How to Find High-Paying, High-Value Clients to Create Top Income Without Working Over 40 Hours
Thanks so much to Chiuli for suggesting this topic!
There are plenty of writers who make top-dollar working part-time hours AND working with clients who they truly love…that's what this week's livestream is all about. You don't have to work yourself to the bone, burnout, or get stuck with low-paying, frustrating clients.
Through the specific steps we'll talk about in this livestream, you can find those high-paying clients who understand the value of quality content, create the income and freelance writer lifestyle you want, and keep your hours at or below 40 per week.
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Well, all welcome in. Hi Vicky. Welcome in. Hi, Steph. Welcome in. All right. Ooh, we have questions already. Thanks for being patient. It's kind of, I'm having a little bit of a hard time recently, uh, just with all my stuff and, um, so thanks for being patient and, um, yeah, so thanks for everybody here. Hey, Pedro. Welcome in. I'm just looking through the chat and making sure I say hi to everybody. So the puppers are here. They are here. Here we go. They're over here. Maybe we can get them both on camera today. Probably not. Cause Bo's like Bose over there and Charlotte's down there. Well, it's, Charlotte's on her, you know, at least in her hobble hole. So we've got that going for us today. All right. So do you guys want to treat him? Here you go. Good job. Here you go, buddy.
Now that Bo's 15. He basically just like has given up on everything and he he's always been. Can you get on camera? Just a little? There you go. You go, uh, he's always been a trashed dog. He's always gotten into the trash, but now that he's 15, he basically just gets in the trash all the time. I don't know what happened when he turned 15 a few days ago, but now he's just decided that his whole, uh, his whole MOS that he's going to be in the trash all the time. Here you go, buddy. Here you go. Maybe he's losing it. Maybe he thinks all the good stuff's in the trash. I don't know. All right, so we're going to get started. We're actually doing a pretty cool topic today, which is from a truly, so Julie asked about this. So, um, I made it into a livestream topic cause I thought it would be super helpful.
So welcome in everybody. If you have questions as we're going over stuff, feel free to put it in the chat. Um, and yeah. Oops. We've got some dog hair on me. Um, yeah. Okay. So we're all cool. Okay, cool. Nice Turkey. Oh yeah, this is my, um, this is my old, let's see if I can get it on camera. Like the whole thing. So this is my, this is uh, an old shirt that my dad used to have from, um, that he bought when he went to Virginia tech. So it's a six Semper tyrannis cause it's the UVA. It's the Cavaliers like our rival. So, um, I always liked this shirt, so I, one day I took it. Um, cool. Yeah, they did switch places. Vicki. They did because finally we'll have Charlotte actually stay in her little Hobbit hole. So we've been having that's.
Another struggle is like our dogs have been wild and they've been all over the place. So, um, they're kind of like figuring their own stuff out. There you go. Good job. Good job everybody. It's a little chilly in here today. So Beau has his blanket. It was all nice and toasty. There you go. Charlotte's definitely envious of the blanket. That's for sure. All right, Charlie, you look super cute. Good girl. All right, one more. And then we're going to get to our actual stuff that we got to talk about. One more. Good job. One more good job. You guys are so gentle today. All right, so let's talk about this. So we're going to talk about actually making money today, which I hope that we talk about all the time, which I think we do, but, um, I have some notes. So we're going to talk about how we can actually make some money with less than 40 hours a week. So we're going to find those. There's nothing there, buddy, right by those high value clients. Um, and we are going to figure out how to get high paying work without having to work a huge pile of hours. So, but there's nothing there, buddy. There's nothing there.
Or you get a tunnel around now. Here you go, buddy. Right here. There you go. Okay. All right. So let's talk about this. So when we're talking about high value clients and we're talking about, um, creating our, uh, our schedule, right? So these things go hand in hand. That's why it's so important. Um, we want to make sure that we are putting everything together as one, like it's not just that you get high value clients and it's not just that, um, you're working a ton of hours to get them or that it's, you know, this big mess. And I just want to preface this by saying that, um, it can be a transition. So a lot of times what ends up happening when you start your feelings, writing business is you end up working a whole bunch. You end up working a lot to get everything set up, to get all of your systems, set up and understand how to market to your clients and understand how to put everything in place.
Um, and then after you kind of get everything together and you kind of figure everything out, then you can scale it. So basically you scale it while you don't work as many hours. Um, and basically this works by you having a bunch of systems in place and you understand how to find clients. Um, and you can basically automate things and, um, cut down on lengthy processes. So instead of the processes and the time spent looking for clients being like a huge part of your business, like when you started out it, um, it cuts down and also you get more inbound leads, right? You figure things out, you put things in place, um, and you know how to attract the right clients. You know what they're looking for? You know how to reach out, you know, how to get that, like when they see your LinkedIn profile or when they see, um, your website or your samples, they're just like, yes, like this is the writer for me.
So let's talk about this stuff. So, number one, we're going to talk about finding those high paying clients who understand your quality content. So this is really important. So this is our number one thing. So I'm going to put it, then we have numbers now. So that's really cool. So I'm going to put that up there first. So our first thing we're talking about is this. So when we're finding these high paying clients, the whole point is that they, number one, they're looking for the writer, like the writer for them. So number one, they have to be looking for the writer for that. They're not looking for a writer. They're not looking for like dozens of writers. Like they could be looking for like two or three writers if they have a good budget. But most of the time it's like one writer to do, you know, one ring to collect them all or whatever.
They're looking for one person to basically, um, do all the good stuff for them. And they're looking for someone who understands their niche. Right. And they will say things like hit the ground running, which is like business terms for like, we don't care. But basically like they want someone to come in and be like, yeah, I totally get real estate. I know why that's frustrating. Your audience wants this. We need to create content like that. This is why we're doing this. Or they say like, what do you think about these ideas that we've been spinning around? Like, we're thinking about doing blog posts. We're thinking about doing this battery, the other thing, um, what do you think about that? And you can give them advice, right? Like you can give them advice. You can give them a lot of good stuff where they're like, oh, okay.
I totally get it. Excuse me. Like you get our niche. So when we're finding these clients, like they should be looking for the writer. So that's the first thing. Um, I'm going to collect them all under numbers. Like as we go through these notes that I have. So number one, this is part B now. So that was part, a part B is that they respect your schedule already. So you're getting clients, right? You're already getting clients where like you're getting on a call with them and or you get an email and inbound lead. And they're like, we know that you're busy or we know you have other clients, like, let me know if this works or like, you hear things from them that they already understand, you have other things going on. Right. So that means that, um, they're not going to like encroach upon your schedule.
