#113: How to Funnel a Ton of Quality Prospects to Your Website with a Strategic Guest Post

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 there. Welcome to episode 113 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is 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. As a quick reminder, you can find detailed show notes for this episode by going to b2b launcher.com forward/episode113. You know, I'm not sure if you've ever heard of Oprah's favorite things, and if you haven't, this is a list of products that Oprah endorses every year right before the holidays. And I believe that she started doing this in her show years ago, right around November, and it was a huge hit. And over the past few years, she continues to do it, but she publishes it in her magazine. And it's really a list of gift ideas, products that she really enjoys. She's tried out herself, supposedly. And the cool thing about this concept is that her audience is so massive that every product that makes this list becomes an overnight success if it's not already successful. And in many cases, it's not a mainstream product, it's not successful. It's kind of a cool, unknown gadget or gift. And in many cases, because of this sudden overnight massive exposure, the companies behind them are caught off guard and can't keep up with demand. I mean, they'll have a backlog of months in some cases. That's the power of getting targeted exposure. You got a ready and willing audience that would be perfect for this product. And you suddenly have a major celebrity, that audience trust, exposing this audience to something very specific. Now, if you need more clients, you don't need Oprah to sing your praises. Fortunately, you know, we don't run that kind of business. But I think there's a lesson here. It does help to get exposure to your business via publications that your audience consumes, publications, channels, getting your name out there in a way that you can get a lot of people listening to it at the same time or reading it at the same time. And in today's episode, you're going to hear from Marcy Hill. Marcy is a freelance writer, a blogger, and an author. And she's going to explain how she landed a guest post in free forbes.com to drive a steady stream of qualified clients to her business. She did this a couple years ago, and the traffic to her site the qualified traffic still continues on a very steady basis every month, two years after the publication of that guest post. So I don't want to spoil it. I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Marcy. I hope you enjoy it. Hey Marcy, welcome to the show. So great to have you here.

Thank you for having me. Ed, how are you today?

Doing well, doing well. I'm excited to talk to you because this is something that we have addressed a couple of times before, but I think your story is a little different and this is something that I know could have an impact on many people's businesses. Anyway, just really excited to have you here. Before we dive into the topic, I always ask my guests to tell the audience a little bit about themselves, your background, what kind of work you do as a freelancer, what kind of clients you like working with and so forth.

Okay. I am a freelance writer, blogger and author and I left my job in 2008 to pursue my passion of writing. Well, I was actually supposed to be in magazines. That's the main reason why I love to be magazine writer. And that did not start off the way I thought it should. However, I have been featured in several magazines including Forbes and St. Louis magazine and Toastmasters magazine. And I've also my writing life has ventured into writing books and I've written, I've self published seven books.

Oh wow.

And I currently working, trying to venture into technical writing. So that was pretty much my writing life. And as far as being an author, I did not leave my job. That wasn't even on my list of goals. When I left my job, the focus was to be in magazines and that happened. And somebody told me to write a book. I said okay. And that's how that part of my writing life began.

Okay, and tell me a little bit about your background before you jumped ship in 2008. What kind of work did you do.

Prior to freelance writing? I worked in human resources and I actually have a degree in human resources. And I decided this is no longer for me and I wasn't feeling what I was doing. My company was a very nice place to work for. I, however, I just had no more passion for HR and I got tired of babysitting adults. So that was an easy decision to make. You know, when passion called, I just responded to, you know, I answered how.

Long were you consider going in this direction? It was just a kind of a dream that you aspired to for a long time or was it kind of something that came up?

It actually came up because I, I Think I started my last, my first, my last quote unquote, full time position in 2008. And at that time I was laid off from my previous position and I was trying to decide what to do with my life. And because I knew people were hiring me for human resources, I went back to an HR position, which I probably should not have done. But because I did not know what to do and had no direction as far as where to go with writing, I just ended up in hr and then. But the spirit of writing was upon me even as I started that position. And I just had to follow my heart to see where it would lead.

Gotcha. Okay, so I'm curious about that transition because, I mean, I know we're going to be talking about something else, but because you made that switch, I'm always curious to hear how people get those first few clients and during that first year in business, because this is, that is a major step and this is something that a lot of people are fearful about. So how did you, when you left your job to pursue writing, did you have several clients already? So, number one and number two, how did you land those first few clients?

