The #1 Mistake Ghostwriters Make When Pitching Their Services

One of the things I hammer home inside PGA is it doesn't matter if it's thought leadership articles or social or emails or it doesn't matter. Your, your basement, your floor should be $3,000 per project or per month. The difference, the thing that takes people a while is that there actually is no difference between a $1,500 a month service and a $3,000 a month service. There is no difference. The only difference is one person says it costs $1,500 and the other person says it costs $3,000. That is the only difference. And even as that scales, it's like, what's the difference between $3,000 and $5,000? There really isn't. There really isn't. Like, you can deliver the same exact thing and one person charges $5,000 for it and another person charges $3,000 for it. And I know because, A, I've done it, and B, I've watched thousands of people inside PGA do it. I have watched two students with identical talent have the same exact offer, and one charges double the amount of the other. And the only reason is because one of them set a higher number. That, that, that is all. So you have to keep in mind that it's— when you talk about, um, this is a little bit more of an advanced thing, but I'm going to share it here for you and for everyone. When you talk about pricing power, if you are executing 80% of what we talk about in here, and if your offer is like roughly what we recommend, the only real difference in terms of getting pricing up is your ability to speak to to it. It really is not the— A lot of times people think, "Oh, the difference between where I am and where I want to be is I have to reinvent the service." No, you don't. You don't have to reinvent anything here. The difference is that you unlock pricing power when you get better and better and better at being able to articulate the other person's problem, right? And you can say it in reverse. If you don't have the skill of being able to articulate the other person's problem and really explain to them, here's why this is happening, I know what you want, I know what you've tried, I can help you. If you can't do that, then no amount of, but I also do this, but I also do this, but I also do this, is going to solve the problem. And so that's why there are these two components. Yes, there's the offer component, but we kind of gave all of you the answer. You have the exact offer stacks that we would use. So the offer stack is the easy part. The skill to build is being able to speak to it. And just because one person says, "Oh, I don't see the value," that doesn't mean that the offer stack is broken. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's exactly what I'm feeling, is that my ability to articulate and be confident in the fact that I can— that this is the service, this is how it will solve that, uh, the— my client's problem, and this is how I can communicate to them that it will solve their problem. And that confidence is, is where, you know, the gap lies.

Yeah. And just, just to drive the point home, this is fundamentally why You end up spinning your wheels so much when you try to offer lots of different services, because in order to unlock those higher opportunities and additional pricing power, the real skill to build is your ability to articulate the problem and articulate how you can help the person. Well, if you can't do that for one service, How are you gonna do that for 10? Right, you can't. And so you see, like, that is the problem. That is why so many people stay stuck is because there is a skill to build. Like, there is a skill deficit. There is a skill to build. It is not a hard skill, but it is an impossible skill when you are constantly jumping around between 10 different things, right? And so you sort of, you have to pick one. Like, that is why, I wish I had a better way of showing it or explaining it, but like, I cannot emphasize enough. The only thing, the only service that I sold when I was building my agency was selling 800-word thought leadership articles. And so as a result, I became very proficient at speaking to the problems that solves, the outcomes that unlocks, right? And it got to the point where I was so good at just that one thing that I could get on the phone with someone that I had never met before, ever, and they would become a client in 11 minutes. Like, we used to joke, me and my co-founder, we used to joke, we would like time our sales calls and we would like compete with each other and we would be like, I just, I just got this guy. He just, he agreed. He signed. It was a 17-minute sales call. Like, you get so unbelievably good at speaking to one thing, but that is impossible It is impossible to do that when one day you're pitching thought leadership articles, you know, and the next you're pitching emails, and the next you're pitching video editing services, and the next you're doing— because you deprive yourself of the opportunity to get all those reps in. That's why it's like, can all of these— all of these things can work. It's not a question of whether or not they can work. It's a question of whether or not you stick with one long enough to build the skill to be able to make it work for you.

That makes, yeah, that makes so much sense. So a follow-up question here is that one thing I notice is that people I reach out to, some of them have already a content engine going, and I noticed that the gap there is in EEC. Some people don't have content and they're actually interested in, you know, building that sort of social content engine. So there's these different people with slightly different problems. And I've also just started, okay, I just downloaded the ability to make EECs, why not pitch an EEC to this person and why not pitch social ghostwriting to that person?

