Is Freelance Writing Harder Than Your 9 to 5?
When you make the switch from 9-5 cubicle dweller to full-time freelance writer, what can you expect? Will it be more difficult or will it be easier? It depends…on your mindset.
In this week's livestream, we're talking about what makes freelance writing harder and easier than a 9-5, what's the difference between being a freelancer and 9-5 employee, what mindset shifts you need to make to become a freelance writer, and what thoughts to start thinking when you make the employee to business owner mindset shift.
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Is Freelance Writing Harder Than Your 9 to 5?
Have you ever thought about quitting your nine to five for the freelance life? Is it really harder than running and going to and dealing onewith your nine to five? That's what we're gonna talk about today. Hey Holly, welcome. So this is actually a complicated question, , that I get, uh, from time to time and I get it from people who really wanna leave their full-time.
To become a freelance writer or to wanna go freelance in general, whether it's writing, um, for clients or writing fiction or, um, writing like lots of different types of copy. Um, or becoming a ghost writer. That's something that we're talking about recently in my community. Um, and hey Margaret, and this is kind of a lot to do with your mindset.
Like there's different types of things that we need to think. When we're kind of classifying like whether it's harder or easier at a nine to five or in your freelance writing business. So we're gonna go over a few things. We've got friends here. . Let's see if we can fix this. We got our little friends over here.
There they are. Hopefully everybody stays sleepy. . Um, cuz getting them in place sometimes for the live stream is like, it's a thing. It's a whole thing. And just getting this where we're, I'm not being barked at right now is like crazy cuz we've been dealing with all the icy weather and we haven't really been going outside.
Uh, Charlotte's definitely a dog that likes to be outside a lot. . Hey Getty. Welcome.
1) What makes freelance writing harder and easier than a 9 to 5?
So first thing, number one, number thing, one thing that we're gonna talk about, uh, really what makes freelance writing potentially harder or easier than your nine to five. So there's a couple things. So the first thing is when we're thinking about freelance writing, it is your business.
Number one, you are a small business owner. You own the whole thing, and you gotta wear all the hats. Sorry. I'm like, Ooh, . You have to wear all the hats, right? So that means that you are person who gets business, right? That means you have to do marketing. That means you're running accounting. That means you're running invoicing.
That means you're actually doing. , right? You are the person who is working in the business, on the business, trying to expand the business and scale the business, right? So when you're thinking about your fiance writing sphere, it's a business. You are running a business, and that's something that's way different than a nine to five, right?
If you're into your nine to five, they're giving you assignments, right? Or there's two different places writers often come from, right? They either come from being writers in a corporate setting. This is common, but not always the case. They're writers in the corporate setting or they're marketing communications PR type people in the, in the setting.
So they're most of the time getting, uh, assignments or getting directions from somebody else in the company, or there's some type of long-term collaborative effort, right, between a lot of different people in the company. In the freelance writing business, it's like one-on-one with each of your clients, plus running all the other stuff in your business, right?
So there's definitely some things to think about in terms of like, would you like to have your own business? Would you like to run your own hours and work one on one with clients? And basically make your own assignments. So for me, , Hey Vicky. Um, we, when I thought about a freelance writing business, I really liked the idea of getting my own work.
I liked the idea of being able to pick and choose my assignments and who I worked with and what I worked on, and how I actually structured my day and my schedule. Um, I didn't wanna go to 8,000 meetings, like now I go to meetings cuz we ha, you know, we work digitally, but it's way less than what I would have to do at a nine to five.
Um, and for me, when I thought about it, I thought it, the opportunity to build a business was really exciting. Just, just being able to have a lot more freedom in my schedule. Like if I, why would you treat your duck like that? Why'd you kick him like that? How? He just like heeded his duck over there. bear.
How rude. Okay. Back to the topic. So I liked the idea of running all my own stuff and if I needed to go get a prescription or take my dogs to the vet, or if I needed to go do something in the middle of the day, I could go do that. The other thing is I know you're upset. You're upset because he's raking and you don't like it.
Cuz you're worried. I know. He just raked the whole thing. Bless you. All right. Let's see if we can figure this out. After you treated your duck like duck's taking like the walk of shame right now. Are you ready? Can you, you wanna lay down? You wanna figure it out? How you doing? You okay? Why don't you lay down buddy?
Why don't you just lay down? No, don't walk on Charlotte. Hold on. We have an emergency. Hold on. All right, buddy. You can't walk on her, but you can't lay over here. Come here buddy. , come here. This is what you want. Don't lay on her. All right buddy. Here we go.
All right. That might be a little bit better. Okay. So for me, I like the freedom in my schedule and I liked being able to pick and choose what I'm doing. And the other thing that I like is for me, I, um, over the years, so I've been a freelance writer for 10 years now. I, or I've owned a freelance writing business for 10 years.
Like I tell my students, say you own a freelance writing business, or that you own a freelance content marketing, writing business, or that you own a freelance content strategy and brand messaging business. Okay. For me over the years, my hours have changed a lot. So, um, when I first started out, a lot of times I would try to work like seven to three, which is kind of what I liked for my full-time hours because I was like, if I got outta there at three, I had nighttime to work on my freelance stuff.
Um, and now like over the years, like that kind of changed, like I would kind of for a little while worked like regular nine to five. Um, and then now it's like sometimes, like a lot of times I do my best writing at night. So like I do my best writing from like six to 10:00 PM sometimes till midnight. So like during the day I handle emails and I set things up and I go to meetings and I help my students and my freelance writer, wealth Lab students.
I go into my community in my Wealth lab community and answer questions. We have live CNAs or master. and I do all the things that need to happen during the day, during the day, and then I wor work on my client's stuff at nighttime when I feel like I've taken care of the bulk of, you know, the other tasks that I'm working on.
