How to Become a Freelance Writer With No Experience

Every freelance writer starts out with no experience, zero clips, clients, and testimonials, and has to figure out the blueprint of running a successful (and sustainable) freelance writing business. In this week’s livestream, if you’re starting at square one with your biz, these are the five most important steps you need to take to move forward, get your first clips and clients, set up your business, and thrive.

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How to Become a Freelance Writer With No Experience

Every freelance writer I know starts at square one. Every freelance writer, you know, also starts at square one. So today we're talking about how you become a freelance writer with zero experience, no experience necessary. And this is how all of us start starting a freelance writing business. It's a business. So you're kind of starting from this place where you have to learn how to run a business. You have to figure out your writing. You have to figure out your niches. You have to figure out how to actually get people to become your clients. So that's what we're talking about today. And I was a little late today. I was away. Uh, I just misused my time poorly today, which you know, happens to the best of us. But, uh, so today we're talking about all the cool things that we are gonna do as freelance writers, as we're starting out.

And when we have no experience and just clearing the plate, everybody who starts freelance writing business, you start from zero it's. It's a whole new ballgame. So don't feel intimidated if you weren't a long time contributor to a, a magazine. Hey, Vicki. Welcome in. I always love the wave. I always love when Vicki comes in with a wave, don't get intimidated. If you didn't work at a magazine or you haven't published a thousand pieces, or you're coming from corporate, we all come from different spaces. And even people who are used to pitching a ton of ideas for a magazine running their businesses away, different beasts. So gonna go through a few things that can help you just get started with your business when you have zero experience and I have a list. So good news is we have a list, Barry, what's up, buddy? Why don't you lay down?

1) Find the Niches You Have Experience/Knowledge/Expertise in

<laugh> I've got an antsy pan geriatric dog today. Hey Marie. Welcome in. Let's talk about it. So the first thing, and I'm gonna put up number one. So the first thing that we're gonna talk about, number one is niches. Now this is kind of a controversial thing in the freelance writing world. So if you're new to freelance writing, here's kind of the backstory. I am one of the writers like when I'm building, um, when I was building my six figure freelance writing business, I needed niches. Like I, that really helped give me direction. And I find that there's other freelance writers who pro like they preach the generalist approach. Like you don't need niches kind of, oh, buddy stepped on my foot. Uh, you don't need niches and you can just be a generalist and kind of like a Jack or Jill of all trades or, you know, whatever.

Uh, for me, I think that manifest in two different ways, I needed niches and direction to figure out where I was actually going with clients who I was gonna pitch, who I was gonna reach out to. Hey, Getty. Welcome in. We're glad you're here. Um, <laugh> and Maurice says, I feel like I don't have any, I don't have experience every Monday morning or when I'm adding a new skill. Yeah. It's just kind of like the process sometimes when you're adding new skills to just start at square one. But the important thing I think to take away from that is like, it's okay to be a beginner. Like I'm a beginner at a lot of different things I do at my business and I've been in business for like 10 years, so that's okay. And it's okay to kind of feel like you're starting from scratch every Monday.

That's part of building a business. Um, okay, cool. So let's keep going. So for me, the niches gave me direction in my business. They gave me an idea of like what magazines to pitch, what types of clients to go out after how to make my list of clients to actually send pitches to that was really important to me. Um, and then the other thing with generalists, I think is a different path and here's why generalists and all of the freelance writers. I know who started out as generalists were really good at coming up with ideas. I was not, I did not understand how to do a pitch. I did not understand how to come up with ideas. My idea well was dry. I didn't get it. And I feel like the people who are generalists, they can go in there and they can pitch a bunch of ideas.

They already can go to a website of a potential client and see, oh, well here's 10 opportunities, 10 ideas that you can, uh, incorporate, or here are, uh, 10 different pitches for magazines. Like I have a friend who she just like, she's a generalist still. She's kind of specialized into like a niche or two, but, um, she has a, a wide range of clips, but she is like an idea machine, right. And that took me years to kind of get on that level. She was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And there are some writers that I think being a generalist works because they can come up with all these ideas. So they start researching different clients and researching different, um, businesses or magazines to reach out to. And the deal is they can come up with all these ideas. So for them sending Lois pitch, isn't a big deal because they already have a ton of ideas.

They're not, so they don't need as much direction. So for me, I felt like, um, I felt kind of like the niches gave me direction and something to remember is that the niches you start out with are not the niches you most of the time end up with. So I started out just in food and travel. So I wrote about food restaurants, um, travel locations, a lot of different stuff that is just in those niches. But now I write in food restaurants, hospitality, tech, real estate, prop tech, um, uh, insurance, inure tech health, um, mortgage tech. I write in a ton of different niches. There's probably even other ones I'm forgetting right now, but I write in a ton of different niches. And that took me a while to build up over time. It took me a while to understand what those niches needed and what kind of ideas they they need help with.

So I just, for me, I find that if you're a writer who really struggles with coming up with ideas and you're a writer needs business direction, I think niches and picking some that make the most sense for you is the best way to go, because then it gives your business at least some kind of framework and direction to move in. Now, if you feel comfortable pitching ideas and you feel comfortable as a generalist, and you're just like, I can reach out to anybody, go for it. I, I don't think, um, I should stop you or anyone should stop you from trying that. But remember your niche is kind of like what Vicky actually said here. Your niches are kind of flexible. So when you're kind of getting started, you're learning where you're kind of, you know, it's kind of like a bubble, like where kind of pushing around.

You're like does food and travel work for me? Does real estate work for me? Does insurance work for me? Does Kubernetes work for me? Does cloud computing work for me? Does cybersecurity work for me? That's kind of like a flexible thing. And you gotta figure out where that kind of works for you and where the demand is. Exactly what Vicky said. So your niches are giving you direct, but they're also kind of giving you a space to learn about which kind of businesses may work for you and which kind of businesses make money. So the other thing about niches is you kind of have to go back to this cake and icing mindset, right? So that I have a video for that on my channel, just called the cake and icing mindset. Um, I will link to it below in the description, but the deal is that your cake niches are the one where you have thousands and millions of clients.

Like these are the ones that are beefy. Then when you go look up lists of clients, it's just huge overflowing piles. Your icing niches are kind of smaller. So for example, right now my cake niches are high hospitality, tech, real estate and prop tech. And sometimes like doing, um, restaurant business type stuff. My I, I niches right now are health and, and travel because travel has shrunk a bunch. Um, it's still kind of rebounding and dealing with all this stuff from COVID, it's kind of opening back up. Um, but for me, I'm not doing, doing a ton of travel stuff right now, just because of I'm focused other places. And then also travel is really small. Health has kind of always been kind of like my in between. I sometimes do health stuff. I sometimes don't and health is a huge niche, but for me, it's an icing niche just because of the way I run my business.

I think kind of thinking about it that way really helps. And like I said, watch the video below for, um, the cake and icing mindset that will go over it more in depth. The next thing is when you're looking at your niches, think about where your experience, your knowledge, your expertise and your background are. So what, like when I started out in food and travel, what really helped me was I was a long time traveler. I was really lucky when I was growing up that my parents were travelers. So we traveled a lot as a kid when I was a kid. So I knew a lot about traveling. I knew about different destinations. I was very interested in traveling in the world and I still am. Um, one of my dreams just to like give you a little background. One of my dreams is to like one day show up at an airport, just pick a destination and fly there, like an international destination.

