#137: Why Your Freelance Niche Does NOT Need to Be an Industry

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 the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. You can find detailed show notes for this episode by going to b2b launcher.com.

For.

And those notes include a summary of our discussion here as well as links to resources mentioned during the show. You know, virtually every week I read anxious comments and post or in emails from writers and writers who are both new and many of them are even established. And they're anxious about their niche or how they're positioning themselves. They're freaking out about which path to take, how to pick the right industry or topic to focus on, or basically just how to position themselves for better success. And my advice is almost always the same. Just pick something and start there. The motivational speaker Jim Rohn used to have the saying, people are always asking him, how do I get started? Where should I get started? And he just said, okay, go outside, find a rock, throw it up in the air, and wherever it lands, just start there. And it's kind of the approach that I like to take. And, you know, I'm kind of half joking here. I do have a very specific process for making the best possible decision about your niche, your specialty, your target market. But there does come a point where you just have to go with what you've got and start taking action, because the path will not appear until you move, until you start walking down that path. And today's interview is even more proof that this is sound advice. My guest is Holly Helscher, who's a coaching client of mine and a fabulous writer and just an all around super, super nice person. In her chat, Holly opens up about how she made her niche decision and how she changed and refined that idea once she got out there and started knocking on doors, if you will. This is a fun and inspirational, just really helpful conversation for anyone who's struggling with this decision about what niche to focus on or to pick. And again, it doesn't really matter if you're a new freelancer or an established pro who's just trying to decide on a new direction. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. So let's get to it. I hope you enjoy it. Holly, so great to have you on the show. Welcome.

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

Well, I'm glad to have this conversation because this is something you and I have been corresponding on and just really excited to dive into this topic. But as usual, I like to get started with everyone by having you tell us a little bit about your business today and specifically what kind of writing you do, what types of clients are you working with right now, you know, that sort of thing.

I am working primarily with business to business customers and they like me to write either short form or long form articles because I run the gamut, 15 pages to 500 words. They also ask me to do white papers, I write company bios. I have even written a couple of bids for people who were going out to get additional business for themselves with big contractors. So I've written some bids for them and proofread that. Blogs. Never done a case study yet, which is interesting. But I have had run the gamut and it's been very, very interesting to have that much variety.

That is a lot of variety. And you said business to business. Is there any pattern in terms of, you know, industries or business types or is it kind of all over the place?

It is all over the place, which has come as a huge surprise for me. I had no idea that when they see business to business that they just say, can you do this for my company? Which has resulted in a lot of research.

Interesting. So we're going to get to that because that's, that's going to be something that I definitely want to ask you a lot of questions about before we, we go there though. I'm curious about your freelance journey because you haven't been out on your own that long yet. You've had some great success very quickly. But tell us about how long you've been freelancing and what led to you going out on your own.

Okay. I originally got into freelancing. It was the plan for a second career after I retired. And so I started taking courses and investigating and learning about copywriting, learning about freelancing, all of those different kinds of things that you do when you're starting out in a new career. And I had a three year plan and then my company closed, which that happens. And so I kind of put my journey on speed dial because I knew, well, I'm going to have to get this up and running a little bit quicker. And that's what I did.

How far into your three year plan were you when this unexpected thing happened?

A year.

Okay, good. Well, hey, look, at least it wasn't two weeks, right?

It wasn't two weeks. But I, you know, I've always done my whole life with five year plans, three year plans, whatever it is. So I really kicked myself into gear and I absorbed as much as I could possibly absorb and did as much as I could to get started. I knew it was going to take a little while, but I did, I got started and even on a, what you call a bootstrap budget, I launched and I kept learning.

And as if right now. How long has that been since you officially launched?

About seven months.

Okay, so very recent.

Yes.

So it sounds like you started really researching about last year sometime and suddenly things happen and you have to step on the accelerator and make things happen quickly.

That is exactly what happened.

Let's talk about positioning. I like to call it positioning. Some people call it finding or deciding on your niche. But just for the purposes of our conversation, we could use that interchangeably, whatever you feel comfortable with. But just know for listeners, when we talk about your, your positioning, finding your niche, deciding on your niche, we're talking about the same thing for the purposes of this conversation. But this is a very important element, as you already know, to achieving success as a freelancer. We spend a lot of time in my coaching and training programs helping you identify the best positioning for you. And big part of that is the target market you're going to go after, how you're going to present yourself to that target market, and so forth. But we also talk about the importance of pivoting once you go to market and you start getting feedback from your prospects in the way of hits and misses. So tell us what happened in your case when you made these decisions about your positioning or your niche.