They're not going to do scope creep most of the time, sometimes they will. But, um, if they end up doing, sorry, eyelash, um, if they end up doing scope creep, a lot of times what ends up happening is they amend the contract or they're like, yeah, of course that costs more money. Like, duh, there should be some obvious things that happen here with your schedule. And this has to go back to the 40 hours a week. Hey, I just like, is this okay with you? And you're like, Hey, you know what? It's not, I can only do this and this, and you're doing this and this because you've reduced your workload, right? You're not working over 40 hours a week. You're working like 20 to 30 hours a week. So you're like, I only have so much time to do this. I need longer deadlines.
Like I, instead of two weeks turn around, I need a month. Or instead of, um, you know, having a call like the next day, you have to have the call like the following Monday. Um, but you are very strict about how your schedule works and they understand why that is. Right. You're having a conversation with them. They respect that. They're like, we totally get it. Um, and this is at the conversation stage, right? So we're already having a call with them. We're already having, like, we already have, um, several emails with them or, or some kind of communication that they'd made it obvious, like number one, they want the right writer for them. And number two, they get that you have a certain schedule and that schedule may not be 80 hours a week. That schedule may be, um, you know, 25 hours a week.
And this is, this leads to like the next part of number one. So that means that sometimes you have to say no to things. That's really hard for us as writers to just say no to things and just say like, Nope, that's not a fit. Or like, Nope, I can't do that right now. When you work less hours, you're working with less clients, right? Like you're not the average freelance writer, I think from the interviews I've done and the coaching students and the core students and all the thousands of writers I've talked with over the years, your client list can any, can be anywhere from like two to like 10 to 15. And that depends on magazine. So like I count magazines as clients. So like the magazines that you continue to write for, even if you only write for them once or twice a year, or like, I don't know, three times, four or five times a year, like they can still be in your client list.
Regular retainer clients are usually like two to five. So when you're working less hours, that means that number is probably like three. So you have like three retainers or two retainers plus magazines, or you have three retainers plus a client that needs something quarterly. So your workload is very different. It's not that you have all these clients that you're answering to. And it's not that you keep onboarding a lot of stuff it's that you are, have a set number of spaces like on your client list. You're like, I know that with 30 hours a week, I can only handle three clients at a time. Um, plus, you know, maybe some magazines or trade pubs or online things that I want to do. Um, and then you look at your schedule and you plan further out. So these things go hand in hand, you only have so many slots for your clients, right.
Then you have to plan further up. So when you get inbound leads or when you're doing marketing, right, you have to say like, I'm not available till January. Like right now, what is it November? So you say like, sorry, I'm not available to January. I'd love to talk to you. Then this is how you have to limit your schedule, limit your availability and be like, I only have so much time. Right. And this makes you more picky about who you work with. Right. So, because you only have so many spots because you have to plan further out instead of accepting anybody who comes into your inbox, or instead of accepting all these different people, um, just rolling in or people you market to, right? Like even people that you send LORs to and you get replies from them, like you're very selective about who you work with.
Um, and you take on more high dollar stuff, right? You're just like, you basically say no to like 90% or 80% of what you get. And you say yes to like the few things where they're like, yeah, we'll pay you three. You know, the retainer is three grand a month based on your pricing to do X, Y, and Z. Um, and you have three of those retainers a month. Right? So, hi, grumpy. I know you're, you're over there in your little Hobbit hole being good. So let's, let's give you a little treat out. Cause you're being good today. You so funny when you sit like that, you look like a sad little stuffed animal. You know what that's why it's sad. Donkey, autumn. I don't know if you guys have seen that, um, that meme that has ER, on it and it's raining on him and it talks about sad donkey.
Autumn. Charlotte is the poster dog for sad donkey, autumn. She just like sits over there and she's like, please, I'm starving fired. You're going, here you go. Good job. Can you back up a little bit? There we go. Good job. All right. So that means that your schedule is limited. Your availability is limited and who you take on as a client is very, very selective. And that's why this is an adjustment period. So that's why, when you're kind of working on these things, you have to adjust to this place. You have to have enough money in savings to say no to more things. So you can cut your hours. So this means that you can then say yes to a lot of things that are like way, like way high dollar stuff, because you're like, yeah, I have the money. Um, yeah, I I'm cutting my hours, but like I know that, um, you know, I can onboard this many clients or I have this many clients already.
Um, and I already know that I'm covered for November, December, and January. So if I onboard a client in January, that money comes in in February, like it's a lot further out. I think this is something that gets a little shortsighted sometimes when freelance writers are like, um, like when I get things in my inbox or I have people come to me and they're like, I only want to work 20 hours a week. I want to make a hundred thousand dollars. And it's like, okay, well where like you can't start there. Right? You're starting a business. You have to do a lot of things first. So then you can kind of scale without it being, you know, um, all the processes and systems and marketing and stuff, you know, going haywire. So you have to plan further ahead. You gotta know how much time that actually takes how many things you can actually onboard.
And you have to have some kind of cushion there to allow you to plan that far ahead. So the other thing is that, um, that I want to talk about in this category is actually finding them. So finding those clients, I think this is something that, um, is kind of a tricky thing for people to like wrap their head around. And this was something that I struggled with for a long time. I was like, how do you get them? Like, where do you find them? Like, what is like, what magic unicorn are you using to like predict the high paying client future? And the deal is like, you just don't know, except that you don't know who's a high paying client and who's not until you actually speak to them, we can use revenue, right? We need at least 5 million to 50 million million. Like if it's over 50 million, like you're usually in great shape.
But depending on the company size and the type of niche you're in five to 50 million is kind of your minimal bubble for revenue and 3 million for startups. But like usually startups like 10, 15, 20 is where you want to be. If you want to cut your hours, if you actually want to get more work. So 10 to 20, probably for startups. Um, and yeah, at least five to 50 million, if you're thinking about regular clients, but the deal is once you've kind of qualified them by like, are they creating content? What does their website look like? What types of things are they doing? Um, how is their company growing? Which you can see on LinkedIn, how many people they've hired and fired and how their company's growing. If they'd gotten funding, um, once you kind of do that, right? Like you look at their company, look at what they're creating, look at their revenue.
Um, and you qualify them based on all that stuff. Then you get to a point where you're like, okay, like, and they respond to your LOI, you get on a call, then you kind of like hash out, like, shh, you're so grumpy yet. Then you can hash out. Um, all of the stuff with pricing, with project scope, all those good things. And you don't know if they have a project scope or like what they need help with until you reach out. So this is something that I feel like a lot of freelance writers get kind of confused about. They're like, oh, like you just knew it was a high paying client. Nope. I didn't. I qualify them like 800 times before I got on a call with them. Right. I looked at all those things. I looked at their content. I looked at their shh, you got a hush today.