Now I can focus on client work at nighttime, and if I had a nine to five, I couldn't do that. Right? Like, . It just doesn't work like that. . Um, and for me, I like that I can change hours around and I can work when I feel like it's best or when I can give my best work, not just when my butt's in the chair. I think that that's kind of, um, a really nice thing about having a freelance writing business two or whatever number we're at.
I think two part of this, um, when we're thinking about freelance writing, , it's going to be harder in some aspects as the whole business owner than it is getting assignments from people within the corporate structure, right? Within like you're just handling writing and you have essentially all this time to do it.
and when you're freelance writing, you're handling multiple projects for multiple clients, um, many times on like the same timeframe. So the timeframe that you would normally get a full ti at a full-time job, like you have two weeks to get this done, you would have the same two weeks to complete like three projects or three different things for clients, whether, you know, whatever it is.
Um, but if you think about like, the things that are easier about a nine to five is like you have more structure. Like you can potentially have, not necessarily structure, but like other people are taking care of other things. Like you can just focus on writing or focus on a couple different aspects rather than everything.
Um, the nine to five is like as long as you kind of show up and do a pretty good job, like you get paid, right? Freelance writing, you might have to chase some invoices. You definitely have to set your own. Um, but with freelance writing, you can get paid a lot more. Like this is a story that I tell often, but when I started freelance writing 10 years ago, like I thought 40 K was like a big deal.
Like if you got to 50 K as a freelance writer, like you were , you were like killing it. You were doing great. And then I learned many years later, after I started freelancing, that people made six figures. Like I had no idea that was even a possibility. Like I was just like, oh man, you know, like I was living that.
Real artist starve kind of thing, which is not true. Um, and I didn't, I didn't get it. But now, like several, like several years after that, I was like, oh my gosh, you can build a six figure business. So your earning potential as a freelance writer is a lot greater than that. At a full-time job and a full-time job, you would have to keep switching jobs.
Um, you'd have to keep negotiating pay or you'd have to keep jumping around. Another thing that I think, um, goes into this, is it harder, easier factor, um, is that with freelance writing you, um, , you have to basically kind of like set your own boundaries and set your own schedule, or not schedule, but your time off and set all the things that like what you will and won't accept in the corporate world, right?
They kind of like have rules at the company that you follow, whether those rules are spoken out loud or not in your own business. You kind of have to stand up for yourself and set your own rules, and that can be hard for people. Um, I think a lot of times too that when people make the switch from full-time to freelance, they're kind of expecting someone to just tell them stuff.
So when, um, I oftentimes get notes from people being like, where are all the freelance writing jobs? Right? Where do I find freelance writing jobs? Like, you have to go make them . You have to go find them. That means you need to do your, you know, send your lois, send your letters of introduction. That means you need to find out who's accepting pitches or you need to just send.
like there's this big transition from like when you look for a full-time job, you're like, let me just look on LinkedIn or look on Indeed or Monster or whatever. Let me go around and look at these different sites or dice or whatever you use, um, to find like jobs, who's posting jobs. That's not how freelance writing works.
And that was my biggest mistake for years. I made that mistake for multiple years, like three years as my. Uh, part of being a freelance writer of like going on job listings, finding all these job ads, like that's not how it works. Like there are lots of people and I actually had, um, Catherine in my community mentioned this yesterday about how, like, this is why we follow up with warm leads because you just never know.
And we're actually, she said, um, I should pull it up. She said, um, this really great thing that she ended on, she said, hold on, let's. It's loading. Um, she said that we're not selling. So for these folks, like our clients or people that we're following up with or sending Lois to, we're rescuing them, right? A lot of times, like she said, um, that there were, she said there's a whole lot of folks out there absolutely desperate for our services.
Um, and remember that some of these folks will be eternally grateful that you. This is a big mindset shift when you're going into freelance writing, when you're moving into that. You are not like digging around on job sites, and I know there's freelance writers who have good luck with that. I get it that, but that's not the majority of us.
The majority of us have better luck and better income and better clients and better work from digging around to find the diamonds to figure out like how to find the right clients, which I have other videos for this in this channel. You can find them and I can link some of 'em. But that process is really important.
So when you're moving from full-time to freelance, you have to understand how to get clients. You have to understand like how that whole ecosystem works versus in a full-time job where you might just keep applying and like hope you get some interviews and whatever. So when we're thinking about it, , your freelance writing stuff is harder in that you're running a business, that you're responsible for everything that you have to make sure you get paid, that you have to make sure everything's done on deadline, that you are the person looking at your work, and it's between you and your client.
You don't have, like someone else in the cubicle next to you that you can run your work against. Um, freelance writing is something that is it, it's entrepreneurial and it's also something that isn't just about writing skills. . Oh, okay. All right. I see. We're just gonna rake some more. It's the phase we're in right now,
Um, but freelance writing is also, you know, easier in that you get to set your own schedule, work on what you wanna work on, set your rates at what is actually market appropriate, instead of being like, they're offering me 40 k to do this when it's actually not a 40 k. , good boy, Barry . Um, and it's also easier in the fact that it's like, for me it's way more fun.
Like I don't enjoy working on the same thing over and over and over again for years. Like, I like having multiple different clients with multiple different needs, having multiple different projects. For me, that keeps me sharp. Like when I move from client to client, I'm basically changing the dial. I'm not just like looking at something and being like, let's apply what the last client was doing to this.
No, don't step on her. No, you can't step on her. Nope. Nope. She's, she is in there. That's not a blanket. That's mini . Um, I like working on different types of projects and I like working with different people, and I find that really interesting. Like if I, this was something too that I. is an opportunity with freelance writing is that you get to try a lot of different things and you get to do a lot of different types of projects and you get to learn a lot about people and expectations and how to put certain things together, and you get to do a lot of stuff that you wouldn't do in a full-time job.
