Differences Working with Agencies Versus Businesses as a Freelance Writer

As a freelance writer, what differences exist between working with content marketing/PR/ad agencies and working directly with businesses? What about pay when it comes to hourly vs. per project, and tracking time or reporting hours? What’s the difference between working with a business client one-on-one vs. the agency filtering your clients? Is it good or bad for the agency to be your go-between? And when it comes to the “heavy lifting,“ does that help make the lower rates of some agencies worth it?

This week’s livestream is going over those exact questions plus how to start working with agencies vs. businesses, and how you can make the right decision as a freelance writer for your biz success.

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Differences Working with Agencies Versus Businesses as a Freelance Writer

How do you actually figure out which one is right for you? Right? Should you work one on one with businesses or should you go through agencies, which could be content marketing agencies, PR agencies, or ad agencies? Hi Karina, she says I don't watch live. Oh my gosh. That's so funny. Okay, so we're going through whether Things are better with working one on one with businesses or it's better working with agencies How do you figure out if that's the right fit for you?

What should you do? When it comes to understanding what makes sense for your business. Is it worth it? What about like this heavy lifting thing that agencies do? So we're going to go through a few things. So let's go through number one first. Oh, you know what we're going to do first is Karina's question.

So Karina asked a question. Um, and we're going to go through that. Um, we're going to go through that first. Come on computer. There we go. Okay. So Karina asked a question. We're going to do question first. So she says i'm not comfort confident in my discovery call skills typing while listening knowing how to feed off of what clients say Asking key questions.

I know the only way to build skills is to have calls, right? But I want to practice beforehand. I don't want to stop marketing or welcoming new clients Do you think it's a good idea to have them fill out a form instead of having a discovery call? So I am a big fan of the call because the form is like they can skip stuff, right?

So the form is something where even if you ask about budget and even if you ask about all these questions that you want even if you make them required people can put na or they can just put like a random number or Um for the budget or they can skip the question by putting in like not sure So, for me, the, uh, the call is really important because the call helps us suss out if they're a right fit for us in terms of, like, their goals for the content.

What they want to do with the project. Is it a personality fit? Do we like talking to each other? Um, and the deal is like if you want to practice beforehand, I would call some friends like I would just say like hey Can you pretend to be a client and like kind of talk about? Hi, batty We can kind of talk about Um, all the things that, you know, a client might ask, like give your friend a sample project and then you can ask questions and they can answer.

Um, it would be better if that's a freelance friend so they kind of understand what a client would say or like how the project would be, um, discussed. So that would be important. Honestly, I just think sometimes it's better to just keep doing it. Like, that was the best learning thing for me. Like, even if I went over stuff with my friends.

Um, and even if I talk things through with other people, it was better for me to just do more calls. Like, just actually just kind of like trial by fire it. You learn a lot more that way. So for me, a lot of times I feel like the form makes it seem like it's not as personal of a connection with your clients.

Like you're kind of, um, distancing yourself from them with the form. Plus, like I said, there's lots of times where you have a form and someone skips questions or someone decides they don't want to answer them. Um, and you get this form that's not actually really helpful and it doesn't really suss out like, is that client a fit for you?

Because if you get on a call, it's usually really easy to figure out, like if you kind of take it, um, step by step instead of trying to rush through the call or instead of trying to like just get answers, if you just kind of feel it out and treat it like you're meeting somebody for coffee, like it's no pressure, you're just kind of meeting up, it's a lot easier to figure out if that person is a good fit for you.

If that client makes sense, if the project makes sense. Um, so I, I would practice with a friend if you want to, but I, like for me, uh, I often talk about when I used to do client calls, like I would drink so much water during them because I was so nervous and I had, my mouth was really dry and just doing more of them built my own confidence.

Like doing them with a friend isn't the same thing as getting on with a random person. Hey, flower power, uh, getting on with a random person and, um, learning about your clients and learning about how they speak and what they say. So I want to I want to give you like a little bit of a challenge to just try it out, right?

Just just keep moving forward challenge yourself to keep doing the calls. Don't stop marketing. Just keep moving forward So it is nerve wracking. It is difficult, but you learn so much faster and you learn so much more You learn a lot more depth from just having the calls and the form is just Like I said, like I've just, I know from some businesses like that works out, but it's, they eventually get on a call, right?

