In this Writing Wednesday episode, we are talking about why as a writer you need a website. This is the first thing I tell my writing coaching clients that they need to do, because it is very important to have a home base for your online writing business! A website also makes it easy for the client to say ‘yes’. 

Building a professional website for my writing business has by far been the most important investment I have made in furthering my freelance writing success. It really helps you identify with not only yourself that you are a professional writer, but it also is social proof to your clients that you are a committed writer. 

A writing website:

• Builds your credibility as a writer
• Shows off your writing expertise
• Gives you authority in your niche

Without a writing website, clients may not take you seriously or they may be worried you are a new writer and may not deliver the content they need. 

To have successful writing website you need the following items:

• Purchase a custom domain name
• Invest in simple website layout – this makes it easier for your client and yourself!
• Clearly address your ideal client on your homepage
• Keyword optimize your website with keywords related to your writing niche
• Add personality – talk in the language you write in and lifestyle pictures so future clients ‘get to know you’
• Make your about page more about who you help and how you can help them
• Showcase your writing portfolio to build authority
• Add testimonials for social proof
• Include your contact information – not a contact form! Include your professional email and how clients can get ahold of you

A writing website show authority, authenticity and most importantly allows you to control your online branding while helping prospective clients learn more about your writing style. 

In this episode, I talk about a strategy to work your 9 – 5 job while building your freelance writing business. Whether you want to freelance so you can earn extra money or scale your writing business to leave your 9 – 5, this episode is full of tips to help you accomplish your goals. 

One of the most important parts to becoming a successful freelance writer is to plan. Setting goals and then following through with a plan of action to meet those goals is something every freelancer should be doing on a quarterly basis. Here are some actionable tips to help you plan:

• Make a quarterly plan, then break that down into monthly and weekly goals
• Take time on Sunday to plan your week
• Use time blocking during the week so you know when and where you will be working on your freelance writing business
• Put actions to the plan: when will you be pitching clients? editing drafts? writing? or creating samples for your website? 
• Plan to work on your writing business on the weekend or holidays when you have extra time to commit
• Review your plan for the next day the night before so you can wake up knowing what needs to get done

Planning in advance will help you succeed at your freelance writing business. Here is an example of my own routine, I hope it inspires you to think about how you will establish your own routine so you can find success at writing!

• Each Sunday I set goals for the week
• Each night, I prep for the day before, so when I wake up I can hit the ground running with my to-do list already planned
• I plan to write in the morning when I am feeling at my creative best 
• I plan the remainder of my day around client outreach and editing

In this Writing Wednesday episode, I share five simple actionable tips that will give you more confidence as a writer. I used these same tips to scale my freelance writing into a thriving business.

5 Confidence Building Tips for Writers​

If you want to build confidence as a writer the first thing to understand is to determine where you are at mentally. Is your mind telling you that you’re not very good? Have people told you that in the past? Gaining clarity on what truths or lies your mind is telling you plays a hugely important part in building writing confidence.  

To gain mental clarity, I regularly practice meditation and self-hypnosis. Invest in noise-canceling headphones and find your inner zone of genius. Self-care really is important in drowning out the negativity that tends to drag us down when we are stressed or tired. 

Make gaining mental clarity a regular practice!

When you have successfully ‘mastered’ a skill you feel more confident. This applies to freelance writing as well. The more you write, the more confident you will become. 

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he presents the idea of the 10,000 rule. The idea behind this rule is that anyone who has mastered a craft puts in the work on the front end first. I was not a great writer when I started, but the point is I started. With time, I got better because I continued to work on my writing skills. 

If you want to build confidence, get out there, start writing on Medium, create writing samples for Upwork and start pitching clients. 

Asking for feedback put you in a vulnerable position, but to build confidence, you need to get over this hurdle and understand that feedback is to be used as a learning curve to become a better writer.  Remember the only difference between feedback and criticism is how you take it! 

When you write about topics you are knowledgable and passionate about, it shows in your work! You will write faster, get more clients, make more money and gain confidence. 

Clients can tell when you are desperate or needy. Gaining confidence in yourself and your writing is not just something you should do it is something you MUST do. 

At the end of the day, it really does come down to owning your skills, having an open mind, practicing mindfulness, staying self-aware and not getting down on yourself when you “fail”. You must continue to put the work in again and again! FREE TRAINING - 3 Ways to Land Freelance Writing Clients: inspireyoursuccess.com/training

Apply for 1:1 Coaching with Michael: inspireyoursuccess.com/coach

In this Monday with Michael episode, I share my story of going from broke blogger to wealthy writer. 