Like I ha when I had a, my full-time job, um, I did a lot of cool projects, but I didn't do the amount of projects that I've done and now I didn't, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do the amount of projects I'm doing. . Um, and I just feel like there's, there's just so many more options with freelance writing.
Yes, you have to build your own business and yes, it's hard and yes, there are gonna be times where you, where you burn out, but in my opinion, your nine to five is more, um, it's more like, , it's, it's just so slow. Like to me, the nine to five atmosphere is so much slower than how we run our freelance business.
So like, even if I have a client who's on a, a slower timeline, it doesn't matter. Cause I have other things to work on or I have other projects that I'd like to get done. Um, stop poking her. He's over there poking her in the butt and she's like, don't do that. I know, Minnie, you're being a good girl, Minnie.
Um, . But your nine to five is more I No . Oh gosh. I told her she's a good girl. She's like, I'm awake now. I want something laid out. Minnie, we're gonna get to that later. Laid out mi, you're a good girl. Yes. You, you're ridiculous. Oh, well , you guys are ridiculous. Um, so your nine to five is gonna be, at least in my experience, I know that some nine to fives are quicker pace and I know that some nine to.
um, are startups, right? And that's, I usually like working with startups cuz they move a lot quicker. They actually pay, you know, they don't have much runway, so they actually need to pay attention how they use their money and what types of content they make. Um, but when you're thinking about this, it's, it's harder and easier in different ways.
And it depends on the mindset that you have. Like, do you wanna have your own business? Do you wanna go find clients? Do you want to like, have a varied work schedule where you work on different types of, Um, that I think is really important and you're nine to five for me whenever I have someone who's moving over.
2) What's the difference between being a freelancer and 9 to 5 employee? - A day in the life of a freelance writer
So the next thing we're gonna talk about, let's talk about moving over real quick. So number two here. Number two. Let's talk about, um, our differences here. Let's talk about our, um, what's gonna be the difference. So for me, whenever someone is moving from a nine to five, right, they're moving from a nine to five environment to freelance, I always suggest trying it out first.
There are lots of times where I've met freelance writers who just jumped from their nine to five, and they're like, I'm freelance writing now. And the, and they, you know, the runway is not long. So for me, I had, you know, enough savings and I had clients, so I always recommend like, Hey, if you wanna become a freelance writer, try it first.
Send some Lois, send some pitches, do some freelance work, build some freelance clients. Then leave your nine to five. Because if you actually like freelance writing, right, then you would leave your nine to five with an already partially built business that when you have more hours, now we can actually devote like full-time income, right?
We can actually get full-time income. But there are times where people quit their nine to five and they hate freelance writing. They don't wanna look for clients, they just don't like the process. Um, they either, like they had referrals and then those referrals dried up. Um, or they just want to work with one company.
Like they, they just wanna, um, work on that company's stuff regularly. They kind of just don't wanna have multiple clients. They basically like the function of the nine to five. They like the way the nine to five functions versus running their own. So for me, I always recommend trying it, build some stuff on the side, learn about it, figure out if you actually like it, figure out if you like the work and if you like all the pieces, like setting up your website and LinkedIn and like the Lois and Pitches part of marketing.
Um, and actually working with clients and getting paid. Like figure that out before you leave your nine to five. So that's the first thing. Two, you need to have a savings like three to six months at least. Cuz even if you have clients, Even if you have clients that, um, you think are gonna stick around.
What happened to me was, um, I lost all my clients. Like when I left my nine to five, shortly thereafter we moved. So, um, I used to live in Phoenix and then now I live in Austin. So we moved shortly after I quit my nine to five and I lost all my clients . So, um, I think I had like one straggler. And, uh, then I restarted my business and I dumped all my clients like again in 2015 or the beginning of 2016.
And then I had to start all over again in 2018. So there's like a lot of different, like snakes shedding the skin kind of moments that happen. Um, but you wanna make sure you actually understand that cuz when I left I didn't understand how to get more clients. I just had clients cuz I was like using job boards and stuff and I was like, oh no, like how do I find.
If you understand the process and you have clients and like even if you lost all your clients, you know how to get more clients. So knowing that ahead of time and building your savings with that client work, right? So when I had my full-time job, I saved all the money. I saved all the money that I made from freelance, put it into savings, and that gave me a nice cushion when I left so that if everything got messed up, then I would be able to like handle it.
Finance. So always kind of have your savings, always kind of have your plan, know if you like it or not. That like try it out first, right? Then you can have some money to save, right? So you have a runway. But a lot of times it's a process. It's not just like you start freelance writing and you make bajillions of dollars like it
A lot of times when, um, You know, you read about or hear about freelance writers who just like immediately make money. It's cuz they already knew the system, right? They're like, I left my full-time job and made $6 billion . And you're like, how did you do that? And it's like they already knew the process.
Like they already knew how to do that. They already knew how to do the marketing and find clients and stuff so they could ramp it up really quickly. For me, I didn't know any of that stuff, so it took me a long time figure it out. And I made all the mistakes, and I got on all the platforms and it just, I took all the low paid work it was.
Um, but you wanna make sure you have savings and you wanna make sure you try it and that you understand the processes. Like what do I actually have to do to run this business and not even run the business just to six figures. Like you could just run the business at 30 to 40 K, like whatever, um, number.
It doesn't even have to be financial. You could say I only wanna have two clients, or I only wanna work with magazines. At least try it out. Um, cuz that can give you kind of feedback of like, okay, I like this part of freelancing and not this. How do I actually run this part of my business? Or maybe it's just that you don't like your nine to five and you need a job that's more like your freelance writing business, right?