So, yeah. No. So, yeah. So this is where it becomes a mistake because what's happening, and I'm sure you're not the only one. I mean, I'm sure there's, you know, half the room here is probably thinking or doing the same thing. But I am here to tell you that is a mistake. And the reason it's a mistake is because there's some part of you that believes that the faster path to whatever thing you're trying to achieve or succeed at, the faster path is by catering to the different people that are currently in your vicinity. Okay? What that does though, and you don't realize it, is that when you try to cater to different types of people just because they're around you, you're like, "Oh, I have these two conversations," like you fixate, you forget everyone else in the world and you only think about these two people that you're talking to, right? But you don't realize that in catering to a different sort of person, there's an opportunity cost that comes with that. And so as you're spending time and energy and resources trying to cater to this person, You have to also remember that you are depriving yourself of the opportunity to just go find more of the other person that you know how to help, right? And so every time you do that, you think it's the shortcut and it's actually the longer path. And so instead, it's like what you should do is you should just pick one. It's an arbitrary decision. Like, you can make ton— like, all of these services work. It's not a question of whether or not they work. The best thing you can do is just pick one and go, now how do I go find as many people as possible to provide that service to? Now, the follow-up question, of course, is, all right, Cole, that makes sense, but what do I do when I have a conversation with someone and they're interested, but they're just interested in something else? Okay, you have two options. You either say, no, I cannot help you. Which is a win in and of itself, because remember the opportunity cost. You can divert that time and attention elsewhere, or you find a way to educate them and frame to them why the thing they want isn't actually the thing they need. Okay? I just did this. We are building our own ghostwriting agency. I just did this 2 days ago. Met a guy at the gym. He was like, "Hey, I've seen a bunch of your YouTube videos. What's your business?" I'm like, "Yeah, this is what we do. By the way, we also have this agency arm. Let me know if you need help." Guys, I'm not doing cold outreach. I'm sparking up conversations at the gym. I'm doing the same shit that I tell everyone to do, right? And I spark up conversations and he goes, "Great, I'll be in touch. I think we could use your help." What does he do? He texts me a couple of days later And he's like, "Hey, I thought about it. Actually, I realized we need a writer who can help us with everything. We need a writer who can write our ads. We need a writer who can help us with SEO. We need a writer who—" Right? He doesn't know. He just thinks we do everything. And what do I say? Drop in the chat, does anyone here think that I sat there and went, "Oh, this guy said he needs a writer for everything. I should go pivot our whole ghostwriting agency to cater to this one person." Drop in the chat, does anyone think that's what I did? No, of course not. And when you hear it outside yourself, you go, yeah, of course, that's a stupid decision. But that is the mistake that everybody makes, right? And so what do you do? What you do is you explain back to them and you go, oh, no problem. So just so you know, I don't specialize in any of those things. I specialize in email. That's the only thing we do. And then you educate them on why that's actually the thing they need. They don't need all the stuff that they just said they need. Okay? So when I was building my agency selling thought leadership articles, this happened constantly. 50% of the calls that I got on, the person said, I got connected with you because, and they heard, you know, someone else, some whatever, I cold outreach them or they looked at our website or whatever assumption they came to. And they showed up to the call and they said, I want to write a book. Drop in the chat. Anyone here think I pivoted my ghostwriting agency to ghostwrite books for people? Of course not. Of course not. So every single conversation went the exact same way. They were like, I want to write a book. I validate. I go, that's really cool. Ask a clarifying question. Why do you want to write a book? They go, "Well, because I really want to be seen as a thought leader in my industry." I go, "Okay, what if we could achieve that same outcome in a much easier way that didn't take 2 years slaving over a book?" And they go, "That's really interesting. Tell me about it." I go, "Well, before you write a book, you should probably write on the internet and see whether or not people are even interested in that topic, don't you think?" Yes. Before you write a book, you should probably build an audience, right? Yes. Before you write a book, you should probably build some public credibility and make sure that these are ideas that people actually are interested in, right? Yes. Before you write a book, you should probably look at the data and see which one of these ideas is the highest performing one. Yes. Okay, great. So that's what we do. We go straight thought leadership articles. It achieves a lot of the same goals. And you know what? A year from now, if you want to take them all, smash them together and publish it as a book, You totally can. That, I had that conversation, I'm not joking, like 500 times. And so those are your two options. Your two options to make use of all of the opportunities around you is either you say, "No, that's not what I do," and/or, "Let me explain to you why the thing you want isn't actually the thing you need and why the service I provide helps you achieve the thing that you want." 10 times faster, better. Does that make sense? Everyone get that?

