Nicolas Cole 🚢👻

With 1 simple change, my best friend and I landed our first 2 writing clients in 24 hours.

The secret?

One phrase.

In 2017, Drew and I quit our jobs to start a ghostwriting agency.

• I was living in a rundown, Chicago studio apartment.
• Drew slept in my bed because I had no furniture.
• We sent emails and messaged everyone we knew.

Days flew by.
Stress crept in.
My savings dwindled.
Rent was coming due fast.

I started to panic.

Did we just make a huge mistake?

Then we went to a startup event.

And we kept repeating the same phrase to everyone:

"We run a ghostwriting agency that specializes in writing thought leadership articles for startup founders looking to raise their next round of funding."

The funny thing?

People mirrored that specificity right back to us.

They knew EXACTLY what we offered and to who—which made it way easier to attract the right (and high-paying) clients.

And we left the event with our first client.

In the Uber ride home, our 2nd client emailed us to say "I'm in."

That night, Drew and I could hardly sleep. We had just gone from failed founders to two high-paying clients.

Both paying us more than our old full-time jobs.

All within 24 hours.

We owe it all to that one, little phrase.

And in the next 18 months:

• We landed more clients
• Built a team of 20+ employees
• Scaled to over $2,000,000 in revenue.

This is the power of niching down as a ghostwriter (I dropped 4 more reasons why this works in the comments).

And right now, demand for ghostwriters on LinkedIn is exploding.

Want my free, 5-day blueprint on how to land high-ticket ghostwriting clients on LinkedIn (and other platforms)?

Click "Visit my website" at the top of this post to get instant access.

In 2018, I dropped $6,000 on a book I didn’t even want.

Why?

To land my biggest ghostwriting client to date.

Here’s the story of how I helped one man become a New York Times best-seller (and discovered an ugly truth about the publishing industry):

Back in 2018, I had a ghostwriting client who ran an events business.

He decided becoming a best-selling author would boost his “credibility” (and scale his business).

Little did I know this would involve me.

One day, he came to me with an offer:

“Cole, I love you and I love your agency, so I have an introduction that would be really helpful for your business... but I would like something in return.”

“OK, shoot,” I said.

“I know the CMO of one of the largest technology companies in the world...

A multi-billion dollar company...

I'll introduce you directly to him and I will put in such a good word that it's almost guaranteed they will want to work with you...

But I want you to buy 300 of my books.”

At the time, ordering 300 books at $20 a piece was no small amount of money for my agency.

It would cost us $6,000.

But I had a feeling this would pan out and I liked him. He’d been a good client and I wanted to help him become a NYT best-seller.

“Alright, I'm game.”

So I forked out $6k and ordered 300 copies of the book.

(By the way, the intro he made became our biggest client and would pay us a FULL YEAR in advance.)

When the book launched 300 copies of this guy's book showed up at my door.

Box after box piled up, all across my house.

“What am I gonna do with all of these books?!”

I gave them away to everyone I knew and when people came over, I’d be like “Hey, I have some extra books, why don’t you take one?”

But did my client his the list?

On the week of the launch:

• Every interview he’d done dropped
• Every article we’d written was published
• And every influencer in his network promoted his book

And the week after, he hit the NYT bestseller list.

Then, one week later, the book completely fell off the charts. The book made him zero money.

But he:

• Called in every favor possible

• Spent tons of money getting his team to promote the book

• And returned all those promises he made, costing him money

Getting the New York Times as a badge probably cost him $250,000+.

I realized that becoming a best-selling author is not about who writes the best book.

It's about who's willing to do the most work on the marketing side and spend the most money.

Becoming a New York Times best-seller is 100% just a marketing game and a budget game.

The whole experience changed my perspective on whether I should aim to be a best-seller.

There are situations where having that badge is valuable.

But if you get the badge, but nobody reads the book, does it even matter?

—
📌 Ghostwriting helped me build a billion-dollar network.

Want to get paid to write for industry leaders?

Click "Visit my website" at the top of this post for a free, 5-day email course showing you how to get started.

If you want to be right, be pessimistic.

But if you want to be rich?

Be optimistic.

Because if you are:

• Lazy
• Low-agency
• Pessimistic

There are far fewer opportunities for you today to succeed.

But if you are:

• Ambitious
• High-agency
• Optimistic

Then there has never been more opportunity available in human history.

You choose.

Recently, an entrepreneur friend texted me, asking my opinion on whether or not he should start a podcast.

Here's what I said:

—
I've been on dozens of podcasts.

And writing and publishing my ideas on the internet has helped me refine and clarify my thinking.

Which has made it so much easier to talk about my ideas in podcast interviews.

And I've found writing is the foundation for every type of creative work:

• Storytelling
• Podcasting
• Designing
• Marketing
• Selling

So, want to clarify your own thinking through writing?

Here's a free, 5-day email course with everything you need to build a daily writing habit.

Click here to get instant access: https://lnkd.in/gHVMYgYi

You only need 3 specific skills to make $200,000/year as a ghostwriter:

• Offer creation
• Premium positioning
• And "Free Consulting" outreach

You don't need:

• A portfolio
• An audience
• Testimonials
• Or case studies

I had NONE of these, but I still sold $3,000,000+ in ghostwriting services, working with over 300 industry leaders.

And right now, demand for ghostwriters on LinkedIn is exploding.

But only IF you execute these 5 steps to land high-paying clients:

—
📌 Want a proven ghostwriting blueprint to help you make money as a ghostwriter?

I put one together—11,000+ have already used it to get started.

Click "Visit my website" at the top of this post to grab a free copy.