You need more freedom to work on different projects. So that's another thing, like when you're thinking about the difference between freelancing and nine to five, it's also like understanding how a freelance business. Versus how a nine to five works and trying like actually taste, testing that, right.
Taste test the business and have savings in case everything goes to shit, which at some point it will. Like there's , what there, there's always that, and I always try to impress this upon newer freelance writers like. , it doesn't matter. If you look at someone in their business is always great. There's always something going on in the background.
Every person that you know has a story, right? They all have a story of like maybe their business makes a zillion dollars in their personal life is really difficult. Or maybe they're burnt out all the time, or maybe they've had, you know, pet problems. Like Barry has had a ton of eye issues, right? So there's always something going on.
So remember that we're only seeing a highlight reel. So you testing it on yourself removes the highlight reel so we can kind of get behind the scenes of like the nitty gritty. Do we actually like this? So that's two. Let's do a quick pup date since they're over there being mostly quiet. , uhoh, I've awoken the beast.
Hi Charles. Sometimes I call her Charles. I don't know if I like calling her Charles. It just has become a habit. You go buddy. Put boy. . All right, Charlie, you ready? Oh, good girl. How about the other one? Can you get the other one out? , can you get the other one out? The other one? Oh no, I think the other one's too tight.
And the blanky. I think the , I think you're just wrapped up too tight. Like a little cannoli in. There you go, buddy. Good boy. All right, B. Good girl. Nice and gentle. Good job guys. You guys look great today. So with all the ice storm stuff and things, luckily, knock on wood, um, we did not lose power. Like there was like 160,000 people here in Austin who lost power.
Um, all the icy trees, you know, there's a lot of, um, when you have an ice storm, right? The, we had a lot of those in Rochester, . Um, but when you have an ice storm, right, it takes down power lines. The trees break, they knock stuff over, they bang on stuff, and lucki. . Um, luckily we've had power, but these guys have been locked inside a bunch.
Oh my gosh. Why you look so cute today? Um, they've been locked inside a bunch, so luckily, like we've had power, but hopefully they'll be able to go outside more. It should be a kind of a nice day today. Let's talk about three. Oh. If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a freelance writing business, you adore, subscribe.
also pricing guide. So I haven't updated pricing guide. I updated it last year, like middle of last year. But it includes a whole bunch of new project types, like content strategy stuff, um, and projects that have been, um, recommended or asked for by other people. So go to mandis.com/pricing guide to get it.
3) What mindset you need to become a freelance writer
Okay. Back, sorry. solving dog issues. Solving our fluffs and our blanketing, and needing our duck every. Is that right? Barry . All right, let's talk about three. Let's talk about number three here. Boop, boop, boop three. Okay, so when we're thinking about, um, I'm actually gonna combine the last two cause I think it kind of makes sense together.
So when you're switching to become a freelance writer, or when you're thinking about your nine to five, right? So we also wanna make sure that we're not thinking like an employee. This is really. When you have a nine to five right? , when you have a nine to five, you are an employee. You don't get to make a lot of choices or decisions.
But when you have a freelance writing business, you're making all the decisions all the time. You're working with . Yeah. Holly, I always use that, um, emoji for Bo cuz it kind of looks like him. Um, when you're have your freelance writing business, you're making all the decisions. Sometimes you collaborate with your clients on certain decisions, but most of the time you're making all the.
So one of the things that, um, makes freelance writing more difficult is that you have to make a lot of decisions, right? And you end up sometimes getting deci decision fatigue, which is like a real thing. I didn't believe it. But then like I started getting to the end of the, my day and being like, I don't wanna make any more choices.
Like, that's what I'd tell myself. Like, I don't wanna make any more choices. And even now when I'm feeling kind of burned out or tired, I'm like, I don't wanna make any more choices. Whatever there is for dinner, like I'm gonna slap it together and, and eat it. Um, cuz it's just like you, you make so many choices during the day, you're just like in the middle of decision fatigue by the end.
So in your full-time job, You're not necessarily always taking orders, right, but you are collaborating and there all are a lot more people making choices that affect you in that business. Um, as a freelance writer, if you get on a call with someone or you talk to someone who treats you like an employee, that's usually not a good sign.
they're supposed to be a collaborator. They're supposed to like, you know, work with you in terms of like, let's talk about ideas, let's kind of go through things. , let's kind of pitch some stuff around. Let's figure out this. Like our job as a freelance writer isn't necessarily just to be like, I write content, deliver the orders.
Like that's more of a full-time mindset. It's just like, okay, I write content, or I'm the content marketing person. Like let's just get this done. Right? So, . As you kind of make these shifts and as you think about it, you don't really wanna keep the employee mindset, you wanna make sure that you have a, a business owner mindset and that you are thinking about all the different hats.
Business owner, marketing person, actual person who writes right, you actually have to do some writing, um, invoicing, admin, accounting, tax person, um, all of this stuff. There's so many different things that you have to do in your finance writing business. I always kind of think of it as like, The freedom of choice though, is better than having the employee mindset.
And the other thing here is that a lot of times people think that a full-time job is more secure than a freelance job, and it's just not statistically, like go back and look at a bunch of statistics. Like there are freelancers who have statistically done better than people who have had full-time jobs because the full-time job is at the whim of someone.
Firing you and now you have to go find another job, or they have layoffs, or there's economic uncertainty or all that other stuff, right? So as all of that's happening, a freelance writer could be like, how do I change things up? What types of different clients do I need to go after? How do I, you know, do more marketing?
Like, there's a lot more options for you to kind of move your business around. Um, and I think that's why. When you look back, like there's been people who have been freelancing, uh, since forever, but long term freelancers, like there's people who've been, um, freelancing since the seventies and have still freelanced now, like 50 years of freelancing.
