The Right Mindset to Find High-Quality, High-Paying Freelance Writing Clients
Thanks to Jennifer Schmidt for suggesting this topic! Are you still trying to get rid of the stench of writer desperation so you'll finally meet the right clients? Ever wonder why you don't see TV ads for Ferrari and Michelin-starred restaurants? Want clients who don't blink when you quote project fees?
The ideas buried in these questions all come down to having a specific mindset when it comes to gathering high-quality, high-paying clients. In this week's livestream, we'll go over how to remove desperation, how to align with the same mindset that high-quality/high-paying clients have, why high-end brands aren't advertising everywhere, and how to shift your mindset when you're scaling your biz.
________
The Right Mindset to Find High-Quality, High-Paying Freelance Writing Clients
Have you ever wondered why you haven't seen an ad, like a magazine ad, or maybe a TV ad for a Michelin Starred restaurant, but you're always seeing ads for Taco Bell or for like the Olive Gardens never ending possible or whatever. Um, or have you thought about why you're always seeing Honda commercials instead of commercials for like Phantoms or Ferrari?
So that's what our topic is focusing on today, because that matters to high quality freelance writing clients, and I think this is a concept. That is really a weird one that I didn't understand for a long time when I was coming up as a freelance writer, and I'm really glad that Jennifer recommended this topic.
And I talked about this with my core students. So my core students and I were having this conversation, um, in the freelance writer Wealth Lab about like, what do high quality clients, Hi Tommy. Hi Marie. What do high quality clients like? What are they attracted to? Yay. Hi Vicky. I love the wave. Uh, what are they attracted to and how do you understand them and like what level are they at and like, how are you communicating with them?
And this is like a big connection point that a lot of freelance writers miss. So we're gonna go over it today and I think that's really important. Also, before we go on, um, quick Bo update. Bo is doing well, so thank you for everybody. Hey Holly, thank you for everybody for sending the kind words. Bo is doing well.
He is running around the house like a wild. Um, so he's doing way better than expected. Um, and he is, um, I'm not, I don't have him on the live stream today. I just have mini, Oh, hold on one second. Did it work? Hold on. Let's see if it worked this time. There it goes. So I just have many, just many over there sleeping.
See if I can hold on.
Let's see if I can figure, figure this out like a regular person. There we go. Yeh, there she is. . So, um, yeah, so we, we just have just the snor, just the snorkel in here and, um, he's doing great. I just didn't wanna have him on here because he, um, he has to have the cone and he's pretty. I don't know if you guys have dogs that use cones as a weapon, but, um, even though Bo is 16, he uses the cone as a weapon.
So we are gonna end up with bruises on our legs. And he tried to like, already , he already tried to break in this room with the cone. Like he tried, he uses it as like a wedge and like a, like a, he hits stuff with it. He just like, yeah, Barry . I just, I hear him out there. Um, so yeah, he's just like a wild animal, but he's doing great.
And, um, he looks really good. Like the surgery, removing the mass, like his eye looks really great. Um, thank you Holly. I did go a little fall today, you know, a little like fallish. Um, but . Yeah. Uh, let's see. So let's talk about this. Yeah. She's got there right now. We can't see any mermaid legs. We just see like her little things.
And luckily for all of. She's snoozing, so there won't be any bork noises. Ah, I have like wet hair in my thing. Okay. Let's talk about our topic. Um, yeah. Hockey pa. Yeah, like. . Okay. I guess Barry's doing his own thing out there. Anyways, let's talk about number one, . Let's talk about number one. So the first thing we're gonna talk about is we're gonna get rid of this idea of desperation.
1) How to remove the smell of desperation
So this is, this goes along with high quality clients, and this is something that I talk to my students about, is like one of the things that is like a pet peeve of mine. I see this a lot on LinkedIn is people and freelance writers posting about that they need clients, right? They're like, Hey, miraculously, my schedule has opened up and I have room for three more clients, or like, Let me know if I can help you with these things.
Like they're not using that post in any way to try to attract the right clients, right? And high quality clients are not scrolling LinkedIn looking for a post being like, Oh, thank God. Someone just says they need. Right. That's just not how they operate. And a lot of times those posts end up garnering work that's like 500 bucks or 400 bucks, like really small jobs.
And, um, , thanks Marie. Um, and I just feel like that is very desperation smelling. Like when you're like, Oh, I have room for two clients. Like everyone's like, What, like what's going on? Like all the high quality freelance writers that I know, all the six figure ones or even ones that are killing it at like 50, 60 40 K, where they're really happy at the income they're bringing in.
