Working With Freelance Writing Clients Outside The US + Q&A

Thanks to Jennifer Schmidt for this topic!

Working with clients outside the US and all over the world is one of the coolest parts of being a freelance writer. It's one of the lucky business perks that we get to work on projects that affect different audiences and have the option to grow our client list with tons of international opportunities.

But how do you work with non-US-based clients when it comes to payment, contracts, taxes, time zone differences, and a whole host of other snafus. That's what we're going over in this week's livestream.

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Hi, everybody. Welcome freelance friends. I'm back. I am not sick anymore. So thank you for all the well wishes. I know people sent me DMS and messages. I'm good. Now it was a very long standing bugs, so it hung on for like a good two weeks high Vicky Vicky sent me some nice words. Thank you so much, Vicky. Um, I I'm good now. It was just one of those bugs that like, it just hangs on. And it's one of those bugs where you feel like nauseous and the smell of food makes you feel really sick. Like you don't want it. I didn't eat anything for a long time. And like, it's just one of those bugs that like drains your energy. And I felt really dizzy and achy. It was just not fun, but I'm good now. So thank you for all the kind words and we're going to do things slightly differently today.

I noticed a little loud, but um, one number one, we're going to start with pup date all. Look, you guys look so cute today. Um, so a couple of notes Bo threw up recently, so he ate something weird. Uh, so well-wishes for Bo I guess he's a good buddy, but he's eating food. So he's, he's doing okay. The girl Charlotte, everybody's in their Hobbit hole today. So we're starting with a pup date. Uh, Bose now 15. I know I've said that before, but like we're at the point where it's like, he can't, um, we're pretty sure he can't really hear us like his hearing really for, and his eyesight is not super great. Um, so basically if he throws up or has some sort of issue, we're kind of like, you know, he's an old dog, unless he's acting weird or unless he really has some sort of big issue, you know, then he's just, this is part of being old, eat weird stuff.

And uh, Charlotte's, you know, Charlotte's moving right along. She's going to turn nine in a couple of months and she's got that salt and pepper look going on. So that's, that's, you know, treating her well. So we start with pub date. And so I know that I put this up before, so this is where you can ask questions. Oops. There we go. Is it centered? Cool. So I put this up and I've had some questions. Um, yeah, I know they're both in the shop, finally Vicky. Right? So they like, we've been walking them a lot more. So like, I feel like maybe they'll stay where they want to stay now. Um, anyways, I had some questions come in a while back through my Manny L's dot com slash questions. So if you want to submit any questions to be answered on the live stream, you can go to Mandy ellis.com/question.

Um, and if you want to have a topic gone over in the live stream, you can submit it to, if you're like nervous about submitting, you can submit anonymously. Um, you don't have to put your name on it. So we have an anonymous question today, actually the two anonymous questions, the two questions with people's names on them. So since they submitted those a really long time ago, we're going to do those first on today's live stream because they've been waiting for a long time and I've been sick and I really want to make sure we get those answers. So we're doing those first. Then we're going to get to writing outside the U S like working with clients outside of the U S. So our first question is it's a little long, so I wanted to give it all its space because it had a lot of contexts.

So I really wanted to hear your advice about applying for contracts as a copywriter, but I have a schedule conflict. So I worked for years as a W2 contract tech writer and found it to be an almost perfect way to earn a living. The agency handled all the tax paperwork, and I didn't have to live or die by client politics. I made six figures, happy camper, if a bit bored, excuse me. Fast-forward excuse me. Fast-forward to semiretired, trying to switch to copywriter and needing a reliable stream of income now. So I get approached by agencies and companies that only want to work with me as a W2 on an hourly basis. They're all scared because of the California laws and lawsuits. Oh, okay. I personally don't mind, but is there a better, is there a good, better, best way to handle this? Okay. So this is a really detailed and interesting question.

So I don't live in California. Let's start there. I live in Austin. I live in Texas different rules. California has a lot of rough and tumble rules on freelancers. Now that have been, um, kind of a struggle. So my advice would be like, if you're going to apply for contracts. So this is a different beast, right? When you apply for contracts, like when you are looking for contract work and they have you as a contractor, and they have you as a W2 contractor, which is different than a lot of times as freelancers, we work on w nights, right? Who work a 10 99, sorry. And we fill out a w nine and we get a 10 99. Uh, so this is a bit of a different beast and you're also working hourly. So a lot of times hourly, isn't great for, um, doing freelance stuff. But if you're a W2 worker and you're working on an hourly basis and you live in California, it seems like that's probably your best bet.

And it also sounds like it worked for you before. It sounds like, you know, you liked the way that it happened, um, like that they had taxes, you were making good money. Um, and so you get approached by agencies and companies that only want to work on this way. Okay. So if you don't mind working that way, then I would say, that's cool. Like, I don't want to work that way. I know that that's a thing for me. Like I re I don't think, I don't think I've ever worked that way as a freelance writer ever. I think it's all been 10 99. So if you like that way of working and you feel like that works for you and you live in California, and there's all these rules and people are worried about things, then I would just continue to do the thing that's working.

I mean, it sounds like if you're needing a reliable income stream, it was working for you before you were applying to contract jobs. You know, that system, right. You know how that works, and it sounds like you like it, right. You don't mind working that way, then I would do it. So I think for me, um, that comes down to personal preference. Like for me, this wouldn't work. I didn't, I wouldn't want to do this, but I also don't live in California. I don't have to follow those same rules. And I think that, I think it just makes sense. Honestly. I think it doesn't make sense for you if you like it. And it makes like, you know how to get that work. You understand how to work as that contractor you've been doing it for a long time, I would do it. Um, also you don't have to like deal with the client stuff and you can work.

Um, I'm guessing if you have a W2 contract, you can still work for other people. Is that true? Maybe not. Um, but look into that. Like, if you want to just have one client at a time, um, then this W2 thing would probably be best. And if you want to have more than one client at a time, I would look into that and see what that's like, like, can you work for multiple W2's my guess is you probably can't, but I don't, I don't know. Like I said, there's one of the things about freelancing is that the rules are different, right? The rules are different for each state, right? Like Texas is very like pro small business and they're very pro entrepreneurship. And they're like, you know, California's a little bit different. They're like that whole AB five thing is. Yeah. Uh, and the other thing about AB five is like, it includes workers that are not like freelance writers and it doesn't include workers that are basically like freelance writers.

Like, it doesn't include like graphic designers, but includes freelance writers. Like what? Um, so yeah, if you like working that way, I would do it. Um, and if you feel like that makes sense for you and you, you know, it's just, I think, yeah. I think I would try to work with those agencies and company companies that want to work like that. I mean, it sounds like you were already doing that, so, okay. So Tommy here, we'll put this up. So Tommy did a quick search and you can work for multiple W2 clients. Okay, cool. So here's the deal? I'm sorry. It's a little, I'm a little hot today in here. Um, it's like rainy and sweaty outside today in Texas. So hi, Diana. Welcome in. I'm a pub date fan and a Mariano's fan. Thank you, Diana. I'm so glad that you're here. We just did a pup date.

We'll do one after this question just because you arrived. Good girl. And we just had Charlotte go back to her Hobbit hole. So we're in good shape. So here's the deal. We can work for multiple clients with W2. So that's a good thing. So if you want to do W2 contracting, um, if you want to work hourly for them and you want to have agencies and companies come to you like that, then go ahead. Feel free to do it. All right. Um, when we'll get to, she has a second or this person, not as she, but this person has a, um, second question that we'll get you. But first we're going to do a cup date because Diana came in and she loves the puppets. Actually, I get a lot of notes about the pup dates being a fun part of the live stream. So good girl. You're in your Hobbit hole. Good boy. Bone never really leaves his hog hole. He does every once in a while, but Charlotte really gets wiggly sometimes when she wants to run around the whole thing. All right, Charlie, let's show everybody your trick. Can you see it? Okay.

Charlie pop, pop, pop, pop. Good girl. Otherwise, you got any other ones?

Well, good girl. We're working on that because she hates getting her feet touched and it's really hard to deal with her nails. So I've been trying to teach her to do the pasta so that she gets really comfortable with me, like handling her feet. So sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't, but also sometimes when she sits like a sad, stuffed animal, like she is right now, it's hard to get her to like, those are her supports, you know, that her little sock feet or her support. So when you ask for her Paul, you know, it's just a shift her weight about around a bunch, but surely it look like a seal. What's this, this is your fins. These are seal things. Good job, buddy. All right. We did a quick pup date. So we're going to get to our second question. Oops. We're going to get to our second question.

