Fill Your Freelance Writing Work Calendar by Doing These Today
Wondering how to get more freelance writing work through the end of the year? Trying to figure out what shifts you need to make to find better clients before 2024? Or how you can set your business up for success ahead of the holidays and before the New Year rush?
This week’s livestream is going over how to fill up your freelance writing work calendar, what you need to look at through the last four months of the year, and what shifts to make now to help for the coming year.
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Fill Your Freelance Writing Work Calendar by Doing These Today
Also, it would probably would've helped if I unmuted myself that whole time. So, okay, backing it up, we're gonna fill your freelance writing work calendar for the end of the year. So this is something that I talk about every year when we get around this time, like when we're in September, we wanna fill your calendar.
For the last quarter, in the beginning of the next one, yes, I muted myself because I'm sick and I'm doing my best, but luckily in my world's best uncle Bug, as you guys can see here, I have my garlic tea, which tastes so bad, but it works so well. So we're just gonna try our best today. This, this is just like how it is right now.
I'm just, You know, I, um, I had to cancel things for my breakthrough students. And, uh, I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't get up. I just was not feeling good. And today we're just trying it out. This is kind of like my tester. Um, and I have my, I have my emotional support ham. My emotional support ham is here to make sure that we're all doing good today.
G you want some snacks? You got some wags coming in. All right. Here you go. Girl. Charlotte got her ears clean today. So she's all feeling a lot better. So we're just gonna deal with the illness as best we can. We're gonna make it as far as we can today in this live stream. But one of the things I did wanna say when we're talking about freelance writing work is I do have a masterclass coming up.
So if you go to mandy ellis.com/masterclass one. I have a masterclass that's coming up on Tuesday, September 5th. So this coming Tuesday. It's at noon Pacific, 2:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Eastern, and 8:00 PM British standard time, or 7:00 PM G m t. So if you wanna join that masterclass, it's my free masterclass.
It's the last free masterclass of the year. Uh, it's coming up on Tuesday. You can join Masterclass one. I have two other spots too. Um, you can join the same masterclass. It's the same material, it's just at a different time. So Masterclass two is Wednesday evening, so two, uh, Wednesday, September 6th, uh, at 6:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Central, 9:00 PM Eastern, and I think it's 1:00 AM G M T or 1:00 AM B S T I can't remember, but middle of the night.
So that one's more for like people getting off work. Making sure they can make the class. So I have another one, mandy ellis.com/masterclass two. And then my final one, this is like my final, final class free live class that I'm teaching for 2023 is match class three. So if you go to mandy ellis.com/masterclass three, that is for Wednesday, September 13th.
Wednesday, September 13th. That one is at noon Pacific, 2:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Eastern. Um, and the 8:00 PM British Standard Time or 7:00 PM G m t. So that'll be the last, last one is masterclass three. That's the last one I'm doing for 2023. And that class is gonna go over how to build, uh, a more successful freelance writing business.
So every time, I go over this material, right? Every time, um, I go over, let's put up masterclass one 'cause that's the first one coming up. So every time I go over the, the material for the free masterclass, I always refresh it. So I, I wanna keep making a new class. Like every time I run my free class, I only run it twice a year.
I still get emails of people being like, Hey, when are you gonna run this class again? Can you run it again later on? Like, I would love to come back or, um, I get people asking like, when is it gonna be available? Right? And every time I'm like, I'm gonna change the class to a different topic. And I still have people asking for the same topic, so I refresh it.
So every time we do the class this time, I've refreshed a whole bunch of things. Pretty much every category has a refresh. No. Every single one. Every single thing. So if you've gone to this masterclass before, it's new. I've added a bunch of stuff. I've changed a bunch of things. So this is, this is a, a refreshed and change masterclass, so hop in mandy.com/masterclass.
One is the first one. That was one happening on Tuesday at noon Pacific, 2:00 PM Central. Uh, 3:00 PM Eastern. Um, 8:00 PM British Standard time, 7:00 PM G m t. Okay, let's get to today's topic. Also, I have a sassy friend. She's over there. She's snorkel, snorkel. Hass been snorkeling a lot recently too. She's been, um, She's been really doing the deep dives on the water.