I'm not going to like San Diego. <laugh> nothing against San Diego. I just, I've always had this dream of like showing up in an airport and being like, today, I'm going to Helsinki or today I'm going to Christ church, or today I'm going to Tokyo or I've always had that dream. So someday I'm gonna do that. But for me, traveling and restaurants and food was something I knew. Like I knew that very well. So I started out in those niches because I was already familiar with a lot of the stuff in those industries. So think about what type of industry you're in. Like, do you have work experience? Do you have stuff you're interested in? Do you have, um, other clients that maybe you worked for kind of, um, at your full-time job where it was like, maybe you managed a bunch of different accounts and they were different types of clients and you have experience in those niches.

Think about that. That's kind of our big kind of nugget for niches. We, I find picking your niches when you're starting out with zero experience, when you're becoming a freelance writer and you have no experience picking your niches, gives your business direction, and then it kind of helps you put all the Legos in place. Like it helps you build the framework of at least running your business for the time being until it kind of morphs. I always think of our business kind of like a chameleon over time. You find different niches that you wanna write in. And over time you start learning, which niches make sense for you. For me, even if someone came to me and was like, you should write about this. Like sometimes I, I only write about a very specific part of FinTech. So if some, someone came to me and was like, you should write about all this other FinTech stuff, cuz you're a FinTech writer.

No, I write about a very specific subset of FinTech. So you kind of figure that out as you go along. But I think the niches, if you're someone who struggles with coming up with ideas gives your business direction of who you should reach out to how you can construct your website in LinkedIn, um, how you can kind of do your marketing and all that good stuff. Um, and Vicky says, whoops, oh yeah, I have a bunch of incoming inquiries that are cake niches. And I'm like, where am I gonna find time to pitch my cute little article about a small paper, which is icing. Yeah, exactly. Vicky. I have the same thing. There's large ones, right? Large like large niches. And we can say large and small. Um <laugh> so our large ones are cake niches are usually the ones that make the money, right.

That's where we're kind of like getting a lot of leads because there's an abundance of clients there. Our icing ones are like little things that kind of feed our little writer soul and they make us feel good. And they're fun things that we like to do, or they just don't have the client base that will help us build a hiring business. Um, the are things like sometimes people like to write about history and history sometimes can be an icing niche. Uh, you either write for a lot of magazines or you end up, um, not really having a huge availability of clients, but it's something you love to write about. It's something you're very interested in. So it becomes an icing niche. That's that for me, the cake and icing thing is how you eat all the sides of your business. You don't have to pick cake, cake niches that are not interesting to you.

And you're just in it for the money, cuz that never works out. I can tell you that. Now if you pick a niche based on being like I heard everybody's in FinTech and that everybody makes a bunch of money, like it's not gonna work every time I see a writer do that. They end up just quitting, freelance writing and being like, it's not for me. No, no it's because you picked a niche based on it. Only making money and you hated it. So you built a business. You hate can't do that. All right. Let's move on. So I wanna make sure we get through all five things. Say I have five things to go over. The first one is niches. If you feel like this has been helpful so far, make sure to give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna build a higher earning business, you know, you're starting out as a freelance writer with no experience, make sure to subscribe.

2) Use Your Favorite Articles and Publications as Inspiration to Learn How to Write Better

I've got tons of advice for you. All right. Let's move on peeps. All right, let's go to number two. Number two. We're gonna talk about our writing skills. So this is something that I think a lot of writers struggle with. Now, if you're a freelance writer, if you're starting a freelance writing business, but you have been writing full time for a magazine, a newspaper, a a business client, like you work in a space where you use your writing skills daily, you probably don't doubt your writing skills. As much as someone like me who started out and was like, oh, is this actually gonna work? So when I started out, I was coming off of like, I have a technical writing job, but that was so different than what I wanted to write. Um, and I worked on a lot of stuff describing like circuit boards and um, hardware and software.

Like it wasn't stuff that I was gonna go into as a freelance writer. So as I'm kind of going along, I was nervous about my writing skills and I went to school. So I went to Virginia tech. I'm sure you've seen me wear my Virginia tech stuff on here. I was a English major creative writing major. Um, so I had a lot of training with writing and like, just to say like one of the things that I have always been, that was that's one of my special magic talents is like ever since I was a little kid, I've been a good writer. Um, that's just was something that I didn't recognize until I was a junior in high school. Um, but that was always something that I just liked it. I didn't realize I was good at it until like I found other people telling me I was good at it in high, like late in high school.

So for me, the writing thing was, was I had no idea, even though I liked it, if I had any skills. So this is how we start out. When we have no experience, some people go to medium, I went to hub pages <laugh> and I just wrote stuff, which I don't think is a good approach. I think the best approach when you're kind of nervous about your writing skills and you are concerned about, um, whether or not you're a good writer, I would go pick articles. You like to read, pick them from big magazines, entrepreneur, Forbes, traveling, leisure, Kanye Nast, traveler, bone Aite, pick a giant magazine, or like a big magazine in a niche that you like or a scene. You subscribe to pick some article somewhere and try to write it in your own way. So I would pick an article and pick a topic, right?

So I would say like midnight in Paris or something. So I'd go find an article on Conde Nass traveler, find midnight in Paris and say like, all right, the idea I'm going with is midnight in Paris. How can I make a version of this article I found on Conde NAS traveler sound like me, but be similar. That for me, I think teaches you how to write like the places you wanna work in. Right? So find things like go to magazines you like, and try to figure out like, don't use these as samples. Don't use them. This is for your own personal, um, getting rid of self-doubt and making, you know, showing you that you can be a writer. I think having that kind of structure of a magazine or an article that you really like really helps you learn how to do those things, learn how to use their language, learn how to do the research they do for those pieces.

Um, and it really helps you get the format of your writing in a way that makes sense. So for me, when I went off and wrote for hub pages, which I don't even know if that exists anymore, but, um, if you go off and write for medium, you have no framework, no structure, no editor, no examples. Just go off and like write a blog post. And this is another reason why I usually don't recommend people start blogs because it's just out, like you have no structure and it's not actually teaching you about writing skills. So go find something that you really like from a big place. It doesn't have to be Forbes or entrepreneur or traveling leisure, but pick a big magazine or a big online publication. Maybe it's mint. Maybe it's a lending tree. Maybe it's something like that. Go find something like that and write your version of it.

Do the research, um, like, you know, maybe pretend interview some people that like your family members and be like, all right, pretend to be a lender and just give me some quotes and put it in the article. I think that translates way better than going off and writing your own blog and doing it in the dark. Anytime you do something in the dark, when you start working for a client, it's like a 180, it's a totally different experience. But if you're already learning the framework and the structure and the format and how these articles are put together, then it's a lot easier translate that into real client work. So I think that's a way better way to go about it than starting off with a blog. And it teaches you so much more, um, than writing in the dark of a blog or on medium.

So I think that's the way to do it. Don't publish those things cuz they're just for you to like get your writing skills together. So that's number one, number two of our writing skills where we're kind of nervous. If you're nervous about your skills, if you've been writing for magazines, if you've been, um, working at a staff job or whatever, and you're not worried about your skills move along to number three <laugh> if you're watching this on the replay, but if you're worried about your writing skills, there's a couple of books. I really like. So I know a lot of people about on writing by Steven, um, king. That is a great one on writing. Um, and then I have another one that I wrote down that I have to find. So hold on. Um, it's hold on.

I have to find it. Hey VA. Welcome in. So the other ones so on writing is the first one and then, um, oh, you know, what is it called? This, hold on. Yeah. Okay. And then the other one is called on writing. Well, so on writing. Well by William Zinner Zinser S <laugh> his last name is Z I N S S E R. This was one of the favorite books that I read in college and it teaches you a lot about writing. So the first one is Stephen King's book, right? So Stephen King's book, um, which is just called, um, on writing. And then the next one is called, hold on a second. The next one is called on writing. Well, and that's by William Umer Zinser Z I N S S E R. Those were my favorites. And then now I've heard that stren white is out of date <laugh> but I like the stren white, um, book.