When I left, I had no prospects. And, you know, my. And my focus was different. I was looking to be a magazine writer, so I would pitch publications, get rejected. Now I did pitch one local publication and was paid well. My article was the COVID story, so that was encouraging. And that was the month after I left my job. But then after that I started pitching to large magazines, which probably wasn't a good idea with the lack of clips and focus at that time. So that was a challenge. But in the meantime, I still had to eat. So I would do for my first few clients, I would, I knew I actually still, I know a lot of community organizations that needed help. So I went to them and worked on their newsletters. Because that was back in 2008. Blogging wasn't really in at that time. So I did a lot of newsletter work with the organizations that I knew, and they also had limited budgets. So I worked things out where we would do quarterly newsletters as opposed to monthly newsletters.

Okay.

So I was able to keep busy by going to local organizations that had needs, but they had limited budgets.

So they knew this is something they needed limited budgets. But you were still able to charge for the work and at least earn a little bit of an income.

Okay, I did.

And then how did that lead to kind of your next set of clients? Right. Because you eventually kind of broke out of that category to start landing Some slightly better paying clients.

At that time. What? Well, that allowed me to build my clips. However, what I needed to do to get those higher paying clients was to go to networking events. And that's what I did because I'm in Chicago and we have the Chicago Loop, we have tons of companies. So I once started going to the chamber meetings and general business meetings because you still had small businesses that attended small business owners that attended local business meetings and had needs and bigger budgets. So that's how I started getting more clients. But I was still doing newsletter work for those particular clients. So I mean, newsletter was. The newsletters were an early part of my income.

Yeah, it's a great project to get in the door with especially kind of a smaller client. Right. Because it's a recurring thing. They already know they need it and they probably dread doing it themselves.

Right. And then a lot of them did. Well, prior to our conversations, a lot of, lot of them didn't think about the value of newsletters. But then I said, well, you know, it's consistent communications with your customers and the more, the more they see you, the more they'll think of you when they have needs. So that was one of the, I don't want to say gimmicks, but those, one of the tactics I used to, to gain a lot of work because like I said, blogging wasn't in back then. It was just getting started. So. And I needed that consistent cash flow. And newsletters, Newsletters were that stream for me.

Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's, it is great work because of the consistent nature of it. So that's, that's excellent. Okay, so let's, let's talk about articles as a way to drive or to funnel quality prospects to your website. So I know that you had great success landing an article that you wrote for a big publication that has turned into a lot of business for you. So why don't you tell us how that happened and what the project was about.

Okay. In 2014, I was pitching Forbes Forbes magazine, which is one of the. Was one of my must be in publications when I left my job. And I had pitched it. Well, first of all, it's a challenge to get into Forbes, especially if you don't have a name. And I did not have a name. However, at that time, there was a young lady who said, well, this is how you pitch to Forbes editor. And I kept pitching. I don't know how many times I pitched this particular young lady, but it was quite a few. And every time I said something she would say, nope, nope, keep trying. No, I know it's at least six times. And one day I had a. I had a blog post that I was going to write on how to write a professional bio, and a friend told me to make it an ebook instead of a blog post. So I wrote this. It was only probably about 10 pages, but the article was already done. So it was easy to just say, hey, let me find a. You know, figure out how to make this cover and valuable information that people could use to write their bios. So I wrote the ebook and I published it. Well, I promoted it a little bit and I said, you know what, let me go to Forbes and see if anyone has written an article on this topic. So I did go through. I did a search on Forbes, and most people wrote about professional. No, they wrote about resumes and not bios. So I pitched the editor and she said, okay, we'll take it. And that was probably. Probably the seventh attempt.

Wow. Where most people would have given up after one or two.

Right. But when you have that. Your list, I mean, I have my. My dream publications and they're actually on my wall. So any opportunity I get, I do pitch them. I still haven't been successful with a lot of them, but that was one. I was. And that was. And it really made my day because it was done in May. Well, she said, we'll accept it. And then that was in May, but it was published in June, two days after my birthday. So I was super excited about that.

Wow. Extended celebration there.

Yes. And then another point of excitement for me was the fact that I did not give up and I had this little book that added to my credibility. Now no one knows if it's a good book or not. I mean, I know it's a good book. It gives you what you need to write a powerful bio. However, nobody really knew. But the fact that I said I had a book and I could link to it because it's currently on Smashwords and on my website, that added to the credibility. And I'm sure she looked it up before she said yes.

Okay, so you had, just to make sure I'm clear, you had gone ahead and turned it into an ebook before you pitched the article, right?

Yes.

And then in the article itself, in your bio at the end, you were able to point to that book or that ebook.

Yes.

Oh, that's fantastic. Okay, so a couple of things, a few questions. First of all, so you know, it's been a couple of years. Tell me if you can kind of summarize what the benefits of having landed that article. You've mentioned one which is, hey, this is a big goal of yours and I can see why, right, to have an article placed in Forbes, one of my articles. But what has it done for you and your business besides that, it has.

