Search Results for: get clients

Freelancing in Thailand: How to Cut Through Red Tape for Your Visa & Work Permit

Do you dream of making a living as a freelance blogger in Thailand?

Let’s get this straight off the bat: Thailand is not only the Land of Smiles, but also the Land of Silk and Money. Getting the relevant visa AND a work permit (and making it as hassle-free as possible) will cost you a tidy sum.

This is a pain, particularly for writers who are just starting out.

I’m guilty of not playing safe. Holding a valid business visa but not a work permit, I took my first freelance actions in a grey area.

As time was marching on and the expiry date of my visa coming dangerously close, the prospect of ending up in the notorious Bangkok Hilton felt throat-tightening. It was about time I arranged for a new visa, and this time a work permit as well.

If you’re moving to Thailand or are blogging here already, why take the risk of the grey area becoming black-and-white?

I know an ironclad way to cut through Thailand’s red tape. Hang on, I’ll pass you the scissors in a moment.

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By Tari Davis

Blog Audience Engagement: How to Live Happily Ever After With Your Readers

Have you ever watched longingly as other bloggers flaunt their engagement with their audience, while you cry alone in an empty comments corner?

Ever wonder what you’ve been doing so wrong when you try to boost blog audience engagement for your clients (or for yourself)? Chances are, what you’re doing isn’t wrong, but it may just not be enough.

Maybe you’ve been admiring your audience from afar. Pull them close.

Perhaps you’ve been flirting coyly for a while from your blogging balcony. Take them by the hand.

But you just haven’t mustered the right energy to compel your readers to take the plunge. Kneel down and put a ring on it.

Keeping an audience engaged with your writing is a key skill that all clients need you to possess. It’s also the foundation upon which a deeper writer-reader relationship is built, which can be particularly important with ongoing projects and retainer clients.

It takes consistent commitment to deliver on your promise of engaging content, ensuring that your readers can comprehend it, relate to it, learn from it, feel something about it, and do something with it.

If you’re ready to hear your audience shout, “We’re engaged!” then you need these five tips:

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Copywriting Skills Builder

Want to Make More Money with Your Writing? Here’s How…

I’ll help you start a lucrative new career in copywriting with my fast-track live training — and it’s only $20!

SOLD OUT — Sorry!

Looking for a job that will pay all your bills, send you on vacation, and give you free time?

Freelance copywriting is a well-paying career that will allow you to live the lifestyle you want.

No more going into the office and groveling for a miserable raise. No more signing up for crappy content mills where you churn out articles at $20 apiece in an attempt to turn your spare time into money. If you’re looking for financial independence, copywriting could be your escape from low pay and a stagnant or stifling career.

It worked that way for me. I was stuck working short contracts in roles as thrilling as glazing sales appointment setting and archive filing, until I finally got let go from my day job ten years ago and dived into freelance copywriting and blogging.

(Because when you’re already at a low point, there’s zero fucking reason not to try something new, right?)

I knew nothing about freelancing, or business, or sales, or in fact anything other than I needed to find work before my severance pay ran out. So I made a lot of mistakes at the beginning…

…but after a few months, I was earning enough to support myself and my fiance. A year later, it was enough for our growing family to pay off debts and take vacations. 😎

Now, my annual revenue from copywriting and blogging combined adds up to about an inch below $100,000, even though I work for only 10-12 hours per week and take 2 or 3 months off every year!

Lots of writers get into freelance blogging as a way to earn extra income. But it seems that far fewer of those writers try their hand at copywriting work.

So what stops other people from doing what I did? Why don’t more writers break into high-paid copywriting?

They just didn’t believe they COULD.

If you think you don’t know enough, or aren’t ready enough, or aren’t confident enough, leave those worries behind.

Thousands of ordinary people with zero experience have learned to make a good living writing copy.

Copywriting is a growing, lucrative field with tons of opportunities. There aren’t enough good copywriters to meet the demand.

And I’m your living proof that even a homeless pregnant divorcee who’d lost her job could do this. (Yep, those things all happened to me in 2008/09.) So if you’re starting from anywhere better than I did, you can definitely do it too.

You don’t have to be the next Don Draper — you just need a solid command of the English language and the drive to succeed.

But to get there, you DO need to know how to write different types of copy, and the tricks of the trade — the foundation of any copywriter’s success.

So where do you learn all that?

You could take a course that costs thousands of dollars, where you spend hours and hours watching videos…
Books are easy to buy and easy to use, but they won’t give you any feedback…
A private coach might help you, but those can be pricey too…

Or you can take a fast-track live, introductory training taught by me — an established copywriter who has surfed two economic downturns and never lacked paying projects. I’ve written copy for some awesome clients around the world and gained a longstanding reputation for delivering the goods.

