Where Are The Best Freelance Writing Clients Hiding?
Say it with me: reverse engineering. This is one of the top issues I see with freelance writers who send me emails filled with questions. There's just some few places that those ideal clients are hiding, right? Or I'm just missing the forest of clients for the trees, correct? If you reverse engineer how you think about getting top freelance writing clients, you'll be swimming in a pool of high-payers in no time.
This week's livestream is going over why you're having trouble locating the best freelance writing clients and how to tune up your GPS, how to stop thinking of freelance writing like a FT job or job board, why the delightful and amazing gem clients don't know how to find you, and how to dig for diamond clients with your own toolset.
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Where Are The Best Freelance Writing Clients Hiding?
There is no magic portal where freelance writing clients are hiding. This is a question that I get very often. Where are the best clients hiding? Or where can I find the best Freelance writing clients or the top freelance writing clients, or long-term freelance writing clients? And a lot of it has to do with reverse engineering.
You're thinking about the process wrong. You need to reverse engineer it, and you need to think about how you wanna dig for the diamond client. Okay, so as you're kind of going through this freelance writing journey, we're gonna talk about how to find these clients, where they're actually hiding, and, um, how we're gonna make sure that we find the right ones that are a fit for us and that fit for the future of our business.
And we have our buddy here. Oh, hold on. There we go. There she is. She's all snuggly. But I don't wanna say too much cuz she'll get up and then she'll want all the snacks and we're not ready to, we're not ready to do snacks yet. She even like moved her ear around when I said that. Okay, so we're gonna talk about a few things and this is like.
I think just a lot of times I get emails or I get messages, or I have writers that say like, oh, if you just tell me where the clients are or like, this is how they end up on platforms like five or, or Upwork. Hey, flower Power, happy Friday. I. Uh, this is how they end up on platforms, right? A five or Upwork.
Um, any platform, any of the platforms where they think like, oh, that's just where the clients are. Or, this is how a lot of times people end up on job ads or they're like, where are the freelance writing jobs? Like, just tell 'em where the jobs are and I'll get them, Hey Vicky, I always love the wave. I'll wave back.
Um, so we're gonna go over that today and let's go through number one. Hold on. All right. Let's see. Um, number one. Okay, so let's talk about this. So when we're kind of going through, Hey Suzanne, I'm just getting this spinning circle, first timer. Okay. So refresh the page. So, Suzanne, if you can hear me, refresh the page, um, because it should just, it should refresh the, the live stream.
Um, so hold on. I don't know if you can hear me, so I'll put it in here. Um, uh, try refreshing. Oh my gosh. Refreshing the page. Um, oh, good. It worked. Okay, so let's talk about number one. Um, why are we having trouble with this? Why are we having trouble locating our Be Best freelance writing clients? And then we're gonna go through tuning up our G p s.
So you're having trouble finding the best freelance writing clients because you think that they're in a magic place. One of the things that I see all the time is this magic place, and I just read through something the other day and I think this is actually a really good story. There's these articles that pop up.
That talk about how like, oh, I make a hundred thousand dollars a year, or like I make a hundred thousand dollars a month on five or Upwork or whatever the platform is, right? Someone has like a random platform that they're like, this makes a ton of money. But the you're, you are thinking that that's the root.
You're thinking like, oh, I, this person's making a ton of money. I should just go do that. But really the secret is, and I just read about this like the other day, I was like, I always, like, whenever someone's making a ton of money on a platform, I'm like, something's fishy here. What ends up happening is every time I look at it like someone making a huge pile of money, um, or someone.
And, and this, okay. There are like 1% of cases where people are like legitimately doing freelance, like good freelance writing. They're only working for high quality clients. They're charging a ton of money, like really good rates, uh, that are totally fair for their experience. That's like very small percentage of them, but the ones where you go like, oh, I'm making like a huge pile of money, like 200 K a year on Upwork.
Or like, this person was making like a hundred k a month or something on fiver or whatever. It ends up being that the person basically created an agency, and it's not even really like operating like a true agency. It's like the person worked on fiber for like three months, or they worked on Upwork for like three months and then they just got overloaded with all these small jobs and then they started having other people do those jobs at even lower rates.
Okay. So when I go and look at Fiber profiles or I Upwork or a platform, these are just two of the most popular ones. There's always a platform. They're thinking that the best freelance writing clients are just like, They are giving them all this money and it's not true. The deal is they're working for clients that are giving them like a hundred bucks and then they're outsourcing that, right?
They have like an agency model where they take 50% or whatever it is, and the other person takes 50%. So out of a hundred dollars, they get 50 bucks and the other person gets 50 bucks. The way that people end up making a ton of money, um, per month or whatever, is they end up having an agency like this happens every time.
It's not that they're getting. Um, it's not that they're getting, oops, the best freelance writing clients. It's not that they're having the juiciest opportunities. Um, it's not that they're getting paid like 10 grand to do a really cool job. They're getting paid in $100, $200 increments. Or like at most like a thousand dollars.
Like these are very small increments. So their job is volume. Okay. Their job is not quality. And this is where I also get a lot of questions. It's totally exhausting, Bailey. It totally is. This is, I know this cuz this is how I started. I started on Upwork before it was Upwork. When it was Esk and Elance, like before they merged.
And you end up getting these things where like I had someone ask me to do web copy and they were like, Hey, can you just do it for half your rate? So like I did their whole website for half my hourly rate, which was so dumb, but I was like, oh, I just like, I should just do that. So a lot of times they end up getting these very small jobs and they just get a lot of small jobs and then they end up outsourcing them for 50% or whatever.