All right. Let's see. Where is it? Here? It is. Second. How do I deal with prospects that tease, but don't move forward story of our lives, right? I'm still looking of course, and trying to get used to the prospects each and even HR, that ghost you I'm still looking of course. Okay. So that means you're still looking for potential clients trying to get used to the prospects, or I guess HR parts of the prospects that goes to you. Um, but if you're in the middle of a text conversation and suggest the next step, like a meeting, what do you do if there's no answer or feeling frustrated? Okay, let's talk about this. So here's the deal. Ghosting has been very much normalized in our culture across a lot of different things. So number one, ghosting as normal, this happens all the time. It happens to me and it happens across a lot of things.

It comes in business, right? People goes to people personally, that's really how it started, right? Like people start being in a relationship and then someone just goes to them. They don't like close out the relationship. They just like move to a different city. Um, so ghosting has become very much normalized. So don't number one, don't take that as like a personal upfront in a business sense. Personal sense. Totally different story, obviously. But in a business sense, this is normal. So here's my perception. Sorry, guys. It's a little hot in here and I was running around before this. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so here's the deal for me. This is how I look at it. Number one, people, a thousand emails. Like they get tons and tons of emails, not just internally, but from all these other places. And people normally have a business email and a personal email.

So not only are they filtering business emails, they're filtering personal emails. It's very easy for them to lose something, get like, get on a different subject, forget to get back to you. Something else became a priority. They just like go off and do their own thing. So for me, I often think of ghosting as like, oh, they're just, their mind is in a bunch of different places or this project isn't as much of a priority. Or, um, what ends up happening is they have to go talk to like 25 people. And they're like, oh, we're not having a meeting til a month from now. Then I'll tell you, like, they never tell you that they're having the meeting until you follow up. But a lot of times they're like, oh, I have to go talk to David. David's been out of the country. Or, um, I have to go talk to Sharon and Sharon.

Um, we're not having a meeting with Sharon till the end of the month. So a lot of times the ghosting is like, they have their own stuff on their own end at the company. They just don't tell you about it. They're like, oh, I'll just get back to them. When I have an answer. The other thing is that I had a similar thing. So for me, when I like, we've talked about this a whole bunch, you know, I wake up to a hundred emails a day. So that's just what I wake up to. That's not what I get during the day. That's not me following up. That's a hundred brand new emails every day. I'm sure lots of other people wake up the same way. It's not, it's not a special circumstance. Lots of people wake up to hundreds of emails and remembering to get back to you when there's other things that become priority is tough to do.

So then they end up ghosting you because they're like doing a bunch of other things or like me, what I do is I boomerang it cause I'm like, I can't think about this right now. I need to deal with this later. Um, and I boomerang it out and then I deal with it later. So there's also this other thing that it's just, it moves in terms of priority. And it moves in terms of like, when you need to handle it, you're like, I can't handle this right now. I have three deadlines. That's my priority. I'll deal with it next week. So there's a lot of things that happen like that. So number one, ghosting has become normalized. So it doesn't mean it's good. It doesn't mean it's, um, a good, like a, a positive thing, but it happens and people are overloaded, especially with holiday emails.

And, um, you know, a lot of times what's happening right now is, um, like we're getting back from a holiday in the U S right. We're getting back from a holiday in the U S and I had to put a thing on my inbox saying like, Hey, I'm catching up on emails. I'm doing my best. You know, please don't feel like you're ghosted. I'm, I'm trying to get back to everybody. Um, and that's just kind of what happens is like people get overloaded. It is really frustrating because we're really excited. We're really excited to work with them. We're really excited that, you know, we can have another project where we're like, yes, you know, we're going to create all this content that like makes a difference, or we're going to create this content that, um, is really helpful. So here's what I ended up doing.

I set a boomerang. So when I have a meeting with someone, my last email with them, I set in boomerang. I say like, if no reply, boomerang, this message. And boomerang is, um, a Google Chrome extension that you can put in for Gmail. So if you have Gmail install boomerang, it's the best. I love it. Um, I use it all the time. So every time I get my last message from them, and it's usually like, Hey, I booked time with you on Thursday. Um, like talk to you then every, whatever the email is, I boom, rate for a week later. So that way, if they never get back to me, let's say I have a call with them or a meeting, or I have an email chain with them. Um, and they just never get back to me. I already have the email coming back to follow up.

So boomerang will just put it back in my inbox if they don't reply, right. I just click this button if they don't reply, put it back in my inbox in a week. So then I just follow up with them and I just keep doing that forever. So here's the deal. If I have someone who's a warm lead, which is what this is a warm lead is oftentimes basically you have something on the hanger of like, you either sent a proposal or you're about to send a proposal, or someone's like actually serious about moving forward. Um, I'm going to give them a little trade off, so I'll put them on update.

So when, when you are using boomerang, you can follow up forever. Like it just continues on. So you set this boomerang, right? And it comes back in a week and you follow up, um, Hey Sherry, or, Hey, Diana, thanks so much. Um, you know, I'm just following up on our call from last week. It sounded like you wanted to do four blog posts a month. I'd love to send you a proposal. I'm looking forward to your thoughts. Like, you can just keep following up with them and you can keep doing that. So then you send that follow-up message. And then you click in boomerang and say like, if they don't reply, send this back in a week. So here's my normal followup schedule. Just to tell you how I do this in boomerang. So what ends up happening is like, let's say I have a meeting and it's our job to follow up just as another thing here. Uh, it's not the prospect's job to follow up. Like we are the ones who are really looking for the work. We're the ones who really want to work for them. We're the ones who are going to create the content. We're really driving a lot of that bus there. So it's your job to follow up? I think that's across the board. Something that's really important. Hold on.

Siri decided to record me for some reason. So it's your job, it's your job to follow up with people. And I, and as freelance writers, it's our job to court, our clients. It's not their job to come do that. Um, once we have a relationship with them, once we have a contract, once we have all the work set up, then it's a two way street of like, Hey, we need to communicate together. But when we're actually securing the work, it is 100% your responsibility to follow up, always. Um, so here's my schedule. If I get on a call with them, I boomerang for a week. Okay. And it's someone who said, I want a proposal. I'm thinking about this project scope. I'm doing whatever. Um, that kind of stuff I boomerang for a week. And then I do another week. And then I do two weeks after that.

Then I do two weeks after that. Right. So now we're at six weeks from our meeting. If I still don't hear anything, I boomerang for the next three months. So that means I boomerang once a month for the next three months. And then I put them on my quarterly followup schedule. So this is by the time they get on the quarterly, follow-up scheduled, they've had seven emails, right? Because they get two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, or they get one week, one week, two week, two weeks, then three. Yeah. So they've gotten seven emails by the time I put them on my quarterly followup schedule via boomerang. So if they're not interested or not following up after seven emails, then I just do it every quarter because people change their minds, quarters change like right now, right? Like we're in December. So people are planning, um, for Q1 of next year.

They're planning all their stuff for next year. Hey, Marie, welcome in, um, Marie just got a new computer. So celebrate new tech for Marie. Uh, so here's the deal. We have to keep following up. And I learned this from real estate agents. I've interviewed like hundreds of real estate agents. And then a lot of like the best people, the top producers, like people who are the top producers in the U S people who like run, um, international real estate companies, they all say the same thing. They're like, you follow up until they tell you basically to like, stop. Like you keep following up and you don't do it in an annoying way. You don't follow up every day and you don't follow up like, like, um, constantly to annoy them. You follow up in a reasonable amount of time, but you keep following up with them until they're just like, Hey, no, thank you.

Like try it. Like, you know, please stop. And it's not something, like I said, like, we're doing one week, one week, right? So we do a week, like we have a call. Then we boomerang. We send them an email that says following up, telling them all that stuff. And then we boomerang that for a week. If they don't get back to us, then we'd say that again. Then we wait two weeks, right. We boomerang two weeks out. Then we follow up two weeks after that boomerang again. Then you switch them to month. Then you set new boomer and then you, um, follow up with them once a month for three months. And if they haven't done anything in those seven emails, switch them to your quarterly up. So that means that when you get to month three of your once a month, follow-ups you boomerang them for three months out from that.

And then if they don't answer that three months out from that, and then you just continue doing that because, um, oh, we got a new client. Yay. Marie, was that your pillar page content? So Marie, let me know. Miller Marie had a really cool, um, really cool thing where she was going to write a pillar page, which is like really super awesome. It was that your pillar page, client Marie, cause that's a big deal. Um, so our, all of our followup schedule, like this is something that happens too, where like people switch companies, people change initiatives, ghosting is normalized. It doesn't mean it's good. It's just means that it's been normalized. And it also means that it's technically, like, we don't know if we're being ghosted, because like I said, a lot of times I get emails and I end up responding to them like three weeks or a month later because I'm like, I can't deal with this right now.

Like I have all this stuff, you know, and we all have this as writers. We have a lot of deadlines. We have other clients to deal with. Um, and our clients are our priority. Like that is always my priority. Like, yes, I would love to go to this event. I would love to go visit this thing. I would love to, um, go do all these appointments. I would love to like, there's lots of things I get in my inbox. And I'm sure you're the same way that you're like, I would love to do that, but you're like, I just can't. I, my clients are my number one priority, answering their emails, getting back to them in terms of finishing work, turning my stuff in, doing good quality work. That is priority. That's always number one. So this is, this is normal. But like I said, it's, it's always our job to follow up.

