When Should Make The Jump From 1-Person Ghostwriting Business To Agency?

Being a creator is like having a higher leverage lifestyle business in which, you know, you built yourself your dream job, but you still have a job because you got to show up and you got to do your song and dance because like that's what puts food on the table, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that. But it just, it is a different path than if you were to go the entrepreneur route and actually go, how do I build a team? How do I build systems? How do I build this thing that can function without me?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So in doing that, in building a team and building a thing that can function without you, and you keep talking about operational complexity, this is something that you were stressing too when we last time we talked. I would love if you could give me like 2 or 3 moments in your career where you have chosen to add that complexity and kind of the the struggle of, of, of achieving it, right? Of like, you know, at X point in time you decided to hire a person and that was hard at first. And then anyways, but, um, yeah, 2 or 3 moments in your career where you've added that complexity and kind of the struggle of integrating it.

I mean, the first big one was the moment I went from ghostwriting for myself to saying I'm gonna build a ghostwriting agency, you know. I mean, in hindsight 2016, I was 26 years old. I had just quit my full-time job as a low-wage copywriter at an ad agency, and I fell into ghostwriting. And 3 months later, you know, I'm making $20 grand a month. So that's a quarter million bucks a year working like 4 hours a day ghostwriting for CEOs. I mean, those last couple of months of 2016, in hindsight, I'm like, wow, I was living the dream. I was just— my, my, my burn rate, my expenses were super low. I was still living in my, you know, you know, dumpy little studio apartment in Chicago. I was just saving tons of money, more money than I'd ever saved in my whole life, you know. And I wasn't, I wasn't even working that hard and I was doing something I enjoyed and I, and I got to, I was getting paid a premium to practice writing and I got to talk to these super smart people, ask them whatever questions I want and then send them an invoice. It was crazy to me. I thought it was the coolest job ever. And then I would have other, the whole rest of my day to work on other writing. And so the decision to scale into an agency was really a decision to give up all of those freedoms and benefits, you know. And the thinking, I, you know, at the time I convinced one of my best friends to do it with me. He was graduating from business school and he wanted to start a business because he wanted to apply all the things he was learning, you know. And I had this thing that was working, so we were like, let's build an agency together. And really that decision was a commitment to building a whole set of skills that neither one of us had yet. And the reality is there were a lot of things that worked. We scaled it to millions of dollars in revenue and we hired— at our height, we had 23 full-time employees. We had 80+ clients around the world. I mean, it was on paper, like we did it, we built a business. Um, but at the same time, it did— that didn't mean that we were good at the things that we were doing. You know, I can see now in hindsight, I, I hadn't yet figured out how to articulate how I do what I do. I wasn't as good yet at training other writers. Um, I wasn't as good yet at managing my own stress and emotions. Um, I wasn't a good enough leader yet. I was young. I was 27 years old. I didn't even know what I wanted out of my life. How was I supposed to give other people career paths? You know what I mean? We didn't understand systems and processes enough. This was also pre-AI. So there were all these things that now are super easy, like transcribing calls. And we were spending thousands of dollars every month sending our recorded Zoom calls over to, you know, some company in another country to transcribe them and then send them back to us. So it's like that, that commitment to building all those skills at the time was extremely painful. It was extremely painful. It was very hard. And I gave up a lot of freedom and I gave up a lot of money in order to do that. But that's the journey because then, you know, 5 years later, 7 years later, I start PGA and I am older, I am more equipped. I can handle stress at a different level. I can manage my emotions at a different level. I've hired and trained tons of people by that point, so I'm more equipped to do that. I better understand processes and systems. You know, and so then that business explodes. And so it's like you have to really extend the time horizon and realize like you're probably not going to get it all right the first time. You might not get it right the second time or the third time, but if you keep building things, you will eventually internalize all these little skills that then allow you to build something that can grow. 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 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.