The Soloist Life

When you’ve run your Soloist business long enough, you’ll see cycles: changes in the market, changes in you/your interests and situation and your bank account. Business coach Ed Gandia shares how his business, his financials and his mindset have changed over 18 years as a Soloist:

Growing his first freelance business entirely by word of mouth—and the markers he used to decide when to invest more or pivot.

The role of fear in his decisions and business growth (and why it’s different today).

Building a community when that skillset isn’t part of your DNA—and the advantages of longevity.

How using even small wins as fuel can re-wire your financial mindset (and your finances).

Traveling the full circle of financial mindset growth—from scarcity to success to recklessness to abundance.

LINKS

Ed Gandia Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

BIO

Ed Gandia is a business-building coach who helps established freelance writers and solo marketers earn more in less time doing work they love for better clients.

His High-Income Business Writing podcast has more than 1.3 million downloads. And his insights and advice have been featured in SUCCESS Magazine, Forbes, Inc. magazine, Fortune, Fast Company, The Christian Science Monitor and The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00 - 00:22

Ed Gandia: I had a rule that all my side hustle income during those 2, 2 and a half years, after taxes, I would take 10% to reward myself and do something fun with or buy something cool. And then the rest straight to savings. I have 3 indicators that would show me I was ready to make the transition. And 1 of them was have a year's worth of living expenses.

00:27 - 01:10

Rochelle Moulton: Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast, where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Molten. And today I'm so excited to welcome Ed Gandia to the show. Ed is a business building coach who helps establish freelance writers and solo marketers earn more in less time doing work they love for better clients. His high income business writing podcast has more than 1.3 million downloads and his insights and advice have been featured in Success Magazine, Forbes, Inc, Fortune, Fast Company, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Ed, welcome.

01:10 - 01:16

Ed Gandia: Well, thank you, Rochelle, and I'm really delighted to be here and talking with you.

01:16 - 01:33

Rochelle Moulton: Well, I still can't believe that we haven't met before this. So I know we have and I checked last night. I checked over 100 contacts in common just on LinkedIn. And quite a few of those are people that I know very, very well. So we've been running in these parallel universes for years.

01:34 - 01:36

Ed Gandia: It's still a small world, isn't it?

01:36 - 02:00

Rochelle Moulton: It really is. Well, once we connected on LinkedIn, I started reading your posts and I found I was doing a lot of head nodding. And especially when you veered into this idea of financial mindset. And I'd like to talk about that with you, but first I'd really love for you to share your story, starting with how you segued from selling software to being such a beloved touch point for freelance writers.

02:01 - 02:30

Ed Gandia: Absolutely. So I'm going to maybe give you an extended version of the story, because I think some of the details matter for some of the things we're going to be talking about today. But I have a finance degree. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. It just sounded like a good degree to get. But in the early 90s, we're going through a big recession. Our professors are telling us that most of us are going to end up in sales. And I thought that is the last thing I will ever, ever do.

02:30 - 03:07

Ed Gandia: There's no way. I have a finance degree. I don't do sales. And interestingly enough, those are the only interviews I got later that year. I ended up in corporate sales. The last thing I wanted to do. The other thing I had told myself is that I'll never live in South Florida because I went to school in Tampa. And I ended up in South Florida. So yeah, be careful what you wish for or don't wish for. So I was in corporate sales and I for 6 or so years ended up working for companies that didn't do much

03:07 - 03:27

Ed Gandia: in the way of marketing and sales enablement resources, what we now call sales enablement. So I ended up creating a lot of my own materials. Most of my sales roles involved very aggressive quotas in environments where if you don't make your numbers, you're not going to have a job.

03:28 - 03:29

Rochelle Moulton: You're gone.

03:29 - 04:03

Ed Gandia: Yeah, you're pretty much gone, especially my last employer, which was a bit of a startup. They were kind of past the startup phase. But these were not Fortune 500 companies that could afford to just kind of keep you. You couldn't hide. Your results are extremely visible. So that was kind of the training ground that I had. And because I had to make these numbers and I was under pressure, I realized that I couldn't scale my efforts enough. I had to find many of my own opportunities. And there's only so much cold calling. Yes, I actually cold

04:03 - 04:39

Ed Gandia: called a lot, like pick up the phone, cold calling. And there weren't enough hours in the day. So I kind of came across this idea that people were calling copywriting. I found it fascinating. To me, I thought of it as selling on paper. I just thought, well, I can duplicate my efforts because if I can somehow do this well, I can have other people, so to speak, calling on prospects for me, cold calling. So that's what I did. I studied copywriting and I created campaigns that actually ended up generating pretty significant results and they helped put

04:39 - 05:08

Ed Gandia: money in my pocket. I had to create results. So I did that for a long time, but it wasn't until I realized 1 day that other people did this for a living, that I could actually turn this into a business. I had already set a goal that eventually I wanted to go out of my own, start a business, launch a business. But I was thinking more traditional brick and mortar. And I realized maybe this is it. Maybe it's just, you know, I've become a freelance copywriter and that's what I did. So in summer of 2006, I

05:08 - 05:23

Ed Gandia: had already built up my client base to a point where I was working 7 days a week. I had enough of a side hustle. It was healthy and consistent enough that I could afford to quit my day job. And I haven't looked back. So it's been what 18 years and...