So follow my follow up schedule. And my guess is like, you'll either get someone who's like, Hey, we've eventually they'll get back to you and be like, thank you for following up. We've changed directions. Try again later. And then you follow up in every three months from there. Yay. Marie got the pillar piece. Good. That's a really big deal. So like, as we know, pillar pages are really important for websites. Pillar pages are basically like, um, if you go look up HubSpot, they'll tell you about pillar content and like how you do topic clusters and content pillars. So pillar pages are really important for websites. They live for a long time. So that's a big deal, Marie, and that's going to be a great clip. Like that's gonna be a really good clip, so nice. That's a really big deal. I'm really excited for you. Cool. Okay. So I hope that answered the question, but remember it's your, your clients are your priority. Getting ghosted has been normalized, unfortunately. Um, and it's our job to follow up. It's our responsibility to follow up with people. Um, okay. Other questions. So, um, hold on just a second.

Okay. So we have another question. Thank you everybody for handling the questions first, we're going to get to our topic. I just want to make sure we answer these first because they'd been hanging around for like weeks and, um, people have been waiting cause I've been sick. So I want to make sure we get to them. So Diana, I think Diana is on still on. So Diana, this is your question. I think maybe I both have a Diane and I Diana. So Diana, this one's from Diana. Thanks for all your excellent help. You're welcome. Diana. I have two questions related to when you're meeting with potential new clients. Okay. How do you smoothly set prices when they ask on a call? I don't and then it's tough when you're well, I do sometimes. So we're going to go over then. We're offer what I wish.

I just had like a GoPro on you. Sometimes. It's tough when you're on the spot not to sell yourself short. Yes. So let's talk about that first. Number one, I rarely ever price on a call unless it's something that I definitely know what it is. We've talked about the project, we've talked about the scope. We've talked about what they want. I tell them something similar. Like every once in a while I will price on a call. So I had a call recently where I priced on the call because it's like a package that like it's content strategy. I know what that is. I know what's included in that and I'm telling them what the scope of that would be for me. It's not the same. As someone saying, we need reported articles, we have no idea what the word count is. You, we don't know if you need to like do research.

Like it's not that. So if you have something that's a package, oh, you have something, that's a package. You have to go to your Hobbit hole. Then you can quote that if you feel comfortable doing that. So for me, when I have a content marketing or a content strategy, you have to go back to your hub level. I got, I got, if you have a package and you feel comfortable with that, then you can quote that, oh, sorry guys, your faces have been there. You are. Alright. You can quote that. But most of the time, what ends up happening Diana is that you end up getting, um, a loose goose type of deal where they're like, yeah, we're thinking blog posts. We don't know the word count. Um, you may have to do an interviewer to, we're not sure, like they don't give you enough information.

So number one, don't don't price on the call. And this is why, because you're talking about selling yourself short, you feel pressure. You don't have enough details. And you're hearing about it for the first time. This is something I try to tell my coaching students and like my freelance writer, wealth lab students, you are hearing this information for the first time. You're not a robot. It's not your job to be like one burger, large fries. This cost this, like, that's not your job. Your job is to think about it. This is, this matters. Like the content that we create matters. And it's, we're not like a fly by night. McDonald's where someone orders a content and we're like, sounds good. It costs $5. Like it's not like at all. Um, we need to think about that. And we also usually need details from them. So oftentimes I leave a client call with saying like, yeah, if you send me your project scope, then I can send you a ballpark rate.

The other thing was that I tell this, I told this story to my friends, right? Our wealth lab students, a bunch myself and a bunch of my friends have underbid by tens of thousands of dollars. Not even on just one project on multiple different projects. So over time, right. We end up shorting ourselves. Like we like, oh, I guess I could do it for half price. Or I guess I can do this. And you lose thousands of dollars. I have done it many times. And I've had friends and including myself where we underbid by thousands of dollars. Big. No, no. And it's because we feel pressured on the call. We're kind of like, okay, they said this, but it's also this. And like, like we're trying to put together all of these things in our mind, you have to go to your Hobbit hole. Thank you for playing.

Okay. So it's because we have to think about it. Okay. So you are hearing information for the very first time. It doesn't mean you have to spit out a number. You need to think about it. So here's what you say. You say that. Hi. Yeah, I totally get it. Um, can you send me more info about your scope and then tell them what you need? I need workout. I need to know if I need to do a lot of research and find studies. I need to know if I need to do interviews. Do I need to add in anything SEO wise? Do I need to find, um, any links, like, do I need to cone your website to find other articles to link, to do I need to, um, do anything in terms of finding images? Do I need to do all this extra stuff?

They, they need to give you a scope when you're kind of doing stuff. Okay. So anytime you get on a call with someone and they're trying to get you to give a price, you have to have scope first. And the other thing is, you're hearing it for the first time. Sorry, sorry guys. I'm a little shiny today. It's I'm hot in here. It's like humid outside. Cause it's going to rain. So it's like sweaty in here. Yeah. So, um, you want to take a peak. So anytime you're hearing something for the first time, you don't have to give them a number. If you have someone on call really pressuring you on price, sometimes it can be that they're not your client. It means that they're really driven by price only. And even if you give them a good price or if you give them a good price for the work, they'll still shop around and find someone who could do it lower.

So anytime you feel pressured, Diana says she does feel pressured. Yeah. We don't have to succumb to that pressure. That's it's not something like that pressure doesn't mean we have to give an answer. Okay. Just because you feel pressured and just because someone might be pressuring you, it doesn't mean that you have to just like adhere to what they want you to do. So you go bugs. There you go, buddy. So, um, number one, my recommendation is always don't price on the call. You need to think about it and you usually need more info on scope. You need more info on timeline. You need more info on, um, you know, research interviews in images, SEO, um, interviews, all that stuff. So that's number one. And also I don't set prices on calls because my work has vary quite a lot. Uh, I know other friends who are like, oh, I usually discharge this flat rate for this blog post, whatever it includes.

And I just, I don't, I never feel good about charging someone for things I'm not doing. Like, I don't like the idea of a flat rate because sometimes I do end up doing interviews and that takes more time. I have to set it. I have to set it up, do the interview, get the transcript, put it all together. That's a lot more effort than just writing a regular blog post just from my ring or like from a light bit of research. Um, so again, I think it's just better just to like, if you want to say something, um, you say like, Hey, you know what? I actually need to think about it. I need to think about your project for me. I just need to kind of sit down and write it out. Um, and look at it as a whole and then give you pricing.

Like I'm not very good at immediate. You know, I have to think through a lot of factors. I have to look at my schedule because I, you know, most of the time I don't pull my calendar up when I'm on a call with someone, right. I'm on a zoom call and not like, let me look at my calendar. Sometimes I do that. Um, but usually when we get off the call, like we have to think about it. So just, you know, don't do it. Um, and the other thing is like, don't do it in like 80% of cases in the 20% of cases that you have a, a package. So let's say for me, you, um, you do like, Hey, I have a package. That's four blog posts a month for three months. We'll see how that's working out. And that's my package. You know how to quote that?

Cause it's your packet, right? If I give someone a content strategy package, I know what's in it. It's my package. So anything that's your package? Anything that you have, that's a project scope that, you know, what's in it. You can price that if you feel comfortable, even if you don't feel comfortable, you can always say like, yeah, let me think about it. Let me write you an email. It's easier for me to think when I'm typing, I'm a writer. It's easier for me to think of what I'm typing. Um, and I'll get back to you. So second part of this question is also during these calls, they ask how busy you are, right? So that's an important thing. That's something that sometimes is an indicator that they respect your time and schedule. So for me, a lot of times they're like, what's your bandwidth? Like, do you actually have time to work with us?

Like we want to work with you, but do you have time to work with us? That's kind of a respect thing. A lot of times they're like, Hey, like what's going on? Like, do you have room for us? So sometimes it's that sometimes it's like, we need to tomorrow, like, do you have space? Do it now? Like those are two extremes. But so, um, she said, or Diana says, what's a smooth way to answer that without sounding like you need the work, but also sounding like you aren't too busy. That's funny. Yes. This is something that we kind of want to answer in a, in a delicate way, because we don't want to be like, holy, I need this work tomorrow. Like please God sign this contract. Oh my God. Like, we don't want to be like that. That's the desperation smell does go through zoom.

Okay. This does happen. I know like we don't have smell of vision, but desperation. It's like a thing. It comes out. It like seeps out of your pores, like me right now where it's like hot in here. So here's the deal. Any, the smooth way of answering this is to be honest, I need to look at my calendar. That's what I say. Yeah. Um, my bandwidth is like most of the time I have to look at my calendar the other day I had a call and I already knew my bandwidth because we're coming up on the holidays. I know my holiday time off. I know my work coming up. Um, and most of the time I'm, I'm working months ahead. So for me now I'm like looking at like, what does February, March, April look like? Or what does April, March? What is it? March.