I know you're having a rough time. I know you've been locked in. You want more stuff? You're, you're stuck over here during the live stream where someone's talking about sad, donkey, autumn, and comparing you to your and how sad you look. I know it's hard. It's hard being you. And I get that and I want to validate your feelings, Charlotte. I want to validate that is tough being in Charlotte. There you go. All right. So you can't know if it's a high paying client until you talk to them, you can qualify them. Right? All the things I just said, qualify them, look at all the stuff they're doing. If you go to their website and their website is garbage, most of the time, they're not spending money on marketing, they're not using their website, which is one of the biggest drivers of inbound leads to get more clients for themselves.
So that's a big problem. Or sometimes it ends up happening is you talk to them and they're like, oh yeah, we're doing a re website revamp. And um, we're planning it for the next month. So we want content to go along with that. Um, and that's where you can kind of hop in, but you don't know that until you talk to them. Right? It's all a lot of stuff that's like behind closed doors because you don't, you haven't talked to them yet. The key is qualifying them a bunch first, right? Qualifying them through content, create they're creating their social media, their LinkedIn, how much they're growing on LinkedIn. Um, company-wise uh, how much revenue they have, what their company has been doing. Um, what kinds of people work there? Like do they have a marketing person or is it only the CEO? There's a bunch of things that we have to do to qualify them.
Um, but most of the time your high paying clients are just like, you need to do the marketing. You need to find these people, right? You need to go look in your niche and create lists, excuse me, of all different types of companies and reach out. Then when you get to the conversation stage, that's when they're like, yeah, our budget is $5,000. We want to do this, this and this. Does that work for you? And you say yes or no. And then you tell them, I want, you know, I worked 50% upfront, 50% on, you know, 30 days later, whatever. But hi, can you go to your habit hall, go to your, have a whole show. Is this show, it's just a sassy molassey today. So you have to have those conversations with them in order to move to that next step. And you got to have the right pricing.
So that means that when you get these clients, it's that they have a budget, right. They always have a budget and then you have good pricing. Like you, you price for value. You're not pricing. Um, you're not pricing for, um, for quantity and you're not pricing for like, maybe this thing will happen and you're not pricing for like, oh my gosh, I'm so nervous. Like, what if they say no? Like I always, I learned this from like several other writers that like, you have to price, like at the point where you feel nervous about it. Like a lot of times we think we should, should my little suites. Can you go to your habit hall? Can you go to your habit hole instead of standing under the desk of being a weirdo, um, you have to price for where you think the value of that work is to you, to the client where your experiences, where, you know, kind of where, um, the limits are.
Like, I'm always asking people about pricing because I want to know like, what are the limits? Like what who's getting paid, what, and here you go, buddy, and who's getting paid a little and who's getting paid a lot and who's paying that. And what niches and what types of clients, um, oh, and if you want to have free pricing guide, so you can check out my free pricing guide there just as like a little thing. Um, but you gotta make sure that you're pricing things like in this pricing guide, I give you a range. You're going to be at the mid to higher end of this range. If you want to work less hours and make more money, you can't just be dicking around with like baby pricing. You can't be dicking around with like, oh, I'll do $200 a blog post. Like, no, the work that you should be doing should be very detailed.
There should be a bunch of stuff going on. And a lot of times this is the shift that has to happen. You have to move from, um, churn and burn style work, which is usually like four blog posts a month to like more, um, like case studies or you end up doing like a collection of blog posts for three months, instead of like, you know, doing them on a short-term basis. Um, or you end up working on stuff. That's more strategy, right? Like longterm strategy projects, you end up working on more focused content marketing efforts. You end up working on messaging and positioning. You end up working on all of these more complex things rather than like, turn out these, you know, the, you know, turn out 12 articles a month for the next X amount of months. Um, that's not scalable, right? You'll only have so much time to do that work.
You only have so much time to, um, get all your stuff done. You only have so much time to like, like there's a max, right? Like 20 articles a month would be a lot. Right. Even if you're a fast writer, that's basically an article, every single business day of that, that, um, of that month. And that's a lot. So you have to kind of start working on projects. Where can you go? And you have a whole, thank you. Have a whole, you have backup. All right. Let's see if we can get you back up. Go in your level. Nope. That's not your all, no, come back here. All right, hold on. We have to do a little stork maintenance. Come on, snark down, down. Good girl. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Good job, buddy. We're doing great today. We're doing great. Nope. You got to go back back to your home. A hole. No shot back to your home. A whole sit down, down all the way. Good job ready? Well, 1, 2, 3 dogs. Oh, so close to need that. That's both.
All right. So you got to keep those things in mind. You got to remember those things because the scalability factor, I think, is something that freelance writers forget about all the time. They're like, oh, I'll just do less work. Or I'll just do, um, more of these things. Or I'll just double down on this stuff. Like, no, your your time is going to be super, super limited. He is a good Bo you know, we have to say 1, 2, 3 dog. He's not good at catching things. He never has been. But since I started saying 1, 2, 3 dog and telling him like, Hey, other dogs could do this. We're going to pretend to be dogs down. And I throw it. He can catch it. I don't know. It just works. So if you only have a limited amount of time, that means you need to be very particular about the work you work on.
And that like it, you can't expand to like 900 blog posts a month, or you can't expand to, um, types of projects that are very turn, like turn a lot of content out. You've got to get into more strategy. You got into, got to get into like content marketing packages and you got to get stuff that last longer. So that's our first thing. Remember when we're finding these high paying clients, um, remember when we were finding these high paying clients, like you're qualifying them a ton of times before you ever speak to them. And then when you speak to them, that's when you figure out like what's going on with their project, what kind of like scope is it? What are we working on? Is this a fit for my schedule? Is this a fit for like, is there a budget, a fit for my pricing?
Um, is their outlook on content? The same? Are they looking for a long-term partnership, which is really important. A lot of things you have to learn on the call and it's not that you can magically figure it out before you get on the call with them. Like, you can make your best guess this is all guesswork. Okay. I am making a guest based on their website. I'm making a guess based on the content they're creating, I'm making a guess on their LinkedIn. I'm making a guests on their social media. I'm making a guess on the revenue. I'm making a guess at who works there. You don't know what's going on behind the scenes until you talk to them. So if there's anything that you walk away with today, that's the thing. High paying clients are everywhere. You just have to dig around and find them.
You have to qualify them, reach out. And then when they get back to you, that's when you hear more stuff on a call. So that was our number one thing. So we're going to go to number two. So if you have questions, you can pop them in the chat. Um, I'm happy to answer anything, even if it's not on this topic. Um, we can go, go over that. And, um, if you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like, um, you want to learn more about building a high income freelance writing business subscribe. Fader has a question and let's talk to Pedro. Oh, Pedro. So phagia says, how do I move from turn mode to strategic writing and content marketing slash strategic writing. If I've mostly written for publications, we can discuss offline. If that's a loaded question, it is not a loaded question.
