A Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer

Wondering what the average day looks like for freelance writers in different stages of their business? For this week's livestream, I'll walk you through what my day has looked like in several steps of my 10-year business plus what it looks like today running my six-figure biz plus my course, community, coaching, client calls, and deadlines.

We'll go over how your day changes from newbie to experienced writer, what your daily priorities should be and how to manage them, my day-to-day schedules, and how to handle competing projects, deadlines, passions, and clients.

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A Day in the Life of a Freelance Writer

I'm taking you through my schedule and a day in the life from the difference between my six figure freelance writing business and my $0 freelance writing business. That's what we're going over today. So what I think is really interesting is I've been asked this a lot, like, what is your day like? And I feel like my day has really changed a ton over the years.

It's not just. What my day looks like now, it's like the different phases of my business. So I'm gonna take you through three different phases of my business, where my day has changed and what kind of my schedule looks like, um, so that we can kinda, you know, see what it's like. And I think the important thing here to remember just as I go through the day in life.

Hey, Vicky. Welcome. Is that everybody's day is different. And some people do really well with scheduling and calendars. And some people do really well with time blocking and the Pomodoro method. Um, and some people just kind of do well when they wing it or when they go by, you know, whatever kind of flow works for them.

So the interesting thing here is that everybody's day kind looks a diff a little bit different, but I'm gonna walk you through. So number one here, the first thing that we're talking about is like one of the first phases of my business. So I'll do my six-figure business last. Um, but yeah, I'm gonna walk you through several different things.

1) What my day has looked like as a freelance writer through several steps of my 10-year, six-figure business

So this is the first one. So the first phase of my business was when I had nothing. Um, this phase was when I had no clients, no, nothing. I didn't know how to do anything. So it took me a while to learn stuff. So for me, when I started this, I spent a few months kind of just learning how to do things and, um, diving into a bunch of different freelance re uh, writing resources and blogs and.

um, a whole bunch of different information from different sources about how to. basically just get my business going. So the first phase of the business in your day in the life is like figuring out what you should be doing. Just figure out what you should do. It's not writing all the time because you're running a business.

Hey, Vina, we'll come in. Hey Tommy, I like your, I like the pineapple. I felt like today was a pineapple shirt kind of day. Uh, we're glad you're Herena um, so basically this point was like, what do I actually do? what am I supposed to do? And a lot of times the early freelance writing advice is like, you should write every day because that helps your skills.

And I guess it helps you build a writing practice per se, but, um, it doesn't actually help you build a business, which is what keeps the money coming in. Like. This is an interesting thing. I keep in my mind all the time. There are people less talented than you making more money than you, right? So no matter how talented you feel, right?

Whether you feel like you have zero talent or all the talent, right. There is someone with even less talent or even more talent or whatever, there, they're making more money than you. And I keep that in the back of my mind, there's someone with less talent. So if I believe in my writing abilities and believe that I'm really talented or that I.

Uh, write a lot of copy that converts or do a really good job for my clients. There's someone who isn't as good at the things I'm good at making more money than me. That's something I keep in my mind. So even when you're starting at zero. Remember that this is about building a business that actually, you know, gets you to write, right.

You actually have to make money for this to be something that you can continue doing. Right. Um, a lot of times people are like, oh, you have to have all these skills and all these writing things and yeah, you do need to be a good writer to B into the writing business. I think that's kind of a, you. A pretty obvious point, but the, the idea is that in order to get more clients and become a better writer and get the feedback and learn from people and become a writer that people seek out based on senior clips or, um, based on seeing the results you've gotten for clients that is like learning to build your business.

That's not about like people magically finding you, excuse me, that's not about people magically finding you and then being like, Hey, we should hire. That just doesn't happen. Like, it took me many, many years to build a website and build LinkedIn and build a network and all this stuff to have people coming to me.

And now I get, I get to like shortchange that process by teaching other people how to do it. So like that's what I teach in freelance writer. Wealth lab is like the way shortened version. So like for me, it took years and now it takes them like a few months. so, um, all of these. Like, it's just a really important thing to remember that there's all of this stuff that you have to do when you start out, which is like learning to actually build a business and then working on writing talent and then working on skills.

Getting it all together. Um, there's always kind of this thing that happens where I, I find that this is, this is like a weird thing. You kind of get clients where you're at and it's, it's weird. Like, um, a lot of times I see my students get surprised by getting really good clients and I'm like, dude, you are really good.

Like your clients kind of meet you where you're at. So you end up kind of getting these clients where like, when I started out and I had nothing and I started sending my Lois and pitches. Um, I , I was getting clients where like the level of writing kind of like matched where I was like, you always kind of end up getting these things and people are like, oh my gosh.

Like, um, you know, one of my students is writing for Forbes now and it's because she's a good writer. You know, she didn't like fall into it by like, you know, having shitty skills, like she's a good writer and that kind of matched it. So there's like this weird thing. Hey, Getty. Welcome. there's this weird thing that happens where your clients kinda meet you, where you're at sort of, I don't know why it just there's like this weird thing.

Um, but I would worry more about the business fundamental. So if you're starting from square one, which we all do your most important thing in your day in the life is your marketing. You have to get your business out there. So when I was starting out, I built up my LinkedIn and that means I fixed up my profile.

I wasn't. Trying to connect with everybody on LinkedIn. I was building my profile, uh, fixing up my website to the best of my ability. And then I was sending all of my Lois and pitches, my letters of introduction and my pitches. And I always kind of recommend when someone asks me a number you need at least 50 to 75 Lois per month when you're starting out.

For me, that was really hard because if I hit like 55, I was like, no, I didn't hit 75. Or if I hit like 49, I was like, oh no, I didn't hit enough. That really demotivated me. That was really hard for me. So I started switching to effort goals, which meant that every day I would spend an hour on my marketing.

