#007: How I Took My Writing Biz to the Six-Figure Level (Pt. 2 of 2)

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey everyone, thanks for joining me for episode seven of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I'm your host, Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. You can find detailed show notes to this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 7 the number 7 so if you're driving, you're jogging, or somewhere where you just can't take notes, don't worry, these are detailed show notes that you can reference later at your convenience. Today I'm continuing my account of how I went from corporate sales professional to freelance writer to a combination of freelance writer and coach. And this is a departure from the shows that I've been publishing lately. But I'm constantly asked about my business, how I spend my time, where my income comes from, how I got to where I am today, and so forth. I've addressed these questions individually in different training episodes I've published over the years, but I've never told my full business launch story in detail and I thought this podcast format would be an ideal way to do that. So if you haven't listened to part one of the story, you probably want to check that out first so this the rest of the story makes sense and you can get to that by going to b2b launcher.com episode 6 so we left off when I had made the leap completely into full time freelance writing. And that was 2006 mid-2006. By the fall of that year I had critical mass in my business because I had been building it on the side for a little over two years. So I hit the ground running and I had enough momentum that I realized that I could afford to let go off the prospecting accelerator, if you would. I had worked my tail off to get here to this point. I had taken massive action over the last couple years and about 75% of my work was coming to me from existing past clients and or word of mouth referrals, inquiries from people who had found my site, and so forth. And because I had built again my business on the side for more than two years, I had a very smooth transition. There was no gap in income. If anything, my income was going up. So my first full year of full time freelancing, which is from June 2006 till May 31, 2007, I grossed more than $163,000. Now I know that sounds impressive, but let me tell you, it was not easy. I worked my tail off and I didn't want to turn down any work. And that's something that I find a lot of people who make the leap and find themselves where I was back then. Experience. You have plenty of work, but there's this constant fear, or call it an anxiety or whatever you want to call it about, gosh, I can't turn anything down because what if next month is not so great? Or what if things start drying off? You keep taking on more than you can probably handle. And that's not good either. But that's a reason why I did so well that first year is I really worked hard a lot. But you know what, having said that, it was fun. I was still riding the high of being out on my own. I felt a real sense of joy and pride knowing that I was really, I mean, to put it crudely, eating what I killed or what I grew. And that just felt so great to me. In, I would say the first 18 months of after making the leap to full time freelancing felt this way. I was crazy busy and sometimes it was stressful, but it was also very joyful and fulfilling experience. So Sometime in late 2007, I began to get an itch. I think I felt like I needed a new project. I needed something to help me grow further personally and professionally. And I found that over the years I come alive when I'm building something, not when it's stable. So I like building something, I like growing it. And once it's repetitive, once it's stable and systemized, I start looking for the next thing. So in late 2007, I decided to write an ebook. The ebook is still out there. It's called Stop Wishing and Start Earning. A low Risk plan to escape 9 to 5 and launch a profitable copywriting business. It filled a gap in the market. It was up on how to make the leap into full time freelancing faster with less risk, especially when you had a full time day job. So over the last few years, I had documented everything I did to make the leap myself. And I wanted to help others who were in the same boat. I will tell you the main motivation for this was not money. It was really a sense of creating something new and exciting again. I wanted to start something new. I had that itch to create a new project. And I also wanted to test the passive income waters. This concept of passive income had intrigued me for a long time and I just Wanted to try it out. And I felt this was really the best way to do that because there was nothing else like it out there. I had really struggled to find information over the past few years about how to make the leap from full time employment to full time freelancing and how to do it safely and how to do it systematically. There was very, very little information out there and I was very frustrated about that. So I wanted to fill that gap again. I wanted to test the passive income waters. Now there's something very interesting about passive income. There's very little that's passive about these ventures. And that's a topic for another podcast. I really want to talk about that because I want to dispel some of the myths out there about passive income. And I know many of you have indicated that you're very interested on this topic. So know that I will talk about it at some point. So I carved out the first two weeks of January 2008, that is to write the. That book, that ebook. It took a while to set up the website, the shopping cart, the merchant account, and all the moving pieces associated with creating something like this. It's crazy how much there is, especially when you first launch something like this. We have nothing in place. I was actually kind of surprised. And I was also surprised at how complex some of these pieces are. I had to hire someone to help me set it up because it was just beyond what