#302: Eight Shifts You Should Make When You’re Beyond Booked Solid

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 another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, you know, there comes a time when your biggest challenge is no longer getting work finding clients. I know for most of us, we spend months, even years, just kind of struggling through that ebb and flow of work. And, you know, at first we have nothing and then we finally land a client, and then we align another client. But then we have a dry period and then we may land another opportunity or maybe another project with one of our original clients. But it's touch and go for a long time. And for some people, it can be like this for years. Very, very frustrating, very stressful. Many people quit somewhere in this period. It's just too much. They don't like the income variability. They don't like not having any kind of predictability in terms of their income. And when it's going to come, when they're going to get paid, it's just, it's a lot. You can't really blame them. But when you're there, it seems like being book solid and even beyond book solid is a dream come true. And in many ways it really can be. I mean, gosh, when you're barely making it or when you're struggling through that feast or famine cycle, just the thought of having more work than you can handle sounds amazing. But then you get there, then you're book solid, and then you continue to stay book solid. And then maybe you're even beyond book solid. And if you haven't been there yet, let me just tell you, you have a whole different set of problems. You never quite arrive in life and in this business, there's no place where you just kind of, you arrive and everything is just hunky dory and just amazing. And there are no problems that doesn't exist. So I guess one thing I would urge for you to remember if you're not there yet, is don't look at that as kind of the pinnacle of achievement, that you will always have challenges. And if your goal is to run away from challenges, you really need to reframe that and think about that a little differently because you will be disappointed. Very disappointed. Okay. You're just really trading one set of Problems for the other. But here's the good thing. The constraints and the stress of being beyond book solid presents us with a great opportunity to think more critically about your business. So if you're there now, if you've been there before, you're approaching that, and I know many of my listeners are there right now, business has been good for a few years. Rather than look at it as a curse and as kind of a treadmill you can't get out of, I want you to start looking at being beyond booksolid as an opportunity. So here's the thing. Tactical approaches to this problem are only going to take you so far. You need to think more deeply about the problem. And what I mean about more deeply is really take this opportunity to kind of look under the hood of your business and establish smart protocols for many different areas of your business that are protocols that are based on your values, on your purpose, your vision, your mission and your goals. Now, these things that we're going to talk about today are things we should be doing regardless of how busy we are, okay? But let's be honest, we don't do them. These are things we don't tend to do, we're too busy, we don't do it. And I find that being book solid and really beyond book solid, where you just have your over capacity, consistently will provide you with the impetus you need to make critical changes in your business. So I'm thinking, look, you're already there. If you're already there, you're already stressed, you're going through this, you might as well leverage the emotion and the opportunity of being there to make the necessary changes you need to make. I've identified eight areas of your business you should be evaluating when you're at this stage. And what I'd like to do is I'd like to just talk briefly through each of them one at a time and give you some food for thought, give you some areas within that category to start thinking about, to explore, to unpack. And if you're not somewhere where you can take notes right now, that's okay, you know, we'll have a summary here in the show notes, but I invite you to jot down some ideas, maybe some things that I suggest, maybe some things that come to mind under some of these categories. And then once you've written all this note, I want you to go back to these notes and make some declarations. And these don't have to be final, but I suggest you write them in this format because it really helps bring clarity to what you need to do. And the declaration needs to be in the form of a statement. And here's a statement. When I'm beyond book solid, I will blank. Okay, so basically what you're telling yourself is look, and this is a brainstorming session. You're going to be looking at your notes in each of these eight areas we're going to talk about. And you say, okay, great, lots of ideas here, let me make some declarations, let me brainstorm and maybe summarize some of the things that are really resonating with me. Essentially what you're telling yourself is look, when I'm beyond book solid, here's how I'm going to view or change or alter this area of my business in order to ensure that my business remains fun, profitable and sustainable. That's what you're doing. You're getting really clear with yourself and you're making that declaration. You're saying, when I'm beyond book solid, I will blank. So this will become a lot clearer when we go through it. Let's start