So they have this agency that includes, A hundred freelancers or whatever, or 20 freelancers, whatever, um, across the globe and they pay them less. So they're not only are these people not making good money and not working for the best clients, they're then paying other writers even less, which is nuts.
Which is crazy. I would never do that. Um, so they, there's a lot of times where, um, I get notes from freelance writers who are, um, Oops, who are attracted to the money part and they're like, oh, they just must be doing all this stuff. Those are not the best clients. That's very churn and burn. The other thing that happens too is like I see a lot of stuff where people are like, oh, I need to write SEO optimized bro blog posts and say I'm a professional writer.
That's only when you're in a C of people who are like not good at their job. Like, okay, so if you're looking for the best freelance writing clients, the top guys, the people who are. Um, really going to, to give you long-term work and they're going to provide you with quality samples. They're not going to be doing stuff in small little packets, right?
Like, it's not gonna be like a hundred dollars here and 200 here and maybe a thousand dollars, or we're working at $10 an hour. Like, that's just not how it works. Um, and they're not looking for someone who says they're a professional writer with SEO optimized blog posts. You know, why? That's your job.
That's your job. That's why I always think that, that's like the nuttiest thing. When people, when I have students, right? When I have, well lab students or runway students or coaching students, um, or people who just send me emails, right? And they're talking about, they're talking about how they're like, oh, I need to, like, how do I write an SEO optimized blog post?
Like, and, and do all this stuff. Or how do I, um, Say that I'm a professional writer, and it's like, happy Friday. And it's like, that's your job, dude. Like, that's your job. That's not like a feature. That's not like a, oh, I can do a no. That's like your job. Yes, of course we're going to SEO certain things, right?
Certain stuff that we're working on, blog posts, articles, we would be working on seo. But the structure, if you go through, read through a bunch of profiles and if you, um, look at how Upwork or Fiber, or. Any of those platforms are structured and you read the bios and you read like the stuff, they have samples.
It's very obvious that that stuff is marketed and attracting a junior audience. The best freelance writing clients, you have to speak their language. You have to be on their same vibe. You have to be on their like, it's like, um, it's like you are two blue whales singing the same song. There's not a ton of you out there, but you eventually find another blue whale, right?
Who's. Like singing the same song? Well, there's a ton of them out there. I mean, like, um, they, there's, you have to close the gap. That's what I mean. So the misunderstanding is that these top clients just like are on these platforms or they're just like posting job ads and they're not. They're not. They're looking for the custom.
You get their niche, you understand their work. You are on their level. They're not like surfing through a thousand profiles. They're looking for the right writer for their brand to do the right kind of copy, who gets their audience and understands how to create stuff, right. So these clients, right? These clients, a lot of times, this is how we're gonna tune up our gps.
Yes, the whales, this is how we're gonna tune up our GPS one. Don't get on the platforms. Get off the platforms. I get it. Yes. There's like one people out of a billion that makes a bunch of money on there. You don't wanna be working at at a hundred dollars an hour. Like it's, or a hun, not a hundred dollars an hour, a hundred dollars a project.
You definitely wanna be working at a hundred dollars an hour. And even if you set your rate at a crazy high rate. The deal is that as you get faster, that hourly rate goes down and there's always like this weird, it's just, it's just not a conducive place where a lot of high quality clients are. So yes, she agrees.
She's, oh, did you just wag? What a good girl. Do you agree? Good girl. Why don't you stay in your little taco, say in your little taco, because I don't wanna, fine. I'll give you one. I'll just give you one because you wagged and you look super cute. You look super cute in your little taco. Why don't you just stay there in your little taco?
Oh, good girl. There you go. Good job. What a sleepy bean we're, uh, we're a little concerned. She might have an ear infection. Charlotte has a lot of allergies. Good job. Suzanne Charlotte has a lot of allergies and, uh, as, as many pit bull Frenchies do. Good girl. And uh, so we're concerned she might have an ear infection cuz she's been all shaking her head.
I like your lip gloss though. Your lip gloss looks on point. You look super cute. Okay, so let's talk about fine tuning your G P S. Your G P S is fine tuned through doing the work, okay? You have to dig for the diamond clients. This is something that I started saying a little while ago, and I wish I would've said it earlier.
Your diamond clients are hiding in plain sight. You have to go find them, which means you have to dig through the research, you have to do all the stuff to do that. So, They're, when you're thinking about best freelance writing clients, they're hiding, like they're hiding in plain sight, and they're also looking for the right person to do all the stuff, right?
They're looking for the right person to create a long-term relationship with, so they can keep coming back to you with projects or they can just keep farming out projects to you as you go along. For, you know, the next, however long they need help, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe multiple years. I know I had some, someone, um, on a webinar who said they had a long-term retainer for like 21 years, which was nuts.
That's the longest retainer I've ever heard of. Uh, a the longest one I'd heard of before was five years, but 20 and one years is pretty great. Um, so your gps right? We need to do the processes. Your best clients are doing the work of growing their own business. So we need to be growing our business. We are in a growth mindset.
We are in the same thing. So what does that mean? Our clients are growing their revenue potentially and probably growing their staff. The staff numbers might go up and down if you're going after startups or if you go after really big companies that can go up and down quite, quite a lot. So, They're growing in revenue, they're growing their products or services, they're becoming one of the best places in their industry and the, they come up on a bunch of lists.