Landed me tons of professional bio business. And that's one of my favorite projects to work on, writing projects. So it's a win, win. In addition to writing, in addition to gaining the clients, I'm actually working on projects that I enjoy. And a lot of the people who come to me are. First of all, a great thing about the article is I know when people have read the article because I either get an email requesting services or I get a notification from Smashwords about a publication. I mean, about a book purchase. So that's two of the great things because I'm getting paid in two different ways. Wow.

So just so everyone understands, can you tell us real quick what Smashwords is?

Smashwords, is it a site for independent publishers where you can publish your books, your electronic books, because they only work with ebooks. So if you don't have a lot of money and you need to or want to publish a book, if only to gain credibility, you can publish it on Smashwords. And it's free to publish. And it's very easy to use because they also provide guidelines on what or how to publish an ebook. So that's for anyone who wants to publish, who has work that they want to publish independently.

Gotcha. And so it's published through Smashwords and you're still linking to that in the article. Okay. All right. So actually, let me take a step back real quick because I know a question that a lot of people ask me is sure, I love the concept of writing an article on a topic that's going to position me as an authority on that topic. We're in my business. But what do I write about? So how did you decide on bios?

I was think I. Well, at that time I had made a listing of things that I enjoy. I hate resumes, but I love bios, I love newsletters. And for me, it would make sense to write articles to establish myself or write anything to establish myself as an authority on things I enjoy doing. I could tell you about. I mean, I can write a good resume. I don't like doing it. So it just made sense for me to really work on it, put things in people's faces that I enjoy doing, and that was one of those things. So I did that particular ebook. You know, honestly, I really don't know why I was Writing about professional bios.

At that time, well, it sounds like you definitely attracted to the topic, and it sounds like you struck a nerve there and you were able to find something that the editor really wanted that she felt that there was a need for. So that's sounds like there was a perfect intersection of all those. All those factors.

Yeah. And then I was thinking, and probably at that time I was thinking this as a. In the form of. As a blogger, because with blogging, we do so many. Well, as a blogger, you do so many things, but you really don't. Mark. Well, let me speak on my. For myself, you really don't think about promoting yourself outside of social media because everyone tells you to. But you should still have a blog media kit. You should still have a bio, but unless someone tells you that or unless you do research, you really don't know it. And I believe that that was probably why I was writing about professional bios at that time. But then I said, well, everyone, if you think, you know, if you think about it, everyone could use a bio. They may not write it at the time they need it, but all professionals can use a bio. And I believe that's what was going on at that time, which is why I published it. Published a book?

Yeah, yeah. In the book, of course. Then I'm assuming the book also drives prospects to your site as well, because people buy the book and a percentage of those people know they need help writing a bio. Am I correct?

Yes.

Okay, let's look at the, the kind of. The lessons learned from this experience, because you said you've gotten a ton of work on this particular. In this particular area, and I'm assuming that some of this has led to other things. Right. I haven't asked you about that, so maybe I shouldn't assume. But bios has been what people, because of the article, have come to you with. But have any of these, or some of these turned into other opportunities, other projects with the same clients?

Not at this time.

Okay.

Because I really. Well, a lot of. Some of my clients were in the tech space and that when I did their bios, that's not what I was doing. However, I still have that relationship and I'm going to reach out to them. Well, soon after I determine exactly what I want to do in the tech space to open those doors to say, hey, I'm looking for a tech writing position. Do you know of any opportunities? But for the most part, I've just been focusing on bios since that's been the bulk of my, My cash flow My income. So I said, well, why venture anyplace else? Now, I would do it once business declines. But bio business, Bio business has been good, so why mess it up?

Sure. And I think you mentioned offline that, okay, so maybe you don't have, or at least yet a lot of backend services to this, but this has led to a lot of referral business. Am I correct?

Yes, it has.

Okay, so you've landed a ton of work as a result of an article that you placed that you didn't get paid for. But because of where it lives, that gets a ton of traffic, and you're able to funnel some of that traffic to your site and then convert some of those people to customers. And I'm curious, as you look back at this experience, what do you feel you did right with this?

