What Does it Take to be a Successful Freelance Writer?

As a freelance writer, what are your stepping stones to success? Do you need qualifications, certificates, or degrees? What about a billion clips and clients? How about a website, LinkedIn profile, or activity on all the social media platforms? One of the questions I’m asked frequently as a coach for freelance writers is what does it really take to be a successful freelance writer? And the truth is, with the right knowledge, pair of glasses, and blueprint, it’s not complicated and you can make it work on your own schedule.

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What Does it Take to be a Successful Freelance Writer?

What are we looking at when we think about freelance writing success? And I think this is a really important question because there's a bunch of different things that it takes to be a freelance writer and a successful one, but they're different than what most people think. So I think we gotta go over this, right?

So we've got a bunch of different things we're gonna talk about today in terms of what you need, what you think you might need, that you don't need, and the things that your clients think you need, that you don't need, that you might need, right? There's a whole bunch of different things. So we're gonna go over a bunch of cool stuff, but I do want us mention that today is the last official day.

Today is our last official day for. For Freelance Writer Wealth Lab. So if you go to mandy ellis.com/enroll, you can check it out. Um, this is the last time, or not the last. This is one of the last times. It's the second to last time that you can get Freelance Writer Wealth Lab at its lowest price ever.

The last time to get Freelance Writer Wealth Lab at this price is September, 2023. So if you're interested now, Grab it. This is the time to get it. Hey Vicky, I love the wave, so if you're interested in it, check it out at mandy ellis.com/enroll. Today's the last official enrollment date, um, and the price will change in 2024.

So if you're thinking about joining now, Here's some things. You're gonna have a 10 week course where we have seven modules that drop over those 10 weeks and we're going through everything and lots of that stuff is stuff I will never share on the live stream. Okay, this is a question I get a bunch.

There's a ton of things where we go super deep and I give you lots of templates, examples, documents, uh, links to to specific places to go get more information or spreadsheets. Types of stuff to help you move forward. Things I won't ever share on this live stream that are only available to Wealth Lab students.

So when you're going through all these modules, it you'll also have, uh, implementation weeks. So you'll also have time to put everything in place. It's not a rush thing. And if you're someone who needs a little bit more time, there's nothing wrong with that. You have lifetime access to the material. You can go through it, whatever you want.

And I also have students that like to retake the course with the new students, so they'll take the course. And then a few months later when the course opens up again, they get to retake the course If they so choose right, they have lifetime access, doesn't cost them anything. They get to join the new group.

Um, and it's really fun. So if you're interested in Freelance Writer Wealth Lab, my 10 week signature course, it today is the last day to enroll. Uh, this is the second to last time that it's gonna be at the price. It's at the lowest price. September, 2023 was the last time, and in 2024 the price is gonna go up.

So I always like to be upfront and I always like to tell people information as soon as possible. Um, cuz I just feel like it's more helpful that way. I don't like to surprise people in a bad way. Um, but yeah, if you're interested in that, check it out. If you have questions, you can always send me an email too.

Mandy at bands do. Um, but yeah, I wanted to to mention that first cuz it's the last day. So let's get to our lesson. Vicky's here. Vicky's ready. Vicky was in runway. Rick Vicky's got, uh, runway is my other class that I just ran, which will soon be in independent study mode. So the live class gets a super discounted, amazing price.

The independent study will be at a different price, but you can access it at any time. Um, and go through the. At your own speed. It's five days. So like you get all the information really shortly. Um, yeah. Okay. Let's get to number one. Let's talk about this. So, One of the things I get asked about, uh, as a, as a freelance writing coach and as someone who teaches freelance writers, is what does it really take to be a successful freelance writer?

Like, what are the things that you think are really important? And I think what people think, right? They're like, we need, uh, I wrote this down. They think they need. A ton of certif, uh, certifications. They think they need a bunch of stickers on their profile. They need a bunch of like five star reviews or like, um, they need a bunch of qualifications.

Like they need to have like several degrees or like all of these giant clients or they need, um, a billion clips, right? You don't need all of that stuff, especially when you're getting started. You have to remember that we all start from square one. Okay? We all start with no. No clients, no knowledge, no nothing.

Okay, so when you're really getting started or when you're really thinking about what you need to be successful, you need perseverance, you need grit. You need to have a learner's mindset. You need to be willing to take feedback and you need to incorporate that into your writing, and you need to be will willing to work on your craft.

These are really important. So a lot of times people are like, oh, my client is expecting this. What your client wants and what a good client wants is a good back and forth relationship that you guys are able to work in a harmonious way in your own little ecosystem. Right. So you guys have similar work styles or similar personalities, or you have similar.

For the content. And it's not about that. You have, like, I, I often get questions about like, what about this certification or what if I go get this? I did have a period of time where, um, I had a HubSpot certification, so I got, uh, I went through the content marketing course on HubSpot, which I recommend even if you don't put the certification up.

The HubSpot uh, content marketing course is free and it's amazing and it'll help you understand a lot of the things that your clients will have in terms of. What you can do with content marketing, what's possible. Um, and I think that's really important. So you'll have a lot deeper knowledge from that.