Lots of my clients have asked me to train more people to write copy like mine. But until now, I’ve taught only a select few of my private students how to create the copy that clients are looking for.

Now I’m offering to show YOU how I write the kind of copy that earns $500+ per page or $100+ per hour.

Join me online for a special 2-hour live class:

Copywriting Skills Builder

Here’s what’s included…

2 hours of live online training with me, Sophie Lizard
The key facts and skills you need to start copywriting
Copy templates to help speed up your writing process
Q&A breaks to answer your questions live in the class
A video recording of the session and a copy of my teaching notes

You’ll learn how to…

Understand and apply the fundamental principles of successful copywriting
Write effective sales pages, emails, and other copy for your clients (and for your own business too)
Improve your clients’ engagement and sales by honing in on their audience’s desires
Tailor your services to match your client’s needs and budget
Price your work fairly and quote your rates without fear

Plus, I’ll give you a set of the copy project templates that I’ve developed for my own business over the years, to help guide you through the planning and writing process so that you can get the work done faster and with less effort.

(Please note: Copywriting is work, requiring effort. My templates won’t make it effortless, but they will make it easier — so you’ll never be stuck staring at a blank page, and you won’t accidentally miss out a key step.)

My goal is to help you learn to write in-demand copy so that you can earn good money and set your own hours.

So now let’s get to what you really want to know: what it costs.

If you booked private mentoring with me, you’d pay $197 for a single hour. But I’ll let you grab two hours with me in this class for a lot less, because Copywriting Skills Builder costs exactly 20 bucks.

Why only $20? Because I want to share my knowledge with you, so that you can have the opportunity to enjoy the copywriting life.

Is that what YOU want?

SOLD OUT — Sorry!

Got Questions? No Prob! Here’s Answers.

Q: So for $20 you’ll teach me how to make millions?

A: Well…

For $20 I’m going to explain the basics you need to know to be able to write decent copy for paying clients. How much you use that knowledge and how much you earn with it are up to you. (Let’s face it, this is a 2-hour training. If anyone ever promises you million-dollar income based on spending 2 hours together online, run away!)

Q: I’m not very creative or salesy. Will this training be suitable for me?

A: Yes. A reasonable command of written English and a willingness to learn is all that’s needed.

Q: What if I’m different? What if I can’t make it work for me?

A: Don’t worry! If you aren’t absolutely thrilled with this 2 hour class and the downloadable templates, I’ll be surprised (and more than a little embarrassed). But if you participate fully in the live training and by the end of the 2 hours, you don’t feel confident that you’ve increased your copywriting skills, just let me know and I’ll refund your $20 right there and then.

Q: When is the live class?

A: It’s all happening on Saturday 13th July, starting at 12 noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 8pm UK time. We’ll be meeting live online for 2 hours (and yes, there will be a couple of short breaks for you to grab a drink or whatever partway through).

Q: What if I can’t make it to the live training on the day?

A: I’ll record the training, and if you’ve paid your $20 but miss the live class, I’m happy to share the recording with you. However I can’t guarantee the quality of the recording (or even that it will exist) because sometimes technology is a bitch…

Q: Do I need to bring anything to the session?

A: Just yourself and a way to connect to the class online — we’ll be on Zoom, which is free and you don’t need to have a Zoom account to use it. So all you need is a webcam if you want to show us your face on video, or a microphone if you want to go audio only. (You can also just type in the live chat inside Zoom if you prefer.) You probably don’t need to bring anything for note-taking, because I’ll give you a copy of my own notes and templates… but if you feel naked without notes, feel free to take some anyway. 🙂

Get A Head Start with Copywriting Skills Builder

The sooner you learn these skills, the closer you’ll be to achieving your dream — whether it’s a satisfying career that lets you work from anywhere and travel the world, more time with your family, or more money and financial independence.

So if you’re interested in learning more about copywriting, then sign up for this 2-hour introductory training. You’ll learn the basic facts and skills you need, I’ll answer your most burning questions, and you can download my templates to speed up your copywriting work.

At only $20 for 2 whole hours of training with me, this is a crazy bargain-bucket deal that you may never see again — and with my money-back guarantee, it’s a very low-risk investment in your new future.

But there are limited spaces, because I can only teach this live online to a smallish number of people while still giving everyone the attention and answers they need. So please register early to be sure of getting a seat in the training.

SOLD OUT — Sorry!

