Treasa Edmond: 0:00

Welcome back to the Boss Responses podcast. Our special guest host this week has been Ed Gandia. Ed is a business building coach and strategist who helps freelance writers and copywriters earn more in less time doing work they love for better paying clients. He is the founder of the High Income Business Writing blog and podcast, where he teaches thousands of freelance professionals, including me, at all levels how to deploy simple systems and frameworks for growing your income with better clients. Ed spent 12 years in corporate sales. During that time, he developed repeatable strategies and processes for landing profitable long-term clients faster and with less effort. He then applied many of those same principles and approaches to his freelance copywriting business, enabling him to build a six-figure solo practice in 27 months. His High Income Business Writing podcast is one of the top freelancing and writing podcasts on Apple podcasts and it's one of my personal favorites. I promised Ed I wouldn't fangirl too much in his introduction, but I have to say that he has helped me level up my business countless times since I first discovered his podcast several years ago. Ed is one of my absolute favorite people in the space of freelance content writing. He does so much to help others and I am thrilled he was able to join us here this week. Now let's go ahead and learn more about Ed, his business and how he helps freelance content marketing writers.

Treasa Edmond: 1:31

If you're a freelancer, business owner or anyone who deals with clients, you're in the right place. I'm your host, teresa Edmond. I've been dealing with clients and running my business for nearly two decades and in that time I've dealt with my share of doubt, imposter syndrome and not knowing what to say when a client asks a question. I wasn't ready for. I created this podcast to empower you with the boss responses you need to grow your business. Each week, my guest co-host and I will bring you five episodes packed with practical insights. Monday through Thursday, we answer your questions, and Fridays we dive deep to explore how our co-host embraced their role as the boss of their business. Welcome to Boss Responses. Thank you for joining us for our day of learning about Ed Gandia. Ed, thank you so much for being here with us this week.

Ed Gandia: 2:27

Oh, it's my pleasure. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.

Treasa Edmond: 2:30

Today is going to be just a little bit different, because Ed has transitioned away from straight freelance work into something that I think is incredibly valuable. Ed, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?

Ed Gandia: 2:44

Yeah, absolutely. I am a business building coach for freelance writers, copywriters and marketing strategists. Essentially, I work with people to help them earn more and less time doing work they love, for better quality clients.

Treasa Edmond: 3:00

That's great. So let's delve into your origins in the freelance world, because you don't just work with freelancers. You were one. How did you embark on that path?

Ed Gandia: 3:12

Yeah, so it was a long journey and not one that I necessarily planned. But the short version is that I was traditionally employed. For a long time I was in corporate sales and there was a big part of me that really wanted to strike out of my own, either buying a business, starting a business but I didn't know there was such a thing as freelancing and at the same time, I found myself writing a lot of my own sales and marketing materials, and I had been doing that on and off for a number of years and I was actually decent at it, but I wanted to get better at it. So I started learning about this thing that I eventually learned was called copywriting. So I bought books, I bought courses, and at some point I realized that this could be the business that I was searching for. I hadn't really thought of it that way, so I launched my business on the side in early 2004. Well, I kept my full-time sales job and about 27 months later I was able to quit my sales job and just go full-time. Fortunately, I had built it to a point where I was earning a very healthy six-figure income right out of the gate, but I was pretty burnt out, because you can imagine full-time job, full-time freelancing at that point.

Ed Gandia: 4:29

What happened was and the reason I got to where I am today is I did client work for a long time. I, because of my sales background and I kind of have an operational mindset and I like to systemize things and think about improving and making things more effective and efficient A lot of people were coming to me asking me, hey, how do you do this or how are we able to get to this point? And so people were coming to me for advice, and one of the things that people were asking me a lot about was how did you make that transition safely, because you were the sole breadwinner, how did you leave a six-figure income and we're able to basically start freelancing so successfully within a couple of years? So I wrote a PDF guide that it was like 160 pages long on what I did and how I did it, and it was a lot of trial and error that I obviously had to put forth, but what I gave them was what ended up working. So I netted it out for people.

Ed Gandia: 5:33

I didn't have a mailing list or anything. I just went to people who had email lists and I said, look, I documented everything I want to sell this. Would you be willing to promote it to your list? And I had four people with decent sized mailing lists who said yes, and that's what kind of launched what is now a coaching business, but at the time it was really just guides and courses. Along the way, I launched a blog with a couple of partners. We co-wrote a book called the Wealthy Freelancer. That was traditionally published my first ever book and it was traditionally published. I got really lucky.