So they eventually, someone fills out a form and they still get on a call before they move forward with the project. The form is to like move people out of, um, they're like move people out from contacting them who don't have a budget or who have the wrong project. So that's I think I I want to challenge you to keep doing like definitely keep doing the marketing But make sure that you're still doing the calls.

And if you want to practice with a friend definitely do that Okay, Charlie's here too. So Charlie's over here snoozing away. Hi Charlie She looks like a beached seal right now. There she is. Good girl. Hi cutie. You look snorkeling. You want a snack? I have food for you today instead of snacks. Are you interested in food?

Not interested? No? You don't want that? You want only the snacks? We have Kibble today because we're waiting for her other snackos to come in. We're low on snackos, which rarely happens. But every once in a while, the delivery schedule gets all messed up. You ready? Just, this is all I got for you today. It's just Kibbles.

I know. They're not ideal. They don't taste like peanut butter or, or anything good. You're like, ew, gross. Maybe someone will bring you some peanut butter. Maybe someone will bring a little spoonful or, or cup, little cup of peanut butter up here and we'll put them in peanut butter and then you'll eat them.

What do you think? You're like, I don't know. That doesn't sound very good. Okay, let's get to our, um, let's get to our stuff today. So let's talk about number one. So number one, when we're talking about businesses versus agencies, right? So our first thing is like, is it good or bad? Right? This is something that I get asked all the time.

Like what's the differences and is it good or bad? Right? So the differences are a bunch of different things. So the differences end up being like with a business, you're working on the project one on one. Like you're talking to the person who works at the business. If you're working for the PR agency or the ad agency or the content marketing agency, your client is the agency.

So they're handling stuff with clients. They are getting new clients and they're farming out projects to you. So your client is the agency. You, yeah, you, you can say that you wrote for whoever the end person is who publishes the content. Um, but your, when it comes to like referrals or working with stuff, like you, you're going to be referred to other content marketing agencies.

You're not going to be referred to like other clients like that. So I am a big fan for me. It's not good or bad. It's personality based. Some writers really love working with agencies. They, they like that agencies bring them work. They like working on that work. And there are certain types of companies that only work with agencies.

So like bigger companies like Microsoft or Google or Nike. Um, Oracle I think was one. But I've had friends who worked with huge companies. But those huge companies are only accessible to write for through an agency. Like that's how they work. So if you wanted to work for a bigger like a big giant company or you wanted to work for a certain company And you found out they only work through an agency then you'd have to work through the agency So there are certain times where you can't work one on one, um, but for me, I just like, like it better.

So, there's also a difference with pay. So a lot of times agencies want you to work mostly hourly. I don't like working hourly. I prefer to work, uh, project based. Sometimes agencies will work project based with you, but, um, I just feel like when we work hourly, like, the rates are a little bit lower from what I've seen with agencies than what you'd get one on one.

Um, and you're also doing the middleman thing, right? So like the agency is Getting paid by the client and taking a cut and then they're giving you the rate afterwards with the business, right? If you're working one on one with a business the money's going directly to you. There's no middleman Uh, and I like to form relationships one on one with my clients.

I like the idea of getting to know them. I like the idea of working with them one on one. I like the idea of, um, the referrals or the way that their business works is like I learn more about my ideal client by talking to, excuse me, by talking to them. Um, and then that way you're swimming in the same pool.

A lot of times when you're working with agencies, what ends up happening is you're getting in the content marketing agency pool. So there's like this difference between hourly and per project. Uh, sometimes they make you track your hours. Like they make you, um, use a certain software or, um, make you report hours in a specific way.

If you work with an agency, if you work with a business and you're working by the project, you don't have to do that. Um, you can just do your work and do a good job at it. So there's that difference too. Um, and the other thing, when you're thinking about your, um, Kind of good and bad. It's it really depends on how you want things to work out So there's going to be some certain content marketing agencies that you like working with and some that you don't it's not all Agencies are good and all agencies are this there are specific agencies that are really great that work for you So that's this is what I always tell students and always tell Um, like when I do coaching or when we do the wealth lab or runway, I always tell them like you have to figure out if it works for you.

It's not that it's just like agencies, um, pay well or don't pay well, or agencies do this or that. There's very small agencies that can be really great to work with. And there's really big agencies that can be really great to work with. And it just depends on, it's kind of like finding con, uh, you're finding client fit with them.

