#114: Using Demonstration Projects to Launch Your Freelance Business (or to Pivot Into New Areas)

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. Thank you for joining me for episode 114 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 the details shown us to this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode114 and if you've been following me for a while, you probably understand and know that I am a student of success. I love to study success as much as I enjoy studying failure. And I love to look for patterns, because there are patterns. Success and failure both leave clues. And there's a pattern I've seen in virtually every freelance success story out there. In fact, I see this in almost every business success story. But you know, since I study freelance success, it's one of those things that becomes very apparent in pretty much every story. And it goes something like this is you begin to move steadily in the direction of your goals. And by that I mean whether you're launching or you're trying to grow, or you trying to take your business to the next level, or you're trying to pivot, it doesn't matter. It's all the same. You're moving in a new, scary direction. All kinds of serendipitous events begin to happen. Now, quick side note, when I say begin to move steadily in that direction, I don't mean casual activity. I mean steady, deliberate, persistent and laser focused action, even when you don't feel like it, and even when you think all hope is lost. Now, of course, those synchronicities don't always happen immediately. I mean, if they did, we'd have, you know, everyone would succeed with very little effort. And they're not always obvious. You know, Many times you have to wait and look back. In fact, as you look back at your success, that's when many times it all starts to make sense. And you realize that taking steady and massive action despite the odds and despite the obstacles really paid off for you. And that's why I love the story that I'm about to share with you, because it's yet one more example of this fascinating pattern of success. My guest is a gentleman by the name of Robert McGuire. Robert is a journalist turned content writer and marketer and founder of McGuire Editorial, which is a content marketing agency. And in this interview, you're going to hear how one of Robert's side projects, something he refers to as a demonstration project, initially seem like a failure. But then you're going to hear how this demonstration project ended up becoming a critical ingredient in Robert's freelance and eventually entrepreneurial success. I think you're really going to enjoy this one. So let's go straight to that interview. Robert, welcome to the show. It's good to have you here.

Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.

I always ask my guests to give us a little bit of background before we get to the questions and the topic we're going to be discussing today. So tell us about yourself, your freelance business, what type of work you do, the kind of clients you work with, and how long you've been doing this type of work.

Oh yeah, well, how long I've been doing this type of work kind of depends on where you draw the bright lines between one phase and another. I mean, there aren't bright lines. Right. So I have been making my living as a writer one way or another for over 20 years, since I flamed out of graduate school. I was planning to be an English professor and that didn't work out very well. And then I got a job as a business idea because that was my original intention, was to start a website that would be kind of this.

Self.

Supporting, what's the word? I'm looking for a business that was generating revenue on a recurring basis. And I always joke that as a bust, as a business idea, this was a total bust. But it ended up attracting attention because it was very high quality and the attention it attracted were really the first clients in what my business has become in the meantime.

Interesting. So tell me about how this happened. So tell me what you were trying to do, why you feel it failed and then how it led to some success.

Yeah, well, you know, I was reading this was maybe three, when was this? It must be getting close to four years ago now when MOOCs were first starting to become noted in the news. And MOOCs, for anybody who hasn't yet heard the term, are massive open online courses. These are the free courses that are now commonly associated with places like Coursera and edx, usually offered by universities or in partnership with universities. And these were new at the time. And I was also. My wife and I travel a lot. Her work allows her to travel. And so I wanted to set up some kind of situation where I had some kind of business that would let me travel. And I was looking around, I was seeing Pat Flynn And Corbett Barr and those folks and the advice that they had back then about self sustaining businesses. And so I followed all of their advice except the part about finding a keyword or need or an audience that has some volume to it. So I found a keyword phrase I could dominate. But you know, that's the easy part. Anybody can dominate some keyword phrase. I found a keyword phrase I could dominate that nobody was searching on, which was massive open online courses. But I was really interested in it as an educator. My wife works in education and so I thought I'm going to start this website that has to do with MOOCs. I'm going to sort of own the space. I'm getting in early before anybody else is. I'm predicting it's going to be this huge thing and there's going to be all kinds of traffic about MOOCs. And I didn't want to just be this individual blogger sounding off about them. I thought who cares what I have to say about them? So instead I'll kind of install myself as the convener of a conversation. What I really understand now is like the managing editor of this website and start inviting other authorities or other interested parties or people with interesting points of view. I'll just start inviting them in and having them comment on MOOCs and we'll put together this kind of interesting conversation on this site that I'll operate and it'll get a lot of traffic and I'll put ads next to it and that'll be a business. As we now know, when it comes to ad supported sites, whatever traffic it is you think you need add two or three more zeros after that. So that's why it was a bust. But it was really high quality stuff. I'm really proud of it. The site is called MOOC News and Reviews and if you go there now it's dormant. Nothing has been posted on there for about three years. And when we set up this interview I was very comfortable having people go there. In the meantime, WordPress has updated the software and now the site is a little bit broken. So I'm a little bit embarrassed to have people go to it.