This is something that I think is really important. These companies are thriving cuz they're showing up on like Forbes lists or TechCrunch lists or crunch based lists or, um, the Inc 5,000 or, uh, industry publication lists. Or they're coming up on places where they're the best companies to work for in this area or.
Um, they are emerging, um, technology or they are, uh, changing the way their niche is, um, thinking about a certain, a certain procedure or process or system or technology or, uh, service right? These are not that hard to find. They're on lists. They're growing. Okay. That's the important piece is we have to think about, um, we have to think about the growth part.
These, that's why I say sometimes they're hiding in plain sight. So not only are they on a bunch of lists, they're growing, but you can see them, like people share things about them on LinkedIn or. There are tons of articles written about them. This is why I subscribe to like a bunch of like local business publications like Austin Business Journal or Austin Inno, or just the n o i at n o that covers startups and stuff around the country.
So if you kind of have these publications, they're constantly writing about businesses that are changing their niche or changing the outlook or doing something innovative. They're growing. They're the ones that are like, they're not saying like, Hey, please come help me. They're off working in and on their business, and you need to go find them in your niche.
Um, remember those revenue ranges, startups need at least three to 10 million. They can have more than that, but at least three to 10 million. And a traditional company needs at least five to 50 million minimum. Uh, it depends on the niche. That's why it's such a big gap. But, They have the money. They're growing.
They're popping up in a bunch of different places, doing things that are innovative. You're getting press releases or articles about them. You're seeing them in places. They're easier to collect, right? They're, they're out there doing the work, right? You need to go do the work to go find them. You need to be reading these things, scanning places to find them.
Uh, in, in, uh, not in subscribe to publications that talk about your niches and things that are coming out. They're there all the time. Like I can tell you some of my best clients were on these lists multiple times. They were on the Inc 5,000 multiple times, or they were on like the best blah, blah, blah to watch in this niche or whatever.
Like, it's because they're doing the work. That's where we wanna be. Cuz as they grow, the workload grows, right? And as they grow, they're in like this. We wanna have someone grow with our brand or we want to have someone who's up on, on what works best for our audience or someone who understands our company.
They're looking for someone with quality to match like their speed, kind of in a way that's really important. The other thing is that your, this is something that I've told my students that I think is really important and um, this is like my Wealth lab students that we're talking about this kind of right now.
Is, um, your clients are silently cl crying in a cubicle, okay? Your clients are in their cubicle crying because they, they, they are stuck with a bunch of work, okay? I can't tell you how many times I sent an L O I a letter of introduction. To a potential client and they're like, oh, thank God you're here.
Please for the love, God help me. I've got a ton of projects that I would love to outsource, you know, to you. Or like, I want someone who, um, can be there. Ugh. Who can be there, um, when I need more help, right? They're not advertising that, right? They're not going out there posting a job ad going on a platform looking for help.
They're just silently crying in their cubicle. Okay? This is something that a lot of freelancers miss. This is where your clients are hiding in their cubicle, in their tears stained their tear stained mouse, right? Like they are really struggling with getting things done, and what are they gonna do? Like they can't just post.
Without their boss's approval, their boss may not know, or their company structure, um, may not allow them to have someone full-time. So maybe they don't know about freelance or, um, they haven't considered it. And you showing up with an l o i right, a letter of introduction or you showing up in their inbox or connecting with them on LinkedIn.
Um, or being available, right, and making yourself known in their, in their space. Right? Then they're like, oh, we can have this person help us. They're not advertising that they're struggling like this happens all the time, and I feel like we miss that as freelancers. We think that if someone needs help, they'll post an ad or a job, or there'll be like, Um, just like some kind of portal of freelance writing jobs where they're like, all the best companies are needing help.
Um, as a caveat, one little caveat, big, big companies like Microsoft, Nike, um, Google, uh, Facebook, they will use specific agencies only, like they will not. Vet the freelancer, they will use an agency to vet freelancer. So if you really wanted to work for Apple, or if you really wanted to work for Nike, uh, or, or Microsoft or somebody, or Oracle or something, they oftentimes use an agency.
So you'd have to figure out who the agency is and then you'd send them Lois and try to work with them. So, small caveat, super, super big companies will a lot of times use an agency. They won't vet freelancers themselves, but most of the time, yes. Hello. Look at that cute little tail. You look so sweet. Most of the time your best clients are, you know, medium sized companies or they're startups and they are looking for your help.
They just don't know how to find you and you have to go find them. You have to do the work of creating your list. You have to do the work of, um, Sending your lois, you have to do the work of making yourself basically available. Right. That's really important. Tuning your GPS is about doing that process.
This is something I go over extensively in the Wealth Lab with my Wealth Lab students, which we're doing right now. Um, Is like how to do the process, how to find all these publications. What, what should we look for? What types of lists? What are some good client attributes? What are some things that like we can kind of suss out?
There's really no way that you would know your clients are crying in their cubicle, right? Like, yes. You can see that their content is inconsistent, right? You can see they're inconsistently posting content on their website, or inconsistently posting content on social media. Whatever. But unless you send an LOI and unless you get on a call with them, you know, you don't really know.
So your GPS is fine tuning that process of finding these clients, making sure they have the right revenue, because the right revenue usually means they have a good budget for freelance writing or at least content marketing. And you're in the content marketing group. Um, and that you are looking for the people who are thriving and growing.
