Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

This week has been a real corker in both good and bad ways. I'm feeling a bit deflated after the house move and my holiday, but I'm trying to find joy in the small things.

Read on to find out why this week has been a CORKER.

In the meantime, here's what I've been working on:

👉 I wrote 3 pieces for clients (Klaviyo, Shopify, and Whop)

👉 I finalised the content management project

👉 I had 2 calls with potential clients

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~20

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~2

💰 Total revenue this week: £3,370

Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

I received one of the worst emails a freelancer can receive last week:

“We’re taking content production in-house.”

It was a huge project that had taken up a lot of my bandwidth in March and I’d kept time available in April because up until the last hour, the client made it seem like we’d be continuing with even more pieces a month from April onwards.

Caveat: we had a contract for the first month, but were due to renew in April to incorporate the ongoing nature of the contract. Lesson learned (again) that I shouldn’t schedule time in my calendar until a contract is well and truly signed!

My initial gut reaction was… relief?

Juggling the house move and this project in March (along with my other client work) had been tricky and also meant I’d worked a little bit on my holiday which I didn’t want to do.

I think we should always listen to those initial gut feelings, but after I’d slept on it, I started to feel a bit panicky. I’d just lost a large chunk of income after moving into a new house. Not ideal.

But if you’ve got any skin in the game, you know this happens. I’ve lost count of the number of months over the past 10 years I’ve felt panicked that I haven’t had enough work. And really, I’m being dramatic here because I have my usual, regular client load ticking away in the background.

But you know what?

It always comes good in the end.

Usually, these breaks come at just the right time to give me a DAMN BREATHER so I can come back bigger and better than ever (which is probably the universe trying to tell me that moving house and working a full client load AND taking on a huge new project all in the same month was not a good idea).

I’ve also lost count of the times I’ve felt panicked only to feel overwhelmed again with too much work less than a month later. It’s all about trusting the process (even if the process is a little mischievous b******).

Instead of indulging my panicking too much, I did what I always do in this situation and put the feelers out for new work. As well as sending two pitches this week (one completely cold and one to a somewhat warm prospect), I sent emails to past and existing clients.

1) I sent this email to a client I’ve worked with for almost three years. They’ve always commissioned 2 pieces a month from me and have been very happy with my work, so I enquired about taking more pieces over the next couple of months.

2) I sent this email to a client I worked with for the last 6 months of 2023. We mentioned working together this year, but nothing has come to fruition yet. I reached out to see if they had any content needs on the horizon…

… and their reply came pretty quickly (literally while I was writing this newsletter!).

3) I sent this email to a client who requested 4x pieces a month from me back in Jan. I’ve worked with them for around 2 years but I paused our content production in March to focus on the house move and other projects. I reached back out to pick up where we left off.

And if you're wondering about that cold pitch, here are some details.

I found the prospect while researching information for another piece I was writing. Their blog was great and the kind of content I love creating. I found the marketing manager on LinkedIn (by searching "marketing manager [brand]") and sent them a connection request with a note that said:

P.S. I share 15+ more templates like this in Pitch & Prosper. As well as drag-and-drop templates you can use ASAP to land new work, I walk through my process for finding prospects to pitch and share my entire pitching strategy from start to finish.

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I’m often grateful for months like these because it gives me the space I need to figure out “what’s next?”.

The last few months have been BUSY and I’ve been putting off having an existential crisis (a.k.a. figuring out what the next move is for my business) for a while, so I’m actively scheduling time into my calendar this month to do that.

I’m also planning on picking up the final chapter of a non-fiction book I started writing about freelancing last year. I hope to finish it this year (keep everything crossed for me because I have no faith in myself 😂).

In the meantime, I’ll keep you updated on how these warm pitches panned out (stay tuned for next week’s newsletter!).

👋Welcome Carter Kilmann — a financial copywriter & editor.

Where are you based? Atlanta, USA.

How long have you been freelancing? 5 years full-time and 7 years in total.

What do you do? I create content for B2B and B2C financial service brands: Blog posts, white papers, email copy, and more.

Carter operates as a registered legal entity (an LLC).

What was your 2023 revenue? $109,000. It was my highest earning year.

What was your net profit in 2023? $70,705

How much did you take as a salary?

Technically zero, I’m a single-member LLC, so I take owner’s draws, which vary in size each month. Essentially, I factor out expenses like SEP IRA contributions, taxes, and minimum account balances, then draw down the rest. My ownership draws amounted to $70,705 in 2023.

How much did you pay in taxes?

$23,100. But I’ll owe more money once I file. I set it up so that I paid 100% of my 2022 tax obligation.

I keep the tax bill money in a high-yield account.

What are your business expenses?

About $218 a month, on average. But that doesn’t account for COGS — I outsource some work, which totaled about $8,900 in 2023.

Also, had a $719 web hosting expenses come due in December.

Do you contribute to a pension?

Yes, I pay into a Simplified Employee Pension Plan (SEP) IRA. And I put more money into backdoor Roth IRAs.

Do you have any hot money-management tips?

If you can’t create your own financial management system (running your books, invoicing, moving cash, paying taxes, allocating investments, etc.), pay someone else to do it. It’s not something you can do when you feel like it.

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.