Oh, grumpy. I'm gonna give you a trio. Just give me a second. I'm talking you're so SNU, I love you too. You're the cutest. All right. So those two have really been helpful, strong and white, right? So a lot of people say that's outta date and there's like a new one that people like, and they've told me what it is, but I didn't write it. It's in one of my other notes. So hold on, there might be a new, um, so and white elements of style. I know there's another one that people talk about. That's better than that. One in STR and white. Um, the elements of style is out of like out of date. Um, but those are my favorites. So, uh, for me, those have taught me so much more about the structure of writing and how to put stories together and how to understand what people read and how they like it better than a lot of other things.

So for me, those have there, those were the books that were really monumental in college. And after college of me learning how to write well, and again, the same thing with writing those articles, in addition to learning structure and reading books, actually copying like for your good, not plagiarizing, not putting this up online, but learning the structure and how they put that article together is what you're gonna be doing as a freelance writer, as a freelance writer, you are going to have a client to that says, Hey, I need you to write a thousand word article. You need to interview these three people and you need to define in two to three data sources, right? Like two to three studies, whatever. So they're gonna say here's a bunch of examples to follow. That's the same thing that you're doing now. Right? You're just not getting paid for it. And you're using it as a personal example to learn how to do stuff. Okay. I, I hear you. I'm gonna pick you up if you're gonna be sassy. Come here, here. All right. Let's do a update. Cuz we got a sassy MOSY oh, Barry, Barry. You just like, you're just like barely on the camera.

All right,

Here we go.

All right. Be squeeze. Are you ready?

Hi. Five. Good girl. All right, buddy. Can you catch ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, so close. Let's try again. 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, well now

You're on an adventure.

I know you're hi. Five. Good girl. Other one other, one other, one other one. Good job. Right buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. So close to your other to your right to your right buddy. It's right. <laugh> it's right there. Sometimes

If I fake throw it, bear will just think that,

Oh, he found it.

Good job, buddy. Good job everybody.

You're the cutest. You

All right. Let's get back to our stuff. So here we are. So this is why I'm telling you to go off and find articles at big magazines or big publications or big companies and make your own versions of those because that's what you're gonna do. Your clients are gonna give you examples and they're gonna say here's what the, to own style format we're looking for. Here's your topic and interviewees go off on that. So that's why I think for me, when you are worried about your writing skills and you're feeling nervous using a framework and example of a place you already like and creating your own versions of that, to get better at writing, I think that's the best way to do it before you have clients and to kind of learn where you would like to go with your writing. So I think that's the most important.

If you're worried about your writing, there's also, um, courses that will teach you more about copywriting that will teach you more about, um, different types of stuff like there's case study courses or white paper courses. Um, so to times there's really good stuff just around the internet. Uh, HubSpot is always a place I really like HubSpot is a great place to learn about email marketing and SEO and different types of writing, um, that you're gonna do content marketing stuff. So I would check that out as well. Hey Annie, welcome in. We're glad you're here to hang out the elephants with style. Yeah. It could be strong and white, the elephants with style, but it's elements of style. Yeah. Um, Getty says I have a very diverse set of SME and experience areas. So I come up with five niches. I feel like I'm extensive horizontally, but not necessarily deep, vertically and short.

I may be spread too thinly. I think five niches is a okay. Personally, I think when you're starting out three to five niches is where you wanna be. I think that's kind of the best. Um, I'm gonna make this a little smaller. I think that's kind of the best way to balance cake and icing and also have enough ways to spread things around. Like when I started out with just two niches, I don't think that was enough. I think three to five is where you wanna be. So I think you're good Getty. I think you're good. You're you're good to go with five. Um, and then Annie says, hi team. So happy to be here, Mandy. I love that random destination travel dream. One day, we'll be watching you share it on your YouTube. I bet. Yeah. Maybe, maybe I live stream myself from, from the airport who knows?

Uh, so this is writing. So if you're nervous about your writing skills, make versions of articles, you like do not share them around, do not plagiarize them, do not put them in your portfolio, but this is to help you hone in on your writing skills and get things done. So you don't have to feel nervous about like, am I a good writer or whatever you already know that you're starting with the framework and the format of something that is good. It's published on a big, uh, big corporate blog or a big magazine or a big online publication. So you're already starting with some five star content and then you kind of learn as you go. There's lots of people. I know lots of people who became freelance writers who are not writers to be in with

Self grumbling. You're a grumble of it. Nope. Not today. Not today, friend,

Not today. You're just asking Mala. I'm gonna pick you up. So here's the deal. If you already have a bunch of writing skills and you're not nervous about that, this is not for you, but there I, as you start out as freelance writers, I know a lot of writers who do not, did not start out as writers. Like one of my really close friends who, um, started out with all of these startups. She was an account manager and now she's a fantastic writer. She wasn't really writing a ton before. And she started out writing about mommy blogs. So she was a mommy blogger. Um, and she was writing for a bunch of, um, mommy places. And then she wrote for like a home improvement place. And um, then she kind of moved on to working with SAS and tech companies. So for me, I think you kind of learn how to become a better writer over time, but you also have a lot of opportunities to become a better writer as you work with clients.

3) Get Your LinkedIn Profile and Website Up

So let's move on, let's move on to three people. And if you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. Or if you wanna build a higher, unique freelance writing business subscribe, we're starting from no experience here, but I have a ton of videos on here about how to actually scale your business and get more experience and learn more cool stuff. So three, we're gonna talk about our webs site in our LinkedIn. So this is really critical for inbound leads and that means just people reaching out to you in your inbox, wanting to work with you for a long time. I didn't understand what the, what inbound leads meant. All inbound leads means is like people reach out to you with work. That's it. They find your website, they find your LinkedIn and they reach out to you with work.

So when we're starting with zero experience, we have no experience. We need to set up our website in LinkedIn to actually attract our right clients. This is another reason why I think it's helpful to AB niches is that no one just searches for a freelance writer. They search for freelance writers in their niche. So there's a lot of times where people are like, oh, they'll just search for freelance writer. I'm in their area. They'll find me. That's not how it works. Yes. I think it's important to put on your, um, on your LinkedIn and on your website where you're located. So that helps with SEO, especially when you're starting out. But I think niche has also helped with, um, the right types of clients, finding you and the SEO of your website and the SEO of LinkedIn. So that means we're using our niches to dictate how we're structuring our website in LinkedIn.

And I'm not gonna go into this too much, but I have another video on this channel and I'll link to it below, um, about the questions you need to answer in your LinkedIn and your website. So I'll put those below, but those questions are really critical to getting more inbound leads and having more clients find you. That's really important. I have this hair, that's like poking in the neck. Sorry. So that's really important. And then as you kind of go along, you're gonna edit that over time. So your website and your LinkedIn are living documents. What we're trying to do right now is start setting up all of our SEO and start setting up all of our opportunities for people to find us. So we answer all these questions, which I'll link to them below link to the video that goes over the questions you need to answer in your LinkedIn profile and website.

And if you find yourself struggling to answer those questions, try to think about what you would do. How would you help someone if you don't have any results, what kinds of results would you help someone get? Would you help them get more clicks or link or back links or shares back links is kind of dicey. So be careful with that unless you know, a lot about it. Um, would you help them get more views? Would you help them get more S uh, would you help them with brand awareness? Would you help them get more website traffic? Would you help them create a content library by creating blog posts for them? Or would you help them showcase their best customer stories through case studies? What would you help them do? Think about the different types of content that you can write for them. Um, and what type, so things, those types of content do.