with area number one. Marketing. Marketing your business, marketing your services. So let's face it, right? When you're beyond book solid, what happens to your marketing? It's non existent for most writers. They just look, I don't have time to market right now. And even if I did, why would I market my business? I mean, I wouldn't be able to take anything else on. I mean, I'm just trying to stay above water here. So what's the solution? Well, I want you to think a little creatively here. What could you do to change the situation? What will make the most sense? Especially if you had already developed a marketing habit. If you've already spent a percentage of your week working on promoting your business, on getting, becoming more visible, on outreach, it would be a shame if you suddenly stopped that altogether. Because what will happen is invariably the work will eventually end. It will dry up and then you haven't marketed in months. And I've worked with clients where they haven't marketed in years when they came to me. And it's a very tough place to be for a couple of reasons. One, you've forgotten how to do it. You don't know what's working anymore. You're out of the habit. So it's not something that comes natural. You're nervous, you're anxious, it's not a good place to be. So you don't want to get out of the habit. Now, I'm okay with you reducing the time and energy you're putting into it on a regular basis. Let's say we're spending two, three hours a week on some form of marketing. You're now beyond book solid. Okay, let's scale that back. First of all, that's fine. 30 minutes, an hour a week. I'm totally okay with that. I don't really care how much time you spend on it as long as you keep the habit. The real question now becomes, okay, so if I don't have capacity, and I mean my pipeline is full, I just don't know when I'll be able to take on another client. What type of marketing would I do? How frequently should I market? What rules and protocols should I have in place to make sure that it happens? These are questions to ask yourself. And let me just give you a little tip and a hint. When you're beyond book solid, one great way you can use that time for the time you're spending on outreach and on attraction marketing is shifting it to nurturing contacts. And by nurturing, I mean staying in touch. Staying in touch with prospects who had contacted you before who just weren't ready to hire you. They didn't have anything right now. The timing wasn't right. Partners, fellow freelancers in not just your discipline, but other disciplines, friends, other colleagues, people that you know. When you think about it, you're not doing a very good job of staying in touch with them. Well, this is a great opportunity to go to this list of folks and just say, hey, was thinking about you today. How are things with you and Susan? Or, hey, Bill, how's business? You know, I came across this article the other day and I thought of you. Okay. And just sharing information. You're not asking for anything. You're just staying in touch. You could do this over email, you could do this over text, you could do this over LinkedIn. You could do this. You could pick up the phone and call. It just depends. You have to judge that, make that decision based on your relationship with each particular individual. The point is, these are things that you probably, and let's just face it, you're probably not doing. This is an opportunity, now that you're book solid, to say, hey, you know what? I'm gonna invest the time that I was investing marketing. I'm just going to invest it in staying in touch with people, rekindling relationships, nurturing relationships, kind of staying top of mind with not yet ready prospects. And guess what? If somebody out of that effort suddenly says, hey, you know what? Thank you for reaching out and thank you for sharing that article with me, that reminds Me, we're planning this initiative and I'm curious if you might be able to help us with it. If you can't do it because you don't have the bandwidth, it's not going to be weird for you to reply to them and say, you know, I really appreciate that. Unfortunately, I'm booked for at least the next three months book solid. I wish I could help you. I don't know, the timing might work later, you know, this summer or later this fall. But you know, right now I can't take anything on. You didn't solicit business, you were just staying in touch. So if you have to turn something down, it's not going to be odd to do so. So the point is look again. Let's pull back a little bit. Area number one is marketing. So when you're beyond book solid, what are you going to do in the area of marketing? And I just shared some ideas with you. Moving on to area number two, pricing and fees. So this is a great opportunity when you beyond booksolid to take a close look at your fee structure, your fee ranges, your pricing model. It's a great time to raise fees on both existing clients and new prospects. It's a great time to maybe offer services that you've been meaning to offer, but you in the past have been too scared to offer because you didn't feel qualified to do so. Even though if you really look closely, you absolutely have the skill set to do it. Maybe you've done a couple of these in the past, but it's been a while and you just don't have the confidence. Well, guess what? Beyond book solid is a huge confidence builder, you know, and you find the right client, you find the right prospect. Maybe let's just throw it out there, let's put it out there and see if they're willing to consider it. You know, just offer