunch of things like, uh, that I wrote down that was like, don't use passive voice, make sure you don't change 10, um, like basic stuff. But I, it was just like a thing I would do sometimes just when I was writing. So write things down, like feedback that you get and ask for feedback at the end of a project.
If someone cancels a contract, if. Um, your editor, like, let's say you've been working with an editor for like a year and they never give you feedback. Still ask them for feedback. They may be like, Hey, I never told you this, but every time I get an article for you, I change these three things. And you're like, oh.
And they're like, yeah, they were small, I just never told you. And you're like, well, I'm glad I asked. Now, now I can make less work for you so I can get more, you know, get a better, um, get better quality content for you so you don't have to edit as much. Right. The feedback thing can be very hard. It's very hard to work on something and put a lot of effort into it and get it back and it's just like comments and edits and deletions and changes and um, and problems all over the place.
And you're just like, why, why is this happening to me? Um, and I've cried over edits many times. Like, I, it sometimes you're, you like put a lot, like I've worked on stuff for like weeks, like, uh, feature articles, right? And then I get it back and I'm just like, no. Um, and it just, it's part of the process.
Sometimes. Sometimes you just miss the mark. But the important thing is to take that feedback. The important thing is to implement it and to ask for it, and to seek out people who can help you become a better writer. Because becoming a better writer means you're gonna get better high paying gigs. It means you have the quality of work to work for a top publication.
It means that you can move into bigger projects. Like there's a lot of really great things that come with improving your writing. So I think there's just a lot of, um, there's a lot of really good gems that you get from feedback. And like I said, like I really, I really felt like the more feedback I got, the less precious I got about my stuff.
Like I really wanted to implement feedback that made sense. Like there's times when editors will give you feedback and you're like, uh, not really this. And they're like, okay. And then you just move on. But I would say like, Most of the time, like 80, like 70 to 80% of what you're getting from your, your clients or your editors is on track to fix your work.
And then there's other stuff where that you just like, no, I'm not doing that. Or you get a client that makes your work worse and then you stop working with that client. Right. But I think the implementation of this, and this is kind of the same thing, like when this is something that I think, um, was a mistake I made for a while.
I would get a piece, it would have edits, I would make those edits, and then I would just like put the published piece in my portfolio. Like I wouldn't read it. I wouldn't read it and see what was changed or how it ended up after final edits. So make sure when something's published, you actually read it.
You don't just publish it to your portfolio. I know that sounds silly, but for me it's like completing the circle. You have to write the draft, submit it, do the edits, and then read the finished piece. Because it could be that your article, I heard you, it could be that your article goes through multiple different levels of edits and editors and changes.
And you wanna make sure that you kind of see what the end result is. You wanna make sure that you're seeing a good girl, that you're seeing how that thing ends up turning, turning out, so that you can create better content in the future. I think that that's a really important thing, and I was just so excited that it was published.
I would just be like, it's published. I wouldn't read it and understand like the full circle of how the edits come to be. So make sure you're doing that. Read the final product, you can compare it to your draft, like you can, um, there's like programs that will compare, uh, uh, two different docs and show you the changes if you need to do that.
But I think taking feedback and asking for feedback are really important. Those are the things that help you eliminate bad habits and eliminate things in your writing that are like, everybody has these little writing tics that they have, uh, getting feedback, getting, um, important, like important people who have a lot of influence over your work.
I think getting their opinion is really important. Um, and implementing that, like that consistent implementation process of feedback and implementing um, little changes to your work over time really makes a difference in the end quality of your stuff. Like it really makes a difference in, uh, the clips that you have 10 years down the road.
And that I can say that like, there's a piece, um, that I love. It's one of the first pieces I ever got published and I still love it, but I look at it and I'm like, Ugh. Like I could have done so much better. And that's where you should be like, you should be able to look back on your work from last year or the year before and be like, Ugh.
Like, thank God my work's better now. We should. But that comes from implementing feedback that comes from reading a lot. That comes from taking in those examples, that comes from asking for feedback even when it's not given. Right. There's a lot of times where people will just like secretly do stuff with your work just cuz it's short and simple and easy to do.
And, uh, What ends up happening is they just don't tell you. But those little things are things you do for every project. You just don't know about them. So the more you become aware of them, you can fix them for all your other projects and make your your work better. Um, Albert says if people are going to be freelancers, they have to write for clients and publications.
