#338: Four Ways to Earn More in Less Time

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, this episode is much shorter than usual. Rather than my typical 45 minute format. Today I'm sharing a quick tip with you. This is part of the Audio Insights I publish for my private coaching clients every weekday and I thought you'd find it helpful. So here we go. Hope you enjoy it.

Freelancing is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because you're in charge. You call the shots, not some overpaid, incompetent boss who has no business managing people. But freelancing is also a curse because you're on your own. Which means that you have to wear all the hats in your business. You have to do all the marketing, all the selling, all the production work, customer Service, Finance, Accounting, HR in R& D. That's a lot of hats. And when you're pulled in so many different directions, your income can suffer. Fortunately, there are things you can do to help offset this, and one of the most important is to lower your cost of project acquisition. By project acquisition, I mean the time, effort, energy and costs required to land a new project. This is important because when you lower the cost and effort required to land that next project, you can spend more time on billable activities and less time wearing all those other hats I mentioned earlier. Or you can spend less time doing client work and more time with your family or working on interesting personal projects without negatively impacting your income. How can you do that? Here are four ideas. Number one look for larger clients that have more, bigger and recurring needs. When most of your clients have one off projects, you don't get a chance to cover your acquisition costs. That's because onboarding a client takes a lot of time and effort. You know this, and that means you need multiple projects to help amortize that fixed onboarding costs. Larger clients that have more needs. More recurring needs help you do that. Number two Actively seek referrals from good clients, partners, friends, colleagues, and other potential referral sources. Prospects who are referred are 10 times easier to convert to clients, assuming of course, that you're a good fit. So tell your clients, tell your friends, tell your colleagues that you are looking for referrals that you appreciate referrals. In fact, tell clients from the very beginning that you expect referrals from them if they're thrilled with your work. Mention this early in the relationship. Mention that you depend on referrals, that your best clients come from referrals. And make referrals a key component of your marketing, not an afterthought. Number three, Entrench yourself in the client's organization. Become much more than an order taker. Become someone who regularly brings ideas to the table. Go the extra mile. Think of yourself as a member of their team. Show your clients you truly care about them. Refer them to others where appropriate. And number four Implement a formal lead nurturing process so most writers only want to deal with prospects who are ready to hire someone now. Someone who's got an active project that they need to assign to someone. But studies have shown that about 90 to 95% of prospects who inquire about our services are not ready to hire us today. Yet most will hire a writer within the next 18 to 24 months. A simple staying in touch strategy with these qualified not yet ready leads helps ensure that you're the first writer they think of when the timing is right. In fact, better yet, and this, I hope, gives you the motivation to think through, hey, what's the value of actually staying in touch over 18 to 24 months? Because that seems like such a long time. So here's your motivation. The bulk of the selling is already done because you've stayed in touch, you've demonstrated value and you developed trust. And when the client's ready to go, guess what? You're the first person they think of. There's very little selling involved. So look, if you're looking to earn more and less time as a solo practitioner, you have to work on optimizing your efforts. That means spending less time on non billable activities and more time on lucrative projects. Just one of these ideas I shared with you today, implemented well, will make a huge difference in your results this year. Two or more of these ideas implemented well will create a multiplier effect that will absolutely transform your business.

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 Earn 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 where you will also find the detail show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.