That's like their goal. Like they're not posting on LinkedIn being like, Hey, I have room in my schedule. You should be on it. Like that's not a thing. That's Taco Bell, right? That's Taco Bell where you're trying to like do more ads to increase, um, like orders for your new Chalupa Crunch, Grande Pizza, spectacular drink combo, blah, blah, blah.
Right? That's the smell of desperation. We don't wanna get like anywhere near that. So what we're doing, I. This is how we get rid of the smell, is we are going from posting things like that to posting things like, Hey, I got a new client. Like, and tagging your actual client. So when you have a post, you write a post tagging your client, and you talk about what you're gonna do.
The types of projects, right? How you're gonna help them and the goals of the project. Then as you're working on the project, you actually post things that are getting published, right? Hey, while working with blah, blah, blah client, we, we know, we, um, I interviewed a bunch of experts and then tagged them for this amazing case study where we talked about these things, blah, blah, blah, right?
Those kind of posts actually get your ideal clients cuz they show that you're working with clients who are like, And it shows that you're actually doing work and it shows that your work is amazing and that you know how to like put all the glory basically back on your client and like the cool things that they're doing, rather than being like, Please, for the love of God, hire me.
Like, you just, you don't wanna be doing that. And I find that this desperation smell it, it goes through like email too, right? So like if you're emailing a bunch, um, and being like, Please hire me, like I have room, I can do anything. Like, I'll negotiate down on price. Like, all that does is ends up getting you clients that are just not a fit for you.
Like it's, it's just not the thing. And high quality clients aren't doing that. The thing to understand is that your high quality, high paying. are paying you the big bucks because you are the right writer for them. They are looking for the right writer for their brand, for their audience. They are not looking for the Taco Bell drive-through at midnight when you're really, really tired and you're just like, I don't wanna cook anything.
That's not it. So when you're moving, like you're moving away from this desperation smell, it's more about focusing on what would the high quality clients care about? They care. Bo's out there with this stupid cone. They care about, um, you creating work. Like the work they want. They care about you working for similar clients.
They care about you doing high quality work, and they care about the goals of that content, right? Cuz maybe they have similar content goals. We're trying to change our viewpoint and our mindset to be what do those high quality clients. , they're looking for caviar content, right? They're not, they're not getting, they're not like late night ordering food on DoorDash or whatever, GrubHub or whatever.
So, When you're thinking about this stuff, you have to remember to slant all of the good stuff back on whoever you interviewed or your client or the goals or the type of content or the things you accomplished. That's what they're looking for is like actual results. Did you get that thing published? Did you interview people like, Like the people we would interview?
Did you work with a client who's like us? Did you actually do something that's high quality? That's what they care about, and then you're updating your website and you're updating things all the time. Match the kinds of topics or the types of content or the ways that they talk about their content. Those are really important.
Yeah. C content. So when we're kind of thinking about that stuff, we're not emailing a thousand people. We're not doing all this stuff like we are sending Lois. This is different than sending Lois. I just hear him like banging the cone on either there's a hallway outside the door and I hear him bang, both banging the cone around.
He also has, we bought him a bunch of, um, tennis balls. I told, I told my students this, like he's a high quality dog. He like only likes the Wilson tennis balls and like a specific kind of ball with a specific kind of fuzz . So we bought him a bunch of balls and some of them are up here, so he's like chasing those around too.
Um, in any case, when we're moving away from this, Your focus should be to. Highlight what you're going to do to help other clients, right? Like, so this is how you're helping this client, right? And that would be how you would help other clients and that would attract the right ones, right? And you want clients who are looking for the right writer, not just any writer.
And that's a big mistake when people put out posts saying like, I have open space in my schedule. Ow. Or, um, I have room for this, or, Like that is, that is not someone looking for the right writer. Like that's, that's a total to me misunderstanding of like how high quality clients come about. So, When you're kind of going through things.
Um, really think about another example too is um, when you see, like I've seen a lot of six figure writers put up a post that says, Hey, my schedule is full. Um, thank you so much for contacting me. Um, if you're looking for another writer, if you need a referral, I have a ton of other writers that I'm happy to refer.
You know, send me a. So they've gotten enough messages to put out a note saying like, I can give you a referral. Right? That's a way stronger place to come from than being like, I have schedules place. Please give me work. Right? So remember those kinds of two different posts. I think those are really important.
So that's number one. Number two, I have to cough.