Uh, you have to take yourself, your literary taste and personal desires out of it and just get the assignments done. I think sometimes I don't think everybody has to write for publications. I think that there are lots of clients, like business clients that are still really great at giving feedback, are really great at helping, um, helping you out with your work.
I don't think I know people, plenty of people who haven't written for any publications, uh, they've only written for businesses and they have great businesses they love. So there's also these things where like, we need to get the assignment done and there's a time and a place like there's always a time and a place for expertise and there's a time and a place where like, Like I have, uh, I've had editors be like, I trust your judgment.
Right? So they kind of let me do a couple things that I normally wouldn't, or they let me kind of free flow a little bit. So those are opportunities where you can kind of expand or put in a little more of your essence. But I feel like there's, there's definitely a line. There's a line for like, at what point, like, do you cross it, right?
Do you, um, you kind of have to start understanding that. You have to understand like when it's important, um, when it's important for you to add finesse, your own finesse, or when it's important for you to add a little bit more stuff that's more signature to you. And when you need to kind of like stick to the straight directions and, um, do the exact thing that you're supposed to do.
So I think it, it depends, but I, I feel like it depends on, um, a lot of people's careers. Some people just don't care about magazines. I always loved magazines even. Like I add all kinds of like magazines that I love to read, um, along with books when I was a kid. All right. Let's talk about the number one high paying skill.
The number one high paying skill, uh, for freelance writers and content strategists, in my opinion is, You have to do good research. You have to ask good quality questions. You have to make sure that you are staying curious. This is a hard one because it's really easy after you've written for a niche for like five years to just be like, Nope, I know everything.
Or to close your mind out to do stuff, or to just be like on repeat robot mode. You have to stay curious and you have to do good research. This is one of the things that is a problem nowadays where people are just like, oh, I'll just quote the New York Times. Instead of going to find that government study or whatever type of research the New York Times put in their article, they're just like, the New York Times posted this study.
No, go find this study that's lazy journalism, and this happens a lot. People write blog posts and they just link to another blog post. That talked about research, you need to link to the actual research. That's good research. You also need to find good studies that are by good places, uh, universities that are known for that thing, or people who put out reports that are like Mintel or, um, nations restaurant news, like professional organizations that, you know, put out good quality stats studies.
They do good research. It's also your job to dig around. I often talk about this, you have to get your hands dirty. Go read. I do this a lot. Okay. Not just when I write for a new magazine or a new client and I go read a bunch of other stuff so I can kind of get a feel for tone style, like how things are supposed to go.
But I'm also looking at other articles published on that topic. There's plenty of times where I've read 10 or 20 articles just to get a feel for like, what would I be missing? Like the, let's make sure I, I encompass a lot of different angles on this, uh, story so that I can kind of see the wide swath of opinions and angles and what's kind of going on.
You have to do good research. That also means asking good questions of your interviewees or asking good questions of your clients. This is what makes you like really hone in on the stuff that matters. This is why this is a high paying skill. There's a lot of freelancers that phone this in. Do not phone this in.
Ask your clients good questions on calls. Ask good questions on of your interviewees. That's how you get good quotes. That's how your story shines, right? These are things where like, I've seen, um, interview questions, like I've had people send me interview questions to review, and it's just like the most basic thing.
It's not deep at all. You need to make sure your, your interview questions and the research that you do for your work, that they are sharp and specific. We are looking for like very specific things. That your audience cares about. And maybe that specific thing is are like, what are the steps to do X, Y, Z, right?
But from those steps, now I can ask follow up questions and those need to be sharp and on point. And you know, you need to be listening to someone to ask the right questions. And you need to stay curious. This is something where like, I often, uh, joke about how I'm like a recovering, know-it-all. Like I really struggled with that.
Um, I really struggled with like, just, I felt really insecure if I didn't know everything, like I was like, oh my gosh, I have to know everything cuz otherwise I'm dumb. Like, if I don't know everything, you know, then I'm dumb or I'm not good at my job, or I'm a terrible writer. But you can't know everything.
That's not possible. There is no topic, not even people who dedicate their lives to one thing. So here's a good example. Okay. Here's a good example. People have studied whale sharks for a long, long time. They still don't know where whale shark babies are, are born. They see pregnant moms go to, I think there's like a, an island in the Gala Galapagos that they go to, but they still have never seen one born.