Like that's why I call her Snorkel Peanut is because we, to us, she seems very small. She's like a 50 pound dog, and she seems very small. 'cause we had Bruce, and Bruce was 110 pound, uh, great Dane Mastiff mix. So she seems small, but she, she dives in up to her eyeballs in the water dish. So she likes really deep water and then she like wants the water to almost touch her eyeballs when she takes a drink.
All right. Hey, flower power. Happy Friday. Here you go. B, you catch it. Good job. Okay. We're gonna do our best today. Just like, just everybody. I'm doing my best today. Okay. Let's talk about our first thing. So when we're going over, um, how to fill up, write our freelance writing work calendar. This, uh, this is why I have the Freelance masterclass now, right?
So this is why I have the free masterclass around this time is because this is a really important time to start understanding what shifts need to happen for the end of the year and for the beginning of next year. That kind of Q four, quarter four, and Q one, Q one, right? So q Q four of 2023 into Q one of.
2024, right? Those are, that's like a really good six month period for us to be planting seeds, for things to be nurtured, for people to make plans, our business clients, to make plans for the upcoming quarters. Like this is a really important time. So that's why one of the things that I go over in the free masterclass, right, is how are we actually doing this?
How are we planting those seeds? How are we actually getting things done? So when we're doing this right, we wanna fill up our freelance writing calendar by doing our marketing right. So we're, we are making sure that we're sending those lois or letters of introduction in our pitches. We are not necessarily, there's kind of two things happening here.
So let me finish that thought. We're not necessarily going to, um, Get a ton of responses. Some people will sit on your stuff until January. Okay? The whole point is that we are planting for the future. So there's kind of two ways that things go. I hear you Wu. There's two ways that things go. One, you get a bunch of people who answer because they have last quarter projects that they need help with.
So they have stuff in October through December or end of September, all the way through December that they need done, right? So, They'll con, they'll say, oh, thank God you showed up. So you'll get an answer to an l o i that's like, Hey, thank God you showed up. Um, like we really need help with this end of the year project or report or whatever it is.
And you showed up at the right time. So that's usually one camp.
Ugh, God, garlic, garlic's, tea is getting to me. Um, so that's one camp. The other camp is that you're planting seeds and people will answer and say, Hey. We are making our plan, right? So you'll send some Lois, our letters of introduction and you'll get a response that says, Hey, in October we're making our plan for January.
Right? And this is actually what we wanna hear. I know that there are times where we really want people to be like, yes, I have work immediately. Uh, and that's just, that's great. But it's not like, did you get it? It's not like that's the mo the norm. Like it, it isn't that you send an l o i and you immediately get work.
A lot of times what you wanna hear. Is that they're like, we are planning this thing, right? And we're, it's gonna start in January, so we're planning it through the end of the year. So when they're planning it through the end of the year, usually what happens is you sign a contract and you get money up front in November or December, more likely December.
So at least you have end of the year money coming in and you start the project in January, right? We want those people, those people are planners. We want the planners, right? So yes, it might be a couple months before they get their plans in place. You talk to them, excuse me. You send a proposal, um, you get your upfront payment, but you have work, like consistent work coming in for the next beginning part of next year.
So these are kind of their two camps. One is like, oh, thank God you're here. I need help on this year end project. The other one is that they have a project that's coming. They're like really good at planning and they're planning ahead for the next quarter, right? Quarter one of 2024 and all right, here you go.
It's over there. I threw it over there. It's over there. Can you see it? The other ones are the people who are, um, who are big planners, who are giving, like, putting a plan together for the next year, right? They're putting a plan, plan together. They wanna get somebody ready so that when they start the new year in January, everything's good.
Um, so we're kind of looking for that. And the way to do that is we have to send our lois to businesses, right? These are things that we're, um, we're. Kind of making sure that we have our templates in place. Um, we're making sure that we're sending our lois to the right people, right to the right content.
Marketing manager, marketing manager, VP of marketing, director of marketing, if none of those exist. C e o, right? We're sending these out, but we wanna make sure we're planting seed. So this is a, a common frustration. This is like a normal thing where. When we get to this end of the year, we're like, somebody should answer, right?
And we can't control when they answer it. And this is like, I, I swear like this is like one of our biggest, um, like burdens that we carry as freelance writers is having to deal with the frustration of going through periods where people don't answer. So like I, so I've gone through many periods over the, over the 10 years that I've been a finance writer where it's just been months of nobody answering, and then all of a sudden, like six people answer and they want a project, right?
