What is the fastest way that you can make money as a freelance writer? 

This is a question I get asked all the time. A lot of the times people look at me, and they look at my eyes, and they’re like, “I need money right now.” 

You’ve been in that boat. Or you’re like, “I want to get out of this job so fast the door will spin as I zip out of the door.” 

Have you ever felt like that? 

You want to step into a completely new career. You want to have time. You want to have money. You want to have freedom. What is the fastest way to start on that path?

Today, I’m going to give you a formula that will show you how to do this. 

Now, fair warning, this might not be the most comfortable way to do this, but you didn’t ask me the most comfortable way. You asked me the fastest way. 

So, I’m going to show you the fastest way. And in truth, it’s actually very, very simple and it’s very easy. You just need to flip a little switch in your brain, which is this number three down here at the end. Flip that little switch in your brain. And it makes the whole thing work really, really effectively. So, I’ll get down to what that is.

My name is Joshua Boswell. I’m the founder of Copywriter Marketer. I have trained and worked with thousands of writers just like you helping them take their writing skills and turn them into an amazing lifestyle. 

At Copywriter Marketer, this is all that we do. We help writers transform their life into the lifestyle of their dreams using their writing skills. 

I am delighted to have you here today to walk through this system that I’ve developed to get clients right away and to get money flowing as fast as possible.

I’ve done a lot of systems for getting clients right away. If you’re a new writer and you don’t have a lot of connections, you don’t have a website, you don’t have a lot of samples, and you don’t have all the things that people say you should have, this is a system you can use as a new writer to get going. 

If you’re currently writing and you’ve hit a plateau, and you’re like, “How do I jump off that plateau, kick-start my income and land a couple of clients right away,” then I suggest you do this. You could do this in a relatively short period of time.

I went and sat down. I walked through the system. I got up on a Saturday morning. I was like, “Hmm, I think I want some new clients in the Christian writing space. How can I do that? Oh, I know. I’ll use my system.” 

I came into my office. I sat down on my computer. I asked myself these two key questions. I answered those questions. I put this together. I walk through these three steps right here. 

It took me all of this right here about three hours to do. And then, I started firing off emails just as fast as I could. 

By the following Wednesday, I was on the phone chatting with potential clients. By that Friday, I was working on a project. 

So, in less than a week, I had gone from thinking of an idea to actually closing a deal and doing a project for a client. And then, that initial effort turned into–let me think, because I don’t want to embellish this. I think it turned into I’m just going to say at least four other projects. There probably could’ve been five or six, but let’s just say four additional projects over the course of the next couple of weeks, not months, over the course of the next couple of weeks.

And so, I want to give you the foundation of how the system works so that if you’re the kind of a writer that–I always seem to be needing more money right now… I don’t know. I’m always in a hurry to get more money, more clients, more business, more students. I’m always in a hurry to get more.

And if you’re like that, then this will satisfy the itch to get more, faster. Sounds good? Okay.

Let’s look at what these different things are. We begin right here with two key questions. I always love to go back to these key questions because they anchor me and they ground me in how to actually make the money and how to get the clients. 

So, let’s look at this. So, the first key question is, number one, I want you to–and you may think, “Oh, Boswell! This is so basic.” It is really basic, but money is all made in the fundamentals. So, stay with me here. 

But the first key question is this: If you look at a given industry or you look at a given set of people who would like to hire you as a writer, then you’re going to ask this first question and that is, why would they hire a writer?

Why would they hire a writer? Well, it’s a really good question. You might just think, “Well, they use writers. They need copy.” 

Okay, that’s great. But work with me here. We’re writers. We’re persuaders. Our job is to dig and crawl down deep into the psychology of human nature and figure out why in the world people do the things that they do, so we can inspire and persuade them to do new things. 

Let’s think about these people. For example, I was thinking about the Christian market. And I was like, “Well, why would they hire a writer? Hmm?” Why would they hire a writer? Well, they need social media content. Why do they need social media content? They need social media content so that they can get a bigger pool of people to market to. Why do they want to market to people? So, they can sell their stuff. Why are they selling their stuff? So, they can advance their cause. Why are they advancing their cause? Because they want to feel like they’re doing something great and wonderful in this world bigger than themselves. Why do they want to feel bigger than themselves? Because they want to feel significant. 