All you need to do is click the button above and enroll in the Copywriting Skills Builder training. Then I’ll give you your login link for the live class, and I’ll see you there. 👍

Cheers,
Sophie Lizard

P.S. The future gets shorter every day. So don’t wait! Now’s the time to learn a new money-making skill and create the opportunities you want for yourself.

Volume Marketing Challenge for Freelance Writers

Discover YOUR Most Effective Marketing Tactic in Only 6 Weeks…

Volume Marketing Challenge page header image

Sorry, this course is closed. Click here for alternative options!

Freelance writing is a blast. But the uncertainty and the infamous “feast or famine” cycle aren’t so much fun.

Will you have plenty of work next month, and lots of money to show for it? Or are you barely working at all, with big gaps between projects — and even bigger gaps in your income?

If you’re anything like most freelance writers, then your primary approach to marketing your services takes one of three forms:

Rely on referrals and inbound enquiries — which is great if you have well-connected friends and a ton of work offers, but sucks if you’re only picking up an occasional gig here and there.
Scour all the job boards and online marketplaces — which takes a lot of time, and means you’re always just one applicant among many, so the competition is fierce.
Throw sporadic outbound marketing into the ether — so in any given week you might have done a pitch or two here, a letter of introduction there, and maybe a “for hire” post on Facebook or Twitter… but it’s slow going, and you aren’t winning enough gigs to keep your bank balance in credit.

You’re not the only one. A whole bunch of recent survey reports say that more than a third of freelancers struggle with even basic marketing.

Many freelance writers don’t have a clearly defined marketing strategy, and they don’t know which types of marketing will be the most productive (and profitable) for their business.

So they just guess and hope it pans out, or they do a little here and a little there of all the things they see other writers doing. Yep, it’s the sporadic scattershot approach again.

Trouble is, that scattershot approach spreads your efforts too thin. So you feel worn out and overwhelmed, when really you’ve barely gotten started. And then to make matters much, much worse, you ALSO don’t get as many hot paying projects as you need to stay in business.

The More Effective Alternative to Scattershot Marketing

What would happen if you knew for sure which marketing activity would bring you the most (and the best-paying) clients?

If you knew THAT, then for sure you’d focus most of your marketing hours on that one activity, and you’d do a shit-ton of it. (This approach is called volume marketing.)

Am I right? Well, there’s only one way to find out!

If you want to focus on doing marketing that actually gets results, then the first step is to test and evaluate a few different marketing tactics so that you know which is the most productive for you.

But setting yourself a goal like, “Try a different kind of marketing every week” isn’t enough. You have to go BIG so that you get enough responses to analyse and find out anything useful!

To scale up your marketing in a different channel each week, you gotta stay on top of everything, with a logical structure for your tests and analyses.

And at times, you’ll need a bit of support (or a kick in the pants) to keep you going through the process, because procrastination and perfectionism are poison to your freelance career — but they’re tough habits to kick on your own!

So, it’d be pretty cool if something could give you all the structure and support you need to experiment and experience the outcomes of multiple marketing tactics…

…and that’s where my friend Linda comes in.

Linda Formichelli is a long-standing freelance writer whose advice I’ve sought and followed often. (Even way back when I started my own freelance writing career ten years ago, Linda was already a respected authority on everything related to freelance writing.)

Here’s what happened: Linda saw too many writers struggling with marketing, and she decided to do something to help. She developed a program specifically designed to teach freelance writers how to use the volume approach to generate more work and earn better.

It was very successful, but over time Linda’s focus shifted from teaching others to, well, getting on with her work for clients. So she stopped running the program, which was called the Volume Marketing Challenge, and it sat in metaphorical mothballs for a year.

A few months ago, Linda and I had a conversation about all of her now-unused resources for writers, and she agreed to let me bring the Volume Marketing Challenge back into action.

So now you can learn to use the volume approach to get more freelance writing projects, without the lost time and wasted effort of your current marketing.

Last time around, several students got hired by brand new clients before the program even finished! And when Linda worked through the challenges herself, she got more work offers than she could accept.

The Volume Marketing Challenge changed my life. Although I had taken a lot of writing classes, going through the challenge helped me learn various types of marketing… I learned the techniques of each and what works for me. I landed my first big clients via the challenge, and have been earning a living as a freelancer for two years. I can’t recommend this enough for serious writers who have the will to succeed and change their lives, their income, and their peace of mind by becoming their own boss.”
–Debbie Curtis, Palomino Hill Writing Services, Ithaca, NY

What’s Inside the Volume Marketing Challenge?

