Hi Reader,

Happy Friday!

I've finally got my groove back. For the past few weeks (maybe even months), I've been feeling a bit "meh" about work. I've been doing my client work, but that's about it. I lost all motivation for side projects.

But I'm baaaack baby. I knew it would come back at some point... it always does. After doing this for 12 years, I realise that everything is cyclical. The ups, downs, and everything in between very much come back around again and again. I guess part of building a one-person service business is understanding that and knowing that things will change eventually.

P.S. In my latest Instagram post, I shared how I make a decent living as a freelance writer. Check it out here. And don't forget to give me a follow for regular tips and tricks!

Here's what I've been up to this week work-wise:

👉 I refreshed 2 pieces for Shopify

👉 I wrote 3 pieces (for Salsify and Jukebox Print)

👉 I drafted some LinkedIn posts for a client

👉 I worked on a new content ideas tool (TBC)

⏱ Approx hours spent on client work this week: ~24

⏱ Approx hours spent on non-client work: ~3

💰 Total revenue this week: £4,325

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Friday Freelance Tip​​ ✨ ​

Last week, a client emailed me to say they had a topic in mind, but they wanted to hash out the details and deliver a fuller brief.

Instead of saying, "sure, I'll wait", I responded by asking if they'd like me to do that gruntwork to a) take it off their busy plate, and b) to get some extra work from it.

They said yes, and wanted to see what I came up with.

Here's what I did:

• Find what people actually search for. The client's title rarely maps to real search intent. I look for volume, variants, and the specific question behind the query.
• Read everything that already ranks. What angle are they all taking? What's overrepresented? You can also ask Claude to do this and fill in the gaps (but just double check as it DOES like to make things up!).
• Match format to intent. Is this a listicle, a deep dive, a comparison? The SERP tells you what Google thinks users want and it's usually right.
• Deliver a reasoned document. Recommended angle, target keyword, ideal format, likely headers, and one paragraph on why this approach will outperform everything already out there.

The client loved it and actually it makes my life easier too. It's less of a headache working from a brief I've fully researched and put together than it is working from a 10-page doc the technical SEO team have drummed up (true story).

All this to say, we can add value in many different ways as freelancers. And, we SHOULD be adding value. Not only are we taking work off our clients' plates (and our main job is to make their lives easier, right?!), but we also get some extra work in the process.

This will be our main differentiator from AI.

AI tools will keep getting better at executing tasks. They'll draft faster, format reliably, and handle the mechanical parts of most creative jobs.

To thrive, we need to be thinking harder about what should be written, and why, and for who (all the bits that AI can't do as well as a human - the same goes for other disciplines too).

This kind of work is what I call "thinking" work, and it's what sets us apart from AI AND other freelancers. Our brains are unique and we should use that to our advantage!

There are many, many ways you can add value for your clients, and I'd really recommend speaking to them to see what would benefit them the most.

In the meantime, here are some other examples:

• Content audits before new work. Before a client commissions five new pieces, offer to audit what's already live. Identify what needs updating, what's cannibalising itself, and what gaps the new work should fill. You charge for the audit, then for the work it generates.
• Post-publication analysis. Offer to review how a piece performed 30 or 60 days after it goes live. What did the data say? Does it need a refresh, a new CTA, a different headline? Turning the relationship into a loop is exactly how agencies retain clients. You can do the same thing solo.
• Tone and messaging frameworks. Early in a relationship, offer to build a lightweight brand voice document. It makes your own job easier, but more importantly, it positions you as someone who thinks about the brand, not just the task. It's basically one day's work that underpins everything else you produce for them.
• Proactive topic suggestions. Once a quarter, send your active clients a short note: "I've been looking at what's trending in your space, here are three things worth writing about before your competitors do." You might not win every commission, but you become the person they think of when a budget opens up.
• Stakeholder interviews. For bigger pieces, offer to do a 20-minute call with a subject matter expert on the client side. The output is richer and the piece feels proprietary, plus you've built a relationship with someone else at the company.

You might be thinking "but I'm not qualified to do that other stuff?!". And it might feel that way, but as a freelancer, I promise you know and have done more than you think.

I've seen plenty of briefs as a freelancer, so I know what information is valuable or not. This means I absolutely have the skills to create a decent brief, even if I've never done it before.

For the more technical add-ons (like analysis etc), add it to your to-learn list or offer to try it out on one of your existing clients for free/a nominal fee. This is the best way to learn AND you have a solid case study and testimonials at the end of it.

This week, we have a content marketer from Colorado.

Where are you based? Colorado, USA.

How long have you been freelancing? Since 2002.

What do you do? I do my own content marketing for my online training business, and write B2B content for translation companies.

What's your revenue? $145,000.

This freelancer freelances full time and this was their highest earning year.

How much did you take as a salary?

$60,0000.

How much did you pay in taxes?

Around $25,000.

What are your business expenses?

A lot, because my online training business requires Zoom, Mailchimp, and Thinkific, and my accounting services are around $2,000 a year because I have a U.S. corporation, and I work at an office outside my house which costs US $500 per month. The total is about US $2,200 per month.

I don't use subcontractors in my writing business but I do for online training, that was about US $5,000 last year that I paid to guest instructors
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Do you contribute to a pension or invest?

Yes: the US requires that you contribute to Social Security, and I put about US $6,000 a year into a separate retirement account (an individual 401k in the US system).

I just leave the profit in a business savings account that doesn't get much interest. Not the greatest strategy but it's what I do!

Do you have any hot money-management tips?

The business savings account is crucial: you really don't want to be earning the money today that pays the bills next month, because that's how you end up making bad business decisions based on financial stress or desperation.

Having three to six months of salary and expenses in the bank means that today you're earning the money that pays the bills in three to six months, meaning that you're not taking on work that you shouldn't take on, purely because you need the money.

How this looks in my business: I pay myself around US $5,000 per month, and I keep $10,000 in a business savings account that I absolutely do not touch. It's there in case I get sick, can't work for some reason, etc. and I could probably stretch that to cover four months of expenses if I cut back on all "extras."

Then I keep around $10,000 in my business checking account, out of which I pay myself and my expenses. Obviously that goes up and down as clients pay me and I spend the money, but my goal is that I could go three months without working at all, or six months working half-time, without having to dip into personal savings.

We need more Freelance Money Diaries entries! I'm forever grateful to anyone who shares their finances with us (you can do it totally anonymously!).

Click the button below to do yours!

As always, happy freelancing :)

Lizzie ✨

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