Treasa Edmond: 6:07

That is great.

Ed Gandia: 6:08

Yeah, that was pretty wild. Of course, I thought, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be a best selling author and all this stuff. It didn't quite work out that way. It sold really well, but that launched my coaching business. What was happening is I was working with a coach who said you're doing really well with these courses and all that, but I think you're selling yourself short. I think you'd be a really effective coach. I said, oh no, I could never coach. And he talked me into it.

Ed Gandia: 6:36

So in 2012, I started coaching Again. I'm still working for clients full time, I'm still doing this stuff on the side, and I started coaching one-on-one a few people. I had a bit of a mailing list at this point, so I was able to get two or three clients pretty quickly and I realized that not only did I enjoy it, I was also pretty good at it, and it was through these coaching clients that I was able to take the knowledge that I had in my head and basically put it into visual models, processes, systems. I was able to document it. It forced me to document a lot of this stuff and I realized that I wanted to just do this for a living.

Ed Gandia: 7:16

So then I embarked on a plan, which took several years, to basically just move in this direction to do coaching full time and then sell some courses, workshops et cetera, but just really move into this direction. I realized that I was a good writer. I was a very good writer. I still am a very good writer, but I was a much more effective coach and I really enjoyed that work much more than writing for clients. So, 2016, I lost my last writing client and I've been doing this full time since then and I love it. I thought that I again didn't like writing for clients. I just realized I got to focus on one thing. I think this, too business thing is just too much for me to just keep all in my head.

Treasa Edmond: 8:04

Yeah, and that's two completely different parts of your brain that are working there as well. That has to be exhausting. So one quick question about transitioning from working with clients to working with different clients, a whole different level of clients. Were there any kind of client management processes that you brought over from working with freelance clients onto doing your coaching?

Ed Gandia: 8:31

Oh, absolutely. I mean just bought everything. I had some tools that I had already developed for my own use and others that were in my head, and I was able to just document that stuff, but everything from just kind of keeping track of. There were two specific tools and in fact, I still use them with clients today. One is the capacity planner, which is a tool that enables you to do something and most freelancers don't really pay attention to. Everyone's got a schedule and everyone's got like their projects somewhere on a whiteboard or a notebook or sticky notes.

Ed Gandia: 9:04

But there is something in between that is just as important, if not even more important, which is managing your available capacity. You know where capacity to do work is perishable. We only have so much of it every week and once it's gone, it's gone. So how do I optimize that? And this is a very simple tool that I use for years. That saved me. It enabled me to not overbook myself, prevented me from not overbooking myself, and it allowed me to give clients quick answers when they said we got something for you.

Ed Gandia: 9:34

Can you get started on this sometime next week? And I was able to before I was just making it up sure, yeah, I can do that and I realized that now I had to work the weekend and that was no good. So there was a capacity planner excuse me, a pipeline tool which enabled me to track opportunities that came from my sales days as well, that I use in my freelance business, and then I started working with clients on that. How do I track of opportunities, keep track of opportunities, probability of these things coming in, what they're worth. It also dictates how much more marketing I need to do, because I see what's coming in potentially so things like that. I was very fortunate. My years in sales as difficult as they were, because they were always really tough sales situations Forced me to develop systems and tools and techniques that have served me to this day and I'm able to now just customize them and refine them and I'm able to share them with clients, and they're really powerful.

Treasa Edmond: 10:36

Yeah, I'm always amazed at how pre-freelancing experiences and tools can really help you in freelancing and running your business. That's just amazing to me. So the capacity planner this is something I'm really passionate about, because people are like I'm a freelancer, now I can take all of these projects because I can write for eight hours a day. No, you can't. Or you can write for eight hours a day, but only about two hours of. It's going to be really good. I love that idea and I don't know why I haven't tried that before. It's now officially part of my repertoire, all right.

Treasa Edmond: 11:12

So as your influence and reach expanded. You've started all of these different tools for helping people becoming a business coach. I really would like to know what was your pivot point? At what point was there a milestone you'd reached? Or did you just reach a specific experience level? Or maybe it was just the number of people asking for your advice? At what point did you really truly decide to take this coaching thing and run with it?

Ed Gandia: 11:41

It was sometime in 2012. And it kind of happened quickly. I don't really agonize over decisions. I get an idea. So my coach had planted that seed.

