STOP Writing Blog Posts if You Want to Grow Your Freelance Writing Business
High-paying projects to grow your freelance writing business will forever rid your writing schedule of the blogging blues.
Have a case of the blogging blues where you're tired of riding the blog post production bicycle? This is a crazy common plateau that many writers find themselves gliding along after a few years. The ongoing work and money are pretty good…but it gets a little bland and makes your income feel like it's stuck in a rut.
That's why this week's livestream is going over how to use your blogging blues to level up, what kinds of high-paying projects you can move into, and how to find new clients with better projects during this freelance writing business shift.
Thanks to Jennifer Schmidt for this topic :)!
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STOP Writing Blog Posts if You Want to Grow Your Freelance Writing Business
Stop riding the blog post bicycle. It is hindering your business and your freelance writing and your income It's hindering all the stuff stop riding the bicycle if you feel like you have the blogging blues. That's what we're going over today It's a really important thing that I think a lot of freelance writers struggle with Once they get past a certain point in their business.
So when we're doing these projects, and this was from Jennifer. So I want to thank Jennifer Schmidt for this idea. She sent it over. So here's the deal. A lot of times, a lot of times freelance writers get idea that we're okay, things are great. We're moving along. We're getting the money. We're have ongoing work.
We have good clients. And then it gets this burnout, kind of plateau, sticky messy feeling. This is what happens. And this is a natural kind of, I always talk about it as like a sloughing off period. Okay. There's a natural sloughing off period that comes with your business where you start minimizing blog posts and that kind of ongoing.
Bicycle type work and you move into working on things like case studies or white papers or ebooks or downloadables or content strategy or brand messaging or Messaging and positioning or you end up moving into adding graphic design or websites you basically move into these higher up Projects. Hey Jennifer Jennifer is the one who recommended this topic.
I think it's, she did a great job recommending it. Hey, Flower Power. So we're going to talk through it today, and there's really important points that, uh, I have three important points that we're going over, but this is super common, so let me just start with that. It's very common that this is a thing. Uh, there is a point where writers get to where they're like, yeah, but like i'm hindered right what you you like the money You like the work, but you're hindered because you can only write so much every month, right?
You're like this is too much and it becomes kind of rusty and dusty is how I kind of feel like it is. So The deal is when we're kind of doing this Um bland work like blog posts are great. I still write blog posts, right? But what we want to make sure we're doing is matching that to higher types of projects We're not just like keep you know riding that rusty dusty bicycle until it totally falls apart and our business has been stuck at a certain income or a Certain level or a certain project for like five to ten years.
That's No no time. So I've got a few points that I want to make sure we go over. We got the Snug. The Snug's here. She's, she's grumpy and sleeping. So we'll let her just talk about it. Oh, no. No, I said it. Oh, she's awake. Okay, you get a snack, but then maybe you can, you just like sleep for a little bit. But you look, oh my gosh, you look super white jowly today, Charlotte.
Your jowls look so fuzzy and white. You need me to high five or are you tired? Oh, can you lay down? Good girl Let's fix your blanket real quick. Good job. All right. Why don't you take a nap? We're gonna go through our stuff So let's talk about number one. Where's our number one? Get myself together today.
There we go I don't know why it always is hard for me to find numbers So the first thing that we need to kind of go over is We're using our blogging blues to level up. So our blogging blues come from This lack of understanding that there's more opportunity out there So I always kind of give this kind of diagram and I think this diagram is really helpful to understand like the progression of how kind of a freelance writing business goes so We're taking our blogging blues.
So like when we're starting we're like cool cool cool. Hold on. Let me write it out Um, and then we're like, you know, uh, there's like a big spike, and then there's this, and then we're kind of like this. So here's how it kind of works. This is a, an idea. So when we start out, we're like, Oh shit, there's no work.
Fuck. We need to get some stuff. And then we're like, oh, you know, what's ongoing work? Blog posts. Lots of people need blog posts. And I do want to make this announcement. It is not a blog. You don't write blogs. You write blog posts. Okay, your blog is the whole thing. I'm sure there's lots of people who like to call it blogs It's not blogs.
The whole thing is a blog that contains blog posts. You write blog posts Okay, so they're like sweet. There's all these blog posts that are ongoing, right? I can get a three month contract Um, at four posts a month, right? So the handwriting sucks, but the ideas are there. So always take that. So, I can get a three month, 90 day contract to see, like, is this working?
Are the blog posts good? Am I vibing with my client? And that's four posts a month, so I can make, you know, somewhere between, like, it depends. So, like, maybe, uh, like, basically 1, 000 to, let's say, like, 4, 000 plus a month. Right, so we can make a thousand to four thousand dollars a month on ongoing income.
We're like great. Can you guys see that? There we go. We're like great. That's fantastic And then what happens is you get this spike here and what ends up happening with this spike is you get a big project Okay, you get this big project and this big I don't know why it's having trouble focusing Okay, you have this big project now, this could be a long term retainer.