But also I did have a period of time where people were, um, really excited that I had that certification and then not so much anymore. So I think it depends on what your client's goals are and who your ideal clients are. So what that means, Even if you get these certifications right, even if you're getting a bunch of stuff from HubSpot or SEO or whatever, that just because you have the certification, well, I have to cough.

Just cuz you have the certification doesn't necessarily mean that you're great at your job. This is something where a lot of writers feel really insecure, so they're like, oh, if I have the certification, I'll feel like I'm better at my job, or my clients will automatically assume I'm great at my. It's just kind of like a little check.

That's it. It's not like, oh my gosh, we have to work with this person cuz they're certified. That's really not how it works. That's kind of like a nice bonus. Like when I would talk to clients, they were like, yeah, it's a nice bonus that you have this, or we saw that you were content marketing certified.

And this was more when I was starting out. Um, they were like, I had smaller clients and I didn't really get who my ideal client was and they were really excited about. So if you feel like your clients really care about having a specific thing, like a specific SEO certification or a specific content marketing thing, then I would show that on your profile.

But like I said, you need that learner's mindset. So you should be taking these courses anyways. You should be learning from HubSpot, whether it's email, uh, if you're gonna do drip campaigns or content marketing, or content strategy or brand stuff, um, or seo. Like there's lots of free resources out there for you to get a ton of.

Um, to leverage stuff for your clients without making it, um, publicly available as a sticker. Right. Um, hold on one second.

Yes, dogs are, dogs are comf now. They're nice and snugly. They've got all their blankets and all their accessory dogs are comf now. Okay, so what's more important? Sorry. What's more important than just having a sticker on your profile or on your website that talks about, um, certifications that you have or whatever, is that you can explain your client's problems and how you specifically can help them.

That's way more powerful and that comes off in both your LinkedIn copy and your website copy, and a lot of writers. They think by having this, the sticker, or they think by being certified that shows their knowledge like, oh, I'm certified. No, it's not the same thing. There's a reason why this is like a good i, a good thing that I think is a good analogy.

There's a reason why people seek out farmers' markets and buy products from specific farms where they know like the backstory or they know the family or whatever, rather than just saying like, oh, it's organic at the grocery store. There's a reason why people buy, even though the stuff at the farmer's market can be more expensive, there's a backstory, there's a history, they know more about it.

Um, there's different things on there that, um, they can explain and they can hear the story behind the brand or behind how they got started or why they chose to become a, that type of farm or. Um, there's a reason for that, right? There's a big difference between just seeing a sticker for organic and going to a farmer's market and hearing the story and, you know, seeing the brand grow and buying from a specific type of farm.

That's how we want to think about that, is, yes, the sticker is nice, but it's really great to explain how you help and explain your client's problems and explain the specific things that make you unique on LinkedIn and your website that sets you apart more so than a. And that comes with being a learner.

You have to learn how to do that, right? You have to learn how to explain your client's pain points. You have to explain your skills, right? You have to learn how to do that. Um, and I think that's a really important piece that, excuse me, a lot of writers miss. They're so worried. Um, and they're so insecure, right?

A lot of us are insecure. I was very insecure for a while, and there's still some things that I'm insecure about. Um, but I was so insecure back in the day. I was just like, I will do anything. Anything you want me to do, I will do it. Like I will do anything you ask. And that's just not where we wanna be. We want to attract clients on the same wavelength that are on the same frequency and they speak a different language.

So you need to learn how to do that. You need to learn how to speak your, their language and explain their pain points. And successful freelance writers know how to. They start realizing, like after having a few client calls, what their clients really struggle with, what are the things that they're messing up with their content creation or the things that they really aren't great at, or, uh, the pieces of the puzzle that they're bringing, right?

The things that they're bringing as a, as themselves as a writer, like their unique skills and attributes that they're bringing to the table, right? So when you're thinking about being a successful re lance writer, it's also about not giving up like a lot of times. Uh, I wanted to give up. There's been many times, like specifically right.

I've talked about it on the live stream. I burned out really bad in 2018. Uh, and I worked every single day from April to September and I had two days off and I had like one little week of vacation towards September before, like I. Really crashed. Um, but it was just awful. And, um, that's not what you wanna do.

That's not what successful freelance writers do. They don't not take time off and work every single day and they're not worried about doing all the time. They're worried about the things that move the needle, right? The things that make a difference in their business, the things that actually move their business forward.

They're learning and they're persevering and they're trying new things through the tough times. There's gonna be lots of times that you wanna. Those are usually the times where you end up. If you really wanna keep going, you end up figuring it out. You're like, this is not working. You're like, clearly, clearly everything is a dumpster fire.

This isn't working. I need to kind of change something and do something different. Right? Those are the times where you start solving a different puzzle and your business gets a lot better. If I hadn't burned out in 2018, I definitely wouldn't have had the business I have. If I didn't fall and scrape my face and my knees and my elbows and like, feel like everything was blowing up around me, I definitely wouldn't have the business I have now.

Like, I wouldn't have learned very specific lessons that, um, that I needed to learn the hard way. So I think a lot of times when you are. Defining your success too. That's an important piece. So that's the last little clump I'm gonna put in here is what is your version of success? Some people that's six figures as a freelance writer, um, some people's idea is just to work 20 hours a week.