And I did this. So this is my journey. I, when I burned out in 2018, I wrote like all for publications, very rarely did I write for businesses. So here's the deal. Those publication clips are really cool. They work really well for getting clients in other places. So that's number one. I wrote mostly for publications. The big switch that I made was I cut my publication writing to very small amounts. So my cake, right? Like I think we've talked about this like cake and icing, if you haven't, um, there's a video down below. I think it's, there's a video on my channel that talks about the cake and icing mindset. So go watch that if you're confused. So, um, the cake of my business now is mostly businesses and icing is like very few magazines, like five, uh, it may be more than five, but it's very small.
Like I wrote for a ton of magazines before. Um, and that's how I made my money. And then I was like, oh, I need to write for, um, I need to write for businesses because I have the opportunity for longer projects, magazines take a long time to pay. The work is very involved. It is fun. I love magazines. That will always be like my favorite thing. But the cool thing is most of my clients, now I write the same work for them that I would for a magazine, it just gets published on their blog. It just gets published somewhere else and I get paid better. So like, let's say like for me, um, I'll just give you guys like a quick thing. So for me, um, when I'm writing like a reported article, like an in-depth reported article, I'm interviewing like two or three sources, um, or maybe even one source, but it's like data heavy or it's like a case study style article that, um, I charge a dollar, a word.
So for me, like I that's, I've had that for, uh, plenty of my clients. So, um, if I'm interviewing, if I'm doing a ton of research, if I'm doing something that would end up in like a magazine that I write for, um, and I, you know, like people find my clips, right? And they say like, I want that. And I'm like, well, that was a dollar, a word. Like I got paid a dollar word to do that. Um, so for me, that's a big switch. Take your skills from your publication stuff and go find businesses, right? Go start marketing to businesses in your niche. That means make your list, go find companies to make in your list that have that 5 million to 50 million of revenue or startups that have like at least 3 million, but you probably don't want to be around 10 to 20 if you're like, really want to scale back your hours.
Um, go find them, put them in a list and market to them. And then when you go in there and listen to their projects, like make sure that they're like, yes, we want to do reporter articles or interview heavy articles or research, heavy articles. Then you're like, I'm great at that. I've done this for publications. So this was exactly what I did. I've now moved more into content strategy, like content marketing package work and how I did it was, I just like stopped accepting so many blog posts, clients like this is the thing is like, there are limits and boundaries and things that we will and won't accept. So one of my friends, um, she, she actually just like stopped. Totally. She was just like, Nope, I'm done. Like I'm not doing any more blog posts. I'm not doing anything that feels like churn and burn work.
Like I want to be more of, um, like almost an agency model. So one of my friends, um, she just like cold Turkey was like, boom, I'm done. And I didn't do that. Cause because I, number one, like at that time, like I was still, that was how I was making good money in my business. Number two, I slowly transitioned. So this process is sort of like, like this is going to sound gross almost, but like sloughing off. So we are sloughing off stuff over time. So let's say you start with your magazine clients and one business. Okay. Let's say you have four magazine clients and one business client. Eventually you are three magazine clients and two business clients. And then you're like, all right. I like these three magazines. I liked their rates. I like working for them. Cool. All right. Now I have three business clients.
I'm a limit. The work I do for these magazines right now I have four business clients are, I'm kind of at my max here. So like, this is how many I have for business clients. They're giving me regular work. I'm doing more content marketing packages. I'm doing more, um, like collective work over a period of time, like two months, three months instead of like a month. Um, and then you can add magazines if you want for like filler stuff. Like if you're like, oh, I really want to write for national geographic. Let me pitch them some stuff. And that can be added in, like, you can have as many magazine clients as you want because you write for them so rarely. So the deal is that you don't want to be writing a lot of stuff for magazines. Like if you have a regular column for a magazine and they pay you like 800 bucks every month, or a thousand bucks every month to write a big, long column for a magazine, go for it.
Still, still do that. But most of the time, your fee is like four to 800 bucks and you do it every three months or so. And um, then you can have as many magazine clients as you want. Cause it's like spackle. You're kind of putting it in all the bricks of your business, which are the businesses. So when you're switching, you have to start reaching out to more businesses and you have to start realizing that businesses are the beefcake okay. They are like the big juicy stuff where a lot of them are making this switch to really good content. They don't want a blog post that's like for paint colors to check out this. Yeah. Like that stuff still happens, right? Like there's still basic blog posts that get published, but that's not what we want. So when you go in there and you have a meeting with someone, you say like, what is it?
What are you doing? What are you thinking? And they're like, oh, we're thinking about doing reported articles. Like we would like you to interview, um, one of our SMEs, like our subject matter experts per month, or we'd like to you to interview two, plus find some studies and research to back this up. Um, and that's what we want to do. Like you have to get, get these projects that are like, it's not cheese pizza. It's like pizza with all the stuff dumped on it. So that's the big thing is like, you're looking for those projects. You are looking for those clients who say they, they ring all the bells. Um, it's not that they're coming in there and saying like, oh, we just need some blog posts. We know we need to create content. No, they know exactly what they're doing, why they're doing it, how they're doing it and who you need to talk to and how you're going to get it done. Right. There's a very clear set of steps. So I need some drink. Hold on.
So this is a great question. Just saying that, but the other part is that you have to start ax. You have to start changing the way you speak about your business. So in addition to being particular about clients, in addition to stringing your magazine. Oh my goodness. Can you go in your Hobbit hole? Okay. We're in our Hobbit hole. Nope. You're not in your hole. You got to back up, back up, back up Charlotte, down, down all the way. No, all the way. Good girl. Ready buddy. 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh, we're so close. All right, let's try it one more time. Ready? We'll do three dog. Good job. All right. So the other thing is that you have to start, um, changing the way you talk about your business. That means you need to update LinkedIn and you update your website so that it says like content like that.
You talk about your business in the form of packages, in the form of strategy. And this is something I need to do on my website. So don't think that this isn't like, this is something you do immediately. Uh, Charlotte, you're such a weird little Charlotte. Go to your, have a whole little fruitcake. Come here, come on. You little you'll loose. Loose bean, go sit over there. Good girl. Okay. Now wait a little bit. Um, so you have to start changing the way you talk about your business. It's not like, do you need help with blog posts? Or like, do you need help with press releases or, um, do you need help with, um, what's the other short thing? Like, like, do you need help with like a few things? I don't know. You need to say like when we work together, we work on these specific things together, like as a group, as a package, as a core.
So on my website, I need to make that shift to cause I want more content strategy projects. So that means I need to go to my website and say like, your content strategy will include these things. This is why we're doing this. This is your content marketing efforts will include these things. And I will talk about them as a clump. So then I will start attracting people who want things as a clump, rather than you saying, like blog posts and then this thing. And then that thing, um, we want to present them. And this has to do with messaging and positioning. Right? And if you guys haven't read, um, obviously awesome by April Dunford, go read that. It really helps like with messaging and positioning our projects that we can get as writers. But it's also about how you can write about your stuff. Um, a lot better.