No, that's cool because we're trying to demonstrate that this thing at least the initial idea broke, right? Yeah, it didn't really work. So I mean for its intended purpose. So we'll go ahead and link to that in the show notes.

Yeah, yeah, well, so if you go to MOOC News and Reviews now, you'll see a site that has kind of somewhat amateurish but okay design circa 2013 that is getting stale and that parts of the software are a little bit broken. But if you read some of the articles, I'm really proud of them. They're still really valuable, I think, and were valuable at the time. And so the field is, it was really working in is a field I didn't really realize existed, which is online learning and education technology. What's happened in the meantime? And there are all these education technology startups, this new vertical, not entirely new, but a growing vertical in the world of B2B software as a service. And those companies need marketing support. And they were coming to me and say, hey, instead of running this blog that's never going to go anywhere, why don't you run our blog instead? And MOOCs were first starting to become noted in the news. And MOOCs, for anybody who hasn't yet heard the term, are massive open online courses. These are the free courses that are now commonly associated with places like Coursera and edx, usually offered by universities or in partnership with universities. And these were new at the time. And I was also my wife and I travel a lot. Her work allows her to travel. And so I wanted to set up some kind of situation where I had some kind of business that would let me travel. And I was looking around, I was seeing Pat Flynn and Corbett Barr and those folks and the advice that they had back then about self sustaining businesses. And so I followed all of their advice except the part about finding a keyword or need or an audience that has some volume to it. So I found a keyword phrase I could dominate. But you know, that's the easy part. Anybody can dominate some keyword phrase. I found a keyword phrase I could dominate that nobody was searching on, which was massive open online courses. But I was really interested in it as an educator. My wife works in education. And so I thought I'm going to start this website that has to do with MOOCs. I'm going to sort of own the space. I'm getting in early before anybody else is. I'm predicting it's going to be this huge thing and there's going to be all kinds of traffic about MOOCs. And I didn't want to just be this individual blogger sounding off about them. I thought who cares what I have to say about them? So instead I'll kind of install myself as the convener of a conversation. What I really understand now is like the managing editor of this website and start inviting other authorities or other interested parties or people with interesting points of view. I'll just start inviting them in and having them comment on MOOCs and we'll put together this kind of interesting conversation on this site that I'll operate and it'll get a lot of traffic and I'll put ads next to it and that'll be a business. As we now know, when it comes to ad supported sites, whatever traffic it is you think you need add two or three more zeros after that. So that's why it was a bust. But it was really high quality stuff. I'm really proud of it. The site is called MOOC News and Reviews and if you go there now it's dormant. Nothing has been posted on there for about three years. And when we set up this interview I was very comfortable having people go there. In the meantime, WordPress has updated the software and now the site is a little bit broken. So I'm a little bit embarrassed to have people go to it.

No, that's cool because we're trying to demonstrate that this thing at least the initial idea broke, right? Yeah, it didn't really work. So I mean for its intended purpose. So we'll go ahead and link to that in the show notes.