April. What is March? April look like? Like, that's kind of where I am now. Cause I'm like seeing like, okay, what am I booking? What's going on for January and February? Um, how are things kind of turning out then? I have a longer runway. So when you're, when you working backwards, so when you're more experienced, you usually work three months out. So you're like, I don't have scheduled space till April. Um, you know, I can like squeeze you in or like, not squeeze you, but I, I can start working with you then. Like we can work on a contract proposal. Um, everything in March, we can get everything signed, get the upfront deposit in March and we, and you will get the first deliverable in April when you're kind of starting out. You can just say like, Hey, I need to look at my calendar.

I, you know, it's hard for me to keep all my deadlines in my mind at one time. Um, but I'm happy to send you an email with an update on availability. Once we get off, you can say like, I will have availability within the next month. That's a smooth way to say it. You say like, yeah, within, um, what is it December? So you say like, yeah, I have a bill availability starting in January. Um, and a lot of times people forget that this is a process. So the process is usually you reach out, you send an LOI or you get an inbound lead where they're like, Hey, we want to talk to you. And you're like, sweet. You have the call. You figure out project scope. You figure out what you're doing. You figure out all the payment stuff. Then you're sending a proposal. Then you're sending, you're sending, at least for me. I sent it through Deb Sato. [inaudible]

we've got a grumpy Supreme today. Charlotte, I'm running out a treat. I was, I'm just going to tell you now there, we have a low amount of tree dos and you're just like sitting over here. I mean, you are being, you're being a Gigi. You're being a bit good girl. So you're sitting in your Hobbit hole, you are making a lot of noise, but for the most part you're doing okay. All right. So you can say like, you know, I can do it next month, right? This is a process. After we send all that stuff, they have to give you, they have to sign the proposal and con and or contract. Then they have to pay you some money. Right? We usually have upfront fees. We like, if you're doing retainer style work, um, do like, this is what I, you can do it a couple of ways.

So for me, I do retainer style work in that, um, the first month is due, upfront, and then every other month I invoice on the first it's due on the 15th, you can also do it so that it's 50% of the first month upfront and 50% of the first month due at the end of the month, that way it kind of breaks up the first payment for them. And then every following month, you invoice on the first one month due mid month, that's where retainers, um, for something that's more, project-based like a content strategy, project, content marketing project, a package that you do. Um, that's more like we're going to do two case studies, um, an ebook, a guide, and a white paper, 50%. And then you can do 50%, 30 days later, 50% net 45. So 45 days later, or you can do 50% do when you turn in the final deliverables.

So after you iron out all that, that takes several weeks. Okay. That takes several weeks. Most of the time, most of the time, people don't get a proposal contract and invoice and do that in one day, they don't pay you and get it all set up in one day that hardly ever happens. It does sometimes. And you're like, yes, but most of the time it doesn't happen. Oh my goodness. You have to go to your Hobbit hole, go to your, have a hole. We've got a rubber bumper friend in here. So that doesn't happen. So if you get on a call with someone, this availability thing you have to build in your onboarding time, that's all onboarding. It's all onboarding. Good girl. When you're setting up the proposal, the contract, the invoice, getting your actual payment, the money in your bank account. Um, and it's all part of onboarding your clients.

So after that's done, usually three weeks have gone by. So then you can say, all right, I need two weeks to give you the first deliverable. Now we're at five weeks. Okay. That's a long time. So the deal is that you've been, just tell them, you need to look at your availability. And then you can say I'm available in basically like, just pick the next month I'm available next month. And then you start ironing everything out. And by the time they iron everything out five weeks, four weeks have gone by, and then you can give them their first deliverable, but you've already gotten paid and you've already set up your contract. You've already set up expectations, all that stuff. So just pick the next month. The smooth way is like, Hey, I need to look at my calendar, but I'm available in June, but I'm pretty sure I'm available starting in January.

Does that work for you? The other thing here is that oftentimes when we are dealing with clients that are not a great fit for us, they're like, we need to tomorrow, you have to do it right now. Like, oh my gosh. Sometimes those clients are great. Sometimes you get clients that are just like, here's the, the content brief. Um, can you get it with, to us within a week? And it gives you all the good stuff and you're like, yep. I can definitely do that. But other times you get on calls and they're just like, oh my gosh, like, you need to do it so quickly. We need to sign the contract and do all this stuff. And like, you turn in work before they ever even get you the upfront payment. We don't want that. So when you're on here, um, it's okay to say the next month, like, there's, there's nothing wrong with building in your onboarding period into your response.

So you can say, yeah, like I need to check my calendar, but based on the deadlines that I have this month, I'm available in January or whatever, you know, I'm just using January. Cause it's December. But pick the next month, it always takes a while to get everybody's on the right ship. And it's not even just that, because it's not just the onboarding of like proposal, contract, invoice, getting paid, like actually having that money. Like I use Stripe actually coming into my bank account from Stripe. It's also like, what is our schedule? What ideas are we doing? What are the content briefs? What do we actually, what are your expectations? What our tone and style. Can you send me some example, articles or example case studies or things you like, all that stuff takes time. So it's okay to just kind of like build that stuff in.

Okay. So I hope that was helpful. I think that's our last, no, we have Diane's question, but the deal is like, there's nothing wrong with just like picking. There's nothing wrong with saying you need time to review. We are, like I said, we're not a drive-through service. And I do that. Sometimes I will get on a call and be like, yeah, I'm not available till March because I worked further ahead. Or I know like, um, when I'm finishing up projects, I'm like, okay, I won't be available till mid to late January to start this type of project. There's other projects that could start sooner. But this type of project, I can't start till X, as you have more clients. And as you have more work, you will work further ahead and you'll be like, okay, I'm looking at Q2. So like I'm not available until April or I'm looking at Q3.

Like I know in Q1 and Q2, I have this big giant project to do. And I'm not going to be able to work with you until Q3 till that ends. Like, it's okay to do that. And I just want to kind of put in here that like, not even if you find this like gold star client, sometimes what ends up happening is it's not budget and it's not fit. And it's not a bunch of other stuff. It's actually timeline. Okay. So sometimes what happens is that instead of you, you know, not being Charlotte, settle your SAS, settle your SAS. You're just like out of control. You are being a good girl. You're sitting in your Hobbit spot, but you are being sassy. So the deal is that sometimes it's not budget and it's sometimes it's not personality fit where you're like, oh, I don't think we're a right fit on the personality front.

Sometimes it's just timeline. They need it in February and you can't get it to them until June. Like that just happens sometimes. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that you can't work with them in the future. It doesn't mean that you can't recommend somebody else to get that work and help somebody else. Right. That's a great thing about having a good freelance writer network is you're like, I can't work with you right now, but Marie can. And Marie Marie has 20 years of experience in prop tech and real estate. She's a great fit. And let's say, they're like, Hey, we love Marie. It's due. Now, can you work with us? Or like, it's April, can you work with us in June? We turns out that, um, you know, we have more work than we thought and we love to bring you on. And you're like, sure, of course I can work with you in June.

Right. We have all these things that we can work out. Okay. I hope that was helpful. Let's talk about Diane's question. So this is a little bit of a long live stream today. We're going to go all through all these questions. Then I'm going to go over the topic. I guess I should have just made this one, a question one, but I guess I didn't think that these questions would be as long and also I'm chatty. So, um, and I'm going to go through these comments. I know that y'all put some comments in here. Cool. So Diane says the last time you, oh, last time you talked about, you know, you have to settle last time you talked about being a content strategist versus a freelance writer. What are some tips and resources to overcome the fear of not being a marketing expert yet I'm sending a quote today for a big company.

Okay. So I'm sending a quote today from big company that I super want to work with for their money in their mission. Um, and if they sign a contract, I'll be writing things I haven't before, including in marketing meetings, included in marketing meetings, asked for my opinion. Okay. Do I have an opinion? Pretty sure. It's somewhere. I promise not to under quote. Yeah. Don't under quote, number one. Uh, Diane, I think you sent me an email on this if I remember. Right. So I hope that we already, I think we already chatted about this. So like, I'm feeling like you said you had to send a quote today. It doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure we already got this. So we're going to answer it anyways, but here's the deal. Content, strategist and freelance writer are different things. Content strategists is building the bus that drives the content. You are go lay down. She can just, oh, you think she has to go to the bathroom? Okay, hold on. We're having a little, go ahead.

