IAM853- Founder Coaches Home-based Freelance Writers

Carol Tice is the founder of the award-winning Make a Living Writing blog (founded 2008) and Freelance Writers Den paid membership community (founded 2011), which now has 1400 members. She coaches home-based freelance writers on how to grow their income with her proven program, Freelance Writers Den 2X Income Accelerator. Her own freelance business ramped to six figures in the downturn of ‘08-’10. Her freelance clients have included Forbes, Entrepreneur, Seattle Magazine, Delta Sky, Costco, American Express, Deloitte, and many more. She’s the author of 2 print books and 10+ e-books.

• CEO Hack: Staying away from work for some time
• CEO Nugget: Think about where the winners are and align yourself with them
• CEO Defined: Understanding you can't do everything and delegating

Website: https://www.makealivingwriting.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-tice-freelance-writing-business-coach-book-ghostwriter/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/makealivingwriting

Free ebook The Recession-Proof Freelancer: https://www.makealivingwriting.com/recession-proof-freelancer

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Full Interview:

Transcription

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00:02 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:30 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today Carol Tice of Make a Living Writing Blog. Carol, it's awesome to have you on the show.

00:39 -Carol Tice

Hey, thanks for having me.

00:40 – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. Before I jumped in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Carol so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Carol is the founder of the award-winning Make a Living writing blog and Freelance Writers Den paid membership community, which now has over 1,400 members. She coaches home-based freelance writers on how to grow their income with her proven programs, Freelance Writers den 2X income accelerator. Her own freelance writing business ramped to 6 figures in the downturn of 2008 and 2010. Her freelance clients have included Forbes, Entrepreneur, Seattle Magazine, Delta Sky, Costco, American Express, Deloitte, and many, many more. She's the author of 2 print books and 10 plus ebooks. Carol, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:24 – Carol Tice

I'm ready, let's go.

01:25 – Gresham Harkless

Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story? When did you get started with all the awesome things you're working on?

01:34 – Carol Tice

Okay. Well, I got into freelance writing kind of by accident from songwriting. I entered a couple of essay contests that I won and both of those markets asked me to keep writing for them. And the next thing I knew, I was scrambling around taking some UCLA extension courses because back then there wasn't like online learning, and learning how to report mostly on the job. I feel like I'm the last person they let in the door before everyone had to have a J-School degree. I had 12 years of staff writing jobs, kinda I freelanced for about 5 years, then I had 12 years of staff writing jobs, and then in 2005 I got back into freelancing. And my blog just kind of grew out of outrage.

I saw I felt discovering the world of content mills and kind of writer exploitation and you know people getting paid 5 dollars to write things and wanting writers to know how to navigate the sort of emerging online content marketplace and not fall for scams which there are a lot that target writers not get ripped off, understand where the value clients, the good paying clients still were, how to stay out of what I call the underworld of freelance writing, the sort of Upwork Fiverr kind of, and content mill world, and earn well. And I thought maybe I'd write a few posts, maybe write an ebook about that and be done. And 1200 posts later and 12 ebooks later, there is still just so much need to learn about how to do freelancing as a business.

You know, people come out of the corporate space and they start writing or designing or something, editing, translating, but They don't have any business experience. And I think you and I having reported a lot on entrepreneurship and startups and small business and stuff had a unique advantage that we probably went, oh, I know what this is, it's a business, I should probably run it like one. But what I learned is that most freelance writers don't do that. They're following their muse, they're writing this and that, oh, someone asked them to write something, they say yes it's just very passive. They're hanging around the fiber, bidding on whatever's there rather than I need to steer this ship in the direction I want it to go and I need to do consistent marketing.

There is no little clothing boutique in your town that you would expect to stay in business if it never did sales or ads in the newspaper or chamber events at the store or put its name on the Little League jerseys or nothing. But freelancers somehow expect their business to just sort of work by magic and without doing any marketing. So that's kind of what I bring to the table is that marketing discipline. I know you touched on a little bit about what we can find on your blog and in your community. Can you drill down a little bit deeper and tell us a little bit more about that and how you serve the clients you work with?  Yeah, so the paid community grew out of a couple of things.

