Ascent to Greatness and Success

[JohnZ123]

I know how Asian parents are considering I come from a traditional asian family. It's good you've been making some progress man! I'm currently living in Toronto right now so once you're feeling better we should meet up one day

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[thunder_god]

I know how Asian parents are considering I come from a traditional asian family. It's good you've been making some progress man! I'm currently living in Toronto right now so once you're feeling better we should meet up one day

Sounds like a plan.

 

[Ninjakid]

I love seeing how after getting knocked down, you're back on your feet and kicking a$$.

You got this, champ, keep at it.

 

[thunder_god]

Alright I completed the writing job for the client and they said it looks good. Took me like 2 days to write it up to match their writer's style but I wanted to make a good first impression. The next articles I write for them will take me a lot shorter. Unfortunately I have run into a problem with the client. I told them I would send over a paypal invoice tomorrow but they asked if they can pay in cash. I'm guessing this is a way to avoid taxes or something. They are quite far from where I live so I don't want to have to waste like $15 to commute there to collect my $50, not to mention kill 3 hours commuting, but if I chose to only accept paypal, they might not be willing to give me future work. wtf. I'm not sure what to do. I'm thinking I should just tell them to pay me through paypal for this small order of $50, but for future large orders I would be willing to meet them somewhere convenient to pick up the money. I don't know if they will accept this agreement though.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[thunder_god]

Update: So after telling the client that I would be willing to accept the $50 cash this time and meet them somewhere but for future orders I would only accept cash for large orders, the client came back and said can they send me 9 more articles to write and then they will pay me when I finish all 9 additional articles. Hmm... I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about this arrangement. I would have liked to accept 50% upfront for this large order, just so I don't get taken for a ride, but its my first client too and its a large order. Doesn't look like I have too much of a choice, hopefully they pay up and I don't get taken for a ride. I'm wondering if there are any thing I can really do to protect myself other then having the emails to show this arrangement?

 

[thunder_god]

Update: I'm still waiting to receive the 9 additional work assignments from that one client I scored. They mentioned they were really sick for a few days and would send the work over by today, so I can only hope and see if they follow through with their word.

I followed up with several companies that I emailed back. I told me they weren't interested, which is fine because I don't need to waste anymore time chasing them. One replied back saying my rates were a little too high for them. I offered them $35 per a article which is actually on the low end considering the current client I have was paying $50 per an article. Now these aren't even those general seo articles that you can punch out every 30 minutes. These are personalized articles specific to each one of these clients and requires a lot of work to write out. I'm not too sure if I should try and negotiate with them but they seem like cheapasses because the first thing they asked was my rates without telling me anything about what they wanted so I suspect they are looking for the cheapest writer. I suppose I could go another $5 lower but then I feel I'm undervaluing my services.

Rookie mistakes:
#1 I waited about 2 weeks after I sent out my initial email to follow up with clients. I should have done it within 3-4 days. I got sidetracked and lost focus and this probably cost me a few customers.

#2 Not having defined rates but rather kind of changing my rates for my clients. I forgot what I said to the one client I have right now over the phone about my rates. It was either $40 or $45 per an article. I was also kind of mumbling on the phone because I wasn't really prepared for the sales phone call.

I had a mastermind skype session yesterday with 2 other guys. We bounced ideas off of each other and I felt it was productive. I know I'm just a newb when it comes to entrepreneurship and probably don't have a lot of experience to share but If anyone is interested in joining our group, let me know.

Also my ex-friend that I mentioned above kept on trying to pry into my personal life asking me details about this and that but I kept on giving him vague answers and then just cut the conversation off by telling him ttyl I g2g. I can't believe these people. First they leave you for dead when your already down on your luck and now they are trying to butt back into my business.

 

[thunder_god]

Today was brutal. Woke up to 4 rejection emails from prospective clients. I also tried to negotiate with one prospective client but he tried to severely lowball me. Didn't even offer half of what I'm getting paid from that one client. He suggested $10-15 which with the current cad to usd exchange rates works out to $7-10 usd an article. Screw that I'm not wasting my time writing for that little.

Goal for this weekend to is compile another list of local companies in a different industry and then reach out to them on monday-tuesday. Hopefully I can get 1-2 more clients.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JohnZ123]

Good luck

 

[thunder_god]

Update: I'm going through a lot of negative emotions right now and thought that writing would help relieve my mind off of feeling like this. I had to tell myself about 20-30 minutes ago, ok if this is the worse case scenario, then this means that so just pick yourself back up and try again and keep on doing it until you succeed because I'm not letting you give up.