This could be something that's two to five years Right, it could be something where you're like sweet. I have ongoing stuff. I've been working with this place for one to five Let's say one to five. So one to five years. It could be two years It could be most projects are like the max is kind of like two years But it could I've I heard someone had a retainer for 20 years So like you never know, but usually it's one to five years and you're like sweet I either have an ongoing retainer or like you you got some sort of long term Regular ongoing work and that is either from one client or a few clients Or your big project.
So that's your first one or your big project is your next step and your next step Can basically be a case study a white paper a guide some other thing. That's not a blog post some other thing That's not this repetitive content And this is kind of the stuff that I go over with my wealth lab students and my runway students Blog posts are like the barrier, like that's the first barrier to entry.
That's the thing that we kind of get started with. That's the piece of content that's done so frequently by so many people that like, that's where we start. Then we do complex projects, right? So moving up to these higher, higher up projects, you get one of these. Right? But, what happens is you don't understand how you got that.
Right? You're just like, oh, it just happened. Right? Or, you know, like, you're like, well, my client just took a chance on me. Right? And, what ends up happening is you don't know how to get more of that. So you settle back down in here. Right? Which is like, you're blogging blues.
Okay, so this down here ends up being your blogging blues. Yeah, you get some higher up like kind of stuff and yeah It's like okay But really this is kind of your idea of like how your business goes like we start with nothing And we're like, I don't have clips or experience or you're trying to figure out how to leverage your past clips or experience Then you kind of get ongoing work.
You're like, okay, we're we get it like Then where we get this bump, like something cool happens, we get a project, something neat happens. And this is just, I'm not saying this happens to everybody, but I'm saying this is very common. Like I see this all the time, whether it's with web lab students or one on one coaching students or runway students, this idea where blog posts get real stale is very common.
So you get this, you don't really understand, you might get another one over here, but this process, like think of this as like, this could be one to like five years. And some people stay in this for 20 years. That's that's bad We don't want to do that. So I want you to kind of understand this diagram this idea of your blog post blues comes from the fact that you're kind of losing this idea of like what other Types of content are out there What other projects are there?
And you're not really leveraging this change in your experience. The change in what you know about content. Um, and then also you're not kind of using that as your bumper. So let me kind of give you another diagram to go with this. Yes, Charlie? Charlie says no more diagrams. Charlie, we need diagrams.
Without diagrams, we're going to be lost, Charlie. You're just like, more snacks. Can you catch it? Good job! Good girl! Can you give everybody a high five for all the diagrams? Yeah, good job. Alright, so, this next diagram is kind of what you want to do. So let's say you're going along with your blog posts.
Hold on a second. Let's say you're going along with your blog posts, and you're like, okay. Um, I'm kind of seeing this and this and this and this so you're going along with your blog posts, right? We have our blog posts. We'll call them BPs. We have our blog posts here We're going along but we start seeing these kind of things come along what you have to do Right is what you have to do is track.
Who is this? Who is this? Right, who is this? What type of client am I seeing changes in because there are types of clients where all they want to do is write blog posts They don't want to do other types of content How much revenue do they make right? So what niche are they in? So this is who are they right?
What is it? What is this company? Um, or who are they how much revenue do they make right? And what niche are they in? Then we're using this data from these things to like capitalize Right, so we start realizing like oh these higher up projects aren't coming from the bp clients They're actually coming from let's say the pb clients, right?
We'll just back we'll just do it the other way So they're coming from, um, the opposite, right? These different types of clients. This is a mistake in not analyzing your business. It's this change where this is like fear, scarcity, money, right? Like we start here and we're like, Oh no, I'm fearful, I'm scared there's no work, I feel there's a lot of scarcity, and I need money.
To this point where you're like, Yeah, I have money, I see there's jobs out there, I've been kind of like pumping out these articles, but like, I really want a project that lasts. You know, like a case study that might be a month or a white paper that might be three months or a content strategy project That might be a month to three months, right?
So you're getting to this place where you're looking for these things But you can't find them because you haven't done this you haven't figured out who's giving me these types of work When I had a client who wanted more blog posts and they said hey Can you try to make a guide or can you try to write this website copy?
Like what were they? What was different about them than the the regular blog post clients? You also have to kind of understand that different types of clients at different stages of their business want different things, right? So someone might just be testing the waters with content and they're like we just want to start with blog posts because we're testing the waters There might be companies where hi goob There might be companies where they are not yet ready for content because they need a plan, right?
So those would be content strategy prod projects Those would be even earlier in the process than the clients who are doing blog posts, right? They need that plan set up And then you have clients who are like kind of dabbling in a bunch of different things when you check out their website You already see they're dabbling in a bunch of different types of content.
They have a bunch of different. Um, They have a bunch of different Ways that they gain leads and sales which basically just means like they have a downloadable So someone needs to subscribe to get it or they have or and they have a blog and they have like a resources section with guides and they have Social media content that they update regularly and they have a bunch of other stuff, right?
They're moving and grooving and shaking and doing all the good stuff So we want to make sure that we're kind of understanding how these things go. This is the business analysis. This is a thing where when I was doing this, I was probably analyzing my business like every three months, like six months at the most.
