Exclusive Interview With Jay Clouse: How To Create Clients, Grow Your Network & Multiply Your Income

Want to go from struggling freelancer to a thriving creator and 10x your impact and income in the process. Watch this exclusive interview with freelancing expert Jay Clouse. Hey posse, what's up? It's Alex and this week I'm super excited to be sharing with you a behind the scenes interview with my good friend and freelancing expert Jay Close. So Jay is the creator of Freelancing School, which provides training and community to help freelancers make more money doing what they love. And he's also the host of Creative Elements, a podcast that explores how your favorite creators build businesses with their art and creativity. And he interviewed me on his podcast a few months ago. So you can go ahead and check that out. I will link to that in the description below. But this private interview is coming to you directly from Inside the Reign Clubhouse, my exclusive membership for freelancers who are ready to turn their side hustle into into six figures now, full disclosure, this is not the full interview. The second part of this interview was an in depth training and Q and A session with Jay, but that is reserved exclusively for my rainmakers. So I will be keeping that portion of the interview private. But in this interview sneak peek, you will hear tons of amazing insights and tips from Jay including how he built a personal brand, launched a successful podcast, created a powerful community of freelancers, and how he turned one stream of income into multiple. Jay is a total badass and just an all around awesome guy. He literally is one of the most legit and nice humans I have ever met and he always delivers just such mad value and gives the best, most practical takeaways and actionable tips. If you enjoy this interview and want to see more like it, make sure to give me a thumbs up below. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button and then tap that bell to be notified when my next video goes live. All right, now let's get to it. Here's my interview with Jay. I am just so, so thrilled to introduce the special guest that I have for you today. Uh, the story of how we met is kind of cool. I did a video back in the day where I shared the top content creators you need to be following for mad inspiration and Jay is one of the people that I gave a shout out to in my video. Uh, I've been following his emails for a while. He shares so much value in his emails that literally I read. I never. As an email marketer, I like to get emails, but I don't like to read them all. I just kind of keep them there to Refer back to. And I literally read all of Jay's emails, and I reply to them too. And then he even gets back to me, which to me, that level of personalization and connection that Jay has with his audience is to me, just absolutely above and beyond what most people do in this industry. And was a big inspiration for me when I started growing my community. And he reached out and was like, hey, thanks for the shout out. And I'm like, oh, my God, you're welcome. And then we connected and we ended up doing a webinar back in early 2020. And then a lot of you would recognize him from the bonus that he did for the launchpad and the launch files, his how to get clients, and his proposal template. And then, of course, now he is a featured expert inside of Rain. So Jay is a genius. One of the things I love the most about him is that he has really built up a community and a platform called Freelancing school that is 100% dedicated to helping freelancers make a living doing what they love. Right. So really helping those artists and creators find their grounds and start businesses so that they can do what they love and actually get paid while doing it. He's also the host of the Creative Elements podcast, which I have been a guest on, and it was one of the best interviews I've ever had. Jay, I have to say, you're an incredible interviewer and I've sent so many people your way. And your first guest was Seth Godin, and we all know and love Seth, and I just think it just the quality of people that you're able to bring into your network and interview is incredible. So I'll link to Jay's podcast and all of that down below the video later, but let's not wait any longer. Jay, I'm so excited you're here. Welcome inside the RAINN clubhouse and meet my rainmakers. Yes.

Wow, what an intro. So kind of you. That's like the best compliment you can give somebody is like, I don't actually read many of these things, but this one I do.

Yeah.

And I mean, the best thing someone.

