The Reason Freelance Writers Struggle to Increase Their Rates

The reason freelance writers struggle so much to increase their rates is because they say they can write anything for anyone in any industry. So as a result, they don't specialize. And specialists always make more than generalists. So by getting more specific, yes, you cut out a lot of potential clients, but that's what makes you a specialist, which is what allows you to charge a premium and then create efficiencies for yourself so you can take on more clients and get more done in less time spending simultaneously. And this is the thing a lot of people don't understand. Getting more specific doesn't actually mean less opportunity. Customers and clients need a clear and specific entry point into who you are and what you do. So when you say, I write anything, clients don't know where to put you in their brain. But when you say, I ghostwrite educational email courses for personal trainers, this makes it very easy for them to organize you somewhere in their head. And again, this is the part that everybody misunderstands. Clients almost always end up asking for your help with other things too. So when I was building my agency, Digital Press, all we did was specialize in 800 word thought leadership articles. But 100% of our clients asked us for help writing other things too. They asked if we could help write landing pages, they asked if we could help write website copy. They asked if we could help write their emails. They asked if we could help write their social content. This taught me a really important lesson, which is that differentiation comes from specialization, and specialization builds trust, and trust is what leads to more opportunities. So this is what your bio should look like. I ghostwrite specific asset for ideal client. And when you do this, you actually created more opportunity for yourself because you made it easier for the person to understand what you did and made it easier to start building the relationship with them faster.