2) How to align with the same mindset that high-quality, high-paying clients have
Number two, here's what we're talking about. We want to align with these clients, right? So our mindset. Is Michelin star restaurant and Ferrari and Phantoms and Lamborghini and fancy things. Right? Um, this is something that I think is really important to understand in terms of like what high quality clients are doing and using other brands to explain that.
So if I'm looking at the ads in Ka Nas traveler, those are a lot different than the ads that are in Cosmo. Right? And if I look at the ads that are in travel and leisure, those are a lot different than the ads in afar. Or, um, if I'm looking at the ads that are in like, Uh, Food and wine or Bon Appit, I, those are way different from like home and garden or um, garden and gun or all these different things.
You need to think about the differences of these ads, and those are a bunch of high quality magazines. So even amongst high quality magazines, those ads are different. But there's a big reason why you don't see like Michelin starred restaurants having all of these ads, right? They get articles written about them, right?
That's kind of like an ad, but that's a way different way to get patrons than putting out a TV ad like Olive Garden, right? They're doing that because they're attracting a certain client. Their client isn't the like reading. that stuff, they're reading the articles, they're not like looking at the ads, right?
So if I have an article in Bon Appe Tea, or I have like, I am the best new chef in food and wine, right? That's gonna garner me a lot more patrons than like me putting out an ad, right? And the same thing with cars. Like cars are a great example because there's lots of ads for Hondas, right? Lots of people drive Hondas or like lots of people.
Um, you know, your regular like VWs or any type of generic car, right? Nissan, but only during the holidays do you get the commercial for the December to remember Mercedes-Benz, blah, blah, blah. Right? Like it's a sale. So they're normally not advertising Mercedes-Benz that much, right? But then you start getting all the TV ads for like, We have a lot of coupons.
Come get our thing. So then they know their audience is there. Right? But you don't see ads for Ferrari cuz their audience isn't watching tv. Their audience isn't like doing that. They might have Netflix or something, but they're not watching commercials. Right. Their audience is found in a bunch of different other places.
So if I'm gonna do Ferrari, I'm gonna either sponsor something or I'm gonna be part of a different campaign. Um, I wouldn't be just doing kind of like repetitive, kind of like ads, right? So you kind of have to think about your type of attracting clients and the mindset is like your Ferrari, right? You are looking to attract the right clients with the right mindset, right?
So you are trying, you're not trying to advertise to everybody. And this is the same thing that we do with Lois, right? This is why I tell my students to make a big fat. And then take that list and cut it down by revenue and then cut it down by this thing. Right? And then we send Lois. We are not Taco Belling everybody.
We're not just like find a list and tell everybody No. We're cutting it down to specific types of people. Then the other thing is like as you're going along, things that you're doing to attract more clients, right? Upgrading your content on your website and LinkedIn, upgrading your posts, right? Like as you get along and you have more work and you have a little extra time, now you can post some more.
Or you start something like a podcast or a live stream or something like that, um, then you start attracting better clients because you're in this different mindset of. Talking about the things that they need help with. Like you understand the things that they need help with, and you're not just saying like, I can write anything and I'll write thing and I'm a writer and I do this, and it's not about you.
It's not about you. That's the thing. Ferrari and Michelin, Stard restaurants and all of those big car companies, they're not . It's not about you. It's about like seeing yourself in a Ferrari. It's like matching the. Type of brand that Ferrari is, that's the buyer that they're looking for, right? They're looking for a very specific type of person.
You can't just like go to the Ferrari lot. Like that's like not a thing, right? Like there's, there's a, a way to buy a phantom or a way to buy a Ferrari. It's not just like you go, right, Like you go to the Honda lot and they're just like everywhere and you're just like, I like that one. . This is not. So when you're thinking about your mindset, you need to be the Michelin Star restaurant.
You need to be the Ferrari. So you need to create your content and you need to create your website and your LinkedIn to talk about the things that solve the problems of those Ferrari Michelin star clients. Okay? That means you need to understand them at a much deeper level, not it the, the thing is not about you.
That's the interesting part is like when I review. oftentimes it's like, I do this and I do that and I can help you, blah, blah, blah, and it's like a thousand eye sentences. It's not about you. It never was . It never was. It's about you solving content problems. It's about you going in there and being like, Ah, I get it because I've seen this with either other clients, or I've seen it in your niche, or I've seen it because I've read 10 other articles and I understand that this is a problem, or I now.
