5 Ways To Land Ghostwriting Clients Without A Portfolio, Case Studies, or Testimonials

There are five ways that you can land ghost trading clients without needing a portfolio, case studies or testimonials And I'm going to show you exactly how to do that today, okay? So there are five ways. So we got one, two, three, four, five Now before I tell you how to land clients without testimonials, a portfolio, case studies, etc It's worth asking the chicken or the egg question, which is How do you think every other person has done it? If it is impossible to land clients without case studies and testimonials and without a portfolio Then how did everyone else get started? Which came first the chicken or the egg and I find that a Lot of writers have this faulty belief thinking they need to have gone and achieved something before they can begin They think that they need all these case studies before they can start They think they need a thousand testimonials before they can land their first client It's like well, how do you think you get all of those things? You start working with clients. You actually those are not the required inputs Those are the outputs that happen over time, okay? And this has been true for everyone. How do you think I started? Do you think when I got into ghost writing? I just woke up one morning and I was like I'm gonna start getting into ghost writing and you know what? I'm different and I already have ten case studies that I can point to no of course not like everyone starts at zero Something else that I really like emphasizing for writers is When I was building my ghost writing agency digital press We worked with over 300 different industry leaders, Silicon Valley founders, investors, executives of publicly traded companies, you name it in every industry 300 plus clients we didn't use a single case study or testimonial zero Actually zero and the reason it was zero was because as I'm about to walk you through We got really good at articulating the client's problem So good that when we were on the phone with them they they assumed you must be the perfect person to help me because you can articulate my situation so well And that is the goal, okay? It has nothing to do with case studies or testimonials or having a big portfolio That is not how you land great clients clients. Don't actually care about those things Something that I spend a lot of time educating writers on is when a client asks you okay Yeah, but do you have a portfolio I can look at yeah, yeah, do you have case studies I can look at do you have any testimonials? They aren't actually asking that because they need it They're asking that because either a you haven't sufficiently educated them on the problem And so they're not really sure so they're looking for other markers of quote unquote credibility And b they're asking that because that's what everyone thinks they need to ask for They're not asking it because they actually need it They're asking it because they think they should ask for it And every single time like I said 300 plus clients when someone would ask me Do you have any case studies do you have any testimonials every single time I said the same thing I said as a go shrier the nature of the work that I do the the work that I do with clients is confidential So I'm not at liberty to share who I work with which was true Um, however, I can tell you that I've worked with people just like you And if you have any specific questions on the service or how this works for you, I'm happy to answer them I said some version of that every single time And every single time clients would be like yeah no problem And yeah one out of a hundred people that I would talk to would say and I don't want to move forward unless I You know have a direct testimonial from someone just like me that that you can point to and I would just be like Yeah, well, I'm a ghostwriter and I am under NDA with all of my clients So sorry, that's not something I can give you But it didn't matter because yeah one out of a hundred people said that and we would still close a ton of other business So I think it's just helpful to start like how do you think every other writer began? Everyone starts at zero Now that said When you're starting from zero what are some things that you can do to increase the likelihood of your success? Well the first one is You start with a free custom sample So when you reach out to a client You it's not about you having worked with 20 other people when you reach out to a client What you're trying to demonstrate is this is what it would look like if we did this for you That's ultimately the only thing the person cares about they they actually don't care if you've been successful with other people They only care if you will be successful again with them And nothing proved that to me more than when people would be like You know, I demand to know Uh that this has worked for other people and I would be like yeah, I can tell you It's worked with for other people and then they're like okay Yeah, but my objection is I'm still worried if it's gonna work for me It ultimately comes down to the person believing it will work for them And so one way one very easy way of getting ahead of that objection is saying let me put together a free custom sample for you So if you're pitching social ghost writing how could you show them a week's worth of social content or a days worth of social content Specifically for them if you're pitching newsletter ghost writing How could you show them a sample newsletter written for them written in their voice written by using content from a book They wrote or a speech they gave or a YouTube video they put together With AI this is so incredibly easy to do I used to do this manually For a ton of clients that I reached out to I would do free custom samples And that's how I landed a lot of clients, but this was pre AI I was doing it the hard way I would spend four or eight hours putting together a free custom sample for a client And guess what because I put in that work the likelihood of them going wow This is actually pretty great. I would like to work with you when up tremendously So I did this the hard way now with AI you can do a free custom sample very very quickly This is not hard to do okay. It's just a lot of people don't take the time to do it And I think often when I point this out to writers The objection they give is they're like well, I don't want to do free work for someone Don't look at it as free work look at it as a marketing cost You reach out to all these people if you People think oh if I reach out to more people volume the the likelihood that I land a client increases That's actually not true. It's not just about volume. It's about quality volume So you would be better off instead of reaching out to a hundred people with a copy-pasted message You'd be better off reaching out to ten people but creating a free custom sample for each one And that extra time is really just a marketing cost Increasing the likelihood that that