So There I Was At McDonalds...

Dear Warriors,

I spent a lot of time thinking over the past couple of weeks. Not that long ago, there I was sitting in a McDonalds trying to get a hold of a client that I had already done work for.

After a I had finished eating and an hour I went by, I put down my phone, signed out of Skype and my realization just came to me. I thought to myself, "why the $*#& am I chasing down $50?"

You see, I have been writing for pennies per word (on the low end) and slaving away for some of the most demanding and invasive clients I have ever met. I guess that was just my "that's enough" snapping point.

So I changed everything after a short talk with a friend of mine who works in the creative department for a top guerrilla marketing/web design company. Resource Interactive is the name, you can look them up. I told him about all the dirt bag/cheap clients I had dealt with over the years and he only had one response: "So what are you going to do about it?"

There was no magical button to press that would change that. It was either A: Do something about it or B: Continue to chase down $50...

Needless to say B isn't a business model I want to live with nor is it any way to make a sustainable and living income. At that rate, I would have been better off just making minimum wage at McDonalds (ironically).

I essentially put myself on house arrest for a while, got two white boards to write on, opened up numerous Word files on my desktop and went to work. I started writing down ideas/theories on how I could break free from the clients who want slave monkeys to do their work for them.

It's actually a lot easier than I thought it was.. I've seen people here recommend that you have to read x amount of books, you should pick up some $500 course that famous Copywriter named x has written and so forth.

That's fine and dandy, but I didn't have $500 in my account or to my name and that wasn't going to change unless I did something. Can you learn a lot from the courses/books and the copy that sells you the books? Sure, I spent some time reading over some of the hottest selling books and their copy if they had a website.

I started noticing how a lot of the hottest selling products/books/courses had a lot of similarities and a lot of things that made people click. Instead of opening a thread again asking how to find high end clients or searching through the forum, I just started putting 1 and 2 together and asking myself: How does Resource Interactive find their high end clients? I'm not talking entrepreneurs, I'm talking about people like Wendy's, Victoria's Secrets and numerous other major corporations.

Do you know how they do it? It's quite simple actually.. apart from having a portfolio and the results to prove that they know what they're doing, here's exactly how the process works. When Wendy's wanted their site re-designed, they started getting quotes from a bunch of different companies. They then have a board meeting, they discuss what companies quoted them what and then they narrow it down to the people who quote them the highest price.

Why? If the design doesn't go as planned, that particular person can go "don't look at me, I went with the highest priced person" and the blame immediately shifts the company. I was amazed to learn how companies actually pick their designers, developers, etc.

It all came to me when I was sitting at McDonalds, had I not gone there, I would probably still be sending out Skype messages to people: "So, when are you paying?" It was just a trend I had gotten used to and comfortable with. Seeing $2 left to my name after eating at McDonalds was more than enough to finally get me to say, "Ok.. I've had enough."

So what happened? Well, I had numerous days well over what I was used to. The part that shocked me was, I didn't even have any proven and tested results that I could prove were mine or showcase. All I had to go off of was my word and hope that they would give me a shot.

If you're currently a struggling Copywriter/Content Writer or any kind of freelancer chasing down cheap clients and trying to meet their ridiculous demands for pennies, don't give up. It's a lot easier than you think it is to break away from those people and let them find someone else to use as a slave. I promise, it's so much better when you can look back and laugh at the times you used to be slaving away writing Copy or 20 articles a day just to collect $50-$100. Especially if you can make that transition in a short period of time.

I actually recently saw someone here in this forum ask about becoming an "expert" in 30 days and naturally.. the gang that stalks this section hounded him and recommended that he buy a billion dollars worth of books/courses/etc. There's some truth to what I read in that thread but the real truth is: There's no time constraint on becoming "an expert". If you want to be an expert.. then be the expert.

You are your own 'Guru'. You don't contact clients going "well.. I don't have much experience in that field buuutt..." do you? NO.. you are the absolute best at what you do and in what ever field they need work in.

I'm sure people will come in here telling me how "nope, that doesn't happen" or "that's impossible, you HAVE to buy at least $5,000 worth of Copywriting books" from their favorite Authors. If you are struggling though.. perhaps you just need to go to McDonalds or your place, clear your mind and actually think, "Do I really want to keep struggling for the rest of my life?" Slaving away, never having appreciated work, never having anything to show case, chasing after cheap clients (because they never pay upfront/nor will they) and just being a slave general.

That doesn't have to be you. It was me.. and I never would go back to it. Now that I've actually seen the other side of possibilities, there's a lot of changes coming this way. Hell, just recently I had a $5,000/Day. Yep... of course, it's about $3,550 after taxes are set aside but still.. I wasn't used to making that in the course of 2 months.

You aren't going to find some magical button or one line advice that you can read here that completely changes your business model or your life. Just get out there and stop working for slave drivers.. it's that simple, just stop doing it. Fire every last one of them, cut them off and only work for people who you WANT to work with. The second you start working out of necessity because you NEED to, the work slacks, your results diminish and you will be stuck there as long as you allow them to keep you there.

Seriously, don't be a slave for life (if you currently are struggling or can relate in some way)

All the best, now get out there and fire those cheap dirt bags. Tell them go to DP.. I'm pretty sure that's what that forum is mostly for anyways.

Corey