Um, And making changes in their industry. You are following different types of publications or you get press releases or stuff that kind of shows you who's the movers and shakers, like what's kind of going on here. Um, and those are the best clients, man. Like, they're motivated, they're interested, they're growing.
Like those things are your, your job is to fine tune your new pair of glasses. This is something I tell my students, you gotta wear that new pair of glasses and adjust their prescription. You gotta get used to that new prescription so you can find those clients. And it's your job to do that. The platforms make it seem like it's like a magic client portal.
It's not okay. It's not your best freelance writing. Clients are hiding in plain sight. They are hiding in their cubicle crying, and they are hiding in all the articles that are written about them, about what the great, uh, all the great stuff that they're doing. So that's number one. This is going a lot longer than I thought it would.
So, hold on. Let's do number two. Charlie, what do you think? What do you think about this? Charlie's like, I want the best snack. Good girl. You look super cute. Wagged your tail today, you haven't been wagging that much recently cause you've been all, we've been, all been, you know, as you guys know, Bo passed away, which has been really difficult.
So Charlie's been really sad and uh, she's, but the good thing is she's wagging right now. You being a wagon dragon, she's being a wagon dragon for everybody right now. Good job. You're the cutest. You look like a little taco bean. Good girl. Taco bean. Okay, so let's talk about two real quick. Actually, we have like a bunch of things.
So if you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you wanna learn more about building a hiring, freelance writing business, or just a freelance writing business, you adore. Subscribe. Okay, let's talk about this. We don't wanna think about freelance writing like a full-time job.
We don't wanna think about this as cover letters or surfing job boards, or looking for people who are looking for us like we are. Finding people who are struggling or people who are winning, right? Like people who will silently kind of make progress or will silently cry in their cubicle. So this oftentimes ends up being this thing where.
People think the best Freelance writing clients are just gonna be like, oh, I'm the best and I'm gonna post on the best job board, or I'm gonna post, you know, all this stuff. And they just don't, like, every once in a while there is a great client who will send an email to subscribers saying, we're looking for someone, or who will post on social media about it.
But very, very rarely will that happen. So we're not gonna be sending cover letters or resumes or all that stuff. Like we're not going to be applying, we're going to be seeking, we're going to be creating lists. We're gonna be seeking things out. We are gonna be cutting our lists down by revenue, and we are gonna be sending our lois our letters of introduction if you're interested in that.
I keep forgetting. I have a bundle, my own LOI templates, my own marketing stuff, my own ways that I reach out to clients. If you go to mandy ellis.com/bundle, you can grab it. It's the same stuff I use right now. Okay. So your, your the freelance writers that I see a lot of times too, that are applying to jobs on job boards or that are doing this kind of like treating it like a full-time job, right.
They're treating it like the, in order to get clients, they do the same stuff as they would if it was a full-time job. They're exhausted. They're exhausted. It's not motivating to apply to 200 things with 2000 other people, every time I see something on LinkedIn, you know, it'll tell you how many people apply to the job.
Right. So every time I see that, it's like you're competing with 685 other people, or 1100 people recently applied for this job. We wanna be one of one, okay? When you're sending loi, it's okay. You can lay down, you can lay down. When you're sending, here you go. There you go. Good job, smart. Good job. When you're sending Lois and you're showing up as uh, a LinkedIn InMail or an email, you're one of one.
You're not applying to a cattle call, okay? If you're a freelance writer who's been thinking about, um, Finding your best clients as you would the best full-time job. You're doing it wrong. I'm sorry. You're doing it wrong. We do not wanna be the best of the cattle call. Okay. That's not a good idea. We wanna be one of one.
We wanna be looking for the right people who have the right stuff going on there, creating content. It looks like it's inconsistent or that they need help or, um, we, there's a bunch of stuff behind the scenes we don't know about, but they look like a good fit. We send an l o I. This is not about gathering ourselves to, like, you are way better off sending a hundred Lois than applying to a hundred job ads every single time.
You are, you're, that's another thing too, is that I often get answers about like, well, what do I do about a resume? I'm like, I haven't been asked for a resume in years, in years and years. Like I made one resume three years ago because I had to, I had no other option. I had to make one. And that that was a rarity.
Like you're not asked for a resume as a freelance writer, if someone is truly looking for, um, a good freelance writer and someone to work with long term, they wanna see your clips. They wanna know what clients you, uh, worked with in the past. They wanna know that you get their stuff. Like you get their niche or their audience that you're on board.
Right. The resume thing is to, is totally nuts. That's why we have LinkedIn websites. Like to me, if someone asks for a resume, it's super outdated. It's like almost a red flag, and very rarely, very rarely, there's a great client who asks for a resume and usually they're only asking for a resume because they have to put it in some kind of portal.
They have to put it, it's okay. You can lay down. Yeah. They have to, like, in order for their company to onboard someone, they need that on file, right? Like something like that. But when you're thinking about this, you have to think about like, I'm digging for diamonds. I'm sending my lois, I'm looking for clients like by, uh, lists and revenue and who's kind of moving and shaken.
What's kind of going on, uh, with their business growth or their articles being written about them. It's not about like, let me give you my resume, like this is about meetings. And having the right website in LinkedIn that attracts the right clients that you're meeting them on their level. A resume does not meet high quality clients on their re level.
They just don't, that's they don't care. It's not a thing they, that's why LinkedIn exists. That's why we have websites. And the other, the other thing is that if you're talking to a client where they're asking for a resume, like. Most regular full-time people don't have a website and they barely figure, they barely figure out or fill in LinkedIn, right?