But most of the time, and I know Jennifer, Jennifer is one of my students. She's one of my wealth lab students. So like, she's a really good example of this, right? So when you're doing these blog posts, sorry when you're doing these blog posts, right? What ends up happening is you're you're moving from the scarcity and the fear and creating income and money to actually having money and seeing where you can have more clients and doing that and then you're kind of like Getting to the next level you kind of have to erase a little bit of what you've learned and kind of be more Experimental you have to give yourself space to get to that next piece So that means understanding where those unique kind of projects came from, right?
So jennifer is a good example too because she is uh, she has like thousands hundreds of thousands of article views, right? So one of her clients she has like I think it was 350k article views, right? On on all of the pieces she's worked on for this client because they have like a little tracker So that's amazing, right?
But we also need to remember that there are certain clients where all they want to do is pump that out They want clicks and links and links and shares and all that stuff So we need to find clients who are doing more expansive things. Maybe they talk to a different kind of audience, right? Maybe they're not just talking to homeowners.
Maybe they're talking to people who sell products to homeowners, right? Or they sell platforms to real estate agents who then work with homeowners, right? So they're in this different phase of the process. Oh sass They're in a different phase of the process where then they create different types of content because it's a different type of audience It's not someone who's just percolating around with blog posts It's a business owner or it's a consumer who needs to see a case study of someone who used this newfangled technology To do what they want to do They need a life, real life example, right?
Or let's say I'm in science and I'm trying to go, I'm writing a lot of sciencey articles and maybe those are going into, um, different publications or they're getting published on a medical blog. Or a business blog or a hospital blog, but I want to move out to other stuff. There's other types of companies, right?
Pharmaceutical companies, biotech companies, healthcare companies that publish white papers that are read by a different audience, right? The people who are writing content for patient care is very different than the people who are writing that content for white papers for other hospitals to read or other pharmaceutical companies to read, right?
It's very different audiences, so we write totally differently. You're being sassy today. Can you go back to your hovel? Thank you. So you got to kind of think about that. It might be that instead of writing more B2C content, right, to consumers, you're writing more B2B content. It's still pretty similar.
Like it's, it's similar in how you would do the work, but the audience is looking for different takeaways than a consumer audience. So that's kind of our first piece, kind of understanding the flow of how we get to blogging blues and understanding basically Um, the leveling up project part and where we get stuck.
We get stuck in this kind of this This lack of experimentation and we also get stuck in like well, what's gonna happen next? I don't know you have to try it like you have to kind of Look at your business, analyze the data, see what's going on, right? So that's our first one and let's talk about two. So our second piece here.
Are you still waiting? You're so cute Charlie Why did you get to be so cute? You're so funny. All right, Charlie Why don't you tell everybody about how many blog posts you've written? You're like, I don't know I'm just here for snacks and cuteness. So let's talk about two. So two here is When we're doing these high paying projects, what are we moving into and what skills are we taking with us?
A lot of times people think that because they've written blog posts, they can't write anything else. That's not true. You get to take those skills with you, right? So if you stop writing blog posts right now, today, you have tons of skills that you can take with you, right? Whether those are research skills, or interview skills, or those are analysis skills.
Skills or, um, those are finding sources skills, or those are things where you ask the right questions or you're really good at taking complex information and making it easy, excuse me, easy to understand. Um, or you're someone who is really good at mixing creative and like data and making it interesting, right?
You're taking all those skills with you. So if you're moving into a case study, right, you lean on more storytelling skills. You're leaning on more interview skills. You're leaning on asking those right questions. Right. Um, same thing with a white paper. You're leaning on those interview skills those data skills those that ability to understand Why that white paper matters to this business audience?
Like why do they need to know? Right, the whole point of the white paper is like that. This thing is is, uh new it's innovative It's bringing something to the niche. It's or this company's doing something crazy. And um, so you kind of want to make sure that Um, you're really thinking about who? Um, who's reading it?
Where is it going and you want to think about that kind of like change in? Skills, right? If I'm going to infographics, maybe I already added some graphics to a blog post and I liked it, so I moved to infographics. I could pull a Canva, temple or Canva template. I can pull a template from Canva to kind of help me, um, ideate and come up with a really good, um, infographic for my client.
Uh, maybe I designed a case study, maybe I did something else. So we can add that in there. Or you worked on website copy. Let's say you've written some website copy, maybe not a whole website, but a few pages. Um, you can translate that into writing a whole website, right? There's a lot more lucrative projects that we can work into our repertoire, right?
Let's say you wrote like a newsletter. You could change that into email skills, right? You know a lot about creating that newsletter content. Now maybe we move into drip campaigns, right? There's a lot of different things that we're kind of moving into. Vicky says, be careful when defining B2B when your company is only trying to reach teeny weeny companies.
Is there B2B? Needs or budget might actually resemble b2c projects. So most of the time like what do you what do you mean like you're There's like b b2b would be in the same revenue ranges Like we still would want to be reaching out to those companies who make At least 5 to 50 million as traditional companies and at least 3 to 10 million as startups So like we would still be in the same revenue ranges like those Those other ones like they would have to have tons of people to have that amount of revenue So it wouldn't be so much that it would be about like it's b2b or b2c It would be like they have enough revenue, which means they have enough customers already coming in to then Support creating all that content.