And they've gone through all the ups and downs, all the things that have been difficult, right? Um, and they're still here, but there's lots of people who had full-time jobs, who switched careers, who went and did something else who maybe started a different business and. I think that a lot of times people think that having that full-time job and the paycheck is a security thing and it really isn't.
Um, it's really not. You're way more secure in a business that you can control how much you're doing every single day to get more work or to get better rates. Like there is a lot of control that you lose in a full-time job. And there's a lot of things that, um, A lot of factors in your full-time job that you don't have as a freelancer, right?
Like if I see that things are happening, like for example, like Margaret mentioned, that people are getting laid off, right? There are a lot of layoffs, but there's also a lot of hiring. Like I know that the most read things are saying that there's a lot of layoffs, but there was uh, another article that was put out that said like, hiring in November was like much, much higher than people expected.
And then I think I wanna make sure that I, um, Uh, there was another one that said, I think January, we'll have to look at January, December, but, um, a lot of articles are talking about layoffs, but there's also a ton of hiring going on. So like, there's that, but, um, when there are layoffs at full-time jobs, the, that work still needs to get done.
And that work is often by done by freelancers and con. They can't pay someone 75 grand or 40 grand or whatever it is as a full-time employee, and it's not even 40 grand or 70 grand or 200 grand. It's also benefits and 401k and health insurance and blah, blah, whatever bonuses, whatever other benefits there are.
Office equipment. It's a lot more than just salary. So when they have layoffs at companies, freelancers and contractors get a lot more work like . This is, this is way better like the lay. are unfortunate and really difficult, right? If you have a full-time job and you get laid off, I was almost laid off. I understand it's really difficult and really scary, but as a freelancer, those layoffs are like, that work still needs to be done.
Right. And most of the time, just like what I read from Catherine, my, one of my students, um, earlier in this, in this live stream, they're needing to be rescued and helped, like, not necessarily rescued, but we are coming to like, help them in a time of serious deed. And to pay us to do the work is way less.
Than paying a full-time employee. Like go look at those statistics as well. Like a full-time employee is not just salary and benefits and office equipment. Like there are so many things that go into paying a full-time employee. It's like, I forget what it was, but uh, this might be wrong, but I feel like at one point I read it's like double the cost.
So if you get paid 40 k to keep that full-time employee, it's like actually 80 K overall or something. I don't remember. We'll have to double check that. So don't fact like, fact, check me if you're watching this later. Put this in the comments, like what it actually costs. So if I go in and I quote, you know, it's gonna be $10,000 for this project, that's a quarter of what it costs a full-time person.
Right. And maybe I'm just doing it as a gap. I'm just doing it to fill in the gap between them hiring someone new while they've fired other people or let people go because they're trimming, you know, um, their organization. But at least it's like regular projects that I. . So even, um, even with all of the layoffs or the things with hiring, like there are lots of opportunities for freelancers that don't exist for full-time employees.
I hear you making noise. I see you, I see you over there being cute with your funny little ear and I love it, but I'm making it a point, so you have to hold on. Um, so when we're thinking about these like employee to business owner kind of shifts and when you're thinking. Um, what is really gonna happen, like you are in control of your whole business As a freelance writer, that is hard and also easy , right?
So you have more options available to you when things are, when you know things are all over the place. Like there. Here's multiple different examples. One, I know people who had their. Freelance years back in 2008, 2009, like they had industries, right? They worked in industries where they needed a lot of help, so they had their best years.
I also know people where like, here's a good example when in 2020 when all the stuff was going down, almost, I think all of my clients just like turned off the lights. At the same time, like all of my clients went on furlough. They stopped having projects. Like when everything happened in 2020, they just shut it off and this was months and months.
I have friends and I know other writers who are so busy the whole time. Like they, they're the, the 20 20, 20 21, 20 22 have been their best years yet there's so many different ways that your freelance writing business can go right. But it doesn't , it doesn't depend on the same factors as a full-time job.
Right? So like, I'm gonna have to make different shifts because of how my clients are reacting. But other people, like in different niches, are gonna make tons of money or they're gonna have tons of work. Right? And then the same thing, like the same thing goes back to having control over a lot of stuff in your freelance writing business.
Um, yeah, it is kind of investing, it's like investing in index funds rather than single stocks. Yes, that's right Holly. And I think there is, I just think that for me, like at the end of the day, I would always choose my freelance business. Like the minute I realized that, like that was a thing, and this is something that I, I think is kind of, um, an interesting thing.
Like I'm wearing my Virginia Tech hoodie today. Um, and I loved my time there, but, but. , I was told by everybody that I asked that freelance writing was not a thing. I don't do that. Like only write literature and don't do freelance writing. Like don't, you're never gonna make any money. I was told that so many times and like once I started freelance writing, I fell in love with it.
Like it, it just, I just love it. I love, I love the variety of projects. I love the process. I don't love chasing invoices, obviously, and I don't love sometimes when things go silent or when things are hard. , but the whole thing as a business, like it is a really exciting and interesting to me. It is a puzzle that is forever being solved, right?
Once you solve one part of the puzzle, you're like, now I've solved the basic puzzle. How do I do the intermediate puzzle and the advanced puzzle and the scaling puzzle and the this thing? And I was just like, Told so many times, like, you're not, you know, don't do that. You're never gonna make any money.
It's really difficult, like blah, blah, blah. And that was the thing where I thought that fed into my belief that 40 K or 50 K was like, you know, which is, you know, hard to get by on in like a lot of cities, right? , um, was like gold standard, right? It, it's just these things where like people, sometimes for me, like freelance writing was the thing.
