How to Find and Secure Freelance Writing Clients
by Chris Bibey
It is easy to show people how to make money through freelance writing. After all, once you have clients, the writing part usually comes a bit easier. In fact, many freelance writers will openly admit that they have a more difficult time marketing their services than the actual writing process. If you are going to be successful, you need to learn how to find freelance writing clients. From there, your writing ability will take over, and you can do your thing.
Every freelance writer finds clients in their own way. I have my own strategy for doing so, and it is safe to say that it is much different than that of many others. With that being said, there are basic steps and details that will allow you to get a good start. Let’s take a look at a few now.
Planks Make Millions Selling Anti-Sweat Armour
Kevin Plank’s unremarkable career as a college football player hardly ranks him with the greats of the gridiron. But Under Armour, a bright idea hatched during his days as a walk-on fullback at the University of Maryland, has taken Plank, 31, to the promised land in the sports apparel industry.
For anyone involved in athletics, you know that perspiration can be the pits (no pun intended). Kevin Plank set out to capitalize on the perspiration that goes hand-in-hand with sports by creating clothing that wouldn’t become saturated with the stinky stuff. After playing fullback for the Terrapins, Plank knew what just about any other football player knows… pads, clothing, and shoes flat out STINK after games.
From this simple concept a multi-million dollar a year business was born. Under Armour was the brainchild of Kevin and Scott plank and those humble beginnings have now led to a full-fledged sporting craze.
For those that are unfamiliar with the product, you can find it at any sporting goods store. Under Armour is thinly layered – tight-fitting clothing that doesn’t hold moisture. For athletes, this idea was better than sliced bread. The clothing (since it doesn’t retain moisture) not only doesn’t weigh you down with sweat, but it actually helps to cool you! The science behind it is similar to that of perspiration itself. The clothing doesn’t hold moisture so it forces it to the top layer. It sits on top of the top layer and when you catch a breeze, it can actually cool your body by up to 35%. Amazing!
Under Armour was started with a twenty thousand dollar budget, and a lot of legwork. The company never spent a dime on print or media advertising (until much later), but instead, relied on word of mouth. They passed out samples of their clothing to football players from Georgia Tech. The players fell in love with it almost instantly, and Under Armour received it’s first order… for $15,000.00. This was just the beginning though. Still relying on word of mouth advertising, what happens next is what really catapulted this fledgling business into the limelight.
The equipment manager for the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons just so happened to be close friends with the Georgia Tech head coach that just made the first Under Armour order of any sports team. After a weekly lunch visit, Kevin Plank received a call asking if he could make the shirts long-sleeved as well. Kevin, without an advertising budget, nor a well-recognized brand… made his first sale to a professional sports team.
This was really all it took for Under Armour to shine. Before he knew it, Plank was receiving orders of hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise from professional sports teams and apparel shops all over the world.
It didn’t take long for the Under Armour idea to be emulated though. Bigger companies such as Nike, Adidas, and Reebok started developing entire product lines that they called “dry fit” clothing. It seems that although Under Armour may be the under dog in this fight… that it never really turned into much of a fight. By the time the “big 3″ released their products, Under Armour already had established a firm grasp on the industry by signing contracts to provide athletic apparel to all major pro sports, and most college sporting programs as well.
How’s that for an under dog story?
- Bryan Clark
Your First Dollar From Blogging In 7 Days Or Your Money Back – Web 2.0 Wealth System Review
Web 2.0 Wealth System is a series of training videos by Alex Sysoef designed to teach people how to create profitable blogs, with the claim that if you follow the step-by-step instructions you will begin earning money within seven days.
Product: Web 2.0 Wealth System
Creator: Alex Sysoef
Website: www.web20wealth.com
Purpose: This product is intended to help you increase or start generating blog income using a simple system that takes minimal time to implement.
Price: $67.00*
Reviewed by: Bryan Clark
* Until December 1st 2007 Alex has offered a $20 discount to readers of Yaro’s blog, so you can get his product for $47.
Alex created this product with the intentions of making sure that anyone who bought it wouldn’t be a member of the “one and done” blogging group. Statistics show that most bloggers blog consistently for approximately one to three months before giving up. Why do they give up? They are overwhelmed!
I’ll tell you, as a newer blogger myself (that’s me, Bryan Clark, not Yaro), there are many ways to get overwhelmed when it comes to trying to decipher all of the blogger “code” that comes with the territory. Simple things to experienced bloggers can be a headache to the newbies. Terms like RSS, SEO, PPC, Affiliate, CPC, and more, can all seem like a foreign language to a new blogger.