Can tell you totally, because, you know, everybody creates content. And I think what you have proven is that there's still a way to create content that people actually consume and read, and you do it from the heart. And I enjoy every single thing that you create. So that's one of the many things that I love about you. And I know you're gonna offer so much value to everybody here today. And that's what I'm really Excited to chat about. So I'm very excited to have you here, Jay. And we're just gonna dive right in to the questions, if you're ready.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

I'm very ready. Let's talk a little bit about the pathway from freelancer to creator, if people want to go that direction, and some of the other pathways that are possible.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. And what I. What I think is so great is everyone here, all the rainmakers, they're all freelancers. Most of them are copywriters. A lot of them offer other services. And there's sort of this variety of pathways that I think a lot of us tend to look at when we're starting our businesses. It's like, okay, freelancing. How do I get clients? How do I then get good clients who pay me well? And how do I build that, like, sustainable freelancer business? And then there's the different avenues, like starting an agency, getting a team to support you, building a personal brand, maybe even launching your own products and services, you know, and that's all where these skills can take you, which I think is sort of the beautiful thing of learning the skills now and then working your way up, which is really exciting. So my first question for you, Jay, and we talked about this when we briefly connected earlier this week, that you actually started as a freelancer, and then that led you to all of these other avenues and things that you're doing now, which I'd love to hear about. But can you tell us a bit about what that journey looked like for you, from freelancer to the creator and the creative entrepreneur that you are today?

Totally. Yeah. Happy to. So today, the majority of my income comes from digital products, affiliate sales, sponsorship, things that are mostly passive, which is incredible, because I really only started this journey three years ago, you know, towards that type of business model and to just kind of give us a destination marker. This year, with that revenue only, I'll break six figures in affiliate revenue, sponsorship revenue, digital product sales, maybe even closer to, like, the 120 mark, which is incredible, because my most successful year freelancing, I earned just over $100,000. And that was last year when I was spending pretty much all my time freelancing. So this all happened really quickly. And so you can do that, too, because I really don't believe that I have anything special creatively. Everything has felt like a struggle this entire time to get here, if I'm being totally honest, and I think anybody can do that. I work with freelancers now, because the first thing that I started doing was I thought I would have a basically virtual startup accelerator for founders. Because my network and my experience back in 2016, or up till 2016, was in startups and, like, tech. And as I started spinning up that accelerator, what I found was the people who kept finding me and who kept referring new people to me, and more and more people to me were freelancers because they had this phenomenal skill set, this phenomenal product, and very little experience and therefore knowledge of how to run a business. And the reality of being a freelancer is you are a freelance business owner. You have to embrace being a business owner or freelancing is not going to reward you with the lifestyle that you want. Which is a shame, because a lot of people get into this saying, I want more control over everything. Who I work with, what I work on, when I work on it. I want more time for myself. I want to work on my own creative projects. Like, freelancing is about freedom and flexibility. But if you don't know how to run a business well, then you just don't get those things. You end up working more hours than you worked at a job, maybe even earning less than you were then. And it's not a hard thing to learn. It's just something that you have to make a concerted effort to say, I will learn how to be a business owner and how to run this and operate this so I can have those benefits.

Yeah, no, sorry, I'm just. Everything you're saying, I'm like, oh, my God, this is exactly what I wanted to talk about.

Yeah. So I realized, you know, in working with these freelancers and client service providers, like, man, this is such a shame that there's this disconnect because they have what I was thinking of at the time as like, a really good product. Like, you have a great product, you're able to deliver incredible work. You don't have to be the most talented, creative person to make a good living freelancing. You need to be better than your clients. And chances are, like, you're already miles better than your clients. It's about showing that and having them trust that and then selling those projects. And people have a hard time. They think it's uncomfortable to market themselves, to sell themselves. That's really the core of what you need to do. And it gets easier over time. Like I tell people who are getting started all the time, like, it only gets easier from here because you're only going to get more experience. You're only going to get more Credibility and social proof. But you need to stick with it and push through it and sell yourself and market yourself, because no one's going to do it for you. And it doesn't have to be uncomfortable. None of it has to be disingenuous. It's all very, very doable. But you have to say, like, I am not going to believe that business y things are antithetical to, like, creativity. They need to go hand in hand and that will help get you to where you're going. And so I ended up working with a lot of freelancers that way and helping a lot of them. And I realized, well, I'm teaching the same thing over and over and over again on like a semi hourly basis to freelancers who don't have a ton of income to continue to pay my hourly rate, because my hourly rate was growing, because demand for working with me was growing. So I created some courses for LinkedIn learning and then I published them independently on freelancing school so that people can access this at a much more attainable price point and I can impact way more people. And that set me on the path of other digital products. It set me on the path of creating content, it set me on the path of podcasting in a small way. And, you know, today that's where I'm focusing most of my energy, because most freelancers have a set of pathways in front of them where it's like, well, I can continue to freelance as an individual into perpetuity. And you can do that. And some people do that. But more people choose one of three other paths, which are, I'm going to staff up and build an agency that's bigger than me, or I'm going to try to build something with more leveraged income through digital products. Or you know what, I just want to go get a job again because that gave me more security, that gave me more flexibility, because it gave me a hard bounds of like nine to five. And after five, that time was my own. And all those things are valid. But, you know, I want to help you guys. If you do want to go towards the staffing up the agency route or digital products route, I want to talk a little bit about how you can do that.