Okay, so we want to make sure that we're thinking about that and then the next phase, right? So we're doing kind of email drip campaigns or landing pages or sales pages or general content creation We're doing copywriting or content writing, right? Copywriting is designed for sales content writing Content writing is like educational informational kind of stuff Lou, you're gonna make a lot of noise today.
Why don't you hang out and lay down? Being snuggly. Um, when we're kind of thinking about our next phase, right? So if we're getting to content strategy, brand messaging, or messaging and positioning projects. So we want to make sure that we're kind of understanding the data part. So when we're kind of moving into those projects, those are research and database.
We're not creating a strategy or a plan or like messaging and positioning or Um an identity a brand identity out of thin air. It's all based on research and data That's why by the time you're creating a content strategy deck Right? And you're telling someone like, Hey, um, this is what I think you should do with your content plan.
This is your content strategy. That's all been informed by research and data. That's the hard part. Literally all you're doing is, you know, doing, um, the deck itself is like literally putting in your findings, creating the findings, doing the research, doing the analysis. That's the hard part. We understand more content, the more we create.
So if you get stuck with a lot of blog posts, what ends up happening is that you're not moving these higher up projects. You're not learning more. You're not understanding the different complexities or intricacies or little details of each type of project. So then you're kind of being limited away from bigger projects.
That could be 10 to 30k like a content strategy brand messaging or messaging and positioning project So you want to understand that like blog posts limit you in amount of skills Like they're limiting you in like the amount of things that you're able to put in there No one's gonna read like a 5, 000 word blog post Yes, they will do it But there's also a difference between a blog post and a pillar page right and a pillar page And a sales page, right?
So there are all kinds of different forms of content that are designed to do different things So if you just stay with blog posts, right? It's really gonna limit you. I know this is like so ripped out. This is so old Um, this is uh, it's gonna limit your income. It's gonna limit your potential to move to these other projects Um, and it's really going to be something that I think changes your outlook on what's available to you as a freelance writer.
So that's number two. Woo says we need a pup date because she's starving and her silvery jowls need a snack. All right, Charlie, can you go around? Can you show everybody your thing? Can you go around? Oh, that's not around. Can you show them your belly? Can you show them your belly? Oh, good enough. Good job.
We're still working on belly. We're still working on belly because we're still kind of sensitive about that a lot of times Um what we're kind of working on is like desensitizing her because she's kind of skittish sometimes and she gets a little nervous Yeah, can you show them your belly? Can you show them your belly?
That's close. Can you show them your belly? That's pretty close. Good job. All right, let's talk about number three. Let's talk about our third thing here I should put these numbers at the top like a normal person. Let's talk about number three. If you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up.
If you want to learn more about building a hiring freelance writing business you adore, subscribe. Okay, so when we're going through this, this is kind of that process I talked to in the beginning. Like how are we actually finding these new prod, uh, these new clients with these new projects? How do we actually shift our business?
And the analysis is key if you start having people asking you to do stuff So this is why when we're like analyzing our clients. Oh, you almost just took down the whole setup charlotte um, this is why when we're analyzing our clients and this is why I have like a ton of Like uh videos and tutorials about this in the wealth lab and in runway is because this is a very specific important process of learning how to wear your new pair of glasses So not only are we analyzing or not only are we analyzing our past clients But you need to start looking at other clients like when you're sending those lois those letters of introduction Who's creating other types of content that aren't that's not blog posts, right?
What other things are on the table and the more that you can connect with clients who are creating content beyond blog posts? You increase your chances of not only being able to do those projects, but also let's say you start with blog posts and they're like, Hey, we actually need a case study. Can you just do it?
We've loved working with you. And you're like, sure. Now you have a case study sample. If you just go after people who are like continually publishing articles, did you just eat that? Oh, they're continually publishing articles or, um, they are looking like basically just for traffic for their products. Like they just want to pull in as many people as possible just to click a different button.
And they're not. Trying to do any other types of content that's limiting your possibility So as we're going through these deep loi processes, right? We're looking at a lot of different clients You need to be more particular About who you reach out to if you start realizing that your typical revenue range that you're reaching out to with your clients is like Really small they're not creating a lot of content You need to go to a bigger revenue range or you need to go to a different type of client So let's say you're looking at travel companies and they're creating a lot of blog posts, but they're not creating a lot of White papers or they're not creating a lot of case studies or drip campaigns or something start looking for places that are maybe instead of looking at a like a a travel Instead of looking at a travel Bureau, there we go like a travel bureau maybe instead of looking at that you look at a travel tech company who might be Creating that type of content.
You need to kind of experiment. You need to widen the lens, and then we need to widen the revenue, or widen into a different part of the niche. So we're kind of using that. And then, who's answering our LOIs? What types of projects are we getting? And this can be a multi phase process. So I kind of want to, like when I was doing it, it probably took me a year to like phase everything out.