05:23 - 05:24

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, going on 20.

05:25 - 06:03

Ed Gandia: Going on 20. It was nerve wracking, but it was also a lot of fun just to be able to go out there. And my clients were enterprise software companies. Just word of mouth, referrals, email marketing, some direct mail relationships. I would just go out there and do my thing. Eventually, people would come to me, other colleagues, fellow freelancers, because they saw my quick success. So I was earning a nice six-figure income in software sales. When I quit my day job, I transitioned straight into a six-figure freelance copywriting business. And they felt, to me, I just had

06:03 - 06:38

Ed Gandia: to make that happen. I had a young family. But to them, that was very, very unusual. So people started coming to me for advice. And I realized, maybe I should create some kind of ebook or information product. And that's what I did. And I put it out there and long story short, it just did well. That turned into partnering up with a couple of colleagues. We co-wrote a book by the name of The Wealthy Freelancer through an imprint of Penguin, which is insane. First time author and I'm writing a book for Penguin with 2 friends.

06:38 - 06:39

Rochelle Moulton: It is.

06:40 - 07:14

Ed Gandia: Yeah, yeah. It was pretty amazing. The book didn't really make any money, but It was the launch pad for my coaching business a couple years later. So in 2012, I started doing business coaching. And that's pretty much been my focus ever since then for about 12 years. I still had some writing clients in 2016. The last 1 got acquired. So I just became a full time business coach. And that's what I've been doing ever since. Lately, I've been kind of looking into maybe my next iteration, the next phase of my business. That's been my journey so

07:14 - 07:14

Ed Gandia: far.

07:15 - 07:38

Rochelle Moulton: Wow. So you've been what That's 14 years we're recording in 2024. So 14 years at business coaching, which is a nice run. This is so interesting to me that it's it just it doesn't sound like this was planned in advance that you latched on to opportunities as they presented themselves. Does that sound right or was there more intention in this?

07:39 - 08:07

Ed Gandia: Well, the only intention I had was when my first child was born, a few months later I realized I want to take matters into my own hands. Within 5 years, I want to have my own business, whatever that looks like. But other than that, everything else was pretty much serendipitous. I was doing writing just to be able to meet my quotas, put money in my pocket, put food on the table. And that worked. Realized that could be turned into a business. And then people were reaching out to me, hey, I could use your advice. And I

08:07 - 08:34

Ed Gandia: thought, really? Because I was asking you for advice a couple years ago. And then coaching a friend of mine, who's a great coach, told me, and I was actually, he was my coach, he said, you should do some coaching. I said, oh, there's no way, there's no way. And he talked me into it back in 2011 or so. I started coaching a little bit in 2010, 2011, but I would say 2012 was really kind of when I said, okay, I'm a business coach, let's put this out there and see what happens. So yeah, it's all been

08:34 - 08:39

Ed Gandia: just opportunities that kind of appear on the way to who knows what.

08:39 - 09:10

Rochelle Moulton: 1 of the things I like about all of this is that you did it in a very thoughtful way. That you didn't just go, okay, I'm gonna do this and then have no business and not sure what you're gonna do next. I mean, you tried things and you waited until you got to the point where you felt like, okay, this is a real business. I sometimes think that's the advantage of having a family, depending on you, is that we don't take flights of fancy, right? We do 1 thing at a time and see how it works.

09:10 - 09:13

Rochelle Moulton: We keep experimenting and then we succeed forward.

09:13 - 09:46

Ed Gandia: Yeah, I'm definitely a bit of a planner and I've gotten a lot better about taking risks. But early on with a young family, I was a sole breadwinner. I had to be thoughtful. I had to do some planning. I had to think about it. I had to mitigate risk any way I could. So that's why 1 thing I didn't mention is that my side hustle, I was running that for a little over 2 years before I felt comfortable enough actually quitting my day job. When I was transitioning into coaching, same thing. I just try to be

09:46 - 10:01

Ed Gandia: as thoughtful and plan for that as best I could. Sometimes that means doing a good job with savings. Sometimes it's really more about putting feelers out there, rapid prototyping and doing a lot of these things to make sure that you're not doing anything stupid.

10:03 - 10:16

Rochelle Moulton: I hear you. I'd love to ask soloists when they hit their first 100, 000. And it sounds like you hit yours really early on and never looked back. Does that sound right? Or did you struggle to hit that 100, 000 the first time?