Yeah, yeah, well, so if you go to MOOC News and Reviews now, you'll see a site that has kind of somewhat amateurish but okay design circa 2013 that is getting stale and that parts of the software are a little bit broken. But if you read some of the articles, I'm really proud of them. They're still really valuable, I think, and were valuable at the time. And so the field that it was really working in is a field I didn't really realize existed, which is online learning and education technology. So what's happened in the meantime? And there are all these education technology startups, this new vertical, not entirely new, but a growing vertical in the world of B2B software as a service. And those companies need marketing support. And they were coming to me and say, hey, instead of running this blog that's never going to go anywhere, why don't you run our blog instead?

Instead.

And it finally dawned on me that I had a business now.

Let me make sure I understand. So did they find you because of the site?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It sort of proved to them that I could do it. And that's sort of the argument I'm making to you that it ended up being a demonstration project for my editorial skills.

Gotcha. And I'm assuming that they didn't even question your ability or your experience, right? Because you had this up there, it just automatically bypassed some of these credibility issues.

Yeah, there was no need to look at my LinkedIn page or look at any other clips or having me send them anything else. I mean, the site itself and my name associated with it. I mean, ironically, very little my own writing was on it because like I said, I was acting as the managing editor, at least proportionally. There was a lot of my writing on it, but as a portion of the whole it was a small share. But I was out there promoting it and blogging about it and doing interviews about it. And so my name kind of became associated with this new emerging online learning technology. And people started asking me to help them out with marketing their products.

So take me back to maybe that first example, that first prospect who came to you because I'm curious to know more about how that came about, what they came to you with, how they approached you and kind of when the light bulb went off.

Yeah, let me talk you through two. The first two. The first one, it didn't work out. It was a prospect, as you say. It didn't work out. The site had literally been live for. Actually it had been live for six weeks. We'd been unrolling articles one every day without promoting them so that we could kind of seed it. And then I had an official launch date where I started promoting the site. About four days later, this publishing company reaches out to me and say, we're starting a journal, a serious academic journal. This is a for profit publisher of academic journals on MOOCs and we'd like your help in getting it going and editing it. And they wanted to kind of take over my site by the material. It's funny, I had a meeting with them and they're asking me all these questions and it occurs to me they don't realize that the site is only four days old. They think that I've been doing this forever. They had seen it like the day after it launched.

It's that moment in the conversation when you realize, wait a minute, they're not aware.

Well, that ultimately didn't work out. And then about probably a month later, the company that became my first client approached me and we actually ended up negotiating probably seven months before we came to terms because they were a very early stage startup really being bootstrapped. And so I was being asked to basically write for free on their basically give up what you're doing, do the same thing for us for free, and you'll have a stake when we get acquired. And I decided against that. And Then after they were acquired and had an investment, then they had a budget to actually pay for someone to run their blog. And that became my first client.

Interesting.

The first client in the model I have now, I was freelancing all this time.

Yeah. So you were not depending on this generating an income to pay your bills.

Right, right.

Okay. So I mean, really not a long time from inception to actually getting a client from it in an unintended way, which I think is fantastic.

Yeah, yeah. So and so, you know what I think now is looking back, I mean, I'm making myself sound really smart. Like I had this plan, it was not a plan at all. But looking back, my advice to people, when I hear people talking about writing for free, you know, this is the old con in blogging, especially in the early days of blogging, I think most people are onto this now. Well, they'll be offered a chance to write for free and for the exposure of it. And you'll see these questions on Quora or Twitter, at forums for freelance writers or people asking, especially novices or younger people, should I write for this company for free? And my answer is always, you should write for free for yourself. If you're going to work for free, work for yourself for free. And so the demonstrate this, this, the MOOC news and reviews was my way of doing that.

So let's talk about a little bit more about that actually. Now that you've been able to connect those dots by looking backwards. If somebody is listening to this and going, well, I love that, but can I actually engineer this? And if I'm going to work for myself, I'm going to do something for myself, what would that look like? Now that you know what worked, can you, do you think this is replicatable and if so, what would you do?