We are doing all that work. We're putting all that work into great copy on LinkedIn, great descriptions of our experiences, wonderful website copy, so that that gives people a much richer experience of what we actually know how to do, who we should work with, all that stuff. Versus like a one sheet of resume that's like just, it just does, has no.
Feeling of the experience or knowledge that you have to share or the experience of working with you. So we don't wanna think about it like that. We don't wanna think about it like a full-time job. We don't wanna be in the cattle call. Um, we don't wanna be sending a thousand resumes. You're don't wanna be competing against a billion people.
You wanna be one of one. Okay, that's two. Let's talk about three. Hold on. Let's talk about three. Okay. Three. Here is when we are, um, We're thinking about, one of the things that I get asked about is if those amazing gem clients don't know how to find you, right? Like they're, um, you are confused about why they can't find you, and then I find out that the person doesn't have a website or they haven't filled out LinkedIn at all.
No one can find you. You have to have an online presence like this. I think by now, right? 2023. You have to have an online presence. You have to have your portfolio set up. You have to have these things all worked out. And even if you don't have clips or clients, you need to have somewhere where your clients can plant a flag and say like, yes, this is the right person for me, our websites and our LinkedIns are, are a writing audition.
That's why three is this. This three thing is really important. Your GEM clients also find you those best freelance writing clients. Stumble into your inbox cuz your website's super smart. They stumble into your LinkedIn dms, right? Your InMails, because you have a really great LinkedIn profile and if you fail to deal with making your online presence fantastic, you're missing out on all these opportunities with these gem clients.
They hide, they come outta hiding and they're like, oh, they're like little squirrel. They're like, oh, look at that. Let me, let me just gather that LinkedIn profile and like send 'em a message. Right? So, We, we wanna make it as easy as possible for them to find us. That means working on our website and working on our LinkedIn, updating those regularly, adding clips, adding new clients, fixing our, uh, copy.
I probably, like, I always recommend like three to six months, you should be updating you every time you get a clip. You should be updating your website and adding that, but your copy, looking at images on your, on your website, uh, looking at what clips are featured on LinkedIn. Uh, adding cl new client logos or new client lists, like all that stuff should be updated every three to six months.
The more you update your website, the easier it is for someone to type in something like Austin Freelance Writer, or Raleigh Freelance writer, or um, uh, like San Francisco freelance writer or whatever, and find you because your website is constantly being updated. That's more important. SEO's important, but like I always say, if you're doing it right, you should have that SEO in your copy anyways.
Like the stuff that we would be. Interested in for our web copy. Should already be in your copy as you write. Yes. The squirrel. The, also this squirrel, she likes to hunt squirrels, which, you know, luckily Charlotte doesn't have. Luckily for us, Charlotte waits way too long to chase the squirrels, so she. The likelihood that she would catch one is very small.
Uh, she waits too long. She doesn't like, she doesn't get the, the time span between running off of our deck and running after the squirrel on the tree. Right. Okay. Good girl. Otherwise, good girl down. Good job. So, luckily Charlotte doesn't. Doesn't do that. But the deal is that your, your, your clients need to be able to find you as well and you need to have this online presence and you need to be able to speak to them on their level.
This is something that we go over quite a bit in the course, right in the Wealth Lab, and I'm talking about the wealth lab, cuz right now we're in a session where we're doing this quite extensively. We're going over LinkedIn and websites and sending Lois doing our marketing, finding clients. So, It's like fresh in my mind.
So these gem clients will then find you and the better work you do on your website, the better you do with LinkedIn, the better you are at, bless you. The better you are at communicating. How you help your clients, why you're different, what kinds of things you work on, the things that you solve. You're meeting those gem high quality clients at their level.
We have to meet them at their level, right? This is that thing where. Um, when you undercharge, your good clients are like, I don't know if you're good at your job, if you're charging that little, right? This is a weird thing that happens when we start as freelance writers, we're scared of charging too much, but when you get the best clients and you get gem, like amazing gem clients, if you don't charge enough, they're like suspicious of your quality of work.
Cuz they're used to paying a lot, right? There's plenty of times where you'll talk to a client who worked with a freelancer in the past and they. Uh, that freelancer either left or, you know, they were just like, yeah, the project ended. And they're like, if you send a quote for like, you know, $2,000, they're like, we're used to paying 10.
Like, are you actually good at your job? Like, you know, that's a weird thing that happens that we forget about as freelance writers is not only do we need to be found, but we need to be at their level in our copy, at our level, uh, their level on LinkedIn and at their level when it comes to pricing. Like they take it.
They are looking for someone who takes their shit seriously and charges appropriately, like that's the level that they're at. They're like, of course we're gonna pay 10 grand because obviously this project's important and obviously we have a budget to support it. Right? So those are really important things to remember and we don't want to, um, we wanna be, uh, um, really smart about helping our best clients find us and.
Like, you know, there might be someone crying in their cubicle who does go for a search, right? They search on their computer, which they do, of course. Um, but there's, like I said, like a lot of those clients, like they have to do their own searches. They're looking for you. They're not going on a platform like they already know if they're paying 10 grand for a project, they're looking for someone who is professional enough to have a website and a LinkedIn and to show their copy and to, excuse me, and to have stuff that like aligns with what they're doing.