Ed Gandia: 11:53

I was still resistant to the thought, but I realized that my ability to help people with courses and with information products was really limited, when what people really needed was to talk through things with someone, to get personalized guidance. And I was already doing that in a way for friends and colleagues and I enjoyed it. So then I realized, what if it became that? What if it became what I'm already doing to some extent and I'm really getting paid for it? And so I decided to try it. But let me tell you I was very fearful Because I, like probably a lot of listeners, can relate.

Ed Gandia: 12:37

I thought I felt like an imposter. I haven't been doing this long enough, even though by that point it had been what? Eight years of successful freelancing. But you never feel like you're ready, you never feel like you're good enough. And I'm not an official coach and I don't have coaching training and I realize that really big part of coaching is just listening and creating space for that person to really explore ideas safely and with somebody they trust and really helping them discover a lot of this. My coaching has really shifted more toward that, even though I still provide very specific step-by-step information when appropriate. But a lot of our conversations can be more socratic in nature and that was always a lot more fun for me. I think it was early days. I kind of jumped into it with a lot of fear. Some people just were willing to give me that chance and it only took a few coaching calls with my first couple of clients for me to realize okay, this is what I want to do for a while.

Treasa Edmond: 13:50

Yeah, sharing knowledge. I think that's a natural progression of gaining all of the knowledge and then giving it back. I don't think it works for everyone, but I think that it does really work for some people. Now, one of the things that you've talked about is and I've heard you talk about this and I know I'm really passionate about it is setting expectations. So when I'm dealing with clients, I set expectations on. This is what I'm going to deliver, this is what you're going to provide, this is what I need from you. All of those things I know you obviously excelled at that, or you wouldn't have come out the gate with six figures. That's a great place to be. Now you've moved into a whole different type of client work. Are expectations even more important now when you're working with clients, or do you think it's about the same?

Ed Gandia: 14:38

It's about the same. It's about the same I mean because you're still talking about it being a relationship. I should also mention, I think, one of the nice things about coaching and I have, on average, about 35 clients at any given time my model has shifted to more of a group model, but you get a glimpse into everybody's business. I have this unique vantage point where I could see what's happening in the business of 35, 40 people at any given time, so you get to notice trends I've seen is that managing expectations is always an issue that has never changed. It really has nothing to do with what kind of business. If you're a coach or a writer or strategist, it's hugely important. In fact, a big part of your success comes from knowing how to manage that and how to do a really good job of managing expectations and then having those crucial conversations when suddenly things go wrong and the client is maybe disappointed, upset and coming to you to express disappointment.

Treasa Edmond: 15:52

We've touched on the importance of conversations a couple of times this week, and I'd really like to just point out that I think the ability to have those tricky conversations or those difficult conversations, especially when you're the one that's screwed up in some way, is the hallmark of a really mature business owner, and I think that's one of those kind of keys to success that people talk about but don't talk about. If you're not willing to step up and have a conversation when you need to have it, not waiting until you have to have it, then that's big. Now, does that play into your coaching? Is that something that you have to guide people through? Is knowing when they need to just step back and have a conversation with someone, instead of just muddling through and trying to fix something?

Ed Gandia: 16:41

Because when we've touched on this this week is that when you were in the middle of it, you're too emotionally involved, so you don't have the same perspective that someone like me who's not emotionally involved is going to have. So it's not a me thing, it's just a different perspective thing. An outsider can give you a better perspective. So this is hugely important.

Ed Gandia: 17:03

I'm going to say something controversial here, but I have found that the most successful writers I've ever come across are good to very good writers, but what they're really good at is running a business, in managing relationships. That is, to put a number that those two elements are like 70% of your success. Writing again, I'm just guessing here 30%, it's counterintuitive. But your ability to work well with people, to communicate effectively, to be the pleasant service provider and trusted partner, to be the person they can give work to and not have to worry about the quality or if it's going to be there on time, someone who's enjoyable to have a conversation with, non confrontational, somebody who stays in touch and who cares those things super, super important. I would love to talk a little bit about, if you want the whole, what happens when things don't go well and you have to have a difficult conversation.

Treasa Edmond: 18:21

Yeah, tricky clients, that's a big topic.

Ed Gandia: 18:24

All right. So tricky clients and sometimes a great client can be tricky because something went wrong. This happens all the time. Sometimes it's not them, it's their boss's boss now breathing down their neck. So one of the things you need to do is, again, it's communications, it's client relations. How do you handle that conversation? I would say don't be confrontational. That's what they're expecting. You need to bring those barriers down and that confrontational attitude is not going to do anything good. Try not to get too emotionally wrapped up in the drama in the situation. So, as best you can go into that call calm, understand the people. Many times you're just trying to unload on somebody and it's not about you. It's about something that's happening internally and if you take it personally, then the conversation is not going to go well.

