When Freelance Writers Should Send an LOI vs. Sending a Pitch
Thanks to Carina for suggesting this topic :)! Which situations make sense for sending an LOI and when should you dig deep into research and interviews for a pitch? If you send an LOI, does it look like you didn't make the effort? And how do you deal with calls for pitches properly?
In this week's livestream, we're going over what situations make sense for LOIs and which ones make sense for pitches, what looks lazy in an LOI vs. a pitch, how do you handle calls for pitches, and do clients think you're assuming you know better than them if you send a pitch vs. an LOI?
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When Freelance Writers Should Send an LOI vs. Sending a Pitch
Are you assuming too much for a business client if you send a pitch over an LOI? Which types of situations make sense when you're sending an LOI, a letter of introduction, versus a pitch? So we're going over that today because there's important distinctions that we need to know when we're working with businesses on content marketing projects and when we're working with editorial staff or we're working with magazines or publications or how do we balance sending pitches and handling all the LOIs, right?
All of our letters of introduction. So the first thing we're going to do though, um, is everybody who answered So I always do this every time when the wealth lab closes, I'll send out an email saying, Hey, thanks so much. You know, let me know what, you know, what was it that didn't make you join the wealth lab.
And I'm always interested in like, what, what about it? Was it the wealth lab? Was it personal circumstances? What was it? You know, is the Wealth Lab missing something? So I always send it out and whoever responds, I always add them for free coaching. So the first thing we're doing today is we're gonna do a free coaching spin.
So, oops, hold on. Hold on one second. I should be able to pull it up first. Okay, let's see if we can get it all on the screen. All right, everybody should be able to see the wheel so we should all be able to see the wheel Um, and everybody should be able to still Hear me so we should all be good Okay, so i'm gonna spin the wheel and we're gonna see who wins.
Hi jennifer We're gonna see who wins. Um free coaching from answering my little email before so we'll have it on video So we'll know who won. All right. I hope everybody's ready. We're going for it. All right, we're spinning it's thinking All right
So Jackie, Jackie McDougall, you have won coaching. I will send you an email about it, but you have won coaching. It's officially official. So I will make sure to send you an email about that, but now you won free coaching. But that's one of the ways, um, that I end up doing free coaching is if you answer an email where I say, Hey, if you answer this, you get free coaching.
That's something that I offer every once in a while. Um, so we are going to, um, send an email to Jackie, um, and let her know about that. Hi Flower Power. Happy Friday. Um, yeah. Hey Karina. This is actually from Karina. So Karina is the one who suggested this and um, asked for a topic on it. So let's go through it.
So we're gonna go through it, a couple of different pieces of her question. Um, let's see. Hold on one second. Um, Oh, and we also have Karina's question too that we're going to get, um, that we're going to get to as well. So we're going to get to Karina's question at the end. Hold on. I'm just organizing my stuff to make sure that we have your question all ready to go.
So let's talk about number one. So the first thing that we're talking about here is what's the difference. When are we using an LOI, letter of introduction, LOI versus a pitch, right? So your LOIs, your letters of introduction are going to businesses. Those are the things where you're like, Hey, do you need help?
Um, I'm qualified. Here's some of my qualifications. Either clients you've worked with or if you, if you're just starting freelancing, experience that you have or things you can help with, right? And then you're like, Hey, uh, would love to know more about your needs. Hop on a call. And I always kind of like say this so I always get this question Um, if you're looking for those templates my loi templates and some of like a little bit of pitch template Uh go to mandyellis.
com slash templates or mandyellis. com slash bundle and you can grab them so When we're going through our lois, those are going to businesses. Those should be more templatized You're going to customize them per niche and you're going to make like a handful of customizations every time you send them out to a new client Or a new potential client.
But those Lois are, um, making, they're going to businesses, pitches are going to magazines straight up. Every time you're writing a pitch that's going to a magazine. So we wanna make sure that we have our pitches follow a similar formula, right? So the, the pitch, I always think of it as like a formula, just because your Lois are very templatized, they're very similar, especially if you have like 10 or 12 customized for different niches or combinations of niches.
Um, but your pitches to magazines are kind of like headline, intro paragraph that basically looks like the intro paragraph of every other story of that magazine, right? It follows the format and the style, um, it has like all of these, uh, like let's say they start with a question or they start with data or they start with a funny quip, right?
That intro paragraph. Then the second one is like, in this article we're gonna answer these questions, talk to these experts, whatever you need to do to kind of go through like what's the article about. Um, The third paragraph is like any extra data or information or stuff that we need to like make sure the pitch is coming across right.
And then the last paragraph should be like super short couple sentences about like, Hi, I'm an Austin based freelance content or a freelance travel writer. Here's the publications I've written for. Bye. So we want to make sure we're kind of following those formats. But the one thing I think that confuses people, um, is when we're kind of doing this LOI pitch hybrid.
Okay, so pretty much All of the time lois letters of introduction loi are going to businesses and pitches are going to magazines However, there are certain trade magazines That you can get away with kind of this loi pitch hybrid. So this loi pitch hybrid is only for trade magazines And they usually have a smaller circulation.