Okay. Let's talk about four. Hold on a second. Let's talk about four. Charlotte, how do you feel about four? Because I know that you wanted to share your opinion, but I'm not sure, uh, you, you know how to deal a dig for like bugs, but not so much diamond clients. You know how to find like small lizards or mice to chase.
Whoop. High five. Whoop. Good girl. You're so sweet. How's your tooth doing? Charlotte has a tooth that we're a little worried about. It's a little gray and uh, it just started turning gray a little bit ago, which was weird. So we have to take her in for that. It's like every time I feel like, every time I feel like I've got a handle, I'm like, what our dogs are doing.
And I'm like, sweet. Our dogs are good. There's always something weird that happens, right? Like Charlotte has like an ear infection now and or she probably does right? She's like, I don't know. My ears bugging me and like, her tooth looks weird and uh, I don't know. What do you think? But we did trim her her nails the other day, which is a whole big thing for her.
She really hates that. So the fact that we got like two and a half feet trimmed, that was a big deal. That was a big deal. You did great. You were superstar. All right, let's go over four. Let's talk about four. This is our last thing. If you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. Uh, if you feel like you wanna learn more about building your own freelance writing business, subscribe.
Sometimes I wanna say subscribe bay. I don't know why, but my brain just like, I don't know. Um, um, Albert says, I can't understand why any writer, uh, in 2023, we, um, would not have. Wait, would in 20 not have any kind of online presence? Yeah. I always feel like it's this, that for me, when I see this as a problem with a student or someone who sends me an email, it's cuz they think the website is either too much work or they're coming from a platform and someone comes to me with a platform and they're like, oh well I just have this profile.
They can just go to that. And I'm like, no, no, no. So like a lot of times they just don't understand the, the. Importance of the website. They instead see it as too much work. Or they're like, why can't they just go to this platform? Uh, or what ends up happening is they, they just have LinkedIn. They're like, well, I have LinkedIn, but they didn't fill it out.
They didn't work on it. I think a lot of it is like they're coming from a platform. Sometimes I have people who are switching from like fiction or poetry and doing more freelance writing for business clients or for magazines, and they don't understand the importance. Like their author site is not as, um, It's not really built for like getting inbound leads.
It's not really built, it's just like a, like an island that people visit every once in a while. Like there's no like tourism company saying like, visit this island. Um, like they, they are coming from a different space, so they don't understand like the power of, I have like a hair that's poking me. They don't understand the power of their website or the power of LinkedIn, or they look at it as like too much work.
Instead of saying, It can I put in a month's worth of work on my LinkedIn and my website, get it super sharp, and then let it rest for several months while I go do all this other stuff, and that it powers their business. I, I also think it's weird, like sometimes I'll get people with, um, I don't know if this is still Contently profiles, like Contently, um, um, uh, portfolios or people who use other sites for their portfolio.
They're like, oh, I have a website and they send me a link to like a thing. That's just a collection of their clips. It has no copy, no information about what clients they work for. Uh, it has no way for those gem clients to know this is the right writer for them because just having a clump of clips.
Doesn't show me personality fit, it doesn't show me that you get my audience, it doesn't show me that you understand my pain points. It doesn't show me anything. So I think it's like the, like I said when I started this, it's reverse engineering. A lot of times freelance writers are just like, look at my deck of cards, right?
Like they're just like, I have 57 cards. And they're like, but who are you as a writer? And they're like 57 cards, right? And those cards are like, they're clips. So instead of understanding the power of the online presence, they think all they need are clips and clients, and that's just not the case. Your diamond clients, when you dig for diamond clients, when you're going after the good stuff, they wanna know that they're in a partnership.
Okay? Partnership, not just picking up a rando with a bunch of clips, right? This is the thing that I think freelance writers need to reverse engineer. It's not just like, I have clips, please, for the love, God pick me. That's not it. It's partnership. You have to meet them at their level, right? Those gen clients, those people who are super green, light, super amazing clients, long-term people who wanna give you big piles of money, they're looking to create a relationship with someone.
They can't create a relationship with someone. Where it's, it's like, okay, here's the difference. This is like the difference between like super deep level dating sites, like eHarmony, where they make you do like, or they used to make you do like a huge questionnaire, right? To say like, I'm all these things about you.
Versus like Tinder, where it's like your, if you just have a website that's just clips or you just have this like scannable thing that like, it, it has no personality, it's just clips or it's like a profile on a, on a. Platform. It's like Tinder. It's like hot, hot, not hot, hot, hot. You know, like it's like a bunch of hot pictures and then you're like, okay, cool.
We're looking for like eHarmony long-term partnership, like, you know, answering a bunch of questions, being specific about who you work for. We are looking for a website that actually converts, not just a place that exists for you to send clients. Like this is something, I think, this is why I go so deep in the Wealth lab over this and why we go, we have like multiple different lessons and modules about.
How we like convert clients and how to think of like them and how to talk about pain points is because that's what converts just like a banner up in the internet saying like, here's my clips, or here's a one sentence description of what I do that doesn't convert. We need conversion. Okay, Albert. Good.
Good thing Vicky says, sorry. Vicky says, do you think there are more humans on my website than I think there are? Yeah. Yeah, I do. And the other thing, Vicky, is you can check this. Google Analytics. Uber suggests Moz, uh, hfs. A hfs, sorry. Um, any of those sites will let you look up your website and see the traffic, right?
The traffic is the humans on your website. So like, um, Google Analytics sends me a monthly report, right? My Google Analytics is like, you had this many impressions and this many visitors, right? Uh, so you can do that for your site and it, you can see it increase, right? You can do that by checking it on Uber suggest like seeing the like, uh, the, um, chart.