person wants to work with you, okay? So that's number one Number two is doing the same thing But do an entire project. So you do a free project Now why is this a good idea? Well again, I'm not advocating for you to just work for free for the rest of your life That's not what I'm saying What I'm saying is that in the beginning if you're starting from zero There are other things you can get paid in okay, so you can get paid Let's do this in the green color you can get paid in confidence A lot of times people at the in the very beginning like the thing to solve for is not cash What proceeds cash is confidence like the more confident you get the the higher quality work you will produce the more likely You are to land clients So sometimes you need to get paid in confidence first Another thing you can get paid in is a testimonial Or a case study So you can say hey, I'm happy to do this project for you for free I'm happy to build you an educational email course for free I'm happy to run your newsletter for three months for free. I'm happy to run your social content for two months for free But in exchange I would love if you're happy with the end result I would love if you could be a testimonial for me. Okay, now again I built my entire go-sharing agency off zero testimonials zero But if testimonials are one of those things that are just stuck in your head and you're like I need it I need it. I need it you you can get them very easily you just trade effort for it. Okay And then the third one is You're either getting paid in confidence or getting paid in testimonials or case studies or you're getting paid in referrals So you can say I'm happy to do this for you for free But I would really appreciate it because I'm trying to grow my go-sharing business if you could introduce me to three potential clients Now again, that might seem like a crazy ask, but you would be surprised how many business owners like business owners love Transacting in relationships. It is the unspoken rule between business owners like I have no problem Instead of paying cash. I'm like why don't I just introduce you to the right person Instead of paying you cash. Why don't I just connect you with some opportunities? Instead of paying you in cash. Why don't I just give you access to this thing that is either expensive or would cost you cash or Is something that you wouldn't have access to Business owners love transacting in relationships. Okay, so there's no reason why you can't ask for this Which leads to way number three is you use yourself Let's make that readable you use yourself as the case study Okay, so what that means is whatever service that you want to provide The easiest case study to point to is you So for example when I first got into ghost writing the service that I was providing was writing 800 word thought leadership articles and my case study was pointing to me So I would get on the phone. I was 26 years old living in an 800 a month studio apartment with no air conditioning and up air mattress from targ it. And I was landing like primo billion dollar CEOs as clients. Okay. So I'm telling you this works. And I was doing this at a pretty young age. I would get on the phone with someone and they would say, how do I know that this is a good strategy? How do I know that this is going to quote unquote work? And I would point to myself and I would say, well, let me show you what I'm doing right now on Kora. This was in 2016. Kora was like, like even today, people have no idea what Kora is. Kora was an extremely niche site. But I pointed to myself on Kora and I said, I'm writing every day on Kora and I'm writing the same types of things. I'm basically writing 800 word thought leadership articles and look at the results. I've built an audience. Look at I'm going viral. Look at I'm getting pieces republished in these major publications. Look at like I just pointed to myself as a my service, my value prop is I will do what I'm doing for me for you. And that is incredibly powerful. Okay. So if you are pitching social ghost writing, for example, you should be practicing social ghost writing on yourself. You should point to yourself as a case study. If you want to go straight newsletters, you should have a newsletter. If you want to go straight like automated email sequences, you should have some sort of mechanism where those email sequences are set up for yourself. You want to be able to point to yourself as the case study. And I think the thing that gets lost in translation here is I'm not saying that you need to like go become this massive industry expert with two million, million followers before you can point to yourself as a case study. I was pointing to myself on Kora as a 26 year old with an audience of like 8,000 people. Like I was not pointing to some like massive outcome. All you need to do is to just demonstrate, hey, I am practicing on myself. Now why is that so valuable for clients? It's valuable because what you're basically saying is you're saying, look, you're not going to be the guinea pig. I am the guinea pig. I am testing all the things that I want to test and figuring out what works on myself. And then after I put myself through all of that, I take the things that work and I do them for you. So you being the case study actually mitigates the client's risk. That's very valuable to the client, okay? Which leads to number four, which I love this strategy. I don't think enough people do it. It's called pitch in public. So how else can you demonstrate? Because that's really all we're talking about like case studies and testimonials and a portfolio. What are what are those really trying to achieve? All they're trying to achieve is demonstrating to someone else that you're you can do what you say you're going to do. That's all. You're just demonstrating skill. You're demonstrating expertise. And my point is there are lots of other ways of demonstrating skill demonstrating expertise. And so one technique that I really love is called pitching in public, which is instead of pitching someone directly in private, which would be DMing them or sending them an email, right? Or sending them a text if you're connected with them. That's great, but it's happening in private. Like it's only between you and that person, which means it's not very quote unquote scalable. Pitching in public means the same thing that you would say to that person. Why don't you just do that in the form of content? So I'll give you an example. Instead of me pitching you, let's say you're a business owner, instead of me pitching you directly via email via DM privately. Instead, what I do is I go through my same process. I do my homework on you. I go to your website. I check out your funnel. I type in my email. I look at your content, right? I'm trying to figure out like what are you currently doing? And where do you have leaks in the bucket? I'm trying to identify problems I can help you solve. And then instead of telling you and educating you on those problems in private, what I