B2B Writing Institute - B2B Business Seminar

“Plan for what is difficult while it is easy.
Do what is great while it is small.”
— Sun Tzu

HELLO!

Welcome to the B2B Business-Building Seminar! Check out the notes here

What gets you most excited about freelancing?

INTRODUCTION

The reason we’re here is to improve our earning power. It might seem like this is about finding clients, but it’s really about finding clients regularly. It might seem like this is about selling your work, but it’s really about being comfortable with making offers. It might seem like this is about fulfilling your work, but it’s really about balancing an ongoing workload.

One of my greatest motivations in life is helping individuals increase their earning power and economic potential. Outside of the important things we can do to change the system and to treat ourselves with respect inside our own heads, improving your earning power can change your life and your family’s life.

Business is a great way to do that, and like the #1 or #2 wealth-building method for most people. But too often, business is a big mysterious blank space – it feels secretive and like only sharks are allowed. So when “normies” step into this space, we feel unwelcome and uncertain and we go about it haphazardly… and then we spend too much time delivering on our work and come out to an equivalent $1.23 per hour… it’s just a mess.

Today, we’re going to start the process of replacing “winging it” business practices with simple, clear steps you can take to be as effective and profitable as you choose to be.

Each week we’ll meet and I’ll have about an hour of lecture material, then as much Q&A as we can handle (or as we go along). Within a couple hours, replays will be posted here and accessible forever. Every other week, there will be an optional “milestone” for you to complete and send to me.

As a part of your enrollment, you’ll also be invited to B2BWI events each month like a new training and copy hours. You can see the schedule in advance here.

Our curriculum bring us through the following critical areas of business:

Your simple to do list (Today)
Finding clients and niching
Your website and LinkedIn strategy
Sales mindset and sales calls
Invoicing and proposals
Editorial schedule and technical details
Capacity planning and lifestyle planning
Concluding thoughts and Q&A

My goal is always to boil down what you really need to know to be successful and give you specific, actionable ideas for how to move forward. Any questions you have to clarify what I share is powerful and helpful and a gift to me— don’t hesitate to ask!

ACQUISITION, SALES, AND FULFILLMENT AS YOUR ONLY “TO DO” LIST

Today I’d like to reset your “business mindset” if you don’t already have one. Too often we step into freelancing and we are “ALL SYSTEMS GO.” We try to do everything at once, we’re breathing heavy (or not at all) and we’re in an emergency from moment to moment. It feels like every opportunity — and every threat — is floating in the ether and out of your control. So, let’s reset… Take a deep breath…

Oh no. It’s all coming at me at once.

Every business can be boiled down to A – S – F. And everything that’s “wrong” with your business can be fixed by zeroing in on A – S – F. This is your new “to do” list, the thing to check out any time you feel stressed or unsure about what to do next. You don’t freak out or close shop or pull up YouTube videos about #VanLifing the Himalayas… you just grab a handy sticky note and write these three words across the top:

Acquisition	Sales	Fulfillment
Where can you find good-fit clients?	How do you talk to them in a way that encourages them to hire you, and how will they pay you?	How do you get that work done really well and in a timely way?

What you want to achieve might take more time than you want it to, but this is the skeleton that supports every business, even your clients’! And that’s why we start early and maintain these activities constantly (even when we’re busy), so you can kick off a flow of work that supports you.

(P.S. Establishing a flow of business is critical in attaining $100K+ years. You can dive more into my income journey with “2 Years of $200K” to see what the invoice breakdown looks like for a flow of business.)

CREATING A FLOW OF WORK

Over the next eight weeks, we’re going to study the skeleton of A-S-F piece by piece. Some sessions will resonate with you right away… others will just be a “nice to know” now and hit hard a year from now. So, trust your gut and see what’s most helpful now.

There are two people implement these steps, and you may need to layer both in your A-S-F efforts:

Recurring: You set a timer or make a planner note that you attend to specific activities on specific days. (For example, Mondays are marketing days and you tend to marketing tasks for an hour every Monday. I start every workday with a 2-hour client work session, or I start every workday with a 1-hour business development session.)

Sequential: You handle or add to each task as it comes up and as you need it to fall into place. (For example, I will write my sales script once I schedule my sales call; until then, I won’t worry about it. I will not worry about a LinkedIn strategy until I send 50 prospecting emails based on Industry Dive).

For now, here are some of the behaviors you’ll want to have on your radar when it comes to A-S-F:

Acquisition: If you aren’t sending notes, hearing back, or booking phone calls…

Am I putting myself in the way of potential clients in a way that’s comfortable for me but also effective?
Do I have a script of what I’ll say to assess if a client is a good fit?
Do I have a system or habit for following up, whether formal or informal?
Do I have a clean Internet presence with as many “green flags” and as few “red flags” as possible?
Have I done good work in the past that I can show to clients?

Sales: If people opt not to work with you after you chat…

Do I know why clients hire me?
Do I feel comfortable talking to clients about how much I charge?
Do I feel comfortable turning down work or telling a client they’re not a good fit for me?
Do I feel comfortable asking for the work or sharing next steps for a client to pay me?
Do I feel comfortable asking why a client decided to hire someone else?

Fulfillment: If you’re worried about how you’ll get all your work done, or you aren’t earning enough per hour to stick with it…

Do I have a plan for how I’ll spend my time?
Do I work on things when I say I will? (AKA, keeping commitments to yourself)
Do I deliver projects on-time?
Am I making enough per-hour internally to continue doing this work?
Do I know how to balance more than one project at a time? More than one client at a time?
Do I have a process for making sure my work is the best it can be before it is delivered to the client?
Do I have the technology I need to get my work done and deliver it in a convenient way for the client?