That’s the number one driver to purchase. That’s the number one buying emotion ever. You just have to know the path that gets down to that. 

In this case, some of these people I was looking at, well, the path that led there was more connections on social media. This is really important. So, they want more connections on social media. 

Why else would they hire a writer? Because once they get those connections, how do they get them to come into their email list so that then they can turn around and market, and sell them, and promote stuff, and inspire them to donate, and all those kinds of things that happen in that industry. Second path there is they need emails to get to that significance, so they get to that bigger picture.

 You’re going to ask yourself these kinds of questions like, “Why would they hire a writer?” I think so many times what we do is we just start marketing, and we don’t know what’s actually going on inside of their world and what would cause them to say, “Oh, I need a writer.” 

Because a lot of times, they don’t ever think that thought. If they’re not thinking that thought right now, then you’re probably not going to convince them to think that thought. They need to have that in the back of their mind somewhere. 

I’m a simple guy, I like path of least resistance. If I have to go like, “Step one, convince someone they need a writer,” how much time is that going to take? But if step one is, “Find people who know that they want to hire a writer and know the reasons why they want to hire it,” all I got to do is show up. That’s the path of least resistance. That’s way easier.

So, question number one is, “Why would they hire a writer?” First key question. Every time I sit down to market and to go find new clients, and new business, new things, I ask this to the client. 

Why would they hire a writer? Why would they buy this product? Why would they sign up on my list? Why would they do this? Why are they where they’re at? What’s the pain point and the pleasure points? Where are they at? What’s going on? Why would they do this?

Question number two. This is super important. Question number two is why would they hire you? Why would they hire you? If they’re looking for a writer and you’re a writer, why would they hire you? 

Now, of course, there are a lot of different reasons here but I want to show you the number one reason here.

So, this is why would they hire a writer because they have a need, right? Why would they hire you? There’s only one reason. They trust you. They trust you. They look at your samples. They hear your voice. They interact with you. 

They look at what other people have said about you and something happens inside of them and they say, “I can trust that Joshua, or Bert, or Sally, or Tom, or Fred, or Caroline, or Susan, or whoever you are, I trust that they can meet this need. They can bring the value that I need and they can satisfy this itch. They can help me have significance. They can help me have a better market share. They can help me have more money and more customers. They can help persuade my target audience to do what I want them to do. I trust that they can do this. I have total confidence in them in their ability to do that.”

So, why would they hire you? Now, trust is the big answer, but the smaller answer, of course, is, “Well, what are your samples like? What are your writing skills like? How well do you connect with them and understand them? What’s your charisma power and your people’s skills?” All of these things come in too and play a factor in this. 

Right now, this is the time for me to focus on these two things. I’ve got a lot of tools and resources. A great place to start is 10 Predictors of Success. If you don’t have that, go to www.10predictors.com. 

It starts having the conversation about how do you actually understand what’s going on in their head, and why would they want to hire you, so you can check out that resource. 

This trust level needs to be established, but we’re going to make an assumption that there are reasons that you can come up with as to why they would trust you and why they would hire you as opposed to somebody else. 

Let me just give you a clue here. The first thing writers usually think about is, “Oh, because my writing skill is better than the next guy. I’m a new writer, so ergo, I’m stuck.” 

Let me just tell you having worked with hundreds of marketing directors, business owners, communication directors, people that hire writers, I can tell you writing skill is an important part of it but it’s not the only part. In fact, if they like you, and you connect with them, and you understand their target audience and their need, especially their need for significance and you can fill–not feel, but you can fill that need, then they’ll hire you and they’ll give you a chance. 

That cultural fit and the social connections are actually more important than your skill sets. That’s crazy to think about but it’s really true. So, that’s a bonus tip right there.

Now, here’s the deal. Assuming that you have answers to these questions, how do you get in front of them to show that they can trust you and get into the process of getting hired? What’s a mechanism or a vehicle to do that? 

You can do a lot of things. You can do cold-calls. You can do cold-emails. You can do a bunch of posts on social media. You can do content marketing and development. There are a lot of things you could do and some of these are spectacular ideas. Maybe not cold-calling as much, but some of the other things you do are spectacular ideas. 

But none of them have been more effective in my experience and with a lot of my students as getting in front of the client in a comfortable, normal, natural way and then developing that relationship, validating that they can trust you and transitioning into proposals and then into projects. 

