Be The Top 1%: Two Simple Moves Every Founder Must Make

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I actually can't believe how easy it is to be in the
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top 1% as a freelancer or
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studio owner by just doing these 2
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things. If you're not doing these, then you're probably leaving
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thousands of pounds on the table. I'm not exaggerating.
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Welcome to the Creative Courage Podcast. My name is Matt Essam,
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and today's gonna sound like a bit of a rant. It is 20 to 9
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on a Sunday evening, and I have felt compelled
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to grab my microphone and record
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this week's podcast because I
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had an experience this week which kind of blew my mind.
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So, I posted on LinkedIn asking if anyone
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knew a copywriter or somebody who specialized
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in case study writing. And within a couple of days,
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this post had over 60 comments from
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people saying they could help. And I literally had 25
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to 30 DMs on top
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of that. And so the thing that blew
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my mind was out of all of these people. So let's just say it was
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60 in total. It was probably more than that, but let's just say it's 60
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in total to be conservative. Out of everybody that messaged
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me and said that they could help, not a single one of them led
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with any kind of value. Every message
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was some form of, I've been doing this for X
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amount of years. Here's my portfolio. You should
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choose me. Or I recommend so-and-so, you should get in touch with
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them. And it blows my mind because in 2026,
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there is no excuse for pitching
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this way. There is so much information out
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there. And I don't like, if you're listening to this and you're one of those
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people that submitted this, I really don't want you to feel like I'm having a
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go at you because I know it's very difficult. To be
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a marketer and also do the thing that you do really well for your
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clients, right? It's why I have a business and it's why I've been able to
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be successful in what I do over the years, because there's such a need for
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this. So the passion you
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hear in my voice is an urgent call to anybody
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listening to this podcast right now who is not leading with
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value. In their pitch. And I will be specific and I will tell you exactly
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what I mean by this. And this is not going to be vague. I'm going
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to give you a very specific example of how I would have approached this
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if I was a copywriter or I was a case
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study writer. So for context, I put the post out on LinkedIn,
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right? And I ask, hey, does anybody know somebody that could help me write
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these case studies? And I get all of these comments and everybody
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is just pitching me. And so what I've had to do is I've had to
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create an application form and say, in order to narrow this
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down, because I don't have the time or inclination to
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reply to every single person. Right. And, and what's amazing
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is how many people said, hey, let's jump on a call and included a calendar
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link. Like if you're, if you look at my profile and
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you read the post and you see
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how many comments there are, do you really think that I'm going to be jumping
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on even a 30-minute call with every single person who
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said, hey, you should check out my portfolio. Hey, I can definitely help you.
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Right? If you want to be paid a lot of money, then I suggest
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that you target people and you work with people who've got
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more money than time. The people that have got more money than time don't want
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to jump on a call. They don't want to jump on a call to hear
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your sales pitch, right? The call should be the last
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part of the sales process, not the first part. So anyway, I,
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I've, I can feel myself going on a rant, but like, I'm so
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passionate about this because it's so easy to fix. And I didn't realize
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how many people are still doing this. So what would
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I have done differently? Well, first of all, out of the 60 people
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that pitched me, there are probably only about 10 to 15 who
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are actually specialized case study writers.
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Okay. So they're already at the, they're already in the top 10%.
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So having a niche or whether you niche your whole business or whether you at
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least just call out who you help and what you do in
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your LinkedIn profile and your social profile already puts you above
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everybody else. So rather than saying I'm a copywriter is I specialize
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in creating B2B case studies for tech companies
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or coaches or whatever. Now you might think there's not enough work
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out there. Well, of course there is, right? Because there are thousands
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of coaches, hundreds of thousands of coaches, there are hundreds of thousands of tech
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companies, and they all need case studies, whether they realize it or not. They all
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need a way to demonstrate how good the thing is that they
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do. They need testimonials, any case studies, right? So of course, there's a big enough
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market. So we need to get that out of our mind. So Number one is
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have some kind of positioning that calls out the person you help, or as a
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minimum, the result that you get for somebody and the mechanism in which you do
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it. Now, if you're a service provider,
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if you're a freelancer, small studio, agency, whatever, and you're in the
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creative space and you provide a service, copywriting, design,
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animation, film, whatever it is,
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chances are 90% of the people listening to this have a done-for-you service.