Some people's ideas like, Hey, if I can bring in an extra 10 K for my family, like, that would be great. That's perfect. Yes, Absolut. Like there's a whole bunch of different definitions of success, but a lot of times I talk to writers and they have no idea what that is. Like, they don't know. They're just like, oh, I should make more money.

Well, how much, or I wanna have these clients. Okay, well why? And what will those clients bring you? Or like, what types of projects? Or. Um, what types of things do you think working with those clients will give you, or what will you gain, or why is it interesting? You have to define that, like what your version of success looks like or what your version of success as a freelance writer day-to-day might look like.

And if you don't do that, it's really hard to drive towards the goal, right? It's just kind of like a ghost goal. You just. General idea, and you have no framework or blueprint or roadmap to make that actually happen. You have no idea of like, Hey, I noticed that I'm working fewer hours, check. I'm on the right path.

Hey, I noticed that I snagged one of my dream clients out of three or 10 of 'em or whatever. Check, like there's no, there's no. Milestones, right? You have to have these milestones that if you're just driving into oblivion of like, I wanna make more money and I just wanna da, da, da da da, like that doesn't help.

In order to continue on with perseverance and grit and keep going in your business, when it gets hard, you have to know what you're driving at. You have to know what your goals are and what your version of success looks like, and build that roadmap, right? And this is something that I go over with my course students all the time.

When we're going through the wealth lab, I'm like, you have to define your version of success, like me telling you and giving you this blueprint, right? That's helping you pick and choose, right? So in the blueprint, they're getting like basically a grocery store and they get to pick the items that work best for them.

So I say, here's the stuff that I know from dozens and dozens of different freelance writing businesses. Pick some stuff that works for you and make your own custom business you a. Craft it to you, because if I just tell you, just do this thing and then you will get like this exact business, it's not gonna work.

Uh, I spent many, many times trying to build my friend's businesses and it blew up in my face hard. Like, it, it's just a disaster. You can't build someone else's business. You have to build your own business in your own way, thinking about things that you care about and things that are really important to you.

So defining that success and pulling in the different pieces. Um, are that, that make a difference in your life. Things that matter, whether it's time or schedule freedom or clients or money, um, or just leaving your nine to five, right? Those types of things have to be defined in order for you to reach that, uh, those different milestones on your way to success.

And I always like to mention that just because I feel. Yes. I like, I get people who are like, you have a six figure business. Just like, tell me how you did it. And I'm like, well, I made a lot of mistakes. Like I ate a lot of fruit from the dumb, dumb tree. Like I did a lot of stupid stuff. And like, I help my students avoid that.

Right? So they don't have to make, they will make mistakes. D just, you will make mistakes in your business, but they won't be as catastrophic as the mistakes I've made. Um, but the deal is like you have to. You have to like forge your own path as long as you have bumpers, right? So that's the thing. It's like I'm always trying to give writers bumpers.

I'm not necessarily telling you jump from like specifically this thing to this thing. Yes, I give you a roadmap and yes, I'm giving you a lot of templates, examples, links. Blah, blah, blah. Good stuff, uh, spreadsheets, documents, whatever. But the deal is that you still have to figure out your own path, and you still have to find out what things make you tick and what things are important to you.

So that's our first thing. Those are kind of the clump of the first thing that I think are really important. Let's talk about two. Um, hold on a second. Let's talk about two. Okay. So two also. Everybody's. Of course, when I switch it over, you've got that whale eye. You're like peeping around. Oh my God, you're so funny.

You are so adorable. You look like a little baby seal. I can't believe it. All right, let's talk about too, so this is the thing, the knowledge and the blueprint, right? What kinds of knowledge and blueprint do you need? This is why I like to talk about a lot of free stuff first, right? I always kind of talk about, yes, I'm gonna talk about the wealth lab.

I'm gonna talk about freelance writer Wealth Lab. I'm gonna tell you about runway. Um, if those are things that you're interested in, but that's why I give a lot of good and specific information for free in both this weekly live stream and on my weekly newsletter. Right? And if you wanna sign up for the weekly newsletter, all you have to do is go to mandy ellis.com/pricing guide.

You'll get my free, uh, pricing guide for freelance writers and content strategist, and you'll get the weekly emails and you'll get to know what the livestream topic is before Friday. So, When you're thinking about knowledge and blueprints, I think it's important to have some certain structures. So that's why I give a lot of good stuff away for free because I feel like if I can give you the structure, you can make a lot of progress on your own.

And then I can help you like finalize and crystallize that in runway or crystallize that in, uh, a deeper dive in the 10 week wealth lab. Right? But I feel like when you're thinking about this, it's not about that. You have to know everything. It's not that you have to have all the pieces in place before you get started.

A lot of times when I meet writers that have been trying to get everything in place, it's years they've spent three to five years. It could be one year, but many times it's like multiple years. They're like, I don't have enough knowledge. I don't have enough skills. They get stuck in the learning loop. So instead of learning as they go along or learning from mistakes or learning like skills that are important, as they kind of come up with clients or as they think that they're someplace they wanna take their business, they just get stuck doing that, and they're like, I'm not ready yet.