It's usually for, like, an industry specific publication. Okay, so it's not, like, a big newsstand magazine. It's not a consumer publication most of the time. It's for, like, um, magazines that only focus on specific things. So, like, I wrote for Pizza Today. And that's a magazine that only focuses on pizza restaurant owners, right?
So that's a trade magazine. That's where you could send a magazine like that. Or it could be... Um, an online magazine that focuses on a specific industry. Basically the top part is your LOI that you're sending just a little piece of your LOI and the bottom part, you need to put in headlines. So you're like, Hey, I found a few headlines that, you know, I have a few headlines I think might be a fit.
You know, if you want me to write a full pitch, I will. But this LOI Pitch Hybrid is what you need to send to trade magazines because they usually have a very strict editorial schedule and you don't really know what's kind of going on. Trade magazines are way further down in the hole than like writing for a big consumer magazine or a big newsstand magazine.
Like trade magazines are covering a very specific industry, very in depth. So it's easier to kind of say like, hey, I'm willing to write pitches. Here are some headlines, right? And then that kind of be something that you can offer them as like, kind of in the middle, right? So if they write back and they're like, Hey, I like these two headlines, right?
Pitches, you can do that. Or they can write back and say, Hey, I like, you know, can you, uh, I'd like to see some clips. So you send them some writing samples, right? Um, and then like, they can either, uh, ask you to write a story or you can, LOI.
Um, which is pretty templatized, um, and then, and customized per niche and you'll make a handful of customizations every time you send it to a different, um, potential client. And then pitches are going to magazines, like when in doubt, if you're looking at an online publication of a print publication, magazine, trade publication, just send a pitch.
When in doubt, send a pitch. Um, if you're, if you understand trade magazines, like you understand like, Hey, this is a magazine just for real estate agents. Uh, in Texas or, um, this publication is just for, um, SAS businesses that focus on HR. Like it's something that's very specific trade magazine. Then you would send the LOI pitch hybrid.
So you want to make sure, um, you want to make sure that you're understanding those three different buckets. Jennifer says, how many trade magazines are there? I don't know. Jennifer, Jennifer, how would I know that? I don't know. Thousands. Like there's a, there's so many. Like there's. Basically, um, you could use WebWire, so WebWire is a place, and there's links in the Wealth Lab, and there's links in the community, Jennifer.
So there's links in Breakthrough, and there's links in the Wealth Lab where, um, if you go back to like Module 3, or maybe, it's not Module 2, if you go back to Module 3, There's all these links to where you can find trade magazines, but yeah, I don't know how many there are There's like thousands thousands of them but your You can just google them really you can google like real estate industry Publication or you can google like whatever your niche is right health publication or you can google Meditation magazine right like you you can google and find tons of them and there's lots of them that aren't print, right?
There are a lot of them that are online magazines so You, uh, you would just, like, WebWire is a good place to start because it kind of shows you, like, it shows you the kinds of magazines, but I do want to make sure that I say one caveat. So with WebWire, it's gonna tell you that magazines like Cosmopolitan or like something like that are trade magazines because they're like women's magazines.
So it's not for everybody. It's like, a specific niche industry, uh, that's anything that's a big magazine is not a trade magazine. So like a trade magazine would be something very specific like NAR, right? Like National Association of Realtors has two different magazines, um, each different, uh, a lot of the local like state offices, Texas, Massachusetts, California, Colorado, whatever.
They all have their own kind of magazine. Um, we're looking for magazines that are focused on or online publications that are focused on like that trade, right? That industry. That's all it means. Trade magazines are just industry specific magazines, right? There's thousands of them, but the other caveat too is that, yeah, there's thousands of opportunities, but this leads me to the other caveat I'm going to mention is trade magazines, like, it's not super common that you get paid a ton of money.
Um, so trade magazines are usually like 30, 20, 60. To 50 cents a word so like usually trade magazines are 20 to 50 cents a word So you're not going to be getting paid a ton But there are some magazines that pay higher like 80 cents to a dollar, but they're Not as common. So most of the time you're kind of swinging around 50 cents a word for trade magazines So yes, there's more opportunities, but the pay is much lower Um, so it really depends like there's a lot of them out there and I just want to make sure that I mention that Even if you go to a site and it says like oh, this is a trade magazine Like anytime it's a big magazine, send a pitch.
When in doubt, send a pitch to a magazine, right? So that's the first part. Hi Nina. Hi Albert. Yeah, it's also like you can also look at what Albert says is you can look by state and you can look in your area. So let's talk about part two. Um, okay, part two. So let's talk about part two. So now we kind of know like where they go.
So we want to talk about what looks lazy in an LOI versus a pitch. What looks lazy in an LOI is that it's not customized per niche and you didn't do like the handful of customizations before you sent it. So it's literally like too copy and paste. It's too templatized. Uh, so an LOI looks lazy if it literally looks like a chain letter, right?
So there's a lot of times where people will send Excuse me, LOIs, and um, it's just, like, it clearly wasn't, it, it, it's just all of the stuff in one. It's like everything in this kitchen synced. So that's why I feel like my LOIs have had a really good response rate like I on average over the last 10 years It's basically like 20 to 30 percent.