I knew how to do or what I felt comfortable doing. So I launched that book. I want to say it was February or March 2008, and it was a huge success right off the bat. Had some established relationships with folks like Chris Marlowe, John Ford, some of you guys know Chris and John. And I had sent them the ebook. They had read it and they loved it. So they agreed to promote it to their subscribers. And that's a big reason why this thing took off, because I had people promoting it for me right off the bat. Now, a weird combination of things began to happen shortly after the launch of the book. First of all, I was in awe about the success of the ebook. I have to admit that that kind of quick success made me catch that passive income bug. And I couldn't wait to create my next product. I thought, oh gosh, this is. This is great. I had a couple product ideas. I mean, I should create some more. This is fun. And here again, I want to emphasize it really wasn't so much about the money. Yeah, I mean, yeah, money was cool and it was neat to see it come in, but. But it really wasn't about that. It was just that I had found my next challenge. And I was really excited about this new path that I was taking, this idea of creating something new, something valuable that people wanted. I really had valuable information to share that I knew would help many people. And it was exciting to see folks recognize that. So this is also around the time when I teamed up with Steve Sloan White and Pete Savage to create the Wealthy Freelancer Blog. And, you know, the idea behind that blog is the three of us had some great ideas, very similar philosophies about freelancing and freelance success and what it took to get there. We decided to combine our efforts to create a blog where we could each contribute some content. But during the spring of that year, and Again, this is 2008, while I was busy dreaming up new product ideas, planning and launching the Wealthy Freelancer Blog and just busy promoting my ebook, my prospect inquiries began to dry up slowly as the economy started taking a nosedive. And I really didn't notice. I wasn't paying attention, to be honest. I was just too focused on this new path and this new set of projects. Right along that same time, I lost a couple of clients. And it didn't happen overnight. It just happened gradually. And by June of that year, things were getting a bit scary. So the ebook wasn't really a big income producer. I mean, it was nice. It was some nice passive income coming in every month, but it wasn't stable, depending on who was promoting it. And by June, I had lost some of my biggest clients. And here's the big mistake. I hadn't worked to replace them with active prospecting. And that was a bad move. That was a really bad idea. So I had lost sight of what was important there. I had lost sight of the fact that, gosh, my main source of income was kind of drying up and I hadn't done anything to. To fix that. And I remember what was happening here because we went. We had planned a summer vacation to go see my family in Puerto Rico. And I was worried sick. This is July at this point, July 2008, I was worried sick because I had come to the realization, oh my gosh, what have I done? I haven't been prospecting. And I lost my biggest clients, especially my biggest client, which was about 50% of my freelance income. I had lost them a couple months before, and for some reason, it didn't hit me too hard then. But by July, I had suddenly woken up and I realized the severity of that. And here I am. I am in a beautiful place on the beach in Puerto Rico. My family's having a good time, but I am secretly worried to death because there's nothing I could do here. I can't go prospecting. I'm on vacation. And I honestly. And this is. This is pretty bad. I couldn't wait to get back home so I could start fixing this. But I was somewhere where I couldn't. And I was supposed to enjoy myself and relax, and I just had a hard time doing that. So I came back home and I started prospecting in a big way. And, gosh, I came across some really bad prospects. I did have some really low quality inquiries. I remember getting a call from a marketing agency here in town who had a technology client. Their client needed a lot of white papers written very quickly. And they want to know if I could write six white papers for $1,000 each, which is really low, and if I could get them all turned around in two weeks, which is crazy. One decent sized white paper, you know, five, six, seven, eight pages, easily takes two weeks to complete. So six of them in two weeks for about a fifth of the price that I would have normally charged. And I was so desperate that instead of saying, I'm sorry, I can't help you, I told them that I would. Let me think about it, let me put a proposal together for you. And I quoted a little bit higher. But gosh, it was really close to what they wanted it for. Fall 2008, by the way, I didn't get to work, thank goodness. Fall 2008 was bad. I had some work, but by this point, 75% of my monthly income was coming from my savings, which is not really income. I was just draining my savings in order to keep me afloat. One of the things I was hanging my hopes on was another product that I had been working on for the last few months. And I really thought this could be another big success. The product flopped, and it flopped in a big way. So here I am, it's about October. And I really thought this thing was going to make up for some of my shortfalls. And it didn't. And I started getting pretty nervous. I want to pause real quick to talk about a key lesson, and I think some of them are pretty obvious here, and I've mentioned some of them, but there's an underlying lesson here about focus. It's so important to stay focused when you're a freelancer now it's okay to gamble some of your time, some of your energy and resources on a side project like I had done here. Okay? But Just like with an investment portfolio, you don't want to have 80% of your capital invested on small cap stocks or other speculative investments, especially when