It's like, you've, you've been ready. You've been ready. You're never gonna feel ready no matter how much knowledge you have. What you need to learn is how to leverage that, how to explain that to a. How to show that on your samples or how to get samples. Right. And this is the thing I tell people all the time, I know writers who every major magazine, every major newspaper, every major, whatever, their first clip came from there.

So there's people who never pitched or never wrote, and they pitched a really good idea. It got picked up by like the New York Times or Traveling Leisure, and that was their first clip. Okay. They had zero knowledge of freelance writing, but they pitched a good idea, right? And they wrote a good pitch, which is basically a writing.

So it's not about having everything. It's not about feeling totally a hundred percent ready. It's not about just like that. You have to know all the social platforms or that you have to post a million times, or that you have to know everything about your clients or whatever. Yes, I definitely teach more people how to get a deep dive on their clients so they can get more green light clients and understand the right ideal clients for them.

But just getting started or just kind of ramping up your. You have to kind of try things. You have to get out of like the loop of just, I have to have all the knowledge, or I have to be able to troubleshoot anything. You're not by yourself. That's the thing is like if you make friends on LinkedIn or you join freelance writer groups or you, you know, you, you become part of some kind of community.

You can get like this one, like, we have a community, right? Like, you guys can come ask questions, you can ask me any questions you want, right? Every Friday if you're part of a community where you get to hang. The deal is that you then gain knowledge from other people's questions, and then you gain knowledge from other freelancers who are ahead of you, or you can ask questions as you go along.

The deal is that it's action, right? It's knowledge, action, knowledge, action. You have to get the knowledge and apply it. The application part is the important piece. If we get, just get stuck in the idea, we have to know everything or we have to be our clients. Everything. You're not your client's. You are a piece of the pie for your clients.

You are an important team member and you are important in an important collaborator, okay? But you're not. You can't do everything. And if you have a client that's like, you're a writer, you should just be able to do all this stuff. It's like, no, no, no. That's crazy daisy time. So I don't want you to get stuck in analysis paralysis or the learning loop.

You need to learn, apply, learn, apply. And like I said, I've eaten a lot of fruit from the dumb, dumb. But it turns out that some of those dumb dumb fruits really taught me important lessons. Like there are times where I gorged myself on the dumb, dumb fruit, and I was like, wow, that was a huge mistake. Like why?

Why would I do that? But it taught me a lot more stuff that I really needed to know about myself. Oh, bless you. Um, it taught me a lot of things I needed to know about how I worked or my work style or the types of clients I wanted. And you have to do that too. Like even if I teach you through osmosis, right?

And, and even if you're gaining all this knowledge and even if you're taking all the courses for your pay or paid or whatever, you still have to apply it. You still have to move forward and the moving forward part. Oh, hello. Hi. I like your tail wa um, that's a really important piece. The second part of this is, The blueprint part.

There's lots of things that I tell you in this live stream that are part of a blueprint, right? I'm giving you a lot of different gems and a lot of different little gold nuggets where you can build your own blueprint, right? Yes. Very different from the wealth lab where I give you this very specific fenced in framework.

Blueprint, but the deal is that you are building a path for yourself. This is something where like, I always kind of think of it the same way that Pat Flynn explains it. If I love Pat Flynn, um, and he has a Smart Passive income podcast and he has like a billion courses and he's wonderful. Um, and he has office hours all the time where like I try to make as many as I can because he always like a answers the questions.

Like it's so helpful, uh, in anyways, so Pat Lynn describes it, um, more as like, We're, I'm taking like a machete and just like, kind of like cutting the path a little bit in front of you for the jungle. Like I'll go first, right? I'll go first with the machete and cut the path a bit, but you're still gonna have some leaves that smack you in the face and there's still gonna be bugs and there's still gonna be like mud that you trip and fall in or right?

Like I will go first and kind of blaze the path a little bit. But you still have to decide, right? You still have to make choices and decisions, right? Which are the mud and the bugs, and. And eventually what ends up happening, and this is what I love about teaching freelance writers, is like, eventually you don't feel like you need me to do that.

You eventually, and most of the time it's actually shorter than you think. It's like months. You're like, oh, I can do this on my own. I don't need the, the, the trading wheels. Like I can go blaze my own path. Like, gimme that machete. Let me go try myself. That's the coolest thing to me is like if I can blaze the path just a little bit for you and then you can go off in your own direction for your own business, in your own way, building stuff that works for you, I've done my job, right?

That's the important piece is like, yes, I can help you build confidence and I can help you do a bunch of things. But eventually you have to take over, right? It's your job to blaze your own path and go on your own trail. And it's hard and it's scary and sometimes it can be really stressful, but it's really how you build a business you like, right?

Freelance writing is a business. You are building a small business, okay? I'm not gonna like front and be like, no, it's just like freelance. No, you're building visits. And if I can help you get to the point where you feel confident enough to take that machete outta my hand and be like, look, I'm gonna blaze my own path.

Like you go that way. I'll go this way. We'll meet in the middle and chat and see how it went. That's, I've done my job right. So when you're thinking about that, it's o it's okay to try new stuff. It's okay to go after big clients. Like there's no, I told this to a coaching student the other day, like, your clients are eating a sandwich just like you are.