They've never been able to confirm that's where the babies are born. They just like show up somewhere else. Like these babies just sh show up in some other area. So the deal is like, even if you studied something your whole life, you dedicate your whole life to whale sharks, right? Or freelance writing.
There's no way you could possibly know everything. There's a lot of mystery, and that's why you need to stay curious. You need to stay interested, you need to ask the right questions. And instead of being a know-it-all, like I, I like a recovering one. Instead of doing that, being like I know everything.
Research do like good research. Look at the right studies, right? These studies or these reports, they can come from the government, they can come from universities, they can come from, uh, professional organizations or national organizations. Make sure they're coming from credible sources. Don't go to like random places that just put up random stats on everything.
This research thing is one of the reasons I get paid really well to do the work I do, cuz I'm very nerdy about research. Like I, I care very deeply about super granular research, um, and that you can charge more for, because you can tell the difference between an article that was well, well researched, put together, organized, um, and is statistically sound right.
Like every piece of the article or every piece that you're putting together is a building block to the BA Pass thing, right? Then an article that was slapped together versus like, go read this random blog post and go read this other thing. Like they don't have any original research. They just like phoned it in.
Like you can tell a big difference from that. The other thing is like, um, when you work for higher up publications and when you work for, uh, companies where they want you to do case studies, white papers, guides, anything where you have to interview an sme, a subject matter expert or somebody at the company, or you have to go find interviewees, these skills are really important.
Like you have to be able to do a good case study interview and a good white paper interview and a good interview for a reported article, right? That is a super high paying skill and a not a lot of, not, uh, not enough people really hone their question asking and their research skills, but you get paid really well for case studies and white papers.
You get paid really well for content strategy, brand messaging, messaging and positioning. A lot of that stuff is research. The reason I love content strategy is cuz it's nerd time. It's nerd research time. It's like, look at the data. What have we been doing? What have our competitors been doing? How can we make that better?
What is statistically working, what's not? Like, there's so much research that goes into that, that's really important and you get paid like that. To me, the ability to research, um, and the ability to be really specific in asking questions that leads you to the most high paying work, like your ability to do all those things.
Right? Like top publications want you to be able to do that, right? Like the best publications there are, you have to be able to interview well, ask the right questions and stay curious in order to do big projects that are 30 to 50 K or 10 to 50 K, right? You have to be able to do the research in order to get paid a dollar or $2 a word for an article.
You have to be able to do good research, get good quotes, and put everything together. So for me, I feel like this is just like a really, like when I was thinking about this topic, I just thought like the number one thing has to be researched because I just see so many people and we talk about ai, right?
Like lots of people can phone it in now with AI or chat, G B T, whatever. But the deal is that if you are someone who can do the goods, like, so here's the deal, like if chat G P T or AI are like just pulling random stuff and you are pulling super specific stuff, it's very easy to tell the difference between something chat G P T or AI wrote and you wrote.
So your job is to stay human, right? Is to find the things that they're just gonna gather up everything and be like 55 people said this Harvard study was the best. It doesn't mean it's the best for your article, right? There could be a study by a random interest group that is, uh, they interviewed a hundred thousand people and got really great information.
That's more of, uh, a fit for your slant for your article, right? But there's a lot of things that we just like, you have to be diligent. You have to pay attention to your research. This is also why when I get a student, um, who comes to me with a research background, like someone who's like, oh no, I have a science background.
Or like, oh no, I have like a, a background of researching all these things. I was like, that's a good thing. Like that's really important to your work. These are things that are in that same pool of a, of excellence. They're in that habit of excellence. If you are a good researcher and you're asking good questions and you're being curious and you're kind of getting your fingers into the dirt and kind of seeing what's going on, where are the roots, right?
That is a quality that you possess. It's not a hindrance, right? It's something that's really important to getting to the bottom of it. This also helps us, right? This also helps us when clients have problems. They're coming to you saying, our content isn't working. We don't know what we're doing wrong.
Everything's fluffed up, right? And then you're able to research the problem. You're able to pull on a bunch of things, look at stats, um, look at the stuff they've been doing, look at their past strategies. These are like the most important skills. These things help you get to the highest paid projects that there are, like all of like, uh, being able to find quality research, be interested in researching topics, researching things.