I don't know why I forgot that. The chart of like the traffic on your site. The more you work on adding clips, adding client logos, updating your copy, all that stuff. And you don't have to do it forever, but every time you get a clip, you should put it on your website. Um, well, you do have to do it forever.
I mean, you don't have to do it, uh, super frequently. Um, but yeah, like this, I check this stuff. Like is it going up? What's kind of the average? How, like what can I kind of expect? Um, I bet there's probably a lot more people on there than you think. And that's the thing that I always try to explain is like that copy on your website, we need that to convert.
Like when someone, when you get that three to five seconds and it used to be like much longer and it used to be like eight seconds, but now you get like five seconds. So imagine you have five seconds for someone to scan your website. A GEM client who comes in there. Sorry, I'm a little like buggy feeling today.
So you have like five seconds for someone to scan your website and see that you get their pain points, get their audience off, excuse me, offer their services, um, that you're on their level, that we need that from the very beginning. We only have a handful of seconds to make it work. And if you just have this blank page with a bunch of stuff on it, like just clips or like, hi.
I just do services. Like when? When I see a website that's just like, hi services. Hi, freelance writer. Hi clips. Like that tells me nothing about how you're gonna help me. Why am I, why are your clients important to you? Like, how are you helping them reach their goals? How does the content actually work for them?
Right? If you can explain all that stuff, it's like the person scans it and they're like, yep, I got it. So like, this is something for me, uh, that I hear on my calls. This is why I think it's so important, is cuz like I have. Big girl. I have lots of data to back this up where someone will, uh, send me an in InMail on LinkedIn or will send me an email and they'll say like, Hey, I loved your website.
I looked at it and I knew immediately you were right for me. Or they'll say like, I was reading through your website and I loved your vibe. Like it's perfect for our company. Right? Like, that's the thing is they, they scan or they're putting things together and they're like, ah, this is the right, like, we are on the same thing, right?
We're eing each other. Like et you know, like the, you know, the glow fingers. Anyways, um, that's really important. And, and you can check this, like I said, you can have, uh, you can put your site, like link your Google Analytics to your site and have it send you a monthly report. You can do this for free on a bunch of other websites.
You can just put your URL in and see the traffic. Um, but this is like, like I said, it's really important when someone comes to your site, they're scanning it and they're like, yes, like you're on, you get it. Like you're on board. Um, and I bet there's a lot more people on your site than you think. Biggie. I bet there's a lot, like, like if you're getting like, mm, I don't know, like a hundred to 400 visitors a month, I think that's probably good.
Um, I mean obviously thousands would be great, but I think as long as you're kind of in, like there's people finding you, then you're good. And that goes over time. Like I used to start at like three people a month and now it's like, Obviously not three people a month. I totally thought that emoji was giving me the finger.
I did, but it's not. Okay. Last thing. This is the last thing we're gonna talk about. Then we're gonna hop off. Uh, cuz this went longer than I thought it would and I thought that I would be short spoken today, but I'm not. I have a problem being chatty. Charlotte knows that. Charlotte's like, yeah. She always tries to talk to me and hug me and it's like too much.
Good girl. Okay. Um, so when we're digging for Diamond clients, we need to have, um, our own kind of set of tools, right? This is a wrap up. Our tools are revenue, right? They need to have at least three to 10 million. As a startup, that's a minimum. Most, like your startup could have more, it could have a hundred million or more, but usually your startups have at least three to 10 million.
Your regular companies, traditional companies, five to 50 million depending on your niche. Um, they can have more revenue than that, but at least that they need to be people who are like, you are connecting with them in different ways. Like you see them on different lists. They are people who are growing.
Um, you find them in different places and you add them to your list. Cut by revenue, so you can add all these different companies. Make sure they have the right revenue. Then we're going to make sure that we are sending out those Lois, our letters of introduction. This is for businesses pitches, different story magazines, different story.
But if you're looking for my LOI templates, go to mandy ellis.com/bundle and you can grab 'em. They're the templates that I send for cold emails, which is your Lois. Uh, they're my LinkedIn messages, how I connect with different types of clients. Uh, they have a whole bunch of, like, my contracts are in there, but all my marketing stuff and how I reach out to clients is in there.
Um, Mandy ellis.com/bundle. The other thing is then you wanna make sure that you are updating your stuff right, help those gem clients find you. Make sure you understand their pain points. Make sure you understand what they struggle with with content. Make sure that you are updating your clips, please.
This is something where like people go like six months without updating their clips and their website like, Google loves websites that are updated often. This is why people have blogs cuz they don't have clips. Every time you get a clip, put it on your website. The number one way. I know this sounds nuts every, I've had many conversations with clients that are like, oh, you must know SEO cuz your site is number one.
I'm like, no. I update it. I put in new clips. And like I said, normally when you're writing your website content, there should be a ton of stuff that's in there that's just regular seo. Like it's, don't overthink it. Put in the regular stuff, right? Freelance writer in Austin or Austin, content marketing writer, or helping you with white papers, case studies, blah, blah, blah in the blah, blah, blah.
Niches, right? Normal stuff. So we wanna make sure we, we are on the same level. With our LinkedIn and our website, right? And we remember, don't forget this, your ideal clients are hiding in plain sight. They're crying in their cubicle. They're not posting job ads, they're not surfing through a hundred profiles, and they're definitely not looking through a cattle call, okay?