This is one of the frustrations that we carry. The goal is to focus on what we can control, right? Our job is to plant the seeds. We can't control when the fruit comes, right? You would never plant a lemon tree and be like, there's no lemons today. Right? Like that would never happen, right? Think of this as tending to your garden.
Oh God, ugh, I gotta drink this stuff. I gotta finish it. Because the garlic tea like really helps. Like it tastes terrible, but it helps a lot. So, um, we, we wanna think about this as like planting seeds and then the fruit will grow later. And we also wanna think about this as irons in the fire, right? This is something that helped me keep going when I was really sad that I wasn't getting answers.
The more that you put out there, the more irons in the fire. The more seeds you plant, you will get more fruit. You will have an iron that that gets hot. You'll have multiple irons that get hot. Your job is to keep planting the seeds. Your job is to continue the process of what you can control, which is how many seeds you plant, which is increasing the percentage of people who will get back to you and increasing the amount of projects you get.
So like a lot of times people will send a bunch of Lois, right, letters of introduction, Lois, and they'll be like, nobody answered. And it's like, that sucks. I know. That sucks. I've been there. You're just like, I know that's hard, right? But the other thing is like keep planting seeds. You never know when your next client, like you could send an loi, like I've talked about this before.
I've gotten an answer to an l o I in legitimately five seconds, legitimate. Five seconds in five years. So I can't wait five years for someone to get back to me, but you never know when you're gonna get someone who answers immediately. So the goal is to keep planting those seeds and get closer to who your ideal client is so that the more you send Lois, they're more targeted to your ideal clients.
That way you have a higher success rate. Right? Who?
Um, so that's, we are gonna focus on planting our seeds, and this is a great time to do it. After Labor Day weekend, which is now, right? People wake up summer, and this is something I tell my, my breakthrough students, right? The, my post course, my post wealth lab course, right? Breakthrough, that's kind of my, uh, ongoing community.
I tell them all the time, like summer can be super busy or super dead. It just depends. Sometimes July and August can be very, very busy or very dead, and then fall comes and everybody wakes up. So like fall comes the last September, October, November, December comes, people wake up, they have projects, they have last minute needs.
They have stuff going on, right? They're outta summer brain. So we wanna make sure that when we're kind of, um, pulling our calendar together, when we're getting our freelance, uh, freelance writing work together, I'm laughing at what Vicki said. Um, we wanna keep planting those seeds and putting irons in the fire.
Vicki says, I just eat straight garlic clothes. I swallow them like super vitamin, uh, super daily vitamins. Wow, you. That is a lot. Like, that's a lot. I don't know how you do this. The garlic tea is like, um, we use like the little jarred garlic because it takes too much to, you're supposed to chop up the garlic, right?
So we get like the chopped garlic in a jar, and then it's like a bunch of lemons and honey, and it's just like, it's so terrible. But it was, uh, Holly, I, we haven't, um, Holly, uh, Henderson. Gave me this recipe a long time ago, like over a year ago, and it works like nobody's business. It's terrible, and you just smell like garlic and it's like crazy.
But it's, uh, it's effective. It's effective. So yeah, it's, it's rough, but it works. Thank you, Patty. Yeah, I am under the weather, but hopefully, uh, well, I have this companion, so at least I have Charlie, Charlie's here. Keeping me company doing all the good stuff. Good job, Charlie. All right, one more. Charlie.
Charlie, we've been giving you a lot of snacks. Ready? Good job. Good job. All right. Hold on a second. Okay, so as we're going through our stuff, right, We wanna make sure, actually, I finished the gar tea, so everybody rejoice. So as we're going through all this stuff, right, we're filling our freelance work calendar by planting seeds, right?
This is another time to follow up. So usually I, when I have on my list, like, like I said, right, you, anytime you get an answer, you're get an answer to an l o i. Um, you need to follow up on it. I follow up on it. Like usually if someone says, like, try again later, I usually boomerang it for three months.
September's a good time. To follow up on a big clump of those. So usually in September I have a like 50 to a hundred people that I need to follow up with who answered my l o I, or I sent them a proposal or we had a call of some kind, um, or I sent them a contract or something and they just weren't ready yet.