Okay. Well, I started out probably like everyone starts out with what interests me the most and what do I have a background in and what would I feel most comfortable with my knowledge base. And that was education. And the more I researched that, I wasn't exactly sure that that was going to be as profitable as I wanted it to be. So I looked into other things that I had an interest in, but I kept coming back to education.

And why education. So tell us about your background there. Just so we have to.

For the last 20 years I have been in the higher education industry. I started out as an instructor and end up as a senior vice president. So I, I had an excellent career in education and so I knew that was what I knew the best. So I, I wanted to capitalize on that. But I was afraid that it, like I said, it wasn't going to be as profitable as I wanted it to be, but I kept coming back to it, especially when I did another pivot from B2C to B2B. I realized I want to write content. That's what I'm much more familiar with. And I think that that lends itself better to education. So I started working with that and I still didn't have it quite right. I was getting closer. I tried writing how I got into education and engage them in whatever content I was being asked to write. So that became my 125 word landing page, as simple as that page has been. And that was what drew in the clients. They couldn't have cared less about education. They contacted me because I had the business to business voice across the employment spectrum. And I knew how to talk like a CEO, a senior vice president anywhere. And they knew that I could understand the buying decisions, how they thought, and everything else. And every single one of my clients has hired me because of that. They didn't care if I had to research on their industry. They just didn't care.

And it's basically the ability to see it from the other point of view. Right. From the point of view of the person who's going to be reading that copy or that content and speaking authentically in a way that they can that resonates with them.

That is absolutely correct. That's what they wanted.

And that's. That's a huge insight. And it's something that. I don't know what it is, but it's been drilled into our heads. And this is why I'm not a fan of the word niche, because niche has become synonymous with industry for some reason. And in many cases, that's where people are going to end up. Right. It's like they pick an industry and they focus on that industry as their target market. But many times, like you've discovered, it could be a skill, it could be a talent, it could be some other attribute. And in your case, this has proven to be the way to go.

Absolutely. Because they. When we discuss the project, they'll say, now this is going to a purchasing director, or this is going to the frontline user, or this is. It varies. And they want to make sure that I understand that. And part of what I talk about with my positioning is I can bring them the entire gamut of employment and then their message can be consistent or their message or whatever it is, but I just repurpose the message to tailor it to whatever audience they needed to go to. And from a business to business standpoint, for them, that means they don't have to hire five different copywriters. Depending upon the audience, they can hire me one.

And you could do a great job speaking to each of those audiences across that spectrum.

That is correct.

That's wonderful. So going back to something you mentioned earlier, you said your landing page, you're referring to your homepage, right? On your website you were able to change the message there to reflect this new updated positioning.

Right. And once I understood that I could go this route, it went from anywhere from 500 to 600 words down to 125. Because right then and there, that's what I want them to see when they go to that page. And that is exactly what they see. And then they contact me if they have an interest. I don't even know if they go to the rest of my tabs.

And many people don't. So I'm getting the impression that a lot of people, even if you come referred, they check you on your website. So by the time you have a conversation with them, they understand what you're about and what your strengths are. Is that a correct assumption?

That's right. Because they tell me right off the bat you're business to business and you can speak to this person. That's almost some variation of that is usually the first thing out of their mouth.

And it sounds like because of that you're getting a wide variety of projects. Because it's really not about a project, it's not even about an industry. It's the ability to speak to the these different audiences. So I'd like to learn a little bit more. Well, first of all, so a couple of things I'd like to get a sense for what these conversations are like and where you're getting clients right now actually might be the reverse order. So how are you getting clients and then what are these conversations like, you know, when you first connect with them, how do they go?