And if I had no writing work, if I had no assignments all day was marketing. So if you're starting from zero, your day should be looking for lists of clients. It should be, um, sending out Lois and pitches. It should be connecting with the right types of clients on LinkedIn or other writers on LinkedIn. It should be learning about your craft and learning how to build a business.

It should be building the framework. So for me, when I started my day in the life, in the beginning, it was like, how do I build the framework of this business? Like, how do I kind of get all of these little pieces together and marketing, you gotta do it. Like it's. If you do marketing right. As a freelance writer, it's not sales your gross.

Like, I always think of it as like, do you need help with content? Cool. I'm here to help. That's it? that's it? Um, it's not pushy. It's not like you have to have this thing that just doesn't work. So as you're starting out, always think of your marketing as like, do you need help? Cool. I can help you. So your opportunity is just that you're reaching out saying like, Hey, um, do you need help with your content?

that's it. So as you're kind of going through for me, I did as much marketing, like, as I could figure out, like for a while, it wasn't very much cuz I was so scared and nervous and um, I, it took me a whole month to write my first reported article and that took all my time. Um, but when you're kind of thinking about your day to day, you have to be getting your business out there because you kind of have to get traction.

And the way I always explain this, um, to students, to like my freelance writer, wealth lab students. And then also my one on one students is you have to like, get the train up and going. So you have to shovel a ton of coal or wood or how, you know, maybe you have like an ego friendly train and you're like charging those solar panels.

I don't know. But you have to do a bunch of stuff to get that train going trains, take a long time to get up to speed. And then they take a long time to slow. So your job when you're starting out and what I thought of my day to day as is like, I gotta shovel the coal, I gotta get the train going. I gotta like, get this thing together.

That's your whole job is to like, get the momentum and get it going. Once your business kind of moves to like the next phase that I'm gonna talk about, then you're kind of like, you know, you still have to do your regular marketing to fill the pipeline, but it's not so strenuous and you actually have work to do so you actually have clients and.

Um, but in your first phase, your day to day should be marketing, learning about your craft, which is writing, learning about writing for different clients, learning from a bunch of different people, um, understanding the types of content that you can write and the types of niches and clients that you can write for.

Um, and then also, basically, hello. What's up. And then basically you wanna be moving your business forward every single day. So your whole job is to take action every single day in the first phase of your business. When you're making $0 and have zero clients is to just take a step forward every single day.

No. Woo. Go back to your Papa hole. We'll get to you later. Woo. Go back to your HAA hole. That's not your HAA hole. Oh, woo. We'll go back to your HAA hole. Good. hang out in your ho hole for a bit. You're being a sassy Moulay oh, now you're sitting up. There's Barry. There's mini being a SAS. I like your lip gloss though.

Mini your, your shiny lower lip is pretty cute and you're like, I should get something all right. Let me take you through the next phase of our, of my business. And then we'll do something with you MI. So the first phase is just setting the framework. So your day in the. Is mostly not writing. Like you're probably writing 10% of your days.

Like in total, not even just day to day, your writing is for clients. And then if you wanna write other stuff to like work on your skills and get things, you know, moving along, um, a lot of people ask me if they should start a blog, I just don't think that's worth it. It's just, there's like this stat that I shared a while, a while back, there's a hundred billion blogs.

Okay. With a B a hundred billion. And there are only 2 million podcasts. Okay. So getting a blog and getting traffic and building it up and all that stuff or using it. Okay. Go away. Well, go away. You're being a SAS. Go over there and stop being a SAS. Thank you. So if there's a hundred billion blogs and you're trying to use that to get traffic or to get people to find you like, it is just really, really hard as someone new, like a company that has an established website and they have a, like all that juice that's way different than you starting a brand new website.

And then. Trying to get people to your blog. Plus when you're starting out, if you wanna get clips, writing them alone in a vacuum by yourself for a blog that's, yours is not how it's not gonna help you. It's really what ends up happening is you write all these things and they're just for nobody. Like they, they don't have a specific audience.

They're not very clear. Um, unless you have a ton of experience where you can start a blog and it's like very honed in for your ideal. You know, consider that. But, um, I find most of the time with newer writers, they're just like, how do I get a clip? Go send ideas. Your best way to get a clip is to work on your pitching game and pitch something out to an online magazine, a trade publication, um, a consumer magazine or some place where you can get a clip that's like edited and really nice and, and focused.

And the best way to do that is you gotta send those pitches. So for me, a lot of times, I think. Trade magazines are great places to get clips because you can send them a ton of ideas and they usually have an editorial calendar and the editors are like really good at helping you most of the time. Um, I mean, I have a bunch of trade magazines where I just love my editors because like they always like make my work look good and I can bounce ideas off of them.

And, um, it's just really great. So looking for clips should be sending ideas. That's the way to get some clips working. Excuse me. Hey Marie. Welcome. Working for businesses is a totally different story. So working for businesses, if you don't have any clips, that's a little bit of a harder sell. So I always like the idea of pitching things out.

So that's the first phase. All right. The second phase, the second phase, and this is all in point, number one, we're gonna talk about other things, but this is the second phase of my business is kind of like you have experience, but you're not quite ready to scale. Like you can't really scale the six figures cuz you're still kind of.

Putting some pieces together and figuring it out. So for me a day in the life of my second phase of my business was kind of like the hour of marketing every single day, Monday through Friday. And then I would work on current assignments. And if I had extra time at the end of the day, if I had finished all my client calls finished, all my deadlines, done, all the stuff I needed to.

Then I would go back to marketing. Um, I would work on, um, uh, growing my network on LinkedIn. So connecting with like people I decided I, that weren't ready or, um, either they didn't have enough revenue or their company was, you know, growing really slowly or they just weren't quite the right fit for me in terms of niche or.

Company, I would just connect with them. I'd send them a little connection note and grow my network that way. And then everyone where I found it was like a serious potential client. I would send them an L LOI. So I would send that either through LinkedIn InMails or through email. If I ran outta InMails, I would just use email.