So, what’s the way to do this? I’m going to call this the Fast Track. This is what I call the Fast Track. Lots of smiley faces because, boy, I love making money when I do this kind of stuff. So, this right here is the Fast Track. 

What is that Fast Track? Again, remember, you asked me the fast way, not the easy way. Although, this was always normal and natural for me, but if you’re an introvert, this might not be so normal and natural, but it’s okay. It’s not unnatural or uncomfortable. You’ll find that it’s very rewarding. 

Here it is. This is the thing, and that is interviews. So, do an interview or multiple interviews with them. Now, you say, “Interview? What do you mean interview? How does that work? What do I do there?” Let me give you three simple steps to make this happen. It really is not overly complicated. If you will do this, if you’ll follow this pattern, you’ll be shocked. 

Literally, I sat down on a Saturday morning, and I said, “Look, I’m going to do a series of interviews in the Christian marketplace to try to pick up some clients in that space.” Within three hours, I was blasting out connection requests and emails. Later on that day, I started getting people coming back. Again, by Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week, I had done a bunch of interviews. By the following Friday, I was doing a live project and I already had money transferred to me. 

That’s fast. That’s less than five full business working days. That was quick. Maybe six working days? Anyway, that was quick. It was fast. And I’ve done this process tons of time.

So, here’s what you do, super simple, easy process. Number one. Number one is you want to create a report name. Here’s what you want to think about. When you think about what they need, remember you already said, “Well, why would they hire a writer?” And so, you thought about things that they need, then create a report that is a hypothesis about how to more effectively meet that need. 

For example, I wrote in there, inside of the Christian thing, the report title as best as I can remember. I should have looked it up before I did this, but as best as I can remember, it was like, “How to effectively market Christian products and services in an anti-Christian environment” Well, that’s an interesting conversation because particularly at the time, in a lot of places in the world, there is some adversarial–and by the way, this is not a pitch for Christianity or my values, your values, just think about the concepts that are going on here. 

You might be an atheist for all I care. I got lots of friends that are atheists. I got lots of friends that are Buddhists. I got lots of friends that are Muslims. I got lots of friends. I got people from all over the world that are really, really good friends with me. I love these people. So, I’m just using this as an example. It’s the one that popped into my head. So, this report of how to effectively market Christian products and services in an anti-Christian environment.” And there is some adversarial relationships. 

There was a Pew study, and I started off my conversation with them talking about a Pew study that was done that showed Christian persecution throughout the world was on rise. 

In fact, religious persecution, as a general rule of thumb, was on the rise around the globe. So, this was a hot time and topic. What I really wanted to do is think about, “Okay, well, I’m a writer so I help sell stuff. So, what’s a report title that I can think of that would catch their interest and meet their needs, and help me gather data to show that they can trust me and would hire me to help meet some of those needs?” How do you effectively market Christian products and services in an anti-Christian world? It piques curiosity. 

So, that’s step number one. Think about some kind of a report that you could put together for the industry that helps identify some best practices to meet their needs and could simultaneously build trust with you. I did another one of these in the SaaS market, SaaS is software as a service. It’s in the technology market. And what we saw in the SaaS market was a huge shift from marketing SaaS products and services with traditional methods like direct response or mailers, and there were new methods evolving. 

And so, I put a report together that said, “How traditional market is failing SaaS companies and what to do about it.” So, our traditional marketing is failing SaaS companies, and what to do about it. And I put that report together. So, you think of a report name. That’s step number one.

Step number two, is you write an email invite. So, step number one is you’re going to create a report name. Number two, you’re going to write an email invite. The email invite is very simple. Here’s what I wrote into that thing. 

I said, “Dear so and so, my name is Joshua Boswell. I’m a freelance writer in the Christian space. I’m writing a report that talks about how to effectively market Christian products and services in an anti-Christian environment. I recently read a Pew study that said religious persecution is on the rise. And I want to do some research for my report and interview industry leaders and get their insights on the way the market is changing and effective best practices. I’d love to chat with you for 15 to 20 minutes. And as a thank you, I will give you a copy of the report when I’m done with it. Would Tuesday at three o’clock work for you, or next week?” or whatever. 