So I ended up getting sent 4 more articles from that one client, but didn't receive the rest of the articles so I figured, ok maybe he's just busy. The work ended up taking a lot longer then I had hoped and was quite difficult and strenuous to write as I had to mimic their previous writer's style as opposed to having my own style. As I worked on writing more and more of these articles, I started to be able to complete it faster and faster so I'm hoping overtime I can write faster without compromising quality. Anyways once I finished with them, I sent it over to the client and asked him to send over the rest. He replied saying he would send over the rest of the articles tomorrow. About an 2 hrs ago, I received a email from him saying to just invoice him and he will emt the payment to me. He said he was in a rush to finish some work for some clients in the next few days so said he would pay me first and resolve the other articles later when he has more free time. I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm not sure if this means I did a crappy job and he's just blowing me off or if it means he really is busy and my mind is just F*cking with my head and giving me massive self doubt. We'll see what happens.

I also followed up with all of these previous companies I had emailed, I ended up getting a decent response rate back after following up. I got like 3 outright rejections, 2 inquired about prices outright and one said they would require my services later on but at the current moment is slow season for them. They also inquired about what my service entails as well as pricing and if I had any suggestions for their blog. I wrote them a somewhat lengthy response about what my service includes, pricing which I decided to switch to a per word basis as a test as well as 3 suggestions to help improve their blog. I also write in the email, suggesting if they wanted to give this a trial run. I didn't hear back from them. This is really frustrating. I'm trying to secure one more client before December ends but it is turning out to be quite the challenge.

I also still haven't gotten a chance to cold email another industry to pitch my services yet because I'm been tangled up with writing all those articles and dealing with all these follow up emails. I need to start developing some sort of system so that I'm more efficient at it. I really need to get the ball rolling with cold emailing some new companies. I also need to figure out how to follow up with these companies that express interest but I'm somehow not able to convert them. I feel like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle and I'm close. I might try in the future to get them on the phone if they express interest and maybe switch to giving them a per word basis instead of a fixed fee so that it looks like a smaller amount. I will have to test this out and see which works.

Goal for end of this month: get 1 more regular client.

 

[Deleted35442]

I'm done watching this thread

Update: I'm going through a lot of negative emotions right now and thought that writing would help relieve my mind off of feeling like this. I had to tell myself about 20-30 minutes ago, ok if this is the worse case scenario, then this means that so just pick yourself back up and try again and keep on doing it until you succeed because I'm not letting you give up.

So I ended up getting sent 4 more articles from that one client, but didn't receive the rest of the articles so I figured, ok maybe he's just busy. The work ended up taking a lot longer then I had hoped and was quite difficult and strenuous to write as I had to mimic their previous writer's style as opposed to having my own style. As I worked on writing more and more of these articles, I started to be able to complete it faster and faster so I'm hoping overtime I can write faster without compromising quality. Anyways once I finished with them, I sent it over to the client and asked him to send over the rest. He replied saying he would send over the rest of the articles tomorrow. About an 2 hrs ago, I received a email from him saying to just invoice him and he will emt the payment to me. He said he was in a rush to finish some work for some clients in the next few days so said he would pay me first and resolve the other articles later when he has more free time. I'm not sure what to make of this. I'm not sure if this means I did a crappy job and he's just blowing me off or if it means he really is busy and my mind is just F*cking with my head and giving me massive self doubt. We'll see what happens.

I also followed up with all of these previous companies I had emailed, I ended up getting a decent response rate back after following up. I got like 3 outright rejections, 2 inquired about prices outright and one said they would require my services later on but at the current moment is slow season for them. They also inquired about what my service entails as well as pricing and if I had any suggestions for their blog. I wrote them a somewhat lengthy response about what my service includes, pricing which I decided to switch to a per word basis as a test as well as 3 suggestions to help improve their blog. I also write in the email, suggesting if they wanted to give this a trial run. I didn't hear back from them. This is really frustrating. I'm trying to secure one more client before December ends but it is turning out to be quite the challenge.

I also still haven't gotten a chance to cold email another industry to pitch my services yet because I'm been tangled up with writing all those articles and dealing with all these follow up emails. I need to start developing some sort of system so that I'm more efficient at it. I really need to get the ball rolling with cold emailing some new companies. I also need to figure out how to follow up with these companies that express interest but I'm somehow not able to convert them. I feel like I'm missing a piece of the puzzle and I'm close. I might try in the future to get them on the phone if they express interest and maybe switch to giving them a per word basis instead of a fixed fee so that it looks like a smaller amount. I will have to test this out and see which works.

Goal for end of this month: get 1 more regular client.

I'm done watching this thread. I gave you some feedback, time out of my life, and you ignore it and I see more of the same shit materialize here. If you want a blog to go and write up your Slowlane journey, go do it on a place like http://www.blogger.com
You're trying to do copywriting as a job, end of story. Only a job would be paying you more at this rate. Hit the F*cking reset button already. This is NOT Fastlane.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.