Episode #19: How to become a highly paid service provider
When I started my business in 2018, I was charging £15 an hour. Maybe even less. In just a few years, I’ve gone from cheap service provider to premium service provider.
In this episode, I walk you through the five strategies that enabled me to charge more and become a highly-paid service provider (so you can become one too!)
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Wanna join Like a Boss?
Like a Boss (my 12-week live programme for online service providers) is now open for enrollment!
To get the details or to save your spot, go to https://emancopyco.com/lab-tle
Only 16 spots available. Doors close on 5th March.
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Eman Ismail: Hey, and welcome to Mistakes That Made Me, the podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistake so you know what not to do on your road to success. Mistakes That Made Me is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. And I am Eman Ismail, your host.
This episode is not an interview. Instead, I'm going to be talking about how I became a highly paid service provider and how you can too. And in that, I'm going to be talking about some of the mistakes you might be making that are stopping you from becoming a highly paid service provider right now.
I want you to know that the doors to my 12-week coaching program for service providers, Like A Boss, is now open. Like A Boss takes you from order take a freelancer to boss business owner. Like I said, the doors are open right now and they close in seven days on the 5th of March.
This launch is a little bit different because this is a program that has traditionally only been open to copywriters, but now I'm relaunching, re-recording all the training, redoing all the training, updating it all so that it applies to all service providers. Because as I was looking at this program and the people that I've helped through this program—because I've been running it for three years now—I realised that it's not just for copywriters, it's for all service providers. So I'm inviting you to join, and this episode gives you a little taste of what we're focused on inside Like A Boss—the kind of things you'll learn, the kind of things I share.
And so if you like this episode, check out the invite page. The link is in the show notes. It might well be that Like A Boss is for you. Now, there are only 16 spots open because I only open this program once a year. I put so much into it. There are the core trainings, the video trainings, and then there's the Slack community and fortnightly Q&A calls, and it runs for 12 weeks. I put so much energy into this, I can only run it once a year right now in this season of life that I'm in.
So, like I said, only 16 spots, I'm running this live version just once this year. The next time it'll be available is in 2025. Doors close in seven days on the 5th of March, and I really hope to see you inside. Go check out the invite page. Link is in the show notes. You can see testimonials from past members, check out their results, and find out what I'm teaching you in the core training. Like I said, this is not the first time I'm running it. I've been running this for three years now, and it's been a really successful program and I'm so excited to open it up to all service providers.
Okay, let's get into today's show.
How I became a highly paid service provider and how you can too. First of all, let me remind you about what I actually do. I'm an email strategist and copywriter, which means I help business owners and make money through email, basically, and it's really not just about making money through email. It's about strengthening your relationship with subscribers, it's about being able to nurture your subscribers much better so that when it's time to launch, they're opening your emails, they're enjoying your emails, they are buying from you.
I work with a bunch of service providers, so that's one-to-one service providers. I work with course creators, coaches, even e-commerce brands as well, all doing all different types of emails for them. I do a lot of launches too, and my rates are what I would call reassuringly expensive. So you know that this person probably knows what they're doing when you look at my rates, and then you got to go verify that I know what I'm doing. It's one of those, right?
But I wasn't always a highly paid service provider. My lowest rate was when I first started out. I was charging £10, £15 an hour. And I very quickly realised that I could not survive on that, that when you are freelancing, when you're a business owner, you have so many costs and expenses and things to consider from paying yourself, to taxes, to the tools and systems that we use to run our business. I could not survive on £10 to £15 an hour. And so I needed to figure it out.
I do go into that journey a lot more in my two previous solo episodes, so go check them out if you haven't listened to them already. That's the celebration of my fifth business anniversary and then also my end-of-year review. So I won't go into that too much, but, I know what it feels like to not be a highly paid service provider and to look around and think, how is everyone else doing it?
When I think about what a highly paid service provider means right now, like what is the actual definition of that, I realise that the term highly paid is subjective. So for me, a highly paid service provider is not charging hourly anymore, not having hourly-based prices, which usually don't work out in the favor of the service provider because you get punished for being good. The faster you are at your job, the less you get paid, which is quite funny because when you start out, it would take you longer to do that thing because you're still kind of figuring it out and you would get paid more because it takes you longer. Hourly pricing, when it's done like that, it doesn't make sense.
So for me, a highly paid service provider means someone who is no longer pricing hourly. It is value-based pricing. You are pricing the work based on not what you're worth as a person because I think that's really unhelpful, but what the work is worth. What is the work valued at?
It's gut-based pricing sometimes where you look at a price and you feel like that doesn't feel good. Like in my gut, that doesn't feel good, so I'm going to raise it a little bit. Or you look at it and you think, “Okay, my gut is telling me that's a bit too high. I'm going to bring that down a little bit.”
So you're working on instinct sometimes as well. And I don't mean purely off instinct. You'll have your pricing calculator or your calculations that you use to figure your prices out, but then you rely on your gut to help you make those decisions too.
It also means resentment-free pricing for me. So I now am at a place where I don't end up resenting projects or clients because I'm not charging enough. I am happy with what I'm charging, and I am happy with the projects that I'm working on, and I am happy with my clients. It is totally resentment-free.