Like it teaches you how to possess, like how to change your messaging and positioning. So you can get better clients too. So you have to start talking about things as groups, you have to start talking about things as like features that go together. Because when someone visits your website or LinkedIn, they're making the connection that like, oh, these things go together. Like content strategy goes together, content marketing packages go together. Um, or these content marketing things go together. Um, you talk about, um, your, like you don't say like, like you don't create content that says like, I'll do blog posts or case studies or white papers. Like you say, like when we do our content marketing efforts together, we use a blog post or we use a case study and break it into four blog posts so that you can then have more content plus add a white paper, which you can turn into a guide.
Right? All these things are now discussed as a group. That's really important. And the shift takes place over time. So you have to change your LinkedIn, change, your website, change how you talk to clients, change what you accept. So the turn mode, I think oftentimes is that we don't like we as writers forget that this is a shift in how we design speak about and present our business to other people, to clients. So a lot of times like this is one of the reasons why, um, I think that I don't get very many tire kickers anymore. I'm very specific on my website. And I'm very specific on LinkedIn. Although they both need to be updated. They are very clear in like what I do and how I do it. And, um, who I do it for and the types of things I'm working on. So you have to go there and build out because if you don't build it out, then they can't find you.
So the deal is that we're doing a whole bunch of things to move from turn mode, into like content marketing content strategy projects. But you have to set up your business to run that way and it will take time. So when you change your website, when you change your LinkedIn, it'll take awhile for people to kind of like get on the bus or like, you'll stop getting stuff for awhile. This will happen. You'll start sloughing off all the churn people. And then eventually you'll get, start getting waves of people that are like, yes, we need someone to do a bunch of things. Yes. We need a content strategy help. Yes, we need this stuff. Um, then it'll kind of solve itself that way, but you also have to do the active marketing. And the way that I did this too, was I changed the way I talk about myself in my marketing and to clients.
So when I get on a call with a business, I say like, yeah, I'm a freelance content, strategist and content marketing writer. I don't say I'm a freelance writer anymore. So my, um, I think my LinkedIn says that my website says that if it doesn't say on my website and you change that. But, um, the way you talk about yourself is you present yourself as a freelance content marketing writer. You present yourself as a freelance content strategist or a freelance content, strategist and content marketing writer, not just a freelance writer, because then you're giving them, you're planting the seed already that, oh, I do content strategy and I do content marketing. And a lot of times people think that if you just roll in there and say, writer, this is what I found for myself. When I rolled in there and said writer, that was when I got more one-offs that was when they were like, yeah, we just need you to write these few posts. And that's it. When I switched to saying freelance content, strategist and content marketing writer, that's when they were like, oh, there was something that happened in their noodle, like up here in their noodle, they were like, oh, like, this is bigger stuff. I have to sneeze.
Sorry I have this. I have to sneeze. And now it's like stuck. Um, so I know we've been talking about this for a while, but it's really important. This is really important. So when you make this switch, then they start getting into, in their noodle that these are packages. These are things you can do. You have the plant, the seed that you do this stuff on your first contact, because sometimes things turn out that you do some content marketing and they're like, you know what? We've just realized that we actually need strategy work. And then you can roll in there and get a strategy project. Or sometimes what ends up happening is like, you say that, Hey, I'm a freelance content strategist and content marketing writer. And they're like, oh, you know what? We do need content strategy. I thought that we needed this thing.
So when you get on the call, they're like, we saw that you did content strategy. We saw you did content marketing. Tell us about that. And then you have the chance to explain what you do in terms of groups of things. So, um, yeah, something happened in my noodle. Yeah. Um, so then you have the opportunity to explain those things. So this is really important. I think that to make the switch, especially when you want to more money and less hours, you have to present yourself as a package thing, a freelance content, strategist, and content marketing writer, a freelance content marketing writer. I think when you add those things in there, that's when people start being like, oh, well you do this thing now. Right. And it doesn't matter that, um, it's all a transition, right? So there's a couple things here too that let's know.
And then we're gonna move on. Cause I know we're a little behind today, but that's okay. Sometimes I happen. Sometimes we have to be kind to ourselves and just say, this is the best I can do today. That's what I'm doing to myself. This is the best I can do today. That's where we're at. Um, okay. So I lost my train. Um, we present ourselves with a certain title and um, yes. So plant the seed, you got to plant the seed early because you never know who's going to get back to you when, right? Like you never know what's going on. So stop accepting certain things or accept less of them. Do more marketing, be very strategic about your marketing. Only get on the phone with serious people with projects. Okay. When you talk to someone, you get an email, an inbound lead, or someone does whatever, ask them about their project, do not get on calls with people who just want to talk to you. Okay. Um, we should add this into one of my other things. So here we go. So, um, one of the things that I did that was very important and I'm glad you fader. You're basically like covering most of what I was going to cover in this thing anyways. So this is great that you asked this. I like big gold star. Um, can you go in your Hobbit hole, go in your habit hole. You have to go all the way in your Hobbit hole. Can you back up? Can you down?
Is it there you go. Good girl. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Good job. All right, Charlie. Let's show him one of your tricks. Charlie pop. Huh? Oh, you're so close. Pop. Good girl. Good girl. We're working on it guys. We're maybe we'll join the circus. Who knows? Ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. Good job, buddy. Gosh, I can't believe you're catching these. Like you're just like on fire today, bud. All right. So what was I talking about? Oh yes. Calls. Don't get on calls with people. Listen to me here. Okay. This is what I did. I created a page. I don't know if we've actually talked about this on the live stream. I have it page a hidden page, which I will not tell you the URL. Um, but I have a hidden page on my website. You can't find it on Google. It's hidden from all the places. Um, I only send it to prospects and I have a page that says like, here's my, um, here's my experience.
Here's my brand values. Um, here are, here's how I work. Here's the projects that I do. Here's what I'm good at. And I, when I give them projects, I give them big ballpark numbers. So when they look at those big ballpark numbers below that, I'm like, does that sound good? Here's my calendar book, a call. Everybody who gets that page sees general ballpark numbers. Like I'm, you know, and I don't have this on my website because I don't think having a price list on your website is a good idea. I send this as a filter because I don't want to be wasting my time on calls with people who are, um, not of the right caliber of client. Cause I'm not trying to work a thousand hours a week. I'm trying to like write like the mindset of this thing is like, I'm trying to work less than 40 hours.