The first thing was, the main thing was to not give up, because when you are rejected, the first thing you want to do is haul tail and just say, forget it. But even with every no she gave me, I say, you know what? I have got to be getting closer to something. So that was one just to continue to pitch articles to different publications. And even if you're not going for a publication or if you're going for a company, just keep trying. Because if not that company, then another company. So even with publications, if not Forbes, I would have gone to Business Insider or Entrepreneur magazine. So just keep your eye on the prize. Another thing I feel that I did right was I did the research before pitching because at that time, I did not find any professional bio articles on Forbes. But there were, like I stated, there were tons of how to write your resume, but nothing about how to write a professional bio. And then the third thing, when I was writing the article, of course you have free will to do write how you like. And my first draft was okay. And then I looked at it and it was. It was boring to me. It would have. I mean, it would have been okay, you know, in the way it was written. But I looked at it, I said, no, this is. I can't submit this to Forbes. And I took a step back and then revised it. I didn't edit the whole thing, but I revised it to give more personality and it's an easier read. And I think that was another reason why it was very well read. And then I'm. A few people who contacted me said, well, I don't know if you really do this, but yes, I do. Let's chat. So, I mean, the person I think the personality was, the personality of the article was Also an attracting factor to prospective clients.

So, yeah, it's. I love the fact that, you know, I talk to a lot of freelance writers, especially when they're coming from that kind of magazine world, is their sole focus is getting paid. Like, they only want to write. They can get paid for the piece. But, you know, there are many ways to think about this, and one obvious way is to. There's writing you do for clients, and there's writing that you do for. To build authority and to generate prospects and traffic to your site. And you knew that even though you're not getting paid for this. So this is not a client project. You have to give it your all. So I love that. I love that you strove for excellence here.

Well, thank you. It was a lot of work. I mean, there were points where I said, dang it, my feelings were hurt. The first rejection, you know, you expect. You can't expect the first rejected rejection. But then after the third one, you know, you have that point where you think, well, should I continue on? But every time I look at that, my dream publications that are on my. Look at the. It's not a vision board, but I have a paper with my dream publications. That was one of the things that made me keep pushing because I had to do it. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but it had to be done.

Yeah, no, that's. I love that you put that on your wall. One of the things that I advise my coaching clients to do is to have what I call a prospect hot list, which is a list of 10 to 20 organizations that you would absolutely love to work for. I've thought about calling it your dream client list, but I don't want it to feel, you know, when people think dream, they think unattainable. Right. So I call it Hot list because these are the. These are the organizations you're really going to spend time and energy on. And I love that you've made that visual and just put them on your wall. I mean, so you can't ignore it. You're sitting there thinking, what's the point? And then you're looking at the logos of these companies and saying, yeah, okay, that's a good reminder. So looking back. So that was the stuff that you did. Well, let's talk about maybe a lesson or two based on knowing what you know now. What would you have changed about what you did, if anything?

I probably would not have changed anything with my attempt with Forbes, because once. Once I set the goal, I said I had to, I have to Keep trying. Now, one thing I did stop doing was pitching. Pitching of the publications, which I don't feel was a totally bad thing. It just said, hey, you have to focus on this one until you have to focus on Forbes.

Yeah.

And then get back to the other, you know, the other publications later. But that's not a really a bad thing. It was just something that needed to happen.

I like that. Focus is not something that we really promote a lot in society. It seems like it's about spreading yourself too thin and trying a lot of different things. But there's a lot of power and focus. It may not be the most popular approach, but I bet that that's one reason why you're successful. If you don't focus, you probably wouldn't have tried seven times, not at all.

And then it would have been, well, my thought process would have been, well, they said, no, let me try this other publication. Yeah, I would have tried the other publications, but it would have been. It would have been the same topic. It wouldn't, you know, it's. It was still a matter of getting this particular piece published. It, ideally Forbes, however, like I said, I would have done Business Insider or Entrepreneur magazine, but it still would have been that topic that was the focus, getting that topic published.

If you were advising a freelancer who's interested in writing for a big publication, whether it's kind of a big standard name like Forbes or Business Insider, or even kind of a niched publication in their target market, and they want to do this to build authority to drive prospects to their site, how would you advise them? What would you tell them to do?

The first thing I would tell them to do is find a topic and make it really a very specific topic, because you have a lot of things that you could write about. For instance, with Forbes, they had a lot of resume topics, but nobody had bios. So find that thing first. Do research to see if that topic has been written, and then find your place in that space. What's missing? That's the two main things you should do. The first two things you should do, then you find who the editor is, and maybe you have a relationship with the editor. If you already do, that's perfect. You probably won't have to work as hard as I did. But if you don't get the name of the editor and then just keep pitching, I mean, ideally you wouldn't have to pitch seven times, but if the person rejects you, find out why. What can you do differently? What can you do to get into this publication? So just ask Questions once, because once you have an editor's attention, you want to keep it and then use it as, you know, just take advantage of that attention at that time and then just keep pitching.

Now, in terms of pitching, and I know this is a huge topic, but I'm going to try to keep it high level here. But what's your advice there? I mean, I know I'm constantly hearing the kind of best practices not to send an article. So don't send an article. Pitch the idea. What's your advice there in terms of how to pitch?