do is I do it in content. So I write an article or I write a thread on X or I make a video or I make a LinkedIn carousel and I say, Hey, this business owner, I think is really great. You, I think you're really great and I love the business that you run. But if I was CMO for a day or if you hired me as a ghostwriter, after going through your funnel, these are the things that I would encourage you to do. These are the upgrades I would make. So your content is actually a pitch. It's demonstrating how you can help them, but it's also content for you. It's a pitch in public. Now, why is that so great? Well, one, it's another way of getting in front of the prospect. It's another way of getting their attention. But more importantly, number two is that even if you don't get their attention or even if you do, but they don't respond or you get their attention, but they don't become a client. What you're really doing is you're demonstrating your expertise in public, which will attract other similar types of people. So you might not land the person that you're writing about as a client, but you might attract someone else who has a similar business who reads that piece that you put together and goes, wow, that was really helpful. And actually I have all those same problems. And then they reach out to you. So it's actually turning your outreach efforts into a content strategy. Now, whenever I share this, and I've shared this tactic a gazillion times inside our premium ghost training academy, where I've trained thousands of writers, whenever I share this tactic, the number one objection that I get back is, coal, isn't the person going to get upset? Isn't the person going to get mad at me for telling them all the things that they're doing wrong? And that is a faulty belief. First of all, you're not telling them things that they're doing wrong to shame them in public. You're telling them things that they're doing wrong as missed opportunities so that they become more successful. And I don't know anyone on planet earth who would go, you know what? I run a business, but I would actually prefer to not be educated about problems that I have in my business. I'd prefer for it to just stay stuck and not growing and not as profitable. Of course not. So you have to view it as helping. You are helping the other person. And speaking from experience here, I've done this for a decade. The vast majority of the conversations I have with business owners are not me just validating telling them, oh, you run a perfect business and you have no issues. No, I go to them and I say, hey, I spent some time poking around your funnel. I want to point out some things. And if we solve them, you will be more successful. That is helpful. And it's a very powerful way of you demonstrating your expertise, demonstrating how you can help someone, which leads to the fifth one. And this is ultimately the only thing that matters is you build the skill of educating the client. The client does not care how much quote unquote industry credibility you have. The client does not care how many case studies you have. The client does not care how big your portfolio is. The client does not care if you have a gazillion testimonials or one testimonial or zero testimonials. The client doesn't care. The only thing the client cares about is you educating them on a problem they know they have in their business, but haven't gotten around to solving or a problem they don't even know they have in the first place. I can prove it with a very simple example. If you scroll TikTok or you scroll Instagram Reels, you scroll and all of a sudden someone appears on your page. You don't know who that person is. You don't know if they're the most credible person in the world or if they're a super random person in the world, you know nothing about them. You don't know where they went to school. You don't know what their job is. You don't know anything except a talking head on the screen in front of you. What do you do? You give that talking head about five seconds and if they start talking and they start demonstrating expertise that's relevant to you or they start educating you on a problem that you have or a problem that you don't know that you have, you keep listening. This is like short form content consumption 101. It's such a perfect example of how much we all when the head appears on our screen. Our first question is not where did you go to college? Our first question is not how much industry credibility do you have? Our first question is listening to the words that you are saying and trying to gauge whether or not you know what you're talking about by your ability to articulate my problem. It's such a simple concept but it is such a difficult skill for people to wrap their heads around. Your credibility is irrelevant and I can demonstrate credibility much better by articulating your problem in detail rather than just me saying look at all these things have achieved. And actually this video is a great example. In this video, I am probably articulating very specific things that either you've tried but failed at or things you didn't even know you could try and in educating you on it, there is some part of you that goes, "Kol seems to know what he's talking about." And you don't have that feeling because I've sat here and just like rattled off, these are things that I've achieved in my career. That's not the thing that's actually helpful to you. That's not what matters to you. What matters to you is my ability to articulate the problem that you have. And the more I educate you on that problem and the more I educate you on solutions, the more you believe that I am qualified to help you. And this is the whole game. Like if you want to go out and land writing clients, it is not about you having some like perfect portfolio. I really, I really want to drive that home. The portfolio is irrelevant. I've landed hundreds of clients without a portfolio. I've landed hundreds of clients without pointing to testimonials. That's not what matters. What matters is your ability to educate clients. And the way that you do that is by you building skill Of knowing what to look for of learning how to do your homework on a client of learning to identify what problems They have learning how to articulate you have this problem articulating the consequences of that problem articulating the benefits of solving that problem that is a skill And if you build that skill it solves all of these other issues. You don't need testimonials. You don't need a portfolio Even today like my portfolio is me. I don't point to like a client portfolio. I point to myself. I am my own case study And so that's the goal if you're like cold What is the best way to start from zero? I have no no testimonials to point to I go great That's not the problem What you should do is practice on yourself make yourself the case study and then build the skill of Educating the client on a problem they have in their business and if you do that you will be successful