So, you're kind of figuring out what you like, like how you like to work, how you like to get paid, do you like working with that agency, or would you like working with them, um, do you like, um, do you like the types of projects they're working on, do you like the structure, um, are you someone who would prefer someone just gives you projects that you're working Uh, there's a big difference too.

It's not that agencies just give you projects either. Uh, they have different writers and they have different specialties and they're farming out different types of projects to different writers. It's not that there's always a constant flow of projects. That's kind of a misconception is a lot of times writers are like, Oh, I just want to work for an agency because they'll just give me work all the time and that's just not how it works.

Um, there is like an inflow and outflow of work for them and there's an inflow and outflow of types of writing and types of projects and which writers are the best fit for that project. So even if you want a project, you may not get it because another writer might be a better fit. So there's a lot of different things to think about.

Um, for me, when I always think about it, I, I imagine, like, um, I've only worked, so not imagine, but I've only worked with my friends agencies. So my friends who have, sorry, created, I've talked a lot, uh, through the past couple weeks, so like my, Voice is all mad and I've been coughing. So, um, there is I've only worked with my friends agencies So like they've had a ton of work and then they farm that work out so they create an agency to do that Um, and I feel like my students who have worked with agencies It depends like some of them really love it.

Some of them really hated it It really depends on the agency the experience how you like to work with your clients. So I think there's like this Um, do you like them being the go between? Would you be willing to work with an agency to work with a specific client? Like if you always wanted to work with blah blah blah brand, would you want to keep right working with them?

Um, would you want to work with the agency to be able to say that you wrote for that company or you have that clip? Those are important things to think about there. Um, it depends like it's not just hourly for billing reasons because they have a cap so a lot of times when They're doing our like for me when I've a long time ago when I was talking to agencies And then when my students talk to agencies, they're like, oh we could pay 35 an hour for 10 hours or it You know, whatever it is.

There's like a cap So the per project would make sense, right? But the deal is, like, if it doesn't take you 10 hours, they want you to charge less, which is crazy, which I don't like. So it's not that it's just, um, it's more that they have a cap and they want hourly because they, that's like the cap, right?

30, right? 350 bucks for 10 hours. Um, I don't know why they don't switch to per project. Well, I do know why. The only reason they don't switch to per project is if it takes you 8 hours instead of 10. That's why you're tracking your time. They pay you less money, which sucks. So that's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan of working with agencies for, for myself is that the situation that I've often found myself in is like that they could just pay you the per project rate, but they don't want to, they want to just like do it by the hour.

And if it takes you less time, that's better. And I just, I don't like that idea. It's missing the whole point of value. It's missing the whole idea of how we want to present our work in terms of quality and value and Uh, how it actually works in terms of getting, uh, reaching the goals for our clients versus like how much time did it take, which is nut town.

So, let's talk about two. So, two here, one of the things that, um, uh, oh, and this was suggested by someone. Someone wrote in and asked for this topic. It was, um, Sherry. So, Sherry wrote in and asked for this topic to go over it. So, that's one of the things that you can do here is, uh, on the live stream you can go in and you can go to mandyellis.

com slash question and you can either submit a question like Karina did. Or, you can submit a topic. So you can go there and pop it in. Yes, Woo? Would you like to say something? Oh, she's escaping. She's escaping and stretching. That's all I have. All I have are those kibbles, Snork. That's all there is.

There's just kibbles. There's just kibbles today. I know. Do you want me to wrap you up? I think someone wants to be wrapped up like a burrito. That's all I have. That's all I got. I know they don't taste like beef right now. Okay, hold on. Let's get you all wrapped up. There you go.

Alright, now you can lay down and be comfortable. This is all I got. This is all I have. She's just like, Ew, that tastes like breakfast. I want snacks.

Oh, she's, oh, you're still spitting it out. She's still spitting it out. What do you think? I know. We're low on snacks today. We're low on snacks. Oh, maybe I'll give you one at the very end. Okay, let's talk about two. So, two here, when we're going through things is One of the things that I often get asked is is it okay to take a lower rate With an agency because they do the heavy lifting, which is crazy.

It's crazy. So They're like, well, is it okay to take lower rates with agencies because they're doing the heavy lifting and the heavy lifting is like they're Doing the research or they've already done the interviews or hi Bara Um, they are, um, doing like the content outline or whatever. And the deal is like, it's not about taking a lower rate for them doing the heavy lifting.