In this day and age, there is actually no excuse to just be an aspiring writer or aspiring blogger. You can be a successful writer too.

There's so many websites that will pay you online if you know how to get clients and make it work. 

Let's dive into how to do that with the 5 steps I applied to go from not making any money blogging to 10x my income as a freelance writer. 

In January of 2018, I knew I had to do something different than blogging. I was putting in 16+ hours a day blogging but was not seeing any financial gains. My savings were running out and I knew it was time to change. 

I had to change my mindset! I wanted the blogging lifestyle - the freedom to control what I wanted to write about and when I wanted to write it. But truth was, if I had continued on the blogging path, I would have ended up broker than broke. 

So I switched from blogging to freelance writing. It wasn't an instant money windfall, but over time I scaled my income - and in only a few months I made more money than I ever did in 18 months of blogging.

5 Simple Steps that Will Take you From Broke Blogger to Wealthy Writer​

1. Admit that your blog is not working (and that you might need to go all in on freelance writing). It's easy to think you can do both, but admittedly, it took me losing my first big client to realize I needed to focus on freelance writing first - it was actually making me money!
2.  Pitch clients. And then pitch some more. Most people are terrified of pitching because they are terrified of rejection. The hard truth is though that if you are not pitching, you are not making money writing!
3. Double your rates. Don't undervalue yourself! If you deliver your content and hit deadlines, clients are gonna want to work with you. 
4. Find a niche that you are excited to write about.  It will make life easier and you will be excited to work on writing when you love writing about the topic you are hired to write about! 
5. Find a second niche that you love to write about.  I have made $40,000 in the last two years writing about my 2nd niche! There is value to yourself in writing about things that you love to write about. Get a 2nd niche. 

In this writing Wednesday episode, I go over four simple steps so you can make more money writing so you can land your dream clients and you can build that momentum to not only get started but scaled your freelance writing into a growing business.

Before we can talk about the actionable steps, it is worth mentioning that as humans when we are faced with big goals, such as stating that you are starting a freelance writing business, our brain goes into survival mode. It wants to protect you from anything that could go wrong during a new adventure and it will work hard to keep you safe. This will often lead you to procrastinate starting said business! 

So the first step in becoming a successful freelance writer and landing a client, is to get over this mental hurdle. You must push through these emotions and focus on the goal you want to reach to find success as a freelance writer! 

1. Prepare Your Mindset The first thing you need to do is get your mind on board! Everything starts from the inside out.
2. Identify Your Writing Niche There are two options when it comes to writing - you can be a generalist or specialist. Specializing in a niche can lead to higher income due to be the expert voice in that area. 
3. Ideal Client Mapping Imagine what your ideal client looks like. Do they have a blog or online magazine? How often do they publish? If you were to write content for them, what topics would you write about?
4. Create Specific Samples for Your Ideal Client  Act like you already write for that client and create samples specific to send them. Make it simple for them to say yes! This will help with your pitch, it will feel personalized (because it is) and then you can also publish these samples on your website. 

In this Monday with Michael episode, I share how starting a blog four years ago had a domino effect and led me to be a successful freelance writer. 

When I started my blog in 2016, I realized quickly that I didn’t know how to build a tribe to follow it and also how to create sustainable revenue streams to keep it financially afloat. This is not a story of failure though, but one of success as I pivoted my ‘failed’ blog into becoming a successful freelance writer.

Freelance writing has had a massive role in my life. I was able to 10x  my monthly income from 650 bucks to 6,500 bucks in one year while only working part time. In 2019, I was able to double my income and never go back to a nine to five. All this never would have happened if I had never started that blog.

My mentor, James Wedmore, said that quote and it resonates true. Sometimes you have to have active faith in yourself. Sometimes you have to believe in yourself, even if you don’t really know what’s going to happen out there, even if it feels terrifying to your mind and you’re thinking, “Whoa, this is way out of my comfort zone”.

Blogging was my first step. It didn’t work out the way I thought it would; but it led me to become a published author, successful freelance writer, podcaster and even write and do voice over for a video that went viral on YouTube.

When you bet on yourself and really put yourself out there and say, “Hey, you know what? I can do this”. Some pretty incredible things will happen.

In this episode, I go over what Medium.com is, how it works and how you can get started writing on this platform. 