So I'll just average at 25 percent. That's answer rate. That's not Clients, let me be clear. So like one out of every four right or like 25 out of a hundred I get an answer So that answer might be yes or no, or it might be let's get on a call or it might be try again later Or they might not answer me for five years, right?
So, like, I want to be clear that the LOI is not a 100 percent just copy paste kind of thing. The LOI is, like, I, this, I, uh, show my Wealth Lab students, I probably have more templates now, but, like, I have, like, 15 to 20. Templates so I have like a real estate and prop tech one. I have like a food one I have a restaurant and hospitality tech one.
I have a travel and real estate one. I have a pets and travel one like I Customize each template to the combinations of niches that I've sent them to so what that means is like if I find a company That's a real estate company and they do travel instead of sending them my real estate LOI or the travel LOI, I mush them and customize it for that one.
So then I just make a template. So then I have a real estate one and travel one and a real estate and travel one. Um, and I'd make a bunch of those because that makes it feel more customized rather than people just being like, I just do this, just hire me for the love of God. Right. Hi, Woo! Woo's a little sleepy today.
Hey, Woo. Yeah, you want some snacks? Okay. So, you want to make sure you customize that. If you don't, it looks super lazy and it looks like spam. This is another thing, too, where, um, if we are, can you go to your hobbit hole? If we are using our LOIs to just, like, send the same thing to everybody, What ends up happening is it literally looks like spam.
So if you're sending your LOI In like a big chain letter, like if you're sending it with a bunch of people on the same thing So I've seen people be like, oh I can send a hundred LOIs by putting a hundred people's emails in and then sending one LOI No, don't do that They should be individual messages whether you're sending them on LinkedIn through in mail or you're sending them as emails Can you give everybody a high five?
Good girl! Good job. So, it should be individual stuff, and it should be customized. So, there's a lot of stuff that, when people think template, they're like, oh, I just paste it in for everything. What I do is, like, if you, right, like, I always talk about this. If you get the templates, you have the template, and you need to customize that per niche that you're in, and you need to do a couple of customizations.
In the LOI for each potential client that you're sending it to. There is kind of a way to, um, sorry I have like hair in my eye. Uh, there is a way to send kind of like mass LOIs but like I just haven't seen great response rates with that. Uh, I think it's better just to do it one on one and I think it's better to use a tool that would be for mass LOIs.
It's better to use it to follow up on certain things. Um, I also want to make sure I mention that, uh, I don't follow up on LOIs if people don't answer them. I 100 percent will follow up on pitches to editors because they get thousands of pitches a week. Even trade magazine editors get tons of stuff. So, magazines always follow up.
LOIs, I don't follow up unless you respond. I, I don't have time for that. So, the other thing too is what looks lazy in a pitch is like when you don't put in enough detail. Um, one of the things that really sticks out in a pitch is if you're not doing research. You're not coming up with specific enough stuff, like, that your story is just too comprehensive.
It includes way too many things instead of sharpening it down to like one very specific idea. Um, you're not pulling studies, you're not pulling data, you're not pulling some kind of factual information to put in your pitch for that, uh, for that editor. Um, or it could be that you didn't find experts, right?
You're just like, I'll just interview some people instead of finding, you know, saying like, I'll interview experts like blah blah blah at this university or this person at this place. You don't actually have to interview those people, but you do have to put some effort into what type of person would you interview, right?
Like, are they a psychologist or a psychiatrist, right? Or is it a mommy blogger or is it someone who, um, you know, does some other type Like, they have a company that's, uh, targeted towards parents, right? Like, we need to give our editor an idea of, like, who are we gonna talk to, right? And we need to have some kind of specific examples in there.
Um, what also looks lazy in a pitch is if you make a mistake and you just like send you're, you're not saying like what section it goes in, you just paste your pitch into a ton of emails and send it to all these editors and hope, hope it works out. There are a few customizations you need to do if you are simultaneously pitching to different magazines, right?
Um, what also looks lazy in a pitch is if it's not like defined, if you don't have, I always like questions cause it's an easy way to, Shape the piece like what are we going to talk about? How are we going to do? Whatever this this thing is? Why is this thing here? Um, where is it or what's going on, right?
Like we can kind of use those typical questions like who what where when why? To put in our pitch to kind of outline basically what our editor can envision as the piece, right? So if we're just kind of like there's there's a bunch of horror stories from editors about how Um, you know, writers will send them pitches that are like two words long.
They'll just like put like, you know, like stock car and they're like, what? You actually need to write a pitch. It needs to be a few paragraphs. Don't drone on about it, but make it, you know, most four paragraphs. Get to the point. Editors are scanning. Editors are moving on, right? They have, like, this is a thing.
So, I actually saved this a while back that I need to actually put in Breakthrough. Now, Jennifer's here, so she'll see it eventually, but, um, one of my old editors, Put up a post saying like I got thousands and thousands of pitches per week Like I can't respond to everybody right and there's a lot of us writers who are like well, please for the love of god Just say you got it, right and it's just not possible Like they actually have to go forward with the ideas and they're spending their time Which is limited with the ideas and pitches that are moving forward or they're encouraging some writers where they're like, hey, you're almost there You know, you're kind of close right?