That's just, that's just like the proposal they're giving you of like, Hey, you should probably take a lower rate. Cause we're doing some of the work. Here's the secret that I've found most of the time, that work is not done well. So the deal is like they're calling it heavy lifting just to get you to an accept a lower rate and most of the time it's not done well.

There are plenty of agencies that do a good job that do good research and interviews, but it's, I've found it's very rare. And even when I've had, um, clients who are like, we already did the interview, you should charge less. And it's like, no, cause your interview sucks. You didn't do it right. So there's a lot of times where this idea of them doing the heavy lifting of sending in like they give you SEO Keywords or they give you a content brief or they do the research for you or interviews or they give you some other stuff Like most of the time that stuff is normal stuff You should have been doing while you're doing this project anyways And that stuff is a lot better when we do it because we're getting into the project When I kind of do a project it changes it evolves because you have to make that thing Good, right?

There's a lot of times where you get a content brief and it sucks. It's really bad It's either super bare bones or it's not covering the topic well, or it's missing really important pieces same thing with the interviews is like they're not following up because they Didn't do like either someone did the interview who didn't do the research and their research skills like they're sending you these studies Or they're sending you this stuff that is not applicable or that is not very good So a lot of times I found that They're not doing like a deep enough kind of scouring of information.

So when they try to, I, it's not all agencies. So I'm still gonna say that it's not all agencies. But the agencies where they say like you should take a lower rate because we're doing some of the work, that work isn't good. That work isn't good and it's not right. So like when you start pulling the story together and you start kind of piecing it together You start realizing how all of their stuff starts to fray really easily Like basically what they did was a quick google search of like two studies and they're like here you go Like they didn't actually do the research.

They didn't actually look for the best study or the stuff that supports things They just kind of floofed around for five minutes found something and called it research and it's not right And then the other piece is the interview, is they'll might maybe ask like five questions, ten questions, and that's not the depth that you need to go to for the piece, or they ask the wrong questions, or they just don't understand how to interview people.

So then you get this mishmash of material that's not very good. And I'm saying this like this is not all agencies. Sometimes you will get stuff from a PR agency or an ad agency or a content marketing agency that's super great. You will find a super awesome content marketing agency, PR agency, or ad agency that does really great work and you love working with them.

So there's that. But for me, a lot of times what I've found is like anytime someone's trying to convince me that they're doing something like heavy lifting on on an article To get me to accept a lower rate. We're missing the whole point It's not that you've done the heavy lifting plus you didn't do heavy lifting because it's not good but two That's the part of doing the article, right?

We need to do that in order to write good articles And three the other piece is that they're using that as leverage to get you to lower your price like it's about price It's not about quality. It's not about finding the best research. It's not about doing the best interview It's not about creating the best piece of content for that audience.

It's literally just like, Hey, we did some of the work. So you should lower the price, which is no, that's not the point, the value of the work. Right. And this is something I, um, this is something that I often talk about in, um, the masterclass is like, there is an article, right? There's an article that made 15 million or 16 million, something like that.

And it was one article and that article keeps right keeps that engine going keeps getting people to show up at their website Gets traffic leads sales all that stuff. Yes. Hello I like your lip gloss So that article keeps working right that article keeps working for that business But you're not getting any slice of those few million dollars, right?

You're not getting any piece of the money that's coming in. But as after you stop working you want to try this? After you stop working with that client, right? Then that client still, oops, sorry, still gets all the benefits from your content, right? So that totally eliminates the idea of heavy lifting. Like if you think that the content The pre content part, right, is like the whole thing.

That's not it. That's not it. It's publishing the content and making sure that's working. That's the piece that's important, right? So I always feel like, like every time that I've been told that, whether it was by a business client, because I've had business clients do the same thing as an agency where they're like, hey, um, you should lower your rate because we've already done X, Y, Z, and uh, oh, you don't want that.

It's kibble. We don't want that. You're so silly. So there's even a business will do that sometimes right where they're like we did some of the work So you don't have to and they just have a deep misunderstanding of what the work entails Like they they're going through it and it also shows kind of the quality, right?