Right? Like you might be eating your sandwich at home and they're eating their sandwich at their desk, but they're just a regular hu human. They don't have like magic powers, right? They're just regular people and they unfortunately live at the cubicle farm, right? We don't wanna, most of us, most of the freelance writers I talk to, don't.

Live in the cubicle farm. But if you're thinking about that way, your clients are just people. They have no magic powers. They're not like holding this like golden, you know, lightning rod being like you, but you shall pass. You know, like this crazy stuff. It's not like that. They're just regular people eating a sandwich, a bite at a time, just like you.

It's just that they, ooh, they live at the cubicle farm. You scared me cuz you stepped on me, right? So instead of putting your clients on a pedestal and instead of worrying. Let you have to have a ton of knowledge or that you can't go off in your own direction, we'll go back to your, have a hole. This is important.

Just try it. Just do it right? And you can come here and ask me questions. You can come here, um, and get on the livestream and ask a question, or you can submit one ahead of time, right? I always talk about this mandy ellis.com/question. I can go over your question or topic on the live. But that's the thing is like get in community, ask questions, blaze your own path.

Don't get stuck in the knowledge stuff. Build a blueprint, right? Take the foundational pieces and build your own version of your business. Yes. Would you like some snacks now? Are you awake? She's like, yes. It's, I'm ready for a pup date. I'm ready for snack time. Hold on second. All right, Charlie, are you gonna show everybody your tricks?

You gonna show 'em all your skills? Ye, ye. All right. Can you go around? Can you go? We can do it. No, that's not around. Come on, Charlie. Around around. Come on. You can do it around. Oh, you're so close. Come here around. Oh fine. You look cute. You get cuteness points for being adorable with your bug eyes. Barry, you get cuteness points cuz you're far away.

Can you catch it? Oh, it's by your leg. Can you get it? You're really far away today, buddy. It's hard to reach you. Oh, you got it. Good job bug. Barry's still here, guys? I don't know. I don't know how. All right, Charlie. Oh, up. Can you sit up? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Good girl. Barry's still here.

He's still thriving. I don't know how he's just getting better and better and better. He feels he, I know he looks really sad right now, but he's been having great days. He even went on a walk the other day. It was incredible. Uh, he went on a short walk and. We were just testing it and he's walked better than he has in months.

Like he, he, um, like you guys, know that he's been having eye problems. He could see stuff and he was walking fine and it was amazing. Sorry. So yeah, I don't know how, but Barry's a magic dog. Go back to your, have a hole. All right. You're like a dolphin, Charlotte. You're like, I need like a dolphin whistle, right?

Where they whistle you and they say, You know, go back to the ocean. They like wave you away like a dolphin. Yes. Look at you. You ridiculous little animal. You're so ridiculous and adorable. Yes. Alright, I'll give you a snack because you're cute and snuggling. Yep. Good job. All right, Barry. Ready? Oh, it's right in front of you.

There you go. Good job. He's just so far away. It's hard for me to reach him like I would have to lay down to reach him over. All right. Let's talk about three. This is something I noticed on my livestream that the numbers are like not synced up either, is it? So three is, but four isn't. Yeah, four is the one that's messed up.

There we go. Okay. Three. Let's talk about three. So our third thing here, right? Yeah. Our third thing here is I always talk about a new pair of glasses. This is something that I feel like is really. So when you're becoming a successful freelance writer, you have to wear a new pair of glasses. This is what I teach people in Freelance Writer Wealth Lab, and then runway.

So runway, like I said, runway is a different thing than the Wealth Lab. The Wealth Lab is a 10 week course, it's intensive, uh, and runway is like a fast track class. So runway is gonna be on independent study soon, uh, and then in August it'll go for a super special, uh, live class. So here's the deal. I always teach my students the new pair of glasses.

You have to look at your business in a different way to be successful. Like you cannot be like your client's underling. You cannot just like sit around and wait for people to reach out to you. You can't just hope for the best, right? Like you have to be active and you have to learn who your ideal clients are.

You have to set up your own. You have to make sure that you're understanding what your client's needs are and that you're offering that as a service, and that you are understanding more and more about your ideal client as you move along. There's a lot of stuff where you have to put on a new pair of glasses to see success.

As a freelance writer, you are becoming a new, excuse me, I'm the hiccups. Recently, um, you're becoming a new and. Sharper version of yourself where you can kind of zero things in. And this is what I talk about, like I teach my students, and we talk about this on the livestream too, right? It's like, yes, yes, yes.

No, no, no. You're able to look at different lists or different niche publications or different, uh, press releases that you get where you're like, this is a client or this is not, it's a new pair of glasses where. Um, you see your freelance writing business clients and you see your free Yes, Becky. I love that.

Yes, you're wearing these glasses. We're all wearing these glasses, so these glasses are helping you to refine your process so that you don't have to spend as much time on admin and you don't have to spend as much time looking for clients. You spend a majority of your time on paid work, okay? That's the deal.