September's a good time to follow up on that because of the planning that happens in October. Then also the work that they might need done. So September is also a good way to fill your calendar by following up on all those lois that you either got a response to, uh, you had a call with them, you had a proposal, contract, something like that.
Um, I think that's what I'm gonna do just for this part. So this is the first thing, like we need to focus on planting seeds, irons in the fire, uh, still sending those lois. 'cause you never know who needs work and who doesn't. And remember that after Labor Day, a lot of times, like this is a common thread that I've seen in my business.
People wake up. Summer, like I said, summer, July, August can be super busy or super dead for me at least. Um, and then like fall, people start waking up. So we're filling our, our, we gotta do our marketing, but we have to focus on what we can control. We can't control when people get back to us. Um, but we, what we can control is like how many things we're sending out.
And like I said, people wake up, people start responding. Our goal is to start planting all those seeds and make sure they're going out. Okay. Let's talk about two. What do you think Charles? Oh, Chuck, I, we sometimes we call her Chuck E. Cheese. 'cause we call her a squeaky cheese and then we call her Charlie, and then that turns into Chuck or Charles, and then we call her Chuck E.
Cheese.
Okay, let's talk about two real quick. If this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up if you, even if you like Charlie, give it a thumbs up. No. Um, I know most people are just showing up here for Charlie. Um, so there's that. But if you feel like you wanna build a, a successful freelance writing business, subscribe or join the free masterclass mandy ellis.com/masterclass one.
Okay, so let's talk about two when we're looking at the last four months of the year. The last four months of the year are really important because we're. We are seeing like what has been going on. So sometimes what ends up happening with the last four months of the year is you wanna analyze what you've done in the previous eight.
So who's been your best client? How is your money situation? Um, what types of projects do you want for the future? Right? What kind of projects do you wanna do in 2024? Make adjustments for that, right? Who's your best client can help you sharpen your lois, your letters of introduction, right? So if we know who better, who our best clients have been, then we can send Lois to clients like them, right?
And then if we're looking at our finances and we're like, oh, I actually earned more, uh, from that, from this type of client than I thought, that's another adjustment we can make to our lois, right? So we wanna make sure we look back through, um, we're seeing what's going on in our trends of our business, um, and we're using that to help fill our work calendar, right?
We wanna make sure that we're doing these analysis to, excuse me, get a better picture of our business, right? Get a better picture of what's going on, get a better picture of what adjustments we can make, especially when you're going into projects, right? It's okay to put aspirational projects on your LinkedIn and your website.
So if you wanna move into landing pages, or you wanna move into email drip campaigns, or you wanna move into. Case studies and white papers do that now. Start putting it on your website and putting it on your, um, on your LinkedIn now and start learning how to do them now because it can take a while for people to find it.
Right? We're putting it out in the universe, right in the internet, and it can take a while for people to find it in their search. It can take a while for a, a client to say, Hey, I didn't know you did white papers. Like, can we do that? So learn how to do them now so that it's something that kind of starts percolating, right?
So that way if you have a client who's interested, or you have someone who is coming up like they find you in search at the end of the year, those things are already kind of moving. But when you put them on your LinkedIn and your website, you should be learning how to do them. Don't just put them up there and be like, I'll figure it out later.
Figure out how to do it right. Figure out how to do the project. Good girl. Yeah. And then we can have a, a, like a shorter ramp up period when someone asks for that project. Right? When someone's like, Hey, um, I want, I want you to do this landing page situation. You're like, okay, cool. So we need to make sure we're looking at that.
It's not just work that we're getting now, it's also work that we're moving towards for the future, right? So these are really important concepts that we need to pay attention to. Like a lot of times I talk to writers and they're like, it has to be now. And it's like, yeah, but we can't control that. Like we can't control the nowness.
We can control what we are doing, like how much we're doing, right? What are we doing? Where are we sending things? How are we updating things? We have to do those things. So, When we're looking through our calendar and we're looking through our stuff, um, we need to make sure that we're analyzing all of those things and that we're using this last four months of the year to really kind of build off of what has worked before, right?
So we need to kind of use this as a building period and an end of year work period, but also, right, like we're building towards 2024. I think that it's a mistake sometimes when writers wait until 2024, they wait and they're like, now is the different time? Like now we're gonna do it. No, you need to do it now.