I'm trying to work 20 to 30 hours or 35 hours or 15 hours of 15 would be kind of hard, but, um, 20 to 30 hours, right? I want the right caliber of clients on my calendar. Don't forget that this isn't about having a bunch of calls. And then being like, I will choose, you know, I have this page and it has ballpark pricing information, which I update and I probably should update again. But when someone gets to the calendar part, they've read all this information. They've seen the pricing. So I know that when they get on my calendar, I don't have to do any weird pricing dances. I know that they agree with or are mostly on board with what I've said for pricing. And if they aren't and they get on my calendar and then they're like, oh yeah, I saw your budget was like $5,000 for this package.
But we only have 2000. I'm like, goodbye. Have a nice day. Like, that's it. We're not a fit. It's not mean it's not bad. It's not wrong. It's just like, we're not a fit. It's the difference between like the times when, um, you know, you're like, I really want, I don't know. I really want to shop at like, at this fancy store instead of going to like target that's the difference is like, I'm not target right now. I'm like Louis Vuitton or like maybe not Louis Vuitton, but like, that's the difference, right? So if you create a little webpage and you say like, Hey, here's my brand values. Here's what I'm all about. Here's how I work. Here's what I do and who I do it for. Here's my niches here are the projects that I would like to have. You could have packages on there.
You could have content strategy includes blah, blah, blah. Um, you can say, I only do three month blogging engagements. Right? So, um, and you say like there four posts a month for three months, it costs this much. Every time someone gets that and someone like who reaches out to me when I send that to them. And then, um, they don't book anything. I'm like sweet. Now I haven't wasted my time and I haven't wasted their time. So that's really important. It's really important to start setting up these systems to limit your time spent on garbage stuff. Okay. We don't have to get on a call with everybody who comes into our inbox. What we do need to get on a call with as serious people who are moving forward. That's how you cut your hours. That's how you make more money. You get in. You are aligning yourself with who are on your same level.
Right? A lot of times as writers are like here, we're like up here and the people we're accepting as clients are down here because writers often struggle with like low self-esteem. They struggle with marketing. They worry about being salesy. They think they're not as good as they are. Um, there's a whole bunch of like hurdles and fears and scarcity and stuff that we deal with as freelance writers. But oftentimes like we, you know, we have to meet them. That means that you have to have these things set up to start, um, to squirrel out the people who you should not be on calls with. You should like filter them. Um, this is really, really important. So when you're doing this stuff, build in things that like, when you get inbound leads, there are hurdles to actually get, get things going because the hurdles prevent people who are tire-kickers, who are turning burn, who are looking for one-offs, who are not good clients from actually getting on your calendar from wasting your time with 500 emails a day from like, you know, a lot of times I get emails from writers.
They're like, how do you get people to stop brainstorming on the phone or asking for free advice? Like, don't give it to them. Like, don't, don't do that with them. Like ask about a specific project. If they don't have a specific project, say, it's been nice talking to you. Please call back. When you have a specific project, have a nice day. I hope your for bulls are healthy. Like, that's it, this is, we are not, this would be a very long time to get here. Okay. It took me a very long time to get to the point where I was like, oh goodbye. Like, it's not a mean thing. It's like a lot of times I get writers and they're like, doesn't that seem like really rude. No. Cause I'm like, oh, you know what? Um, I only worked by the project and, um, it doesn't sound like you have a clear scope right now, but I'd love to talk to you again when you do have a clear scope.
And um, I hope you have a great week. That doesn't sound mean I was just like, we're not a fit right now. Goodbye. Like, um, I think that that's really important. I think it's really important that you, you really use your time that you have, especially if you're cutting it, right, you only have 30 hours. You can't be on three 30 minute calls or two, one hour calls a week with people, farting around not being serious. You've got to connect at their level. And that means that you have to set yourself up to connect at their level. That means if you want to have a webpage with like, you know, stuff and information before they book something, um, where they, uh, so you kind of ballpark pricing. So, you know, when they get on your calendar that, um, they are, you know, on the same level, um, if you update your website and LinkedIn, you got to get on the same level, like you got to cut out the people that are like fluffing around, you got to get people that are like specific projects.
If you end up getting a bunch of like, I don't get anybody, like, that's not true. I very, very rarely get people who are like, don't have a specific project now because of all the things I've set up. So that's really, really important. Okay. I think that was it. But basically what I'm hoping you take away is that this is a phase that occurs in your business by making your own choices. This is exactly what I did. I moved from writing 99% for publications to moving to writing basically what I wrote for publications, for businesses. Um, and there's, there's very little difference. Um, hi Marie. Welcome in Maria. Can't be late. You can only join. You can only join and enjoy the fun. Um, so welcome. And Marie, this was a great question, Phaedra. So we covered a bunch of things. Um, I'm going to look back.
I know that people are popping in and saying things. So hold on. Phaedra's um, hold on. Fader says gimpy. I'm glad to help. And your input. Okay, good. Yeah, this is great. This was a great question because we covered a bunch of things I was already going to cover. So, um, Vicki says if I'm sticking to business clients and wary of magazines, are trade magazines consistent enough to be an exception to that rule? No. No. So here's the deal. What happens is sometimes you end up working for online publications or trade magazines and you end up writing an article or two for them a month, but it's like 800 bucks a month or it's 1200 bucks a month. Okay. That's nice. It is a nice chunk of change, but it's not 5k. It's not 2,500 now in 2,530 days later. Okay. It's like a very small amount.
So here's the other thing is most of my trade magazines have shrunk their freelancers recently because of all the pandemic stuff like there. Um, you know, they're getting less ads they're getting, um, they're, they're like hoarding their budget because of all the stuff from the pandemic. Like they're, they're real sensitive. Um, and I think that's fair. I think they should do that. Right. They, they want the magazine to continue, so they need to like do more stuff in house. So trade magazines. Um, it's, it's just for me, at least in my experience with trade magazines and online publications, like there are certain online publications that are technically kind of like trade focused. Um, it's just, it's not big enough. Like trade magazines are great for, uh, getting clips in your niche. They're really fun. Usually working for trade magazines is like, that's some of the most fun work I do.
Um, but the problem is, is like, it's really small. Like it's really small chunks of money instead of signing a $10,000 project where you do like four different pieces of content and you get paid, let's say they pay you like, you know, um, in milestones. So they pay you, you know, like will 10,000 is hard to split, right? So I don't know, they pay you 5,000 now. And 5,000, 30 days later, they pay you $22,000. Now or $2,000 a month up until, oh wait, no. For five months they paid $2,000 a month or there's something more regular, the trade magazine stuff. It's it is regular, but it's just so much smaller. They can't give you $5,000. They can give you $5,000 over a year, but that's not $5,000 over of like a handful of months. Like it's, it's a big gap. Hold on one second.