One was that I joined a paid community for a blog-based business called A-List Blogger Club which was run by Leo Bavauda from Zen Habits and Mary Yaks. And as soon As I got in it, I just went, this is amazing and there needs to be something like this for freelance writers. And there isn't. And I started musing about creating it. And then I went to SaabCon, which was Liz Strauss's successful online business conference, the limit 100-person thing in Chicago, years ago, this is like 2010. She sadly died recently, but I met a huge number of influencers there. Chris Brogan, so many, many people. Carol Roth, Tim Sanders, and Derek Halpern are just so many.

And I came out of kind of the inspiration and the things I learned there, resolved to launch it. And 90 days later, like it was launched. I just like took a credit card, and spent 3 grand I didn't have. And when I got to stop talking about this and provide it. So the other side of it was that I just kept getting emails that were like, oh my God, I have a client meeting tomorrow. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to bid. I don't know what to do. And I knew that I couldn't be the free 24-7 dear Abby of freelance writers for the rest of my life and that there was a need for, kind of real-time information and that ability to benchmark rates with a community and just a lot of freelance writers operate in a lot of isolation and freelancers in general.

We're in our house, everyone's kind of learning what this is like now to just be kind of home alone trying to do this and it's hard to connect and have kind of that sense of community and that's why I started a community and I get people who are American ex-pats abroad, people living in very small towns, even people in big cities who just don't seem to find that community where they can say, oh, I'm thinking about bidding this to this kind of client. What do you think about those rates? And now they said this and my check is late and what do I do now and that they just have so many questions and so this platform is where they get them answered.

We have been creating trainings for every year 3, 4 new trainings every year since 2011. So we now have like 300 hours of training about how to do every blessed, decent-paid type of writing and how to market your business as a newbie, as a mid-career. So we're kind of like the Lynda.com of freelance writing information. It's an all-you-can-eat kind of platform. My dog's going to bark. Someone's at the door. Hang on a second. No worries.

07:03 -Gresham Harkless:

Well, Carol, I definitely appreciate that. And so you might've already touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. It could be for yourself or your business or a combination of both, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

07:15 – Carol Tice:

That's a good question. The thing is you read a lot online about creating platforms that run on autopilot and you make money in your sleep and blah blah blah and that's not my business. And It's really not the business of almost anyone I know in online business, any of my mentors. We all run very high-touch businesses. I run coaching programs where it's like 50 people are alone with me for 6 months on forums every day and on live masterminds. In general, what I find is people pay for access to you and access to your information. When we run classes, we're giving homework feedback on forums.

I have almost nothing that just sort of is here grab this self-study e-course thing and go off and I don't know if my audience has too many questions for that that I just don't think that's really I mean maybe it could be if I could care less and be like, okay, bye, I'm on a beach but I guess that hasn't been how I wanted to do business and how I think you impact people's lives in a meaningful way. In my space, I feel like people need to hear from me and the other pro writers on our den moderator team staff and get input on their specific situation. And so I'd say, don't buy the myth. Don't imagine you're just gonna set some e-course on autopilot and do some SEO and you know, it's just going to make you a fortune.

Like I just don't know anyone that happens for we get down in the trenches and work hard for people. And maybe that's just come because I come from a working-class background and am used to hard work and believe in, earning it. But that's how it's worked for me and I think that's what you can bring that no 1 else can bring. Everybody can throw something online and I think it doesn't feel authentic and it doesn't help people to the degree that it does when you are really available. And you can do that in a mass way, you know, 50 people at a time or like with the den 1400 people at a time. But There needs to be a point where you're living with them and they're looking into your eyes and they can tell that you care about them in a very personal way.

There are just a lot of scams and rip-offs on the internet and people out there to just make a quick buck off of people. And people are very sensitive about that at this point. I think most people are pretty sophisticated consumers of online learning and online information. And you have to be different. When I do emails I give out my cell phone number and say, do you have a question about this class? Like, call me up. And some of them do just to see what I'll answer. And if I'm a real person and people need that. And I get that, you know?

10:26 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, that's so huge.