Have looked at enough websites that I can evaluate that yours needs help through abc, like you are writing your content to show them. You get their niche, you get their problems, you get how to solve them. Right? Solving the problem is the Michelin Star restaurant, okay? It's not that you write content, it's not that you do a service, it's that you solve a problem, right?
That's the gem. The gem is solving a problem for a specific client slash brand. Slash audience and that you do that really well, right? That's the high quality part. So when you're thinking about this stuff, and when we're kind of going through the number two thing here is the alignment is the mindset is coming in, and the alignment with that mindset is where like, where am I going to give my clients value through content?
It's not really about. The actual exchange of the transaction of them getting the content and posting it. That's not it at all. It's more like meta than that. You're going down a level of saying like, I understand that this audience needs these types of things to, in order to give you money. And I also understand that you, as my client struggle with ABC issues together, we're gonna mush those things in a soup and then we're gonna create this kind of like superstar content that delivers all of those things.
These are the, this is, um, this is a really important point about understanding your niche. This is why I like, this is why I harp on my students to like, read widely, read a lot because the more you read, the more niche stuff you read, the more websites you read from clients, the more client like content you read.
It's very easy to distinguish good content in your niche from shitty content and good content that solves a problem. And continually seeing problems and being like, ah, I know how to solve that. I know how to fix that with content. I know how to help somebody understand this. Right? Cause most of our job is like helping someone understand something so that they will either buy it or they will become familiar with solving their problem.
Um, or that the audience is now becoming warmed up to the idea of, um, this type of process or system, right, that our client has. So these are really important things to remember. We. Gaining lots of knowledge in order to hone it down to like the few diamond clients that we can help and those diamond clients are operating on on a level of lamb, of like Lamborghini, Ferrari, Michelin, Stard restaurants, right?
So remember that we're not trying to like spam everybody, . We're looking for the right clients. And this is the same thing as when you get on a call, right? You may have sent a hundred wise and you get on 10. But you can tell on that call, like who's on your wavelength? Who, who gets their audience, who understands why they're creating their content, what goals they have, why they have those goals, what the KPIs are, right?
Key performance indicators. Um, that's key. Key. Or KPIs or key performance indicators are just like, how do we measure success? Like is this thing working? Um, we're getting on the same alignment with people who are like, not just like we need to create content. Their mindset. We need to create a type of content because B type of audience needs CD and E in order to make different types of decisions with working with us, and then eventually, hopefully give us money, which is right.
That's what content marketing is. So we need to be in alignment with that. So read a lot, understand your clients, get to the gems, like understand what, Why are they advertising in trade magazines or why are they going to trade shows? Um, why are they doing this type of content or what does their audience need?
And this is oftentimes what you get paid the big bucks cuz you're like, Hey, I see you've been creating a lot of white papers and although that sounds like a nice idea, your audience needs case studies. And here's three other competitors of yours who have been doing case studies. Because that works. Your audience is a right and your audience doesn't care about the, the technical stuff of a white paper they care about.
I need to see someone like me using. Um, having a better life or outcome from using your product. So I need a case study. Your job is to stu kind of start sorting that out and that's where you get paid the big bucks and you actually work with clients who are like, Oh yeah, like, we should do that. Or, um, the flip side is like having clients who are like, Yeah, we tried ABC content and we realize that wasn't a good idea because d content actually is the best because our audience likes this and blah, blah, blah.
Um, yeah, the alignment is, is magical. So as we're kind of going along, um, just kind of remember that like you, you just, like your clients are looking for the right writer. High quality clients want the right writer for their brand, for their audience. That's it. That's the Michelin star, That's the Ferrari.
Okay. You are not a taco company, okay? You are not like a drive-by taco company. And there's a big difference. Like even here in Austin, we have, like we are, we are. Abundantly wealthy with high quality tacos, right? So like if I'm gonna go get a taco that's three times the price of a Taco Bell taco, I know it's gonna be worth it because of like, You know, I know a lot of things about that restaurant.
I know the high quality ingredients they're using. I know they're making everything from scratch. I know, I know, I know, right. There's a lot of different steps than like, do you know all the ingredient, all the stuff in Taco Bell? Probably not. Right. But if I go to a better restaurant, like they're highlighting specific ingredients that you can only get from certain regions or they're highlighting that they make, um, they have like an onsite orchard where they make all their stuff or whatever.
So I think these things are really important to kind of remember. You are not the drive through. You are not a McDonald's hamburger, okay? You are a Michelin star restaurant. All right? Yeah. This is the thing too, is understanding the differences between like companies, cuz some companies operate even in the same niche, right?