Well, it's probably like a mental and attitude adjustment and I don't want to avoid your question. I'll try and give some specific details. But partly it's thinking, okay, we know that learning works best through project based learning. So you know, if I'm gonna, if I'm gonna work in a new field or if I'm gonna get a certain kind of gig, I need to learn XYZ skills, let's say it's digital marketing, for example. Right. So how are you gonna learn digital marketing marketing? You're gonna take these courses on these new online classes and you should do all that. But we know that learning happens best through project based learning. So in a way it's kind of hacking together your own project based learning experience. The other attitude adjustment I'm kind of recommending is remembering that employers or clients, in the case of freelancers like us, the way the trend is going is they care less and less about the amount of time you've had in the seat in a class, and they care more and more about what you are able to demonstrate that you can do. So anticipating that is sort of hacking together some way of teaching yourself and demonstrating that you can do things. And if you look out, well, just to give a few other examples of this larger trend, hackathons, which writers may not be as familiar with, but these are very common in the startup world and for software designers and software engineers, the point of a hackathon is not to have a product at the end of the weekend that you can sell necessarily. The point of the hackathon is to learn and to demonstrate that you can put something together. In a sense, I'm saying, though, it might not happen in a weekend, but you're taking sort of the equivalent energy of one of these hackathons to teach yourself and to put something together. Another example out there is my friend, and I met him actually through the MOOC world is Jonathan Haber at Degree of Freedom. And if you look up Degree of Freedom, it was this project to see if he could hack together an online learning experience from free resources equivalent to an undergraduate degree. And then he blogged about it. He ended up getting a book project out of it and other consulting gigs and so on. And I think, probably, like me, that wasn't necessarily. He wasn't planning that from the beginning, but it is a very similar result that this was a demonstration project form.

Yeah. And I think it's the. This whole idea that if you maybe pursue something based on the other thing would be passion. Right. So you didn't necessarily do it based on just purely on passion. There was a profit motive there. Yeah, I've seen plenty of examples where people pursue this side project and it turns into something bigger, and then that leads to the next opportunity, and that's when they pivot.

Right, right, right. And the, you know, I guess lots of people have passion projects. I was listening to one of your earlier podcasts last weekend from Jennifer Gregory, and you guys were joking together about, you know, starting your own website or starting your blog or having a niche. I think you were talking about having a niche. And, you know, if your niche is. If your passion is sewing, you got to be realistic about if that niche is going to be profitable to you. And the way I kind of think about the same Point is, you need to be strategic about the ways in which you work for free. So you should be out there doing things pro bono for nonprofits, but not simply as a way to network, but as a way. When I do stuff for nonprofits, I kind of approach them and say, let me do this project for you where I can learn and I will have something at the end that I can show my prospects and that is valuable to you. So it's really being very strategic in how you work for free.

I would add that if you can figure out if there are other opportunities, that organization even better. Meaning are there prospects there? Who.

Are you still there? It cut out. I'm not hearing you.

Yeah. Can, can you hear me?

Yeah, now I can.

Sorry about that. I don't know what happened there. But. So, yeah, if you find an organization where you, you, you can tell that the board of directors there, there could be potential prospects for you, but you also feel passionate about what they're doing. So that's a, I mean, that's a triple whammy in some cases. Right. Because you could get the experience, potentially get in front of people who normally wouldn't have met you or you wouldn't have met them.

Yeah.

Etc.

Right, right. And that's. Yeah. So, you know, the more birds in the hand, so to speak, or the more ways you can leverage that, leverage that the better. But I think like, even in the case of, I mean, some people, most people, including myself and I strongly encourage this out of, out of just genuine generosity will help non profits that are under resourced, that will never be able to hire, hire them because they don't have resources because they're very small. And we should all be doing that. I think that's an important way to contribute to your community. But you can. Even in that case where that organization is never going to have resources to hire you, you can structure it in a way that you learn something yourself and you have something to show for it to prospective clients.

I like that. I like that. So I'd like to get your thoughts on this and it's related to what you just talked about. But it seems to me that as I'm thinking through this and the people that I know have had success with this accidentally, there was more to it than just, I want to make more.

Money that you learn something yourself and you have something to show for it to prospective clients.

I like that. I like that. So I'd like to get your thoughts on this. And it's related to what you just talked about. But it seems to me that as I'm thinking it, there was, I think, just having that purpose, some other purpose. Whether it was worthy or not doesn't really matter. But having other goals for it other than I just want to make a killing really made the difference. And when the people who went into it just thinking, how can I monetize this like crazy and that's it. And they didn't care about any other aspect of it, just didn't seem to achieve success.