It also for me means pricing that allows for generosity without undercutting yourself. So for example, currently working on a project right now, and I'm realising that actually, the client probably needs a little bit more than I initially thought she did, but instead of going back—and this is not to say that everyone needs to do this, but this is something I like to do because, again, I factor this into my prices, and I feel good about it knowing what I charge.
I don't need to go back to my client and say, "Oh, I need to do this extra thing for you. Here's an invoice." I can just kind of swallow that and just do it and be able to present it to her as a little extra kind of add-on, like, "I saw this is what you needed, and this is what I decided to go ahead and do for you. Don't worry. It's on me." I love to be able to do that. And I love to have pricing that allows me to do that.
So that is pricing that allows for generosity. And I do want to just attribute that idea, the way that's worded, to Amy Posner, who was the first person I think to ever talk about that idea of generosity in your pricing.
So to give you a little bit more of my history, when it came to pricing, things have changed dramatically now. So it's kind of like, well, how did you get from there to here? How did you get from charging £15 an hour or £10 an hour to—and I've changed the currency that I charge in. So I'm going to be talking about dollars from now on. How'd you go from that to charging $15,000 for a project, $20,000, $6,000 for a VIP week? That's quite a big gap, right?
And I do just want to say that it's been five years, first of all. So this didn't happen overnight. There is no secret recipe. It's hard work and consistency. And then also I think some business savviness, really. But in terms of that wide gap, I initially started off charging very low prices. I then kind of got to a place where I was making, I want to say a year in, less than a year really, but yeah, less than a year in, I had my first £4,500-month, which wasn't consistent, like it wasn't an every month kind of thing, but that was the moment I remember thinking, "Oh, I can make good money from this." So that was a real turning point for me.
And then it became, "Okay, how do I consistently make that or more every month?" So that's then what I started to work towards. Then of course, COVID happened and my business, oh, I was going to say my business went to—but I try to keep this podcast not explicit. [laughs] So I won't say what my business went to during those months of COVID. But it was really difficult. The nursery closed, so my son was at home full-time, as was the case for every parent. My co-working space of course closed, so I had nowhere to work.
I remember at one point working with the ironing board underneath me. Gosh, this is only a few years ago. And I say this now as I'm sat in my dream home office. So I do just want to say, I used to dream about this home office when I was stood up with the ironing board and a bunch of shoe boxes on top of my ironing board and my laptop on top of the shoe boxes, multiple, holding onto the laptop to try and make sure the laptop didn't fall down. And I remember dreaming about my home office back then. And so I just want to remind you that, anything is possible. Anything is possible and really, just honestly keep dreaming because this, where I'm sat right now, might not be a lot to other people, but it's a lot for me.
So that was my situation in COVID. I remember making like £300 profit one month. It got that bad. And then there was some months where I really just made nothing. I think there was one month where I really just wasn't even working. I just spent our lockdown days, 'cause we were allowed one walk a day in the woods with my son, and just tried to make the most of spending time with him. And funnily enough, those are some of our fondest memories.
Fast forward a little bit to August, September 2020, I started having 10K months working with dream clients. This is a whole other story in itself as to how this happened, but things really turned around. And then I remember worrying at the time that this was just a fluke, but then kind of month after month after month, I kind of realised, "Okay, no, I think I get this now. I think I get it." And so, within the next couple of years, I'd had another baby, started having my first six-figure years, and now, fast forward to 2023, I ended 2023 on just under 160K in revenue. That was with nine clients.
And if I remember correctly from my end-of-year review, 80% of that was made up of one-to-one client work and the rest of the 20% was made up of digital products, courses, that kind of thing. And so, there's a big gap between where I was and where I am now. And I've been able to really just reverse engineer what happened, and I want to share that with you today. I want to share some of the main things that helped me become a highly paid service provider so that if you're not where you want to be, or you want to be charging even more, then hopefully this will help you.
I do wanna just say that nothing I'm about to say is magical. All of it is simple, all of it is strategic, and some of it is gonna seem a bit scary as well. I'm gonna be talking about a lot of the mistakes that I see service providers making that's probably stopping you from becoming highly paid, and I'm gonna share that in five steps. Okay. You ready? Let's do this.
First things first, you want to raise your rates frequently for new clients. That was one thing I did that was game-changing for me. I really think one of the worst business mistakes you can make is to stay at the same rate for years and years, because not only are you not making more money, you're actually losing money year on year [laughs] because of inflation, right?
I remember meeting someone who had been in the same business as me for years and years, decades, and at that point, I think I'd been in business for three years, and they told me their rate, and I was utterly shocked, utterly shocked, because that's what I'd been charging in my first year of business. And now I was in, I think my third year by that point. And they shared with me that they hadn't increased their rate for about—I want to say it was something insane, like 10 years.
So this person was actually a coach. And that was really shocking for me because, again, only three years in business at this point, and I already know that I can't take advice from you because that is a terminal mistake for a business owner. I get that there's this idea of needing to pay your dues. You feel like you need to be at a certain point that feels low to you. Maybe you feel like you need to be there because, I don't know, you're paying your dues. I can't charge as much as I want to because I'm new to this, but it's often not true.
Now, I don't want to inflate people's confidence because, realistically, you'll know whether you have imposter syndrome and you need to charge more and you're just struggling with charging more, or whether your prices are low because you need to get better at what you do. You'll know the difference. So I don't want to inflate people's confidence where it shouldn't be inflated. However, I do want to say you don't need to punish yourself with low rates.