Okay. So here's the deal. Um, w when you're doing content strategy stuff, that is the engine that runs the content. The freelance writer part is like the execution of the content content strategy is like, who are we writing to? Who's our audience? How do we know that? How do we build content? That makes sense for them? How do we plan out all of our content with research and data that we have pulled from competitors, our own content, our industry thought leadership, all that stuff. Then the freelance writing part is like, who do we get to write that content? Now that we have a plan and a strategy, which is the content strategy part, the freelance writer part is like, we need someone to actually execute and write this content that we've already planned. That's the difference? The other thing is that we don't have to be a marketing expert yet, but I definitely 100% recommend yeah, he got in there.

Um, so I definitely recommend not doing content strategy until you understand certain parts of marketing in your niche. So this is my personal recommendation. I know lots of people who do strategy, who like, you know, that works for them. For me, I needed more information and more marketing stuff in my niche before I kind of got into content strategy. So, um, I needed to know more about their audience. I needed to write for them a bunch as, uh, you know, doing more freelance writing. I needed to write for that audience, understand what their pain points were. I needed to understand what my, my target client's pain points were like. If I worked for five different prop tech companies, then I could know more about their pain points that helps me give more advice and give more marketing stuff to my content strategy clients. Um, and then also for me, when I was the, there's a big difference.

So when you move to content strategy, Hey buddy, when you move to content strategy, you are doing a lot of analysis, research, data planning, and you're pulling from your knowledge base and the ideas that you know would work for them. So that means that you are having a meeting and brainstorming with them. That means you're looking at all their competitors and what their competitor content is doing. You are taking a lot of, um, information like SEO stuff. You're looking at keywords, you're looking at top performing posts. You're looking at top performing videos, top performing content and seeing like, which parts of this make sense for my content strategy client. Yes, this is working for this brand, but would it work for my brand? Or how can I make it so that it makes sense for this brand versus that brand? Um, you're also taking a lot of analysis and you're walking through like KPIs.

You're walking through milestone goals. Sometimes you're walking through content pillars. So you need to understand what a content pillar is and topic clusters and how that all makes sense and how you create content under those, um, pillars. So, um, I think you have to have like a bunch of stuff under your belt to then switch to content strategy. You have to be able to, um, you have to be able to give expertise and advice at some level to them because it's not content strategy. Isn't just about like, you should write these posts and it's not just about like making, uh, an editorial calendar or like a content roadmap where you're telling them how to actually execute the content. It's really about like pulling from the clients that you've had in the past, seeing what worked and what didn't, what their audience needs, how to actually make like things that get them results.

Uh, and, and being able to do the research that tells you, right, you have to do the research and find the data that tells you how to do all these things. And then you have to be able to analyze that data for your client. Okay. So here's the deal. I would recommend a couple things when you're thinking about content strategy and learning about contract strategy. Number one, HubSpot tells you all this stuff about content strategy. You can go Google it, topic clusters, um, pillar posts, uh, like anything, like all contents, right? Like the 1 0 1 on content strategy, like go read HubSpots all of their content strategy stuff. And it'll tell you all, like, basically all the things, excuse me, you need to know. And I think HubSpot now, um, has a free course. I think they have a free course on content strategy, um, that you can take.

So that's number one, HubSpot is like, I love, love, love HubSpot. They are just like, they give you all the information that you need. And it's tons of tons of like really in-depth information. It's not like just general garbage. So HubSpot number one, and also HubSpot courses. So there are, I know there's an inbound, there are inbound and outbound marketing courses in HubSpot. So if you're worried about marketing knowledge or how to figure out the funnel or how the flywheel works versus the sales funnel, go take those HubSpot courses. They are super helpful. So there's inbound marketing, outbound marketing. Um, I think there's a content strategy. One, there's definitely a content marketing one. That's the one I took a long time ago. So go take the content marketing one. Um, and then the second part is that there are templates. So I built my templates, my, I built my content strategy stuff off of, um, uh, Adrian Smith.

So I think her website is Adrian K smith.com. And she has templates that you can buy, like the full pack of templates and tell you, like, here's all the stuff you can put in your content strategy. Um, and that's how I built mine was I used hers as a foundation. And then I changed mine and add things that I knew I needed. Um, and I changed, like, I, I used her as, as like a way to kind of build myself around, like, what should I deliver? And like, what kinds of things should I be thinking about? And then I was like, oh, I need this and this and this. And I need to add this and change this to this. So, um, you can go, I think it's Adrian K Smith. So a D R a D R I E N N E K sniff. Let me look that up. I'm pretty sure that's what it is, but hold on. Um, one second.

Um, yeah, it's Adrian K Smith. So, um, when you go there, you can go to resources and then you go to tool kits. So if you go to, um, oh, shoot, hold on. If you go to Adrian, a D R I E N N E K S M I T h.com/content-strategy-deliverable-toolkits, that will give you her content strategy toolkits that you can then look through and see what you need to deliver, how to deliver it. Um, and also the really cool thing about Adrian is she has a free email course. So if you go to her website, you can sign up for her free course that tells you what you need to do in content strategy. I have recommended this to other people. I think it's really helpful when you're making the switch from freelance writing to content strategy. So the free email course sends you five emails, I think.

And it tells you here's what you need to do for basically all the deliverables. Like here's how you would do the research. Here's how you would, um, find the KPIs. Here's how you need to do the content audit and the competitive analysis. It gives you all the stuff. Okay. So, um, and I don't know, just like, as an aside, I don't know her personally, I just like fan girl for Adrian Smith from the side. So I don't know her personally, but I've used her toolkits and they are the best. Um, yeah. Oh, good. So cool. Um, one second, Diana says I've been a freelancer for a long time and all of this is amazing. Learn. Good. Okay, good. So this is important stuff. These are things that we need to like, you know, know about. Right. Um, these are things that are really important for making the switch.

So the deal is that, um, so if you get Adrian Smith's ultimate content strategy kit, that's after you take the free email course. So my recommendation is to go to her website, take the free course. It, they comes in five emails. I think they're every other day they might be every day. I don't know, but go read through all of her emails and save them in case you need them. Um, and then once you're done with that, then you can buy the templates. So buy the templates after you take the course, because then you kind of know more about content strategy and you know, whether or not you're ready to buy the templates or if you want to wait, or if you're like, okay, this sounds really advanced. Let me do this later. Um, that kind of thing. Sorry, I'm hot. So I keep moving my hair around cause it's, it's hot.

Cool. Um, okay. I think that's all the questions that we've gotten to. Yes. Okay. We've gotten to all the questions. Great. So now we're going to get to today's topic also. Um, if you feel like this has been helpful, give it a thumbs up. If you feel like, uh, you want to learn more about building a high earning freelance writing business subscribe. Okay. Let's get to the today's topic and thank you for all the questions. Thank you for all these great questions. I think these are really, really helpful for a lot of other freelance writers. Like I think we all kind of struggle in the abyss sometimes, or we struggle alone. So it's really nice to have these questions that are like, I know I get these questions in my inbox from more than just the people who submit that. Like I get them all the time.

So if you want to have a question, go to Mandy ellis.com/question, you can submit a question for the live stream, just like we had from Diana, Diana and the two anonymous people. Um, so you can submit a question for the live stream or you can submit a topic they're like, Hey, can you talk about this thing? And I'd be like, sure. So you can go there. Um, and Merissa says, oh, Marie says, you're such a wealth of knowledge of resources. Thank you. I, one of my, uh, strengths, I mean, like I try not to like toot my own horn that often, but one of my strengths is like, I'm a big nerd in like collecting things. So like anytime I find a resource or a website or a person or a T a template pack or something, I'm like, I get it. And then I'm like, is this actually helpful?

Should I share it with other people? Like I get all that stuff because I think it's really useful to like help other people with, and plus like we're kind of learning together, right? So like I get the templates I learned about them, then I can kind of help other people with them. Okay. I haven't checked the comments either. So let me go back to the comments a little bit. Um, do do, do, alright. Marie got her new client. We celebrated that. That's awesome. Okay. Marie also says I followed Mandy's advice from the wealth lab. That's my course, but freelance writer, wealth lab is my course. It's not open right now, but it will be open later. I'll put the link up in a second, but it will be open in April or may of, or April slash may of 2022. So she's had followed me his advice from the wealth lab.

It's made a huge difference in my business in terms of what I make and in terms of quality clients. Good. Yay. That's always good to hear. I know that Marie has had quite the year, like things have really bumped up and changed for her. And, um, I really appreciate her as a student, she's always really active in our wealth lab community. She's always helping out other students. So big thumbs up to Marie. And if you wanted to sign up for the wait list, so the course is not open right now, it's going to open for enrollment in April or may of 2022. If you want to be on the wait list and find out when it opens, you can go to Mandela's dot com slash course, and you will also get weekly tips. So in addition to the why the live stream, I also have a weekly email that goes out with freelance writer tips and it covers a whole bunch of different topics, um, that I think are really important.