Yeah, I might be swinging too far in the other direction with this other project I'm working on now, Nation 1099. It's just purely out of interest and I'm self funding it and putting a ton of time into it and I have a lot of my team putting a lot of time into it and it's without any notion at all of how we're going to monetize it. It's just because I'm interested. I just want to, I'm curious to find out the stuff I'm going to find out. I'm starting to think now as we work on it. Okay, now that it's kind of underway, I see a way here where I can use it to teach myself a different set of skills. Like what I've been doing with it so far is doing what I already know. And now I'm saying, oh, I can use this to teach myself a different set of skills and that's going to be useful.

So tell me that was going to be my next. Actually, I got two more questions for you. I definitely want to ask you about Project 1099 first and then I also want to ask you a little bit more about your core business where you've been able to, you know, bring other people in and leverage their expertise and their time and talents. But tell me about Project 1099 for your core business where you've been able to, you know, bring other people in and leverage their expertise and their time and talents. But tell me about Project 1099 first. What is it? How did it come about?

Yeah, Nation 1099.

I'm sorry, Nation 10.

That's right, Nation1099.com this came about, I think this will, I hope this will interest your readers. It came about out of my own struggles to figure out how to put together my business. And what it is, is insight and news and advice for people who are doing project based work in the gig economy at sort of a professional skills level. So it is. And you know, 1099 is referring to the tax forms that we all get when we're doing on project based work as independent consultants. So it's a lot of writers but not exclusively. It's also software engineers and user experience designers and management consultants. Anybody who's kind of in that independent contractor category. And it's advice for them about how to do better at building their own business. And what was interesting to me especially, I mean there's all the nuts and bolts stuff about operational operating your business. I know you and your guests have talked about these things many times in the past. Hiring a bookkeeper and running taxes and treating yourself professionally and how to market yourself. It has all that. But what really interested me was sort of the entrepreneurial aspect of business. Not just how to operate it well, but how to entrepreneurial aspect of business. Not just how to operate it well but how to find the underutilized or under explored opportunity in the market. How to figure out what your unique value proposition is. I'll tell you what the real inspiration was. I was trying to figure out how do I grow my business. I would find the underutilized or under explored opportunity in the market. How to figure out what your unique value proposition is. I was reading Harvard Business Review and the authors you see in Harvard Business Review. I'll tell you what the real inspiration was. I was trying to figure out how do I grow my business. And all the examples in those publications are Nike and Coca Cola and gm. And I'm trying to apply concepts like Blue Ocean Strategy, which was a very intriguing business concept. I'm trying to apply that to how does my friend who does the logo for my website, this graphic designer, how does he apply that advice? I realized there was really no publication out there. There are lots of publications. I was reading Harvard Business Review and the authors you see in Harvard Business rich library of advice for managing small businesses and large businesses, major corporations. But really no library of management advice for this solopreneur. And that's where the idea for Nation 1099 came from. We launched it last July 4th on Independence Day Review. And all the examples in those publications are Nike and Coca Cola and gm. I'm trying to apply concepts to echo that independent consulting theme that's all the way through it.

That's fantastic.

Like Blue Ocean Strategy, which was a very intriguing business concept. I'm trying to.

What kind of resources do you have there?

It's all self funded. I'm using my own money and I've got an editorial assistant, Ben Shanbrom. You'll see his byline quite a bit on there. He helps Develop a lot of the existing content. He helps wrangle other guest writers and interviews. I have an assistant editor in my business who foremost apply that to. How does this. How does my friend who does the logo for my website, my client work that, you know, my actual day job that I get paid for. Sherry Shallard. And she helps out a lot, wrangling guests, authors and interviews and so on. And so I'm basically paying them to help me get stuff up. I write a lot for it myself. I do a lot of interviews for it myself. And we try and get other people who are sort of passionate about this to do. Guest post. This graphic designer, how does he apply that advice? And I realized there was really no publication out there. There are lots of publications. There's a rich library of advice for managing small businesses.