But now unlike when I was down, you know, in this second phase of my business, now they have LinkedIn sales. Or you get 50 InMails a month for a hundred bucks a month. That is totally worth it. You should do it. basically, if you're basically at any phase of your business, you should do it. And I'm actually considering switching.

I have like an old lady LinkedIn plan um, and I'm considering switching to sales navigator, cuz it makes it so much easier to do all your marketing. So your day should be that you're getting your marketing in. You're meeting your deadlines. You're looking ahead. You're growing your network. You're following.

All of those things should be in your day. Like as you kind of go along, you're going to end up adding little things to your day as things become quicker. So as you write faster, as you get quicker at client calls, um, as you get quicker at interviews or your day to day stuff like your admin, um, always send your invoices when you send in your work, like if it's a magazine or set up your invoicing, so you have specific, uh, project based invoicing schedules, but as you're going through your day to day, You're gonna be learning like how to do things quicker.

So then it leaves up more time to like join LinkedIn groups and then comment in there. And then it leaves more time for you to like, or share or comment on other people's posts, where they might be your ideal client, or they might be someone to kind of like network with. Um, it also leaves time for you to update your website, which you should be doing regularly with every time you get a clip, every time you get a client and you're putting up a logo or a clip, you should be doing that.

All the. Hi, Lou, we'll go back to your HOA hole. Don't step on my feet because you're angry. good girl. All right. Hang out in your HOA hole for a bit. So as you kind of grow your business, you end up having these little things that you can add to your day to day. And as that day to day kind of changes, then the marketing takes less time.

The writing takes less time, and then you can kind of filter in all these extra. So for me at this step, it was like finally getting the marketing under control, finally learning how to manage my calendar. So like my calendar runs my day. My calendar runs my day. Um, and that really helped me figure out like how to get things done.

And I'm very deadline motivated. So for me, it's like, I don't block time saying like, I have to write from two to four that doesn't work for me. I'm just like, I know have a deadline Friday at whatever time, or I have a deadline on Friday. I need. Spend these days doing these things and then everything else kind of fits in the gaps between when I'm writing.

So in this middle phase, beep beep go back to your back to your ho hole. I'm gonna give you something later. You gotta, you gotta take it down a notch today. Well, don't take a down a notch. You be your authentic mini self. It's just like right now, this is really important. And I feel that you feel that your trio needs are more important than this information.

All right. I'll give you one. Cuz I, now, now I triggered you by saying that the T word. All right. You can have one, but you have to do your high fives. We're working on new tricks by the way. All right. Ready? Yeah. Good job. One more. Okay. Good job. All right, Barry, you wanna trio? Good job buddy.

Oh, no. Your support duck. Good job, buddy. Don't lose your credo or your support duck. you guys are so ridiculous. Sometimes there you are. I always try to get you both on camera, but you always end up moving. You guys can see that Barry's left. Eye is still healing. We're still working on it. So we're working on it all.

So as you're in the second phase of your business, it's really important to kind of learn how to manage your schedule, manage your deadlines, manage your marketing, manage kind of like these little things that come up. So like following up or commenting on LinkedIn or sharing your clips on LinkedIn or up in your website, sending invoices, all that stuff, making calendar appointments, all those did you just throw up?

Okay. Scared me for a second. You made a weird noise. Okay. Um, as you kind of go along, those are the important things. And your second go back to your woo hole, go back to your wooo space. You can Woohoo from over there. So this part of your business, your second phase of your business is the most kind of like jumbly.

Like at first, you're kind of just figuring things out and you're kind of putting kind of your building blocks in the place. Your second phase of your business, your day to day is kind of. Okay. How do I deliver for my clients and move my business forward with marketing and then add in little things along the way.

So it kind of takes some time, but eventually you'll get to a place where like, it becomes very natural to spend the first hour of your day getting your marketing done, whether your marketing is connection requests, sending Lois and pitches, following up, liking and commenting, um, growing your network, anything like that.

And then you're like able to do other stuff you're able to do extra. And I always feel like when, um, writers tell me like, oh, well, I'm kind of done. Like you're never really done in this business. You kind of have to start learning to like, let things go more than realize that you're done. So what that means is like, instead of being like, oh my gosh, like there's always more marketing.

You could do. There's always more clients you could reach out to. There's always more that could be done. So instead, I guess during this second phase, you kind of have to teach yourself to. Rest and take some time off and not be like, there's always something, there will always be something as you run a business, there's always something.

Um, and I think that this point when you're in your second phase and that second phase part, you're just kind of learning, how do I balance all of this stuff? And the balance? Isn't always 50, 50. It's probably like 70, 30. It's like 70% business, 30% downtime slash creative thinking. So. As you kind of move through, you're going to end up getting to this end of the second phase where you've realized, like you've gained a lot of knowledge and experience, and that brings you to the third part where I'm gonna tell you about my six figure business that I have now.

And I'm gonna tell you all the stuff. So my six figure business that I have now is because I got out of phase two and I was able to like change the way I do things so that I can scale other parts of my. So right now, my day to day is always different. it's always different. So some days I have a ton of calls, whether those are coaching calls or, um, potential client calls or calls for other things like interviews or whatever.

Um, there's always like something happening. Like every day I have something. So either I'm doing calls or I have live, so I have live Q and A's for my students. I have master classes for my students. I have all, um, this live every Friday. At 12:00 PM central time, and there's always something kind of going on, but my deadlines are still driving my schedule.

So like this week I had five deadlines. No, I didn't. I had three deadlines for five articles this week. So two of them are due today that I'm working on just as I up. Um, but I have to manage that in between master classes for my students being in the community with my students, answering their questions and D.

Um, planning for the launch. So like the course is gonna open up soon. So freelance writer, wealth lab is about to open on September 6th for enrollment. And I need to plan ahead for emails and setting up all the systems and processes through that. And then also making sure that like, I always try to keep in the back of my mind, like there's two kind of groups, like my clients, my freelance writing clients, those need the best Mandy and my students need the best Mandy.