A lot of the time, we really underestimate the experience that we have come from, the experience that we have, the background that we have. It's almost like we remove that background entirely when we become a business owner, as if none of it matters, as if from day one as a business owner, we think that we've done nothing else that matters, that contributes to our experience as a business owner.
I have met writers who become copywriters and charge very low rates because they think, "Well, I'm new to business, so I have to pay my dues," but you've been writing for these national publications for the past five years. So this is what I'm talking about here. You need to consider those transferable skills and that transferable experience. Often, you're not starting from scratch. You don't need to suffer. You don't need to charge low rates to pay your dues.
If you raise your rates frequently for new clients, it means that you can move through the confidence issues that you're having around charging. So for me, I found it very difficult to randomly announce that my rates had increased. So what I did instead was I would raise my rates very slowly after every single project. I didn't want to make big dramatic changes. So instead, what I would do is I would raise my rate after every single project, just by a little bit. I did it that way because of my low self-confidence. I wasn't sure people would pay me what I wanted them to pay me. And so I did it little by little.
In five months, I went from charging for a VIP week $997 to $1,500 to $1,997 to $2,500 to $3,000 to $3,250. That was in the space of five months. So from $997 to $3,250 because after every client came to me, I would increase my rate slightly because I knew that the work I was doing was good. I was getting great feedback from the clients before. I was getting great results from the clients before. So I knew that I could raise my rate, and so I did it incrementally.
Now, I want to say, three years later, I'm charging $6,000 for that same VIP week. If that sounds completely crazy to you, it doesn't have to be that dramatic of a jump. It could maybe just be you going from $500 with one client to $550 with the next. A lot of service providers want to know how they can earn more fast. I've recently been speaking to friends who have had slow months, and their immediate reaction to having a slow month or needing to earn more quickly is to create something new, is to launch a new product is to launch a new course, but actually, the fastest way to earn more is to charge more.
Now, I say this with the disclaimer that of course, you should be good at what you do if you want to charge more. So I'm going to assume that we all know that and I don't need to say that. But, again, if you don't feel comfortable raising your prices, just raise them incrementally, raise them little by little, but frequently. This will never not be scary, so stop waiting for it to not be scary. Raising your rates is always scary, even if it's just by a little bit. It never stops being scary. Even now for me at five and a half years in business.
I was just speaking to a client yesterday who told me that I need to dramatically raise my rates. This is a client, a paying client. Before she actually said that to me, she said, "I know this is to my detriment, but I'm going to tell you anyway." And then proceeded to tell me that I need to raise my rate, and that she was surprised by how inexpensive I was. So, even with her telling me, the idea is not—it's not comfortable. It doesn't feel comfortable. And I don't think it ever will feel totally comfortable, but I think we kind of just have to get used to that discomfort. Stop waiting for it to not be scary because it will always be scary. You got to do it anyway, right?
One of the things you're probably scared about when it comes to raising your rates is people saying no to you, is people saying no to those new rates, right? So ways to decrease the fear and risk around that is to first of all work on having savings.
I feel like not enough business owners talk about this, that this is really a very important, I think, part of being a business owner is to create a savings, or some people like to call it an FU fund, that allows you to say no to the wrong clients and the wrong projects, but also allows you to have a little bit more confidence when you go into a situation with increased rates so that you're not a hundred per cent reliant on that person saying yes because you have savings.
I didn't have savings for a very long time in my business, but when I made it a priority, even if it was just—I remember at the beginning it was just putting 5% aside a month. And then you slowly work on increasing that. But if you can put anything aside month on month, it'll be really helpful for you to just have a little bit more confidence when you're going into these situations with increased rates.
I do also want to say something else that I think not a lot of people talk about, is that sometimes when you're in this transition of going from maybe not charging so much to increasing your rates, sometimes it means that you have to take on less than ideal projects and less than ideal clients to pay the bills because I feel like ideal projects and ideal clients are for a time when things are going really well in business. But sometimes things aren't going really well in business.
And I think it should be said that it's okay for you to take on less-than-ideal projects and less-than-ideal clients when you need to pay the bills. That's nothing to be ashamed of. It's nothing to run away from. We've all done it. We all do it. As long as you feel like you can help the client, maybe it's not the ideal project that you want, but it'll pay the bills.
Everyone secretly does this. Every business owner does it. There's a time in our business when we all do it. And I think that anytime you're making a transition in your business, this comes about. And if you can get comfortable with doing it and knowing that it's not a failure and it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong, it's just business, that will also help you to not be scared of taking risks because you know that you'll do the thing that you don't necessarily want to do when you need to do it, and that will help you get to a place where you can increase your rates, go into rooms with increased rates, and say, "This is my rate," and know that if they say no, you're going to be okay.
So that first one was about raising your rates frequently. And I will say that I specifically only do that for new clients. I don't raise my rates frequently for existing clients because can you imagine? That's awful. I do raise my rates frequently for new clients. So I work with one client and then we have a set price. And then another client may come in, a new client may come in asking for a similar thing, and then I'll increase my price for them, knowing that, "Okay, this is now my new rate." And I can keep it at that rate for a little while if I want, or when the next new client comes in, I might increase it slightly again for them. But for those individual clients, I'm never frequently increasing the rate for them because that would be truly awful. So just to clarify that.