So this goes back to what I was saying about what Phaedra's question was about magazines. Then have to be your spackle. Okay? Your bricks are all the businesses that you write for magazines are then like filling in all the cracks. They're the fun things you like to do. Those are the things that make decent money, but they can't always pay your bills. Like you don't want to be. The thing about magazines is like, it's very churn and burn. You have to pitch ideas, you have to follow up, you have to do, um, interviews. You have to do a lot of research. You have to go to the site. Sometimes there's so much involved. It's so time consuming and it doesn't pay as well. Like most of your content marketing stuff, you sit in your house and you do it. You do some research, put it all together.
Um, but with trade magazine, like you have to do a lot, most of the time, like it, whether it's interviews or find like finding sources, it's not just doing the interviews. You have to find sources, find the right sources. Um, make sure they're the right fit, all those things. So I love trade magazines, but I think again, they gotta be your spackle. They gotta be your icing. They gotta be the icing on the cake. So, um, the, you can, you can totally write for magazines. It's just that in the context of what we're talking about, working less hours, making more money, high value clients, high paying work, it just has to be a very small bite and very small bite of your business. Um, and like I said, like the work that you do for trade magazines, the work that you do for a whole bunch of, um, different places like that, it's so close.
Like the work that I've done recently, like in the last six months, almost all of it could be in a magazine, almost all of it. It's the same. Like it's just for a different client at a different pay rate or, um, it's something that I really liked doing or, um, it's like a lot of quality research and interview. Like there's so many things that they're just like, it's so similar. Like you don't have to. I think one of the things that I really struggled with, um, I'm going to take, like, one of the things I really struggled with was, um, that I would lose all these fun things I like to write about. I would lose all these fun assignments, um, by fate Dre. I'm glad this was helpful. Yeah. If you have to get back to work, it's okay. You can finish it up later.
This one's going a little long, but we're glad that you, uh, came to hang out with us. So, um, I was worried that I would lose like a lot of the fun things I was doing for magazines, or I would lose doing interviews. I love doing interviews. Um, or I would lose like the cool things about writing for a magazine. And I did it. I just write for a business. Like, it's just, it's the same. So don't about that. All right. Let's talk about a few more things I'm going to hop off. So if you have questions, pop them in the chat. If you are watching this as like a replay, um, let me know if there's anything you found to help you cut work hours. Let me know if there's anything that you found to find more high value clients, find more high paying work, put that in the comments below I'm interested.
Um, cause we always want to have different and new tips. So let's talk about, um, the lifestyle part. And then let's talk about keeping your hours below that. So those go together. So your lifestyle piece, I'm going to put, um, I'm going to put this up as like three now. So here we go. So your lifestyle piece and you're below 40 hours a week. So you have to decide, hi, you have to decide on the kind of lifestyle you, your Julie, that you want to have. Do you want to be working a ton within your 30 hours? Do you want to like squeeze the most that you can into your 30 hours? Or if you would like to submit a complaint, press one. Well, it looks like you can't press one. Um, by staff. I'm so glad you got to hang out. I'm glad that it was a lot of food for thought. Sweet. So good stuff. Thanks for showing up. Charlotte, can you go to your, have a hole? You're kind of cramping my style. Charlotte. Charlotte, go to your, have a hole, go your, have a hole down, down now. All the way. Okay. Ready? Book 1, 2, 3 dog. Oh no, we lost it. Hold on. We got to do a little tree. Don't maintenance here.
Alright. So do you want to squeeze the most into your hours? Do you want to squeak, like have there your hours be as packed full of stuff as you can? Or do you want your hours to be more, um, more easy-breezy like the, you have to make a decision about that. So some people don't mind. There's like, I just want to work 30 hours. It's okay. If those 30 hours are like moving from task to task, to task, to task, some people are like, yeah, I want to work 30 hours, but we don't want it to be ultra complicated. And I don't want to do like huge piles of stuff. So the deal is that you have to make that. Um, yes, his, I like her makes him look young. Bose eyeliner, like his, um, his hold on. Oh, he's yawning. Yeah. His LA we called him his lion eyes.
His lion eyes. Yeah. It's just be, oh, um, it just made him look so young. You go, buddy, Charlie, you got to go to your, have a hole. If you don't, you don't stay in your mama bowl. It's hard to, it's hard to give you stuff. All right. Um, you have to decide how you want that to be. And that means that dictates what you take on. So like, if you want to work less hours, but don't want to work as much, you have to take bigger projects. So that means like one of my friends does a lot of messaging and positioning work. So she takes eczema. Like she takes, um, I think it's like one client a month or one client every other month I forget. Or maybe it's two. It's not many, but she has these big, like, you know, multiple tens of thousands of dollars projects that she does that are big messaging and positioning stuff.
Um, and the same thing with content strategy. So like if I were to do three or four content strategy projects a year, I'd be in good shape. Oh Charlotte, you just getting sassafras over there. She's jumping up and being wild. Um, so if I were to take three or four content strategy projects a year, I'd be in really good shape. Um, these are kinds of things that you have to work up to and then shift to, right? Like you have to get the clips, you have to understand how to do these big giant projects. What types of deliverables you need to send. And there's usually a bunch, um, what, how to run the workshops, um, how to do all the metrics, how to do all the tracking, how to put everything together. Um, but these things you can work less hours and make more money, but you have to kind of like get there.
So read about those things, read about how, um, you can build out a content strategy package, read about how you can build out content marketing stuff. Um, I think that that's really important. You have to decide how your life is going to run. How do you want to do things? Like, for me personally, I don't mind packing a lot of stuff in every day. Like right now I'm, it's like too much, but, um, for me, uh, I think, I don't mind like moving from task to task every day. Like I don't, I don't need like a slower like flow of things most of the time. Um, some people just like, like different things, right? So like if I was working 30 hours a week, like it wouldn't bother me. If I, if I really packed a lot into those 30 hours and I was like, try and get everything done and boom, I'm done.
And then I get the rest of the time off. Um, but you have to really decide like, where do you want to be? And you have to drive to that. Okay. So it's not just like, I'm doing content strategy now I'm charging 30 K for a content strategy package. And then like moving, moving along with your life, this is a transition. So that means you have to set it up that way yet set up your website, your LinkedIn, your marketing, all the things moving forward to go in that direction. Okay. Um, then you have to start making choices about what you do and don't do. So do you, um, this is another thing that helps you work less hours and is a lifestyle thing. Like, do you need a VA? Do you need someone to come in and help you like someone to do your marketing, someone to find prospects?
Like you teach someone how to do your marketing and they do the marketing while you do other stuff, you know, you pay them, um, per hour or a monthly retainer and you have someone do, um, emails. You have someone, you know, send contracts, like do a bunch of stuff for you to help you out. So you can work less hours and you have like, you know, extra money to pay a VA. This is something that helps a lot. It's like, there's a lot of admin things that I do in my business emails. Like I think I've talked about this a ton. Like every day I wake up to over a hundred emails. Now we're over a hundred. Um, now I wake up to a hundred emails that doesn't include all the emails that they get during the day. That's just what I wake up to.