Yeah, everything you said. Oh, my gosh. Okay. So first couple things I want to say too is when you talk about the mindset between kind of freelancer and business owner, and I had conversations with a few of you over the last couple weeks where as soon as you can really split up the two, which is silly because right now it's you like you are your business. And so it's a very funny separation that you have to make in your mind as like, this is what you do and this is who you are. And you know, I was talking to one of you yesterday on our one on one coaching calls and you're like, oh, I feel really bad about letting some clients go, but I know I have to do that in order to like level up and get higher level clients. And it feels so personal because it's like you are firing them and they hired you. But sometimes it can just be in the language and how you present things. So saying something like, I'm taking my business in a different direction and I'm only now focusing on working with clients like xyz, all of a sudden you're like blaming the business direction, which is obviously your full choice and intention, but you're speaking as if you're a business owner making a strategically aligned decision as opposed to this personal, like, I just don't want to work with you anymore, which can feel really like personal, you know. And so I love that we talked about that and I want to go deeper into that mindset because even if you want to just really hone in on getting more money as a freelancer, that was a huge shift that I made in my business from, from joining teams and feeling like I was just sort of this individual non expert who was lucky to get the money to then being and really kind of standing in my power as the authority on copy and marketing and changing the way that I communicated and worked out deals to then get, for example, commission on the contracts that I was working on. And all of a sudden it was like, oh no, they're paying me. I'm the expert. And you guys have heard me talk about this before. Like this idea of you feel like because they own a business and you're working with clients, they must be the expert. And honestly, I can tell you so often than not, they're coming to you for your skills and if you can confidently deliver value. It's a completely different dynamic than a freelancer feeling of I just need the client. I need the client. So I love that you talked about that. So, Jay, quick question. It's like the freelancer and kind of creator entrepreneur is like the distinction I think is pretty clear. But what were the biggest mindset shifts that you had to make? Because if I'm hearing you correctly, you were basically doing just freelancing, which, I mean, what did that involve? Like, what was your actual deliverable in terms of A freelancer. And then how did that go from you networking and meeting other freelancers that you could support through coaching and things like that?

I tried my hand at a lot of things. So I'll give you kind of the breadth of what I did, and then where I kind of found my sweet spot. I did everything from. I helped a client pick a name for his company. That was literally my first freelance project.

Wow.

Because he was just like, you're creative. You're good with words. Can you help me pick a name for my company? And I was like, yes, I think I can do that. And I invented that process on the fly, and it became a really fun project where I created a spreadsheet where I'm taking common words and then automatically generating, like, what if I had a prefix onto it and a suffix onto it?

I do that all the time.

It's so fun. It's the best, but not something I wanted to hang my hat on and be like, this is what I'm doing now.

I named it.

Yeah, would be cool, but probably a little bit harder to market. Then I helped with some podcast production, and that was pretty fun. But all the while, I was listening to, like, what are people coming to me asking if I can help them with? Even if it's just, like, on a. What they think could be a free basis. Like, that's a signal of people think I'm good at this thing and I should lean into that. And what it turned into was website development, copywriting, and actually the intersection of the two. Like, how can you help my website integrate with my email marketing system? How can you help me put in place some sequences to make that work? And the wisdom in that really comes down to there's a lot of value when you say, I combine this skill set with this skill set, and I sit at the nexus, because that makes you more rare.