Stick around. Don't go anywhere. We'll get right back to this episode after this quick break.
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Number two. Next up, I want you to hang out in the right rooms. Okay, this one's going to be controversial because someone is going to say that I am teaching pay to play. I am not teaching this idea of paying to play. That's not what I'm doing here. But I will say that when I started getting more intentional about the rooms I was hanging out in, and this includes virtual rooms as well, when I stopped spending time in the wrong rooms, things really started to change for me.
And I know this works for some people, but it did not work for me—I stopped hanging around in free Facebook groups. I stopped hanging around at free local networking groups. And let me just clarify, because that's not entirely true. I kept going to the free networking groups, but I changed my expectation of what was coming from it, what was going to come from it.
So instead of going to these free local networking groups and thinking, "Okay, I am gonna find my next new client here," because that never happened, I instead would go to this event and think, "You know what, I'm going to have a really great time here. I'm going to make some new business friends. I'm going to get to know my local community, my local business community. I am going to give myself this morning off every week so that I can just meet new people."
And so just changing the expectation from "I'm gonna go to this event and sign new clients with my not low rates," things started to really change for me. I started to be very intentional about where I went and why I went instead of hanging out in free Facebook groups and expecting to find a new big client in there, instead of going to free local networking groups and expecting to find my next big client there, which, by the way, is totally possible, but it's definitely, in my experience, the exception, not the rule.
I instead started being very intentional about joining paid communities. And, again, I didn't join all the paid communities. I was very intentional about which ones I joined. Had a look at my budget and decided I have the budget to join this paid community where my ideal clients are because the reality is if my ideal clients are paying to be in this room, they have a bit of disposable income, as in business income. They may well then have the money to hire someone like me, whereas the reality was the people at the free local networking group didn't have the budget to hire me.
And this has made people annoyed in the past, and I've said it before, but you have to understand that my rates are not cheap. And so my rates are really not for everyone. It's really not. My rates are for people who are making I want to say like low to mid six figures, seven figures upwards. And so just being realistic, my experience taught me that this is not where those people ordinarily are hanging out. So where are they hanging out? That was what I needed to find out.
I started speaking in paid communities instead of speaking in free communities, instead of holding workshops in loads of free communities, like I did for a very long time, I started holding workshops, webinars, that kind of thing, in paid masterminds, in paid memberships where people were paying to be in there because those people who were paying to be in that membership or mastermind, their business usually had more money to then hire me.
Can you find great clients in these free spaces? Absolutely. Again, I do want to say that, but it's the exception. It's really not the rule, especially when your rates are where mine are. Now, I think this exercise of being really intentional about the rooms that you're hanging out in, the rooms that you're spending time in, for me, I found that spending time in free communities, free groups, free networking groups, that kind of thing, was really helpful for brand awareness. Again, creating new relationships and friendships, but not necessarily for quality lead generation.
I want you to think about where your high-paying clients are. Where could they be? Are the people you're targeting ready to work with you right now? If you were to increase your rates, are these people ready to work with you and to hire you at these rates? If they are, then fantastic. If not, then you know that you need to start thinking, well, where are my potential high-paying clients? Where are they? Where can I meet them? Even if it's virtually. Do they understand your value and what you do?
I know that a lot of the people I used to speak to initially didn't understand my value. They didn't understand what I did. And I don't mean my value as a person. I mean, literally in the value of the work that I did. I was speaking initially when I first started to small business owners who had no idea what a copywriter was. Why was I hanging around in groups thinking I was going to get clients from these groups when these same people are the people that I'm having to tell what a copywriter even does? They have no idea, and that's not their fault. It's not their fault. It's my fault. What was I doing?
I'm telling them what a copywriter is, and in the same sentence, expecting them, inviting them to hire me. Why on earth would they hire me when they don't even understand what I do? Are they at the right stage of awareness in the buying journey? Do they have the budget to work with you? I can tell you I used to work with a lot of charities, and charities absolutely do have budget. They have budget. They have the budget. But I really got tired of all the budget talk. I got tired of the trying to bring me down, bring the price down, or "We're a charity, give us a discount because we're a charity." I used to work in a charity so I know that the budget is there most of the time.
And then I decided, okay, I'm going to work with small business owners because I got tired of the charity conversations. But then I realised, well, the super small business owners that I was working with, they don't have the budget to hire me. They're so early on in their business journey that they are not even—they wish they could hire a copywriter, but they're not at the stage where they can.
And then, even then, when I started working with clients whose businesses were making 100K a year, I realised that even those businesses don't have the budget to work with me a lot of the time because when you're making 100K, you're really still figuring out the profit expenses thing. A lot of the time, there's still not a lot of disposable income there. You're paying yourself, you're paying the expenses for the business, and then often there's not a lot left for hiring.
And so it really made me rethink, who is my ideal client? Where can I find them? So in terms of where my top clients have come from, definitely word-of-mouth referrals, and I always ask for referrals, and my clients will give me referrals, but I also ask for them too. And I found that once you're in the right room, you want to work to stay in that room. Again, I'm talking about virtual room, okay?