Everything else is not the best Mandy. I spend time where like I get up in the morning and I filter all my emails and I deal with the ones I need to deal with. Then most of the time I end up doing like my client work, like the writing that needs to be done sometimes. Um, then I do student stuff or I do community stuff or email things.

If I have some more, um, Marketing or following up. And then at the end of the day, I'm either doing more emails and following up and figuring things out or I'm doing my writing. So this year has been a weird year for me, cuz my day to day has been very, very different over the course of time. And my day to day changes based on when the course is open.

So if I'm running, like my course runs from the end of April till basically the week before July 4th, most of the time. And then it runs from September to. So during those times, my schedule is different, cuz I do live Q and a twice a day. I do this live on Friday. I have client calls. I have one on one coaching calls and I have my regular client work.

Um, I'm also doing all of my social media stuff. So anything that I can plan ahead really helps. So all of my social media stuff, like what I end up doing either on Friday night or Saturday or Sunday, and this is like a fun thing I enjoy. That's why there's so much of it is like make reels or make shorts.

So I go and make some Instagram reels and I save them as drafts. And then I make a bunch of in, um, YouTube shorts, which are usually my Instagram reels. Sometimes they're pieces of lives. They will be more often now. Um, and then I just save them all. Like all of my YouTube shorts are all scheduled for the week.

All of my reels are scheduled for the week. Like I ha I have to go in and manually do it. Cause I don't use any tools that are like post my. But then I do that. I manually post my LinkedIn stuff, which is just my reels, right? Like, so any way that I can save time and repurpose and get ahead and schedule and make drafts, I'll do it.

So that oftentimes is like the little fun stuff in my schedule. Or I schedule things in Canva, in the content plan. Woo. Come on. You're having a day today. Woo. You're being a SAS. Stop being a SAS. Woo. So my day to day. Like I think the most important thing to remember if you're building a six figure business is you have to meet the thing that makes like, that is the most important first.

So like my clients, my freelance writing clients, my content strategy clients, my content marketing clients that comes before all the other stuff. My students come before all the other stuff. So handling a few emails or whatever that is. Second tier. So all of the time when I realize I need to put in my best effort, whatever time of the day, that is, which for most of this year, I do my writing at night because I spend most of the day handling things while people are awake.

And then when people are asleep, I've been doing writing work, which has been working for me. um, but sometimes I end up doing writing work in the middle of the day, cuz that's when I feel strongest or I end up doing a lot of student stuff in the middle of the day. Cause I feel my best, but that always gets my best.

Everything else, like making a real or scheduling something or a call or a follow up email or all that stuff that is like when I'm tired or when I'm like, eh, I can make something right now. Like it's not my most like juiciest of brain times. I think that's a thing that I learned most about day to day with my freelance writing business.

When I kind of expanded it was you have to use. Whatever hours are your best hours. Whether those hours are five to am, to 8:00 AM or 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM or midnight to 3:00 AM or whatever your best hours are that needs to go towards the things that matter most like your client work and your students.

If you have students or your client work and whatever else, everything else commenting, liking, networking, lo. Um, follow up emails, all your regular emails, scheduling appointments, um, dealing with like snafus. Um, anything else that comes up like that stuff takes your lowest brain time. So you do it when you have your lowest brain stuff.

So for example, when I'm setting up things for this live stream, right? When I, when we, every week, like I, I make all of this stuff, right? There's a post on my website. There's a post on social media. And then that set up everything here in E cam live, which runs my live. I do all that stuff. When I have low brain juice, like when I'm kind of tired, when I'm really tired, it's easy for me to do that stuff.

It just doesn't take much. So you gotta use your effort time for the best stuff. And as I've kind of go, sorry, as I've kind of gone, gone along, my marketing takes like essentially no time, like I've templatized it. I know who my clients are. I know what I'm going after. It's a lot easier for me to make a list and to identify clients.

Like if I get a press release or see an article, I'm like, oops, that's my client. Gotta go after 'em send him an L Y that's a lot easier for me. So a lot of times, like I've had some students say, like, when do you sleep? Like when do you sleep? You do all this stuff. It's because I've learned when to give my best effort, like when I'm using my best effort time, like not even just giving it, just like, I know that right now, right now I'm like really awake.

So like right now I've been doing a bunch of writing and getting my work done and editing and stuff because I have deadlines. But also because this is a good time for me to do it. So. there's this learning piece where you're like, okay, I realize that my best writing hours are 12 to three. Like I know what that is every single day.

So then I do all the important stuff. Everything else falls around that that's the most important thing to learn. And like I said, like, I still do marketing. My marketing is different. Like I'm doing more marketing right now just because of like things that are shifting a lot. Uh, but I usually do my marketing quarterly, so I pick.

I don't know, a couple days where I send, you know, 50 Lois every once a quarter. So I'll send it like in January, sometimes I sprinkle 'em throughout the month. Um, but usually the first month of every quarter I send like 50 to 75 Lois. And that usually kind of keeps the, the pipeline going recently. Things have just been like crazy so I've been doing more marketing, which means I've been prioritizing it, but it doesn't take that much brain time.

I just prioritize it as. Do I need to spend this brain time sending 10 Lois or do I need to do my comments? And I'll worry about the comments later. Oh my gosh. Everybody's on the move. Go back to your ho hole. No, that's not your HOA hole. Go back to HOA hole. Your other HOA hole. My gosh, you guys are everywhere today.

So I think that's the, those are the important parts. I also make time for like little stuff. So like sometimes during the day I'll know that I need to make a video for a student. So like, I'll go and make that video when I like either when I'm kind of sleepy or, um, you know, when I'm kind of, or not, when I'm sleepy, um, when I'm kind of awake and I'm kind of up and I'm like, yeah, I'm ready to make this video for you.