Yeah. If you can say unicorn.

I'm really good at website copy, but also in a way that converts into an email system that I can set up for you, and I can write the copy of that email so that. That will convert to this outcome that gets really, really compelling. Because now instead of hiring two people, they can hire one.

Totally.

And there's, like, fewer points of failure because there's not communication between the two also. Yeah. So that's where I spent a lot of my time. And sometimes they're like, you know what? I just want you to build me a WordPress website. And that's it. Because I don't need or want a marketing system right now. And I was like, okay, if that's what you want, I'll do that.

Yeah.

And I did that. But then a lot of it became coaching. I did a lot of freelance coaching for other freelancers about how to set up their business and sell projects because.

And is that because you were creating? Cause I'm trying to figure out how they found you. And I think it's because you and you talk a lot about this as like a creative is like building your body of work over time. Like I freelanced for eight years and didn't do anything but freelance and was only focusing on sort of leveraging those higher paying clients and getting commissions and was able to build my freelancing business to, you know, mid six figures. And then only after that was I like, oh, I'm gonna start creating content and put building a personal brand with the copy posse. But you were actually creating content sort of regularly through that process. Right. Even if that wasn't necessarily making you money quite yet, you were building community that way.

Yeah. And this was like a happy accident. And now that becomes something that like I've analyzed and thought like, why did that work? I don't love the phrase fake it till you make it, but I do like to punch above your weight class and let people believe you're bigger than you are. If you can do that in a way that's like honest and integrity. Yeah. And the way I would do that, you know, if you look at most freelancers websites, they'll have probably some testimonials, maybe case studies, but probably not many in some level of a portfolio. My whole thing was everything that I do, I'm going to get the most mileage out of this as possible. Every client project I'm going to get a testimonial, I'm going to make that a case study and I'm putting on the website. And if you only work with three clients this year, but you wrap all of those projects into beautiful testimonials and case studies, you look just as accomplished as somebody who might have been doing this for years because they haven't actually put that level of attention into sharing that. And to the person who's looking for who am I going to hire? They don't know any difference. And if you look better, you look bigger. And maybe you haven't been doing it as long, it doesn't matter. Especially if you are confident that you can deliver on the outcome that client wants anyway. Doesn't matter. So I'm always trying to just be like really efficient and economical with Everything that I'm doing and also very visible. That doesn't mean that you have to create a ton of content. There are probably areas in your life where you're already putting some energy and have already built up a little bit of a platform that you can leverage and kind of use that area. But being visible is really, really important.

Yeah. I mean, especially if you want like. And I think there's two different mindsets. Right. If that's your thing. Like, I know there's some of you that might not like the idea of creating a platform and others and others of you have. And I think the beautiful thing about what you're saying, Jay, is you were doing the freelancing work over here, learning from that experience and then you were sharing, you know, wisdom through an email list, which I'm guess started probably very slow and organically because you were just sharing value and people then found you. And then when you were really ready to start pivoting from freelancing to creating, you had a small audience that you could really start and leverage, which I think is such a crucial first step if that is the pathway you want to go.

Yeah, Diana. I think it's Diana. Let me know if I'm not saying your name correctly in the chat. Had a question. Is it crucial to have a sleek website of got a super basic one? Do you think it's having a kick ass site is key? I don't think it needs to be anything crazy or huge. And I say huge in terms of like number of pages and amount of content on those pages. But what I always tell people is unfortunately we conflate trust with design. Like we just put a lot of trust in things that are well designed and that look good and, and we do it implicitly. So you don't have to have a sleek website or an expensive one or a deep one. But if you don't feel like you have a ton of design skill yourself, I would say use one of these page builders that have great looking templates. Don't try to mess with it too much. Leave the fonts as they are. Keep the color palette incredibly simple. I'm talking black and white, maybe one accent color, have more white space on the page than you think. Think things need to breathe and you know you're going to be ahead of most people if you do that. If you don't try to get too cute with it. If you're not a designer yourself. Like we see things and we know, like this isn't what I think it should be, even if I Can't explain why something isn't designed as well as I think it should be. There's like a red flag going off my mind of, like, something here is off. And I will lose trust in you. Even if you are a copywriter and I'm talking about the design of your website, unfortunately, I will have some level of trust that's impacted by the design of your website. So keep it really simple. If this is not your strong point, use a template, simplify the colors, and.