It depends on the publication and the editor, because they'll tell you what they want.

Okay. So follow their instructions, basically.

Yes.

Okay. And those are usually posted on a page in terms of. That explains how to submit on the Writer's Guide.

A lot of publications have writer's guidelines. So you can go and do a search on Forbes writer's guidelines and they'll tell you what they're looking for.

Ah, okay. So that's. Yeah, that's handy. So publication and then writer's guidelines. And you Google that, you'll probably find that page.

Yes.

Okay.

And if you have access to the editor on Twitter or LinkedIn, they may respond to you there also. And then you can. And they may give you something different. Because I was somewhere once and I think it was Inc Magazine, Ink Magazine event, and a young lady said, well, you could pitch an article on Twitter now if you can get. If you could pitch in 140 characters and get published. That's amazing. And I would never tell you not to, but just go to the correct editor when you do it.

Okay. Yeah. And if you could do that, you're pretty good.

Right? And they accept it, or they're reading and accepting, they say yes. Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah, that's exercise and writing. Saliently so. Great exercise. So I'm curious as we wrap up, Marcy, I'm curious, you know, you did this a couple years ago. Have you done this again? Or are you planning on doing this again? You had a great success with that one article, but have you tried duplicating this? Are you planning on duplicating that?

I do plan to again, but I need to have that topic and I haven't really worked on it. Excuse me? I really haven't worked on that recently because right now I'm working on some book projects. So I have not really been pitching publications. But when I find that topic, even in the midst of these book projects, I will definitely do it again.

Yeah, well, I want to Go back to something you said because you just reminded me of that is I think one I will add to the list of things you did well, the fact that you didn't just give a standard two sentence bio at the bottom and then a link to your homepage. You had a very specific call to action there where you're pointing to your book. And one thing that I would advise everyone is whatever you do have something very specific and if you can tie it to the topic of the article, even better. So, you know, if you didn't have a book, I would suggest to someone else with the same topic, hey, point to a page on your site that talks about your biowriting service. Don't send them to the to your homepage, continue that conversation that you've started in the article.

And another thing I would encourage people to do is to actually create ebooks. I know the thought is it's overwhelming because oh my God, I have to write a book. Honestly, my book was already, it's only 10 pages and like I said, it was going to be a blog post.

I'm curious, you know, you did this a couple of years ago. Have you done this again or are you planning on doing this again? You had a great success with that one article, but have you tried duplicating this? Are you planning on duplicating that?

I do plan to again, but I need to have that topic and I haven't really worked on it. Excuse me, I really haven't worked on that recently because right now I'm working on some book projects. So I have not really been pitching publications. But when I find that topic, even in the midst of these book projects, I will definitely do it again.

Yeah, well, I want to go back to something you said because you just reminded me of that is I think one I will add to the list of things you did well, the fact that you didn't just give a standard two sentence bio at the bottom and then a link to your homepage. You had a very specific call to action there where you're pointing to your book. And one thing that I would advise everyone is whatever you do have something very specific and if you can tie it to the topic of the article, even better. So you know, if you didn't have a book, I would suggest to someone else with the same topic, hey, point to a page on your site that talks about your bio writing service. Don't send them to your homepage. You know, continue that conversation that you've started in the article.

And another thing I would encourage people to do is to actually create ebooks. Yeah, I mean, I know the thought is, it's overwhelming because, oh my God, I have to write a book. Honestly, my book was already, it's only 10 pages and like I said it was going to be a blog post and my friend said, no making an ebook. So if you can create an 8, I'll just say a 10 page ebook that's well written, make sure it's edited and have a very nice cover that adds to your credibility.

Now that could turn into a client, right? That, that, that could be the thing.

And then it could be. And the fact that you wrote an ebook, that's, that could be one of the services you provide to a client. So you have the topic of your book if it's something similar to how to write a professional bio. But then somebody might say, hey, I need an ebook and you can be their, their person to write the book.

Love it. Love it. Marcy, where can listeners learn more about you? Where can they learn more about your work and your ebooks?

We can find all of my books and more information about me on my site. Marcy writes@www.marcyrites.com and that's M A R C I E W R I T E s dot com. And if you ever want to chat, I'm on Twitter and if you want to connect, you can Find me on LinkedIn. I'm sorry, Twitter is marcyhill and I'm sure it's Marcy Hill on LinkedIn.

I was just about to ask, where can we find you on Twitter? Excellent. Marcie, thanks so much for coming on the show. Love what you have to share here. This is excellent.

Okay, thank you for having me. Ed.

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