So I cleaned my inbox as much as I can. I usually have like somewhere between five and 20 emails in my inbox at the end of the day. And then I wake up and there's like a hundred more. So that would be something a VA can help with. They can go through your emails and be like, which ones are actually important. Like I don't have to use my brain space to be like unreal, you know, like click read on all of those ones that I don't want to read. Um, they can also like, um, like I said, like create your lists, find potential clients, pill for all the articles, um, help you with research for your work. Um, not write your work, just help you with studies or research that you need. They can help you with setting up appointments. They can help you with responding to clients, like sending them stuff through dub Sato, which is I have my stuff sent through DUP Sato so that you can say like, Hey, can you go in and create a contract, do this stuff and they can send it for you.
So you don't have to do that. Um, there's so many different things that a VA could help you with to help you cut down hours, but you've got to have that extra income to pay for the VA. Um, so just think about how you kind of want to organize everything. And I know, um, like I've had a VA before, um, I have friends, one of my friends has two VA's, one does marketing and one does something else. Um, I know a bunch of people who have VAs and they can be pretty like, uh, cost efficient too. So when you're kind of making this shift, um, it really matters in how you kind of want to dice everything up, like how you want to run your day to day, how you want to S like, where do you see yourself in two to five years? What are you working on?
These are all shifts. So like the shift that I made, right, was I burned out in 2018, like the end of 2018. I burned out. And that was a big shift for my business. And that basically started like at the end of 2018, beginning of 2019. And now I'm doing more of the work. I want to write the content strategy stuff, the content marketing stuff. And I made that shift over a couple of years. Um, and I had a learn. I made a lot of mistakes, right? So like, you guys all get to benefit from me making all those mistakes. So you don't have to, but you gotta like it's okay. Let me just say this. It's okay to be aspirational in what you put on your online presence to draw in what you want. It's okay to put your website and your LinkedIn and stuff and say like, I'm, you know, like I do these things because you will, you're moving into them.
You're shifting your business. What you want to do is start putting it up as soon as you can. Right. And I need to do that. I'm totally guilty of this. Do you need to start putting it up as soon as you can so that when people get to your LinkedIn, when they get to your website, they're like, oh, condo strategy, content marketing. I get it. Content strategy, this content marketing that like, it's all making sense. Not just like, if you need a writer to do this thing, I will do it. No, you have to set it up. So you're at their level. Like you're at the same level of how they think about their projects and how they think about moving forward. Um, and the more you do that, the better leads you get, the more high paying gigs, you get, the better stuff you get, right.
You're shifting, you're making that shift. Um, the better that you can get to the lifestyle that you want, the income that you want, and that you can outsource things if you want to save time. Right? So instead of working 40 hours, you work 30 hours and your VA works 10 hours a week. Right. Um, and does all this stuff and, um, or maybe your VA gets really efficient at a bunch of things that you weren't efficient at. And they work five hours a week. Cause it took you 20 and it takes them five. So these are a bunch of things I think are really important. But when we're working less hours, you have to make a bunch of choices to get there. It's not just like you wake up. And you're like, I'm only working 20, excuse me, 20 hours this week. It doesn't work like that.
This is a business. It ebbs and flows. So if you want it to flow in a different direction, you've got to make choices to do that. You got to make decisions about how you want all these things to run. You want to, um, make decisions about how you're going to find your clients, what you will and won't accept how you will filter your clients like potential clients out, what you will talk about on calls and make sure that people have projects, how much space you have in your schedule, planning ahead, whether or not you use a VA, what kind of lifestyle and how you want your day to day to look where you want to be in two to five years, how you're going to set up your website and LinkedIn, these are all really important. So, um, I think that pretty much covers it.
I'm sure there's a lot more other things I can say, but we're like way over on time today. So, um, yeah. So any other questions you can put them in the chat and if you're watching this later on, if you're down there watching, leave me a comment and let me know what was, what was most helpful or what types of things you're going to do in the future to kind of limit your hours and make more money. I think there's a bunch of things that we can learn from other people that are like, oh yeah, I tried this and it failed, but I did this and it really worked. So drop a comment below. If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you want to learn more about HAI or any freelance writing business subscribe. Um, I will look for questions. I look back through the chat. Yeah, I think we're all good. Cool. I w I'm gonna do one more pup date while we wait to see if there's questions. Oh, do you know the word pup date now? All right. You have to go back to your, have a hole. Go back to your alcohol. Good job. Good girl. All right, buddy. You ready? 1, 2, 3 dogs. All you're so close.
Good job,
Charlotte down all the way.
Wait.
Okay. Good girl. Ready? 1, 2, 3 dog. Good job, buddy. All right. We're doing pretty well today. We're doing pretty well with, with 1, 2, 3 dog. We're doing okay on the wild bucking Bronco. That is sad. Donkey autumn. That is Charlotte. Yes. You just got those sad, sad little eyes. So sad. Little Benny Davis eyes, those big, big, big Browns, big baby Browns. All right. Andy says any welcome in. And it says so grateful that furthest many I'm just beginning, but this gives me hope and is inspiring. Yay. Good. If you're just starting out. I wish I wish someone had told me all of this. When I started out, I wish someone had told me everything that we talked about, especially Phaedra's question about making the shift. Like I wish someone had had told me. So I'm glad that this was really helpful. And yeah, like I think this is really important for planning your business and how you want everything just to work as a freelance writer.
I think it's really important to think about all this stuff as you're getting started as you're remolding your business as you're moving along. Um, so yes, Andy, I'm glad that this was helpful. Cool. All right. People, I think we're good. All right. Thank you so much for showing up. We had a whole bunch of people in here, so thank you for, for joining. Um, and, uh, yeah, it, it was fun and, um, I hope you keep joining every Friday. You can always ask questions. We have all these different topics that we go over. Um, we usually don't have as much wild stuff with the pup dates, usually like they sleep, but Charlotte's has been extra wild recently. Um, but thank you for, thank you for all, like dealing with all the wild pup stuff and for the late start. Thank you for hanging on, even though it was a late start.
Um, but yeah, so, um, I will see you next Friday, if you ever have a topic. Oh yeah. Let's talk about this. If you ever have a topic or a question that you want answered. So this live stream today was Julie's question. Um, thank you truly for submitting that. So if you have a question, I don't know if we made a link yet. Okay. You can go to Manny ellis.com/question, and we can put it up as a live stream topic. And we can talk about it like this, like we did for Julie's question. So Mandy ellis.com/question, and you can submit it in there and you can be anonymous if you feel nervous about so many, you can be anonymous. So, um, thank you for showing up and I hope you enjoyed it and I will see you next Friday. Bye.
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