They're not setting up a cattle call. You are one of one. You wanna reach out, you wanna build a relationship. You want to be with someone who wants a partnership, right? Um, and you are looking for a client who, who's like, you are meeting them at their level, right? Like I said, like if you charge two K and they're used to paying 10 K, they get weird about it and they're like, worried that you're not very good.
That's why you're not charging enough, right? You're not, you're, you don't like do as good of work, right? Don't put yourself in that situation. Um, This is another thing, right? The, the one of the ways you don't do that is when you get on a call is that you ask them what their budget is, right? And then you get a, oh, did I, did you get your tooth in there?
Sorry. Um, you, uh, you ask what their budget is and that will help you a lot figure out like where we are. So these gem clients, like they are. They're not in the platforms. They're not like, every once in a while you will see platforms that will say, oh, I worked for Google, or I worked for whoever. Like they, they're on Upwork or they're on Fiber or whatever and they worked for these big companies.
That's usually like they had worked for an agency either off the platform or somewhere else. And remember when you're saying if you're, if you have to write in your copy, and this is the thing that I see on the platforms. If you're writing, I'm a professional freelance writer who does SEO optimize blog posts.
You're in the wrong place. That's your job. Your job is to be a professional writer. Like the fact that you have to say that means you're swimming in the wrong poop soup, okay? That's not where we should be. Those are normal things. They are expected. High quality clients expect you to be good at your job.
They care about solving pain points. They don't care about dumb stuff like has to be on the first page of Google. I mean, they do sometimes, but um, it's not like the same thing. Like you can see a very big, vast contrast between the content that's written on someone's profile on. Even the, the top people with the best ratings on these platforms versus a freelance writer website who's killing it and making six figures.
There's a huge gap. So meet your client's pain points, update that. Copy, put in your clips, right? Meet your clients at that level. All right, so I'm gonna hop, I'm gonna do one more thing with Charlie just because we're gonna do a quick pup date just to see how she's doing. Charlie, you look like a mermaid.
Why do you look like a mermaid? You just have that like blanket, just, it makes you look like a mermaid. Can you do a little high fives? Good job. Good job. Can you down? Good girl. You look like a superstar today. I know you're kind of struggling with your whole ear infection, potential ear infection slash weird tooth thing, but you uh, you look like a superstar today.
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. You guys, I taught her this new thing that I think she just tried to do. Um, all right, Charlotte Belly. Belly. Oh, come. We can do it. Charlotte Belly. Oh, you were so close belly. Um, I'm trying to get her to, to roll over and show me her belly, cuz she can be kind of sensitive about that.
So I'm trying to normalize it for her. Um, but I think maybe, can you do belly the other way? Can you do belly this way so you don't fall off belly. Oh, you're so close belly. Come on. They like, can you roll over? She's like, no, I'll fall off the bed. Well, we're, we'll get it. I'm always trying to like teach Charlie and, and Barry too.
Before, um, Bo passed away, he reached his full potential as a dog because we were always teaching him things to make him more comfortable. So, you know, Charlotte got taught a bunch of things that, um, yeah, you think so Charlie, um, we do a bunch of things with Charlie so that she's less nervous, like she's kind of nervous and skittish about certain things.
So I taught her to, to go around so that she can move around in tight spaces when she gets kind of panicked. And the belly thing is just so she feels, oh, thank you Dean. Uh, just so she feels more comfortable showing her belly, cuz sometimes she can get really freaked out about it. So. Good girl. Yes. You look like a tiny little gremlin.
You're so cute. All right, so I hope this has been helpful. I hope it helps you understand that you're, these clients aren't, like, they're easy to find. Like it's, it's not like, well, they're not easy to find, like, Like they, you're just like, like, you know, a blue whale getting a bunch of crill, right? Like you're just like, oh look, crill, and you eat 2 million of them in one bite.
It's not like that. But if you put in the work and you actually start wearing that new pair of glasses and you can actually see those clients and you're like, oh, this is what they look like, repeating that process, you know, you end up. It makes it a lot easier to find these diamond clients and you ought to meet them at their level, meet them at their level with your copy on your website and LinkedIn, meet them at their level by reaching out and being one of one with your L loi.
Okay. I think that's really important. Uh, Bailey says, this was great. Thanks. You're welcome. Thank you for saying that. It's super nice of you to say, um, I'm glad this was helpful. I'm here every Friday. Every Friday we do a live stream. Uh, at noon central time, if you ever have a question, where did it go? If you ever have a question or topic that you want me to go over, go to mandy ellis.com/question.
You can be anonymous. We've done many questions on here. So there are lots of times where I've done a topic on a live stream that someone has asked for, uh, anonymously, and, uh, I did the livestream topic, so, You're welcome Tracy. I always like to give pep talks. Yeah. So if you ever have a question or a topic you want me to cover on this live stream, put it into mandels.com/question.
Um, and like I said, you can be anonymous. I always like the shrimp though. You know, I guess the crill is too small for an emoji. It would be weird to have a crill emoji. Obviously. I've been watching, I started watching Blue Planet, so we're getting a lot of ocean analogies, which like, Blue Planet is like fun to watch, but also like I have to skip through all the sad stuff cuz like that's, I can't handle it, but like, I like the information about like the deep sea and stuff.
Um, in any case, I hope everybody has, uh, a really good Friday. I'll see you next Friday at noon Central time and uh, yeah. Thanks so much for hanging out. Bye.
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