Like, and that's another reason why I built my course, right? It's why I have like students, I have freelance writer, wealth lab students. We have our community, our master classes, our q and a, like all that stuff. I love doing that, right? And I wouldn't have done any of that if I hadn't tried freelance writing and if I hadn't kind of figured.
And to me, that full-time job, just like, it just felt so limiting. Like if you're in your full-time job and you're thinking about the harder versus easier, it's also personality based. So I'm telling you these stories because these things are personality based. Like for me, the full-time job was never a thing.
Like I remember, um, I called my dad at one point, uh, I think like a year or so, maybe six months or so into my. into my full-time job and I was like, this is not my future. Like, this is not, I'm not sup. This is not it. This is not where I'm supposed to be. And, uh, like this is not right. And I just, you know, when I found out I might lose my job, that's when I, um, was basically jolted into trying freelancing and, uh, it changed my life.
Like it was something I always wanted to do, but actually being, you know, getting the push to do it made all. But when you're thinking about your personality, like do you like the nine to five environment? Is that something that works for you? Is that the type of stuff that you like to work on? Or do you like freelance writing in terms of being able to have different projects or running things or having more control over your finances and income and um, what you, what you do and how your schedule works.
And there are lots of nine to fives that have flexible schedules, right? There's lots of nine to fives that let people work from home. And there's lots of nine to fives, um, that are really. But I think it also depends on like how you actually want your life to run and what you actually like in terms of personality too.
Yes. Would you like to make a complaint too? Would you like to say something about it being a freelance? What are you? You're a freelance squirrel hunter. That's what you are. Charlotte. You're a freelance squirrel hunter. Bo, you're a freelance bit finder. You like to find bits of things all over the, all over the house.
You like to find little treats or little, like someone dropped like a minuscule piece of bread by accident and you just go over there and you find it right? Good girl. Can you do the other one? Can you do that one? Good job. Good job. All right. Ready? Barry. You see it? Good job. You need me? High five. Good girl.
Good girl. You guys look super cute today. Yes. You guys look super cute. I like your flaps. You have super cute flaps. . Okay, so, um, if you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up if you feel like you wanna learn more about, um, building a, ugh. building a, um, freelance writing business. You adore or building a six figure business?
Subscribe. I think the button's actually like over there or over here. I don't know. There's subscribe like little cube somewhere. I'm not very good with like spatial things. . Um, but last things I'm gonna say here. Oh, hello. Would you like to say something as a freelance squirrel hunter? No. So last thing I'm gonna say here is that freelance writing can be easier or harder than your nine to five.
That depends on your personality, your mindset, how you're setting yourself up for success. Did you actually try freelance writing before you jumped into the nine to five, or did you like put yourself in the pressure cooker and be like, it has to work? Um, There's a lot of different factors here, but I hope that this has been helpful in distinguishing like how you would run a freelance writing business versus how your nine to five typically is.
Right. Um, or at least stories from my experiences, right? Like there's a lot of things that we can control and a lot of things that we can't control, and there's a lot of stuff that as a freelance writer, we get to control a lot more than someone who is in a nine to five, right? That's really important.
And yes, Margaret, there's definitely a lot of learning, like when you. Hello. Go back to your hava hole. No, go back to your hava hole. I know you wanna like high five my leg. Go back to your hava hole. Go back to your hava hole. Go back to your hava hole. Leave goof. Go back to your hava hole. Thank you. No, all the way back to your hava hole.
Thank you. So the other, um, yes. When you start a freelance writing business, there is a lot. There is a lot that you have to learn, but it is a business and you have to take it serious. Just the same way as like the, the general statistic is like if you start a new full-time job, it takes you six months to get used to and understand that full-time job and actually, you know, execute at that job.
This is the same way. You need time to actually learn and understand all these, oh my gosh. Gross. You . You just sneezed all over my foot. Gross. Ew. Ugh. Oh my gosh. I try to put a lot of squirrel, uh, stories in here cuz I think the stories are really good examples. I think the stories help with understanding how, how freelance writing works over the decades and how it's different over time.
From nine to fives, like I feel. that there, um, there was, um, a bunch of stuff happening, right? With nine to fives where um, people are working four hour or four, four hour, four day work weeks, right? There's a lot of shifts going on where people are now working, um, four day work weeks. They're working 32 hours.
So maybe that's something that, you know, hey, go buddy, that works better for you, or it's something that makes more sense. . Good girl. Good job. . Um, but you can also do that with freelance writing, right? You can also work. There's plenty of people that I know, um, out there that work part-time hours and make more money than I do
So, um, it all depends. It all depends. But I hope that this was kind of like a good. Like a good overview of, is it harder, easier? What would be harder, what would be easier in freelance writing versus your nine to five, how you would kind of go about getting started or getting your, your move going on from full-time to freelancing.
And the number one thing I can recommend is they're like, the two things have savings. If you leave your full-time job, have savings, like you need a, a safety net. And I know there. Stories I've heard them where people are like, I had $0 in savings and I made six figures my first year as a freelance writer.
That's great, but that gives me so much anxiety. I'll probably die before that. , before that happens, I'll have a heart attack and I'll die. So like, have savings, have some kind of safety net that you can rely on and try it. Like, I wouldn't go off and like just decide to build a random business without being interested in it, or trying it, or working for a few clients, or, you know, writing for some magazines or understanding some of the processes.
Because if you leave a full-time job and you start freelancing and you hate it, now you've already hated your nine to five, now you hate freelancing. Now what are you gonna do? . Like there's a lot of things that we can learn from like trying it out. And you may not even give freelance writing enough of a chance.
You may not give it enough of a runway to actually work for you. And as someone who has made all the mistakes, like I have started over multiple times in my business, I've , I've done the dumbest stuff, I've had to fire all my clients because like, it just was a disaster. Like I've made all the mistakes.
