Socratic Copy

I successfully completed my first month of work for my first client, and I was about to move forward with a second client at the rate of $4,500/mo. It felt too good to be true. Just a year after starting I was about to hit $8,000/mo in revenue.

Then, the stock market crashed. The new client quickly put a hold on signing the contract. They wanted to see how things would affect their revenue, but truthfully, I'm not holding my breath. Then a week into the NYC lockdown, the current client terminated the contract, but promised to loop me in in the future when circumstances change. Once again, I'm not holding my breath.

Well, I almost made it. From $0 to almost $100k/year, and now back to $0. I've been pretty down about it, but I feel like it's important to share the failures on here - not just the wins.

What's next? Well... I need money, so I may have to go back to Upwork or work in the Amazon warehouse until this blows over. Chances of me getting a job at an agency in this economy is close to zero. In the meantime, I'll do another cold email campaign and hope I can land a gig or two to hold me over.

Stay healthy and safe.

After three months of back and forth emails and phone calls; three months of living on ramen packs, I've won my first big contract.

Of course, there's never any guarantee of the client sticking around, but they've committed to a $3,500 monthly retainer.

This is the first time I've had a decent amount of money hit my account in a year. For anyone reading this, keep pushing. Not long ago I was writing 1,000 word articles for $10 a pop for 10 hours a day.

Feels good.

Two weeks after release, the guide really started picking up steam.

Starting November 24, it got over 14,000 reads over the next three days—and I don't even know how many shares. The guide earned over $350 from the Medium Paternship program for the month of November, and continues to earn about $20/day.

Most of the traffic was unqualified, but it doubled my email list to a total of 20. It attracted over 200 visitors to my site.

Finally, it even converted 5 visitors into warm leads (they filled out contact form for an intro call). Only three of the leads were qualified, but this was my first win in a long time. It felt good.

I wrote an 8,000 word content marketing guide. Originally, it was a gated resource, but the response was pretty good (Although, still no conversions).

I decided to drink my own Kool-Aid and publish it. I figured if I could cast a wider net, I might catch a couple qualified leads.

The guide got accepted on November 4th and performed well. But still no leads.

With my new marketing materials, I was getting a lot more engagement and click-throughs to my site.

The problem was that my website was fucking garbage. I wish I still had pictures because it was kind of funny how bad it was.

I spent the week redesigning my website so that it would be somewhat professional—while still retaining my personality.

https://socraticcopy.com was born.

I learned a lot about CRM software and email marketing software during this time. I got better at building more qualified lead lists. My metrics got better and better, but still no cold conversions.

I figured I wasn't going about it the right way. Why would someone hire me to help them on their marketing if I wasn't using a proper marketing funnel on them? I needed to build trust and value for them before I went for the sale.

I started to brainstorm and create marketing materials (content, PDFs, email sequences) for my cold outreach campaign.

I didn't have any connections. All my old clients dropped me when I told them I would be raising my rates. I expected that. But now, I had to figure out how to attract clients.

I decided that, although the conversion rate would be low, if I could just get one client, I would be able to build off that. I'd have some money coming in (which I desperately needed) and I'd be able to add that work to my portfolio.

I went on Angel.co and looked for companies that were in the early stages of growth. I made an excel sheet, and then spent a day pitching them. Really personalized pitches with spec copy ideas.

My open, click and response rates were good. But no clients.

I had been working on Upwork as a copywriter and marketing strategist since I left for my around the world trip in April.

As you probably already know, working on Upwork is tough. There's loads of competition, you spend the majority of your time submitting job proposals and pay is a total race to the bottom.

If I really wanted to be taken seriously, I needed to create a brand. So I did. I shut down my Upwork profile, made a shitty website and began planning.

I left my old life behind to start freelancing and travel the world. I started freelancing on Upwork. Doing mainly content writing and copywriting.

It was really hard to get clients. I didn't have permission to use my past in-house copywriting work on my portfolio. Which wasn't a huge deal, because it's not like an entire marketing campaign was my doing. I was a grunt—not a project manager.

I spent more time submitting proposals than actually working. And started out working for sometimes $6/hr just to build a review base.

It was grueling and unsustainable.