Latest / The Daily Writer / Audio Journal: How I Signed My First Two Ghostwriting Clients

Transcript

Audio Journal: How I Signed My First Two Ghostwriting Clients · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people ask me about ghostwriting.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: It is a term that produces a lot of curiosity in people whenever they ask what I do.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I'm a college professor in my day job and I do podcasting and I write my own stuff.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: But whenever I use the term ghostwriting, people are always really, really curious about that.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, last weekend I went to get a haircut at a loc at a local place called the Hair Saloon.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just mentioned ghostwriting and it's like clockwork.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as I say ghostwriting, people are always super curious about what that is and how it works.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're curious as well.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: In the last audio journal episode, I talked about three lessons that I learned from my first ghostwriting project.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to follow that up by talking for a minute about how I actually got these two first ghostwriting clients.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's something a lot of people have asked me about also, is like, hey, how did you how did you sign these deals?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: How did this happen?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: How can I make this the kind of how can I make something similar happen in my life as well or in my business?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just going to share with you what I did and what worked for me, and then you can extract with from that whatever lessons are relevant to you.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So let's take this first ghostwriting client whose book is launching in just a couple weeks.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: The way this worked, let me see if I can remember back.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was, see, this is 2020, it was um October of 2018.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take you back almost two years exactly, in fact.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I spoke at a uh writing workshop.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I did a presentation at a workshop in northern Illinois where a friend of mine was working in a library district there.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she was actually a part of the youth group at the church where I used to work.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't the youth pastor there.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was the worship pastor, but she was very involved in uh in the music ministry at the church where I worked at the time.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's been a long time ago.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we have kind of stayed in touch since.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and a couple years ago, she was living in a specific town in northern Illinois and working at a library, and she put together this writing workshop and invited me to go and speak at it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's kind of the long way around of telling you how I how I know uh this person.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, she invited me up there, and it was like a three-hour drive.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of a long, a long drive to get there.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there was only a handful of people at this writing workshop.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think, not including me, there were seven people or something like that.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this was very, very, very small.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I had an absolute blast.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: I loved talking about writing and why people should write books, and it was a lot of fun.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, at that writing workshop, there was another author there.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she's a teacher, and she's also a ghostwriter as well, and does freelance writing.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So we got to be friends and got to know each other a little bit.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then when I started getting more serious about ghostwriting, around this time last year in 2019, she picked up on that.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think I must have mentioned it you know, on Facebook or in my email newsletter or whatever it was.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And she heard about that, and I think it was December of last year, she just sent me a message on Facebook saying, hey, I've got this friend who wants to write a book and she is talking to some different ghostwriters and trying to find somebody who would be a good fit.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Would you be interested in talking with her?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Sure, of course.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: That would be fantastic.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I connected with this prospective client who ended up being my client, and we talked for probably, you know, a couple months on and off.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: She had lots and lots of questions, as anybody does, when they're hiring a ghostwriter.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you've got lots and lots of questions.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we talked and developed a good rapport, and then the pandemic hit, and things kind of went dark for a while.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it also turned out that she had some things going on in her family and her business to where she wanted to do the book, but she couldn't quite commit to it financially just then.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh we put the brakes on that for a while, and I didn't hear from her for gosh, I think like three months or something.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um I just kind of assumed the project was dead.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, there's a saying, you know, you know what they say about assuming.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna repeat what it is, you can probably Google it, but it involves a tiny bit of profanity, so I'm not gonna say it here.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: But you should never assume things, and you should never assume that you know what your prospective client is thinking.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lesson I really learned from this whole project, by the way.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Don't assume you know what people are thinking, because many times you don't know what they're thinking.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So out of the blue one day, I just thought, hey, I wonder how so-and-so is doing.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just sent her an email and said, hey, so-and-so, I hope that you guys are okay.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you and your family are all healthy and doing well despite this crazy virus.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let me know if I can help in any way.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's literally all that I said.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was just a couple sentences.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't say anything about the book, nothing about ghostwriting, nothing about, hey, do you still want to do this book project and all that.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so she emailed me back within a day, I think, and just said, hey, we're all doing great.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for checking in.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are you still able to do this book project?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Are you still interested in doing this?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And of course I said, yes, I would absolutely love to.