So if they're going through it not doing an in depth interview not getting answers to the questions That would naturally be asked or that would be a really important part Of that article, right? Like they're just kind of glazing over it. That's not a connection in quality, right? We're not on the same page when it comes to quality of the work because they're like Oh, I kind of did some stuff and you're like this is all wrong and they're like whatever So even sometimes when you work with businesses, they have this idea that that's the piece that the heavy lifting It's not the heavy lifting is actually the writing part And doing the right types of research and doing the right types of interviews Um, and getting all of your, like, getting all the ducks in the row the right place, in the right place, and having quality content that works, right?

So the content gets published. And it does what it's supposed to do, right? Helps with SEO, helps with web traffic, helps with leads, sales, likes, shares, downloads, subscribes, all that stuff. So, whenever you kind of hear something about that, you should perk your ears up. You should be like, what? Heavy lifting?

Like, it's not, they, they, they're just calling it heavy lifting to make it sound like they did a ton of stuff and most of the time they didn't. I found this like pretty much every time, like there, like I said, there's businesses and agencies that knock it out of the park that send you a fantastic brief.

They do really great research. They actually do the interview, right? We're not talking about them. There are great ones out there, but there are plenty of businesses and agencies that kind of mess this up. And I find that it's more often with agencies than businesses where they try to convince you of this heavy lifting.

Where they're like you should lower the rate which is the same thing as working hourly where they're like well If it takes you eight hours want to pay you less than ten instead of giving you a project rate Bar says can you create your own agency like a content marketing agency? Yeah, but when you're creating your own agency You would want to have work that you're farming out to writers like you wouldn't want to have an agency as just a one person Agency, it just looks really weird Um, so there's times where people try to say like, Hey, like, hire my agency to do your content.

And they, people think they're hiring a team and it's just one person. So that's kind of a conflict. It looks really kind of off. Um, so I've had friends that created agencies, but the agencies they're creating is like, they have so much work, they're farming it out to other writers that they trust. So they're like, Hey, I have like three other writers who I trust.

Like, you know, I'm gonna give this. Project to them as part of my agency, but you're not creating an agency like you would Like to be kind of like these other agencies like your agency would be that you have so much work You can give it to others or you want to kind of manage the project versus doing the project Okay, let's talk about three real quick.

Hi, Charlie. Charlie, you look so funny with your little ears up. You're like, okay, I want snacks now. You won't eat the kibbles, but you'll just eat this. I only have like bits left. There's only a little tiny bit left. Oh, you want to give everybody here nice high fives? Good girl. Good girl. You're a soft ham today.

She's very snuggly. She's been very snuggly over the last couple of days. So she's, uh, she's looking for snacks. She's looking for hugs. Oh, good girl. Can you show everybody your belly? Can you show everyone your belly? That's close enough. Good job. Good girl. Okay, let's talk about three. Let's talk about three, if I can find the number three.

Okay, let's talk about three. So three here, whenever my hair is wet, it just sticks to my neck and it's really itchy. This is why I like, you know, when I was a swimmer, I would always put my hair up like I could, I can't stand like the wet hair sticking to you. Oh, okay. So let's talk about three. How do we start working with them?

If we feel like, you know, we found a good agencies There's plenty of agencies out there that are really great that are wonderful to work with Uh same thing with businesses I feel like for me what i've seen in my business and my students businesses is There's a higher number of businesses that are greater to work with than agencies Agencies can be really hit or miss it depends So when you're kind of working with them, you can Google content marketing agencies.

There's also like a database I forget what it's called, but there was like a If you Google content marketing agencies, it should come up and show you all the content marketing agencies out there in the US But yeah You're gonna be doing the same kind of process when you're approaching Agencies been in businesses is you're sending those LOIs those letters of introduction right those LOIs Um, and I always get this question.

People always ask me, um, you can get them. Hold on. So if you go to mandyellis. com slash templates, you can grab my LOI templates. Why is this off center? There we go. So I always get this question. This is it. So if you're interested in my LOI templates that you can send to businesses or you can send them to agencies, go to mandyellis.

com slash templates. You can also go to mandyellis. com slash bundle. So, when we're sending our LOIs, they're pretty much the same thing that we're sending to agencies and businesses. Agencies are different than businesses because you know that agencies are always, pretty much always needing writers or needing writers with different kinds of specialties or different types of niches or different types of focuses of projects.