This is part of getting that experience and understanding how to connect. So even if they go to very different conferences or they do very different things and they're in the same niche, right? A niche is just like a category, right? But understanding those things is really important. All right. Let's talk about three.
3) Why high-end brands don’t advertise everywhere and how to shift your mindset as a freelance writer to connect with top clients
Also, we have, she's still snoozing, so thankfully is quiet, . We're sleeping. I, you know, it is been a while since I've had some woos or some, some noises on here. So luckily, Suzy time over there. All right. If you feel like this has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a high earning freelance writing business, or a building, a freelance writing business, you adore subscribe.
Yes. Well, Gordon Rams is kind of scary sometimes. But yes, there's a big difference between, um, Gordon Ramsey and Ronald McDonald. Right? Yeah. There's like a big difference between like, like think about the, Oh no, now I said it, now she's, now she's going somewhere. We've ruined it. We've ruined it. Um, so yeah, there's a big difference between reading about like the top chefs and there's only a handful of them where like everybody knows Ronald McDonald.
Right? All right, let's talk about. Let's talk about three. Where's three? There we go. Three. So when we're kind of doing this, um, we wanna talk about, I kind of covered a little bit of this, so we're gonna mush these two together. So, high end brands, right? They're not advertising everywhere, and I hope that, that, like, I hope I've already explained that, but just as a thing, they're not advertising everywhere because their clients aren't there.
Their hi. Their clients aren't on an Hulu ad, Right? All of us regular people sitting at home, watching Hulu and getting an ad for Ferrari would be weird. We would never buy one, like it would nev it. It doesn't even plant the seed, right? Ferrari is a very specific customer base, so they're advertising at a certain way.
The same thing with Michelin Stard restaurants. They're not advertising things about their restaurant, like they're doing a bunch of other types of marketing. Hold on. They're doing a A bolt. We got some wreckage going on. Oh, there. , um, they do a bunch of different types of marketing and then they get noticed, right?
There's like a bunch of different stuff and they also have, um, press releases or they have, um, different types of places that they can get editors to come and eat their food. And there's a lot of different ways that they get traction that aren't like legitimate, like kind of the same ads as like a McDonald's or a Taco Bell or whatever.
Okay.
So, Oh my gosh. How did you even know? I didn't even say anything. Is it Cuz I stopped talking. Hi. You look so cute. I like your tail wags. You want a trio? All right, let's get trio. Let's get a trio. Can you go to your hava hole? Can you go to your haa hole? Good job. All right. Can you gimme high fives? Good job, otherwise.
Good job. There you go. Good job. You're so cute. You're so cute. All right, one more. We'll do one more. You ready?
Good job. Other one. Other one? Good job. Good girl. Good job. All right. You can continue raking. Now, , you can go back to raking, but you, you do look super cute today and I like your interested ears. Your interested ears are always cute. Oh my gosh. I can't believe just looking at you Charlotte, I can't believe how dusty your jealous have.
I can't believe how sugarcoated you are. She's about, she's gonna turn 10 in a little bit. Her birthday's on Valentine's Day and, um, I just, sometimes it's, it's weird. I forget like how old, you know, cuz she used to be, we got her when she was like three and a half and now she's about to be 10. And uh, it's just weird, you know, like, cuz Bo is.
Bo is, uh, white and caramel colored. So like him getting old, it's hard to tell. But her being a black dog, you can see, you can immediately see when she gets older, when she gets all those little white hairs. She also has like a couple white hairs in her eyebrows. . Those are cute. All right, let's talk about three.
Let's talk about three. I did, Yeah. I'm sure Whisper came around when I said trios. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about this. So we, we talked about why they're not advertising, right? The, the people who are driving Ferrari or who are buying, you don't see like ads for like private planes, right? Um, people who are buying that stuff, like those aren't coming in through TV ads, right?
Or from magazine ads or a lot of other places. Right? In some businesses are referral only, right? Like. Certain, um, things to think about, right? Like there are credit cards or features of things that are referral only. Like you can only get that thing by being a referral from like another top customer or, um, something like that.
And that's something cool to think about in terms of our business is like, where might you get more referrals or what types of clients and what kinds of circles do they run in where you would get more referrals. Um, the other thing is, let's talk about shifting your mindset. So you are not a large commodity.
You are not Amazon Prime delivery, two day free shipping. Okay? That's not you. You are not a McDonald's hamburger. You are not a dollar 99 hamburger. You're not Taco Bell. And I'm not doing that to like shit on those brands because they serve a certain function, right? They're serving their audience. That's not our audience for content.