Like it doesn't mean that freelance writing isn't for you, it's that you have to find your own path and you have to give yourself time to do. All right, so I hope that this was helpful. Woo. Go back to your woo woo palace. Go back to your Woo palace. Go back to your hava hole. Yeah, I know. You wanna put your leg on my leg?
Go back to your haba hole all the way. Good girl. All right. Ready? Barry? Close. Close, buddy. Close. All right, Minnie, you gonna show everyone your high fives? Good job. Other one? Nope. You gotta do the other one. Good job. Alright. All right, so we're here every Friday. I do a live stream every Friday, well, pretty much every Friday.
It doesn't matter, like there's holidays, right? , but, um, I'm here every Friday at noon Central time. You can always, um, submit questions ahead of time. You can go to um, mandy.com/question, and if there's a topic like this one that has been recommended or something that you wanna ask about, you can always put it in at mandyellis.com/question.
Question: How can I negotiate higher freelance writing rates with current clients?
We actually have two questions today, so I'm gonna go over those real. Um, they're both from Jen. So Jen says, I started working with a marketing communications team. They're offering me slightly below the lower end of what you suggest in your guide. So that was the free pricing guide that I linked to before.
If you go to mandy ellis.com/pricing guide, you could still get it. It's free. Um, for content marketing, strategy consulting, how can I negotiate a higher rate? So this is a great question and it's a question that I get all the. So the deal is that there's a whole bunch of things that we can do, and I'm gonna give you guys the highlight real version, um, because I wrote it down too.
So basically, when we're negotiating at higher rate, the number one thing is you have to be ready to walk away. If you go in and you say like, I want more money for the thing that we're already. Right. Um, you're welcome, Vicky. I'm glad that you're here. It's, it's nice to like come and hang out together every week,
Um, it's, I don't know. I always like it cuz it's fun cuz we can talk to each other and it's all like, live. So like, I can answer stuff on the fly or we can chit chat or put in little emojis. I always like that. , um, as you're going through your negotiations, number one, you have to be ready to walk away because if you go in there and you ask for a bigger number or ask for them to do something or increase the rate, they can just say no.
And you have to deal with that. Right? You can't just be like, oh, just kidding, I'm leaving now. Like, no, I, it was fine. I'm doing a fake rate raise, like that's not gonna work. Oh, come on. Email. Are you dying? Hold on, let me pull it up cause I have it written down. So your first thing is be ready to walk away.
Two. Oh, okay. I guess we're just upset today. Um, yeah, search for that. Um, number two is, I always have a question, right? So instead of going in there and saying like, you're paying me x I would like to be paid X, you know, whatever. You can always say, um, Hey, do you have any wiggle room in your hold on. Um, Do you have any wiggle room in your budget to increase the rate?
So what you would go in and do is that you'd say like, do you have any, like, here's all the stuff that we've done together, right? Here's, um, the results we've gotten, the amount of content we've done, like shares, whatever, any types of results that you can share, right? We wanna make sure we give that. Then we say, Hey, um, since we've been working together x amount of time and we've done all this amazing stuff and gotten results, or you've gotten really good roi, do you have any wiggle room in your budget to up the rate?
Right? So that's the, the first thing is we're ready to walk away. Two, we're asking the wiggle room questions so that we can put the ball in their court and say like, Hey, I've actually gotten new results. Good things have happened. Can we increase the rate? And that gives them a chance to either increase the rate or it gives them a chance to kind of.
If they say no, you're like, okay. Totally understand. It's not like if you went in there and said like, Hey, I want X number, and if they say no, then you have to walk. Right? So if you're asking about the wiggle room, right, you're now going into. , um, you're now going into this like nice kind of like negotiation by just asking, like, you didn't give them a number.
They could say like, yeah, you know what? You have gotten a lot of results. Great things have happened. We're willing to give you x amount of dollars extra, and you get to decide now whether or not that works for you. Right. So then if that, like let's say you didn't wanna do that. Let's say you didn't wanna do the wiggle room question, or you just were like, Hey, I've worked with this client long enough, I've gotten them results.
Or I've created enough content where I know that we have this old rate, right? You can go in for like a legit rate raise, but the difference is if you go in for like a rate raise where you say, Hey, we're working at this amount and I wanna go to this amount, you have to walk away. If they say, because it seems like a fake rate raise.
If you just go in there and say like, my new rates are this, or I think we should be working at this number, or whatever, and they say, no, you can't just be like, just kidding. Like, I don't really want that number. You have to stand in your integrity. Like if you, if you just like flop on that, then now you've lost a lot of like collaborative kind of energy or power within your relationship with them.
Like they won't believe you. That kind of flows back on how you run your business, right? And then they're like, well if they're, you know, flopping on this, could we work with someone who does better content? Cuz they're flopping on this, are they flopping on content? Right? There's a lot of different stuff.
Hai w Hii w um, . So that's our third thing, is like you can go in for a rate raise and you say like, Hey, I've gotten you these results. Uh, my rate's going into 2023, are my rates going into this coming period of time? Or since we've done this much work together, I feel like uh, this rate is more appropriate.
um, then , you know, you get, get a yes or no. That's why I like asking the wiggle room question instead of going in for a straight rate raise. Your rate raise is good for like annual or biannual rate raises. Like when you actually wanna kind of like move on or pull clients up to all the, you know, they're all on similar rates.
Um, your wiggle room one is like, for this question I'm working with someone, the rates don't really match up. How do I kind of negotiate or talk about a rate raise while we're in the project? The next thing is that, um, we wanna make sure, um, what else do I have in my notes here? Um, yeah, so it's the last thing I'm gonna say here is that anytime you're negotiating higher rates, like it's really, it's, it's always good to have them pick a number first.