You know, make the copy kick ass.

Make the copy kick ass. You don't even need that much visuals. You know, have a photo of you that adds a lot and you. Yeah, it can be really simple.

And if I could think of, like, the timeline of, like, starting a website, because you guys have heard me say, no, you don't need it to get started. And even when I look at my journey, I started freelancing in 2012, and then I got all my clients through referrals and personal introductions and networking, and I never really needed or thought I never really needed a website. And to be honest, I didn't. In order to get paid as a freelancer, I launched my website in 2016, four years after I started, which was probably later than I should have. But my biggest hang up with that was like, like, what am I gonna put on it? Like, I sort of felt like I'm not trying to get more clients. I was capped out. What's the point? But just to Jay's point, I reached out to all of my clients. I got testimonials, and literally my website was like, here's who I am, here's what I do, and then here's some testimonials. It was so simple. But I think, you know, if I had to come up with a timeline for you guys, I'd be like, get a handful of clients, Do a great job. Get testimonials. Then build your first website so that you have somewhere to put them. And then that just becomes this, like, constantly updating kind of page that you can have to showcase to new clients. Great. So we'll ask just a couple more questions, and then we'll move on to the second half of the presentation, which is your slides. But what advice would you give to someone who is feeling a little bit of that imposter syndrome? You know, as a new freelancer, it's. It takes time to really own that expert mentality. And, you know, you're hopping on a discovery call and you're like, oh, my God, like, I feel so uncomfortable. I'M just going to be happy if they hire me. How? What advice would you give to someone who's experiencing that imposter syndrome early on in their freelancing career?

Well, number one, everybody feels it, so you're not alone and it's common and it's okay. Number two, the tough love answer of this is, is that's something that clients intuit and it's going to impact the quality of the calls. If you can't show some confidence, they need to feel that you are confident that you can deliver a result. Because if they don't feel that from you, why would they believe it? So, you know, you're going to have calls and days where you're just off, and that's okay. And sometimes that means you lost the project. Sometimes it means, you know, I need to schedule a second call. But, you know, it's a practice. It's something you get better at. One of the biggest skills of being a business owner generally is resilience. Like, bad days happen all the time, things don't go your way, it's just the way it is. But like I said earlier, you know, it only gets easier. And so right now, if you're feeling that way, like, stick it out, power through, it'll get easier. It will. But you do need to have some confidence. And confidence comes from experience, too. You know, frankly, like, as you get things done and you look at your work and you're like, wow, this is really good. And a client tells you, wow, this was really good. Now you have that to build from. And on days when even after you've had those experiences, you're still feeling not confident. People in the chat were talking about an email file earlier. Keep a file of things that made you feel good when they happened so you can return to that and use that as energy because sometimes you need to be reminded. I just reset up my entire, like, personal business dashboard and notion this week to force myself to do more reflecting on small wins and things that have gone well. So that even at the end of long days when I feel like life just kicked my butt, I can look and be like, oh, but look at all these things I got done. Actually, it's really helpful.

Yeah, I absolutely love that. Well, what did I tell ya? Jay always brings so much tried and true knowledge, super practical tips, and incredible wisdom in all of the content that he provides. What was your number one takeaway from this interview? Comment below and let me know. Jay will definitely be in the comments checking them out too, so you can tell him how much you enjoyed this interview. Now I will see you again next week. Until then, I'm Alex. Ciao for now. All right, guys, if you enjoyed that video, make sure to check out the next one from me right here. And you can click right here to get a free gift. From launching my YouTube channel, to scaling my copywriting business, to creating multiple products and growing a seven figure brand from scratch, these are the seven biggest lessons I learned along the way.