I prospect for clients, I go looking for them. And I do it in a variety of ways. I do it the traditional way where you send out the warm emails and things like that. I also have put ads in Craigslist. I have looked very specifically on job boards. I just run the gamut and look for exactly the kind of person or the kind of thing that I feel fits the business to business positioning that I put myself in and is looking for the kind of content that I prefer to write. I don't limit myself to one method because being so new to the freelancing field, I also want experience. So there are some trade offs that I'm willing to do. For example, when I go to a job board. But I'm getting more and more clients who are willing to pay me more, which was part of my overall strategy. The more experience I get, I can charge more. So I'm slowly raising my fees and nobody is complaining. Yay, that's wonderful. So then the conversation is they double check to make sure that I'm B2B and they double check to make sure that I can write to whatever audience they have. Then we talk a little bit about so tell me about your credentials, tell me about your background, what makes you a good writer. Obviously I have samples, but they want to have the conversation. They're less interested in my samples than they are in finding out who I am and what I can bring to the table as far as writing experience. So then we talk about the higher education, which almost the minute I say that there is an automatic assumption. Kind of like when you put on a white lab coat and the patient in the room automatically assumes that you have the authority. When I tell them I've been higher education, they automatically assume, well, she's in higher education, then she knows how to write, she knows how to do a white paper, she knows how to do information, she knows how to engage an audience and to get them to take action. Because that's what you have to do with students all the time. Yeah, I talk about that a lot. How I have to in the classroom or even when you're supervising an employee, you might have to tell them about an assignment or even a policy that they're not going to think relates to anything that they have to do. But I still have to get them to do it, to do homework, to read or whatever. They've got to take action on what I am asking them to do. When I say that they are almost completely locked in.

Oh, that's wonderful. And so it's easier to have the conversation after that moment right to that point because there's buy in.

That's exactly right. Because they understand the example that I'm giving them because almost everybody's been a student and they understand it.

I never thought about the aura of the higher ed background, you know, as you described it. That's interesting. So tell me a little bit about confidence because you know, you haven't been out there that long as a freelancer. But one of the things that I see in the 90% of cases is even people like yourself with a very impressive background in set of credentials have very low self confidence when they're out there prospecting for clients. And then talking with clients at the same time. And you, I get the impression have been able to build up that confidence. So what do you think? You know, in thinking back to what's enabled you to do that, what, what do you think has helped to have that conversation with a decent amount of confidence?

There's several things. When I was first starting out, I'm probably like a lot of people is sending out warm emails and following up all of that stuff to me is very scary. It is probably because I'm very much an introvert and talking with strangers or even going to a party, those are my least comfortable settings. But I also knew that with practice and with habit that I could overcome that. Now I'm not 100%. I'm still pretty new to that type of prospecting, but I'm getting better. I'm not holding my breath anymore when I hit the send button. Which is a big improvement then doing revamping my samples so that I wasn't sending pages and pages and pages of samples to the one sheet. The one sheet portfolio, taking excerpts of my writing and putting it into one sheet so that I can control what they read or what someone else reads if they happen to Forward gave me 180 degree change in my confidence level because I knew what I was putting out as a sample was the best of each of my pieces of work that represented a service that I offer that made all the difference in the world. And as you have said in many of your classes, the sampling thing is a temporary problem. You are absolutely right. Now I have very current samples. I can give people a link to website where I've written a blog for somebody, done some ghost writing for someone else, live links current that they can see that that clients have actually published. It's good enough to publish. So the nervousness from using class exercises and previous writing samples because I did, I've written book reviews and things like that. I used everything that I could think of that would leverage my services and positioning. And now I'm changing everything over to very, very current stuff. So in a seventh or eight month period of time, starting with the one sheet portfolio, I cannot recommend that enough. It changed everything. I had confidence in what I was presenting no matter what it was or how old it was.

So I want to give listeners a little bit of background. If you're not familiar with this approach, this idea of one sheet is typically the way we present samples is well, here's a, you know, a sample article that I wrote. Here you go right, you figure it out. The Portfolio one sheet. The one sheet approach is to take instead of show showcasing the full sample, you write kind of like a mini case study. Hey, this is, this is the client. Here's what they needed, here's what I wrote, and here are some excerpts. And by the way, this is, this is how it turned out. Or these are the comments from the clients. Or you don't even have to have that there. But what you're doing is you're presenting the sample in a more interesting way because you're providing the context. So it sounds like what you did. And I remember seeing your stuff was great. You took stuff you had written at work and some stuff you'd done on the side. And instead of just posting your samples, you created these one sheets for each, which provided the context for each one. It's a lot more impressive. And it sounds like that really gave you the confidence to put yourself out there.