So like, they might pick a number higher than what you think, which is. Um, or it might be something where they're kind of like open to discussion and then you can have a discussion with them about the rate that you think makes sense. But it's not something that's such a hard line in the sand of like, this is the rate, here we go.
Um, but. , anytime you go into a rate raise or any, anytime that you're asking for more money from a current client, you gotta show them that you've done something like whether that you've been delivering on deadline and, and giving them client, uh, content for a long, long time. You have results that you can pull from, or r roi, right, or you have something concrete to show them about the success of the projects that you've been working on. That really helps with the rate raise and negotiating.
Question: How do you know if you got a freelance writing client good results or ROI? How can you then use this feedback to increase your rates?
Two, and this is a related question from Jen. How do you know if you got a client good results or turned them a good roi? So how do you use their feedback to encourage them to pay you more? So this is another really good question, right? Um, oops. Um, so this is another one.
Um, what we're doing here with ROI and what we're doing here with results are a couple different. So one, your client can give you access to, um, Google Analytics. Good job. Your client can give you backend access to Google Analytics or HubSpot or whatever they use. Or s e m, rush or Uber suggests. I like Uber suggests.
But, um, they can give you backend access to like how things are actually working, right. So they can show you like, here's the traffic. , thank you for the lick. You're so. Um, they can give you backend access so you can track all the stuff. You can see the increased web traffic since that you've been working together.
You can see certain blog posts are performing better than others, and those are the ones you created. You can ask them for, like, HubSpot would show like how many people signed up for the freebie or the download. Um, you can use Uber suggests. If they don't give you backend access, so let's say your clients don't give you backend access, which is common.
There are lots of times where that is managed by the person who's assigning you work, right? You work with a content marketing manager. It's their job to look at Google Analytics and look how at how things are pre performing. So it's very common that they won't give you backend access, but you can use Uber suggests.
To go in and put in your content. How many likes and shares did it get? How much traffic is it getting? How much traffic were they getting before on their website? Um, you can't really see downloads, um, on there because the downloads would be like on a different platform. You wouldn't be able to see like that kind of backend stuff, but you would be able, I see you.
Woo. I hear you. I hear you. You wanna be all wooh. Everywhere. So you can use other tools to show them that. And the other thing too is like, you can ask them, you can just straight up say like, Hey, how, how have we been doing? Like, have you gotten more sales? Have you gotten more leads? Like, what are some kind of like, do you have any concrete numbers to share?
So one, you get backend access and you can actually see the stuff yourself, right? Number one, you have backend access, which is not common. I only have gotten that maybe like once or twice maybe. Um, so it's not super common. But what is common is you can ask them for results and they would say, yes, here's what, what's been going on.
Here's how things have been turning out. Um, and they can show you like little reports or they can say like, Hey, we just wanted to let you know that. , you know, our, we have like a 40% higher, uh, download rate since we added your freebie. Or we've, we've added 20% more subscribers since this this happened. Um, worst case scenario, go into Uber, suggest and look at web traffic.
Look at how your content is performing on their website. Um, and you can use that to say like, here's some results and here's roi. Like, I know that you're getting more traffic, which would lead to more sales and would lead to more leads just in general. Um, and then you can use those as anchor points to talk about raising your rates.
So, um, anytime that you're kind of going through rate raises or when you're looking for results or you're looking for roi, like you can have a discussion with them about it. Like, you can say like, do you have anything? But remember, a lot of times with your content, it can take like three months to a year.
It can take six months to a year or three months to a year to see something. So if you work with a client for four months, you may not even ever hear about it, right? You may not ever hear about how well it did, or that it's the number one download or whatever. So you can always check back in with your clients if you so choose.
to hear about. Here you go, buddy. To hear about any changes or any updates or like how things have been going or how it's been performing. Um, and that would help you get results that you then could use with other clients. Or you could put 'em on your website and say, Hey, I've gotten other clients these results, like, you know, work with me.
And we can try to get those as well. But a lot of times, like we, we can get results, um, from other, other methods now downloadables or things that aren't like email based or. like, um, those are a little bit tougher cause those are run by them. But if your client has a YouTube channel or a webinar, um, series or any place where you can see publicly available information, that's really great for you to pull, uh, results and roi.
And then the other thing is, um, looking for likes and shares. You can do that on Uber suggest and you can look at web traffic on Uber suggest. So that should help. Um, but anytime you're looking for numbers, there are lots of tools that'll like poll numbers and information. And worst case, just ask , just ask them like, Hey, how's it going?
Um, even if you follow up with them later on and say like, how have things been turning out? Then you would have more results to share. But like I said, for us as content marketing writers, Um, or, you know, freelance writers, oftentimes we don't get backend access to all of that stuff because our, like our client is doing it.
But you can always ask them the question and then you can use that to get better rates. Okay, so I hope that that was helpful. Um, that's like my quick hits answer, but, um, we're, so we're here every Friday at noon central time. We've got some Woo friends. Hi, woo. Friends. I don't know if you guys can hear her down here making like woo woo grunty noises.
Hi. Hi W . Um, we're here at noon central time. You can always submit a question. Just go to mandy ellis.com/question. Where did that go? There it is. Um, just like Jen's questions, you can go there, you can submit questions, you can submit topics, and we can go through them a lot on the live stream. So I hope this is was help.
I hope that this was helpful. Oh my. Go back to your hava hole. You sass go back to your hava hole. Nope, nope. Go back to your hava hole. Nope, Nope. You gotta be in your hava hole. We've been through. I'll see you guys next Friday. I hope everybody has a weekend. Hope everybody has power and heat, . Um, and I will see you guys later on. Bye.
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