I remember my first seven-figure business owner client. And then what happens is when you do a good job for them, well, then they will either refer you to their friends who are usually also seven-figure plus business owners, or you ask for a referral. And hopefully, they will share you with their community who are people at a similar stage of business as they are.
And so, again, I found that once you find your way into the right room and you work to stay in that room, you really can stay in that room, you really can make the most of it. So it's really about, I find, finding that first really well-paying client. The first client who is happy to pay your higher rates I feel like is the hardest. I feel like once you get over that hurdle, you can definitely stay within that community of people who want to keep paying your higher rates.
The third step to becoming a highly paid service provider is attracting better clients with better processes. Now, I love this one because I am addicted to processes and systems. The reason is because processes create a certain perception and expectation around pricing. So before you've even told someone what your price is, they're already making assumptions about what your prices might be based on the experience that they've had with you.
So if you have a messy or non-existent client process, you're giving cheap service provider vibes. So this person who is potentially hoping to work with you is already expecting that your prices are going to be low. And then if your prices come back higher than they expect it to be because they've started making these perceptions and expectations, they're going to be shocked. [laughs] They're going to be shocked.
When your process is clear and organised and you come across as a complete pro from the beginning, you give highly paid service provider vibes. The person you're talking to knows that you're not going to be cheap, and they start mentally preparing themselves for a higher price than maybe what maybe other people have been quoting them.
There are so many different parts to what better processes actually means, but here's one example. So I—I mean, I feel like I just keep talking about people that I have let go, but I was working with a video editor that I really enjoyed working with. His videos were great. He was really great at taking feedback. I had just added him onto my Asana, and you know, if you've been following me on social—which, by the way, if you're not, go find me @emancopyco on Instagram. But if you have been following me on social or you're on my newsletter, link in show notes, you will know how much I love Asana, how much Asana is helping me right now, how it's just completely changed my business.
I let him into my Asana. I basically let him into my entire heart and soul, okay? For me, that was like the golden seat, like this relationship is set now. And then, unfortunately, I had to let him go. I had to let him go. I had to let him go because he couldn't deliver on time. And his processes from the very beginning told me that, you know, I knew the processes needed work. I knew that, but I'd hoped that we could figure it out together. And in the end, I had to let him go because he just couldn't deliver on time. He just kind of ghost me and then deliver two days after he said he was going to, which was a real shame, but processes mattered to me.
And so I actually ended up hiring someone who charges 30% more than him. And I calculated that percentage just for you, just for this episode. I ended up hiring someone who charges 30% more than him, just for the added peace of mind of hiring someone who had better processes and could deliver on time.
Clients will pay more for better systems, better processes, better customer service. They will. I've seen this. It is the situation. And I want you to know that the client process doesn't start with the start of the project. The client process starts at the first point of engagement or contact. So think about where that is for you. Is that your website? Is it your Instagram? Is it your LinkedIn? Where is the first point of engagement for that client when it comes to you? This first point of engagement sets the scene. Again, it sets those expectations around how much really it's going to cost to work with you.
It's the difference between walking into a shabby takeaway where you wait for your food by the till or the cash register, and a high-end restaurant where the waiter walks you to your seat. You know that you're not going to be paying very much in the shabby takeaway where you just walk up to the till and you just kind of stand by the till and wait for your food, till being cash register for lovely Americans. When you walk into a restaurant and it says, wait to be seated. Please wait to be seated. Okay, this is fancy. This is fancy. I'm going to stand here, and I'm going to wait to be seated. Okay.
And then a waiter comes, and he comes with, or her, they come in their vest, and they walk you to the seat, and then they hand out the menus, you're immediately like, "Oh God," well I don't know about you, but I'm immediately like, "Let me just check out these prices because I don't know how much it's gonna cost." I'm mentally preparing myself. This is a fancy place. What are the prices? They're gonna be a bit higher than I was maybe hoping for. That's the difference, really, between that first point of engagement when the person has no process, really has no process, and on the other side of that, the person very much does have a process.
And this client process that I'm talking about is made up of five parts. And you have to nail every part if you want to be a highly paid service provider. The first part is the qualification/inquiry stage. Again, that first point of engagement when they first inquire to work with you. The next part is the onboarding. The next part is the delivery. The next part is the offboarding. And the final part is re-engagement. A lot of service providers think that the client process ends at offboarding, when you've delivered the project, and then you say like, "Here's everything you need," and then that's it. Well no, the final stage is actually re-engagement.
I want to just read out part of a testimonial that a client wrote for me. And I think this whole sentiment is probably one of the most common pieces of feedback that I get from my clients, which is this idea that they had a great customer experience. They had a great customer experience. They always knew what was happening when it was happening. They never felt like they had been left or abandoned. They always felt like they were in safe, good hands. And that sounds really dramatic, but I can tell you as someone who hires a lot of service providers, that it's not the case that everyone makes you feel that way.
So, this is Cori Javid, one of my lovely clients. She actually said this on a call with me, and she then gave me permission to turn it into—she gave me her consent to turn it into a testimonial. Cori said, "Eman does a really slick job with customer experience. If I'm honest, it's rare to find someone whose processes are so slick and where communication is so on point. I was never thinking, 'Where are we at?' or 'What's happening?' or 'What's going on?'. I know a lot of people who've been burnt by copywriters in terms of their work coming back and being really disappointing. They've had to rewrite everything. I've seen that happen so many times, and I don't actually know anyone who's had a really great copywriting experience. But Eman is a star. I love the email sequence she wrote for me. It rocks. Working with her has just been such a good process for me."