most of your income comes from the more conservative investments. Yet this is what I had done here. Most of my income came from my freelance writing work. And this passive income thing had started as a just a side project, kind of a small venture, a speculative venture. And Instead of investing 10 to 20% of my time, income and resources on it, I let it get to 80% or something crazy like that. And that was a big mistake. I was betting the farm on this thing. What started out as a passion turned out to be really much more than that. And I got caught in the whole cycle of oh my gosh, this is so great and everything I do is going to be so successful. And it wasn't so right around October 2008. I remember it was October because it was right around Halloween time. I get an email from someone that I had met about two years prior to she is someone who worked in the marketing team of the large client that I had lost earlier this year. She was now in a new company. She remembered our meeting back then. Now, I didn't work directly with her two years earlier, but I had met her at one of my clients conferences and I guess I had made a good impression on her. She was with a new company and she worked directly for the VP of marketing and they had a new VP of marketing and she wanted me to meet him. She said they needed a lot of help with writing and she was going to try to set up that meeting for me. Now you have to understand the kind of the mindset that I had adopted at this point, which is one of fear, anxiety and really my attitude kind of stunk a bit. So when I got her email I didn't think much of it. I thought, okay, whatever, that sounds good. Sure, I'll meet with your VP of marketing. But I really didn't think this was going to go anywhere. Well, I'll fast forward a little bit. And it was a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving that same year. And Again, this is 2008. I met, I secured a meeting with her VP of Marketing and the meeting went incredibly well. So much so that three weeks later I had a signed contract for over $19,000 worth of work with much more to follow. This client saved my butt and it's interesting that I didn't think anything of it when I first heard about them. And I almost blew off this opportunity thinking this was really not going to lead anywhere that's how my attitude had shifted, which is kind of shameful. There's so many lessons in this part of the story, but I will say one of them is, again, to reiterate the focus thing. Stay focused. Be smart about the risks you take. And I will add that when the chips are stacked against you, you have to keep calm and do what needs to be done. Keep your head down. Do the work that you know needs to be done. Be smart about your prospecting and just keep prospecting. Don't stop. Also, remember that it's darkest and coldest right before dawn and that there are no such thing as coincidence. When I landed this work, it really looked bleak. I mean, I was losing faith here in a big way. And it's kind of amazing that when it looked the darkest, not only did I land a client, but this was a dream client. A dream client with amazing people that I was working with on amazing projects. They paid very well, they paid on time. Everything about them was amazing. So how do you go from darkest to lightest almost overnight? I'm not sure, but I don't believe in coincidences. This client was. It was amazing. Not only did it restore my finances, but it restored my confidence. It also added some much needed stability to my income. They turn into a retainer client totaling several thousand dollars every month. And I think they turn into a retainer client the next spring, spring of 2009. And that gave me the stability and the income predictability that I would need a few months later when Steve, Sloan, White, Pete Savage and I landed a book deal from Penguin to write the Wealthy Freelancer. Because I had to spend a big chunk of spring and summer, actually considerable amount that Spring and Summer 2009, writing that book by having this client. I could afford to do that because I was on retainer. I had that predictability. And yes, by this time, by the way, I had landed a few other clients, so it was perfect. So I'm going to fast forward a bit to 2010, because in March of that year, my book with Steve and Pete came out. The Wealthy Freelancer and I spent a big part of that year rebuilding my coaching and training business for freelancers. Pete, Steve and I decided to partner on this. But this time around, I was much smarter about the risk I took. I kept three to four freelance copywriting clients, one of which was this large retainer account. With the wealthy freelancer out, we are able to grow our subscriber list significantly. Plus there were three of us promoting it. So we created great synergy and our Subscriber list grew pretty quickly. The book did extremely well. It became a best seller on Amazon. We were able to go all the way to 41 in all books sold on Amazon. The book won an award that year. Then Pete and I ended up taking over the business in order to grow it faster. And that was kind of. In the fall 2010, we did our first International Freelancers Day conference. It's the biggest free online conference for freelancers. We did it in September of 2010. That was a huge success. And that event is what led into International Freelancers Academy. So up until this point, the business was really called the Wealthy Freelancer based on the book. But we realized that what had caught on was this idea of International Freelancers based on the International Freelancers Day online conference. So we decided to create an academy where we provided free content and some paid programs, more detailed programs. And that's how that was born. Now in early 2011, Pete stepped aside to refocus on his freelance business. But I decided to stay. I decided to stay with International Freelancers Academy. And the reason is, I couldn't deny it. I loved writing for clients, but I also loved teaching and coaching. I found that I had a unique perspective, not as an academic, but as