That's fantastic. Yeah, I love what you're doing with that. And we'll make sure to link to the website and the show notes and I definitely want to learn, and I know that wasn't the topic of the interview, but would love to learn a little bit more about your business and how it's grown from the original solo operation. So you mentioned you had quite a few people tell us how it's set up and how you've been maybe managed to grow it to this level.

Yeah, well, back to that first client who came to me in large businesses, major corporations, but really no library of management. Through MOOC news and reviews, I was hired to. I had a set of deliverables, basically this many blog posts, this many longer assets. At this early stage, I really didn't understand what content marketing was. A very good writer and a very good editor. I knew how to advise for this solopreneur. And that's where the idea for Nation 1099 came from. To manage the editorial process for this blog. I didn't know what content marketing was really. So we launched it last July 4th on Independence Day to sort of echo that independent consulting theme that's all the way through it.

That's fantastic.

At that early point, I'm trying to produce all these deliverables and I realize I am underwater. I can't get it done. My client said to me, well, why don't you, you know, you got this contract, I'm paying you this much money. Why don't you use some of it tire a subcontractor to get help to write it? And my first response, probably like a lot of freelance writers, was that's crazy. Why would I give away any of my contract to somebody else?

What kind of resources do you have there?

It's also funded. I'm kind of. And when I finally got over that and it was, it's, it's probably the single best investment I ever made was paying a local college student $100 to write one of the articles. And just the idea of spending $100 out of my contract was a huge psychological shift for me. And then once I did that, I'm looking to spend money. I'm like, what else can I do with my contract to save me time? Because I realized how much time that saved me and allow me to do other things, including I'm using my own money. And I've got an editorial assistant, Ben Shanbrom. You'll see his byline quite a bit on there. He helps develop a lot of the existing content and go hustle for other clients. It's basically set up where I work directly with my clients to develop the content strategy. It's usually a range of very in depth and thoughtful and authoritative blog posts, ebooks, white papers, assets like that. We developed the strategy. We developed. He helps wrangle other guest writers and interviews. I have an assistant editor in my business group for most of the plan. I set up an editorial calendar. I develop a creative brief and all of the plans of what the voice and everything's going to sound like that's really in alignment with their overall marketing strategy. And then I kind of activate this network of freelance writers. I have to deliver on that editorial calendar.

Oh, wow. Wow. So it sounds like you're a really good project manager to my client work.

My actual day job that I get paid for. Sherry Shallard and she helps out a lot wrangling guests, authors and interviews, manage all these resources.

I think to a lot of us we're thinking, oh my gosh, that sounds overwhelming. Could I have many people? Is that something you use?

And so on. And so I'm basically.

You discovered you could do well or is that something you develop after the fact?

Well, it kind of goes Back to Nation 1099. I'm not sure I am doing it well. My clients seem satisfied, but it feels like, you know, it's like when you're a teacher, you always. The dirty secret of being a teacher is you are always reading the lesson one day ahead of your students. And so I feel like I'm developing the necessary skills like just immediately, just in time, you know, just immediately before they're needed, paying them to help me get stuff up. I write a lot for it myself. I do a lot of interviews for it myself. And I, you know, I was like anyone else out on Google trying to teach myself how do I make an invoice, how do I write up a scope of work, how do I, you know, what do I do about competing clients? Clients and what's the language I should have or what kind of agreement should I have between me and my freelance writer? So I'm desperately out there on Google and we try and get other people who are sort of passionate about this to do. Guest post trying to figure that out. And it finally dawned on me there should be a website that answers all these questions for me.

That's fantastic. Yeah, I love what you're doing with that. And we'll make sure to link to the website and in the show notes.

And that's where Nation 1099 comes from.

That's fantastic. So, yeah, it's. Hey, I. This is. Not only is it inspirational, but I think it shows us all that there's so many possibilities, so many ways to get to where you want to get to. In many times it's not going to be the exact path that you envision. Right. So we, if we try enough and I definitely want to learn and I know that wasn't the topic of the interview, but we're persistent and we're strategic. We'll get to that destination. It's just the path we take many times ends up being, you know, interesting.