And again, I share that because Cori was probably the first person to say that to me. This was a few years ago. And then since then, I have found that the majority of my clients say the same thing because what they really want is not just the work that you're delivering, but the peace of mind and the absence of stress that comes with working with you. And if you can provide that for them and do it really well, they'll pay you more for it.
I'm not going to all five parts of the client process that I just mentioned because it's a lot, but I do just want to highlight a couple of parts. The first part I want to highlight is the qualification/inquiry process because I want you to understand how this helps me land higher-paying clients. So the first thing is that you've really got to qualify your leads better so you stop wasting time talking to the wrong people.
My inquiry form that people fill in if they want to work with me is actually a test because it's hard to get on a sales call with me. As someone with two kids, I don't have time to just be getting on calls with people who aren't a serious candidate to work with me. I recently received an email from someone who kind of bypassed my inquiry form and said, "Hey, I'm interested in working with you. Are you free to chat tomorrow on a call at 12.00?" Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I am not free tomorrow at 12.00 to chat on a call. And actually, this happened quite a few times this week. This week in particular, it's happened a lot.
Now, the reason I'm not available to chat, to get on a call tomorrow is because I need to qualify you. I need to make sure that we're both on the same page. Why? Because what's the point in me wasting my time getting on a call? And also you wasting your time getting on a call if we're not on the same page. So let's talk about some things. Let's figure out whether I can even help you with your project. Let's figure out what your budget is. Let's figure out whether you even need what I am offering.
So, again, it's hard to get on a sales call with me. I only have a handful of sales calls a month. In a good month, I'll have two or three sales calls, but I land nearly all of them because I have vetted the person and the business I'm speaking to before we get on the call because you don't want more leads. We don't want more leads. We want the right leads. So I'm always making sure that I'm speaking to the right people because, again, I don't have time to waste. And as a people pleaser, I know that once I get on that call, it's very hard for me to get off. So I need to make sure that I'm not even putting myself in a situation where I'm getting on a call with wrong fit people for their sake and for mine.
So my inquiry form has this question which is beautifully phrased by the lovely Kirsty Fanton, who was a Mistakes That Made Me guest, and she was on Mistakes That Made Me with Amy Posner talking about her failed launch. But Kirsty Fanton gave me permission to use this little piece of text on my inquiry form when it came to asking for the budget because often, there's some friction or hesitation around sharing what your budget is because I think sometimes people think, "Well, if I say that my budget is $10,000, then she's going to charge me $10,000 because she can. So I don't really want to share that."
So here's what I write on my inquiry form around the budget to help people move through that, "What are you willing to invest in this project? I'm not asking this so I can offer you something that uses up all your budget. I'm asking so I don't waste your time suggesting solutions that are over and above what you have to play with. Note, my minimum rate is X. If these rates don't work for your budget, I'm afraid I'm not the right copywriter for you." And then they can choose their budget. And again, I just want to attribute that to Kirsty Fanton.
I also now have a new question, which asks them, "What is the size of your business?", their turnover for the last financial year. I know immediately that if they say below a certain number, then I'm probably not the right copywriter for them. Why? Because it actually doesn't make sense for them to hire me at what my rates are. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense for them. And I think so much of this is just, again, making sure you're working with the right people, that you're talking to the right people. This question allows me to immediately understand if this person is at the right stage of business to hire someone like me when where my rates are at.
I also then ask them actually if they want to be added to my newsletter because, again, as an email strategist and copywriter, it's a really great way for them to get a taste of my work. If you want to hire me to do your emails, there's no better way to see how I work than to sign up for my emails. So that's another question I had there. And remember, I'm always—I mean, I provide a lot of value to my subscribers on my email list as well, but I'm also not afraid to pitch my services as well. So I get clients and leads, inquiries through my newsletter, through my email list as well.
And then remember I said the second part of the client process was onboarding. The third part is delivery. The fourth part was offboarding. And the fifth part is re-engagement. I do just also want to highlight the third part, which is delivery because delivery is really important as well. And I think that's something that we really—we don't realise how important this delivery section is, this delivery part is, until we've hired someone and had something delivered to us.
When you are delivering your project to your client, it's a Moment. A Moment with a capital M. It is a Moment and you have to make it a Moment. You have to create this Moment. This client has invested so much in working with you and actually, it might not seem like a lot of money to you, but any money that is invested by someone in working with you is a significant amount of money. It's something that could have gone to something else in their life, in their business, to their family, to their kids, on travel. But instead, they chose to believe in you and hire you. So this is a real Moment for them. I know that this is something you do all the time because you're delivering constantly to clients. But this person right now, this is a Moment for them and they need you to make it a Moment.
So how can you make it a Moment with a capital M? How can you celebrate this moment by making it a Moment? Well, number one, the first thing is to actually just present your work appropriately. I remember when I first started out, I really didn't know what I was doing. So I presented my first piece of work in a Google Doc, and it was just like, you open the Google Doc and then the copy was just there.