a practitioner who loves and studies his craft because he's a student of the process. I realized over the last couple years I was a student of the process for years. I had people tell me that I had a gift for analyzing systems and processes, for knowing what works and didn't work and why these things worked and didn't work, and for teaching and explaining winning strategies in a uniquely practical way. Well, I had mainly ignored these praises, these comments. But in 2011, I realized that I did have a talent for teaching from my own experiences and from the experiences of other successful professionals. So I made the conscious decision to stay behind and to grow International Freelancers Academy into something bigger and better. Well, first thing I did is I surveyed my subscribers. I want to know, hey, I don't want to guess here. What do you want? What do you want more of? What do you want less of? And my subscribers told me they essentially wanted meatier, more detailed training, not just cursory information. They also wanted more and better help with their number one challenge, which was landing more high paying clients. So I changed the focus of International Freelancers Academy and the information that I provided to be 90% about marketing and about selling your services. I also went from offering a bucket load of programs and tele classes, which is what we had been doing up until that point to offering just three very focused programs. Here again, I realized that focus was going to be the key to keeping my sanity and to growing a successful side business. Because keep in mind that at this point it was still a side gig. I, I still had my freelance clients. This is only about 20% of my income at the time. Underlying all this was a very conscious decision to slowly transition into doing this work nearly full time. Not 100%, but maybe 80 to 90% of my time, my energy and my attention. I still wanted to keep a couple of clients now. International Freelancers Academy broke the six figure mark in revenue. Not profit, but revenue. 2011. And this is the first full year doing this on my own. And I shouldn't say my own with Crystal's help. Crystal Coleman is my VP of operations. She's amazing and there's no way I could do this without her. 2011, however, was also the hardest year. It was very trying in that I spent 80% of my time on that business. Yet again, it was only representing about 20% of my income. The other 80% was coming from my main source, which is my freelance writing clients. 2012 was another six figure year, but this time profits were a little bit higher. This is also the year when I decided to make big shifts in my mix of freelancing versus coaching and teaching time. So I went from 80% freelancing to about 80% coaching almost overnight. It was a conscious decision, it was a scary decision, but I decided this is the time. And I had been trying to do this gradually over the last year or so and this gradual approach wasn't really working. I realized that I'm going to. I was going to need to make a drastic shift in a very calculated way though not like I had done a few years before where I kind of just did it on a whim. This year, 2012, Crystal decided to come on board full time with me. And again, this was all these things just kind of happening fast. They were a bit scary because I realized that I couldn't continue to try and make this a smooth climb. But things started happening as I made these bold moves. And you know, I love this quote from Dorothea Brand. Act boldly and unseen forces will come to your aid. Because that's exactly what happened. This is a. This concept has never failed me. And the difference between again, 2008 and 2012 in my attempt to launch a side business is that in 2008 I lost sight of what was important. I made decisions foolishly and ignored my main source of income, which is Freelance work. This time around, I made my decisions from a much better vantage point. I had to scar tissue. I had grown personally and professionally. I was much more confident and much more strategic in my decisions. So where AM I today, 2013? Well, today 85% or so of my income comes from coaching and teaching and publishing programs for freelancers. I still have two to three relatively small freelance writing clients and I like it this way. I like writing white papers, case studies, articles, web copy. I love that kind of work as long as it's with the right clients, which is what I have now. So I have, I believe, right now, the ideal mix. Now, in the past I've avoided talking about this and where my income comes from because I really want the focus of my conversations and advice to be about you, about helping you land more and better paying clients, and to have more freedom and joy in your business. Not about me and how I make a living. However, this is something that I've wanted to talk about for a while, but I needed to tell you the full story first so you have the right context to understand why I do what I do. So why do I do what I do right? Well, again, I've discovered that I have a true passion for teaching and helping other freelancers succeed. A big part of this has to do with my own struggles to build a successful business under great pressure. I've since learned that I'm wired to pull apart a situation and show others what went right and what went wrong. I'm obsessed with this concept of paving the way for others, with making it easier for others to succeed. And I want to do as much of this kind of work as possible. I also love to build and grow businesses and international Freelancers Academy and my b2b launcher.com website which hosts this podcast, gives me the opportunity to do these things in a way that's true to me and who I am and what I value. So a key lesson here is if you're going to start a sideline, do it on something you love, something you're passionate about, and that's true to your values. Don't just do it for the money, because when the going gets tough, you'll quit if the money is your main motivator. And that's what happened to me. I mean, notice that, you know the