My Top Three Freelance Income Sources For 2022

Discover the top-three income sources in my freelance business this year — based on a great question I got from one of my readers.

I got a great question from a Pro-Lancer named Lee last week, after I shared my income and work hours through Q3 of this year.

The question was:

“What’s been your biggest money maker this year?”

Here’s why this seemingly simple question actually holds tremendous power:

Evaluating your most-profitable activities…

Then just finding ways to do more of those activities…

Is one of the fastest and easiest ways to multiply your growth as a freelancer.

In fact, if you look at the analysis I did for how I could double my business in a year, that’s basically the approach I took.

So first, props to Lee for the great question.

And since I think the answer will provide a ton of insight for you as well, I’m going to share it with you today.

Now there are actually three ways you could define my “biggest” money-maker.

So let me walk through each one for you right now.

First, You Could Look At My Biggest Money-Maker By The Client

Meaning which client brought in the most money for me this year.

And in that case, I’ve made the most income from a client that I have on a monthly retainer.

They account for 39% of my revenue so far this year — or $71,500.

At the same time, I have another client who comes in as a close second. And I work with them on a project basis.

They’ve paid me $50,000 to date — which comes out to 27% of my income for the year.

Plus I have a mix of smaller clients on both a retainer and project-basis that make up the other 35% of my revenue.

Which means I’ve got a nice balance between consistent, lucrative retainers and high-paying single projects. And I have also spread out my risk so that no single client makes up too much of my income.

The Second Way You Could Also Look At My “Biggest” Money-Maker By The Deliverable

Meaning which type of project brought in the most money for me.

And for this assessment, I’m going to ignore my big retainer client. Since I do a little bit of everything for them.

So with that retainer out of the picture, I made the most money from writing long-form sales letters.

They account for roughly 25% of my income to date.

And that means writing sales letters combined with my biggest retainer will make up over 60% of my income.

At the same time though, there’s a little bit of selection bias here.

Since I intentionally seek out clients for long-form sales letter projects more than other types of work.

Also, this does not include performance bonuses and royalty payments that I sometimes get on top of my flat fee for a sales letter.

I keep track of those separately, since they’re not guaranteed the way the flat fee is.

Plus for my royalty deals, I also have to do some ongoing work to help the client test and optimize their sales funnel.

So I want to make sure that the royalties I collect are worth the time I spend on those optimizations.

Which is actually a perfect segue…

The Final Way You Could Calculate My “Biggest” Money-Maker By Profit Margin

Meaning which activities allowed me to earn the most money for the least amount of time.

And if you look at it that way, the answer is royalties.

Now I have to warn you, the math to show you why gets a little tricky.

But if you’re committed to following along, you can see how I calculate my profit margins in this article.

For now though, all you need to know is that I have made $14,326 in royalty income so far this year. While my costs were only $6,735.

That leaves me a profit of $7,591 from royalties to date — far more than any other project…

And with that, you’ve now seen my top three freelance income streams (so far) in 2022…

Or have you?

Surprise! Royalties Were Not My Most Profitable Money-Maker After All…

Late last year — after I published this article — I wrote a sales letter for a client in record time.

Compared to my usual timeline of 80-100 hours, this sales letter only took me 58 hours. (All without sacrificing an ounce of quality. Since the early numbers for this sales letter look strong.)

Which means I was able to slash my “costs” to create this sales letter.

And it wound up becoming my most profitable project of the year.

I earned $10,213 in profit from this sales letter. (While I finished the year with $8,313 in profit from royalties.)

Take a look…

So let this be a powerful reminder…

Reducing the time it takes to complete a project — without sacrificing the quality — is a massive boost to your bottom line.

Because after the surprising experience I had with this sales letter, I know it’s something I’m going to focus on in the year ahead.

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Now Let Me Show You How To Make Freelance Clients Come To You — Like Clockwork — Using A Simple, 30-Second Conversation…

All the details are inside my free business blueprint 30-Second Referrals.

With this free PDF, you’ll discover how to use a simple, 30-second conversation to get two referrals from every single client you sign. (I’ll even show you exactly what to say during this conversation with my word-for-word script on page 13.)

That way, you can make clients come to you like clockwork. And you can fill your pipeline with more new business than you can handle.

But there is a small catch…

30-Second Referrals is only available to members The Freelance Like A Pro email list.

So enter your best real email below to join us and claim your free copy of 30-Second Referrals now. (And you’ll get my members-only emails to help you run a more profitable and stress-free freelance business, too.)

Thanks for the freelancing guide and the emails that you've been sending out — the 30-second referral method is so stupidly simple, that it's genius!

Connor Inch, Freelance Copywriter