I am currently sitting at the same spot where my freelance journey started 8 years ago.

When I hit my first 3L/year, I was on high horse.
Then came 8L/year, then 11, then 9, 25 and so on.

I don’t like talking about how much I made or all the high-end things I own for one simple reason, not everyone can do it and I gave up on a lot of other things that people would never want to.

How much I made is irrelevant but how I did all that and all the mistakes, challenges and hurdles I crossed matters more because when I plateaued then broke out I was not ready for any single thing that came after that.

I was stuck in the 8L-12L range for a long time. Sometimes the projected would go above 12 but net on net it was in this range only and this range is very very unpleasant for real.

You have all the experience that’s needed so the capability to get the work done is not even a question yet somehow it’s always a race where you have to chase the client one after the other.

The retainer is not happening, you are always looking out for the next client to add in the pipeline and everyone around you would be in this same loop as well.

I was there too but I noticed something (thanks to the habit of daily journaling) I figured out the root cause.

The Realization

I was giving my all to get the tasks that I was supposed to get done but I was not proactively taking initiatives.

And to confirm my bias, I asked Shashank (my freelance friend who was making around 2.5-3L per month), like dude what are you offering?

We have the same skillset, both have clients from Middle East, same everything and I seem to have hit the plateau.

We sat in a cafe and decoded each other’s business and what we are doing and seeing what he was doing I was like I am lucky my client has not met Shashank.

If any of my clients had met him, I’d be let go in a blink.

I was doing what was being told whereas this guy is researching like a CBO, executing like a CEO and operating like a COO while being a marketing manager.

I stood literally no chance and here’s where it got even better, what about retainers over the last 1 year?

I had worked with 15 clients in total and retained 1.
This guy worked with 3 and retained all 3. ALL THREE.

My ticket size was 300/month. His? 1000/month.

This was my oh shoot moment like I love my white sauce pasta but that day I was like you eat and let me analyze what am I doing wrong.

That’s when I stacked everything I did and he did side by side.

The Fix

I came to the conclusion: I was a doer and that was the last day I acted as a doer.

Learned the lesson that to get this kind of money you need to do a lot more and make the life of a client lot easier. I tried to replicate his strategy and the way I failed was just...

Well I don't have the word for that rn.

The hollywood style comeback and money I had thought would come never came. I had to spend the next 6 months figuring out all the basics.

I was so far away from being someone who can handle the entire ops on his own that it took me time but that thing put me way ahead of the competition.

I now position myself as a solo marketer who will handle the full stack marketing from 0 and take you to over hundred thousand across social media and make sure whatever your offer is that becomes a hit.

If it doesn’t, you don’t pay anything, if it does I take my fair share.

I want you to be that confident in your offering that you know what you do and know is going to work out, it sounds scary because it is to an extent but the more you try this over a period of time you keep on learning

Being Familiar

It’s all a game of familiarity, what seems normal to you today was haunting when you started, you kept on getting more familiar with it and now look at you, how far you have come from where you started.

The only different thing this time is you have seen so much and worked so hard that you have gained info over time which now makes you question the worth of the next move.

When you started you started with raw energy because you had to.

Now you think and move and most times the thinking part puts you in an analysis paralysis situation.

Just overcome that, go for it and make sure to be the right hand of your client and you are sorted for the coming years. I can assure you money for you is never gonna be an issue at all if you do this.

That's it for this week, I will see you next Wednesday.

P.S. - In case you feel you are falling behind, look at who you were back in 2019, that version of you would be so proud of you today!