something, start raising your fees. One of the things that I encourage my coaching clients to do is to next prospect that you talk to raise your fee by 20%. So if you would quoted $1000, normally quote 1200, see what happens. Guess what, you have nothing to lose. Nothing to lose. So being beyond book solid is gives you a great opportunity to really take a closer look at how you're pricing your work. If you've been an hourly person, this is a great time to shift into project based fees. You've been project based fees. This is a great opportunity to start thinking in terms of retainers. We're going to talk about that one next. It just a lot to different things you could explore and unpack here in the pricing and fees area. Again, this is a time to muster courage because you're going to have greater confidence. You should have better, stronger courage when you have little to lose. Area number three is your business model. So again, when you're beyond book solid, this is a great time to take a closer look at your business model and ask yourself, is there anything I want to change about my business? Maybe about the services that I offer, how I offer those services, how I work with clients. Do I want to maybe start shifting a little bit more to head work, meaning helping clients with ideas, with insights, with strategy? Do I want to move to a retainer only model or one where I have more predictable recurring revenue or more of my income is predictable and it's recurring in nature? Do I want to start shifting to a different target market, one where I've had some successes but I just in the past haven't had the courage to really double down on, you know, this might be a great opportunity to start exploring that. So look at your business model and ask yourself what you know. Now that I am beyond book solid, I have plenty of books business, in fact, I have more business than I can handle. How can I become a little bolder, a little more courageous here? What can I change? What can I experiment with in terms of my business model? How I bring in business, the way I work with clients, what I focus on, what I offer, the markets that I target and the kind of work that I focus on, or I pitch to clients and again, brainstorm some ideas. I just gave you some brainstorm. Spend some time brainstorming additional ideas and then make those declarations. When I'm beyond book solid, I will blank one quick clarification on that. That doesn't mean you're going to do all those things. It's just really a nice format to brainstorm and clarify your ideas. You can come back to this and we'll talk about this at the end of this episode and choose your top ideas. But this really gives you kind of a standardized format to consolidate your ideas in each of these areas. Let's move on to area number four, finances and cash flow. When you're beyond book solid, guess what? If you haven't done a good job managing cash flow, this is the time to do it. You're going to have a surplus. And it's so much easier to deploy and implement cash flow management systems now than it is when you're barely scraping by. So if you haven't done it now is the time to do it. This is also a time when it's very tempting to increase your lifestyle, to upgrade your lifestyle. So you're gonna have to be a little bit more mindful and deliberate about throttling your lifestyle and your lifestyle needs. Okay? This is also a great time to build some financial buffers. Tell people all the time, hey, when the going is good, hey, you know what, maintain your lifestyle, maybe increase it by a very small percentage and build financial buffers, meaning store and sock away as much cash as possible. Give yourself several months worth of income, save that, because it may not be like this forever and hopefully it will be for a long time, but we never know. So make good decisions now. So if something were to happen or when things slow down, you're not going to be desperate, you're not going to be anxious and then make poor decisions. So yeah, with your finances and cash flow and you're beyond book solid. Implement systems, build financial buffers, take a look at other income sources and see how that you may need to alter that. Maybe this could be a time to maybe start working on a side hustle. I know time is going to be a constraint, but that side hustle that you've been meaning to do, you know, maybe now you have the funding you needed, that you were lacking before to go ahead and get that thing off the ground or at least start getting some of the pieces in place. So great time to think about your finances and your cash flow when you're beyond book solid. And again, make sure to do additional brainstorming and then just to consolidate your ideas into those declarations. When I'm beyond book solid, I will blank in the area of finances and cash flow. Area number five, internal boundaries and standards. So by internal boundaries and standards, I'm talking about your non negotiables, the things that you stand for, the things that you will and will not do in your business, where you draw the line. And this is mostly related to you. And we'll talk about client boundaries next in area number six, but some ideas here. Your schedule, your number of free days per week, which free days you're going to take, how you're going to hold those free day sacred, what boundaries you're going to put in place for yourself to make sure they happen, the number of hours you will work and not work, your workflow. This is a great time to really examine how you approach projects when you start your day, how you maintain focus