Well now, [laughs] five years in—I don't know what I was doing back then. Five years in, I have a branded copy deck. The copy deck is a Google Doc which has at least the kind of three, four pages of onboarding before you even get to the copy. It is branded with my logo. It has my contact details in the footer. It has version control. It has instructions on how to give feedback. For those who need it, it has tagging instructions, segmentation advice, all this stuff. That means it's not just a flappy piece of paper that just is not very helpful or impressive. It's an impressive document. The thing itself is impressive, right? Even before they've even read the copy, even before they've even seen the thing that they've paid me to do.
I also don't just send the work over and just expect them to just kind of read through it. I send it across with a video walkthrough that I use using Loom. I record it in Loom. Loom is also an amazing tool if you don't know it. And what that means is, again, I can just make this Moment more special by sending across this guided walkthrough. I am helping my client unpack what I have delivered and understand what I have delivered and get them excited about seeing what I've delivered.
One of my clients actually said to me, "I love your Loom videos." She's excited to watch my Loom video, which by the way is usually anything between 25 to 40 minutes long. I try not to make it 40 minutes, but usually, minimum, they're 30 minutes long. And these are videos that my clients love and that get them excited because, again, this is about making them excited and making them realise that their investment was worth it, their investment was worth it, and they deserve that excitement.
So moving on to the next part, step four, stop attracting unqualified leads. One of the biggest mistakes I see service providers still making is creating marketing content for the wrong stage of awareness. So you're marketing, but you're attracting the wrong type of leads. And, again, I did this too. So let me explain.
There are five stages of awareness in marketing. There's the unaware stage. That's where the audience isn't aware of their desire or their need to solve a problem. And remember, the problem is—well, in my case, the problem would be selling to their audience through email. So they're not even aware that they have the desire or the need to solve this problem of selling through email.
The next stage of awareness is that they are problem-aware. So they know that they have a problem to solve, that they're struggling to sell through email, but they aren't aware of any specific solutions.
The next stage is that your audience is solution-aware. So they actually know that there is a solution to that problem of not being able to sell through email. That solution would be an email strategist and copywriter, but they don't know any specific products to solve this problem.
The next stage is product-aware. So they know that the product exists. So they know that I, Eman, exist as an email strategist and copywriter, but they aren't completely aware of all that I do. They're not completely convinced that I am the person to do it for them, that I'm the person to help them get over that problem of not being able to sell through email.
And then the final stage is most aware. So they know my product. They know what I do, my email strategy and copy, they know about that, but they haven't purchased yet. And so then from most aware, everything you're trying to do after that is get them to complete that intention of actually hitting by and booking me in and working with me.
So here's the thing, most service providers create social content or blog content for a problem-aware audience. So this is an audience that know they have a problem but don't know how to solve it. So that kind of content looks like "5 reasons to work with a designer," or "10 ways an accountant can help you," or "3 signs you need a copywriter."
But the problem with marketing to a problem-aware audience is that you create an extra responsibility for yourself. You have to convince them that they need a designer, that they need an accountant, that they need a copywriter because they're problem-aware, but they're not solution-aware. You're trying to move them from problem-aware to solution-aware. That's a lot of work on you because you're actually having to convince them that they need what you do, that they actually need the service.
But when you are marketing to a solution-aware audience, this is an audience that already know they have a problem. They already know the solution to their problem They know that a copywriter—in my case, an email copywriter—is the solution to that problem of not being able to sell emails. They know that. Then all I have to do is convince them on me. They're already convinced that they need to hire a service provider in this area. That's not what I'm trying to convince them of. They know. They're solution-aware, but now my job is to convince them from solution-aware to product-aware. That's me. I have to convince them to work with me.
So now I'm not selling the notion of a copywriter or an email strategist and copywriter. Now I'm selling the notion of me. I am the best person for this job. We got onto a sales call and all I have to do is talk about me—my offer, my process, my approach, my price. I'm only ever selling me, not the entire notion of hiring a copywriter or a service provider in this area. And that just takes so much pressure off me in the sales call, because, again, now I'm only having to sell me—my expertise, my process, my method, my results.
So stop focusing on marketing to people who are at the wrong stage of awareness and focus on marketing to people who already know and understand what you do as a service provider, who see the value in it, who understand the value, who know that they need it, and are now just picking between different people, the different service providers who do the same thing. Then now they just need to pick who they're working with, and all you need to do is sell yourself, your process, your expertise, your results.
I also want to say another big mistake that I see service providers making when it comes to marketing themselves is they spend a lot of time creating content that's actually for their peers instead of for their target audience. So they'll be talking to their peers in their social media instead of talking to their target audience. That's something else to consider.
And then finally, the fifth step to becoming a highly paid service provider is to get known for one thing. I know there is debate around this. I have found that while niching is not the only way to be successful in business, it is the fastest way to be successful in business. If you can get known for one thing and you can make it really easy for people to remember you and refer you, you can charge more.
You end up producing your deliverables faster because you're doing the same kind of work over and over again, and you're getting better at it and faster at it. The faster you're able to produce your work, the more you get paid, right? And the more clients you can book in because you're working faster. You really become great at one thing. So for me, it's choosing a specialism or a niche.