So agencies are more kind of like, almost like magazines where you could follow up more often or you can. Um, they, they're always, you know, that they kind of need people, businesses or you don't know, right? Businesses, you're sending the LOI to figure out, do you need help? Do you need something, um, is, are there projects coming up, you know, that you may need extra help on that kind of stuff.

So I feel like the, just the expectation is different. Like you know, the agencies would need an LOI, you know, that they likely would need writers most of the time, or that, um, following up with them, like they change out their stable or they change out their projects. Businesses, it just depends, and I'm still a bigger fan of businesses, even if it feels more unknown, um, than agencies, because I often feel like agencies have a cap, right?

Agencies have a cap on their budget, a cap on number of writers, a cap on niches or types of projects. Businesses, like, you have so many more opportunities, right? We have a lot more types of projects, we have a lot more types of niches we can go after, there's a lot more businesses than there are agencies.

Um, and I feel like that for me, um, makes it better to send to businesses, but if you're someone who wants to try agencies and you feel like that's the right fit for you. Sending LOIs to them, making lists, same process. So you can Google around and find different lists and different, um, collections of content marketing agencies, um, and send them LOIs and see what's up.

But the other thing too is that you want to make sure you're kind of sussing out your agency and business clients in a similar way. We don't want to lower our standards just because it's an agency and we're like, Oh, but they're going to give me a ton of work. There's plenty of times where, whether it's a business or an agency, and I've found this is more likely with agencies where there's a promise of a lot more work.

And that just, that's just not the case. So they, they're like, Oh yeah, we'll give you a ton of work. Um, we'll pay you this rate. It'll be consistent. And then agencies are like, sorry, we changed our plan. You know? And it, I find that more often. With agencies than businesses where they change their plan more often or they don't have as much work as they said or you're getting like the um, The phone game with them, right?

Like they're you talk to the agency the agency talks to the client the client talks to the agency the agency talks to you right and so it kind of there's like a middleman kind of phone game like someone says something and then it changes as the Game goes on so it just depends. What do you think? What would you like to say?

So it depends and I feel like for me What has been the best thing is to make one on one relationships with businesses, but I know plenty of other writers. Oh my girl I know plenty of other writers who really like working with agencies, um, and not all their clients are agencies, so I do want to make that kind of like little caveat there.

Um, I don't know any writer, I don't know any writer who 100 percent of their clients are agencies. There's plenty of writers who write for agencies, but they also write for other businesses. So agencies would be part of your client mix if you felt like that was a good fit for you. And like I said, like, Oh, you know what?

I did write for another agency. I did, um, write for another agency that wasn't my friend's agency. So I did, I always forget that. So I've written for my friends at agencies and I've written for, um, other agencies, not like, Yeah, I just, I don't know why I always forget that. So I did. Um, but when you're working with them, you want to make sure they're the right fit.

You want to make sure the pay is good. You want to make sure that they're on the same page. You want to make sure that everything's kind of aligning. So you want to feel like the agency is a good fit for you. So for me and my business, I feel like most of the time I like targeting businesses. I can send more LOIs because there's more businesses out there than agencies.

Um, I also feel like for me personally, I just prefer working one on one Some people like working one on one with an agency better, and that's totally fine. I think it's personality based. I think it's how you like your work schedule. I think it's whether or not you like the agencies that you've been talking to.

Um, and I'm, I'm, you know, I'm having the same thing, right? So when I'm usually talking to an agency, I'm usually having a call with them. Um, we're talking about the project. We're talking about how things work. I'm using it as the, I'm doing the same thing that I would for a business. Uh, it's just like most of the time I find that we're not a fit on rate or budget or we're not a fit on How the project would work out?

Um, and I like I said I'm, just a big fan of being able to talk to my clients if I can talk to my ideal client one on one I learn a lot more stuff So that I can do better marketing, so I can find better clients, so I can find more clients like this one, right? If I work for the agency, I'm learning more about agencies versus working with that client one on one and getting a deep understanding of who my ideal client is.

The better you can understand who your best client is, or who your favorite client is, or who your ideal client is, right? The easier it is to do marketing because it's easier to identify who they are. And when you get on a call, it's easier for you to suss out who's right and who's not right for your business.

Um, Bara says, so you barely work with agencies because businesses are better to work with. I just am not a big fan of working with a middleman. Like, that's just not something that I like. I like to work one on one with my clients. So it's not that I barely I it's not that it's just like just businesses are better They're better for me.

