When I first started moving the freelance writing business to the online world, I applied for any and every job that I was even remotely qualified for. One day, I mentioned a new gig I had gotten to my wife. After I was done telling her about it, she said, “Do you really want to be writing about that?”
Of course not. I wasn’t remotely interested in the topic, but that wasn’t the point. I had another paying job. That was all that mattered.
Today, I left a client for the first time.
Write For Pay Every Day
When you first start a business, any business, you need income. It really doesn’t matter where that income comes from. I learned that from my time as a financial planner.
Believe it or not, every firm there is has the same career path for hiring and training financial planners. You get hired, you get a crash course of training in order to pass your required certifications, and then you have to find clients. Some companies will give you a salary for one year, but then you keep what you kill. The vast majority of people who start a career as a financial planner quit that first year, or shortly after.
The bizarre part of the equation is that while you are getting your various trainings and coachings and so on, they eventually tell you to think about what you want your business to look like down the road. Then, they tell you to go after those people who will fit your business. Don’t take on clients who don’t fit what you want your business to look like.
Of course, most of them will never get to see anything that looks like the business they envision because they will never earn enough money to stay with the career long enough. The really funny part is that no one seemed to be able to see that.
So, when I started my writing business, I took clients. Every client that was willing to pay, I took. It is my belief that this is the right way to start your business, because one day, you’ll look around and you will realize that your income exceeds your expenses. You’ll look around and you will realize that you if you only worked for those clients that you wanted to work with, you would still be making enough money to pay your bills and buy nice things. On that day, you can turn down any client that doesn’t seem fun.
Today, is that day, at ArcticLlama, LLC.