The typical advice to freelancers who want to free themselves from the hamster-wheel of hustling is… get retainers.
So you have steady work from a small handful of clients. And you’re not burning yourself out chasing new work month after month.
Or it’s suggested you just hang in there. Because eventually you’ll build a network. And you’ll get referrals flowing in.
Not bad advice.
But doesn’t solve one sinister problem.
Because even with retainers… or a steady stream of referrals… or even productizing your services…
You’re still trading time for money.
You’re trading the finite resource of your time. So you’ll always hit an upper limit on what you can earn.
Now… it’s not all about money. But, as a wise person once said…
Money helps solve problems that not having money can’t. (Or something like that.)
In my book, there’s nothing wrong with wanting financial security. And even beyond that… financial independence.
But financial independence is close to impossible (maybe it’s completely impossible?) while trading your time for money.
Here’s something I want you to think about. And one of the reasons I’m so keen on building email lists…
Let’s say you create a $50 product.
Sure this will take an up-front time investment. Maybe it’s 10 hours. Maybe it’s 50.
But we’ll assume you have this product ready to sell.
So you advertise it to your subscribers. And 2% of people buy it.
(This is an ultra-conservative figure to prove my point. I’d expect more sales on a well-curated email list.)
That means, for every 100 people on your list, you sell 2.
That’s $100 made.
For bigger lists…
1,000 people –> $1,000
10,000 people –> $10,000
100,000 people –> $100,000
We see leverage has kicked in here, because…
Your ability to make money is now detached from the amount of time you have available.
Exciting, right?
Things get even crazier if you sell a continuity product that brings in a recurring amount every month.
Imagine if you were selling a $50 newsletter every month to 2% of your subscribers.
For a list of 10,000, that’s $120,000 per year!
Assuming everything is automated for the fulfillment side of things…
Maybe it’s 10-20 hours a month you put into creating the newsletter (plus any customer support needed)…
But the effort to create it is the same, whether you have 1 subscriber. Or 100,000.
I reckon every freelancer should be building their email list.
Simply because of the leverage it offers. And the path to financial independence it opens.
Ready to build your email list? Go here…
EmailForTheWin.com
Chris Milham