And I want to say that you don't have to know what this is straight away. It takes time. Don't rush it. I think there's more danger in choosing the wrong niche. or rushing into a niche because if you're not ready, don't rush into it. I think it's better to continue being a generalist and learning all the things until it becomes clear to you what you actually want to do. I feel like that is the safer route than to rush into a niche. Never rush into it. But for me, I would recommend that you are aiming towards specialising in something. That really helps catapult my business as a service provider. People pay me more simply because I am an expert in email. It's the only thing I do and they trust that expertise and that specialism.
So to summarise, in terms of how I became a highly paid service provider and how you can too, we talked about five steps. Raise your rates frequently. Be in the right rooms and stop wasting time in the wrong rooms. Attract better clients with better processes. Stop attracting unqualified leads. And get known for one thing.
If you liked this podcast episode, if what I'm saying struck a chord with you, if you felt understood and things started to make a little bit more sense, if you saw the light and the way forward, you will love Like A Boss: The Live Experience. This is a 12-week coaching program, a group coaching program that takes you from order taker freelancer to boss business owner, a business owner who commands drool-worthy rates, manages clients with the confidence of a CEO, and has a business that aligns with the life you want to live.
Now, Like A Boss is for all service providers. It's not just for copywriters anymore. I've been running this program for three years, over three years now, actually. And yes, it used to only be for copywriters, but I realised it doesn't need to be. All the content I've created does apply to service providers and applies really well to service providers. And so I'm actually recreating all the content, the training, I am rerecording it, redoing it, updating it all so that it applies to all service providers.
And it'll help you go from order taker freelancer—who's just kind of taking orders from clients sitting in the passenger seat while your clients are the ones who take control and are actually in the driver's seat—to boss business owner. It's not for you if you're completely new to business. It's best for you if you have at least a little experience landing clients. Everything inside is what I did to go from kind of making 30K in my business yearly to 100K.
There are 16 spots available. The doors are open right now and they close on Tuesday, the 5th of March. That's in one week exactly. Remember, I only launch the live version of Like A Boss, this version, once a year. So it won't be back again. The doors will not be open again until 2025.
Now in terms of what's inside, Like A Boss is made up of 12 weeks of us working together and five core training modules. Those five training modules include training one, simple ways to secure a steady stream of quality leads. Training two, establish a boss systems and processes with a focus on onboarding and offboarding. Training three, manage your clients like a boss. Training four, upgrade your offers, packages, and prices. Training five, get visible and market your business like a boss.
Now, as I mentioned already, it does come with a private Slack community where you get full access to me, my brain, the behind the scenes of my business, as well as access to a small community of driven and action taker business owners who are just as ambitious as you. You won't be restricted to asking me questions in the Slack community—although the Slack community is open pretty much, well, Monday to Friday, it's open for you to ask me questions and I'm there to answer your questions—but you'll also be able to ask me your questions in the fortnightly ask me anything group calls. That's your chance to get face-to-face support with me and where we work on implementing all the theory that you're learning in the core training. We'll workshop through your struggles and make sure all your questions are answered.
You also get access to the Like A Boss private podcast feed where all the trainings and everything that is a video content is also audio content in case you're like me and you like to learn on the go instead of being stuck at your computer watching a video. Every training comes with a guided workbook and a checklist to help you implement the training and stay on track because this is very much a program that's based on implementation. I teach you the theory in the training, and then we focus on the practical side and the implementation. That's a very important part of this program.
You'll also get behind-the-scenes walkthroughs of my business systems and processes. I don't share the stuff that I share in Like A Boss anywhere else, anywhere else. You get over-the-shoulder tutorials so you can see what I'm teaching in action. And while the examples that I give you will be like how I deliver my work as a copywriter, it will absolutely be delivered in a way that is applicable to you no matter what you do, as long as you're a service provider, whether you're a designer, an accountant or anything else.
You'll also get access to my treasured templates, everything from my canned emails to my ultimate project workflow that takes you through every detailed step that service providers need from inquiry stage to offboarding and re-engagement. You'll also get access to my 90-minute Nail Your Niche Masterclass that teaches you how to become the go-to expert in your field. And for the time that you're in Like A Boss, you'll also get free access to the Mistakes That Made Me private membership.
I'm going to let you check out the full invite page that has all the details about what you're actually going to learn, testimonials and experiences from Like A Boss members, but I also wanna share one testimonial, just to give you like a taste of what the people inside Like A Boss have experienced. This is Adri Kopp. She said, "Coming into Like A Boss, I was making $2,000 to $3,000 a month. This month, I had an 11K month, and that was with a week off. It doesn't feel difficult to hit these numbers and the work is rolling in. It feels easy."
Am I claiming that you can make a certain amount of money joining Like A Boss? Absolutely not. I make no claims about guaranteeing that you're going to make a certain amount of money, but I am teaching you inside Like A Boss, how to really elevate your service business so that you can start charging more and so that your clients and your leads are excited and confident about paying you more.
Okay. I am super excited to be presenting Like A Boss to all service providers. And so I'm going to leave you with that. I'm going to let you check out the invite page and I hope to see you inside. Doors close in seven days. If you have any questions, there's a little pop-up on the invite page that invites you to ask me a question, or you can find me over on Instagram and hit me up in my DMs @emancopyco.
Thank you so much for listening to this Mistakes That Made Me episode. I hope you enjoyed hearing about how I became a highly paid service provider and how you can too.