So for example, case studies are like big juicy voluptuous testimonials, right? So those case studies are providing different functions, right? They're providing a testimonial, they're helping people understand how that company helps their clients. Um, it's like basically a really nice shareable piece of content that per promotes the business really well. It can help with brand awareness. It can help with website traffic. It can help with a whole bunch of different things like shares, downloads, subscribers, all this stuff. So think about the different types of content that are available and what those pieces of content are designed to do. Right? Blog posts are designed for SEO. They're designed to help with website traffic. They're designed to be times shareable, um, sometimes blog posts, or if they're being posted on LinkedIn post, they can get likes and shares and comments. So think about the type of content, what it's supposed to do.

And then you can just say, I would help you do that. Right? Those would be the results you would talk about. I would help you create blog posts that would do X, Y, Z. Right? So that's what we wanna go. And the other thing about websites and LinkedIn is they are setting up the framework for where your business is going forward. It's allowing someone when you reach out and send your marketing to have a place to go, right? They now you're like, here's my LinkedIn profile, go check it out. Or here's my website, go check it out. So the deal is that you end up with this, basically this like portal that you can send someone to, where they can look at all of your stuff. So when you start getting more clips or you start realizing you don't really wanna be a food and travel writer, you wanna be a health tech writer, you some place to send them.

And again, this is a living document. It changes over time. So as you kind of set these things up, like I had 71 connections when I started messing with my LinkedIn, like I had nothing there. And most of those connections were like either people from high school or college, or like my coworkers at the small company I worked at. So my LinkedIn was trash. It was garbage. And you know, you kind of work on those things over time. Like my LinkedIn now is pretty optimized. I need to change the content a bit for more of my content strategy work. But the deal is that a lot of those, um, a lot of those things you put in, in the beginning, kind of just help you getting traffic. They help you become known. They help you, um, have a place to send those potential clients. So number three, if you're starting off with no experience is to get those things set up.

Now, if you're, if a website seems too overwhelming, just start with LinkedIn and send people to your LinkedIn profile because you can put clips up there. You can put experience up there. You have a snazzy, SEO, friendly tagline, all that good stuff. At least it's and LinkedIn is a little bit quicker to set up than a whole entire website. But I think you need to have at least something to send someone to, and you need to have something where you can say like, here's who I am. Here's what's, I'm what I'm doing. Here's who I do it for the other thing. Yes. Grumpy. I see you. Okay. So we're gonna do one cup date. We'll do a cup tape before I move on to the next thing.

All right, Barry. You ready? Uhoh this one fell apart. Hold on 1, 2, 3 dog. Yeah. Good job, buddy.

All right, child high five. Good girl.

All right,

One more. We'll do one more.

All right, Barry. You ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job.

High, five other, one other, one other other one. Good job.

Good job.

All right. So the next thing that I wanna talk about websites in LinkedIn, if you feel lost, if you're starting, like you're a freelance writer starting out with no experience. This is something I've told to my coaching students, to my freelance writer, wealth lab course students. I have told them this. And I think this is one, the most effective things that helped me. So pay attention, go find writers that are hello. <laugh> that go find writers who are ahead of you. Like they've been freelance writing for a while, or they're in your niches, Google their websites, look through LinkedIn and find out what they're talking about. Then do your version of that. Learn about what types of content they're talking about in their niches. Find out what niches they worked in, who are their clients? What is their business set up? Like then say like, oh, okay.

So we're using these to find ideas, look through their websites, look through their LinkedIn. And I'm talking like 20 to 50 writers, like a lot. We wanna get a bunch of ideas if you're lost. And you're like, I don't know what to do. Go look at writers in your niches. And this is what I did. That was really helpful. I was like, oh, they write for glossy magazine. And they write for trade magazines. And they write for these types of businesses. And I noticed that they do a lot of reported articles, case studies. Um, and downloadables like, you need to kind of look there. So you get all of this, let's write something on the whiteboard. So you get all this stuff, right. And you can kind of mush it together and make your own thing. So this type of research is super helpful. If you have no experience and you're trying to build your business and you're trying to figure things out, go look at other writers' websites in LinkedIn, other freelance writers in your niche, outta your niche. What are they working on? Who are their clients? What, how do they talk about their work? Oh my gosh. You're so

Grumpy. You're so grumpy. You're so grumpy. Okay. You stay

Over there and be Grum. Be over there.

Let's just not be grumpy right now. No. Okay.

<laugh> you wanna step on my feet? So the deal is that gives you enough ideas to kind of work through all of these different things, right? You get to work through how they talk about, about their business, the niches, they work in the type of work. They do all of the different results they can help people get. That is the most critical thing. Okay. So don't forget that. Go do your research, go see how other people talk about their freelance writing business. Maybe you're thinking that your niche is gonna be SAS and FinTech. Go find SAS and FinTech writers, or go find, uh, food and travel writers, which is what I, it, or go find hospitality, tech writers, or go find health writers, research them, look at their website, look at their LinkedIn. How are they structuring things? How are they talking about it? What types of pain points are coming up for their clients, right?

Usually your clients struggle with just like a few major things. And I go over that in my LinkedIn and, um, website question video. So I that's why I'm linking it below, but the deal is that we are addressing all of their different needs. And we're understanding from our giant pile of research, how we should structure our stuff. So that for me has been super important. Like how do they talk about it? How do they, um, mention that they're gonna help their are potential clients with certain pain points? How do they kind of put all their things together? Um, in a way that is exciting and interesting to read. So don't forget that that's super important for website in LinkedIn. All right.

4) Fill Your Marketing Pipeline With Pitches and LOIs (Letters of Introduction)

Let's move on to number four. So we have five things, so, all right. Number four. Cool. Let's do something on the whiteboard. I don't know what to put on the whiteboard, right?

Like I guess I have some things on here. Hold on. Let's see. So we're gonna talk about marketing. Our fourth thing is marketing. Now marketing covers a bunch of different things, right? We talked about inbound marketing, which is how we structure our website in LinkedIn. So that people reach out to us. Inbound marketing means someone just send you an email and says, uh, Hey, VNA, we want you to come work with us. And that's it. That's our inbound marketing. So with our marketing, we're gonna talk about pitches and Lois. So if you're starting with no experience, like I did, I had no idea what an LOI was, which is a letter of introduction. L O I, um, in a pitch, I had no idea how to write a pitch. I had no idea what was going on. <laugh> um, and I had, I, it took me years to actually refine a pitching strategy, like many, many years, way longer than other people. Like I, all my friends were like, oh, it's so easy. And I'm like, I'm, don't get it. Um, it took me forever to learn how to come up with a ton of ideas. But marketing is the key to moving your business forward. When you don't have any experience, or even when you're running a freelance writing business, you have to be filling the pipeline. You always have to be sending things out now, the, the whiteboard. Okay. Okay. Let's write something on the white board. So we're gonna talk about, um, this,

Hold on. All right. Peeps. All right, here we go. Here's the whiteboard. Everybody get excited. So here's the whiteboard. Can we see it? We're gonna talk about pitches. We're gonna talk about LOI pitch hybrids, and we're gonna talk about, so the first thing is pitches. So this is pitches to magazines and their newsstand magazines. They can be online publications. They could be any place where you need to send ideas. This is part of your marketing. So the easiest way to get clips as a freelance writer, this is something that people don't talk about is pitch ideas. If an idea gets accepted, now you have a clip <laugh>. So the deal is that while you're, um, while you're kind of doing things, um, you need to start learning how to come up with ideas, because ideas are really important as a freelance writer, not just for pitches and not just for, um, getting into magazines, but for your clients.

I send a lot of ideas, my clients, um, whether they're content, strategy, clients, or content marketing clients, I send them ideas all the time because, um, there's a lot of things that can do to really pump up the volume on their, on their content. But the deal is that you need to become like an idea. You know, like you need to run the idea plant. You need to be jet rating ideas all the time. And the way to get better at that is to send those pitches to magazines. So this was something that, um, there's also a story I tell all the time, I know writers who have gotten their very first clip from the New York times. So in the wall street journal from like the biggest magazines, there are, there are right, their very first article. The, the very first clip that they have on their website is from a giant publication.