So you got to make sure you're learning about pitches a good pitch Learning how to get your LOI in shape. And those were, those are critical skills. The way to like, the way to get clients in cash is you have to master that. You have to master LOIs and you have to master your pitches. That's, that's the deal.
Um, it's the, it's the thing that gets you work. Right? You gotta do it. Yes, there's referrals. Yes, there's all this other cool stuff that we get, but you gotta, like, that's the part of the framework kind of process. Um, pitches where it's like a couple sentences or pitches where you clearly didn't think it out or didn't do your recon.
Um, pitches where you're sending it to the wrong magazine, like where you clearly are sending the, like you didn't read the magazine at all. You were just like, this sounds right. Uh, you need to read the magazine. You need to figure out where it would fit, like what section or, or how people would, um, where that idea would fit in the tone, style, voice themes of the magazine.
I think those things are really important. And I, there are lots of pitches where it's, uh, very clear that someone didn't read the magazine, so I, I think that's weird too because writers I mean, almost every writer I know started as a reader. Almost all of us, like, we start with books, right? You start with books, and then you're like, Well, someone had to write that book, right?
That's a writer. And then you sort of come across the idea of being a writer, right? So, the idea to me that someone wouldn't read something, especially a magazine that they're sending a pitch to, Seems nuts because it would take you five to ten minutes to figure out if it's a fit or not, right? You're like, oh clearly this magazine about pets is not the place for my story about boats that has nothing to do with pets or you know, that's just like a really random example, but It's just kind of like, I think there's this, for me, I also want to mention that, um, pitching is a muscle coming up with ideas is a muscle.
I was really bad at it. Like I did not get it. I didn't understand how people came up with ideas. It took me years to just start kind of like figuring it out. Um, and I wish I had kind of worked on that muscle sooner. So working on pitches and becoming good at pitches and becoming good at picking up ideas and understanding the nuances between magazines It is a learned skill.
It is a muscle that you strengthen. So I don't want you to get out there and be like, I can't do it. It will take you a while. It is like body building your idea muscle. Okay. You have to like, no roids though. We're not going to roid rage, but we do need to build that muscle to strengthen, um, our pitching abilities.
We need to make sure that we're looking out for ideas, that we're reading the publications. The more you read the publications, the easier it is to be like, Oh, this sounds like, Blah, blah, blah article that was just published. Here you go, Bean. Um, and then you can be like, oh, we should do a similar one, but about this thing.
Right? So it helps a lot as reference material. And it also helps you improve your, um, word choice, your vocabulary, your style tone, your ability to adapt to that magazine. Really important. Um, Albert says, I wrote for trades near the end of my career. The pay certainly wasn't as high as other books I wrote for previously, but it was decent.
I recommend trade work, uh, um, uh, to new and veteran writers. I like writing for certain trade magazines. Like, for me, that's my icing, right? This is something I often go over with cake and icing with students, with Runway and Wealth Lab students. There's also a video here in, um, YouTube if you want to check it out.
It's in the channel. It's just called Cake and Icing. So there's, I use trade magazines or, uh, my publication work as icing in my business. Like, it's not something that's usually paying my bills, but I like doing it and it's fun and interesting. And I love talking to people about things they're passionate about.
So the interviews are great. Um, but yeah, I think it's also a great way to get new clips, to learn an industry really well, to talk to insight. It's a free way to learn more about your industry, right? Like, no one's, like, you're getting paid to go talk to people about the industry you need to learn about.
How great is that? Yeah, it's not, you don't want to, like, get in, stuck in the trap like I did, where, like, you're writing for too little, like, you're writing 200 all the time, or 400 all the time, and you burn out, and you're not making any money. But you definitely want to, I think it's a good way to do a lot of different things.
Um, it also can help with clients. So there are people who I know who write for trade magazines where, um, someone sees their article and they're like, yes, I want to hire you. That's happened to me too. They're like, I saw your article in blah, blah, blah magazine. I love your work. I checked out your clips. I want to work with you.
So that is a thing that happens. It's not super common, um, but it does happen. Yeah. And same thing. Nina says, I wrote for a trade pub for 15 years, got a lot of work because of those clips. Yeah. The clips are great too. The clips are really helpful. Um, Nina says, how many LOIs would you recommend sending out daily or weekly?
So I do a couple different things. So LOIs and pitches kind of fall in the same thing. So LOIs and pitches at least 50 to 75 a month or a hundred, but okay, but this is a big caveat. I want to, when I started, I was like, how does someone actually do that? And I, anytime I would fall below 50 or I'd, or I'd only get 10 out.
Um, I would beat myself up a lot. So if numbers are not motivating to you, if 50 to 75 LOIs a month or 50 to 100 LOIs or pitches a month is too much, do an hour a day, okay? You have to do marketing at something. You have to do something every day. So whether that's building a potential client list, um, figuring out who to contact, um, following up on your pitches, connecting with people on LinkedIn, writing your pitches, sending out your LOIs, um, some kind of marketing activity needs to happen every single day.