The new pair of glasses. It's teaching you the attributes to look for what a green light client is. Um, What you need to put in your LinkedIn profile, what adjustments you need to make, what types of questions you need to change or alter or ask on your calls, what types of things to put in your contracts, what types of work you can work up to, right?

We are not just gonna, um, maybe we don't wanna work on just blog posts. Maybe we want case studies, white papers, content strategy, brand messaging, messaging and positioning, right? All those. There's a lot of things that we're looking at with this new pair of glasses that I think is, um, really important.

Like I, I, I didn't understand this when I was coming up as a freelance writer. Like I didn't get it that you had to like look at, look through a kaleidoscope in a different way, and successful freelancers are constantly getting a new prescription. So they get a new pair of glasses and then they're like, This pair of glasses, right?

Like my eyesight is either getting better or worse, whatever I need to change the prescription. They're constantly getting adjustments. They're constantly looking at their business in new lights. They're constantly asking themselves different questions about clients and projects and income and marketing and types of things they wanna do, uh, and new ways to get clients.

It's not just like get on social media and post forever. It's not like that. Oh, back up. Cool. There you go. Barry, back up back. Other one. Other one. So the deal is that you have to wear this new pair of glasses, one, and then you also have to adjust the prescription over time. This is the learning and growing and perseverance and grit I was talking about.

So when you're looking at your business, you are. You are analyzing all the different functioning parts as you go along. This is why I love tools like do Sodo cuz it makes the analysis super easy. I don't have to do a bunch of calculations or stuff. It just shows me, right. I know by tagging my projects that I can go to a different reporting feature that shows me where's the number one way I get projects.

Okay, work on that more. Right? Go back to your Hubble sas. Those are really important things. So when you're thinking about the new pair of glasses, remember that your, your kaleidoscope or your prescription changes over time, you're gonna need to look at your business a different way. And if you don't, if you get stuck somewhere, right, you're not in growth mindset, you're in.

Fixed mindset. Then what ends up happening is, this is where I see a lot of writers get stuck somewhere between 30 and 50 K. It could be 30 and 60, but usually it's 30 to 50 k. They get stuck at that and they're not sure how to get over the hump cuz they're not changing their prescription. They're just like, these glasses are blurry.

Like, I can't see anymore. Why isn't this working? It's like, cuz you gotta do this other stuff. So treat your business as like, you have to understand to wear your new pair of glasses, to understand like you're taking down more information about who your clients. Types of projects you want to work on now, types of projects you wanna work up to, uh, important things you need in your LinkedIn and website, types of clips you wanna get and that you are adding and adjusting this prescription that you're looking at for your business over time.

It's really important. Okay, let's talk about four cuz this is going, huh? Hey Veda. Welcome. So let's talk about. Okay. Um, if you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you wanna learn more about building a freelance writing business, you adore, subscribe. Let's talk about four. We also have a SAS bean over here.

The SAS bean has been wearing a new pair of glasses, like every day, thinking that every day is just more treats. Here you go, buddy. Oh, no. Too far away. Yeah, girl. Okay, hold on Barry. One second. I gotta help you. Here you go, buddy. There.

Did you cut it? Yeah, you did. Good job. All right. Why are you so cute today? I like your little ear, your little radar ear. Your ears go up and down. It's so cute. You're so funny. The other window. Good job. You look like a super cutie probably cuz you got a bath. You're not dusty anymore. You look shiny and beautiful.

Ready? You don't have to. Oh, I put it in the crease. He's never gonna find it. I put it in the blanket crease. You're never gonna find it. Here you go. There you go. All right, let's talk about four. So when you're reaching your version of success, right? We don't wanna make this complicated. This was something that I found with a lot of material for free for freelance writers.

Like they made everything sound so complicated. They were like, and then this, and then this, and then this. And you're just like, I can't do all that at. So for me, uh, that's one of the reasons that I built the wealth lab is I was just like tired of either having to buy multiple courses and someone say like, well, here's the baby information.

Now you can do advanced. And then after advanced you can do senior. And then this like, okay, like, I just was tired of that. Woo woo. Why is sas go back to your sass hole. No, go back to your sass hole. Back to your hollow hole. Okay, hang out over here. Whoop. All right. You hang out over there, you, you hang out over there.

So I was tired of buying multiple courses, but also I was tired of how everybody made it seem so complicated. So I mostly, like one of my biggest frustrations really built the wealth lab was like I was tired of multiple courses. I was just wanted someone to give me the whole thing, like how do I actually do this?

And then how do I advance to other parts of my. Um, outside of writing, right, like just I don't, you know, you're going from doing a ton of writing to doing ideas and strategy, and then I also wanted some uncomplicated way to explain a blueprint to someone and give them options. Like I felt like a lot of things that I took, everyone was like, there's only one way you can do it this one way, like a robot.

And everybody goes through the robot factory and does it this way and that's it. And you're just like, that doesn't work for me. And they're like, too bad. And you're like, okay. So I wanted something more flexible and I wanted it to be uncomplicated. Where you get a lot of specific information about clients and attributes and templates and examples and features and things that are not overwhelming and not complicated, but like take you through each kind of like little phase.