I like that kind of one on one relationship I like being able to talk to them and understand their business and understand their pain points more Versus an agency where you would be getting filtered information from the agency Like you wouldn't be able to ask your client directly questions most of the time every once in a while An agency will let you, um, have a one on one relationship with directly with the client, but it's usually kind of rare.

So it just depends like the, I, the idea, right? The, the draw of agencies is that they ha they are saying they have a constant flow of work and. That you will be able to like choose your projects, but that's not always the case and it really depends like some agencies are really fantastic and they're great to work with and some Agencies want to pay you like 10 cents a word and want you to do all this crazy stuff.

That doesn't make any sense So it really depends. Oh, I don't know if you want to feel comfortable giving her the popcorn We get we just got a delivery of popcorn and a peanut butter kong for mini and see if she's interested You guys doing the peanut butter kong? Maybe? Okay, hold on. Maybe?

Maybe? Maybe not. We'll see. We'll see what happens. We'll watch. We'll see what happens. Good girl. So yeah, um, I Just feel like this is also a knowledge thing So I feel like it's also like you're learning more about your own work habits and your own business, right? So like I know plenty of writers who make six figures where some of their clients are agencies, right?

That's just like How they like to work. Um, I am just not like I, like I said, for me, um, I like having a better relationship like with my client. I like to be able to talk to them directly. I like to, um, learn more about deep stuff in their business. So it's easier for me to find more clients like them. Um, and I have not found like for me, um, when I have talked to agencies and the agencies I've worked with, Like some of them can have consistent work, but many of them have not and that could just be my experience That's why like whenever we talk about agencies, it's like so all over the map That's one of the things that's misunderstood by a lot of new freelance writers are like well Why wouldn't you work with agencies if they're just farming out work?

It's because it's so all over the place like some like I said, some agencies are great Some agencies are terrible some are in the middle summer agencies are good to kind of learn some content some are like it's It's just all over the map. It can be very, very different than working with businesses where the more you work with a certain type of business or you understand where, what their pain points are and how to help them and what that client looks like for you, then you can kind of double down and find more of them.

So then it gets, uh, you get better response rates on your LOIs. You kind of know who you're looking for. You get like a better Spidey sense. So it really depends. Um, and I just feel like that's kind of the, the thing is like agencies. It's the promise of a lot of work, but it doesn't always mean it's high paid work, and sometimes it's the promise of high paid work just not very frequently.

Sometimes it's the best of both worlds, which in case, right, like why people keep working with a certain agency. But you have to suss them out. You have to figure out if it's, if it's the right fit. Um, Albert said, I never did agency work or pure corporate work. The idea of research already being done and given to you makes me wonder why they need a writer in the first place.

See, that's the thing, that's the thing, is when you get an agency that says that, that's the, the idea then becomes, we just need a writer, right? They, they don't understand the process of writing, right? That's the thing that always tripped me up is like, you have to be, you, the natural part of writing comes from.

Doing the research and then doing or like doing the research in the interview and like that kind of unfolds and then you're putting The thing together that makes sense, right? So for me, it always got tripped up where they're like, we just need a writer to write it, right? Like the idea then becomes we already did the research.

All you have to do is type it up, right? It's missing the entire Writing process and how things kind of naturally come together to make a piece of content that readers love Right and it's also like a misunderstanding the value of our work, right? How that piece of content keeps working keeps people reading keeps people interested over many many years So yeah, I feel like that's kind of the misunderstanding i've seen not with every agency just some of them um, yeah, so it just depends like I said, like I I think that um, I think a good principle to kind of think about is When you're thinking about your own business, you should still try things out.

That's why I like I've totally forgot But yes, that's why I've worked with my friends agencies and a couple other agencies. So It just depends on the work. It just depends on like Like how you want to work. It depends on that particular agency or that particular business Um, it depends on a lot of different factors, right?

There's a difference in like, when you work with a business, you can say, this is how I work, right? Here's my contract, here are my payment terms, this is how I work. The agency, most of the time, is like, this is how you will work. They're like, this is how, you know, if you want to work at this agency, you have to do this thing.

So there's a lot more freedom, I think, for me, most of the time, in working with businesses. But there are select agencies or places that, um, I've worked with, or like my friends agencies. Uh, where that has really worked out for my personality, it's worked out for how I like to do my writing, it's worked out for how I like to do the project.