Now that's when you're kind of needing more working clients when you have more working clients What happened in my career was it went from one hour a day? To doing it every week to doing every month and now I do it quarterly So like i'm not pitching magazines as much. Uh, but when i'm sending lois now, I do it in a clump, like a hundred or so every quarter I'm behind right now and I need to send them.
Um, but yeah, you need, I like, there are a lot of activities that you need to do to build your, your potential client list for your LOIs, right? Oh, not a lot, but very specific activities. So you need to make sure you're doing that, right? You're creating your list of potential clients in your niches. You're cutting them by revenue.
They should have at least that, uh, three to 10 million in revenue or funding for startups and five to 50, five zero. So five to 50 million for like a traditional or midsize company. And then you're, that's part of your one hour a day is making that list, cutting that list, reaching out to the people.
You're not always sending LOIs every single day. But we should be like, that's another reason why I like templates is like, once we kind of understand the process, it's a lot easier to find potential clients because you're like, Oh, like you, you train your eyes. This is something I go over really deep with my wealth lab students is like wearing a new pair of glasses so that you can see your right clients.
So the finding them is easier, the marketing and sending LOIs is faster, and then it converts better because you have a better pair of glasses to like see who your client is. Um, so yeah, the idea is 50 to 100. I like to say 50 to 75 a month or You need to do an hour a day if that feels too overwhelming
Um, uh, no, you should definitely simultaneous pitch So I feel like this is something that often gets a bad rap, but we don't have time to wait We don't have time to wait for editors to get back to us If you have a relationship with that editor give them two weeks That's what I do if I already have a relationship with an editor and i'm sending them a pitch Um, I give them two weeks to respond, and if they don't, I pitch it elsewhere, and they, they know that.
Like, there, there is a general understanding that if they don't get back quickly, you're gonna pitch it elsewhere. But the deal is that, if you don't have a relationship with editors, I kind of still follow the rule of like, try to be careful not to pitch the idea to competing publications, who are going after the same audience.
So, try to pick different publications. Who are doing different things. So instead of just doing like the same kind of clump of food magazines, go to like a food business magazine, try a pitch at like a food magazine that might be towards consumers. Try to find a food magazine that might focus on something else.
Like try to get them out. You, you want a simultaneous pitch. We don't have time to wait, but you do want to preserve relationships. So if you have a relationship with an editor, give them two weeks. Um, Nina, you asked the question again. Okay. So, um,
There are editors who are scary gatekeepers So I've heard stories about editors who won't answer you unless you send 10 pitches Or more. So like they won't even respond to you unless you've already pitched them 10 times. So like it doesn't matter how good your pitches are, like they, they will wait. So, um, but I feel like a lot of times it's the persistence.
So if you are really working on writing good pitches, you're looking for good ideas, you are understanding building your idea muscle. Um, that a lot of times really helps with connecting with the right editors. And I don't think, I mean, there might've been like maybe one. situation where I had an editor that was, they, it was just not a good fit.
Like, it just, it wasn't right. But yeah, like, editors aren't out to bite you. Like, they're not, they want ideas. They want, they, they can't just generate all these ideas forever. They're really... In the publication so they need fresh pairs of eyes. They want your ideas. 100%. They want good ideas though. So that's important.
Mh, mh, mh, mh. Um, Bara says, Sorry, my chat is like a little slow, so like now I'm seeing everybody's messages. So, Bara says, Why do they call it cold pitches? Are there hot or warm pitches? Yeah, so cold pitch just means you don't have a relationship with someone, right? So pretty much every LOI you send is a cold email, cold pitch.
It's just that you don't know them and you're reaching out basically out of the blue being like, Hey, what's up? Do you need help? Um, a warm pitch would be somewhere that you have a relationship with that editor, right? Like you've worked with that editor on 1, 2, 3, 20 stories, whatever it is. And you're like, Hey, I'm thinking of this idea.
What do you think? And you... Um, you're sending the pitch as something where you already have a relationship with someone like you would rarely send in like you're okay Uh the situation you would send a warm loi would be that you have a relationship So like, uh, I always like to use my friend amy. So my friend amy, let's say amy knows a content marketing manager And i'm like, hey, do you know bara the content manager and she's like, oh, yeah, let me introduce you So she introduces me to bara the content manager and I send Some version of my LOI, because I'm getting a warm introduction.
Um, but pretty much all the LOIs that you send will be cold. Some of them will be warm, because you'll have a mutual connection. Wow, you're sass bean today. Go back to your hobo. Um, and then your... Cold pitches that you're sending to editors or just that you don't have a relationship with that editor and like warm pitches Uh are just like you already have written for them.
You already have a relationship with them. Okie dokie Um, yeah, like that's the idea is for me. I just, if I didn't get, if I got 49 LOIs or 49 pitches out, I would beat myself up. Cause I was like, well, it's not 50. And then I, if I got like 68 out, I would be like, well, it's not 75. So that for me, beating myself up made me not want to do marketing and it made me not move my business forward.