That's because they sent a good pitch. So learn how to write a good pitch and send some ideas. If you need to get clips. Now, the second tier of that is your LOI pitch hybrid. So what that is, it's a mixture of your letter of introduction and a pitch. So what that means is you write your LOI, right? And I have 10 of these and they are. So if you're confused and you're like, what, what? I need an example. I have them here. So if you want an example of an LOI pitch hybrid of like all what you should be sending, go to mans.com/bundle, you will get all of my marketing templates, how I market on LinkedIn, my Lois, all the good stuff. That's where that's where housed. Cool. All right. So our LOI pitch hybrid is our first, our LOI, and then a few headlines. That's the pitch hybrid part. So the LOI is hi. Um, I like this article. Stop barking at me.

Go back to your hub hole, go back to your hub hole. Stop working, stop working. I'll wrap you up. You wanna be wrapped up? There you go. Okay. Now stop working. Stop working. You

Wild, wild lead. All right. She's been wrapped. Okay. So the first part of your LOI, especially for trade magazines, this is a winner for trade magazines, your LOI pitch hybrid. This is another great way to get your first clips, send LOI pitch hybrids to trade magazine and trade magazines are basically like super niche down magazines. So for me, that's restaurant business pizza today, restaurant hospitality, um, the national association of realtors, um, there's like a jillion of them, but they're niche down to like a very specific business or a very specific type of reader. So the de as you send this LOI, hi, I like this recent article because of X, Y, Z. So find an article that you really like a genuine, like not just fake, a genuine one, you really like and explain why you liked it. Then your second step is could you use help from a freelance writer?

Then you can talk about anything, niche expertise, um, any types of clients you've for before. So if you have no experience, you have no clients talk about how you could help them, or what types of content you can help them with reported articles or skills that you have. Then your hybrid part, your pitch part is include three headlines that match, um, their magazine. So that means you go through their magazine, read many, many issues like 10, 12, figure out their headline format, and then say, here's three headlines, I think would be a fit for your magazine, right? They're basically ideas, but they just are the headline. You don't write the full pitch, excuse me. So you write those three headlines and then, um, they should be new ideas. And you say like, if you're interested in any of these headlines, I'm happy to write a full pitch and then send it out, make sure you link to your website or your LinkedIn and your bottom thing saying like, hi, I'm qualified.

Here's where you can check out my stuff. Um, then you send it out. This is really good for newsstand magazines, online publications. This number two LOI pitch hybrid is good for trade magazines. Both of these are ways to get clips. People don't talk about this. They're like you should just pitch. And then hopefully someone will, will, like, you should just send a bunch of Lois and someone hopefully will, will hire you, which is true. Eventually if you send enough Lois letters of introductions, someone will hire are you, but to get clips, these are your gold stars right here, pitches to magazines, all different kinds of magazines and pitches to trade magazines and pitches to trade magazines. Especially since you only have to write headlines, that's the best way to start, um, building up your idea machine. Okay. So your idea machine is just like, let's just find some headlines, let's create some ideas.

Like what would the idea be? What would the headline be? How would I, um, you know, fit in with this magazine? What kinds of things are they missing? That's what you wanna put in here in your LOI pitch hybrid. And like I said, if you're looking for examples, Mandy ls.com/bundle, okay. So if you go to there, you will get examples of all these things and then it's way to move forward. And it's, I just give you all the stuff that I currently use in my, my six figure business. Let's talk about Lois. All righty. So Lois letters of introduction, these are ized for me. It makes it so much faster, right? So with our marketing, we first have to figure out how to write an LOI. And I always call mine drive through Lois because the goal isn't to convince someone that they need to hire you right now, the goal is just to say, hi, do you need help?

I'm qualified. Here's some links to my LinkedIn website. Goodbye. Let me know if you need help. <laugh> that's it. The first contact with your LOI is never this giant sales letter. Like people read emails so differently. They scan, they move along. They're just like, do I need help? Yes or no. Okay. The old way that I used to write Lois was garbage. I used to write these very long Lois with a ton of pitches and ideas, and it never got a response. The minute I switched to templates where I was like, hi, do you need help? Do you need help with your con writing your content, marketing efforts, your content, whatever. Um, I'm qualified. I'm a B2B SAS writer, whatever niche they're in. And then if you, like I said, if you're starting with no experience, just talk about the skills you have and what you can bring to the table, cuz you don't have any clips.

You don't have any experience. Talk about how you can help them then move on. Hey, here are here's my website in LinkedIn would love to chat about, um, anything you need help with, right? Your LOI should be quickly ized so that you only have to change a few things. Right? And I have a, like 10 or 12 of these templates here we are <laugh> so I have like 10 to 12 of these templates for each niche. So like I have a food, one, I have a two travel one. I have a prop tech one and then I have mixes of them. So I have a prop tech and travel one. I have a health and insurance one. I have, um, a food and restaurants. One, I have a restaurants and travel one. So these are really quickly ized by the clients that you end up getting or the skills that you have that change by the niche or any background information that you wanna include there.

So for me, those Lois should be really quick. And again, that's where you get 'em in the bundle. I give you all the LOI templates I use right now in my business, um, that have helped me build all my off up. It should be quick and dirty. Now, how do we write? Who do we write our Lois to? Um, okay. So Vicky says, hold on, we gotta talk about this. So Vicky says, getting started on magazines comes from the assumption that your day job is keeping you stable. So you have enough time to pitch magazines. Well, yes and no. So I started with my, I had a day job when I started my freelance writing business. So when I started my freelance writing business, I was starting it on the side of working full time. Some people just jump off. So if you're starting with no experience, I would say, you need at least like six months ish worth of money saved up.

Or you need to kind of start as a, a side hustle where you have it on the side of your business. But the other thing is that when you're pitching trade magazines, they go a lot quicker than regular magazines. So sometimes when freelance writers get started, they're just looking at clips. They're not so much looking at making money. They're just like, I need a clip. So starting with those trade magazines is a good way to do it. Now news magazines are lot slower. Online. Publications can be slow too, but that's why we do a combination of pitches, pitch, LOI, hybrids, and Lois. So this is kind of like a mixture of things so that we get clips and we get clients. So let's talk about that a little more. So with our Lois, now we're going to like most of the time magazines. So your pitches and LOI hybrids, they, your trade magazines.

Number two, they move quicker than online publications and magazines here like newsstand magazines. So this is a good way to get clips. And this is a good way to start making money. So your Lois are gonna be the way that you start sending them to clients or to companies. That's Lois are going, your Allis are going to, um, going to businesses. Okay? Hold on. I forget how I was holding this anyways. I don't know how I was holding it anyways. There we go. Cause it, hold on. There we go. Okay. So your Lois, how was I holding this anyways? Doesn't matter. So your Lois go to businesses now, how do we do this? Right? So your Lois are gonna be sent to companies that are in those niches. We talked about. So you go through and make lists of companies. Now you can just Google like top SAS companies, um, top SAS startups, or you can Google like food tech companies or, um, the other ones that are great are like the Forbes 500 lists or the ink 5,000 lists are really good because you can narrow them down by niche and you can find all the things you need.