reason I stuck with this, I should have probably quit. There was no logic or reason financially, that is to doing what I was doing for a long time there. But I was really passionate about doing this, about producing these materials, and about helping others who were in my shoes, I should have probably quit. There was no logic or reason financially, that is to doing what I was doing for a long time there. But I was really passionate about doing this, about producing these materials, about helping others who were in my shoes a couple years before the that point. And honestly guys, I would do this for free if I were financially independent. That's my litmus test. That's how much I love to do what I do and to teach and to help others. Is money important? Absolutely. But in whatever you do for a living, make sure that it's not your main reason for doing it. So if you're a freelance writer, just make sure that you just love to write. Okay. That you love to work with clients, that you love most aspects of your business. You don't have to love every single bit of it. That's not the point. But that you know what, when you think about it, Sunday nights, you're looking forward to the next day, you're looking forward to Monday morning, the day you start dreading. Monday mornings is probably the day you need to take a hard look at what you're doing and why you're doing it. So find the intersection of income potential and your passion. In fact, that's the reason why I launched this podcast. Because I wanted to do a better job of serving a very specific type of freelance professional, which is freelance business writers. I honestly believe this particular profession within the freelance world is one of the most promising, if not the most promising, types of freelancing there is. And the reason is that the meteoric growth of content marketing and the lack of solid business writers who can write this kind of content well is, I mean, that's a huge driving force right now and will continue to be one. So unlike so many other freelance professions, this is not the kind of work that can be outsourced easily to freelancers in non English speaking countries that might be able to do it cheaper. So that's happening in other professions, but it's not going to happen here, not with business, to business or commercial writing. So how would I summarize my last 10 years in business? Well, my experience, my challenges and my victories have really led me to believe in a few core principles for success. One of them is baby steps and stair stepping your way to success. You know, I know that it may not be the sexiest approach, but in this business baby steps are key. Going from small client to the next client to the next client. And at each step, working your way up, the other key concept is taking massive action. I can't stress this enough, we have a tendency to kind of let go off the accelerator when things start happening. For us, that's a big mistake. When you feel, you know what, it's okay, it's time to kind of let go a bit and relax. This probably the time when you have to warn yourself, you know, maybe not. It's okay, you know, sometimes we don't have the time. If you land all this work, you don't have the time to prospect as intensely as you did before. I understand that. However, make time for prospecting even if you're slammed. Okay? Not only that, but continually take massive action when you're building your business. So in the early years, figure out where you're going to need to put forth in terms of effort and then double that and do that. If you do that, you will achieve your goal. We tend to severely underestimate how much it takes, how much effort it takes to build, launch, grow business. The other key concept is this idea of ready, fire, aim. And it kind of goes along with what I just described. So don't wait until things are perfect to start taking action. When things are at a level of good enough, start taking action. Okay, so it's not ready, aim, fire, Ready, fire, aim. And then finally recognizing that Making the leap scary. Making any kind of leap is scary. But let's say you're freelancing part time right now or you're thinking about embarking on this path. Making this leap is scary. But there comes a point when we have to jump off, folks. And when we do, unforeseen forces will come to your aid. I'm going to leave you with a poem, a beautiful poem from Guillaume Apollinaire, because frankly, it sums it up, sums up this idea better than I can come to the edge, he said. They said we're afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came, he pushed them, and they flew. That's it for today, folks. Remember that you can grab the detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com these are detailed notes that make great reference material, especially if you listen to the show in your car or somewhere where you can't take notes and a couple of quick announcements. So starting on June 18, I'm personally going to walk a small group of ambitious writers through launching their own freelance businesses and getting clients fast. This is by far the most transformative program I've ever put together. It's an intense, results driven program. I still have a few spots left and enrollment is by application only and you can learn more about it by going to b2b launcher.com info if you enjoy this episode I would be grateful if you shared it with friends. The easiest way to do that is go to b2b launcher.com love this will pre populate a tweet for you which makes sharing the podcast a lot easier. And finally it would mean a lot to me if you gave the show a quick rating or review on itunes. The easiest way to do that is to go to b2b launcher.com iTunes. You'll find a blue view an itunes button on that page that will launch itunes and will take you straight to the show page there where you can then leave a star rating in a sentence or two if you like. This brings us to the end of the episode. I am your host Ed Gandia. Thanks for listening and I hope you have an awesome day.

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