Earn your keep.

How to make some serious dough in the wild world of freelancing. Here's how to earn your keep in the wild world of freelancing. I've freelanced my entire professional career. Save for a short month-long stint at an agency that, like the women in my life, didn't quite work out. This is when I found freelancing, which has been an absolute fucking riot I can't get enough of... It's addictive. It's tumultuous. It's hustle, in the purest form. And, if you stick around long enough (weathering a year or so of bloody ass-kickings) you can earn your keep. Which, speaking of earning one's keep, the past three months I've been shelling out work at a maddening pace, averaging a "completed project" every three days. With this, I've made more money freelancing these past three months than I did my first two years combined. While "money made" certainly isn't the only metric we can look to for "success", I feel I'm in a unique position now where I can share some of my fuck-ups and the lessons I learned from said fuck-ups with newer aspiring freelancers. If you're wanting to build a freelance business (whether that's writing or designing or marketing or accounting or whatever), I'd start by picking up a copy of my course: [Freelancing your way to $100,000](. It's short. It's sweet. And, in less than an afternoon, it breaks down how I built Honey Copy, my one-man creative writing shop that has worked with 100+ brands in over a dozen different industries. However, if you're not necessarily one for courses, I've compiled a brief list of actionable lessons and tips down below. If you find them to be helpful, [you can say thank you by treating me to a Moscow Mule](. 1. Under promise and over-deliver. If you think you can get the project done in a week, tell the client it's going to take two. This gives you some buffer in case creative block shows up on your doorstep like an ex-girlfriend. And, if she doesn't and you get it done in a week, your client will be pleasantly surprised. 2. Batch all client calls. As a freelancer, you don't get paid to talk on the phone. You get paid to turnaround work. Client calls scattered at random times throughout your week will ruin your productivity. Instead, set designated time slots you're willing to get on the phone. I only take calls on Tuesday afternoons. The rest of my week is committed to doing the thing I get paid to do: writing. 3. Don't place all your eggs in one basket. In my third year of freelancing, I lost a client that made up 50% of my income... overnight. That day, I made a promise to myself that I would never have another client that made up more than 10% of my annual revenue. This year has been my highest income year yet and I don't think it's a coincidence that it's also been the year I've had the most clients: 36. My highest paying client makes up just 7% of my annual revenue. 4. Fire clients (who are cheap/ hard to work with). There is a saying on Wall Street: "Bulls make money, Boars make money, Pigs get slaughtered." Freelancers who hang on to cheap clients that are difficult to work with aren't doing so because they're "compassionate" creatives. They just can't stand the idea of burning a paycheck. As a freelancer, you're only as good as your clients. So, find good brands that share your same ethos who are more than happy to pay you what you're worth. To hammer this point in further: 40 hours a week working with high-maintenance clients paying you pennies on the dollar leaves you no room to prospect and service the good ones. Don't be greedy. Don't be a pig. Pigs get slaughtered. Fire shitty clients. Make some room. 5. Be a freelancer-entrepreneur. In addition to my freelance business, I run another business selling my courses (like [my freelance guide]( and books (like [One Minute, Please?](. My good friend, Nora Sermez, does this too. She runs an extremely successful jewelry brand called [Nora Sermez]( and also works as a freelance creative director and designer on select projects for some pretty incredible brands. Freelancing and entrepreneurship-ing (?) don't have to be mutually exclusive. You can do both and you should. I've found the pair inform one another in a lot of ways. I've applied many of the strategies I've learned from the brands I've freelanced for to better sell both my courses and books. And, vice-versa. 6. Start a newsletter. Starting [Sticky Notes]( and [Stranger Than Fiction]( has been one of the better business decisions I've ever made. For one, my subscribers and readers bring me just a tremendous amount of happiness. I've made so many friends by just sending out notes each week. And, two, the email list functions as a pool of potential clients. I'd say 50% of my projects this year began from people reading my newsletters. This opens up a broader point that, as a freelancer, a sizeable portion of your time should be spent marketing your services. 7. Move to project-based pricing. I started making six-figures a year when I moved from hourly pricing to project and retainer pricing, which I tell you how to do, in great detail, [in my freelance guide](. Cheers, [Cole Schafer](. [Freelancing your way to $100,000.]( Did someone forward this to you? If they did, it means you're probably not subscribed, which you can change in a matter of seconds by hitting the pretty black button down below that reads "Subscribe". It's really that easy. Can you believe it's that easy? What a time to be alive. [Subscribe.]( [Forward.]( [Forward.]( [Share.]( [Share.]( [Tweet.]( [Tweet.]( [Post.]( [Post.]( Copyright © 2020 Honey Copy, All rights reserved. A while back you opted into a weekly email called "Sticky Notes". Remember? If not, you can always unsubscribe below... and risk breaking this writer's heart. Our mailing address is: Honey Copy 3116 N. Central Park Unit #1Chicago, IL 60618 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](.