But when you're doing those Lois, you need to have a direction to make these lists. This for me was one of the biggest changes that I made in my business was start collecting lists of companies and then narrow the them down by revenue. So that's who you send your Lois to, is these li this curated list of companies. So after you find all these lists, so just for example, we'll say SaaS, let's say you find all like five different lists of SaaS companies. And now you have like 200 SaaS companies. You wanna narrow them down by revenue. So, you know, they have enough revenue to, Hey, a writer. If it's a startup, they need at least 3 million. And if it's a regular business, they need at least 5 million to 50 million, depending on the niche. Some companies prioritize marketing more than others. So the ones that prioritize marketing are on the lower end, right?

They're closer to five to 25 million. And they use that a lot for marketing. Now, some companies don't prioritize marketing very much, so they need like 50 million or more in order for them to pay a writer because they don't prioritize marketing. And we as writers live in the marketing department, um, Maurice says, what should our subject line be for the LOI? So, great question for me, mine is always like, do you need a help of length freelance writer? So do you need help of a SaaS freelance writer? It should always be a niche. I think, I think that really attracts them a lot more. Do you need help from a FinTech freelance writer? Or you could say, do you need help from a food tech content marketing writer? So I think any version of, do you need help from niche freelance writer or do you need help from niche content market marketing writer is a great subject line.

I have used that for years. I think it's really attractive. Just like, do you need help? And also that you're a freelance writer and also you're in their niche. I think those kind of hit all the right buttons. Yeah. Marie and Vicky always have great questions. I always co come in here with great stuff. All right. So our Lois, so we have 3 million for, and then we have five to 50 million for regular businesses. Okay. So as we're kind of going along, we refine our lists. So we have 200 SaaS companies and then we refine them by, let's say only 75 of those 200 companies have the right amount of money. All right, now we've cut out all the garbage where no one's gonna get back to was cause they don't have any money. So now that we refined our list, right, we have our 75 companies that make either 3 million as a startup or five to 50 million as a traditional company.

Now we go to LinkedIn, we go to LinkedIn and we find out who, the person that we need to talk to is, and that person is the content marketing manager, the content manager, the vice president of marketing, or the CEO, depending on if it's a startup and they don't have anyone you're looking for content or marketing. So for me, I use LinkedIn premium and I can use the search feature on there to sort the people in the company by job title. Right. So I type in content and if no one comes up for content, I type in marketing. And then if someone doesn't come up for marketing, I reach out to the CEO. Um, and I have a video on LinkedIn premium. I just did it. If it's worth it, freelance writers, I will link that below as well. So, um, we, I went through all the details of LinkedIn premium and whether it's not it's worth it, how much it costs, the different tiers, all that good stuff.

I link that below, but you search for the right person. So now you have 75 companies. They make the right amount of money and we find the content or marketing or CEO person to reach out to. Now we have our list of 75 places. We have, we know they make enough money to pay freelance writer. Excuse me. We know to reach out to now, all we have to do is send our Lois out. We have, we have our templates, right? We have our, our SAS template that we're ready to send out and we just send them out. Right? Send them through email where you can find someone's email through hunter.io. That's one place, or you can find it on LinkedIn. If you use LinkedIn premium, you can use an InMail. Okay. So now we need to send those out. And the golden number for me has always been 50 to 75 Lois a month.

So if you're sending out and you're starting things, um, I would send 50 to 75 Lois a month. And then you can add pitches on top of that. So like what, um, what Vicky said is that, right? Like magazines can be really slow and sometimes trade magazines for me have been a lot quicker. So they got a mix together. So 50 to 75 and probably a heavier focus on your Lois to get those business. Clients is a better idea. All right, that's number four. If you have any questions, you can always pop 'em in the chat. And if your starting out as a freelance writer, I'd love to hear how you're kind of like finding your way. So make sure to comment below if you're watching this later on comment below and let me know like how things are going or things that you're struggling with, or, um, if this has been helpful at all, let me know below, put 'em in the comments.

5) Invest in a Framework Course

All right. So we use the whiteboard. So that's cool. Now we're gonna move on five. This is our last one. All right. Number five. I'm being looked at, I'm being glare at, because now she's like all grumpy because I haven't given her anything Bo's asleep and she's over there being like, I can't believe it. <laugh> Charlotte. Don't worry. We'll do a little what a little while. And then you can, then you can get all your stuff. Okay. So the last one, number five here is courses. Now I get asked about courses all the time. I have a course it's called freelance writer wealth lab, and it's actually gonna open up next week. So right now I'm running a free masterclass that tells you how to build a high earning business. And if you go to, um, Mandy Ellis, oops, wrong on, hold on. If you go to Mandy ellis.com/masterclass, one that will lead you to the, the free 60 minute masterclass with me that goes over this stuff, way more in detail.

Um, and it's on Tuesday, April 12th at 12:00 PM, Pacific 2:00 PM, central 3:00 PM Eastern, or I have a masterclass two, which is on Wednesday, April 13th. And that is at, um, that one's at 6:00 PM, Pacific 8:00 PM, central 9:00 PM Eastern. So that you can ask me any questions you want, but I'm going a over like specific steps to take beyond the ones I'm mentioning here. So if you wanna join that. So for my course, um, I get asked a lot of, um, where, oh, I'm getting buzzed of what courses I recommend to become a better writer or what courses I recommend for, um, different types of things you can do, right? So there's people that specialize. So there's courses that teach you how to, to become a better, uh, case study writer. And I always love Casey Hibbard for that. She's got a course and she also has all of this helpful information that she sends out to her email list.

So Casey Hubbard for case studies, HubSpot is a great place to learn about, of the different stuff. SEO, content, marketing, different types of content. You can write. HubSpot is free. It's wonderful. Um, and then there's all these different courses that you can do. Just like I know a lot of people take, um, all, like, they go to a platform, right? Like there's a platform that's just for freelance writers and they take courses on there. For me, I created my course, like my freelance writer, wealth lab course, which is opening on Tuesday, April 12th. So it's opening next week. Um, and then it'll close. Like it's opening next week from Tuesday, the 12th through Thursday, the 21st, then it'll close until like AP, like late August, early September. So it only opens twice a year, but I created my course because I ended up taking all these different courses over my last 10 years.

And I found that they missed a bunch of things. Like I got frustrated that I, that I had to either buy more courses to get the full story or that I had to like, go do extra stuff. Like I had to fill in the gaps. They never gave me like the exact roadmap and, or they just told me, like, you just repeat this until you die. Basically, like there was courses where they're like, now we gave you this thing and you repeat it. And it just, that's not how it works. Um, if you're continuing to just repeat the same thing over and over again, for years, that's when your income stagnates, that's when you end up being really frustrated with your client base, that's when you don't move up to bigger and better clients, like you don't repeat the same process you have to refine and you have to actually learn how to scale a freelance writing business.

So I created my course, um, because of that, I created my course because there was a bunch of things I did in my business and my friends who are like my six figure freelance friends. I was like, what are you doing in your business? Um, to actually make it at work. And I would ask them questions all the time. So I created mine based on all the functional things you need in your business, like how to do, like how to actually set up your business, how to get going, the mindset, things you struggle with, the roadblocks, the inbound marketing, the outbound marketing, right? So the inbound, which is your website and your LinkedIn, your outbound, which is your pitches and your Lois. Um, and then going through like out how to actually work with clients, like how to be efficient with your time, how to actually get things done, how to do your writing, um, how to grow, like grow your business to bigger and better clients.

Like how do you actually do that? How do you find them? What do you need to refine what you need to change? Um, and then talking about bigger, basically bigger projects, like the idea space, right? So for me, I started out in content marketing, right? I started out with blog posts and magazine articles, and then I started moving on to content strategy, which is what I do now. Right. So I did many years of blog posts and K studies and, um, downloadables and eBooks and, um, reported articles and all different kinds of stuff. But now I mostly focus on content strategy, which is more of like the idea space. So my course covers all of those things. So it basically is like how to actually get started setting up the framework, putting all the Legos in place, but then how to like build a castle, actually scale it and how to not wanna not wanna kill yourself during the process, not want it to be like, so draining that your body is just like, I'm dead.