So it covers business, money, marketing mindset and mental health. So it covers all of those things. So once you sign up for the waitlist for the course, you'll also get weekly emails. And you'll also know ahead of time what our weekly live stream topic is all Okie dokie. So Diana says she does feel pressured on a call. Yeah. Cool. Um, oh, Maria said another that she said I can't express my gratitude to Mandy enough for the wealth lab has transformed my life and business. I make much better money. I actually take time off. I don't cry anymore. That's good. That's good, Marie. I, like I said, I, I feel like you've come really far this year and I I'm really, you know, you've been a wonderful student. I love all my students. I feel like they work really hard and I feel like they put in the effort and they ask really great questions.

Um, and Maria is just, you know, it's, she's been doing all of the work. Like she's been helping other students. She's been moving along. She's been paying attention to who she should put on her, basically like put on her client list and who she shouldn't and looking at all of these things where, um, I think just that deeper level of knowledge, right? That deep level of knowledge of like, who is actually a fit for me personally, then you can actually take time off. Cause you're hiring the right color or like working with the right clients. Awesome. Okay.

Oh yeah. That too. Yeah. We talked about this was that a client said they wanted a blog post, but they actually want a white paper and that's like thousands of dollars of difference. Yeah. So we have to know, you have to know scope. You have to know what they want. Right. This is the same thing about pricing on the phone. We have to know scope because when you don't have scope, you're just like, oh, they said blog posts, but then you're like, oh, they actually need white paper. That's a big difference in price. It's a big difference. A big difference in just like putting everything together. Um, so yeah, that's one, another thing about pricing on a call is like, sometimes you're like, wait a minute. It sounds like you're saying white paper. And they're like, oh yeah. White paper. And you're like, that's way different.

Cool. Oh yeah. Desperation is a stinky cologne. Yeah. That's from super traverse. Cool. Okay. So I am going through all the comments due to due to due to, to, uh, I am a little, I am, I'm like secret. I'm not like secretly nerdy anymore. I'm like actually very nerdy about resources and tools that freelance writing. I think, um, I just, I just, it's just, I just fell in love with it. Like when I started freelance, even though it's been hard and even though I want to work at dairy queen and I burned out and I, you know, really struggled, like I there's been a lot of things that, um, I've struggled with learning and I made all the mistakes and I still make a lot of mistakes. And I still like overwork sometimes. Uh, I just fallen in love with like the business of freelance writing and this the part where you like build your own business.

And for me, I think sharing that with other people, like sometimes it's really easy to forget as freelance writers that it's not really just about like the writing. It's actually about building a business that runs like a beast, a little beast that like continues to run. Right. And that for me is like really fascinating. And then it gives us a bunch of other opportunities. Like I have friends who started podcasts. I have friends who have big email lists where they like send things out to all their clients and say like, I'm looking for work. And they end up with tons of work. Uh, I have friends who like, I have like a live stream. Um, you know, I have friends with courses. I have friends with downloadables. I have friends with template packs. Like they, we get to do a lot of cool stuff to share our knowledge.

Um, and I think that's really cool. Cool. Okay. Let's get today's actual Vic. Thank you everybody for hanging in there. So we've gone about an hour, but we're getting to the topic now, but we got all the questions in and that was important because I don't want anybody to feel like they're being ignored, especially when they submit a question. So I wanted to make sure we got to those first plus I've been sick and we were out for Thanksgiving. So let's talk about today's topic. Okay. So today's topic is brought to you by, uh, Jennifer S. Smith. So Jennifer Schmidt, sometimes that Schmidt is hard for me to say, Jennifer Schmidt submitted this topic for talking about working with freelance writing clients outside the U S so here's the deal. Um, we're going to do a few different things for this. So working with freelance, writing clients outside the U S I have done that.

I know other people have done that. I know people who live in other countries who work for US-based clients. So, um, I actually have a coaching student who lives in France and she is working with US-based clients. Um, I have, um, I know someone who lives in India and she mostly works for US-based clients and, um, British clients and Australian clients. Um, there's people who live in the UK, they live in like, um, you know, England or Ireland or Scotland. Did they work for US-based clients plus Europe based clients. So, um, oh, I guess that's true. Yeah. I guess if I have a long live stream, it helps people kind of like show up. Cool. Um, so here's the deal. Um, there are different things that happen when you work with clients outside the U S there's you asked about specific countries. So I often get questions about working with co like, um, working with clients who live in certain countries.

That's not a thing to me. Okay. So let me start there. It's not a thing to me, it's a business thing. So here's the deal. When someone comes to you, no matter where they live in the world, they still have to be a good fit and a good client for you. Okay. So it's not about like restricting a whole country and being like, I'm not going to work for any clients in this country. That's not in my mind how it works, how it works is like, is this particular client no matter where they live in the world, a fit for working with me, or are we a fit? There are plenty of clients who live all over the world who are fantastic clients. I knew, um, I had a friend. I don't think she lives there anymore, but she lived in south America. I think she lives in Spain.

Now it's been awhile. I haven't talked to her, but she used to live in south America and she had south American clients. And then now she has Spanish clients, but she's from London. She was from the UK. I think she's from somewhere in England, but she lived in south America and she had, you know, different clients. And now she lives in Spain, I think. And she has clients in Spain. Um, I think it's just a matter of fit. It doesn't, I, I know that I get asked about specific countries and I know that I get asked about like, well, what about this? And what about that? Um, I think the other thing to understand is that my perspective is also like, I'm a travel writer. I like to travel. I like other countries. I like to go places. So I think maybe some of it is like a fear thing, because some people don't travel as much outside of the U S and maybe they're like, worried about cultural differences.

They're worried about, um, I don't know, different stuff that happens. Um, so for me, it's always been about fit. I don't care where you live. I don't care about like, you know, like that, that's not a factor. Like, are we a fit? You and me talking as my potential client and a need potentially working for you, are we a fit personality wise, budget wise? Work-wise, timeline-wise, there's a whole bunch of different factors that go into that besides all the other things. And sometimes yes, there are different, um, cultural differences. Like for example, some countries are like more, like, they expect you to respond more, so you have to set boundaries and you say like, Hey, I'm not in the office during these hours. Right. So you say like, Hey, I get it. That this is, you know, like it's normal that everybody's on slack until midnight, like not going to happen.

Um, and it's okay to set boundaries and maybe that client isn't a fit for you, but there's lots of companies that are also trying to get into the us. So they live in other places and they have a main office in like Belgium, and they want to have another office in New York city. So they're trying to get, you know, more audience in the U S and sometimes we're in the nice bridge for that. We're able to say like, yeah, I write for a us audience. I understand you're the difference between a restaurant or a business in Belgium and, and here in the U S or you can, as my potential client can tell me about what businesses are like in Belgium. And I can tell you about what businesses are like in the U S and we can kind of create content from there. So sometimes we serve as the bridge and that, I think for me, it's really cool to be able to live in an age where we can work with people all over the planet.

Like, think about that. Now, your client base, isn't just in the U S it's like anybody on the planet. Now you can work for anybody on the planet. Like, that's crazy. That's crazy. We live in an age where we didn't get clients anywhere in the planet. Millions, billions of people, right? Well, not billions of clients, but millions, at least. Um, to me, that's a very cool perk. Like I think working with other people from other countries, helping them with us content or helping them with content in their country. I think that's a really cool thing. That's always been a very cool thing to me. So for me, I think a lot of times that really factors into like my excitement to work with clients outside the U S or for me to, um, I don't know. I guess I've never really, like, I've never totally, I've always questioned.

Like, are we a fit? One-on-one not like, are we a fit as like a country versus a country? Um, so there's that the other thing is that when we work with them, we have to do a few things. So we have to pay like always number one, always put everything on your taxes. Um, I always your, your money isn't earned in the country that is employing you, your money is earned in the country. You're working in as far as I understand. Um, so like, as if you work in, it's the same thing as like, you don't pay California taxes. If you work for a California company, you pay taxes where you live. I work in Austin. So even if I work for New York or Oregon, or, you know, California or Florida, I still pay taxes in Texas. So as far as I understand, that's applicable for the most part, especially since we're not earning like millions and billions of dollars in other countries, as far as I understand that you're paying taxes within the U S where you work in the state that you work in, where your business is based, number two, you need to have a contract always and forever with everybody, whoever exists on the planet.

There's no difference there. So your contract needs to do that. Sometimes there's weird provisions in your contract because there's different rules outside the U S so like you send a us contract to them and they're kind of like, okay, well, we also need to put this on there. So like, my contract says, like, it's bound by the state of Texas, like the laws in the state of Texas, maybe they're like, yeah, but we also need to put this country on there because of this. So sometimes your contracts need a few extra tweaks, but for the most part is basically the same thing. But you have to have a contract, always everybody has a sign. It, you need to have money. Right. So that means we need to get paid. How do we get paid? I like wise, wise used to be called TransferWise, but now it's called wise.