10:16 - 10:51

Ed Gandia: Correct. No, I pretty much went right into 6 figure a year. I think my gross earnings my first full 12 months from June to June was over 160, 000 gross revenue in 2006. A lot of that was driven by the fact that I was running scared. I thought, and I think many of us have felt this, right? What if it all ends tomorrow? What if, yes, I've had 4 good months, but what if next month is not good? And the month after that, So you say yes to everything. I think there's something to be said for

10:51 - 11:24

Ed Gandia: the role of fear at different points in our business. It can be healthy if managed correctly. The problem is many of us never break out of that fear cycle. But for me, it was really, I was earning a 6 figure income in software sales. I remember running the numbers and figuring that I could get away the first year with 75k as a freelancer, but blew past that. I mean, twice, more than twice as much. But we were living pretty cheaply and which is by the way, it's always smart if you're trying to make a transition. So

11:24 - 11:30

Ed Gandia: it's fortunate enough that, you know, our costs weren't that high. Part of it is just living in fear.

11:31 - 11:46

Rochelle Moulton: I love that. So were you like a squirrel with nuts? Like were you like throwing some of that unexpected revenue aside saving for that rainy day in case you know, month 5 didn't prove as good? Like how did you think about that as you were growing your business?

11:46 - 12:18

Ed Gandia: Yes and no. I actually did that ahead of time. So I had a rule that all my side hustle income during those 2, 2 and a half years after taxes, I would take 10% to reward myself and do something fun with or buy something cool. And then the rest, straight to savings. I have 3 indicators that would show me I was ready to make the transition. And 1 of them was have a year's worth of living expenses, not income, but living expenses. So I was ultra conservative. And the other was I needed to hit a trigger

12:18 - 12:48

Ed Gandia: income goal, which is a number that if I can repeatedly do part-time, if doubled, would equal the full-time income that I need. Because I don't have the capacity being part-time, right? So a number that if I knew that if I were doing this full time, I'd be able to at least double. And then the third, and this is a member, this is 2005, 2006, is being able to secure health insurance for all of us. Because at the time, there was no ACA here in the US, you had to go through underwriting. And for whatever reason, you

12:48 - 12:54

Ed Gandia: could be denied to get self-employed health insurance. So those are the 3 milestones that I had to hit.

12:55 - 13:27

Rochelle Moulton: Well, or you could get health insurance, but it was prohibitively expensive. People who are just starting now don't realize the challenges that that created for a lot of business people. So what I'm hearing is that you were very consistent in terms of how you thought about the business, in terms of how you tucked away money, how you rewarded yourself. I'm thinking Erica Goody, who's been on the show a couple of times, accountant extraordinaire, CPA extraordinaire, would be thrilled with your strategy. So I just want to segue for a minute though, because there's something else you've done

13:27 - 13:44

Rochelle Moulton: that I really admire. And I wonder if you would talk about how you've built this community of writers. I mean, is it just wired in you from your years of selling, you know, which is all about building relationships or did you need to like buckle down to build it intentionally?

13:45 - 14:19

Ed Gandia: That's a good question. I didn't set out to do that intentionally. I would also consider myself a decent networker, but I'm not a community. That's not a quality that I think I possess. And a few years ago, I hired somebody for that role for a community that I was building. And I knew that it wasn't me. I was decent at that, but not great. The community I've been able to build in my, you know, we talk about the community, I guess, at different levels. My audience for my podcast, readers of my newsletters, customers for some of

14:19 - 14:36

Ed Gandia: my courses, workshops and clients, coaching clients. I think it's just staying power. I think I've been at this for so long, beating the same drum and that it's just, I don't know, I think I've just developed a reputation, I hope, a

14:36 - 15:11

Rochelle Moulton: good 1. Well, I have to say, it's actually refreshing to hear you say that because people talk about my community, my community. And I think a lot of us are not natural community builders. It's a skill, just like consulting is a skill and coaching is a skill and selling is a skill. Some people are just wired to do that community. But you know what I think though, Ed, and again, This is the outside looking in, but I've met quite a number of folks in your community and they are community people. So I think sometimes what happens

15:11 - 15:42

Rochelle Moulton: is if you stick around long enough, as you said, and your message is pretty consistent, that other people beat the drum, right? And they help move forward, help the community, the big idea move forward. I agree. So kind of coming back to the business end of this, so You've been serving writers and writer adjacent folks in 1 form or another for quite a few years. Once you started in the business coaching, how have your offerings and your ideal clients changed in that time?

15:43 - 16:19

Ed Gandia: Yeah, I think I started out as many coaches do. Hey, it's 3 months, we meet every week, 1 on 1, private coaching, and it's X amount. And it was very straightforward. I didn't really have a framework or a roadmap. We just kind of addressed your issues in a fairly loose way. So it started out like that. And that evolved into... I did that for maybe 8 months until I came across a model that at the time was actually fairly... It's kind of the way it is now, you know, it is period, but it was a group

16:19 - 16:55

Ed Gandia: coaching model. And the idea was you create a cohort of 10 people, and you have a process that you walk everybody through together on Tuesdays. And then on Thursdays, it's a group