Ed Gandia: 19:30

Next, I would always recommend that you schedule a Zoom call. Don't try to do this over email, and this goes against what most writers want to do, because most writers don't. They don't like confrontation. I'm one of them, so I'll admit that they don't like confrontation and they definitely don't feel comfortable having difficult conversations in person or over Zoom call. Video call. You need to have it. You need to have it. That's the message will get lost in translation If you don't schedule Zoom and then in this. Now, this is going to make it easier. You don't have to present anything, you don't have to start talking that dumb talk, right? So it's Bill. Thanks for meeting me today.

Ed Gandia: 20:19

Obviously, this didn't go as planned, you know. Tell me more. Tell me what's going on here. Use some sort of open-ended question to get them started and just let them pour out their emotions and let them just tell you and take notes. Don't interrupt them. Make them feel safe, showing that you're there and you care and you respect them. Care and respect are two very important things that we tend to forget about because we get defensive right. Show them that you understand. Explain your point of view from that place.

Ed Gandia: 20:55

I always like to use the feel, felt, found idea, which is, I totally understand, where you feel. I have felt that way many times. This is not the actual words, but it's. I get it, I empathize because I've been there and I would feel the same way if I were in your shoes and then show the gap. Let me explain what happened here, my point of view, and let me take a stab at identifying where the disconnect may have been. Take responsibility where you need to. Don't then say you need to take responsibility to Mr Client, just you take responsibility. Maintain that empathy. Empathy is really what permeates this whole conversation.

Treasa Edmond: 21:39

Right.

Ed Gandia: 21:39

And you need to be firm but professional. Where boundaries need to be maintained we talked about this a little bit, teresa, about the whole boundary issue you need to maintain those. Don't give in, don't concede. In areas where we don't need to concede, find a way to fix it. But you need to keep the conversation safe for everybody and that's your responsibility, not theirs. Always take charge, always take responsibility for that and anyway. So these are not to get too much in the weeds here, but this is just an example of how important it is to be a good communicator and to be able to handle these kinds of difficult situations. That again falls into the 70%. That's the most important.

Treasa Edmond: 22:26

Yeah, and the whole it's not about you. It really truly isn't. The corporate world is tricky. It really is, and there are things happening that have nothing to do with you and they really have nothing to do with your contact. Your contact is just in charge of communicating them.

Treasa Edmond: 22:42

And now, if you messed up, like Ed said, step in, be proactive, have the conversation, fix the issue, or at least try to fix the issue. Make a good faith effort, because that's all you can do at that point. Tell them what you can do to fix it, but don't make it about you. It's not. And sometimes, if you do the thing, I think Zoom conversations are really important too, and I highly recommend them, because nonverbal communication and any kind of conflict is 90% of it.

Treasa Edmond: 23:12

And if you get an email from someone and they're like this isn't going to work for us, we need to redo it, it doesn't do what we wanted. That's pretty straightforward. It sounds pretty accusatory. You didn't do what we asked. But if you get on a call with them and they look really stressed out and remorseful and say this is on us, it's not what we wanted, it's what we thought we wanted, but they changed their mind. They want something different now and it gives them that opportunity to elaborate on it and you can see that they are as upset about it as you are at this point. Then you become partners again and you work to resolve the issue. But communication, that should be a masterclass, ed. Do you have a masterclass in communication?

Ed Gandia: 23:58

I do not, but I think it's one of those soft skills that we underrate the importance of that skill Huge.

Treasa Edmond: 24:09

Yeah, and it does not matter if you have the best clients in the world. There are going to be tricky situations or questions asked that you have to answer that you're going to feel immediately defensive about. It's the way we are, and removing yourself from that, I think, really helps. So I love that advice. All right, you are obviously offering some great resources for people and I have availed myself of many of them over the years, including your amazing podcast, and I will have links to a lot of those in the show notes, because I think everyone should be a massive Ed Gandia fan. But you have a new thing coming out. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Ed Gandia: 24:49

Yeah, absolutely. I realized earlier this year that there is a lack of understanding and a lack of skill in certain areas of running a freelance business. A lot of people I come across they're lacking the tools they need and the skills they need to run a successful business essentially business building tools. So, rather than create courses around them, which is what I've done in the past, I created essentially a set of business building tools and they're inside this thing I call the business building toolkit, and I'm actually releasing one on just pricing. It's called the pricing maximizer. Here's what makes these tool kit sessions is what I call them, what makes them unique they're just one hour.

