EVERYONE wants a personal brand.
“Clients will come to me!”
“I need to build a reputation before doing outreach!”
“It’s how I know my skills are improving!”
To this I say: lol.
I started selling memberships to Solo Copy Empire in May 2022 through my meager 900-follower brand on Twitter.
The growth was solid. The more I focused on it, the more it grew.
By December 2022, I had grown to over 11,000 followers.
Everything was rocking along nicely.
Then… it stopped.
Since then – more than a year later – I’m only at 12,600 followers.
What happened?
My content didn’t get worse.
But my visibility sure did.
Everything I did to that point to attract readers and get more exposure went out the window.
Elon changed the rules of how the app works and its algorithm.
Retweets don’t do much anymore.
Now it’s engagement.
Likes. Comments. And WHO likes and comments. And who I’M liking and commenting.
My growth has stalled. And it’s affected Solo Copy Empire as well.
It’s not a huge deal for me
My business and income rely on my client work.
That’s separate from my brand online.
I don’t use my brand to get copywriting clients.
In fact, I never have.
I don’t need to.
I’ve actually never gotten clients with any of the following:
- A social media profile
- An “established reputation”
- A website
- A logo
- A name for my business
- A pretentious title, like “THE COPYWRITING GOD” or whatever
And I did this deliberately.
The main reason I am a freelancer
I like to be independent.
My mom says I’ve been this way since I was a child.
And look, it has its problems. Ask my wife, who always wants to help me and I refuse.
But this informs why I do what I do.
I want to be in the driver’s seat.
When I’m making money, I want control over who I work with, who I’m in front of, and how much I make.
I want control.
And therein lies the problem with a personal brand.
Your ability to make money is dependent on someone else
I don’t hate Elon like a lot of people do.
I think he’s doing great things with the platform, even if I disagree with some of his decisions.
That said, I’m not trusting him with my ability to provide for my family.
Too many people placed their livelihoods on X’s algorithms or its API.
When those changed – and the ones running the platforms are free to change them – businesses got rocked (including my writing program).
If you want to grow on X, you have to invest a lot of time, energy, and attention into playing by Elon’s rules.
Instagram and Facebook? Zuck’s rules.
Algorithms can change, without warning, without notice, and without any announcements.
Imagine if the boss at your 9-5 would wake up one day and lock the front doors of the office building.
You can’t make money until you get inside.
So you have to wander around outside until you figure out that he unlocked a few windows.
Now you climb through those windows.
Six months later, he locks those windows and opens up a door on the roof.
Now you have to figure out how to get to the roof so you can get in and make money.
That’s what it’s like depending on a personal brand online.
Far, far too many people think this is the only way because they bought into the hype.
It isn’t.
There’s another way that I’ve been using for over 15+ years.
Find clients. Talk to clients. Sign clients.
Outbound outreach is the way to go.
You are completely in control.
I’ve chased every tactic around over the last 15 years. This one has always worked.
You figure out how to contact clients and you go TO them.
You strike up conversations.
And you present yourself as a professional.
Ta-da!
Now you’re signing clients, getting paid, and not worrying about anybody’s algorithm changes.
And you’re in the driver’s seat.
This is the way.
How do you do this consistently?
There are subtleties to doing this right.
- Frequency
- Messaging
- Targeting
- Negotiating
Do it the right way and you’ll never be out of work again.
Do it the wrong way and you’ll think “it doesn’t work for me!”
Let me show you how it’s done.
Right now through Sunday night, I’m opening up spots in my Solo Copy Empire program.
You’ll learn how to build a proven client-getting-machine that you can tap into whenever you need it.
And you won’t need any social media accounts or followings to do it.
Isn’t that what you want? Control over your business?
I’ll give you the keys.
Lay the groundwork for your copywriting business in just one week of work. In this free guide, I hand you all the basics to get you started fast. No catch – just the cheat sheet.
Want a profitable, sustainable copywriting career? Tap into my 15+ years of copywriting experience and build a $3,000-$10,000/month income.