Our audience like, think of those as like content mills. , like McDonald's and Taco Bell are like content mill clients. They're like, How many orders can we get done at $2 to make millions of. Rather than, we need to sell 20 Ferrari to hit our so sales goal and like, who are the 20 right people to buy those, or who can we make connections with or how can we talk about Ferrari as a brand or in certain ways to attract the number of types of people, right?
The 20 people that we need to buy that. So right. Quantity over quality. That's really important. When we're shifting our mindset, you have to get out of this quantity. How many clients do I need? How much content do I need to produce? How much? How much? No, no. You are looking for like, I am looking for a client that does this, right?
I'm looking for a client who understands the goals for their content, their KPIs, why they're creating their content and their audience, and that they actually have a budget to do that. They understand in order to create good content, they need a budget, right? Those five things are really important. So you're looking for a client that has focus, right?
They have project planning. They might not have a team, but they understand why they're doing something and how to do it, and they need to partner with someone who will add, um, expertise or who understands their niche or who has already done this thing enough times. Right? And this, this is still the case.
Like even if you're starting. You still wanna partner with clients who have focus. This was a big mistake I made. I was like, I'm small, I'm new. I need to start with the McDonald's clients. Cuz like I, it's too scary. The big clients are too scary. What ends up happening is, and like this is something I think is really important and I feel like I should tell my freelance writer Wealth Lab students this more often.
The easiest work I've ever done is the stuff I've gotten that paid the most money for. Okay. And it's crazy. Like sometimes like this was like that client that I had that I was like, Oh, I charge a dollar award. And they're like, Oh, we normally pay a dollar 25. And I was like, they're like, Is that okay? And I'm like, Yeah, of course.
That's okay. Right. It's that kind of stuff where like you. Just you're getting paid more money to do something and it's a lot easier because those people are, understand, they're operating at the level of like, I need to pay a dollar 25 a word to get the right expert writer to do the right thing, to write this either complicated content or this, this audience specific content or this niche specific content, right?
They understand that at a certain price point, they're getting the right. Right. That's where you wanna be. You wanna be with the people who are planning, who understand things and who are saying like, Yes, I have a budget because I want this thing to be good. Right? So the easiest things I've ever written have been the most well paid.
Every, every project I have, like four or five of them, like that are my highest paid projects. Easy, no problem. . The most difficult projects I've ever done have been my lowest paid. So you don't have to live in McDonald's land. You can live with high quality, good client land. You can live in. There we go.
You can live in the good client land. You just wanna partner with the right people. And it's not scary like the, they actually have things together. These people over here in the McDonald's land, they pay you less because they don't have things together. They don't actually understand. And they say things like, We just need a writer.
Or they say things like, Like, we just have to get this done, or I needed it yesterday. Or, um, let's see, what else did they say? They say things like, Oh, we're like trying to put out a bunch of content, like not putting out a bunch of content with a goal. They're like, We need to put out a bunch of content because we have a conference coming up, or we need to put a, a bunch of a content because we are launching a new website.
Like that's a goal when you talk to people that are like, We just need a bunch of content with no, with an aimless. Nothing. This, that's a problem. So even if you're starting out, you are looking for the right clients. And I can tell you, I'm telling you, they plan, they actually do the right stuff. They put things together, they're organized.
The people over here that pay you less money cuz you feel small and you're scared to go after the bigger clients, that's gonna be a fucking nightmare. , I'm telling you, I'm telling you like this was a mistake that I made in the beginning was I have this mindset that like I'm a solo printer, I should work for solo.
I'm a solopreneur or I'm like a small business. I should work for other types of small businesses and every single time. They're just like completely disorganized. And I'm like, Why is this so hard? Like maybe I shouldn't be a writer. No dude, you're going for the wrong clients. Like it was just a disaster.
But people who have structure in their businesses, people who are, are like companies that have structure in their business, companies that are actually going the right direction, companies that have plans and have things ironed out, that's where you wanna be. Right? And the way to distinguish these is you have to ask a lot of questions on the client call.
This is really, I. You need to make sure that you are asking them these specific questions. Like what's your goal for the project? What's your budget? Tell me about the project. Like what is going on? Why are you doing this? Why are you, why now? Why the content now? Why this audience? What are the timelines?
When do we have to turn this stuff in? Right? We need to ask a lot of specific questions on the call to align with the right people. And if you have the proper mindset, you have no trouble asking those questions cuz you. Excuse me, cuz you know, in order to get the right clients, you have to ask questions or else you're gonna end up in McDonald's land.