Um, this also comes into that passion. If you're interested in something, um, a topic that is, Um, like close to your heart or something that you're super fascinated by This research stuff, like it's really easy to over research. Um, it's really easy to kind of go off the deep end, but I feel like that fuels a lot of our really strong, um, pieces that we end up writing.
And really it fuels a lot of really good stuff for our clients. If you're curious about their audience and helping them, you do better research, you ask better questions. If you're moving up to higher up projects, you need to ask your clients better Quest questions, and then you need to apply those answers to your projects, which you're probably gonna have to do interviews.
Um, you're probably gonna have to do, um, a lot of stuff that has to do with like, looking through their market research or looking through the past stuff that they'd done. So think about researching and question ask, asking and being curious as like your thing that leads you to like all the projects you want to do, or it leads you to the publications you wanna write for.
Don't do lazy journalism where you link to something else. Link to the thing where it comes from. Go find. And if you see a study that's been used 10 times, read the study and go find something new in it to put in your article. Okay. Don't just copy paste from like, anytime when I tell people I read 10 to 20 articles, sometimes that's me understanding the topic at a deeper level.
That's not me pulling all their research and just pasting it into mine. Like, I might find a study where they talk about something that, um, I really need to talk about and I'll go read that study. Right. I'll read the study, I'll pull new information, I'll take a different angle on it. Those studies are not just one stat, right.
Those studies are dozens of stats. Pick another one. Right. Um, the, the only, uh, caveat there is like that there sometimes are studies, like I always mentioned, right. The Harvard Happiness Study that's been going on for like a thousand years. It's very big landmark study, right? That of course. You can quote a bunch of stuff in that, but most of the time the research that we're looking at is kind of on a, like an ongoing basis.
There's always like new studies about this sugar and food, but not this sugar and this thing and not that thing. So you can always kind of find that. Um, but for me, when I think about high paying skills, things that writers really need to have, and research crosses all of them. I don't care if you're doing content strategy or you're working on seo or you are doing a blog post or you are doing a reported article for a top magazine, or you're doing something for a trade magazine or you're doing your very first clip, researching, asking questions, being curious.
That's like the thing you need. And a lot of times that's one of the things that gets us into writing, right? We're interested and the way that we communicate interest. And the way that we in interact with the world is to research and then share that with people. Right? The writing part is like the culmination of like, here's all this cool stuff I found aren't, isn't this cool?
Right? So I feel like our communication through writing is kind of the, like the, I don't know, like the essence of the research, right? The research and doing all the hard stuff. Eventually you get to this point where you're like, look at all the cool stuff. So I feel like the researching part is more natural too, for writers.
So lean into that. Be more curious. Don't get stuck, stuck into like a little tunnel and then be like, it can only be this. There's a lot of stuff we need to be curious about and interested. And a lot of times where clients have problems that you can solve very easily by asking some more questions or when you're in an interview, I don't care if it's for a magazine or a case study or a white paper or, or content strategy or a workshop even for content strategy.
Being curious, asking follow up questions, listening to people, and that like curiosity that leads to like unraveling the onion, right? We get more layers outta stuff and then the more layers we can peer peel back the deeper qual, like the deeper material we have, which is the better quality of our work.
It's more specific, it's deeper in the whole, it's not so surface level. What do you think? What do you think? Yeah. You like that, that was, that was that worked for you? Charlotte's kind of tired cuz we took her on a, uh, we took her on a little car ride and she used, she likes to hang out in the windows. So Charlotte likes to, you know, like every dog, she likes to put her head out the window, but she's now, um, she's approaching 10 and a half.
So her legs, you know, she's all, her muscles are all sore because she was standing out the window for too long and standing up on everything. And um, so she's, this is why she's laying down and she's not sitting up cuz she's like a little sore being from being a wild party at all. All right. So that's our number one thing.
Um, I think this is also just the last little thing here. I think this is also an important thing that a lot of six figure writers are good at, is research, being curious, asking questions, being thorough in their research, and being thorough in how they kind of put their work together. I think that's a really important point.
Um, Albert says, when I started freelance, a good point on research, when I started freelancing in the nineties, I had to research pieces by finding and reading books and magazines and other sources. Now, research is both easy and lazy these days. Yeah, it depends. I remember, um, I had to find stuff in books for a little while.