I'm excited. Like, let's do this. Um, I think that, that makes the most difference in like delivering for the things that matter. And then I think it's also comes across in that content. And it's also like, I know that all these other little things I can do later, like answering comments or questions or DMS, um, or, you know, emails and stuff.

So I hope that was helpful so far. That was like, kind of like my day to day, I could go into it a lot more, but we've already gone like 30 minutes in and I've only gotten to my first point. all right. So let's figure out a pub date here. Let's do a pub date. All right. We have some chaos in the pub date.

All right, Barry, can you go back to your other Hoit hole? Can you you're sitting in between two Hoit holes. Maybe that would be your biography between two Hoit holes by Bo. All right. Bo can you back up? Careful, careful, careful. Careful that up. Good job. All right, I'm gonna move your support, doc. All right.

Can you back up over there? No, Charlie wants to join. All right, Charlie. Are you ready? We only see half your face, cuz you're just like everywhere. I don't have anything high five good job. High five. Good job. Also, I forgot to mention Charlotte did her first high fives. Bo's hitting the thing. That's why it's moving right now.

Uh, Charlotte did her first high fives at the vet and I missed it. So she gave the vet staff high fives, which she's never done before. So I basically. I missed my dog's first veterinary high fives. Arthur, can I move you back that way? All right. That would be good. Charlie's gonna melt down. If you kick her, she's gonna have a freak out, Charlie.

I can't believe you gave him all high fives and I wasn't even there to see it. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Barry, you look like a lizard. Your eye keeps poking in and out. Well, now you guys can see his, his good eye and his rough eye. His good eye. The one that's moving right now is his good eye. the one that's like having his third eyelid move around.

That's the good eye. The other eye is the one with the, the issue. All right. Can you go back over there? You just don't want to, you just wanna like put your leg in between everything. Oh my gosh. Why are you guys so weird? Okay. Good job everybody. Good job, Charlotte. This is just a wild west day. Today's just a wild west day.

Thanks for dealing with wild west. Video time. All right. Let's talk about these other things. So, um, when I'm kind of going through, so this is number two, we're talking about number two, when I'm kind of going through my day to day, it's all about kind of managing, um, deadlines and things that need to get done.

2) How can you handle your day-to-day deadlines, client calls, changes, and priorities

So, like I said, a lot of times when I'm kind of going through my day to day, my calendar runs my life. So all of my deadlines, my calls, my appointments, my bills, my everything is in my calendar. So I keep one centralized place to deal with my day to day stuff. It's a lot easier for me to just manage my time.

And I also have a to-do list in dub Sodo. Like I know what my deadlines are and all my work, and I go in there every day, but my calendar is like what I can review for the coming week. It's what I can review for the coming day. Like I do it every night, every night I check my calendar for the next day.

Like, what am I doing? What's who's on, you know, who's on first. and I kind of look through all that stuff. So as you're kind of thinking about your freelance writing day to day, if you're first starting. Figure out a system that works for you. If you're in the middle, kind of like part two range, you need to make your system more efficient.

You need to get something like dub, Sodo or Asana. Like I like dub Sodo more than Asana. Um, but you need a tool to kind of like manage all the moving parts of your business. And if you're kind of running a six figure business, if you don't have something like dub Sodo or Asana to run all this stuff with the appointments and the deadlines and the projects and the calendar and all those things get so.

Um, all of that kind of stuff helps you with your day to day because it lifts a lot of admin headaches off of you and it makes it just easier just to manage all the moving parts. That's one of my kind of secrets of running my six figure business. Plus my coaching calls plus freelance writer, wealth lab, plus my student community.

Um, plus all the deadlines that I have plus launching things. And, and I send a weekly email and I come here and I do social media. All of that stuff has kind of just run. in this very efficient way. Like I know that I need to write my weekly email at the very latest on Sunday, cuz it goes out every Monday.

I know that this needs to be done by Thursday. Cause I have a live stream every Friday at noon. Right. I have to do things on purpose. So, or I have to do things based on the deadline. So for me that means purposeful planning and being really particular about that. So as you're running your day to day, you're going to end up with more deadlines.

You're going to end up with more clients. You're going to end up with more stuff and you're going to end up in this place. That's like kind of an accordion and I've seen my students do this. So, um, I've had students ask me, like, is it gonna get easier and better? Yeah. There's going to be a midrange in your schedule in your day to day where you just have a lot of stuff and you're like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna handle all of this deep.

Okay. All you have to do is take it step by step, go to one appointment, figure that out, go do your deadline. Figure that. It will get easier. So for me, a lot of times it takes me a while to learn a tone and style of a client. So like I've had students be like, oh my gosh, it's taken me X amount of articles to learn the tone and style of this client or to write well for this client.

Like, is it gonna get easier? Yeah. But sometimes it still takes some time. Some clients have some weird quirks with how they want their content and how they want things to go. It's it's a learning accordion type process and your day to day will change. So as you're kind of going through your work, you're going to find periods.

I will, you're gonna find periods where you are overwhelmed with work, and then you're gonna find periods where you don't have anything to do. Right. But what that really means is when writers tell me, oops, I shouldn't have given you that trio Bo has to have different trios right now. Oops. Oh, well,

When you're kind of going through things, you have to kind of learn like there's, there's no replacement, like as many processes and systems and, um, ways that I can explain how to run your day to day. You still have to put in the work. That's the thing that a lot of writers miss is they're like, oh, if someone just tells me how to do this, or how to, you know, schedule this thing to make it easier or whatever, it'll figure itself.

No, you still have to put in the hard work of learning, how to adapt to different clients. You still have to put in the hard work of learning, how to manage your own schedule and manage how you write. And when you write and when you do your best work and how to do a good interview and how to schedule all your stuff and how to like scale your things.