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Right? So you may also have a done-with-you service.
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You may also have got to the point where like, actually, I could teach a
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few people how to do this. But the majority of your work
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probably is and probably should be coming for done-for-you,
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right? So the client isn't being taught how to do it and trying to implement
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it themselves. They're giving you a certain amount of information and you're doing the
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thing for them to get the result. So in that case,
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you need to lead with a huge amount of value upfront.
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Right? Because if you don't demonstrate the thing,
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then how do they know you're actually able to
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deliver it? So in this case,
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what I would have done is, A, as a minimum,
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as a minimum, I would have a guide or
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a checklist or something which just tells
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the person I'm pitching to exactly how to create an
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amazing case study, right? In this instance.
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So I wouldn't have led with, hey Matt, I'm the
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perfect copywriter for you. We can jump on a call and I'll tell
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you how amazing I am, which is basically what most people are saying.
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I would have said something like, hey Matt, I know it's really difficult ciphering
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through all of these messages. Um,
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and creating B2B case studies can be really complicated. So I put together
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a guide based on my previous 5 years experience,
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10 years, however long you've been doing this, of creating really
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powerful B2B case studies that have generated thousands of new
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clients, opportunities, whatever, for my clients. And I've broken
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the whole thing down. So if you want to take a look at this as
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a guide, and even if you want to go and use this to create this
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yourself. Here it is. Here's all of my best thinking. Here are
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all of my best ideas. Step by step, I'm going to show you what makes
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a really compelling case study based on my experience
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and based on the results that we've got for our clients. Okay,
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so if anyone had done that out of all
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of those 60 people, I probably would have ignored everybody else.
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Now, providing it's good and it's not created by ChatGPT,
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right? Providing I read that, what I want to
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feel as somebody reading that is this person knows more than
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I do. Because I'm not going to lie, I have got quite far along with
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this process with a really good Claude prompt and
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a bunch of client interviews from sales call all the way through to testimonial.
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And it's done a pretty good job. It just needs an expert to come in
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and turn it into more of a story, to pull out the things that are
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a bit boring, because let's be honest, People don't read case studies and get
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excited. They only read case studies when they're considering buying something
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and they need more evidence, or they need to see themselves more
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in this person in order to feel confident that it's the right decision, right?
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So I would create that and
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I would just give people my best thinking. Now, most people listening
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to this go, well, then that person's just going to go away and do it
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themselves and then I'll lose the business. If you're targeting the right people, that does
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not happen, right? I'm not going to then get that PDF and
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be like, oh, let me try and improve the thing that I've already done.
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I've put the post out, said that I'm looking for somebody. I have
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more money than time. I mean, I have kind of both at the moment,
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but the people you want to be targeting, they have more money than time,
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but they're not going to go away and do it themselves. That's the point.
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You offer a done-for-you service. So as a minimum, if you haven't got
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some kind of guide, or checklist or PDF,
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which explains how to get the thing that
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you are promising to your done-for-you clients,
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then you are literally leaving tens, maybe hundreds
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of thousands of pounds on the table as a minimum, right? So if you
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do that, if you do those 2 things, number one, your positioning is around
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the result that you're actually getting and who you get it for. And I've spoken
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about this before, the 4 Ps: person, problem, promise, process.
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Right? So I won't go into that now. If you want to learn more about
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that, it's in some of my other podcast episodes. Number 1
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is a really good start. Number 2, then actually for the process piece, how we
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get someone from A to B, map it out and give all of your best
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thinking away for free so that somebody could copy you. Competitors,
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people that don't have money, whatever, right? Get it out there.
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Get your logo on it, get all your stuff on it so it is copyright.
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And if somebody does just rip it off, you could be like, hey, by the
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way, this is the thing I created and here's the date and here's the stamp
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and here's all my stuff. You can't use this, right? That is what copyright
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is. And I know we live in this world where everyone's copying everything these days,
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but it still stands. And you don't want to get a cease and
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desist letter. It's a pretty scary thing to receive. So it's
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very easy to do if you can prove that you created that thing and someone's
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literally just ripped that off of your website or your PDF. So forget that.
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Don't worry about that for now, right? Create that.