That was because I didn't really understand what I know now. So when it was like, um, both, like one of my friends and I were like, We're just done with blog posts. We need to do something else. That process, understanding how to do it, It is, took me about a year to phase a lot of my blog post clients out so that I still had revenue, like I said, money coming in.
Um, and I still was able to balance everything without like deleting all my blog post clients and then just starting with new types of projects. So you kind of have to be wary of that. And this is something that, Um, I wish I knew how to do it faster than I, like I now I know how to do it faster, right? So I'm telling you so you can do it faster, right?
So it shouldn't take you a year, but it will probably be three to six months because you have to You have to phase clients out. So if you have a bunch of blog post clients They need to be replaced so that you can phase them out or you need to find a new type of client where you're like Hey, I'm getting good LOI responses.
I'm getting the projects I want I need to focus more on my LOIs on this right then you go after those clients So we, this is going to be a transition, right? Transitioning away from like a hundred percent of your work as blog posts to maybe 20 percent of your work as blog posts or 0%. That is a process unless you have a ton of money and you can just stop doing blog posts and do something else.
Fine. If you can stop blog posts right now and move to the project that you want to do. Go for it. I totally think that's a great idea but most of the time when I find that people are stuck in this like Ongoing rusty dusty bicycle of blog posts like they're just riding the same pony, right? It's mostly because they haven't phased it out.
Like they haven't learned the phase it out process They haven't learned the phasing in new clients. They haven't understood like how to actually find those good clients Um, or what they actually look like with their new pair of glasses, right? So we kind of have to make sure we're doing that shift and it should be a phase.
It should be a phase where you're doing some extras, like you're sending different LOIs. Maybe you're still sending some LOIs where you're like, Oh, I still need to make sure there's money coming in and plant those seeds. But a majority of your LOIs are being sent to new types of companies, new types of clients, new amounts of revenue.
You look at their website and they're doing a bunch of different things, right? I think all of that stuff is really important to start tracking and looking at. That's... I think, too, when we're thinking about a freelance business, it is a business. Your job is to look at financials, projects, clients, where are, excuse me, I have hiccups today, where are the trends, where are things changing, what makes sense for you, what types of clients, right?
It's not that we're like, oh, I don't want to write for a travel tech company. It's like, well, if you want to write case studies and you want to write and travel, you need to write for this type of company, right? It's just, that just. Think of it as that just so happens to be my client, right? You still write in travel, but it just so happens that your client is a travel tech client, right?
You're still getting the clips that you want. Um, you're still moving in the direction you want. That's kind of the phase we need Uh, this is something where I think too We have to kind of let go of some of the fear the fear is like there's no clients I'm never gonna be able to do it again. Like blog posts are so safe and repetitive Um that I think can be slowly assuaged by a couple things So one of the things that I started doing too late in my phasing out process was saying that my minimum project Is that three uh, three month contract so I do four blog posts a month for an initial 90 days, right?
And we've talked about this before And that kind of starts phasing out some clients so you have longer term projects already with blog posts So now we have money coming in on a regular basis It's more retainer base and we can start phasing in new projects. So like income isn't as unstable, right? So we want to make sure we start doing that like I did that too late in the process But that initial 90 day contract where you're like, yep, we do an initial 90 day contract We do four blog posts a month and we see if it's working and the way to explain that This is how I like to explain it.
The first month is like we're sorting shit out, right? We're trying to figure out how things are working. We're putting our processes in place We're understanding like who's doing what when when's it getting published? Uh, when are we doing ideas? How are we setting things up? The next month is refining that process working out all of the mistakes or all the kinks out of it And then the third month it should be running like a well oiled machine, right?
And if it's not then we either part ways Or we change something and troubleshoot and fix it. It can take a while for blog post content to work, right? it can take a while for blog posts to kind of um Get indexed with google and google's like cool. This is working and it's the whole thing But the process of working with your client should be refined in that initial 90 day period So even if they don't have immediate blog post results, which would be totally uncommon If they had immediate blog post results, that would be insane But let's say even if they don't have like crazy results or even like minimal results within the first 90 days They can still keep working with you because you have this refined process They have continual content and we know that creating this continual content For the right audience and making it quality content that actually helps them right helps them answers their pain points all that stuff That rolls over so many times in roi, right?
It makes it it brings in traffic. It helps with seo. It helps with um, Brand awareness it helps with you know, building thought leadership leads sales subscribers all the stuff. They want likes clicks shares, right? So we want to keep those things in mind So as we're going through these things, I think just you want to make sure That you have this phasing in phasing out process The first thing to do is just start start that that initial 90 day contract.
Nope. I don't just do one off blog posts Nope, I won't do just two random ones or four random ones I'm doing four blog posts a month for an initial 90 day period. Plus, we all know that they need to publish weekly content in order for that to help with SEO and traffic and actually make things work.