By the end of our time together, it’s my goal that you will have had the opportunity to consider and confront all of these questions, and answer most of them, in a way that works for you. You’ll establish a flow of work that is also perfectly customized and optimized for how you work, not a one-size-fits-all cookie cutter business that makes you yearn for a full-time job. As a result, you’ll 1) regularly find and connect with clients who are a good fit for you, 2) feel comfortable meeting with them to discuss working together, and 3) have a plan to get the work done over the course of the project.

FEAR, PERFECTIONISM, AND OTHER RABBIT HOLES

So let’s talk about what can get in the way between you and A-S-F. Because it’s never enough to have a to-do list… we also have to address the dumb animal part of us that cannot do the things we need to do. (It’s me. Hi.). We can make a great plan… We can have the time we need to do the thing… and then look up and find ourselves mowing the lawn in the rain.

Here’s what might be happening:

Fear
Perfectionism
Resistance

FEAR

Fear protects us, it’s a powerful instinct. We assume the worst, and then feel reassured when it happens (“Look, I was right all along!”) We try to avoid aiming too high, also known as the “tall poppy syndrome” where those who grow too tall get cut down. If we never get our hopes up, we can’t be disappointed right? This is true in so many cases… but it also works against us when we try to operate our own business.

Assuming the worst is like dipping the plane of the nose down. It’s no wonder it starts to crash! Is it what was meant to be, or a self-fulfilling prophecy? The best gift I can give you is encouragement to develop your own “Intentional Optimism” that protects you against fear.

Your brain is afraid of failure, insecurity, and ruin. It will see it everywhere so as to protect you. Acknowledge your fear, listen to it, and then say thank you and do it anyway. I invite you to reconsider or at least observe how fear shows up for you, and counter it with two ideas:

Fear = False evidence appearing real. How you feel (fear) is not necessarily the truth about your environment (no one is hiring, there’s no work for me, I should get a job).
“Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

As you move forward, you’ll start to develop a sensitivity for the good kind of fear and the bad kind of fear. The good kind of fear accurately assesses danger and helps you make decisions that keep you in control and secure. The bad kind of fear prevents you from taking reasonable risks and achieving your full potential. This is why it is so important to create your own community like you’re doing here! Now you have friends you can discuss your fears with and they will be able to understand more than most (or at least in the context of this experiment you’re going to run).

RECOMMENDED READING
Playing Big by Tara Mohr

PERFECTIONISM

I’m seeing a lot of perfectionist behavior among writers lately, and I saw it in myself early on. It’s not the kind of perfectionism that has you drawing within the lines. It’s the kind that makes you think…

I can’t pitch a client until I’ve been published somewhere.
I can’t send a connection request until I have a lively and popular social media presence.
I can’t charge a client for money until I am without-a-doubt confident I will make them a millionaire by working with me.

I think the root of perfectionism can be good. You have high standards and you want to do a good job. You don’t want to mislead anyone or “trick” anyone into working with you by not being “qualified.”

However, what’s often really going on is that you have a very strict idea of what it means to be qualified, or what it takes to get started before you are qualified. When it’s time for us to get started and you feel yourself hesitate, I encourage you to carefully evaluate what you think “should” happen before you can do the thing you want to do.

I can’t pitch a client until I’ve been published somewhere. ➡️ I can pitch a client the moment I’m willing to work with them on their writing projects.
I can’t send a connection request until I have a lively and popular social media presence. ➡️ I can send a connection request to anyone at any time for any reason, and they can accept or decline as they see fit.
I can’t charge a client for money until I am without-a-doubt confident I will make them a millionaire by working with me. ➡️ I can charge anyone for writing work at any time once they agree to work with me.

The reason we want to evaluate our perfectionism is that often we have to leap before we’re ready, a la “Leap and the net will appear” from William S. Burroughs. Find the line between acceptable risk and unacceptable risk for you and push it. You’ll want to act before you feel 100% because you never know what will happen – you don’t know what criteria someone uses for LinkedIn connections, or for the kind of writer they want to work with, or what constitutes “good experience” to them — you just don’t know! You need to make as much room for serendipity as you feel you can by making offers, taking action, and experimenting with what might work.

RESISTANCE

Resistance is a concept from The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, “the universal force that acts against human creativity.” Technically, we’re walking about business. But never forget writing is an art. It’s going to have all the same creative challenges as writing a novel or publishing a song… you’ll just get paid more. Resistance can pop up as an obstacle, and if you fail to recognize it as resistance it can derail you before you are conscious of it.

Resistance is at work when you’re making progress on a draft and pause your mouse… and suddenly find yourself refreshing Reddit. Resistance is at work when you have a deadline and you’re cleaning your oven.

I don’t know that I can say resistance will ever go away… but by acknowledging it and facing your inner demons, you can shorten the cycle and get back to work faster over the years. I used to get stuck in a resistance cycle for days or even weeks. Now it might only take me 20 minutes or an hour to process the feelings and get back to work.

CONCLUSION

Operating a successful business has less to do with who you are and more to do with what behaviors you can start and continue. Anyone can take the small actions we’re going to talk about, apply them consistently however possible, and see a flow of business and happy customers start to take shape.

This was a great first session, thank you for coming! Your🏆MILESTONE today is to sit back and reflect, then email me your financial goal for your business. Dream as small or as big as you want… be as specific or vague as you want… just share something honest with me.

Next week we’re going to start our study of acquisition when it comes to finding clients. It will be equal parts abstract theory and practical actions, with a checklist for your LinkedIn profile and a time table and script for LinkedIn prospecting and following up. There will be inspirational ideas but also walk-throughs of how I use Industry Dive to find limitless clients. If you have any questions in the meantime, send them my way at hello@b2bwritinginstitute.com

🏆MILESTONE: Email me your financial goal for your business