Yep, it does make a lot of sense.

Yeah, it's— it honestly, some of these things, like, you know, I want to reinforce, it is not just— it really is not just writers. Like, every day I interact— this is, this is the entrepreneur in my brain, I can't turn it off. Everywhere I go, it's like I walk in a coffee shop and all I think about is like I wonder how they train people and like, oh, look at how they did that. Like, I wonder if that's, you know, in the employee manual. Like, how did they structure that? Oh, how many people are in here? I wonder how much revenue this coffee shop does. Like, I'm just thinking about that stuff all day, every day. And I want to reinforce that a lot of these mistakes are not just mistakes that, like, writers make. These are mistakes that small business owners make. Everywhere. Like, everybody forgets you should be proactive instead of reactive. Everybody says, "I don't want to do outreach," but then sits there and is like, "I have no business opportunity. What's going on?" In every industry, you know? And everybody forgets that just because someone says they want one thing doesn't mean that that's actually the thing they want or need. They don't know what they need. They don't know what they need, and so it's your job to hear them say, "This is what I want," ask some clarifying questions, and then actually get to the heart of, "No, what are you actually trying to achieve here?" And then educating them on the thing that you think is going to get you there isn't actually the best thing to get you there. That's why fundamentally I don't believe sales is sales. I think sales is education. And really great sales is like life coaching. It's like, "Let me help you figure out what you want out of life." And if you can do that, people will buy from you forever. But it's because you are genuinely helping them think through something that they haven't even thought through themselves. Yeah, thank you so much for driving that home. Awesome. It's a great question. Seems like it's resonating with a bunch of people here too, so I appreciate you asking it. Of course. All right. Yeah, that was a good one. Was that helpful, everyone? I know we went down some tangents and things there, but I feel very strongly about all of these topics because these are not hard skills to build. They're not hard. They just require you to sort of download this checklist into your brain and be like, okay, as long as I'm practicing the fundamentals, like, that's 90% of it. It's like, like, another really basic one is every single time I meet with someone, whether it's like business acquaintance all the way up to really good friend, every single time I meet with someone, the moment I leave, like within the hour after I leave, I 100% of the time send them a text or an email depending on how we typically communicate saying, "It was so great to see you. Thanks so much for making the time. Let me know next time you're in town," or, "That was a lot of fun. I'll let you know next time I'm in town. Just want to say thanks and it was great to see you." I do that every single time. And that is, it's such a simple, basic thing, but it's one of those things where in the moment it might seem insignificant, and then you realize later on, it's like, oh, that's why people respond when I reach out to them. Or that's why I can ask for favors later if I need it. Because you plant these little seeds and you genuinely care. And I think about that all the time 'cause I, I will be out with people and I will do it and then I'll watch someone else not do it. Like I'll watch a friend not do it or something. And I'll ask them and I'm like, why? Like it's such a basic thing. Like why wouldn't you just send them a nice little follow-up? And so often what I hear from people is they're like, eh, it won't matter. Or like, eh, it's like, I feel weird doing that. It's like you're the one shooting yourself in the foot. So much, so much of this game is like just getting out of your own way and just proactively being helpful with— to other people. And if you do that, it's like, congratulations, you're in the top 10%. Really not that hard because the vast majority of people don't do that. Hey, by the way, if you're brand new to the world of ghostwriting, maybe you've heard the term but aren't really sure what it is or how it's different from copywriting or content writing, check out premiumghostwritingblueprint.com. It's a in the description below, okay? This is a free masterclass that I've put together for writers who want to monetize their skills and love for writing with ghostwriting. This is what I did, and ghostwriting completely changed my life. It's how I quit my job. It's how I quadrupled the amount of money I was making. It's how I've gotten to work with so many smart, amazing people, but also have time for my own writing, like writing this book, The Art and Business of Ghostwriting. Anyways, check it out. If you're at all interested in making money from your writing, I would really encourage you to get into ghostwriting. And this free premium ghostwriting blueprint in the description below is the best place to start.