Right? We can't just like ad hoc it. That's just not gonna get them results or, or help. Jennifer says, When you phase someone out, do you usually recommend another writer to continue doing the blog posts to make the phasing out smoother? I, most of the time you don't need to. So like, this is an interesting thing because, A lot of times what ends up happening is, I'll give you a couple scenarios, so like, let me Let me start with your, your thing, yes, so if someone wants to keep working, like if someone's like, hey, um, we, you know, we've loved working with you, blah, blah, yes, I will recommend them if they've been a good client, if they've paid on time, um, and if I know a writer who's in that range, right, so most of the time, too, when we're moving with blog posts, like, we should get paid a lot more, And we're sloughing off these clients where we're like, yeah It's not right in alignment with like where I want to take my rates in my business So yes, I will recommend someone else and I will say like i'll offboard them and onboard the other writer And get everything set up.
So yes, I will do that But most of the time you don't need to worry about that because most of the time there's like clingers So what ends up happening is freelance writers become clingers To these clients where like if they left they'll they'll find somebody else You don't need to find anyone like a lot of times.
It's like they're You're just the consistent person right now and there will be another consistent person Um, so it really depends you I definitely think if you have a good client and they're just not the right client for you anymore And you do feel like another writer would be a great fit for them Do connect them a referral goes a long way with Helping other writers get work connecting them with the right clients and helping those clients and writers like continue the process So yes, but this is most of the time like a rare thing and a lot of times when you're doing blog posts You have a client who hasn't been doing it for like two years.
It's been like six months and you just keep getting regular blog post clients like every six months. There's places where you'll write articles and you'll be a contributor. They'll get another contributor, right? Um, but I think a lot of times when I'm phasing them out, it's more like the contract ends and I just don't renew it.
And they're just like, they're done with creating content. Like they just don't do it anymore. Or if they ask for a referral or something, I'll do it. But. Most of the time when you're phasing blog post clients out, they didn't have a big long plan to begin with. They're just like we should just create content, right?
They don't have this like thought out content strategy of how it works or how long you do it. Um, or like whatever. So every once in a while, you'll have a great client where it's ongoing work. Yes, if you have a great client, they're just not the right fit for where you want to take your business.
Recommend them to someone else. Um, but this phasing out process should be a natural thing. It's not like you're doing something wrong It's not like you're leaving your client in the lurch Um, it's not that it's bad. It's part of growing a business. You have to shed some layers to get to the next level Um, and if you're really worried about shedding layers, it's going to be really difficult to get to the next level, right?
What do you think Snork? Snork's been over here asking for snacks Snork, go back to your huddle. Snork. Snork, why are you so ridiculous? Yeah, you're just like, are you feeling snuggly today? You seem kind of soft and snuggly. Maybe we'll snug later. Yeah, maybe not. Who knows? Who knows what's gonna happen on this Friday?
Today's actually kind of a busy day. We have a lot of things planned. We have a lot of things going on today. All right. Does this all make sense? Are we all kind of on the same page here? Like, We want to use these different kind of phases of our business And there should be this natural kind of like change in how you do your blog post if you choose to kind of slough them off There are times where i've talked to writers that are just tired of doing it and they think they're just supposed to keep doing It if you're tired of blog posts and you make enough money to not do blog posts.
Don't do that Go off and do these other projects that you like send more lois like really do that big marketing blitz And send out those LOIs to those clients who are really giving you the type of work that you want There's always kind of this this is another thing too when you're moving to other types of work So if i'm moving to content strategy um, it's just kind of like This understanding of who your new best type of client is, right?
You have a best type of blogging client and a best type of case study client and a best type of content strategy client They're all kind of different because they're at different phases of their business to create different types of content So it's also understanding that Flower Power says, I feel like I struggle with the idea of shedding and let them linger.
Yeah, this is, this is oftentimes, this was one of my biggest struggles. When I was, this is why it took me like a year, it actually probably took me longer, but a year is a good estimate. This is why it took me so long because I was like, thought it was wrong and I was like, we, you know, we're leaving them in the lurch, um, and you're, and It's it's just not the case you said even when I do, uh know when I Know that it's not best for my business.
Do you have any sort of mindset tips to help with that? Yeah, I feel like one of the important things to remember flower power is like this is business We're not in like a we're not dating them, right? This isn't about There's a big difference. Okay, there's a big difference between letting a client go because that client Um, isn't a fit or it's a red light client or something like that.
There's a big difference between that and letting someone go because you're like, hey, I've grown beyond this point. Like I'm, I have grown or I am growing my business beyond this point. Right? Like why would you stay in kindergarten if you've already passed the class? Like that's nuts, right? Like why we, we go to the next grade, we go to the next thing, right?
Um, no matter if you decide not to go to college or not, you're going on to the next thing. You're going to the next job, right? So you have to kind of keep this idea in mind of like growth is good. That's what you're supposed to do We're supposed to grow right a lot of times Um when I was struggling with a fixed mindset and a good book on this is carol dweck's book called mindset dweck d w e c k um This fixed mindset is basically like, there are no changes.
We're going to do this forever. Like it should just be this way. Like, that's not how it's going to work. Your growth mindset is like, we need to keep evolving. We need to keep learning. We need to keep failing and making mistakes and learning from them. We need to keep experimenting. So we it's not that you're like your clients like when you stay with clients who aren't a fit for you Right, it's just kind of holding everything back.