Um, I, you know, like I've talked about on this channel before I've burned out a couple times. And for me, this course was about creating something sustainable. I found that other courses I've taken what it wasn't sustainable. Like they would ask me to write a Jillian articles a month. And for me I'm not fast. I've never been a fast writer. Um, it took me a whole month to write my first reported article. And now I'm probably somewhere between, like, I think the most articles I've written in a month was like 20, but for me, I mostly hang around like five or 10 articles, but it's probably quite like closer to five right now. Um, but I've never been fast. So people that are like, oh, I write, you know, 50 articles a month. I'm like, that doesn't work for me. So, um, for me, I wanted to build this course as something that can be referred back to over and over and over again, it's something that you keep coming back to when you get to a new phase of your business and I'm constantly adding things.

So, uh, I've added a ton of stuff to our tech library that our students have asked for. So like, or my students have asked for. Um, so when they ask for like, can you go over this some more, or can you talk about that or talk about green light client attributes? Or can you talk about like how you actually do SEO and how you work on content strategy stuff, or like the content we need for our websites. I add all these things in, um, because they ask for it and they need help. So for me, I built my course based on taking like every course there was like, I've taken all these different courses, basically any course that you would talk about. I was, I took it. Um, and I just found that through my own business, that there was a bunch of things missing.

There was a bunch of things that people didn't talk about. They just like stopped at a certain level, right. They stopped at a certain level and they were like, you just do this now you just do it. And you're like, what is, what, what am I doing? So for me, I wanted to kind of guide everybody through. So, um, if that sounds interesting at all, you can go to mans.com/course, the wait list is still up right now, but the course is opening on Tuesday, April 12th. So like in a handful of days, it'll open up. It'll be open for enrollment from Tuesday the 12th through Thursday, the 21st of April, and then it'll close it. Won't open back up till late August, early September, probably more like early September. Um, and it only opens twice a year. So if you're interested in that head over to mandy.com/course and check it out.

Um, the other thing that I think is important about courses is that they bring you through not just like writing things, but managing all the things you do in your business. So as a freelance writer, especially if you have no experience, you need to understand that you're running a small business, you're running all of these different things, right? You're running all of these different things and you're wearing a lot of different hats. You are not only writing content, but you're sending invoices. You're managing your clients. You're answering emails. Um, you are scheduling appointments and inner reviews. You are, you know, herding cats. Sometimes you're marketing. You are, um, refreshing your website in LinkedIn. You're doing all of these things all the time. So in order to understand how that functions right in a sustainable way, that's why I built my course, excuse me. Yes. Hello. And Charlotte will be there. Charlotte will be assisting with the, she wanted let, to let everybody know that she basically built the course and I did nothing. So I just wanna let everybody know that she keeps saying that she's the one who is the inspiration for the course.

All right, ready?

I thought, oh, I thought, good job,

Barry. You ready? Barry Barry. Barry. <laugh> boom. Hello.

See, this is what I'm talking about. It's like, sometimes

He's just like,

Not paying attention. Like he's just often his own little geriatric dog world

BBO, BBO. Okay. I guess he's just like, oh, there we go. Hi buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. You were so close. So close. It's right there, buddy.

Right? Hi. Oh, you're suffering the blanket. Good job. All right. Hi. Hi. Good job.

All right. Cool.

All right. So Marie said, Do do, do, uh, she said

I'm taking a bunch of courses and oh, I said, I, I was taking a bunch of courses. That's what the correction was. I was taking a bunch of courses and getting nowhere and was on the H hamster wheel of hell, working 16 hours, um, a day and getting nowhere. And with Mandy's class, I took two, I take two days off a week and I work five to seven hours a day. Yeah. This was a really important thing. Um, Marie was, is like one of my students. And so she, um, she ended up, you know, she was just like toiling away and toiling away. And one of the things I think was her goal when she started was she was like, I wanna work less. And I wanna actually have time off. Like she was working all the time. And now that we've kind of worked together and she's taken the course now, she actually has time off and she works less per, per day.

And, um, I think she's had, she just recently had one of her highest months yet. Right. Marie, I'm pretty sure she just hit like one of her highest months and that she worked the least number of hours that, that month. But that's the point is the, your growing your freelance writing business, isn't about, um, isn't about working yourself to the bone. It's not about like hustling 24 7. You do have to do marketing. You do have to get things done and you do have to work more in the beginning of your business. That's just no doubt. Anytime you start a business, you have to work more when you start out. But as time goes on, you shouldn't be three, like, like a year, two year, three year, four years into your business. And like working seven days a week, still like you shouldn't be in this place where you're just toiling and toiling and toiling. It's not scalable. So for me, that was really important, was setting up a system and giving my students a blueprint like that. I have actually used that I know work, and then they can put it in their business where they can actually scale it without working less hour or without working more hours. And well, they actually make more money. <laugh> Annie says, Charlotte teaches the SaaS class. She totally does. Hi. Can you go

Back over there? Oh, I gotcha. Here. She's here.

I love you too. I think I like your Tailwag. This is her bugeye. So if you guys ever see her bugeye as are her bug eyes.

Hi, goodbye. Have a great day.

Now. She's like, I should get something cuz you picked me up. <laugh>

All right. Good job. All right. Go back to your ha hole please. Thank you.

Almost fell. Okay. Here's the deal? Yeah, she definitely teaches the SA SAS class, but um, I think for me when courses are concerned, you have to think about a few things, especially when you're starting out as a freelance writer. So if you have no experience, the course should teach you about a bunch of different things. Okay. The course shouldn't be just focused on like one thing, especially when you're are just trying to figure out everything about your business. The course needs to be focused on like setting your business up, running it and then scaling it because those are kind of the phases that you're going in in your business. You're setting it up, learning all the groundwork, figuring out which buttons to push. Then you're like, okay, I'm running it. I'm getting used to it. Okay. It's becoming more systematized. And then you're like, well, now I need to grow it, but I need to scale it without burning out.

And without actually, um, working myself into the ground. That's a really important piece. Now, as you get more specialized as a freelance writer, of course take SEO focused courses, take case studies, specific courses take like, like courses that focus on like one piece. But when you're gonna start, you need something to give you an entire view. So when you're looking at courses, get an entire view. Okay. Make sure it's setting you up with an actual framework. That's really important. I wish that I had a course like this when I like a course like mine. When I started out that gave me an entire thing. I always had to put bits and pieces together. So for me, when I was starting out, I would take this course and then be like, all right, this is one piece of the puzzle. And then this is the piece of the pu I would have to put a thousand puzzle pieces together because there wasn't a course that was just like, here's all this, the major stuff you need to do.

And here's how to actually grow it. Like it was kind of like, someone's like, well, if you wanna garden full of flowers, like, let me tell you about the two lips. And then next week, like you're gonna have to pay for this new course for roses. And then you're gonna have to pay for this other thing for hedges. And like, it was a pain, it was a pain. So for me, when I made this course, I wanted to make sure that it was just like the whole framework that you could build and ALA business sustainably. And you would understand all the facets, you actually need to build your business, whether you wanna make 50 K or six figures. Um, I think that this course covers that. Like I always add things on, as I learn in my six figure business, what is important and what's not.

Um, so for me, I think as the library go grows, right? Like for me, I, I always give lifetime access to the course too, because you know, you need to have this stuff to be able to refer to it. So as long as the course lives, you have access. Hi bean, here you go. Um, but the deal is that you need to have something that you can keep as reference material. If it's a course that you too take once and then you can never like you can't go back to it. Or it's something that is only for like a one time thing, then that's kind of rough. And I think the courses that as you gain experience in your writing, and as you learn, like, Hey, maybe I do wanna specialize in case studies or maybe I do wanna specialize in content strategy or SEO or whatever.