You're gonna be sad . Okay. Um, when you're getting on this call, this is how we're filtering people out. This is how we're filtering people who get it from people who don't. And we need to be the ones who also get it. Like we, you can't go in there with McDonald's and hope to align with like a Ferrari client just because you're like, Oh, I happen to fall in this hole today.
No, you have to have the right mindset. Your mindset is, I'm filtering the sand for the diamonds, or however they filtered like dirt. How do they find diamonds? Uh, that was a bad analogy, but what you're doing is like I'm filtering for the right clients. I'm filtering for the. I'm sitting there by asking questions.
You're agitating right? You're agitating like the, the sand to get to the diamonds, right? If you don't and you just like pick up a bucket of sand and you're like ready to go, no. So this is a really important mindset shift. You are looking for the right clients. , that's your mindset shift. You are Ferrari and you are looking for the 20 people to hit your sales goal.
You're not looking for quantity. Okay. And this is something too that I think is important. Like I get asked a lot, like, how many clients do you need? I don't know. Like I, I say three to five. Right? But you don't really need three to five because I have more than three to five. Cuz I have publications that I work for, right?
And I just don't work for those publications very often. So if I look at active clients or publications that I'm working with or things I write or whatever, it's more than three. It just depends on like who you're aligning. , and I think it's not about number of clients. It's like you need to look at your goals.
Like what are you charging for things and what types of projects do you wanna work on, and how much money do you need to make? And like how can you pay your bills and like what types of goals you have. Your business like that determines a lot more of like how many clients you need or what. I always thought of it as like what types of projects I never thought about number of clients.
I always thought about what types of projects are gonna get me there and who has those projects, or like who can I filter? Who has those projects, right? That's the better mindset shift. It's not a number because you could have three shitty clients who pay you a thousand bucks a month and you're like, I can't pay my rent.
Right? You could have, You're like, But Mandy said three to five clients, and I have three. No, it, That's why I think the number is off. I, I always feel like the mindset, you're better off with a mindset of like, I wanna do these types of projects, I'm gonna charge these numbers. Who would be paying for these types of projects?
Would it be that I go to my SAS client and they do a lot of case studies and that's a project I wanna do and I can get paid for? Well for that sounds good. Or do I wanna do a lot of blog content? For, you know, hospitality, tech, uh, clients because of X, Y, Z, right? And then doing that blog content, charging this much, I need to do this.
Like types of projects, I think, um, yeah, gold panning. Yeah. So types of projects I think is more useful than number of clients. You are looking for the types of projects that pay. Look at this little sad, your hi, sad you. She's like, It's me. You are looking to align with those 20 Lamborghini clients, or it's not even a number you're looking for.
Here you go. Good job. You're so cute. You're looking to align with the people who get it and the people who get it. Could be any number of clients. But you are not looking, you're not looking to hit like a certain number, like you're looking to hit certain types of projects or certain types of things that are gonna move your business forward.
Or you're looking for people who get it, or you're looking to make a certain amount of money and you need to do XYZ projects to get there. Um, or you're looking for a certain fit. Like a lot of times, um, when I talk to freelance writers, they're like, I don't wanna make six figures. I just want. Fine clients I adore.
Great. That's totally fine. Ask the questions though, . It's not a, it's not a number of clients to like hit six figures or like make more money. If you wanna build a business you adore, you have to get in the mindset of aligning with the right clients who also like adore the same things you do and adore working with you.
Right? Yes. We'll, this has been a very quiet woo woo situation today, right? Boo. Can you back. Good job. You have five. Good girl. Good girl. Good job. Woo. You look so cute today. I like how you're still Halloween themed year round. Cuz anytime I put an orange blanket near you, you look like Halloween themed.
All right. Ready? Good job. Other one. Other one. Dental though. Good job. Good job. You're having a great day. Good job. Yes. Good job. I like your bugeye. Okay, so in closing, , we wanna shift our mindset to really filter for the right people and understand that we're looking for attributes, right? We're looking for attributes.
Like there's a reason why some, This is, we can go back to the diamond analogy for this. There is a reason why some diamonds cost more than others, right? Clarity. What is it? Clarity cut. Um, carrot. And color, right? Clarity cut, carrot and color. There's a reason why they use that to filter for certain diamonds, right?
