Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

I spent the end of last week sipping mojitos by the beach and eating my body weight in gyros. It was good. The last batch of pitches I sent really paid off. I've gone from frantically panicking about having too little work to having a very comfortable about to see me through May and June.

Things are never balanced, but that's the price we pay for choosing to freelance!

Anyway, here's what I got up to:

👉 I wrote 4 pieces for clients (Klaviyo, Whop, and two new clients)

👉 I had 1 discovery call with a new client

👉 I held a coaching session with a fellow freelancer

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~25

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~3

💰 Total revenue this week: £4,250

Why is finding clients on LinkedIn such a sh**show at the moment

I'm BACK with another episode on the It's Fine, I'm a Freelancer podcast. This week, I'm talking about the weird stuff happening on LinkedIn at the moment (y'know, those posts that are asking for freelancers but are really asking for full-time employees without the benefits). Would love to hear your thoughts!

​🎧 Listen here​

🤓 £150k from content writing? Absolutely!

I spoke to Jo Millett of Lean Content on the Niche Upon a Star podcast a few weeks back and had a BLAST. Listen in if you want to hear about my journey to £150k and what my plans are for the future.

Listen on Apple Podcasts here | Listen on Spotify here

Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

I get a lot of questions from freelancers wondering how they can find the right clients to pitch.

I’ve spoken before about creating a series of qualifiers to make sure you’re only pitching prospects who might need your services (i.e. those who already have blogs or who invest in social media ads, which shows they have a healthy marketing budget).

But what about the step before that?

This partly comes down to niche—which is important, but not quite as important as you might think. I’ve always said that you should niche, but not too much—especially at the start when you’re just figuring out what you like and dislike.

But it also comes down to understanding the type of client who works with freelancers. And I don’t mean simply “works with freelancers” here, I mean clients that create an enjoyable experience for freelancers.

And the easiest way to do that is to go back over your previous client roster and note down any commonalities between clients.

You can make a note of things like:

• How many employees there are
• Which role was your main point of contact
• Their annual turnover (you can often Google this information as it’s publicly available for most companies)
• How they communicated with you (what platforms they use)
• Their preferred marketing methods
• Their freelancer onboarding process
• Their general working process (did they submit detailed briefs? Was the process structured with clear touchpoints or was it a bit all over the place?)

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Taking the time to assess any patterns can help you discover other useful tidbits of information too, including how the client found you, where you found them, or how your engagement started.

For example, when I go back through my client list, I’m often surprised to find the most common way clients find me isn’t the way I thought. We often assume we know these things, but it’s not until they’re written down in front of us that we’re like “aaaaah”.

Even if you have a vague or loose niche already, you can use the findings from this exercise to “niche” in other ways.

For example, if you work with finance companies (which is a relatively broad niche), you might niche down to target “finance companies with 50-100 employees with an annual turnover of £XX”. Or “finance startups with 1-10 employees and a strong presence on Instagram”.

If you haven’t done it yet this year, I’d urge you to sit down and audit your past clients (if you don’t have a lot of data to work with, you can audit the clients you want to work with—what is it about them that makes them so appealing?).

This can help focus your pitching efforts, but it can also help you get on their radar by showing up on the same platforms as them.

I find this is particularly useful when it feels like my pitches aren’t landing or getting the responses I want. Nine times out of ten it’s because I’ve not qualified the prospects, they don’t align with the previous clients I’ve worked with, or I’m contacting the wrong person.

Taking a strategic approach and using cold hard facts can reveal these discrepancies and it might help you understand why your pitches aren’t getting the traction you want (and sometimes it’s just sheer bloody luck of the draw!).

Say g’day to an Australian B2C writer. 🇦🇺

How long have you been freelancing? 7+ years

What do you do? I mostly do B2C writing for gardening & lifestyle brands, but also some business writing and more.

What was your 2023 revenue? $37,000 AUD

This wasn’t my highest-earning year.

What was your net profit in 2023? $13,000 AUD after all expenses.

How much did you take as a salary?

I don't pay myself a regular personal income.

How much did you pay in taxes?

Zero because I was below the tax threshold here in Australia

What are your business expenses?

$7,219.00 AUD per year.

Do you contribute to a pension?

Yes I put $50 per week into a self-managed superannuation fund.

What do you do with the money you earn freelancing?

I use my credit card to pay all of my bills and just put my weekly income back onto the card after taking out some for rent, super and savings (when I can)

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As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

P.S. What steps can you take next?

Arm yourself with the resources, templates, and tutorials you need to find and pitch high-paying clients in 2024. Get £20 off the Pitch & Prosper program.

​Get Workflow Wizard, your handy library of freelancing templates, tutorials, and email scripts to help better your business.

Want to learn the exact process I use to write £1,000 posts for the likes of Shopify, Hotjar, CoSchedule, and Sprout Social? Access Create Better Content here.​​​

Follow me on Instagram and on Linkedin, where you can see the behind-the-scenes of my business.