Lex DeVille
Sweeping Shadows From Dreams
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2014... Started copywriting. Made money. Became a 6-figure copywriter.
2017... Baby drops. I'm a dad. Copywriting exits stage left.
2021... Murdered my ex-wife (not really, but she is dead... to me). Started writing again.
It was all for cash at first... but over the years, I've grown to love copy. I love the people, the process, watching words change lives. When I started, I had unlimited time to source clients, take calls, write copy, and manage the business. I had no job, no kid, almost no bills.
Today, I'm a dad with a 4-year-old girl so I have to fit all of the above into a couple hours per day.
That's where this thread comes in. It's been a while since I talked copy. Don't have much time to write long-form posts. Not sure I'll ever finish a new copy course. The next best thing is to share from my journey.
Present: I've been lazy. Between August and now, I averaged $5k - $7k per month from client work. Some months, individual clients paid $7k - $15k. Other months I was super lazy and closed less than $2k. Last month was around $4.5k. This month I'm around $10k.
Clients: My clients are celebrities, high-ticket coaches, blockchain businesses, SaaS, and retail/e-tail. Mostly they come from Upwork. I set my profile to public in August. Sent proposals. Now I rank #1 for "Copywriter" and for a bunch of other search terms. I get 25-50 invitations per week, so all of my clients are inbound. A few clients find me through LinkedIn and make their way back to my website. A few others come from referrals.
Going Forward: This month I started thinking about how to become the highest-paid copywriter... Not an agency, but as an individual. To do that, I need to upgrade my processes, bill higher prices, limit services, and talk to more people.
So I'm going to share some of the things I try in this thread. See what comes of it.
Recent Process Changes:
If anyone has questions, I'll answer them along the way. My goal is to go from 6-figures to 7 in client work as a solo copywriter without increasing the number of hours per day. My other goal is to stop being lazy just because I'm comfortable.
2017... Baby drops. I'm a dad. Copywriting exits stage left.
2021... Murdered my ex-wife (not really, but she is dead... to me). Started writing again.
It was all for cash at first... but over the years, I've grown to love copy. I love the people, the process, watching words change lives. When I started, I had unlimited time to source clients, take calls, write copy, and manage the business. I had no job, no kid, almost no bills.
Today, I'm a dad with a 4-year-old girl so I have to fit all of the above into a couple hours per day.
That's where this thread comes in. It's been a while since I talked copy. Don't have much time to write long-form posts. Not sure I'll ever finish a new copy course. The next best thing is to share from my journey.
Present: I've been lazy. Between August and now, I averaged $5k - $7k per month from client work. Some months, individual clients paid $7k - $15k. Other months I was super lazy and closed less than $2k. Last month was around $4.5k. This month I'm around $10k.
Clients: My clients are celebrities, high-ticket coaches, blockchain businesses, SaaS, and retail/e-tail. Mostly they come from Upwork. I set my profile to public in August. Sent proposals. Now I rank #1 for "Copywriter" and for a bunch of other search terms. I get 25-50 invitations per week, so all of my clients are inbound. A few clients find me through LinkedIn and make their way back to my website. A few others come from referrals.
Going Forward: This month I started thinking about how to become the highest-paid copywriter... Not an agency, but as an individual. To do that, I need to upgrade my processes, bill higher prices, limit services, and talk to more people.
So I'm going to share some of the things I try in this thread. See what comes of it.
Recent Process Changes:
- Deleted PayPal after they held up another client transaction.
- Migrated to Bonsai (Freelance CRM) for payments/projects/agreements
- Reworked my client-intake process to better filter out poor clients (I'll probably make more adjustments here)
- Built out new formal agreements to be more clear about exact deliverables
- Increased prices (but they need to go up more)
- Added a branded "How to Work with Me" guide for clients who contact me on Upwork
- Started accepting more client calls (more calls = more offers = more sales)
- Set a limit of 4-6 projects per month
- Added basic email automations
- Connected Calendly with Zoom, ActiveCampaign, and Google Calendar to streamline my intake processes.
- Need to add portfolio examples to my website and a few other changes
- Need to improve the value of my offer beyond *just* copywriting
- Need to reduce my services to just one core service
- Need to improve the look and feel of my deliverables
- Need to bring on a few freelancers to help with workflow management
- May need a proofreader to help me catch small errors
- May need to get a little more niched down
- Will add LinkedIn as a client traffic source
- Will add YouTube as a client traffic source
If anyone has questions, I'll answer them along the way. My goal is to go from 6-figures to 7 in client work as a solo copywriter without increasing the number of hours per day. My other goal is to stop being lazy just because I'm comfortable.
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