So I think when you're kind of thinking that through, it should be like, I always feel like it's a case by case basis. Like that's how I think about agencies and businesses is it's always a case by case basis. With businesses, I can understand more and more of that case so that I can find more cases. But with agencies, it's like every single one can be very different.

Like they all operate so differently. They don't have, it's not like you're like, okay, if this prop tech company has this amount of revenue and these struggles, and they're not creating this content, I kind of know what kind of circus we're in. Right. I know how to ride that pony. Right. But agencies are so different because they all focus on different things.

So you have to kind of take it on a case by case basis. Definitely. Just like we started this call, uh, this out with a Korean is question about calls, get on calls, understand them better. Um, figure out kind of what's going on with the agency, what types of things make sense, um, for your business, for how you want to run your business, for, um, how someone's explaining the work to you.

Like it should always be a conversation about value. It should be understanding of. Um, what the project entails, why they're doing it, why that makes sense for the audience, uh, it should be a conversation that makes sense for, like, how that content is created versus like, well, we do the heavy lifting so we can pay you less, or like, hey, if it takes you less time, you charge us less money, kind of like, that's, that's not the point.

That more gets into like, Treating content as like some like a bulk package, which I don't like the idea of that So I think it feels like it should be a case by case basis that you sauce out. Okay, seems like she's really enjoying that Oh now she's just licking Charlie, what are you doing over there? You just just licking.

I thought you were licking the Kong, but you're not you're just licking the sheet Oh now you're licking the Kong. So we got our peanut butter Kong. So we're feeling much better now We don't have to eat our breakfast, which is in this other container. We just eat all the snacks. Okay. So I hope that this has been helpful and I hope that it kind of helps you see the difference and.

I like I said for everybody everybody has a different experience Everybody has a different experience working with agencies because agencies can be so different Businesses I feel like because you get to work with them one on one then things become Easier to kind of suss out and for me, I just like the idea of working with my clients Some people want to work with the agency.

They like that kind of relationship. They like how that goes Um, and that's totally fine. I think that you should find the thing that makes the most sense for you but I think you should treat it as like keep everybody at the same standard don't like lower your standards just because Of the promise of this thing or just because of that thing like we should keep our standards high and have our clients meet them rather than lower our standards just because of xyz or just because the agency's like We're going to give you a ton of work and it doesn't matter.

It's a lower rate. You're going to have a ton of work right, that's It's sort of like, uh, you know that idea of like it remains to be seen right? Like you don't have the work yet. You don't have a relationship. You don't know how it's going to go yet So keep an open mind, but make sure they're all at kind of the same tier Um, I hope that this has been helpful.

Oh, and this is a thing too If you've been the someone who's asked about the free pricing guide, you can get it here mandyellis. com pricing guide This is another way to kind of suss out if agencies or businesses are on the same scale with you in terms of pay So it's my free pricing guide. You also get my weekly tips and tricks, uh email about freelance writing in addition to the live stream So we always have kind of like a lot of tips going out Um, okay, so I hope that this has been helpful.

I hope it's kind of helped you see the differences between agencies and businesses, why I chose the way I run my business, um, why other writers might choose to work with more agencies, what it really means when someone says heavy lifting hourly and per project, um, understanding the writing process and understanding the quality of your work and how that ends up.

Um, being a big benefit for your clients. So really think all that stuff through, treat it like a case by case basis, but they all should be on the same level. Like they all should be a, all your clients should be kind of on the same, um, understanding of the quality of the work and how to achieve that. If you felt like this was helpful, give it a thumbs up.

If you want to learn more about building your high earning freelance writing business you adore, subscribe. We're here every Friday and by we're, I mean us too, that little gremlin down there where she's licking all of our peanut butter out. Um, so we're here every Friday at noon central time. Yeah. Was that, was that good?

Are you happy with that? Was it tasty? Do you want to try a kibble now? Maybe?

Oh, so we're willing to eat breakfast now. Nice. So after you got the snacks now, we're willing to try breakfast. Sweet. So I hope that this has been helpful. I'll see you next Friday. Um, and uh, yeah, make sure that you kind of suss them out just like your clients. Get on those calls, understand who's the right fit for you.

And kind of write down, right, keep track of the things that make sense for you so you can find better clients. Um, I hope everybody has a good weekend. I will see you next Friday.

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