Alex Sysoef stepped up and has offered a product designed to help people new to blogging get over the beginner curve quickly. His product is the best I’ve tested so far when it comes to guiding beginner to intermediate bloggers down the path of Internet income.
Who Is It For?
This product is easy to follow, and you can use it regardless of your skill level. Alex has a pretty heavy accent, so you’ll need to listen closely, but it’s not too difficult to understand.
Web 2.0 Wealth System was created for the beginner, but I would recommend it for the intermediate blogger too – you will stumble across a few gold nugget ideas that you didn’t know before, even if you are familiar with blogging. Advanced bloggers will probably find much of the training redundant, so if you are familiar with how to set up a WordPress blog, install critical plug-ins and the best monetization methods, you probably don’t need this product.
I was pleasantly surprised by some of the tips Alex talks about in the videos, in particular the monetization suggestions, as he offered a few ideas I had never heard of before. For example, the section where he covers using AssociatedContent.com was particularly refreshing. Not many other blog trainers talk about this service as a way to make money from a blog and it’s interesting how Alex leverages the site within his system to generate multiple sources of income from the single stream of content.
Why Would You Need This Product?
What Is A Jibbitz?
After doing my profile of the business team behind the lightweight slippers known to the world as Crocs, I managed to stumble across this brilliant accessory. Jibbitz are tiny decorative snaps that fit into the holes on top of Crocs.
Just like Jonathan Hall, Sheri Schmelzer was able to leverage an already successful market, and breathe some new life into it with a complimentary accessory. Filling a need, or more likely a want is what separates a good invention (and the entrepreneur) from a bad invention, or at least one that isn’t likely to catch on. This is where so many entrepreneurs fail… they try to create a market instead of leveraging an existing one. But I’ll let Yaro tell that story. Back to Jibbitz.
Jibbitz come in all sorts of designs from flowers to smiley faces and they make sense when you figure the available real estate (the holes) that are available on Crocs. Sheri Schmelzer started this operation selling Jibbitz from her basement. It didn’t take long before she was selling out every batch of the $2.49 accessory. Orders got to the point where Sheri could no longer handle the demand. A good problem to have, but a problem all the same. Looking for an easy fix, Sheri brought her husband Rich into the mix.
Rich was an experienced businessman and he quickly set up a deal with a company that agreed to manufacture Jibbitz in bulk. Not long after, they signed their first distribution deal with the popular mall fixture “Clare’s”, the Schmelzers had sold an estimated 750 thousand Jibbitz at $2.49 a piece.
The success didn’t go unnoticed either. The actual company that she was selling Jibbitz for (Crocs) purchased the small operation for a tidy sum of 10 million dollars. The contract also states that Sheri Schmelzer is entitled to another 10 million if Jibbitz meets initial projections set forth by the number junkies at Crocs. Not bad for a business that had been around all of 4 years.
How To Make Millions Selling Ugly Shoes
Would you buy a pair of ugly shoes just because they were comfortable? That’s the question that Crocs inventors Lyndon “Duke” Hanson, Scott Seamans, and George Boedecker asked themselves when they set out to create a lightweight and extremely comfortable shoe. I personally would never be able to go without my Crocs again. These things are beyond amazing and if you don’t have them… your feet may never forgive you.
Crocs were originally created to be an outdoor/boating/watersports type shoe because of their rubber build, light weight, and the fact that they float. But instead, mainstream society has taken to these shoes like bees to honey. They have become the overwhelming success story of the 2006-2007 fiscal year.
But how does an ugly and inexpensive shoe take the world by storm? Let’s look closer.
In 2004 Crocs started to create some buzz in the watersport community as a comfortable and lightweight boating shoe. Later that year, Crocs purchased Foam Creations and their manufacturing operations to secure exclusive rights to the foam resin called “croslite” which actually forms a mold to the wearers foot, which provides a comfortable and functional shoe.
Crocs began marketing their product to the outdoor community but eventually word got out about their odd creation. Deciding to push their luck, the creators agreed to give their shoes a test run on the east and west coasts, and allow distributors to carry their footwear.
It didn’t take long for these odd, yet comfortable shoes to catch on to the masses. Crocs blew up in 2006 and has become the leading “sandal” in the world. Crocs projected profits for next year? A cool 400 million. Not bad for a product that started out as a rubber and foam mixture.