And it's this accordion like that happens. So if, if someone comes to me and they say they don't have anything to do in their writing business, I know that they're not like being efficient with good job. I know that they're not being efficient with marketing. They're not being efficient with their calendar.

They're not paying attention to updating their website. There's always stuff to be done. There's always something to be done. Um, but don't get stressed out if you're in the tough part of the accordion where like it rains at pores and you end up with a ton of clients and work. Deep breath, take it step by step.

And remember that you're learning how to run your day to day better. When you start running up against a problem. This is how I started doing Trello and ly and fresh books and harvest and all of these tools. Then I realized like, wait a minute, I can sub all those tools for dub Soto. I can just use dub Sodo to run all the shit in my business.

Get rid of all these subscriptions and pay one subscription. And that was solving the accordion problem. And you will have to do that over and over again in ways that make sense for you. So if you start with Calendarly, cuz it's free and harvest because it's really cheap, then do that. And then if you want, like after you kind of get the hang of that or you kind of outgrow it, then you move into something like Deb Sodo, but you'll always be kind of solving these accordion problems and that's what you're supposed to do.

That's what growth looks like. It's going to be hard sometimes. I've had to tell myself a lot that tell myself that a lot recently where like, there are hard times and good times. And sometimes you're in the hard times and you're like, where were the good times? There's always gonna be some hard times, but your day to day, as it changes, you kind of have to grow and adapt with that.

You kind of have to learn which part of the accordion you're at and figure out how you can get more efficient, which usually means tools or processes or systems or templates. Or ways where you don't have to keep reinventing the wheel, which is how I ended up templatizing my contracts, my proposals, my Lois, my pitches, all this different stuff so that I could get back to actually putting all my effort and energy into my clients and my students.

Okay. So there will be an accordion time. You kind of have to figure that out as you go along. That's number two. All right, hold on one second. I think I'm gonna combine them into three. So three. Let's talk about, um, competing things. So when we're talking about competing projects and deadlines, right? Yeah.

3) How to handle competing projects, deadlines, passions, and freelance writing clients

So as we're thinking through our schedule of, um, all these different things, like this is something that I think, um, as you kind of move along, your priorities will change. And then also you're gonna have different things that just kind of like get in the way. So for me, It's really important to always have like an ongoing list of what is due or what needs to be done, or, um, different phases of my business.

So like what needs to be done in my wealth lab community versus what needs to be done for freelance writer, wealth lab versus what needs to be done for these four. Versus what needs to be done for these four students versus, you know, what social media posts I need to do. And I kind of make sure that I pick the things that are important.

And as you go along, there are gonna be times where you just get stuck. Like, for example, this week I had a lot, I have five articles due this week. Plus I had to, um, facilitate a masterclass for my students. I had potential client calls. I had interviews for my article. and I have a live stream. I have a coach call today.

I have a potential client call or I've had potential client calls. Um, and there's just stuff that you kind of, you know, as you go along, you realize, I don't know, it's almost like shifting, like I can shift into high gear when I need to do really important stuff. And then I can kind of shift into low gear when I'm like, this doesn't need as much as of my time and energy.

So I kind. Rev it up and rev it down depending on what's going on. So I can conserve energy and brain space and good quality brain juice for the things that really matter, which is like the content delivering for my clients, the strategy, uh, answering questions for my students, making videos for my students or doing master classes for my students, all of that stuff.

So as you're kind of moving along, I think it's easier to take it bite by. , but I think it's also, um, something important to think about with your schedule in that it's, it's morphing over time as you morph and as you get better and faster, and you learn how to run your business and you look for efficiencies and, um, you kind of find little places that make the most sense for you.

Process eyes and systematize and all that stuff. Then things kind of like fall into a more natural formation. Like some people, like I said, some people still like to time block, they like the Pomodoro method or they like, like there's little apps where like, as you work, they build little forests or plants.

And I used to have those, but like, it never really worked for me. And a lot of times I've heard people do like, oh, I work for two hours. Then I take a 30 minute break and then I do this thing. And like that doesn't work for me. um, when I do my day to day, like I really need to sit and write a draft all in one sitting like pretty much 95% of my drafts.

I will just do it in one sitting, whether that draft takes me an hour and a half or like six hours. Like I, I have a really hard time writing a draft. Partially and then going to sleep and then trying to write the rest of it. Cause I forget where I was at and the flow is kind of messed up and um, it just feels very choppy to me.

So I like to sit and do a draft all at once and yeah, I get up and go to the bathroom and I eat and stuff, but it's not like two hours and then this, and then two hours, like I don't do that. um, if I do something really complicated, I'll take a little time off after that. But a lot of. I think it just helps me to get all the writing out in one, go, then I can just be like, all right, few I'm done.

I feel good. And then my brain can take a big rest because it's like, I know it's done. There's nothing else to be done the next day. I'm like, all right, now it's editing brain's time and editing. Brain's a little bit different. So I think it's kind of figuring that over time, like I tried all different systems and stuff that people recommended and time blocking and.

You know, like some people are like, well, Mondays are writing day and Tuesday is marketing day and Wednesday is this. And if that works for you, then do it for me. I need it to be really malleable because I have a bunch of things going on. So like, I need my schedule to be more malleable in terms of like, when I do my writing, cuz I could write at midnight or I could be writing at 2:00 PM or I could be writing at 8:00 PM.

Like it, it just depends on where my energy is and what's going on. Um, and I could have calls all day. Like I've had times where my schedule. I get up and I have like a 9:00 AM call and then I have like 11, you know, a 10:00 AM call and an 11:00 AM live Q and a. And then I have a deadline that day and I have an interview and like, there's all of this stuff.

Sometimes that happens. So for me, the flexibility and the malleability of like my day to day really helps me be like, okay, I need to bulk right on this day. So that this day I can do all my calls and then edit. And then I'm. I think that kind of learning experience of like trying all these things and seeing what made the most sense was a really good fit for me.