It was really. Not helpful. So like the, um, you know, Ed Gandia talks about effort goals. I think this is a good effort goal, right? So an effort goal is like the hour. Spend the time, do the tasks. If you can do that, you're chipping away. And if we can chip away, then it gets faster over time and it's less overwhelming.
Um, and, That kind of helps you get in the habit of doing it and it helps kind of wear that new pair of glasses so that you're, you know, talking to the right clients, you're looking for the right people. Okay, let's talk about, um, part three, because we didn't actually, I thought we were further, so we need to talk about part three.
Hold on. Where did it go? Okay. Let's talk about three. So three here is, um, when we're handling calls for pitches, do not send LOIs to calls for pitches. Okay. I want to make sure I make that clear, right? Charlotte, what do you say? Do not send LOIs to calls for pitches, right? Can you catch this? Let's see what's up.
Let's see how it's going to work. Can you catch it? Oh, so close. So close. Calls for pitches are from editors. They want you to send a real pitch. They want you to send the pitch. Okay. Write the pitch, right? A lot of times I get questions about like, well, should I be just like doing a full pitch? Yes. Anytime someone is asking for calls for pitches, that's just like another kind of like you ha there's a lot that are going to be coming in.
So you need to make sure you do a good job on yours. Uh, calls for pitches, right? Sometimes the topics are ultra specific, so there's not a ton of pitches, but most of the time when you get calls for pitches, it's gonna be... Sorry, like, my hood is messed up, so I keep, like, knocking my thing back. Um, so yeah, calls for pitches are like, you need to write the pitch.
You need to write that pitch to the magazine. You need to make sure that it's detailed, it fits the... whatever they're asking for, um, and it makes sense to... It, like, it's not just like a lazy attempt, right? So whenever you're handling calls for pitches, that's like pitching for magazines, like they're, I don't think there's ever going to be a business that says like calls for pitches.
And if they do, you wouldn't want to do that. The business would, that wouldn't make sense. Um, so you want to make sure that, um, you want to make sure that you're really going whole hog on getting that, that pitch together, um, and sending it as soon as you can. Um,
uh, yeah, this is a thing too. So there's also calls for pitches on social media. So there'll be editors on Twitter, mostly. It's sometimes on Instagram, but mostly on Twitter where they'll be like, Hey, uh, you know, DM me some pitches or like leave a comment. And like, if I'm interested in your pitch, I'll, I'll tell you to email me the full pitch.
Um, but yeah, like it's not, you still have to do the work. It's not that there's more work. Uh, there's still pretty much like, I still have tons of students. Yeah. Um, who are hunting down editor email addresses. Like, that's still a lot of work to go find their email. Um, and them sending you a pitch, like, on social media, you don't have the space, usually, you don't have the word count, um, in a DM on Twitter or Instagram to send the full pitch.
So you have to send, like, a little bit of it, and then they give you their email, and you're like, okay, cool. Um, but yeah, like you're still doing a lot of work. Uh, you're still finding their email. You're still doing a lot of things and most of the time like you're the editors at bigger magazines aren't going to do this Uh every once in a while they will but it's not a super common thing Okay, so calls for pitches are literal pitches.
We want to send pitches the good pitches. Don't do it lazily Um, and you want to make sure that you're not sending an LOI pitch hybrid like you need to send the pitch pitch Let's talk about four real quick So four, let's talk about four. So, um, one of the things that I think was interesting was the question of do clients think you're assuming you know better than them if you send a pitch versus an LOI.
I mean, no, like I don't, I don't think, I don't care, but also like, no, um, it's a weird, that's a weird thing. Like you're not going to send a pitch to a business because you're already kind of like, Assuming what they're doing. It's not that you know better than them. It's like you don't know anything about them So it's better to send the lois asking if they need help, right?
And you're like, hey, do you need help with content rather than what I used to do? Which is like write a two page loi be like here's all the reasons why you should do something And here's the stats and blah blah when they're like, that's nice. I don't need this. I need this, right? So we don't want to make the assumptions, but they're not there isn't like this Thing where you know better than them and your pitches would go to a magazine, right?
So they're asking for it like editors always need Editors always need more ideas editors always need Good ideas and they need more people To write for them and there's always kind of like this cycle that happens, right? So like go back to your have a whole Thank you. So like the cycle that happens. I have it in my hand bean The cycle that happens is like, you know, there's people who change, right?
There's people who change their business. There's people who end up doing different things. So like, for example, I was doing, um, I was doing like a lot of magazine work and now I'm not, and there's, there's always kind of this shift in, in people's businesses between how much they're doing and how much not, and.
Um, so there's always kind of like a change in what, like how much you're pitching or what you're doing. So editors are always needing pitches and your business will kind of change over that. Um,
um, Albert says he prefers hoarding ideas. Yeah, I do that sometimes too. Like I have big, um, I use Notion and I just like collect tons of stuff all the time. But um, editors always want you to send good ideas. They always want you to be pitching, um, Your job within LOI is just to ask if they need help.
We're not trying to like assume they need like 65 white papers or something like that. Like I think One of the main issues that I see is I often have these conversations of like well How do you sell the client and you're like you don't, you don't. Um, you, I just, I have never, like, whenever I did that, it was a huge disaster.