Uh, it wasn't just all Google, but, um, there's so much stuff now that I feel like a lot of it is not good. So for me, when I think about research, it's easy to find stuff, but it's also like, it's not har It's, it's hard to find the good stuff. So there's a plethora of stuff out there. But it's not always good stuff.
Like there's a lot of content and a lot of stuff being created, but it doesn't mean that stuff is always like the best stuff you wanna use for your work. Okay, I think that's all we're gonna cover today. If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you wanna learn more about building your hiring, freelance writing business, or building a freelance writing business, you adore, subscribe.
Charlotte, what would you like to say to the people? I hear you making noise over there. You just want like more snacks. That's all you want. Charlotte, do you wanna give anybody any bonus skills? Charlotte says, look cute. Yeah, look cute. That's a good, that's a good one. Charlotte. Or use your radar ears to get more snacks.
Can you show everybody? Belly. Belly. Good girl. Good job. Wow. I can't believe that she's doing belly for everybody. Like this is like a multi-year process to just get her to do this. I think it's just cuz she's tired. Is that true? Are you tired? Yeah. Can you show everybody? Belly. Good girl. Good job. Good job.
Okay. Vesna says, I completely agree. There's a lot of garbage out there. Yeah, there's a lot of content and studies being created. Like there's a bunch of, I'm sure you guys know websites where all they do is have stats, but those stats aren't really like based on, it's like 25 people have been surveyed or something.
So there's a lot of, it's easy to find statistics, but it doesn't mean they're good statistics. Uh, Vicky says she loves the list. Good. I wanted to make sure that we kind of covered stuff that I don't think a lot of people think of as skills and then also things that people forget about. Like, I think people forget that consistency.
There's um, uh, a John Maxwell quote where he says, consistency compounds, right? So consistency over time compounds just like, you know, an interest rate. So, or in like the interest you get on an account. So there's a lot of things about consistency that like people think that they're failing a lot of the times.
Instead of just realizing they're being consistent and doing something, even though it's hard, they're like, I'm failing because nothing has changed in like three months. And it just takes, like, it's a lot of consistency over a long period of time. Or like, you don't even have to, like the niche expertise thing is something where you end up getting more, um, more high paying clients cuz they, you're marketing yourself or your, your website has you branded as a blah, blah, blah type of writer, right?
You're a B2B case study writer, or you work with pop PropTech companies or whatever. And that helps you get, uh, better stuff because someone, right, someone sees that you're in their industry, you understand their stuff more than someone who just says they're a generalist, right? There's a lot of different things that, um, I think.
Are just important to moving up, like they're important to moving up to better quality work, better quality clients, and just honing these skills over time. These are also the skills that I think are the most long lasting. These are the ones that I think are like evergreen, almost like you, you have to keep participating in them throughout your career.
So they're, they're also the highest paying skills because you've put in so much money, right? Or so much time into honing them over all, you know, your life as a writer. Okay, cool. We're here every Friday at, um, noon central time. If you ever have a question or something. Oh, you know what? I had a question that someone asked that I didn't write down, but we'll do that next week.
Um, but if you ever have a question or a topic that you wanna ask, go to mandy ellis.com/question to put it in. And, um, I'll answer it on the live stream. We had a question submitted. I forgot to write it, write it down. Um, but I'll do it later. Um, but we're here every Friday. If you wanna come hang out, you can always ask questions.
Um, we do a bunch of different topics and, uh, Charlotte's here, we used to have Barry, but you know, like, uh, you know, we had that whole live stream Barry, uh, unfortunately he passed away, but he's, he was like 900 years old and, um, oh, and Charlotte has a neck wallet now if you guys see that thing on her neck next to her.
So the green thing is her g p s tracking device and now we're like, her tags sometimes hit her in the ears and she doesn't like it. So we're trying to figure out a different solution. So now she has this like thing we call it a neck wallet where it's like clipped on. So her clip, her tags go in there. So we'll see how that goes.
We're still testing out and seeing if she likes it. Um, but yeah, so she has some new accessories in addition to her new collar. You're beautiful, Charlotte. You're cutie pie. So I hope everybody has a good Friday. I will see you next week and um, have a good weekend. Bye.
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