So for me it was like I just wanted someone to kind of give me, like someone to show me a bunch of different things I could do and I felt like that showed me more possibilities rather than someone trying to put me through a robot factory. And I feel like that helps you build a business that works for you.

I feel like if I like the courses, some of the courses that I took and some of the things I did were just very restrictive. Like, they're like, there's only one way to make six figures or there's only one way to get over this plateau. And it's not true. Lots of people have different niches, they have different things going on.

Um, like for example, right? The example I give is like when the pandemic. My niches just like shut everything off. The tap just went off, boop, all at once. Boop, everybody shut it off. I had friends who were just like boiled over with work. They were just flooded with work. Um, here you go buddy. Can you catch it?

Oh, so close. Um, and, you know, that's just what happens. Like everybody's business is different. If I, if we all went through the robot factory, everybody wouldn't care about the tap. You know, nobody would be like, Hey, wait, like the tap is going off for you and not for me. Like, it's just, I feel like there's so many different types of freelance writing businesses, uh, and we need to kind of respect and understand that rather than putting everybody through Robot Factory and like the way I led off this live stream was.

Everybody's definition of success is different. Just because I wanted to hit six figures doesn't mean you want to do it. Like I said, some people just wanna make an extra 10 K with their freelance writing business. That's their goal of success, that they should be able to write, be able to do that. It shouldn't just be like, everybody has to do this thing and everybody has to do that, like that's nut town.

Or some people want schedule freedom, or some people only wanna work X amount of hours. That's why I think it's really cool to have options to say like, I've seen, you know, hundreds of freelance writing businesses. Here's all your different options that I've seen that work. Not the options. Like there's a lot of options out there.

Not of all of 'em are, you know, stand on two legs. Some of them are like flamingos, where like if you get a little bit of a wind, they're kind of, you know, or they see really easy for them to break their legs. In any case, besides that, um, I feel like there's a lot of different options that people don't know about too, that.

Where they get to build their own custom business. That's the. You are building a business that works for you with your own success metrics, with the own, with the things that you care about most, right? The things that make a difference in your business or your life, or your lifestyle or your schedule. So I always felt like there's lots of uncomplicated ways to do that.

If I can give you a framework or if I can give you bumpers, and then you can kind of see what are my options. Now you're at least kind of penned in to like options. So we at least make progress, right? Like I give you enough. That you make progress, but you also have options if you change your mind or change your business or wear that new pair of glasses, right?

That's a really important thing. But I think if you're thinking about s, your version of success for freelance writing needs to be top of mind. The uncomplicated ness also comes from knowing. Here you go, buddy. It's right on the blanket. You'll find it. Um, it's, it's right here, buddy. It's right there. There you go.

The uncomplicated ness. Also knowing is knowing where you're driving, right? It's where you're taking that machete and cutting down things in the forest. You're not just aimlessly wandering, it's uncomplicated. Cuz you're like, here are my four goals, right? Here are the things that I want and I know that I wanna do these things.

How do I do that in a step-by-step way? Right? So it's not like just this ambiguous, like I wanna, like, that's what I get sometimes. I wanna have a six figure finance writing business. Okay. What are your metrics of success? They're like money, and you're like, no. So you have to have these other things that go with your business or types of people you wanna work with, right?

Personality types or types of companies or types of niches, right? Or industries or types of writing you wanna focus on, or types of things that you wanna do in the future that you wanna build up to. Those things are important metrics for your business. And I will tell you like another story. I've met lots of writers that are like, just tell me the most profitable niche niches and freelance writing, and I'll do that.

That doesn't work. That doesn't work. That's why you see people being really profitable in random niches because that works for them. That's something they're interested in. That's something they're willing to market to. That's something they're willing to go after, and that's why they make a ton of money.

There's other people that are just like, tell me which that FinTech makes all this money, and I'll just do FinTech and never work. It never works. Everybody burns out. They hate freelance writing. They're like, oh, I guess it's not for me. No, it's because that's not for you. The, the picking out the most profitable niches, like that doesn't work.

That doesn't build a business you adore. It makes, it's exactly what I try to do with, um, building my friends' businesses. I was like, oh, I'll just kind of do what they're doing. No, it doesn't work. You have to build your own business. There are certain framework building blocks and certain pieces of wood, right, that you build the framework of your.

Um, but you, you can't just pick like pro profitable niches are only profitable for people interested in them, willing to go after that stuff, and who can write really well in there. And that's why there's a big gap, right? There's a big gap where people have these niches or they have these things that are really profitable.

That's not how you make money. You make money off of balancing a bunch of things you're interested in, right? Why I go over cake and icing and there's a video in this channel for that. But I feel like you building your own business in your own way, understanding how to take uncomplicated steps and really focusing on those goals and understanding to put on that new pair of glasses, that you're gonna be adjusting that prescription over time.

Right. That I think is a new way of looking at your business and understanding growth. Right. Versus kind of like, just tell me what to do. Just like feed me spoon, feed me this profitable niche and I'll make money. It just doesn't work that way. Oh, woo, woo, woo. You look like a tiny hamster. So leafy today.