Uh, and I think that there's like this push of like, hey, you have to convince them, like, you gotta sell them on the idea of content and blah, no you don't. Basically all you do is you send your LOI, do you need help, you get on a call, and you listen to them, then you respond to them. Right? You get on a call with this client because we've already gone through the pre filtering process of sending our LOI.
And then we're like, Hey, tell us about what's going on. Right? Tell us about, um, all of your troubles and what do you need help with? And you listen to them. Then you respond. You don't just like react and be like, you know, it's, you shouldn't be on a client call where it's like a job interview where they're treating you like an employee.
And they're like, well, how are you going to da da da? And you're like, I don't know. Like, it's, it should be a natural conversation about the project. How are we going to do this project, right? Um, it shouldn't be this thing where they're trying to grill you for like 40 percent better, blah, blah, blah. Um, the only time where you would really get on a call like that would be if you're already doing something that's results driven.
So you would already have written, you know, 15 sales pages and they converted at a 20 percent rate and that would be something obvious that you would share, right? This isn't like, Blog posts need to have like 80 percent more traffic. Uh, I think that's just like we're missing the point like yes They will do that, but that's missing the point of the initial call so the idea of like having to sell someone or like stuff like that where our job is to listen and respond and Pay attention to what our clients need help with and explain how to help them with that What do you think you look like a sad little salmon over there?
You look like a collapsed eeyore Are you a sad collapsed eeyore? Here you go Good girl. Um, if you feel like this topic has been helpful so far, give it a thumbs up. If you want to learn more about building a high earning freelance writing business without overwhelm or burnout, subscribe. Good job, Charles.
So we want to make sure that we're kind of putting all these things together. Like we want to make sure that we're not making assumptions and we understand the difference between our pitches, right? So we want to make, um, we want to use those, um, we want to use our LOIs for businesses, our pitches for magazines.
And then if there's trade magazines, right, there's trade magazines that you want to reach out to that are industry specific. Then you can kind of do that LOI pitch hybrid where it's like the beginning part is your LOI, like half your LOI and the bottom is a bunch of headlines, three to four headlines you think would be a fit.
And you can tell them in there, Hey, if any of these headlines are interesting, I'm happy to write a full pitch for them. Nina says. This is a linkedin question. Would you recommend adding an elevator? Excuse me elevator pitch to your header. Like if you write a specific type of content how it helps companies I don't like one of the things so like if you look at my I finally updated it But if you look at my header like my head my image On LinkedIn, that's what you should be going for.
It should be scannable. We don't want to write a novel in there We don't want to make it nuts Um, you can go check my students too, so like, if you, uh, like there's, uh, a bunch of them in there too. Well, I guess you guys don't know all my students, but, um, you can check mine. And basically you want to make it scannable, like we don't want to write an elevator pitch.
We don't want to, it's an image, so it should be scannable and easy to get through. And it should be reference material where they're like, Oh, freelance content strategist and content marketer in these niches. Here's my website, here's my... Email to reach out to me. Right? Like it should not be your copy should be in your LinkedIn about section and your experience section Okay, let's get to Karina's other question.
So we have one question from Karina that she submitted So she said do you recommend? For your freelance right if your freelance writing business isn't profitable that you invest in a website or blog Squarespace like I have Squarespace on mine or use platforms like medium which pays for views on your writing So, um, I think it's better to start with LinkedIn.
I think if you are really worried about it and you don't want to create the copy for your website, it's better to start with LinkedIn, um, and have at least your LinkedIn profile set up and then you can start. Pay, like Squarespace is like 200 bucks, 250 bucks a year, so it's not pricey. Um, but there's also like Wix or Weebly or other website places that are cheaper.
I like Squarespace because it looks more pro and they have a ton of templates. So, it's not expensive, but I think it's worth it to do LinkedIn and then do your website. Um, I don't recommend Medium. I don't, I don't tell people to do that because they don't pay for your writing. Like, it's peanuts. They're not giving you, like, They're not giving you tons of money.
This is medium is just the new version of hub pages. There used to be a thing called hub pages. It probably still exists. You can probably go find my old hub pages that still exist. Um, but it was the same thing. They're like, oh, I'm making, you know, 250, 000 billion a year doing, you know, just with views and clicks.
And it's like, that's one person out of a million that's doing that. So you need to make sure, like I don't recommend medium because it's not, it's like the wild west and it's not, you're not going to, the likelihood that you would make money is really small. If you want to go on medium and you want to go for it, go for it.
I would never discourage you, like if you're like, hey, I really am interested in this and I'm passionate about it. I would never discourage you from doing that if you think it's the right move for you. But I also want to be clear about, like, it's not that you get on Medium and you make a bunch of money.
And it's like, oh, Medium is better than Squarespace because here's the deal. All that traffic is going to Medium. It's not going to you. So Medium, as a website, is now getting more traffic, SEO, blah, blah, blah, and getting better rather than your website starting to gain traffic and starting to get ranked and all that stuff.