And then, I give a time and close it up. That’s it. Very simple. My name is this. I’m doing this report. I’d like to talk with industry leaders. Can you help me out? I’d love to interview you for 10 to 15 minutes. Simple.

Did you know I sent out 50 emails? When I did this on that Saturday morning, I sent out 50 emails. And I had a sixty percent response rate. People were like, “Sure, I’ll interview you.” 

Why? When you ask someone to interview them, you’re helping them feel significant. Number one driver to purchase. Number one buying emotion. Help them feel significant. “Oh, you’re such an industry leader. Would you let me interview you?” People love to say yes to that question. So, you’re going to write an email invitation. 

Number three. So, that email, you’re going to have a back and forth. People are going to say yes. Number three, very simple. You’re going to do what I call a curiosity interview. What’s a curiosity interview? Curiosity interview is when you’re actively listening and you’re asking key questions. Let me just give you those three key categorical questions that you can ask right there. Number one is you’re going to–let me just pull this out here, so I have more room to write. 

So, three question types. So, three question types. You want to ask them what they want. Then ask them why they want it. And you want to ask them to tell you what it looks like when they’ve got it. Now, I could spend a bunch of time on this, but really simply, all you’re doing here is you’re going to ask some questions. 

When I did the interview with the Christian people, I just said, “Hey, tell me what kinds of products and services you’re marketing? What are you doing? Really? Okay. Why is that important to your company?” The “why” question. “Tell me what has changed in your marketing?” The “what” question. “Why do you think that’s changed?” The why question. See? And they would give me answers back. 

“Well, we sell Christian education materials, devotionals, hymns, training programs for either pastors or home study groups or whatnot.” 

“Oh, really? So, tell me what’s changed?” 

“Well, we just noticed that there is a change in the way that we do the marketing and it’s affecting this and it’s doing that.” And then, they’re going to answer and I’m going to go, “Really? Tell me more about that. Really? What about this?” And I’m just going to have curiosity. I’m just going to ask a whole bunch of questions. 

And I’m going to think about those questions and what they want or what they’re doing, why that’s important. And then, I’m going to help get clarification on what does that look like inside their brain and get a picture of that. 

“Well, tell me how that shows up in your marketing? Paint me a picture on the kinds of stuff you do and the impact that it has.” And I’m just going to ask questions, and I’m going to ask questions that relate obviously to my report, and I’m going to gather that data.

Now, inevitably, as you invest in asking a lot of questions to people, they’re going to invest questions back to you and ask you, “Why are you putting the report together? What do you do? Who are you?” 

And then, you can start responding to them and be like, “Well, I’m a freelance copywriter, and I service a lot of clients in this industry. And when clients hire me, they want me to have a good understanding of what’s going on in the marketplace or what it’s doing. And I just thought, well, I should put a report together that would help people have a better understanding of this and it would help me as well. And that’s why I’m doing that.” And then, inevitably, they’re like, “Really? That’s what you do?” I say, “Yes.” 

Then, there’s an opportunity for a follow-up. You now know all this stuff that they’re doing. You know a good idea about their marketing, their products, their services, and then it’s a simple thing to follow-up with them and say, “Hey, I’ve been thinking about our conversation and I wondered if you have a proposal on some solutions or some ideas that I’ve got for you.” 

And that’s exactly what I did that Saturday morning. I send out that email, did follow-up interviews, and then I sent a note back saying, “Hey, we talked about these emails and this campaign that you are doing. I’ve thought a lot about that. I’ve got some ideas for you that I think would be really useful. Would you like a proposal on how you and I could potentially work together on that?” 

And they said yes. Friday, I was doing projects. Simple as that.

 

This right here. This right here is the fastest way to do it. I realize you don’t have all the exact details here, but if you just follow this, just try it, say, “Okay, I’m going to do some interviews.” Come up with a report name, put an invite email together, fire it off, and then see what happens. Do the interview. And you’ll see that people will connect with you and then they’ll love it. Cool? All right.

If you’ll do this, you can get clients really, really fast because you will find out what they want, why they would hire a writer, and you’ll be able to tell them why they can trust you. And they’re going to trust you because now you’ve got data from all these different data points that they don’t have. 

You’re an expert now. Super easy. Super fast, too. Cool? All right. Go out there, do some interviews, land some clients, and tell me how it went. Talk to you later. Bye now.