And I think for most writers, you need to kind of figure that out. You need to play with different systems and you need to kind of, um, try different things in your day to day. Like as many times as, um, my day has changed over the. I think it's just that trial and error to get to a place where I now am able to run my six figure business, plus all the other stuff.

Um, and I don't have a VA right now. So just saying that too, like if I know people are always like, but you have a VA, I don't have VA right now. Um, I will sometime in the near future, but I think that's, um, that's very different live stream. Talk about VAs. So, um, if you have found this helpful so far, give it a thumbs.

if you feel like you wanna learn more about building a hiring freelance writing business subscribe. Let's talk about questions. We had some questions pop in here that I'm gonna answer.

Question: Let's say your LOI interested a potential client, and you set a time to hop on a call. What questions did you ask? Can you give us some call examples?

So I have a video for this and I will link it in the description. I will put it in the description, but yeah, I have about 10 or 15 questions that I always ask every potential client. Um, and I went through all those questions in the video, so I will put it in there, but you're gonna wanna ask about budget, project scope, timelines, what their deadlines are, what their timeline is for the project, whether it's byline or ghost.

Uh, what the project content type is and what their goals are for it. If they have any other things in the pipeline, who are you gonna be working with? Those are kind of the general. But you always wanna start with, like, how, what is this, like, tell me about the project. Tell me about the company. Tell me about the goals.

Okay. And then what's in the project. Is it four blog posts per month? Is it two case studies? A quarter? What is this? And then what's your budget for that? So you can make sure you're playing in the same ballpark. And then you wanna kind of go through, like, do you send a contract or is this by line or ghost written or what else is in your pipeline?

Um, I'm not gonna answer this a super ton because I already did a video on it, but I will link to it below, but yes, you should always. Um, put questions. Like I have a word doc that I always go through, uh, when I have a call. All right. This one regarding upfront payments. I, yes, many I know, but I've been giving you stuff and you're being a SAS sassafras regarding upfront payments.

Question: What are the minimum funds owned by a client so they can make an upfront payment. I try asking just in case, but they have not found. To be honest, I've been fortunate with clients who pay me with no issues after work has been submitted. Um, but it's also good to be precautious, right?

So here's the deal.

It's not that they, I, I'm not sure minimum funds owned. So like, I always think of it as revenue. And there's nothing that will give you like information on whether or not someone can make an upfront payment. You're making a guess based on revenue, if they can even afford a freelance. So I always use 3 million to 10 million ish for startups.

That's kind of the minimum for startups is 3 million, um, to be able to afford a freelance writer and then five to 50 million ish for regular businesses. And it depends on niche and it depends on a whole bunch of different things, but you are want to align more with revenue that they would have the amount of revenue that makes sense for hiring a freelance writer versus being like how much funds, like would they have to do it for an upfront payment?

You would have no idea about upfront payment, but you can find revenue ranges. So 3 million. To 10 million plus ish for startups, that's the minimum to be able to afford a freelance writer. And it depends on niche, whether they need 3 million or 10 million in their marketing budget and their content and all that stuff.

Um, and then the same thing with businesses, 5 million to 50 million for businesses that are not startups. Uh, and that depends on, you know, what's in their budget, but yeah, you like, what you wanna do is, um, have this like set up in terms of, you know, their revenue, like before you send an lo. And then, um, you wanna get upfront payments, but that piece is all like, you know, you just agree to that and then they send you money and you don't do any work until they've sent you the upfront payment.

All right. So I hope that was helpful. All right. Next question we have is it's long. Huh? I'm still here. um,

Question: How do you keep up with your LinkedIn connections? It takes a lot of time to read, like, and comment, even when you don't have many connections, but what happens when you have 500? Should we give priority to posts from CEOs or marketing directors, for example, even if their company didn't hire us or should we find influencers and who even is an influencer for a freelance writer.

So there's a lot in this question. So here's the deal? Your, um, your, I don't I only keep up with certain LinkedIn connections where it's like my friends, my student. Um, people that I care about or it's like interesting stuff or it's people who might be my client. Like I'm not trying to keep up with 500. I have like 5,000 connections.

I'm not trying to keep up with 5,000 connections. Um, you are not even like, if you don't have any work, you don't even care. Don't pay attention to your LinkedIn feed. You can only get to this part when you're in like phase two of your business when you're able to kind of scale. And then you have extra time to do things.

You're in the part of your business, where you have clients, you have money coming in, you've kind of templatized things. You've got all of your stuff kind of going when you're starting out. Your whole thing is getting clients and making some money and marketing. Like no one don't don't fluff around on LinkedIn liking and stuff.

That takes too much time. You just need to go in and ask for it. Do you need help? Do you need help? That needs to be straight up like the liking commenting. Posting sharing, um, being part of groups that is a way long term plan that you do like second phase of your business. So I give priority to people who I think are interesting, or that might be a client or who are people I like or know, or trust or whatever, uh, or students or whatever.

So for me when I get on LinkedIn, I'm not I'm most of the time I'm just sending emails, I'm sending Lois or I'm, um, answering DMS or I'm answering stuff. Um, or I'm making my own posts, which is like for helping other freelance writers. Right. So for me, it's not, I don't keep up with any of them. Like I think that's, it's just a long term slow strategy.

And when you're starting out, you have to get the marketing. Like you just have to ask for it, you have to ask whether they or not, they need help. Right. Um, you can't do these like long term things if you're in the second phase of your business. Yeah. I would prioritize anyone who may be a client for you in the future, or who told you they're not ready yet, or, um, you know, that kind of stuff.

As you're kind of going through it. Like if their company didn't hire you, it, I, that, to me, that doesn't even really matter. Like, there's, there's always kind of like a, a thing where there's a lot of places that haven't hired me that I still like their stuff, because I like their stuff. Like it, it's just, yeah.