10:28 – Carol Tice:

I just think that there's a reason that most people don't do paid community because it is very high touch and they don't want to put in the time or they open a community like that and then it's a ghost town. The forums are a ghost town, no one's responding and it all just kind of dies away. They have a hundred percent monthly churn, you know, people join and they quit and they don't end up it because they're not really there for people.

10:51 – Gresham Harkless:

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an alpha book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

11:01 – Carol Tice

I am a Sabbath keeper. I am always offline from Friday sunset to actually through to Sunday morning. I could technically religiously come back on after sunset as a Jew on Saturday night, But I learned that that was a bad idea because I work on Friday until Shabbos and then I would come back on Saturday and then Sunday I would always want to get a little jump on Monday and then the night what do you know I'm working 7 days a week. So I try and stay away from all the work stuff and in online business there is just a tyranny of this idea that you have to be always on, always on, always on, always responding, and I'm here to tell you it's a lie and that you're gonna burn out if you do that. And it is like a disease.

11:43 – Gresham Harkless

So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:54 – Carol Tice:

Well, I guess I want to go to my sort of recession-proof freelancer type of advice because, you know, There's a lot of chaos right now and a lot of people are worried about how their business is doing. And what I learned in the last recession when I was building my freelance writing business to 6 figures in 2008, 9, 10, right in there is in every economic cataclysm, it's not all losers. It's winners and losers. Think about where the winners are, both which industries are winning and within a space who is winning.

Because If you go towards the winners and align yourself with them, there is so much work. I get on with my coaching students and I'm like, I'm worried about you guys, do you have clients? And they're like, oh my God, so swamped. I haven't been on in months, sorry. You know, so behind with checking in with you all because I'm busy with everyone I know who understands how to market their business and follow the money in the marketplace, and who is winning is very busy right now and has a lot of clients and a lot of work.

12:58 – Gresham Harkless:

I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Carol, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:08 – Carol Tice:

The thing about being a CEO is that you can't do everything that you have to delegate and that we have a hard time letting go. And I feel like that's kind of been the story of my business is that I was always really slow to delegate each thing that I needed to delegate. And then as soon as I got someone doing it and I wasn't doing it, it was always just like, oh my God, this is so much better. Why did I not delegate this so long ago?

You know, is that when I first started hiring a webmaster, I was paying him like 500 bucks a month or something and nothing was getting done and I was still doing a million things and we weren't getting any projects done And then I heard like a real webmaster at a real wage. And all of a sudden the business started to go, you know, and I was just like, God, why didn't I invest that money before? Like, don't be afraid to invest in outsourcing what you, isn't a core thing that you are good at.

13:59 – Gresham Harkless:

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Carol, truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about your eBooks and all the awesome things that you're working on.

14:15 – Carol Tice:

Well, all my ebooks are at makealivingwriting.com and the Recession Proof Freelancer, it's free. Go get it, it's free. It's really the best place to start getting to know what I teach about freelancing, 1200 free posts, can't be wrong. You can learn about the community site through there or visit freelancewritersden.com. And what else did you want from me?

14:37 – Gresham Harkless:

Anything additional you want to let us know?

14:39 – Carol Tice:

I don't know. I just, the thing is I talked at the beginning about that time I was, I spent musing about opening paid community and then I went and did it. And, and I'm sorry, I didn't do it a year sooner. You know, I think that you have so little to lose and so much to gain in going after a business idea that you have. Just understand that if you have a business idea you are a rare breed of person, most people like they hate their corporate job, but they are never going to have the courage to do this, to go for something like that.

And what's the worst thing that happens? You crawl back and go get another day job and save up some money again. Do it, don't have regrets that you wanted to be your own boss and run your own life, but you just kind of never scraped up the nerve to try it. And the barriers to entry in online business now are so low. It's not like you have to sell a family farm to do it. So do it, just do it and listen to your audience and find out what they need from you and deliver it and you won't go wrong.

15:51 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Find that out and do it over and over again and that will lead you to success. So I truly appreciate that reminder. We will definitely have the links and information in the show notes as well. But I think I love that last point because so many times we think the fear or the pain is really in trying and failing, but the real pain is in regret and never trying anything at all and wondering if we could have done it. So I appreciate you for obviously reminding us of that, for creating community and opportunity for people to do that as well. So I appreciate you so much and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

16:22 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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