There's a reason why like some celebrities have like 8 million diamonds on, right? And some people have like little tiny diamonds, you know, that were like, I don't know, I don't know how much diamonds cost, but like they weren't as $8 million, right? There's all these different things that we, they use to filter for things that are in.
and they're using that to price them, right? For all of these different things. That's what we're doing. We are filtering for diamonds and then we're like, Okay, cool, like I'm pricing this. Is this the right diamond for me? No. Is this the right diamond for me? That kind of stuff. But we need to be, we need to be thinking that in order to scale our business, like we are aligning long term with these clients.
Um, and we wanna make sure that we have clients who are on the same wavelength. Cuz if you're continually working with clients who are not on the same wavelength and you keep having to drive through the drive through all the time to get new clients, like it's so tiring. That's feast and famine. If you keep going through the drive through, you're in feast and famine.
Um, so really think about this stuff like how can you be more of like a Michelin star restaurant or a Ferrari or like a Lamborghini or any, you can pick any type of fancy. Or like a 1965 Shelby, um, or whatever. So think about that. Really, we wanna align with them. We want to change our mindset from qu quantity to quality.
Man, I've been, I, I'm a little stuffed up today, so like my, it's kind of messing with me. Um, but those are the important things that I think we need to kind of shift in our mindset, and I think it's really important. That's why I started off too. Talking about getting rid of desperation, those 20 Lamborghini like buyers or Ferrari buyers.
If that salesperson is super desperate, like that's, that's not gonna work, right? It's like a smell. You can just smell it. So you need to like get rid of the desperation. You need to learn what attracts high quality clients, like the right types of, um, clips and the right types of attitude and mindset and the right types of things that you say in your website and your LinkedIn.
You need to understand like how to align. And don't forget, don't forget this, The highest paid work I've ever done was the easiest stuff. Okay? That's because people have their shit together. When you have high quality clients who pay the big bucks, they have their shit together. You have your shit together, together, you create amazing shit, right?
So kind of remember that stuff. I think it's really important. Yes. And Charlotte says, remember her mermaid legs, because those kind of help, there are little mermaid legs that give you power in your business, right? You look so cute. Why are you so cute? Yes. Good job. Otherwise, good job. Good job. Maybe you're just doing well today cuz Bo's not stepping on you or kicking you or something and you're just like, I can just sit here and chill.
All right, So I hope that this was helpful and I hope that you're kind of seeing why different companies do their marketing differently. They advertise differe. And how we can kind of advertise and market differently and align with different types of clients who actually like, have things together. Um, and that helps us like create better content cuz we have better frameworks to work from cuz our clients actually have things together so we get better content and we get paid better.
Right. That's really important. Um, I do, She's, You have a, a Shelby. I love a Shelby. I'm not a car person, but I've always liked a 1965. I don't know why. That's like the only car I've ever liked. like the other cars. I'm like, Eh. But that's the only one I like. All right, so I hope that this was helpful. We're here every Friday at noon, central time doing a live stream.
Um, if you feel like this has been useful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a hiring, earning freelance writing business, or a business that you adore, subscribe, um, if you have questions, you can always put them in the question place. So if you go to mandy s.com/question, you could put in a topic or a question.
This one was from Jennifer, Jennifer Schmid. Um, one of my students recommended that I do this as a live stream. Uh, I did , but if you have a question or a topic you want me to cover, put it in at mandela's dot com slash question. And one thing I didn't talk about is the pricing guide. So if you feel like pricing might be an issue with getting the right clients, like you feel like.
You're not really sure what you should charge or like how to it actually works. Go to mandy s.com/pricing guide and get my free pricing guide. I updated it a few months ago. It includes a ton of new projects, so if you haven't gotten it, it's free. Go grab it. Um, would you like to say any last words? Oh, now we we're in position three.
This is what we call position three. When she's got her both her legs through the middle like this, that's her like mermaid tale position three. Huh? You're so funny. You're so funny, and I like your little ears. All right, we will see you guys next Friday. I hope you have a good weekend. Hope you have a good Friday, and I hope this was helpful.
Bye. And Maria, it's okay if you wave back. You can all wave. I know my students talk about that. You can wave back.
________
Trying to figure out how to price your work for what it’s worth? Check out my FREE Pricing Guide!
Need some fantastic contract and marketing templates to make your freelance writing biz run as effectively and efficiently as possible? See my Templates!
Want to stay in touch for weekly detailed advice plus updates on new freebies and courses? Join my email list!
Want to follow me for inspiration, tips, and to stay connected?
So psyched you’re joining me on this livestream adventure!