And it just lets you do basically, I don't know every currency on the planet, please. I don't, there's like very few. It doesn't have. So basically you can invoice and do all your stuff through wise. And it just does a daily, um, transfer rate or not transfer exchange rate. So every day it updates its current exchange rate so that you get the best rate. So like, um, like let's say the dollar gets stronger. Cool. Now that's really helpful. Uh, let's say that somebody else's currency changes, then you get that different exchange rates. So that's really great. I, um, I've had friends use wise. Um, my partners use wise for his stuff because he was working with someone in the UK. Uh, why is it just the best it's I haven't found anything else. That's better than wise for international payments. I've been paying like I've done international payments to buy checks.

So like I worked with someone in Canada and they mailed me a check. Um, but if you wanted to get something mailed from overseas, I just don't do that. I would use wise, you can use certain things like Stripe is international if I remember. Right. Um, but it's not the same as something like wise where you get better track, like exchange rates and you it's an actual tool built for international payments. So make sure that you use that. That's actually like use a tool, even if you don't use wise, which use to be called transfer wise. Now it's called wise. Even if you don't use that tool, you need a tool that at least does international like exchange rates and payments. Because if you end up using something that's like not updating, uh, you can end up paying a lot of fees. Like I remember somebody a long time ago had a problem with PayPal.

Um, they had an international client or they worked, I can't remember if they, they either worked. I think they worked in Africa and they had a client in the UK. I think that's how it was. Um, but anyways, they had like a huge problem with like PayPal fees or like there's something like that. So Stripe and PayPal are different when it to fees for international payments. You definitely need to know that you definitely need to know like what you're paying in fees, what the exchange rate is, how the money actually moves around how long it takes to get to your bank account. Because sometimes it can take a long time, like let's say, um, you use a service and you don't get the money for two weeks and you've already turned in work. And like they canceled the payment and now you're screwed, right. View something that moves pretty quickly.

You understand how it works. And if you work with international clients and I've had this be asked of me before, if you are nervous about money or like that, you're just feeling uneasy about working with an international client, wait till bank account, like, say like, I'm, I don't start work until like, not only is the invoice paid, but the money hits, um, uh, hits my bank account. Maria says Stripe is international in, in limited countries. Okay. Yeah. So you can use Stripe, but you can't use it for everybody. So tr wise is for like everybody, like you can work flight in Singapore or Australia or Japan or the UK or south America, or like Antarctica, Jamaica can't work in Antarctica because that's not actually owned by anybody. Okay. Little joke. Um, so here's the other thing. So tools, this is why I used them Sato too.

It helps me track everything. So if I send an invoice from dub, like I'll send an invoice from dev Sato. Right. But I will also send something from wise for them to pay. Right. So end up saddle, I will make a note and say like they are paying through wise or end up Sato. I will make some kind of thing that says like makes it so they can't pay through dub Sato. Like I'll just put the amount in the invoice and I will create a button or like, I'll get rid of the button for them to pay that. Or they'll just say, like pay $0. And I will say like, yeah, this is just the invoice. So it's in our, like in our records, both of our records. And then I'm going to send you something through wise because it does international payments. So make sure you track everything, um, and pay attention to things. So make sure you have the right tools, make sure that you have high, but you want to make sure that you have, she had to go to the little puppies room.

So tools. Sometimes they ask you to use tools that are only available in their country. So you need to know what the us version of that is. So let's say they're like they can't use, like they use the European version of Uber suggest or the European version of SEM rush, or the European version of HubSpot to manage all their content. You need to have some sort of opposite tool if you can't get access to that. So let's say it's only available in that country or like for you to buy it as a us person would be crazy expensive. Or for some reason that company won't give you access or can't give you access to that tool, you need to have options. So you need to know, do a little research, look at their stuff, ask them what they use, right? Like, do you want me to just submit my content as a Google doc or a word doc?

Or would you want me to submit it through this weird platform? Or do you want me to, um, do this other thing? Or like, do you want me to invoice all these other different ways? So you have to know which tools you can use in the U S if they are not like, uh, if they're European or other tools from around the country that are not available in the U S so that's really important. The other thing that we need to know about is, um, payments in terms of like ACH. So someone asked me if you could do ACH internationally. And I don't, I think it really depends on your bank. Number one, number two, those are like crazy fees. Sometimes like wire transfer fees or bank to bank payments, or, um, like ACH from country to country can be really expensive. So like, I think why is, is still your best option?

Um, I just think most of the time they don't do ACH, right? Like giving someone, your bank, us bank account information, when you do wise, no one knows the bank account information. It's just like the payment is transferred. So everybody has all their stuff set up. Um, and that just, it's similar almost to ACH anyways, it's like Stripe. So, um, if you're using a, like, I think just for me, it would just be easier to just use one tool. So use wise, if they ask you about ACH, I guess you could try it out. But like I said, like, you have to know your bank, your bank's rules, the banks fees, wire transfer stuff like wire transfers in the U S are like $15, but like outside the U S they have international payments that it's like 30 bucks or 50 bucks. Um, and it can be really expensive and cut into your, you know, cut into your profits rather than using something.

Like, why is that? It's like a flat, I think it's a flat fee. Um, no, it's not a flat fee. It's a lot more cost-effective to use something like that, plus like, why is this set up for that? So, um, let's talk about time zones and scheduling. So we're on for a long time. Thank you for hanging on. I know there's a bunch of people that are hanging on. They went through all the questions and now they're hanging on. So thanks for staying on. Let's talk about times in scheduling. This is why I also have them Sato. Okay. [inaudible] runs my business. I need some water. I've been talking for a while. So hold on.

So when you're doing time and stuff, this is why I have them sought out. It covers all the time zones. So if I schedule a meeting with someone, like when I scheduled a meeting with someone who lives in, where do they live Switzerland? Um, I had someone that I talked to in Switzerland that calendar ended up Sato shows up in their time zone. And it shows up with my central time availability. I don't have to use a different tool. I don't have to go and Google like time zone converter. I just send them the link to my [inaudible], my calendar schedule, or just like I would for someone in the U S and they see the availability in their time zone. So if I'm only available from 11 to 5:00 PM central time, they will see that as, I don't know, whatever their time zone is in Switzerland.

Um, or sometimes what happens is they're like, Hey, your availability is like, when I'm asleep, like sometimes they're like, yeah, you're only available from 2:00 AM to 7:00 AM my time. And then you're like, okay, well, how can we kind of balance this out? Maybe I take an early meeting. Maybe I take it at 8:08 AM or 8:00 PM, or you make a little scheduling thing, but now you don't have to do all these times on conversions. You just send them your calendar and then they can kind of figure it out. Cause it shows up automatically in their time zone. So when someone gets your dumps auto calendar link, no matter where they are, it's always in their time zone. So like, if I send it to, um, Diana, right, like I send my thing to Diana and she lives on the west coast. She won't see 3:00 PM central.

So we'll see 1:00 PM Pacific. Can I please spell that? The CA yeah. So dubs, D U B S a D O dub Sato. And it's not a calendar. It's actually a, basically like a big, giant tool that manages my whole business. It just happens to have a calendar thing. So dumpsite of D U B S a D O. And you can get a coupon code. I don't think I put it in here yet, so, um, but I can put it in, so let me, like, I'll make it right now, actually. Hold on. So if you go to dub Sato, so it's one second. Okay. Um,

Cool. Okay. I made a new one. Everybody be excited. So I just made this, so it's not super giant, but okay. It's dumb Sato. Do you be sad? And if you go to dubs Sato, and you sign up, you can use my code, Mandy Ellis to get 20% off your first year or your first month. So if you choose to do the monthly plan and you use the coupon code, you get 20% off. Or if you choose to do annual annual, I think it's three 50. So you get 20% off of three 50, which is, we all know I'm not good at mental math, which is whatever that is. Like, I don't know, $25. Is that right? I don't know. Um, but anyways, you can go to Gustavo and use this coupon code. It runs my whole business. So I got rid of so many tools.

I need to do a walkthrough of this and I will. Um, but I got rid of tons of tools in my business. And I used Asato to run everything. Like it runs my projects, my invoicing, my, all of my client's stuff, my calendar, my proposals, my invoices, my contracts, um, all of my stuff, all my stuff is through there. Yeah. And Maria signed up with dub Sato. She loves it. The other cool thing about dump Sato, just as like a side note, you can use dub Sato for free up to three clients. So if you have a very, like, you're just starting your freelance writing business. If you have three clients or less, you can use dub Sato for free, which is really great. So you can start getting it set up. You can start learning how to use it. You can start doing all the cool stuff. And then once you get more work, you can move to the paid version. Right? You ended up getting a fourth client moved to the paid version. Okay. So eventually I'll change this so that it looks like the other stuff. Um, but that's what you can get. So if you use my coupon code, Mandy Ellis, you get 20% off the first year or first month. Oh, please don't throw up.