Medium is a no-fuss content platform where writers can publish their content. There is both a free version and a $5/month paid version. I highly recommend the $5/month paid version as it will open the 'doors' for your content to be seen by more people. As well as with the low-cost membership, you get the opportunity to apply to submit your writing to Medium publications - where your content can be seen by many more people.

I love writing on Medium.com for these two reasons:

1. You Can Start Writing Immediately

2. Medium Gets 100 million Views a Month

Both of these are huge reasons for writers to embrace being on Medium. Medium.com continues to grow its monthly readers and because of this content on the platform gets ranked on Google. 

In this episode, I go over 10 tips to help you succeed as a new freelance writer! I wish someone had told me these tips when I first started my career as an entrepreneur.

Going from a structured 9 to 5 to making your own schedule can be exciting but daunting at the same! These tips will help you find success. Implement them early in your writing career and you will make more as a freelance writer.

Freelance writing is the number one way to make money online. As a content writer, the opportunities are endless but you must hone in on a few key skills to go from good to great and watch your income grow. Here are 10 tips to become a successful freelance writer.

1. Create a Routine.  I know this sounds cliché, but creating structure is important. Otherwise, you fall prone to ‘I will get it done later’ or the opposite of that is you work all the time! 

2. Value Your TimeCalculate your hourly rate, if a task is below that, then outsource it! 

3. Understand How Taxes Work as Freelancer Talk with an accountant and determine how much you need to hold for taxes. This will save you a lot of time and headache at the end of the year!

4. Find a Specific Spot to Work  Having a clearly defined space to work creates boundaries of when and where you will get work done. When you create a specific spot, you will be amazed at how much efficient you are in getting things done!

5. Honor Your Calendar The amount of integrity that you have usually has a direct relation into the ROI and the percentage  work that you get done! If you say you will do something, write it down and do it. 

Check out this Harvard paper on Integrity: Without it Nothing Works

Learn more about why you should ‘honor your word’ from the book The Four Agreements.

6. Find Like Minded People and Hang out with Them

Whether you are introvert or extrovert hanging out with likeminded people increases your network and can give you news which may lead to more income opportunities! 

7. Keep Learning

To quote Warren Buffet “The More You Learn, the More You Earn”. Whatever writing niche you are in keep learning about that industry; this will make you more valuable to clients and they will pay you for your continued in depth knowledge. 

8. Make an Effort to Get to Know Your Clients 

This is relationship building 101! When you show genuine interest in not only their business but their life, you create a personal connection that leads to a better partnership. 

9. Level Up Your Writing Skills

Invest in yourself, get out of your comfort zone and be challenged! This allows you to accomplish your income goals and become a better freelance writer. 

10. Remember: Have Fun!Enjoy the process, document your wins and congratulate yourself! The more fun you have, the less you will worry and this will have an effect on everything you do, including attracting more clients! 

In this episode, I go over 10 strategies to 10x your income in one year. I used these tactics to scale my freelance writing business while only working part time and I was able to double my income year over year. 

If you are ready to grow and scale your freelance writing income, these strategies will work for you! I implemented them in my business in 2018 and was able to earn more revenue in one year than I ever made working my 9 - 5. I did this all while only working part time. I know these strategies work to 10x your freelance writing career! 

10 Freelance Writing Strategies

1. Create a Freelancer Writer Website to Instantly Establish Your Credibility
2. Pitch like crazy! If you want to make more money as a writer, you need to get more clients. 
3. Network, Network, Network! Attend free conferences, meet ups in your writing niche or seminars and start making introductions. 
4. Ask for referrals. Leverage existing clients and ask them quarterly if they know anyone in their circle who is looking for a content writer. 
5. Increase your rates or even double your rates. This may seem scary at first, but most clients won't even blink at the higher price tag. 
6. Don't be afraid to drop clients. If they don't value your time or aren't paying on time, it's time to let them go. 
7. Master SEO. If your clients rank high in Google, they will becoming repeat customers! 
8. Write about what you love. Focusing on topics you love will make writing more manageable each month! The last thing you want is to feel like writing is just as bad as that 9 to 5 job you left. 
9. Avoid complacency. Set income goals, pitch goals, client goals and daily goals so you can keep scaling your business!
10. Write in a second niche. It only needs to make up 20-30% of your income, but when you pick a niche that is a hobby or a passion it won't feel like work and will be fun!

During this episode of Monday's with Michael, I dive into the main differences between blogging and freelance writing. I am frequently asked this question and I wish someone had explained to me at the start of my entrepreneurial journey that these two categories of writing are not the same thing.