That's when you add that on, that's like right, the icing on the cake, but you need to build the cake first before you can decorate it and add on all the special stuff. So here you go, buddy. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job. So I think for me that was the most important part was building a course that actually walked everybody through how to build all of the framework and then how to add specific decorations, how to customize the business and how to like add your personality into it. Okay. Marie says, yes, I had one of my highest months, two months ago and I actually worked a lot less. I took three days off every week and it was the support of the group that helped me get there. Yeah. So we also have our community in the wealth lab, um, with the course. So like right now, Marie is in our freelance writer, wealth lab community.

Um, and we're all there to support and give ideas and give feedback. So for me, this was really cool thing. Like Marie often talked about how tired she was and how it was really rough and like how she's working a lot. So for her to be able to take three days off a week, um, and have her highest month ever, like that was a really important thing. And um, just seeing, like, just seeing everybody grow like a, a lot of you, uh, a lot of you here today have been my students and just seeing everybody grow and change and actually build a business that works for them. So like all these different businesses are different, but they work for them and they make, you know, they work less and they make more money. And I think that's the most important thing. We didn't get into the freelance life just to toil all of our time away.

Right. We didn't get into the freelance life just so we can work our, our freelance business exactly like a nine to five. I just think that's not, um, not the point. Yes, of course you can do that. You can work your business like a nine to five, of course. But I think a lot of us were looking for more time, freedom. We were looking to make more, more money without having to work all the time. Um, and I think that this is an important kind of distinction for courses is like you, you do have to ramp up, there's a ramp up period for your business. You are gonna have to do a lot of marketing. You are gonna have to get out there. You are gonna have to kind of like, you know, work, it's a business, you gotta get it started, but then you should be able to taper off.

You should be able to get some clients you should be able to, um, work less hours. And it shouldn't be so frantic. I just found that the there's a lot of times when I took these courses that like, it was still frantic. They're just like, you just continue this frantic pace forever. Uh, and it didn't work for me. I burned out didn't work. So, uh, if you were, you know, interested in checking out the course, and if you are interested in hearing more about freelance writer, wealth lab, you can go check it out. Mandy l.com/course it's opening up on Tuesday, the 12th. So no XTU so this coming Tuesday is open from Tuesday the 12th till, um, the 21st, the following Thursday, April 21st for enrollment. And then it'll close until basically September it's only open twice a year, but I hope that that's kind of helpful in terms of evaluating courses.

Make sure you're getting a framework, especially when you're starting with no experience, having framework for your business just like cuts down so much overwhelm. It makes it a lot easier to move forward and you actually have like templates and examples to AC, to <laugh>, you know, market or to set up your website, LinkedIn, or specifics on what your clients are looking for. So I think that's all useful. All right, cool. I think that's everything. I didn't see anymore. More questions in there. We went through all of our five things that were really important. We went a little bit long today, but that's okay. That happens. But, um, I'm just gonna do a quick recap. So number one, we have to focus on our niches. Now, if you're a writer who, um, has a ton of ideas and you've written for a, you know, you've had a staff writing job and you feel like you can be more of a general list, go for it.

For me, the niches really helped me to give my business direction and then also helped me come up with ideas. Cause I had no idea when I started out how to come up with ideas or how to pitch or whatever. So the niches gave me direction and focus. Number two, you are working on your writing. So go look at those publications or those company or places that you like to read, make your own versions of those clips. Like find an article. You like make your own version, do the research, fake interview, a family member and have them pretend that they're, you know, like a tycoon of industry of some kind or whatever, um, and make your own versions. Don't publish them. But this is to help you with your writing skills because your clients are gonna give you examples and say, do this, like write something in this style and tone have these, this type of research, have these types of interviews.

Um, and this kind of helps you already start the train. I think writing a blog or on medium, where you have like no foundation. And it's just like out in the dark. I think that's not as helpful as using something that you really like from a magazine or a, a company blog that, uh, really resonates with you and would be something you wanna do. And then remember books. So I like on writing by Steven King and I like on writing well by William Zinner Zinner Z I and S S E R. Um, there's a ton of writing books out there, but those are my favorites. And then there's also, um, elements of style by STR and white, which some people have said is kind of outdated. There's another one that's there. I can't remember what it's called right now, but I like elements of style. Still three.

We wanna make sure that we get our website and LinkedIn all set up. So we have to know how to explain what we do, who we do it for, how we help. And like I said, I'm gonna link below with some videos on what questions to answer in your website in LinkedIn. Um, and we're also gonna add some things about cake and, and icing niches so that you can add that to your website in LinkedIn as well. But just remember it's a living document. You're gonna change it over time, but you need some portal, some place to send your ideal clients or to send people say like, Hey, here's my check me out. I'm on LinkedIn. I have a website, at least some place they can go number four marketing. We gotta make sure we do. I still have my web board. So marketing, don't forget pitches pitches to, um, online publications and newsstand magazines, all that stuff, LOI pitch hybrid to trade magazines, and then Lois to companies.

And all of that stuff is a different facet of your marketing. Remember you need at least 3 million for a startup company to reach out five to 50 million for a traditional company. Then in revenue, they need to have that much in revenue. And then, um, for your, um, make your lists by companies. So like make your, or by, by niche. So like look for a bunch of SaaS companies or a bunch of FinTech companies or a bunch of travel companies or whatever your niches are and make those lists and send things out and you need to send at least 50 to 75 Lois a month and then number five, make sure or that you pick a course that gives you a framework. If you're starting with zero experience, you need a course to kind of give you, uh, basically like a place to, uh, a fenced in playground, essentially.

And for me that has been super, like having the framework of like, how do I actually build this business? What do I need to do? How do I actually do my market? How do I reach out to clients? How do I do my work? How do I work with clients? How do I set up my contracts and invoices and proposals? How do I actually scale this thing? Make sure your course that you take gives you the foundation for you to actually build a business that you can scale. It's not just like piecemeal here and there. Like it's actually giving you the business foundation that you need to run a successful freelance writing business. All right. Those are the five things. Cool. I think we went over to everything. We'll do one last date. Just cuz we've got a Grum here and she's being all sassy. All right. Go back to your ha

Hole back up, back up, back, up, back, up, back up. Okay. Big girl. Other one, another one. Good job.

All right, Barry. You ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, you were so close. Did you

Get it?

Did you knock it over and hold on. We got a trio emergency people.

What happened? Did it go? Where did it go, bud? It looks like you're looking at it, but I don't see it. Hold on Barry. It's an emergency. I don't know. Barry. I don't know where it went. We'll have to find it.

We'll have to find it later. I don't know. Oh, well we're gonna have to find that trio. It went missing. All right. We'll have to find it. All right. Cool. So thank you everybody for hanging out. Um, if you feel like this has been useful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a higher earning freelance writing business subscribe, I'm gonna put some things in the description. Well, we've got mass. Hi buddy. It's not there. We'll have to find it. <laugh> um, so if you feel like this has been helpful subscribe, um, we're here every Fri or I'm here every Friday. Well, I guess we, the dogs and I are here every Friday, um, doing a live stream, you can always show up to ask questions. Um, you can always hang out. Like I said, my course is gonna open, been up in a little bit. So if you wanted to go to mans.com/course and check it out. Freelance writer, wealth lab is gonna open on Tuesday the 12th and it's gonna be open for enrollment until the following Thursday, April 21st. Then it's gonna close until basically September it's only open twice a year. So hi buddy. All right. So I'm glad this was helpful. And um, thank every, thank you everybody for hanging out and I will see you next Friday. Bye.

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