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And she was in a place where she could do the project and was ready to go.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it happened very, very fast from there, like within a week.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she had signed a contract and we started working on it.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I got that first client.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was really uh part of it, I think, was just kind of dumb luck.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was Providence, I don't know.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, I I think I did a good job selling the process.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think I did a very good job explaining it and working with the client.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I was also lucky.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's part of it as well.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: But there's another element that I think is really important, and that is when you want something, you need to let other people know that you want it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to get into ghostwriting, and I was just letting people know, hey, I'm building a ghostwriting business, like Nick Pavlitas from Ghostwriter School talks about.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's his terminology, and it's genius because it lets people know that you're building a business and you want to do ghostwriting, but there's no pressure.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're just kind of informing them, you're not saying, hey, do you know anybody who I can ghostwrite a book for?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you say that kind of stuff, people get weird about it because they feel like you're trying to be pushy.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I would just tell people, hey, I'm I'm working on building a ghostwriting business, and I would kind of leave it at that.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my friend picked up on that, and she connected me with the client, and then it happened from there.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's number one.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you quickly about client number two.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: This was a whole different deal.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, as you know, because you're listening to this podcast, you know that I have a podcast, obviously, and I interview a lot of people on this show.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm also doing these audio journals just kind of as an experiment.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I also interview a lot of people, and I had been kind of intentional about interviewing um I don't want to go into any details about this, but I had I've been very intentional the last year or so about interviewing a certain circle of people.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're smart, well, I'm not gonna say if you're smart, that's that's not what I meant.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you were to go go through and really analyze my podcast guests, you could probably figure out who's connected with who, and you know, if you really want to do that, you probably could.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I had sort of had this person on my radar screen, somebody who I wanted to work with and wanted to talk with, and I was I wasn't super strategic about this, but I was interviewing a lot of people in this person's circle.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I knew that eventually when I wanted to reach out to this person, that they would know that I already had interviewed a bunch of people they know and they would be open to a conversation.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I was sort of strategic with all that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not like overly twirling my mustache, strategic or that kind of thing.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I just knew I wanted to find my way within this certain circle of people, and interviewing people on a podcast is I think the number one best way to do that, especially because you can't go to events and conferences right now.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So podcast interviews are the bomb, just take it from me.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened was um I just reached out to this person on LinkedIn, and there were a couple things about their business that I really wanted to compliment them on.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it was completely sincere.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was not blowing smoke, I wasn't trying to just get on their good side.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was legitimately very sincere about what I wanted to say to them about their business and about some things that I appreciated about them.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I just reached out on LinkedIn, sent a message and said, Hey, I just want to let you know I appreciate these couple things about you, and these other people in my circle, they're really saying some cool things about you.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for the value you are adding to the world.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really great, and I just appreciate that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I left it at that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't ask for a phone call, I didn't ask for anything.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they reached out pretty quickly and said, Hey, do you want to hop on a phone call and just chat?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah, let's do it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had a phone call and chatted, and things just kind of progressed from there.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: They mentioned they knew I was doing ghostwriting, and they had a project that they needed some work on.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I just happened to be available to work on it, and so it just kind of went from there.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that project really came about just through relationships.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was not through any marketing thing or any kind of slick Facebook ads or any of that jazz.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was just 100% through relationships.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And my podcast played a really, really pivotal role in that because I would not have I wouldn't have developed those relationships with the people in his circle if not for my podcast.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've ever thought about doing a podcast, I would really highly encourage you to do it.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you have the time and the desire to do it, because it can give you the chance to connect with people that you wouldn't be able to talk to otherwise.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, that's uh the story of how I secured my first two ghostwriting clients.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was all through relationships and just through letting people know that I was building a ghostwriting business.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's really all that it came down to, plus the podcast, of course.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: So um extract from this what you will.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think the number one lesson is just relationships.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about relationships.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to dig more into this idea of networking and relationships, go back a few episodes, so I think it was probably eight or ten episodes ago, where I talked about um networking.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think the episode is called The Introvert's Guide to Networking.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you're not an introvert, those strategies will definitely work for you.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, this is kind of a longer audio journal episode, but I wanted to share this because uh I, you know, a lot of people asked me about this, and I just wanted to put it out there and explain how these two things actually worked in practice.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I will see you in the next episode.