Yeah. Can you go back to your hobb hole first? I'll give you snacks. If you go back to your habbit hole, no, you gotta go back to your hobb hole. Good girl. Good job. All right, Barry. I know you can't catch it, but you can be close. There you go. It's, oh, you just saw it. There it is. Good job. So here's the closing thoughts.

Here's my closing thoughts that I'm gonna put in this topic. Um, hold on. Let's pop this off. Whoops. There we go. Bless you. Here's my closing thoughts and here's Charlotte's closing thoughts. She has lots of thoughts. Bo has very little thoughts now. No, bill Bo has lots of thoughts. Okay. You have to, in order to find success as a freelance writer, you have to blaze your own path.

It's okay and good to have a framework and a blueprint to work off of, but eventually you need to take the machete outta my hand and you need to blaze your own path. Okay? You need to go off and be confident enough in the direction that you have the new pair of glasses and your goals for your specific business, that you can go off and do that.

Okay. Success is also perseverance and grit and getting over the shitty stuff that sucks. Like there's gonna be a lot of things that suck that you just have to kind of get through the poop soup and then you're gonna get to the other side and be like, thank God. Like I learned a lot from that. And then your business gets a lot better, right?

Like the poop soup I went through when I burned out really bad. It's just kind of a lot of things that we worry about with certificates or having a thousand clips or being certified for something or, um, having like a million different social media followers on different platforms or posting all the time or, um, what was the other one?

Having coll a ton of college degrees or like, all this stuff like that doesn't matter as much as all the things, right? Like as you going after what you want, you having defined goals, you having grit and pers. Understanding what you're going after and actually having kind of like bumpers to go off of.

Right. You know, the options that you have in front of you. Okay. Um, let's see. Oh, okay. So last thing we're gonna talk about right is. Today's the last day, right? So I mentioned this at the beginning. Today's the last day to enroll in Freelance Writer Wealth Lab. It's my signature 10 week course. It is the second to last time to get it at its lowest price ever.

The last time will be September, 2023. So if you wanna check that out, go to mandy alice.com/enroll. Um, let's see. And like I said, excuse me. If you wanna join the email list, I send out a weekly email and I do the livestream. It's mandy ellis.com/pricing guide. You get my free pricing guide for freelance writers and content strategists, and you get the weekly email and the um, The livestream info ahead of time.

The other thing too, is that if you sign up for the email list, you'll know about runway. So like I said, runway when it's live will be a special, super, super awesome price. Uh, but you, if you wanna do runway in the meantime, which I've been asked about numerous times, um, I've been asked about like, what can I do like in between now and September for the Wealth Lab if I'm not ready yet.

Uh, you will know about the, uh, the independent study runway class that is coming on Monday. I'll tell you about that on. So I hope that this has been helpful. I hope it helps you see that there's a lot of different pieces to becoming a successful freelance writer. There's not like one defined path, but there are attributes that you need as a writer to keep going and to understand that you will fall in the poop soup.

Sometimes it will be shitty sometimes, but there are things that you can do to kind of wear that new pair of glasses or to. Understand what the kind of blazing your own path thing is and what works for you and the goals you're going after, okay? Those are really important. Success is only success in the way that you defined it, right?

So like if I, right, if I wanted to be a billionaire and you wanna make an extra $30,000, or if you want more schedule freedom and you only wanna work 20 hours a week, or you wanna spend more time with your kids, or you want to, uh, balance it between your creative projects, All of those things are your own goals.

You have to set those up first. Right? That will help you get to success. Cuz we know where we're going, right? Those are really important. You're welcome. Vicky, Vicky was in runway and Vicky was killing it. She's doing a great job and, uh, she's, she's got all these tools now, so I'm excited to see what happens with your business, Vicky.

I'm excited to see all the changes. Um, but yeah, define your own version of success, right? Like, what does it take? It takes a bunch of different attributes. It's not necessarily. All these different like check boxes of like certificates and degrees and all that stuff. Okay. So I hope this was helpful. Um, I hope to see you in the Wealth lab or at least that you grab the free pricing guide so you can raise your rates.

Um, and I am here every Friday, so every Friday at noon central time we do a live stream. You can submit questions and topics to be answered. I actually have some questions I need to. It's not gonna happen today. So, um, you can go to mandy.com/questions to submit a question or a topic for the live stream, and I'm happy to answer or cover those.

Uh, I hope everybody has a good Friday. And, um, the Bears, that's what we call them too. I don't know if I ever say that. On the live stream we call them the Bears. So like, if, if, uh, Tommy and I are talking about them, we say like, oh, what are the bears doing? Or where are the bears? Or, you know, we call 'em the bears.

These are the bears. They're uh, they're hanging out and the bears are sending all, oh, sorry. The bears are sending all their good vibes for you to have super freelance writing success. Is that right, Charlotte? Well, don't look suspicious. When you look suspicious, then you're like, you need to look confident Charlotte.

You need to send them all your confidence that things are gonna go great, and they're gonna find freelance writing success. When you sit there and look weird and suspicious, then they're like, I'm not sure if I can do it. Charlotte, you're so funny. All right. I hope you guys have a good Friday. I'll see you next Friday.

Hope to see you in the Wealth Lab or runway or that you get the free pricing guide. Um, and I hope that this has been helpful. Bye.

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