throughout the day. A great time to revisit your business standards. If you don't have written down business standards. This is a great time to start that. What do you stand for? What will you do and not do? What are your non negotiables? This is also a great time to give yourself permission to say no to both prospects and existing clients. Make bold moves in that area and be clear and hold your ground more firmly. Engaging and fulfilling work. I work with a lot of people who are very, very good at what they do. And sometimes they come to me and it just breaks my heart because they say, look, I wish I could do more of X, but they're doing so much of Y that that's taken up all their time. Hey, guess what? If you're beyond book solid, you have now the ability to say no to some of what you don't want and start pursuing more of the projects you do want. You have that financial flexibility. Take advantage of it. Don't get stuck in that treadmill. You're probably telling yourself a story that's absolutely not true. That's keeping you stuck in this treadmill in not allowing you. You're not giving yourself the permission to pursue projects and opportunities and maybe topics that you would love to pursue more aggressively. So again, area number five is internal boundaries and standards. Take a look at all these things, brainstorm some additional ideas, and then consolidate some of these ideas into some statements. You don't have to implement them all. But hey, when I'm beyond book solid when it comes to internal boundaries or to business standards, I will do this or I will not do that or I will start doing this or I'll start working on that. All right, Area number six is related client boundaries. Being beyond book solid is an awesome opportunity. It's the best opportunity to start examining the boundaries that you have set with clients and how you're upholding and communicating those boundaries. Deadlines, rush work fees, payment timeliness, how you partner with clients. Is there a mutual respect in all of these client relationships? Why or why not? Okay, this is a great opportunity to be honest with yourself, to take a closer look at all these elements and ask yourself, and be honest, look, are these the kind of relationships that I want? Is there a mutual respect? Am I giving in way too much? Am I more now of an order taker and not a true partner with my clients? Are they continually pushing the limits of what I can do? Do I say yes too often? Okay, be honest with yourself. This is again, it's a great time to do so. There should be less fear. But you got to let yourself, you got to give yourself the Permission to be honest into what you need to do to change some of these situations and some of these relationships. So this is the time. It's a time to really examine and explore client boundaries and be honest about what needs to change. Area number seven. Getting help. When I say getting help, getting outside help. Should somebody else do some of the work you're doing that maybe they could do faster, better, cheaper? You know, you don't have to wear every single hat when you're starting out. Yes, most of the time we're going to have to do everything. But if you're beyond book solid, this is an opportunity to take a look at everything you're doing, your workflows, all the hats you're wearing, and ask yourself, you know, could somebody help me with these things? Most of the time the answer we're going to give ourselves is no, I'd have to train somebody and nobody's going to know how to do this. I can do it better than anybody else. But you know what? That is a limiting belief and I need to tell you that it is. First of all, you're lying to yourself. There are other people who could help you. You just need to be a little bit more open minded about how they can help and what it will take to get there. It's not going to be as difficult as you think. Administrative functions, repetitive functions, those are all great opportunities. I'm still amazed that some writers still do their own transcriptions. My God, this day and age, there's never been more technology and more people to help you with very basic tasks like transcriptions, like proofreading, as we have today. Okay, these are all great opportunities. Bookkeeping, accounting, your taxes, all great opportunities for outsourcing writing. You're beyond book solid. Here's a great opportunity to look for. What kind of projects are you doing that are repetitive in nature, recurring and predictable? Those are all the conditions you need. And there's others, but those are some of the main conditions. You need to be able to train somebody else to at least help you with it. Can you bring in someone you can train over the next couple of months who can give you a draft that's maybe 80% there, at least at first. 80% eventually. 90%. Eventually. 