We need to have a ramp up period, and we need to have a good ramp up period for that, right? So we need to give ourselves a chance to succeed. It's not a chance to succeed if you're like, January has come, we're doing it now. Like that doesn't work. You have to give yourself, you know, a multi-month ramp up period, right?
So start fixing your stuff, start analyzing your business. Start looking at what kinds of trends and what kinds of different things have happened, um, with your business. See what kind of projects you wanna move into. I think that kind of helps you get more work because you're kind of sending Lois in the process and you're like, you know, doubling down on what's worked before.
Um, but it also really helps you plan for the upcoming year. So that's our second thing we're gonna do. Our third thing we Hold on. What do you think, Charlie, what do you think about all this? Oh my gosh. You look like such a little dirt. You're so funny. You wanna do some high fives for everybody? Good girl.
Good job. Do you think we can do belly for everybody? Can you do belly? I know down. Okay. Charlotte Belly. Charlotte. Belly. Belly. You're so close. Charlotte belly. Show 'em your belly. Listen off. Sometimes when she's on like a, when she's on like a diagonal, she doesn't wanna, can you go over there? It's over there.
You see it? There you go. Sometimes when she's laying on something like a pet bed and she is like on an angle, she doesn't wanna flip over because she's like, feels like she's gonna fall off. Yes. You look so cute. I love your little ear. You're so funny. All right, one more and then we gotta get back to our clo to our stuff.
Here you go. Good girl. Okay, let's talk about three. Let's talk about three. This is what we're thinking about in terms of shifts. So shifts. In terms of your work, right? So we wanna make sure that we're looking at, um, like mindset things, right? A lot of times what ends up happening is I'll talk to, um, I'll talk to writers, and they're still in the same mindset, right?
They're like, well, I'm competing against a ton of other writers and, and, um, things are really difficult and this thing has happened that I can't control. Like, um, they wanna talk about the economy or they wanna talk about. Um, oh, well, like people aren't hiring or people are getting fired or all this stuff.
We wanna make sure we're focusing on the stuff that we can control, right? The shifts that we're making are like, like, who was our best client? How can we get more of those? What projects am I moving into? The mindset stuff comes along with that because what roadblocks are keeping you from that? Right?
What kind of roadblocks are you like, oh, well I can't do that. It's too hard, right? Or I'm not qualified, or self-doubt, right? Self-doubt, imposter syndrome. Um, A lot of times I end up talking to writers who are great writers, right? I read their material and I'm like, this is great. Right? And they've thought this whole time that they suck at writing, right?
Do you think you suck at writing? That's a problem. We need to kind of build that confidence, right? So a lot of times it's these mindset things of scarcity or these mindset pieces of mental roadblocks, or these old, dusty tapes that we play in our head for decades, right? These things that we are still like, we should just keep listening to it, even though, right?
Like there's a, a thing that I learned a long time ago, like if it. Um, uh, if it, if it worked, it would've worked by now. Right? So when you're shitting on yourself, right, or you're replaying these old, dusty tapes, if that had worked right, if those dusty tapes or those phrases had motivated you to do something, you would've done it by now, right?
It would've been motivating. It's not. That's the thing we often think like, oh, well this is just like what I have, right? This is just what I have, and that's just not the case, right? It's this. Um, mode that we get into, or we keep playing these things over and over again, or we keep diving into the same thoughts instead of working on those thoughts.
Right. And those things are just holding you back. Like if all of that stuff had worked, right? If the self-hate and all of the. Negative things you say to yourself or all the other stuff that pops up where you're like, it's true. I suck. Like if, if beating yourself up worked, it would've worked by now.
Right? That's the quote. If beating yourself up worked, it would've worked by now. Right? It doesn't work. It does. It's not motivating, uh, scientifically, you know, it's not motivating. Oh, sorry Dean. You go squeak. There you go. So that's the thing is like a lot of times I'll talk to writers and that's the thing that's holding them back from building a business they love or getting the clients they want or making the money.
They think there's like these invisible roadblocks, like these invisible hurdles that only exist for them, right? They think that all writers have to go through it. They don't. They don't. They are making their own hurdles and they're playing the old dusty tapes and they're still doing a lot of the self-hate and the beating themselves up.