Treasa Edmond: 25:42

One hour long.

Ed Gandia: 25:43

That's it In and out in an hour. You get exactly what you need. All the golden nuggets are in there, including the handouts, worksheets, cheatsheets, and you're able to take an issue like pricing, which we could do a one week workshop on, and we've condensed it to an hour so that way you can learn 70% of what you need in an hour. The other 30% you'll learn later as you go, which is fine. That's the way it should be. So, anyway, I got that coming out, the pricing session coming on, and then the other thing that makes it unique is the price point Super, super affordable 25 bucks.

Treasa Edmond: 26:25

So yeah.

Ed Gandia: 26:25

I wanted to make it a no brainer, especially in the weird times we are in right now. So it's normally there, there more. But I'm doing this, when I release them, that I'm going to offer them for very little and just so people can take advantage of them and get everything they need for almost nothing.

Treasa Edmond: 26:43

So there's officially no reason to not put some time and effort into building your business the right way now, because Ed has not only made it faster, he's made it cheaper, because there's no way you could spend only $25 worth of your time and research everything I'm sure he's going to give. Now, how can they get these? Is it on your website? I'll make sure we include a link as well.

Ed Gandia: 27:07

Yeah, so the best way would be go to my website, b2blaunchercom, and just grab a copy of my free book there, and then you'll be on the notification list. So if you want to be notified about it, if you're not already on my list, opt in for my free book and then, yeah, we'll let you know when it comes out.

Treasa Edmond: 27:27

And I can give the personal recommendation on the book. It's amazing, and so is his mailing list, so make sure you sign up for both of those. Now to wrap it up, ed, one final question. As the coach that you are, and as a very successful freelancer before that, what advice would you give to all of the service providers who are listening, who are looking to create lasting, successful partnerships with their clients?

Ed Gandia: 27:53

I'm going to come back to something I said earlier, which is to it's not about your craft as much as being the person they just love to partner with. In fact, I would but to give it more specificity become the partner that's always thinking about them. I joked with my clients. I would tell one client his name was Charlie. I said, charlie, I'm thinking about you and your business and your problems as I'm mowing my lawn on Saturdays, and I could prove it to him because I would come to him on Monday morning. Hey, listen, I thought of a couple of ideas and things you could do and how you could repurpose X or what you could do with Y. And I think that he came up with the question it's Monday morning.

Ed Gandia: 28:42

How did you like, oh, I've been thinking about this all weekend as I'm cooking, as I'm mowing the lawn, and you don't necessarily need to say it that way, but that's for me, that was a really colorful, authentic way of saying it, because, first of all, it was true. So I think, if your clients really understand that, if you can communicate in an authentic way to your clients that I'm always thinking about you, charlie, I'm always thinking about you, jill, not in a weird way, like I'm thinking about your business. That's really going to resonate with them, because what you're telling them is I'm thinking about you and how it can make you better at your job and make you look better to your boss. Okay, so present yourself as the person who works differently, who's more committed and we talked about this earlier this week the person who purposely seeks long term relationships. Look, I'm not in it for project one and two, I'm in it for the long haul. Right, I partner with my clients.

Ed Gandia: 29:40

I want to deliver a long term value. I'm going to do my very best on every project, but I'm in it for the long haul. I feel like I always want to be able to prove myself to you and I want to partner with you. And that's not going to resonate with everybody, but that was a core value of mine, always has been, and I think that's a wonderful way to treat your business and to talk about your value and how you deal and work with your clients. Yeah, I totally agree. It's not just about doing the work.

Treasa Edmond: 30:10

It's about the relationship and bringing the value to the table, bringing more value than they expect. Yes, yeah, delight them.

Ed Gandia: 30:16

I think it's a really good word. Delight your clients. Yeah, we should have t-shirts.

Treasa Edmond: 30:23

Delight your clients.

Ed Gandia: 30:24

I'd wear one of those.

Treasa Edmond: 30:26

That might be my new podcast motto Delight your clients. All right, Ed. Thank you so much for being here. This week it has been a master class in itself, and I am absolutely thrilled to have been able to talk to you. Well, thank you for having me, teresa. It was awesome, great experience.

Ed Gandia: 30:41

I hope you enjoyed our time with Ed Gandia as much as I did.

Treasa Edmond: 30:46

Come back next week when we will have a new guest co-host. We will still be diving into listener questions Monday through Thursday and Friday. We will learn more about their business and how they manage their business. Thank you for joining us.