Yeah.

Proven that.

Yeah, definitely, definitely was not planful to be here. I'm trying to be more planful now, of course.

Well, so obviously we'll link to Nation 1099 and where can listeners connect with you? Where can they learn more about you? Can you give us a link to your kind of your main website as well?

Yeah, sure. My business page, my consulting firm basically for content market, would love to learn.

A little bit more about your business and how it's grown from the original solo operation. So you mentioned you had quite a few people tell us how it's set up and how you've been maybe manage to grow it to this level.

Marketing is@mcguireeditorial.com and there's a contact form on there and you can reach me through that contact form. My Twitter handle is robertwmcguire and I'm easy enough to find on LinkedIn. Of course.

Robert, thank you so much for coming on. It's been fantastic.

Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it. The High Income Business writing podcast is production of. Well, if you back to that, that first client who came to me b2b business launcher. Learn more at b2b launcher.com through MOOC News and Reviews I was hired to I had a set of deliverables, basically this many blog posts, this many longer assets. At this early stage, I really didn't understand what content marketing was. I was a very good writer and a very good editor. I knew how to manage the editorial process for this blog, but I didn't know what content marketing was really at that early point. I'm trying to produce all these deliverables and I realize I am underwater. I can't get it done. My client said to me, well, why don't you, you've got this contract, I'm paying you this much money. Why don't you use some of it tire a subcontractor to get help to write it? And my first response, probably like a lot of freelance writers, was that's crazy. Why would I give away any of my contract to somebody else? And when I finally got over that, it's probably the single biggest, single best investment I ever made was paying a local college student $100 to write one of the articles. And just the idea of spending $100 out of my contract was a huge psychological shift for me. And then once I did that, I'm like looking to spend money. I'm like, what else can I do with my contract to save me time? Because I realized how much time that saved me and allowed me to do other things, including go hustle for other clients. And so it's basically set up where I work directly with my clients to develop the content strategy. It's usually a range of very in depth and thoughtful and authoritative blog posts, ebooks, white papers, assets like that. We develop the strategy, we develop the plan. I set up an editorial calendar, I develop a creative brief and all of the plans of what the voice and everything's going to sound like that's really in alignment with, with their overall marketing strategy. And then I kind of activate this network of freelance writers. I have to deliver on that editorial calendar.

Oh wow. Wow. So it sounds like you're a really good project manager to be able to manage all these resources that I think to a lot of us, we're thinking, oh my gosh, that sounds overwhelming. Could I manage that many people? Is that something you discovered you could do well or is that something you develop after the fact?

It kind of goes Back to Nation 1099. I'm not sure I am doing it well. My clients seem satisfied, but it's, it feels like I, you know, it's like when you're a teacher, you always. The dirty secret of being a teacher is you are always reading the lesson one day ahead of your students. And so I feel like I'm developing the necessary, necessary skills, like just immediately, just in time, you know, just immediately before they're needed. And I was like anyone else out on Google trying to teach myself how do I make an invoice, how do I write up a scope of work, what do I do about competing clients, and what's the language I should have or what kind of agreement should I have between me and my freelance writer? So I'm desperately out there on Google trying to figure that out. And it finally dawned on me there should be a website that answers all these questions. For me, that's where Nation 1099 comes from.

That's fantastic. So, yeah, it's, hey, this is. Not only is it inspirational, but I think it shows us all that there's so many possibilities, so many ways to get to where you want to get to, and many times it's not going to be the exact path that you envision. Right. So if we try enough and we're persistent and we're strategic, we'll get to that destination. It's just the path we take many times ends up being, you know, interesting. Yeah, proven that.

Yeah, definitely, definitely was not planful plan to be here. I'm trying to be more planful now, of course.

Well, so obviously we'll link to Nation 1099 and where can listeners connect with you? Where can they learn more about you? Can you give us a link to your main website as well?

Yeah, sure. My business page, my consulting firm basically for content marketing is@mcguireeditorial.com and there's a contact form on there and you can reach me through that contact form. My Twitter handle is Robert Wmcguire and I'm easy enough to find on LinkedIn.

Of course, Robert, thank you.