So that's something I think that's really important when you're coming into a new year, when you're kind of working at the last part, this last clump of the year. You have to start looking at what have I been telling myself? What's holding me back? Uh, what types of things are really preventing me from building the business that I want?
Am I not really, uh, doing a good job of identifying the right clients? Am I not doing a good job of, um, you know, eliminating clients who are not a fit for me anymore? Am I not doing a good job of moving into the projects I want? Am I holding myself back with scarcity or am I holding myself back with like competition?
Am I holding myself back with really old tapes in my head that don't work anymore? We have to kind of look through those things. The other stuff that we wanna look for when we're moving into the coming year is like, what kinds of things have changed? So there are things obviously that change, right? So one of the things that I think is helpful, can you give everybody a high five?
Hold on. One of the things that I think is helpful. Good job. Can you do the other one? Can you do the other one? Other one? Good job. One of the things I think is helpful is to track things in your niches, right? So the niches that you're working in. It's really helpful to track that stuff where you're like, okay, I noticed that.
Funding, right? VC money and funding is going down in real estate, but it's going up in FinTech or whatever it is. I'm just giving you random examples, but we want to make sure that we're tracking those things because there's always going to be a high point and a low point. Right? And this is why we have different niches.
We have different niches to make up for this cyclical thing that happens with all of them, right? So like for example, the example that I really like is like when Covid happened, right? When the whole pandemic started, my work just got shut off. Like the tap just went off for months. I had friends in a bunch of different random niches, not just health, right?
Obviously if it was health, they were inundated with work, but there were lots of different random niches where they just blew up with work and they had tons of, it was like their best year ever, right? For me, all my stuff got shut off and that's just what happens. Like it's not just like that. They're working in the best niches, right?
It depends on who your clients are. It depends on what you're doing. There will always be an up and downtime, right? So there will always be, there will always be a time when your niche is at the height and it has like a ton of work and like you're so inundated with work, like you don't know what to do with yourself.
And then there will be a time when it goes down. This is why we have different niches. So you kind of need to look at that. I look at startup fundings, I look at VCs like I read a lot of Crunchbase articles or tech Crunch articles that are talking about, um, if funding is going up or down in a certain niche.
The funding's going up or down. People hold on to cash a lot more, right? Uh, it's not so much like I often think about, right? If people are getting, um, you know, let go from their jobs, that work needs to be done. That work is usually done by freelancers, right? So that's not as much of an issue as like, how are we balancing our niches, right?
So maybe you need to like send more Lois to. A certain niche that's still getting a ton of funding and maybe only do some of this other niche, this balance is part of our business, right? This is kind of like too, when people were doing travel, like travel got shut off, right? Um, when you're doing food and travel, there's a lot of stuff to write about food, right?
Because the restaurants are changing very fast to deal with stuff in the pandemic. Um, they're coming up with innovative business models. They're going cashless, they're going to, um, remote payment methods of all different kinds. So there's a lot to write about there, right? We always wanna kinda look at what's kind of happening, what kinds of things are changing, um, what kind of things are popping up, what kinds of fundings are changing, um, our VCs looking at a certain industry, right?
To say like, Hey, uh, this is gonna be the next, you know, this is where we're putting our money. The other thing to think about there is like, trends. Trends take a while, right? So like, There's a big boom of startup funding in 2021. 2020. Just shut everything down. So in 2021, there was a lot of investments, right?
There's a lot of things where they're like VCs or different types of places are putting their money in, right? But it's 2023. So they're like, where are the returns? Is this actually working? What's happening? Right? So they're gonna pull back naturally because they, it was a huge boom in 2021. There are these natural parts of the cycle that we need to pay attention to, and they change over different niches.
It also helps balance your business, right? So when we have different niches, we know that sometimes we have a lot of work in one and no and no, no work in the other. And that's just part of getting the balance, right?
So we gotta make sure that we're kind of paying attention to all these things. Like what have you been seeing? What kinds of shifts can you make? Where can you add more Lois and maybe take away some from a different niche just to kind of see if that'll help. 'cause this other niche is booming. We gotta look at our business.
We gotta look at funding, VCs, all this stuff. I think that stuff is really important, um, because it really helps you kind of see where things are changing. Um, the last thing that I think I would mention here. Oh, you look so cute. The last thing I think I would mention here. Good job. Oh, good girl. Is. Um, that we have to figure out basically like, um, what, what kinds of responses are we getting?