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The final icing on the cake, and this is where I would have probably chosen
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that person, without looking at anybody else is if
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that guide then said, use our assessment
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tool to rank or rate your
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case studies. Now, what do I mean by that? Well,
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in that guide, if you imagine you're trying to teach this to somebody,
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you would want like a teacher marking a paper.
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You would want to know like, what's my marking criteria? How do I know if
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this is a good answer or not? So let's say step 1 of the creating
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B2B case studies process is
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getting the right interview questions
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because it all starts with the interview, right? Okay.
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Are you asking and say part 1 is like, it all starts with the interview.
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Are you asking these 4 questions? These are the 4 crucial questions that you must
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ask in the interview. If you don't ask these questions, then you can't get a
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good case study. Great. So then in this like assessment tool,
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which is super easy to build. For £30 a month,
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or I think they even have a free one. You can go to scoreapp.com and
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build one of these things. Super easy, right? You would
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ask a yes, no, maybe question. Do you have
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4 specific questions that you ask
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in every client interview when you're
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recording a testimonial or a case study? Yes,
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no, maybe. And so they get 10 points for yes, 0 points for no,
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and 5 points for maybe. And then you move on to the next thing,
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right? Well, next we do this, then we do this, then we do this.
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And you go and create a question, which is a yes,
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no, maybe answer for each section of
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the thing that you've created, the checklist to guide your process,
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and you have it accompany the thing. So now not only do I
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know how you create compelling case studies. You've shown me, you've walked me through the
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process, but I can then look at one of my case studies and I
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can answer these questions and it's gonna give me a score, let's say out of
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100. So I can look at something I've already created, this kind of 80% there.
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And I'm like, oh, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Then I can
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also take the assessment and I can say, I only get a 60%. So then
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the conversation becomes, would you like my help getting this to 100%?
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So I've identified the gap. I've showed you how I close
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it. And hopefully in that guide, there is something there as the
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client that makes me go, I haven't thought of that. Or yes, I'm experiencing
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that thing. And no, I'm not doing that. Right.
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So I've identified a gap. That is all someone
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out of those 60 people would have needed to do in
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order to immediately get my business. And immediately choose
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them over anybody else. And not a single
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person did that, which blows my mind. And I don't
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think this is exclusive to copywriters. I think
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this is happening way more than I realized because I then went around and
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looked at some other people that I know, some people that have maybe
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messaged me saying they're struggling to find clients at the moment and things like that.
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And guess what? They have zero upfront value.
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On their LinkedIn profile, on their website. Now, I think
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these things got a bad rep because people call them lead magnets. And I don't
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like that word. I call it an irresistible offer. Like, hey,
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here's some information about how we actually just
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do this stuff for our clients. Like, if you don't have that
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in 2026 and beyond, you are
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literally leaving thousands of pounds
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on the table. So I had to rant about it. I had to do a
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podcast about it. I had to put it out into the world. And I really
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hope that you listen to this. And I really hope you're listening to this either
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going, oh shit, I need to create that thing, or going, oh good,
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I've got that. And that is how I lead every single pitch, right?
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I don't try and convince anyone to work with me or I'm the best person.
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I say, hey, look, I might not be the best person, But I have created
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this free guide. I have created this free resource that shows you how we
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get these kinds of results for our clients, for people just like you.
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Here it is. Take a look. That simple.
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And it can be done in a video if you want to, but a PDF
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I think is great because it's something tangible. Um,
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and yeah, it's just honestly, it will probably take you a day's worth
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of work to unpack your process, to get your IP out,
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put it in some kind of form. And give it to people. And honestly,
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just watch how much more business that you
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win just by doing that. So that's
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my message to you on a Sunday night. That was my rant. Needed to be
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said. It needed to be said when it was fresh in my mind. And I
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hope that has kind of maybe shaken a few people up and
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made you think a little bit more about how you're selling yourself
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and how you're marketing your business. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a
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friend, share it with somebody who, you know, hasn't got this thing right
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now. And hopefully my voice will whip them
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into action because ultimately my mission is to
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empower talented people like you. I know
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you're good at what you do. I know you're talented. I know you've got so
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much to offer the world, but you're making these silly fundamental
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little mistakes that are easy to fix.
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So that's why I'm so passionate about it. So please share this with someone.
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It's my mission to empower you to really go out
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into the world, solve meaningful problems, and step into your full potential.
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My name is Matt Essam. You have been listening to the Creative Courage
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Podcast.