So the website is something that comes up in search that's easily findable. So the the earlier you get on a website the more you update your copy the more you add clips Then your website grows in traffic and people being able to find it and all that stuff But medium is just growing as you feed it more stuff, right?
That's not the same thing like no one googles something in like an article from medium comes up every single time It might come up sometimes We are, we wanna funnel traffic to our own website. We want our website to be the thing where someone types in, you know, uh, freelance writer Austin, your website comes up super fast.
That's way worth your time and money to invest in and work on than using a platform that likely won't pay you, and that is not giving you the traffic to actually build your, your business. Right. Um, and not really helping you with like getting more people in, right? So I always feel like, um, that's part of the process.
Part of the process is getting the website. Part of the process is if you don't, if you really don't have the money, which is totally fine, start with LinkedIn, get something there. Um, but I am not a big fan of what medium or like, um, when people use like other websites for their portfolio, like you're not getting that traffic to your website.
The whole thing where, um, that's something that I always talk about is like people always, um, look at my website. My website used to come up on the first page as like the first result or something on like four or five different terms. And people were like, you must be good at SEO. And I'm like, no, I update my website.
Like I put in new clips, right? My website is written well, and I put in new clips, right? I'm constantly telling Google that there's new stuff on my website, right? So they're, that's what we want to do is make sure we're feeding our website and that it comes up because that's what your clients are doing.
Your clients aren't going to Medium. Your clients aren't like, where, who's the new writer on Medium? They're like, who is a professional person with a website or a LinkedIn where I can find them and read about them and see their clips? They're looking for like, they're a business or Publication who's Googling around or they're going on LinkedIn.
They're not looking around on Medium. Like, we are not trying to be like the diamond in the rough that no one can find. We're trying to be like the diamond in the rough that's like clearly visible that someone needs to, that like, we are working on making it shinier so people can find us, right? Some version of that.
What do you think? You're already a shiny diamond. You're already a cutie bean. Did you know that? You're already a cutie bean. Give everybody a high five? Yeah. Good girl. You're so sweet. So
funny. So I hope this was helpful. I hope this cleared up what an LOI is for and what a pitch is for, how we're using that in our business, um, how we're kind of handling calls for pitches, what are the other notes I have? Oh, and like what we're doing with assumptions and how we're moving forward. So I want to make sure that, um, it's clear like what we're using what for and how it works.
Um, and like I said, if you want to check out my templates that I use in my six figure business. If you go to mandyellis. com slash templates or you go to mandyellis. com slash bundle, um, it'll pull them up and you can check them out. So I have like my LOI in there, I have my LOI pitch hybrid, I have contract templates, uh, I have marketing and LinkedIn stuff in there.
So it's all the good beefy juicy stuff that I use in my own business still to this day for marketing. Um,
Yeah, this is, this is a different thing. So, like, there's so many blogs now. There's, like, places that, um, Like, a business has a blog, so you're not writing for, like, someone who has their home. Like, it's pretty rare, but Every once in a while you might write for someone who's, like, Has their own recipes and they have like a food blog that's theirs and you might write for them But most of the time it's like you're writing for a business and that business create Creates content on a blog or they create white papers and case studies And the other piece of content you do is the blog, right?
The blog is the thing that's generating traffic because the more blog posts, right? The more blog posts that you're putting out it's telling google that new things are happening on the website Um, so we're, it's not that, it's not, um, blogs have changed quite a lot in the last 20 years, like from when they really kind of started gaining traction, it's, it's probably been like 20 years ish.
So, blogs have changed a lot, and it's also like most of the time we're not writing for personal blogs. Sometimes we are, but most of the time it's like a business, and a business is like, Hey, this is how we're creating content. We're putting a blog post, and the blog posts are telling Google, like, This content is being refreshed.
This website is being added to, right? Um, and that's really good for getting traffic to your website. But it's not like you would, like, the content you would be writing would be more business content. Um, like you, the content that, let me back up, the content that I often write for businesses would be published in a magazine or it would be published in a newspaper, it's similar.
Um, it's like reported, um, it has research in it, like it's the same kind of stuff. So blog posts have also come a long way from where they were like everybody's personal journal to now they're like reported articles, they're like content that you get paid really well for where I write pretty much, like it's the same thing.
Like the, the articles that I write. For, um, magazines. I've been asked to do that for, for people's, like their business blog. So, yeah. Um, it just depends. Like, it's, uh, um, it depends on the business and depends on the focus as well. Okay, so I'm glad this was helpful. Charlie, do you think it was helpful? You want to give everybody one last high five?
You're not interested? One more? Yeah, good girl. Charlie's here to be cute. Charlie, we need to, like, get your sheets in the wash. Usually I trade them out, but they need to you've been like crawling all over them. What do you think? You're like, I don't know. I'm just here to be cute. So i'm glad this was helpful We're here every single friday at noon central time If you ever have a question or topic like we did kareena's topic and question today You can put them in at mandyales.
com slash question and I pop them up and answer them So if there's ever a topic or a question you want me to go over feel free to pop it in there Um, I hope everybody has a good weekend and a good friday, and I'll see you next week. Bye
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