Right? Do we need to, this was how I kind of came up with my l o i templates is like, like, do we need to adjust the templates? Do we need to add new clients to the templates? 'cause we haven't updated our templates in a while. Do we need to change the, the wording? Do we need to add a different title in there because now we're going after a different type of project.
Do we need to, um, update our website or portfolio? These are things that we need to make sure we're doing, so update your templates, update your LinkedIn, update your website. Kind of refresh, add stuff, right? Because I know freelance writers get really busy and work and they forget to add clips. They forget to add certain things to their LinkedIn and website to freshen it up.
And it just kind of goes by the wayside. So that's another thing we need to make sure we do towards the end of the year, is like this really helps us in the coming year, right? It's not that you just like put it up and people find you like, that just never happens. Like you don't just like put up a LinkedIn profile or you don't just like edit your LinkedIn or your website and like a thousand people find you.
It just doesn't happen. But it does work over time. So if we do it now, it really helps for the coming like the, the coming year, but also the end of the year. So we wanna make sure we do that as well. Okay. What do you think, Charlie? What would you like to say?
Charlie says more treats. Charlie says that she hopes for the rest of the year she gets more treats, and that in 2024 she gets even more treats. Wow. That's a big, that's a lot of treats. Charlie, I don't know. You're kind of, your belly's kind of sensitive. You have a sensitive tummy. I don't know if you can handle all those treats.
Are you sure? Are you sure you say? Yeah. You say you can. We're gonna shake on it. All right. She gave the high five of her word, so she says she can handle it. Okay. So that's kind of what I wanted to cover just for this one. So we're filling our work calendar by making sure we're going through these different phases, right?
We're, we're making sure we're going through these different chunks in our calendar, different chunks in our business, um, different pieces for setting Lois and planting seeds and for. Um, making sure that we're thinking about irons in the fire. What can we control? What kind of business analysis we need to do, what types of projects we're gonna move into?
Oh, you've got a lot closer. Do you wanna say hello to the people you wanna come up here? No. Okay, bye. Um, so we're making sure we're doing all those analyses and it works. This is the thing is like, Every time. This has happened to me so many times, so many times over the last 10 years. I'm like, everybody hates me.
No one's going to answer my lois. Everything is shit. I think that I, I, many, many times I've thought that, I'm like, I haven't gotten an answer to my lois. This sucks. And then I just send a new clump of Lois, right? I keep sending my lois, I send a new clump. I have this low point where I'm like, everything sucks.
And then I get like three answers and I get three projects. It happens all the time. It's so dumb. I think to myself like, this is terrible. No one's no one. No one wants to work with me. And I literally just sending those Lois really works. It's not just that you get an answer on the l O I you sent right now, it's that the l o I you sent two months ago.
Someone's like, Hey, I got your L O I and I finally am ready for a project. Right? So planting those seeds isn't about the seeds just right now, it's about the seeds that you planted six months ago. By the time we get to this part of the year, people are like, Hey, we're planning for next year. We wanna talk to you.
So it's that germination time of the seeds. This is why we have to keep planting them. 'cause you never know when they're gonna work out, right? You never really know when it's gonna come to fruition. And I can tell you like so many times, so many times I was like, this is the worst. This is the worst. I'm never gonna get another client.
Everything is terrible. No one's answering my Lois. I must be doing something wrong. And I just like keep, I'm like, fine. I'm just gonna keep planting seeds and boom, like something works out. Every time I do the marketing, something works out right. And it's always, I always think that like I, I go back to this hole.
I go back to this dark well, right, this dark hole, and I'm like, everything is terrible. So I just wanna tell you like, there is, there is opportunities, right? There are stuff, there is stuff out there. There is growing work. Like interest in working with freelancers has only grown over the pandemic. It has exploded.
There's a lot more people who are using freelancers than full-time. It's just way more cost effective. It's also, you know, like we're specialists, right? We're really good at our work. Um, so I want you guys to kind of remember that, remember that we're bringing a lot to the table, that planting those seeds is really important.
That, um, our job isn't to guess when the seeds will work out. Our job is to keep planting and knowing that they will work out eventually. And this is something I forget all the time. I forget that all the time. I'm just like, I don't wanna plant any more seeds. When, when are they gonna sprout? Right? It's really frustrating.