It changed everything. And when I say everything, that's not even an exaggeration. My whole confidence level as a freelancer, just, even the warm emails, it just changed. Because I'm sending them to a website. Yes, it was fairly simple at the time. Then I had confidence if they would just click on the portfolio, they would see uniformity, they would see testimonials in the sidebar, they could go to the full website if it was published, they could get a sense of my writing without. Because this is the other thing with B2B, they don't have time to look at 75 pages of a sample, but they have time. Oh, does a case study. Let me look at that. And in one page, they can scan it. They can see what people said, they can see what the objective is, and they're done, they're finished. They don't have to waste a whole lot of time. And in B2B, as you well know, that is critical. These people just don't have time to do a lot of research. They want to make the decision and move on because they are. They don't care about copywriting. They just need to get it done well.

And I think we place way too much emphasis on the number of samples and the quality of the samples to get us hired. When in many cases it's really going to be how you position yourself, which is what we've been talking about today. Right. The fact that you have this background, the psychology behind this is like, okay, that impressed them to a point. That really the samples is kind of like a. Kind of like part of the due diligence. Like in their mind, they're thinking, oh, I like her. I like the sound of this. I think this might be the person for us. Let me just read a couple of samples just to kind of make sure. Right. So that's one of the first due diligence points. And then the second one is having a conversation with you. And then they can tell you're very professional, you're very personable. The confidence definitely comes through. And now it's pretty much a done deal. I mean, as long as you're not, you know, way above their budget, it's, let's do this. That's the impression I'm getting.

Yes. Because I could come across with confidence, not worried that my samples may not be up to snuff. But it started with my positioning. So they already knew that. And then it goes to the higher education background. So they are. I'm building credibility with each one of those things. And the conversations are not that long, quite frankly. And some of them, I felt like I need to look at the samples because that's on my check list of things that I need to do. Because by the time they get to the samples, at least in the conversation, they already have the buy in and they are looking. It kind of transforms looking to eliminate to looking to hire. And that is a big change in someone's perspective when they are a very busy business professional.

I want to underscore this idea that just use whatever you've got. Because somebody listening might say, well, that's easy for Holly because it sounds like she had a ton of samples. You did and you didn't. You mentioned that in some cases you just had samples from some writing classes that you had taken. Right. Some exercises. And you turn those into one sheets that you used.

Exactly. I did an exercise through one of my courses where I had to write. It was actually business to consumer. It's a restaurant I'd been to. And I had to do a free offer and contact me. And you know, the urgency in the subtitles and stuff. I used that. It was a piece that I particularly liked and I did excerpts from that and did those different things. White paper that I had written back in 2007. I did a couple of excerpts from that and then told them, here's the rest of the headings and the things I covered in this summary. It was old stuff, but it related to what I did and my services. And I knew because of the one sheet that I could present it in a very professional way without them wading through a whole bunch of stuff that I might have been able to do better than I could in 2007. But I wasn't going to rewrite a white paper, if you know what I mean. I did some stories, creative stuff that didn't have anything to do with freelancing, but they were still writing samples, and that's what I started with, and it was enough.

So the key phrase here is, use what you've got. Whatever you've got, just use it. The cool thing about the one sheet is you can control how you present it. Use what you've got. And then to emphasize something you said earlier, this is a temporary problem, a very temporary problem. And by that I mean that once you get a couple of clients, you can replace two of those samples that you're not as proud of with a portfolio. One sheets with your new samples. So all you need right now is, if you're listening to this and you're getting started, use what you've got. You just need a couple of clients. Once you get a couple of clients, you can start replacing some of these, and before you know it, you'll have a very impressive set of samples. So don't let this hold you back. I see so many people, they never get started because this is a stumbling block. This is something they just can't get over. But I admire the fact that you push through it anyway. And you just said, look, I'll just. I'll just plow right through it and I'll figure it out.

Well, and the other thing I remember, another one of your classes, Ed, is you said, someone will take a chance. Someone will take a chance.

Yes.

And someone did. My very, very first assignment was one I'd never use as a sample, but it taught me a lot. He took a chance, and in fact, I sent him an email maybe a couple of weeks ago to thank him. That's all I was doing, to thank him for taking that chance on me. Because it made all the difference in continuing on the path in. In the way that I see myself going towards success.