There's no there's nothing wrong with saying like I've moved to the next grade Let me go help another writer get this work, right? Like what Jennifer said so like there's nothing wrong with going and helping some other writer you say like hey I'm tired of writing at 200 a blog post All my other clients are four hundred dollars a blog post.
I need to slough this client off You can go give it to someone who would love to have a two hundred dollar. Um, uh a two hundred dollar per blog post client Right, like there's a lot of things that we can do that are good. It's not just leaving them in the lurch It's like recommending someone else. It's something where They can have some others, you know situation where they can still have ongoing content But you need to grow your business to the next level, right?
You're not going to stay in kindergarten forever. That would be nuts, right? You've already completed the course. We've got it Um, it's also like this mindset of like the fear of like leaving something that you know, right? It feels more like certainty Right. So you're like, okay, I know this client's going to pay me this money.
This money's coming in. It feels really certain and that's true. And that's why I like the idea of the sloughing off is like we are maintaining our income or hopefully growing it by sloughing them off slowly while we get new clients in the new things that we want to do. Right. So those are kinds of things.
Um, if you, if you're always thinking about like, keep, you're not going to keep a client forever. Right? So another way to do it is kind of, um, do that kind of play it forward idea. If you play it forward and you've had this client for 20 years and they've paid you the same rate for 20 years. I'm not saying you've had a client for 20 years and you've done a ton of projects and they've given you huge piles of money and that you've raised your rate and they're like, sounds good, like that.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you've been getting paid 200 a blog post for 20 years, right? And I have talked to people who have been in this situation as freelance writers. Who have a client who's paid them the same rate for like 10 years and they didn't ask for a raise because they were Too afraid to let that client go that's hindering you in a lot more ways than just income in your business, right?
so we want to make sure that we're kind of thinking about the um The getting to the next phase offloading our client to help someone else if it's a bad client, obviously don't recommend them refer them but um, we you have to understand that it's this it's an it should be a natural process like Like a lizard, right?
It's like your business lizard. Your lizard sheds. That's what it needs to do. It has to molt or else it's going to suffocate inside of its old skin, right? Like it needs to do that. We need to do that too, right? Diana says, none of my clients last that long, maybe only three months, they phase themselves out.
I found that blog post clients often did that themselves, like, they would, um, they would be around for like maybe, there would be some clients who would stay around for a few years, but a lot of them would be like three to six months or something, and then they would be like, oh, we're changing gears and we're gonna go do this thing now.
It was like shiny object syndrome. Diana says mindset is huge with freelancing. Yeah, you can easily cling to bad choices out of fear. Totally. And I have done that many, many times. Like there's no, there's no shame. There's no shame in doing that. Um, it's just kind of bringing that to your awareness. It's more about being aware.
Right? It's, it's being aware of what you're doing rather than just kind of like choosing fear, right? We can be aware and then we can be like, let me make a different choice, but without the awareness that we're making that choice, then we can never actually change it, right? So you have to be aware that this is a choice.
It is a choice to remain in fear. It's a choice to be scared of the uncertainty. And there's been lots of times during my business where I've been very, very scared of the uncertainty. Yeah. But every time I catastrophize, nothing, none of those things happen. So every time I have these horrible thoughts where I'm like, everything's going to shit.
Uh, it never happens, and all these horrible things that I thought would happen didn't happen, right? So it started to build this, like, weather the storm energy, I guess? It started, not energy, but like, it gave me more of a thicker skin for uncertainty. So, like, I, I'm not so concerned anymore. Like, there are things that still, like, really ratcheted up and I do get anxious about.
But it's such a small group now. It used to be everything. It used to be everything I would get really anxious, and I would get really, um, catastrophize everything, and now it's like a small group of things that, like, I really get ratcheted up about. But the uns being able to Weather the storm of uncertainty as you try things is a really important mindset quality and it takes practice It takes practice.
Flower power says the lizard metaphor speaks to me. I'll look it up in a book and try to get myself out of kindergarten Thank you. I would am pretty sure that's how it works. Like I'm I'm not obviously I'm not I I only have this lizard Right. I have this lizard And she doesn't, she sheds hair, but she doesn't shed, you know, she's not shedding like a lizard.
But, you know, if we're shedding like a lizard, I'm pretty sure that that can, um, if they can't get out of it, I'm pretty sure it just, it's like a, a hindrance. Like, I'm pretty sure if, if they can't shed all the way, it's like a huge problem for them. Um, you know, like when people have like, when they have to like shed their eyelids or shed their third lid or something.
Um, like if they can't get it out, you know, there's all these kinds of things that happen with shedding where like, if you can't shed, then you get skin infections or you have all these problems. Um, so really think about it that way as like, I, I always talked about it as like, you're wearing a sweater that's too tight.
Like that's how I would explain it when years ago when I used to, um, talk about it, I would say like, I just feel like I'm wearing a sweater that's too tight. Like it's it's it's uncomfortable. It's squeezing me like I can't do anything So for me, it's always like this second skin It's like the second thing that's on you that you're just like, oh gosh, like why?
I gotta get this off like it you you have to be more aware that you're wearing that sweater, right? You're wearing that Um, that skin that needs to be shed rather than worrying about like I'm going to make myself suffer in this sweater That's too tight just to keep this client Like it doesn't make sense, right?