So for me, with LinkedIn, it's more about active outbound marketing, sending Lois and pitches and well Lois. Um, and then when you have time, you can like comment, share, do all that extra. now, should you find influencers and even who is an influencer for a freelancer? So I guess if you wanna be spicy about it, like, I don't know.

I don't think you should. I think you should find people who are helping you learn how to be a better Lance writer. So I don't really know who, what would be an influencer for a freelance writer, other than people who do one on one coaching or who have courses or who. Actively, even if they don't have courses or coaching, they're actively sharing stuff on LinkedIn or on social that helps you become a better writer, helps you run a better business.

Um, helps you understand things that I think is more important. Influencer, I think is often times like a bad name, because a lot of people are like, think influencers are like, I bought this TV. You should buy it too. And it has nothing to do with like your niche or what, you know, what you're doing. So. I think when you're looking for stuff for freelance writing, it has to be advice based.

It has to be people who have been there and done that. It has to be information that really helps you move forward. And I think that's the important part. , I don't think you would be looking for influencers so much on social media, you would be looking to do all of your active business stuff. And then when you need to learn more, then you can go and find someone to help you learn more.

And I think as the beginning, like if you're starting out, you should definitely find a bunch of people who are telling you, like, from experience what to do, cuz it cuts out a lot of headaches and pain and suffering. Um, but yeah, like I think. Like I said, you're always better off like asking for the sale.

Right? That's what they ask for this. You always ask if they need help, you're always better off doing that than doing a lot of long term strategies about like following influencer and like, and comment. And eventually they'll recognize you or, um, like follow this person long enough that they'll hire you.

And that does work, but it's way longer term it's way longer term than sending your Lois. It's way longer term. Um, then just asking for the sale when you need clients and money and you're trying to build a business. Okay. So I hope that was helpful. And I think your LinkedIn strategy is super important.

Like LinkedIn has been critical for me building my business. Um, it's where I still do a lot of my marketing and where I still share a bunch of tips and tricks and stuff for freelance writers. But I think that you're yeah, like most of the time I meet writers that are trying to treat LinkedIn like Facebook or like Instagram and it's not, um, it's just not like that.

It's for business marketing and Instagram is more like build a bunch of followers and then you can like sell stuff to them. And that makes money. LinkedIn is like a different beast. So like you're offering helpful stuff. You're helping with their business. Um, doing a lot of things before you would ever ask someone for money or you would share things.

It's just a lot of stuff. That's way different as a platform. And like I said, like LinkedIn is more for like businesses. So when you send an LOI on there, it's like B you know, it's B2B it's business to business your business, to theirs. That's a lot more welcome and understood on LinkedIn and like Instagram or stuff like that.

And it depends on your field, right? Like there's a lot of B2B stuff on Instagram that. But for us, I've noticed that like one on one on LinkedIn is just way better and your time being spent on liking and commenting and following certain people and influencers and all that stuff. That's second tier. I didn't do that for years and years and years, because it's just so long, it takes so long.

And what you're really doing a lot of times, this is what it is, is like when I ask writers, like, why are you, why do you think that's valuable? They're like, oh, well eventually they'll hire me. Why don't you just send 'em an LOI and ask, just do. That makes so much more sense than like, pretending you don't really want the cookie, but then you're like, maybe they'll just give me the cookie.

No, like I only do that in certain situations where like I'm doing, um, I'm liking and commenting. People's stuff that I like that make sense or clients that like aren't ready yet or clients that are like, keep in touch. That kind of stuff makes sense, but you don't like a lot of times they're like, oh, I thought I had to like play hard to get, and then they'll like, clients will reach out and be like, I saw you liked my stuff so much.

You should work for us. Like, just ask, just ask. That's a way better idea. Um, than, than playing games with them. Don't play games. Just ask for the sale. All right. I hope this was helpful. If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a high earning freelance writing.

Subscribe below or wherever the thing is, I always forget where it is. Uh, let's see if we can get a pub date. Let's see if we can get you guys like, come on, buddy. Why are you guys like so weird? Okay. Go back to your HAA hole. Go back to your HAA hole. Another HAA hole. Can you don't wait. I don't want you to like hurt yourself.

I wanna like support you cuz I know you're gonna like do something weird. All right, Charlotte. You're in your ha. Can you go back to yours? Can I make you go over there? All right. Careful. It's not. Okay. It's gonna be a while guys. He's gonna, it's gonna take a while for him to find it. So we'll just let him dig around for a bit.

How you doing Charlie? Ready for your high fives? Yeah. Good girl. All right. High five high five. Good. Hold on. We gotta find the trio. Barry. You're stepping on it, buddy. You're stepping on it. Did you need it in it? Oh gosh, Barry.

Well, I think you actually ate it, Barry. I think you ate it and now you're like looking around for something else. Barry Barry. Good job. Okay. Well, I know you're having vision problems. You're bumping into. . So what happens when you're old and you have all these eye issues and bless you, bless you. Tiny bean.

Oh, now she's running now. We're going all right. I hope that this was helpful. I hope that this was an entertaining live stream with my dogs running all over the place. Cause they're wild today. Um, but yeah, if you feel like it was helpful, give it a thumbs up. I'm here every Friday at noon central. last, um, little bit of info.

Freelance writer, wealth lab is opening up on September 6th. So if you wanna check that out, you can join the wait list by going to mandela.com/course, my masterclass will be running. So if you go and, um, either go to mans.com/course, or you go to mans.com and get. Free pricing guide. So mans.com/pricing guide.

Um, when you sign up for the free pricing guide, it'll let you know when my free master classes are. So that's the way to get the free masterclass. And then my courses opening right after those free master classes, if you're interested in any of that, or if you're interested in Charlotte wooing at you, , they don't normally woo this much when I do the core stuff.

So anyways, you can hop over there and get the free pricing. Um, my free masterclass is only offered twice a year. So if you're interested in that, make sure to sign up. All right. I hope everybody has a good Friday and I will see you later. Bye.

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