I love it. I love it. Look, just use what you've got. Start taking baby steps. You're figuring it out very, very quickly. You're a perfect example of this. Holly and I know many people listening have impressive backgrounds, but we tend to downplay that. And I cannot emphasize enough that your background, your skills, your talents, all your experiences, as long as you can write well, then it's really all those other things that are going to matter most to your prospects. That's what's going to get you the conversation. That's what's Going to get you hired. Don't think that you have to have, you know, this incredible writing track record that that's going to do it. I'd like to just pivot a bit as we start closing, Holly, and talk a little bit about where you see yourself going. I mean, it's only been seven months or so. Where do you see yourself in the next couple of years?

Okay. One of the things that I have learned from the clients that I have, which another surprise to me is that I seem to be better at writing longer pieces. When clients give me feedback, they're the ones that say, spectacular, you exceeded my expectations. I don't get. I get good testimonials from the shorter pieces, 500 words or so. But the longer pieces, they seem to like much better. So I had to take that feedback and say, okay, what does that mean for me and my future? What will give me the best chance of success? So I may, in a couple of years, maybe a year, pivot to more of ghost writing of longer pieces, whether that is editing. Well, I'll just editing romance novels. Yes. I read them. I found that I've had a couple of editing jobs for just the outlines for authors, which has been an interesting experience. And I've learned from that feedback that I'm really good at that, which I never would have known if I just hadn't have taken a chance on that. It was a crazy assignment to start. And I've gotten four more from that same client.

Wow.

Yeah. And now he wants me to create author outlines. So all of a sudden, and this is what excites me the most about where I could be in a year is I'm still a freelancer. I'm figuring out what I'm really good at. And if going in that direction, ghostwriting for fiction and working with that, it ties in education and it ties in more of my creative writing because I've had 10 years of courses on creative writing. So all of a sudden this whole journey is converging into something that is even more exciting than when I first started. But I just want to say that not only has it been instructors and you know, Ed, that I put you at the top of the line, but it's been listening to the feedback that people have been giving me. What works, what doesn't work, what does it seem that I am good at that I would have never thought if I had just state, kind of tunnel visioned, if that makes sense. So it's going to be a slow pivot because I've gotten success on this side, and I don't want to give that up, But I'm always open to where is this going to take me and what does that mean for me? And I'm always looking for professional and personal growth in this area. And I like to write. I always knew that. So it's taking me in directions I would have never thought, but I'm looking at all of them.

And I love that you're doing that because I think one of the keys to success is to just pay attention, pay attention to what you're enjoying, you know, what are you avoiding and what do you want to do more of? What can you not wait to get to? And these are questions I think we need to ask ourselves on a very regular basis. And we don't tend to do that. We tend to stay focused on. I know that I really want to do more of that, but that's not what I. That's not what I trained for. That's not, you know, what I'm supposed to be doing. And I think that you're doing yourself a disservice if that's the way you think. And I love the fact that you're paying attention. And who cares if you end up in a very different direction? As long as you're following your bliss, you enjoy what you're doing. It's financially viable and. And yeah, if it makes you happy, I think that's got to be at the top.

It is. It's very exciting and it's just taking me in directions I never thought I could or would go. But I just kept pursuing and doing what seasoned professionals have suggested and paying attention. And then, of course, in higher education, you learn very quickly to pay attention to feedback.

Yeah, you have to.

And let it guide you and make changes. So I have loved this journey most days and I think it was the right choice when I started on it. And I don't think I change anything.

That's fantastic. Holly, where can listeners learn more about you and what you're up to?

My website is called information marketing to businesses.com. you can find out more about me at that website and you can see the page that I was talking about earlier in the podcast. And because of what I've learned, I have somebody, a professional person, revamping my website and it's very exciting time for me because to have advanced in freelancing to the point where I'm actually going to pay someone to do it for me as opposed to what I came up with, which I was proud of, by the way, because I didn't know anything about a website, but you can still find out more about me there and my journey and how I write and the services I offer. And you can see the one sheets there.

Oh, that's great. That's great. Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on the show today. Really enjoyed our conversation. And I know many listeners are going to find this not just inspirational, but are going to realize that they have what it takes to be to get out there and be successful. They just need to look closer, leverage what they've got, and just right, plow through those, those fears and just do it. Anyway, thanks again, Holly.

You're welcome. Thank you.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at b2b. Launcher.com it.