That's part of running your business, that's part of moving forward. And the other part is like you have people like me who are just trying random shit. I try a bunch of stuff so I can tell my students like, Hey, this is working, this is not, my students are trying a bunch of stuff, so they're like, this is working for me, this is not, and we can come up with better strategies, right?
Um, these are things that I think this kind of evolution of freelance writing helps as well. Okay. That kind of like all the notes that I wanna make sure I go over for this one. But last thing, of course, free masterclass. This is the last time I'm running the free masterclass for 2023. Um, if you want to go to the Tuesday one, it's Tuesday, September 5th.
It's at, um, noon. Pacific's 2:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Eastern. Um, 8:00 PM British standard time or 7:00 PM G M T. Yeah. Flower power. Yes. You're a farmer. Yes. Plant the seeds. Right? Or you can be in a blacksmith, right. Or like an iron worker. I always like the irons in the fire helps too, because you're like putting the irons in the fire.
And for me, the visualization of like a big giant pot with like, 3000 irons in it, like seeing if they're gonna get hot. I'm like, oh, cool. Look at all the irons in the pot. Like that's an easier visualization for me than like looking at a field and being like, somewhere in this field there's like 10,000 seeds, right?
So for me, sometimes it helps to think about the irons in the fire. Because that visualization of like a big pot of like all of these irons, like waiting to get heated up, that makes it seem like you really did a lot versus like looking at a dead field. Right. Okay. So that's masterclass one. Um, it's on Tuesday, September 5th, masterclass two if you want.
The late night one after work is Wednesday, September 6th. It's at 6:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Central, 9:00 PM Eastern. And I think 1:00 AM British Standard Time. Then the last one, the very last class that I'm teaching is Masterclass three. That'll be my last live free masterclass. Um, it's on Wednesday, September 13th, and it is at noon Pacific, 2:00 PM Central, 3:00 PM Eastern, 8:00 PM British Standard Time.
So those are the ones, uh, these are my last free master classes, so make sure that you sign up. Um, if you have any questions or anything, you can send me an email. You can't send Charlie an email though. Maybe someday we'll have like an email for Charlie and you can email her all of your treat questions.
Charlie, is your little foot under the blanket? How cute are you? How cute are you? Yes. Good girl. Yeah, so think about it as irons in the fire, fire and that you're planting seeds. Uh, I can tell you after doing this for a very long time, right after, after being a freelance writer and making a ton of really shitty mistakes and burning out and doing a lot of dumb stuff, I can tell you that really this is one of my favorite times of the year.
We have a lot of stuff that we can do, and I've seen this with my students' businesses as well. Planting seeds now in September through December really helps their, their year end well and it really helps their next year get off to a good start. So I know for my own business and my students' businesses, this is one of the most important times of the year.
Um, this kind of clump here. And really like, if you think about it, if you get work from September to December and then you get work from, you know, the next four months after that, like let's say you sign much projects, that's like eight months of the year, right? September to April. So we have like eight months of the year covered.
Right? And this is something that for me, has worked out really well. Uh, so keep that in mind. It's like this is an important part of the year. We wanna make sure we end the year strong. We wanna make sure we're sending those Lois, we're putting irons in the fire, we're planting those seeds. Um, and people have different needs.
You never know who's gonna answer. You never know when they're gonna answer, but our job is to keep filling that pipeline. You're welcome Vicki. Um, so hopefully I'll feel I will, I will hopefully and likely feel better by Tuesday. Uh, I've got, like, I started feeling bad this Tuesday, so hopefully by the next Tuesday I'll be fine.
And I've got all the garlic tea. I finished my first cup, so I'm probably gonna have a little more. But, um, yeah, so I'll hopefully be feeling better, but I hope to see everybody on the free Live masterclass as they're the last ones. Um, Charlie probably won't be there. I don't think you will. 'cause sometimes you like to bark and sometimes you like to make noise.
But I hope everybody has a great weekend. I hope everybody has a good labor day or, you know, um, has some nice time off or some time to reflect on Labor Day. Uh, I hope everybody has a good Friday, and uh, I will see you, I'll see you next Friday. Yeah, hopefully I'll be feeling better by then. But, uh, hope everybody has a good time. All right, I'll see you later. Bye.
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