95%. You know, can they take some of that grunt work out of your to do list? Lots of opportunities there. What about research, design? I mean, should you be doing some of the design work you're doing? Should you be for clients who you're writing blog posts for? Should you be the one looking for images These are all easy things to train somebody else to do. Maybe your tech, your technology stack, your software, you know, are you trying to figure all this stuff out on your own? Probably not the best use of your time, especially if you're beyond book solid. This is also a great time to ask yourself some of the tougher questions about, hey, where do I want to take my business? Do I want to scale this thing up even if I take a phased approach? Or do I always want to be, you know, a one person business? Lots of possibilities. But when you're at this stage of your business and you have more work than you can handle, it's easy to answer those questions. It's easier to have clarity if you give yourself that space, easier to get that clarity. You need to make those decisions. All right, so that was area number seven, getting help. Finally, area number eight, your portfolio or your mix of clients. Your client mix talked about this in some detail in episode 299. But when you're beyond booksolid, this is a great opportunity to take a closer look at your existing clients and score these opportunities or these clients with some sort of scorecard. Find out where do they fit in terms of hassle factor, in terms of profitability, in terms of strategic value? Let's take a close look at each client and see how I feel about them using some objective measures. I strongly suggest that you create a very simple client scorecard and at least twice a year you score your clients using that scorecard and see how they compare to each other and how they compare to your baseline. I'm a big believer also in letting go of the bottom 10% every year. You know your clients aren't meant to stay with you forever. It's great if you have clients who have been with you for four or five years or longer, but the idea is not to keep everybody forever. Just like when you've been living in a house for a long time and you decide to move to a different house, you're not going to take all your stuff with you. What's the first thing you do? You purge. In fact, you usually spend a few months just kind of little by little. It's tackling one closet at a time, tackling the basement, the garage. You can't take it all with you. Same thing with clients. Letting go of the bottom 10% is a very healthy thing to do every year. But you gotta take the time to look at each client much more critically. And when you're beyond books Hollow, this is a great opportunity to do that. Your head will Be clear. Again, you have to make the space. You know, you gotta carve out some time to do this and to think through this because you are going to be extremely busy. But if you don't do this, then you will get stuck in this treadmill. So looking at your mix of clients, your portfolio of clients, and thinking a little bit more critically about all your clients and opportunities, this is a great exercise to run through when you're beyond book solid. So that's area number eight. And how do we make this practical? You know, I've just given you an idea in terms of what to do with each of these, how to brainstorm, how to consolidate your ideas. My suggestion is this. Spend the time, go through each one of these and ask yourself some of these tough questions. Brainstorm ideas, consolidate those ideas into some statements and some declarations. Then I want you to go through each of the categories and highlight one. And I know in some of them you're going to think, oh, my gosh, you know, this is. I can't decide. I got three here. Well, I urge you to narrow it down to one for now. It doesn't mean they're not going to do the others. Okay, I will say if maybe one of the areas you don't have anything and you don't think it's going to be as worthwhile, that's fine. You can do a little bit of trading. If you got two things, two ideas in area number eight, but zero and area number five, that's fine. You know, you can give yourself two and number eight. The point is you shouldn't have more than eight. Okay, I want you to pick one per category that gives you eight different ideas. And what you want to do is just narrow it down to those eight and then pick the one that you feel is the highest priority. The way I like to think of it as a lead domino. This would be an idea or a change that if you made, if you made this change, it takes care of a lot of other problems. So one problem that if solved, takes care of several other problems. That's what you want to look for, some sort of lead domino and then start working on that. Okay, it's really that simple. The whole idea is really that. Look, at the end of the day when you're struggling to make ends meet, when you're stuck in a feast or famine cycle, it's difficult to be clear about some of these things. It's also harder to muster the courage you need to, to really make tough decisions, to look at your business a little bit more critically. This is something we should be doing at all times. We should be evaluating each of these areas. But when you're beyond book solid, it just becomes easier. But again, you have to carve out the time to do it. You have to give yourself that headspace to think clearly. So, look, I hope this discussion was valuable to you, and if it was, I'd love for you to do me a quick favor. If you're willing to, I'd love for you to give me a quick star rating and write a quick review in whatever podcast platform you listen to the show in. Most of my listeners over the nine years that I've been publishing this podcast have come through word of mouth, but quite a few actually come across a show by accident. And one big factor that enables people to kind of stumble into the show is star ratings and comments. So I would be forever grateful if you took a few seconds just to do that. I'd appreciate it. And listen, I want to thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a loyal listener. Hope you got some value from this conversation and I'll talk to you next time. Take care. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Burn More in Less Time, the Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.