Fun, adventure, and other freelance writers like you, who are willing to lend their support to the group so that we can ALL get better results! Aside from that, you’ll also get…

Your 4 marketing challenges and 2 homework assignments:

Week 1 is Preparation. (Getting your shit together in advance for each challenge to make life easier.)
Week 2 is Sales Letters. (Email or snail mail, whichever you prefer. Or both!)
Week 3 is Phone Calls. (Less scary than you think. We promise.)
Week 4 is Social Media. (Warning: don’t look at the cute animal videos.)
Week 5 is Networking. (Yes, in person. Don’t worry, you’ll have help.)
Week 6 is Analysis. (Digging into the results to see which type of marketing worked best.)

You’ll make real-life progress towards your freelance writing goals throughout the entire challenge.

Sorry, this course is closed. Click here for alternative options!

Every week, you get:

A private group on Slack where you can share your wins with me and with your fellow challenge students, ask questions, report on your progress, and get support
A “cheat sheet” overview, so you can see at a glance what your upcoming week will look like
An audio lesson from Linda (and a full transcript) with additional information and tips for the week’s activities
A challenge or homework assignment that will motivate you to make the most of your Volume Marketing
Worksheets to help you plan your challenges and track the results
At least one special resource that will motivate you or offer helpful details on the marketing you’ll be doing.
Extra resource recommendations in case you need even more tips and advice before you get started with the week’s activities.

OK, how much does this all cost?

Less than the amount you’re already leaving on the table by not marketing enough! 😀

Because this is kind of an experiment to see how things go when I teach Linda’s program… the tuition is only $199 this time.

Sorry, this course is closed. Click here for alternative options!

Things You Need to Know

When does it start?

The Volume Marketing Challenge begins on Monday, February 25th, 2019. (And because it’s a 6 week program, that means it ends on Sunday, April 7th.)

What will I actually be doing?

You’ll spend a week preparing all your contact lists, meeting your fellow students on Slack, and getting into the Volume Marketing mindset. Then you’ll have 4 weeks of intensive marketing activity, using a different form of marketing each week.

After all of that, you’ll look at your marketing records from the 4 challenge weeks and find out which week’s marketing tactic brought you the best chance of success.

What if I don’t think I like one (or all) of these kinds of marketing?

Well, you can replace it with a different kind of outbound marketing if you like… But sometimes, the things you don’t feel like doing are what your marketing really needs.

So try to keep an open mind, and be willing to consider doing the same 4 challenges as everybody else. That way you’ll still have plenty of study buddies who are working through it alongside you!

Will this work?

Yep, it works — if you work with it. 🙂

If you’re willing to commit yourself to taking imperfect action and working consistently towards targets that stretch beyond your comfort zone, then you’ll do great in the Volume Marketing Challenge.

What if I change my mind?

If at any time up until the end of Week 1 (the Preparation module) you suddenly realise that you don’t *want* to take the Volume Marketing Challenge, just email me and I’ll refund your tuition.

Once you’ve started Week 2, though, you’re committed to the program. If after that point you decide not to participate, that’s up to you, but a refund will no longer be available.

Who are you, anyway?

Fuck — I was so busy talking about everything, I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s Sophie Lizard, and I’m a freelance copywriter and blogger based in the UK.

For more than 6 years, I’ve run a blog called Be a Freelance Blogger where people go to get help building a freelance blogging business. I’ve been published in a bunch of places you’ve heard of, and a lot more that you haven’t. Oh, and I literally wrote the book on how to pitch a blog post.

OK, enough of my biography. We’re almost at the end of the page, so here’s the deal. If you want all of this…

Insight into what marketing works best for YOU, based on hard data
6 weeks of online training and support
Lessons and advice from TWO in-demand freelance writing experts
4 fun challenges to build up your marketing muscles
More work opportunities than you’re used to

…then I’m pleased to let you know that you *can* get more from your marketing without spending a ton of extra time on it, and you *can* start filling your calendar with client projects for months to come.

The Volume Marketing Challenge will walk you through the whole thing.

So click the button, enter your info, and let’s get ready to roll!

Sorry, this course is closed. Click here for alternative options!

By Sophie Lizard

7 Ways to Take Charge of Your Freelance Blogging Career

That helpless feeling… it’s horrible, isn’t it?

You know you were born to be a freelance blogger. It’s the perfect fit for you. But so far, you’re kinda going nowhere with it.

You haven’t won the high-paying jobs you hoped would be yours, and you haven’t been invited to join that inner circle of pro bloggers who all seem to know each other.

You check a handful of online job boards regularly, but there aren’t many ads that sound right for you. And when you do apply for gigs, you often don’t hear back from them at all.

How are you supposed to make money at this when there’s no work available?

Oh, it’s available all right.

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