It really kind of holds you back and like I said like every time I thought something Terrible would happen in my business. It didn't The the key is to get down to your the stuff you need to do right? Yes. We have overwhelmed Yes, we anxiety or depression or fear or scarcity or whatever But at the end of the day, you got to plant the seeds.
You got to look at your analyze your business You got to figure out what's working and what's not what types of clients are creating the content you want What does that client look like go send lois to them, right? Yeah, the lizard Maybe we'll i'll keep that for later Vicky says maybe some clients have a red light reason why they do blog posts instead of higher value content Um, so it would make sense.
They only want to do it for a little while. That's true Um, there are clients who just want to pump out Tens of thousands of blog posts like that You know, even if they're paying you a good rate like they don't want to do any other types of content They just want to keep you know, putting money in that bucket, which you know is fine Um, it's not the best content strategy to just always do blog posts and no other types of content Uh, but yeah, there are something where I I think that There is a piece to our freelance writing business where your red lights change over time.
So like in the beginning, there's always some like standard, always a red light, right? There's always like there's, there's of course very standard red lights where you're like, no, but as your business changes, like there's less you're willing to put up with, so then it becomes a red light. So you're like, I don't want to do this project.
Maybe I'll charge more and then that way I'll get paid what I want. Even if I don't want to do this project, I'll get the project done and I'll get paid more. Right. There's always like these weird little things. Right. And that's not always a good example. Like sometimes there's. Little things where you're just like, oh, this is annoying for me Like this wouldn't be annoying for another writer, but it's annoying for me So, you know like that that doing that task takes me extra time.
So then it costs more money, right? there's all these little things where we're kind of going through our pricing or we're going through a project and We're like, I don't want to do that or like I'm not interested in doing this anymore or like if someone, right? It's kind of that idea where you're like, well, if someone gave me ten grand, yeah, I'll do it Like it's not like I want to do it, but I'll do it for ten grand, right?
It's kind of like that. So it's this Your red lights change over time. Like there are there are the the foundational red lights but then there's different ones where you're like You know, you're like I don't want to do blog posts anymore. I want to do this So it's not that it's like a bad thing. It's just like I don't want to do it, right kind of thing like that Yeah, flower power says lizards and sweaters are two of my favorite things Yeah, so flower power really think about that that you're wearing a sweater.
That's too tight, right? You're just like oh my gosh, it's it's hot. It's itchy. I can't move This is terrible or that you can't shed your skin, right? You're you're you have to do that This is a natural part of growth Um, or you can become the lady at the, in the Guinness Book of World Records with like the longest nails, right?
You just don't cut your toenails and, and your fingernails and you become the lady with the longest nails. I mean, that's another thing to think about, right? It's like, there's maintenance that, there is general maintenance that needs to be done on our business. Like, it's like business hygiene, right? So like, the red lights change over time, and we have business hygiene, and we need to work on our growth stuff.
So all of that stuff is really important to kind of building our business. What do you think? What would you like to say to the people, Charlotte? You wanna say anything before we hop off? Just give them a high five? Will you do a round for everybody? Come on. Will you do a round? Oh, you don't want to?
Alright. That's okay. You don't have to. I just feel like sometimes, you know, just be nice to... Do a little extra right she's like no not today. She's like I shan't I shall be laying here on my blanket and my pet bed So I hope that this has been helpful I hope that it helps you see where to make changes how to kind of look at your business um what projects to move to how to actually move there how everything kind of like flows and understand that this is the process, right?
So we need to shed our skin. We need to take off the sweater that's too tight. We need business hygiene. We need to pay attention, right, to the maintenance of our business. Really important. You're welcome, Jennifer. And Jennifer is the one who suggested the topic. So everyone should thank Jennifer for the topic.
If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you want to learn more about, um, building your high earning freelance writing business, subscribe. So we are here every Friday. Yeah, we're here every Friday At noon central time you can submit questions and ideas So this one was from Jennifer, but if you go to mandyellis.
com slash question, you can submit a question to be answered Just I'll pop them up on the screen and answer them or you can submit a topic and we can go do that If you haven't gotten my free pricing guide One of the things I talked about a bunch today was my pricing guide, right? If you haven't gotten my free pricing guide Go to mandyellis.
com slash pricing guide and it's it includes all the projects. I'm always adding stuff and updating things in there Um, it's on like virgin version Six or seven now. I think it's Six, but um, grab it. You'll also get my weekly tips and tricks email. So yeah, okay good everybody Everybody liked it. Cool.
Vicki says thank you. I feel seen good good That's the point. It's like I want to help you get to that next phase like I want to help you Understand that blog posts are just the beginning. That's just the beginning content We can get to so many other types of projects That help like build our business, increase our income, help, uh, help us work on really cool things.
So yeah, I think this is a really important topic that we needed to go over. So I will see everybody next Friday. Yes. Business hygiene. I'll see everybody next Friday at noon central time. Woo. We've got some woo noises. Um, I hope everybody has a good weekend and uh, see you later. Bye.
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