You already threw up once, today. Oh my gosh. You okay? You want to come over here and get some pets? I know you're having a rough day, buddy. You're having a rough day. All right. So when we're talking about scheduling stuff, you can use DUP Sato. If you don't want to use that, you can use Calendly. Cat C a L E N D L Y. Calendly, C a L K E N D L Y. I used to use Calendly, but now I only used up Sato. I got rid of Calendly because that's auto has all the stuff I need for all my calendar things. You okay, bud? You need some, you need some loving, you need some loving. I know it's hard. So you can use Calendly and it'll switch time zones as well. But I think that's the best thing. I think anytime you start doing stuff manually, when it comes to time zones and when it comes to, um, trying to manage everybody when you're like, oh, I thought you meant 2:00 PM central.

No, he's okay. He's just, yeah. He's all right. Um, anytime you're doing things manually with time zones, it's really easy to mess it up. I know I've done it many, many times. So the calendar tool is a must. I think that's a tool that if you're going to work with international clients, you have to have it because you try to figure out all the stuff and you trying to figure out the different time zones because you end up having a lot of meetings sometimes not only do you have an initial client calls, sometimes you have a monthly call. Sometimes you have, I think I'm going to let him out. Hold on. You want to go out. But now it's just me all by myself. So you have to have a calendar tool because it does it automatically. And, and then here's the other thing is that when someone schedules something, like if they schedule something in their time and then they can't make it, uh, at least with dub Sato, it will send them a reminder saying like, Hey, so I have a reminder that goes out one hour before the meeting and says like, Hey, we're meeting just a reminder.

We're meeting in an hour, here's the button to reschedule or cancel. If you need to that way, they can still reschedule on their own time. Let's say they forgot. They had them meeting at 8:00 PM and they're like eating dinner with their family. And they're like, oh crap, I need to reschedule button's right there. They can still do it in their own time zone. So, um, I find that really helpful. And the other thing too, is that they're scheduling the meeting. If you are going back and forth on email, or if you're like doing all of this stuff where you're like, maybe this, or maybe that it's just easier just to have them schedule the meeting. It's just easier to have them pick the stuff that works for them and schedule it on their own time and in their own way. Um, rather than trying to do back and forth emails, hyper cow, welcome.

Raquel says, I'm gonna pop this in Raquel because now you're here. This sounds very useful. It takes an annoying amount of time trying to manually make sure my scheduling blocks are accurate with planning, multiples. And yes, this is something that I, I am not good at this stuff. Like I'm not good at time zones. I've only become recently okay. With us time zones. Cause I've had to convert them so often. Um, but I'm not, I'm still not good with time zones. Like I can't, I think like London is eight hours ahead of New York. Like that's maybe the only one I know, but it's really hard for me. So dump Sato is definitely like give them a tool that they can use, right? They can use it. It's already automatically converted their time zone. You can also use Calendly. Um, there's other scheduling tools that you can use, but anything where it's like you waste a lot of time, manually scheduling things between time zones.

And I used to do this all the time in the U S like trying to schedule with someone. This is the worst is when you're trying to schedule with someone in Arizona. Like when I used to live in Arizona, they don't have daylight savings. They're on their own schedule. So you can't use mountain time all the time. It's just like a big pain. Um, so will you just give them the thing and it converts their own time. So you're like Arizona, you do whatever you want. You schedule on your own time. Uh, and also it cuts down emails. You send one email, Hey, I would love to chat. Here's my thing. And then they go off and do their own thing. There's no more emails. You don't have to send any more. Are you most because you set it up and dumped Sato to send them not only a confirmation email with your zoom link.

So I do all of my conversations over zoom, but it has the link. Um, you can send them a reminder email that also has the link and it has a reschedule button. Like it says everything is automated through dub Sato. So you don't have to, um, follow up or say like, Hey, we have a call suit. Or like, it's all done and you don't have to do any more emails. So that's why I got rid of that. London is definitely not eight hours ahead of New York. Is it six hours? I never remember. See, I'm like not good at this. This is why we have tools. Okay. So last thing we're going to talk about real quick. I feel like this has been helpful so far. Give it a thumbs up. If you feel like you want to learn more about being a hire new freelance writer subscribe.

So here's the snafoos that we can avoid to have a better relationship. Number one, understand that you are in different places. Okay. There are different things that happen when you have relationships with people outside the U S the U S U S businesses run differently than international businesses. Sometimes they have different holidays. So for example, like Europe takes August off, right? So like, you may not have worked from them in August, or you may not hear from them. And you're like, they ghosted me and they're like, no, I was in the Italian Riviera, every era for like, you know, six weeks. Um, there are different things and here's the link to them Sato too, that Tommy put him. So there are different things that happen, right? There's daylight savings. There are time zone differences. There are cultural differences. There are vacation differences. There are, um, payment differences.

There are so many different things. So in order to have a good relationship with someone outside the U S you need to kind of remember all these things. Like you need to be more patient and you need to be kind like as usual, right. But you, sometimes there's different things like maybe, um, you speak to someone in their English. Isn't super great that like they're speaking English, which is a very hard language to learn. So please be patient with them. Um, there's other things where, like, they might say one thing and mean another, because it's just the, they're trying to communicate in a different language or, um, there's, you know, make sure everything is clear, make sure you're saying, Hey, so just so I understand, this is what we're doing. This is how things are working, and then they agree to that, right? They're like, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Um, you also want to make sure that, you know, you are someone who, um, can handle having things at different times. So for example, they might be working while you're sleeping. So they might give you something and say like, Hey, this is due on this date. So you need to remember that they're ahead of you. And you either need to turn it in a day early so that it gets them on time. Or you need to agree that this is due by December 3rd, at 3:00 PM central, not whatever time zone they're in. So you need to agree to those types of things. So they're not like, Hey, you always turn your work in late. And you're like, no, it's always early. Like, you have to agree, um, that there's sometimes these gaps, right? These time zone gaps or these work gaps, or you need to, they say like, I need it by this day.

And you're like, okay, well, if I turn it in at this time, by the time you wake up, it'll be there. So you have to agree on those things. Um, you also need to remember that when you're having international clients, um, there's just like things that randomly pop up, like things are different. Um, like, just because it's calm in the U S or just because something's going on in the U S doesn't mean it's going on somewhere else. Right. So sometimes there's these things where you're like, Hey, I can't work right now. This thing is happening. Or we've had like a giant flood or, you know, it's kind of, there's different things that happen right around the world, and that can disrupt us working together. Right? Like things break out or horrible stuff happens or whatever. So it'd be more understanding. And, um, I think, you know, just it's, it's rare and it's very rare, but, um, just try to remember that, like, people are different.

That's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. And there are things that, um, you know, differences that happen, just be understanding and kind and respectful and clarify things. Um, and I think a lot of times with, um, international clients build a relationship with them based on like serving their audience. So it's not always about like, just turn and burn content. It's more about like that. You're still helping their audience, whether the audience is US-based or based in another country, you guys are working together with the goal of helping their audience. Um, and I think that should be the main focus. The main focus should be like, we're working together to create content, to help your audience, not just like create content, just because you need it. And like, you know, we want someone in the U S who can speak, like the weird English, you know, all the weird, like English hard to learn, right?

So you need to kind of bond over the fact that you're helping their audience do stuff. You're helping them, um, find a product that works for them. Find a service that works for them, how to do things, right. You give them how to content, expert, content, research, content, interviewed content. You're kind of bonding over the fact that that's the point, the whole point of the content is to help someone. Uh, it's not just like, let's just create some content. Cool. Okay. Uh, any questions? Any questions that we can go over? I think they went through a lot today, so I've, you know, um, cool. Yeah. You can check out Deb Sato. That's my lifeblood. I, that runs my whole business. I'm obsessed with it. I tell everybody about it. You can use the coupon code that I put in here. I feel like I can make it bigger. Hold on. I don't remember what the other ones are at. Is it this? Oh, that looks large. That's Lord. Okay. Hold on. Oh, Hm. Can I do this?

I can do that. Okay. Anyways, I'll just make it back to its regular size anyways. So you can go to dub side or you can use my coupon code. I'm sorry. I'm messing with all my stuff. I guess. I'll have to fix that later. Anyways. You can go there and use my coupon code if you want. Um, thank you so much for staying on. I know there's been a bunch of people who have been here, so thank you so much for showing up. I'm glad we got to the question. So if your question got answered, you know, good thing, we finally got it on the live stream. If you have a question you can go to here and you can submit a question, so we'll answer it on the live stream, just like we did today. Or if you have a topic you're like, Hey, can you talk more about this topic? We can put that on there. You can also submit anonymously. So if you don't want your name on the live stream, you can submit a notch on LOA anonymously. Cool. All right. Thank you for a great live stream today. Went a bit long, uh, but thank you for staying on and I hope everybody has a great Friday. Bye.

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