The Writer’s Quadrant

If you’ve read about the CASHFLOW Quadrant by world famous financial guru – Robert Kiyosaki, you will understand that everyone who wants to make money will fall into one of the following E, S, B, I quadrants.

The same will apply for a writer or for an entrepreneur dealing with writers.

When you take a closer look at the quadrant, you will get an idea where you stand and what you want to do with your business.

A writer in the ‘E’ quadrant

Writers in this quadrant are normally employed by someone else. They work in a 9-5 environment and their writing skills are mostly honed in-house by their company or by working on projects assigned by their company.

This type of writers, in my humble opinion, is one of the lowest paid writers compared to the other three quadrants.

I’m not implying that these writers are poor because they could be earning a high salary with great benefits and a certain level of job security, but because there is limited vested interest in their writings and a non-scalable business model (trading time for money), you can earn a good income but not a great income.

However, if you want to monetize writing as an entrepreneur, then building a team of employed writers is one of the most cost effective (and lucrative) ways to build a writing force and get more bang for your buck! (See below for more information on entrepreneurship).

Examples of ‘E’ opportunities: Working full time at an Internet marketing company, contracted pay per post blogging (commit a number of blog posts a month to a blogger in exchange for a monthly salary)

Pros: Job security, steady income, good training, no need to tender for writing projects

Cons: No vested interest, non-scalable model, little time to left to monetize your writings, sometimes contracted solely to the employer (meaning the writer’s work is exclusively for the employer only).

A writer in the ‘S’ quadrant

Those in the self-employed quadrant have the potential to earn LOTS of money online through freelancing.

As a writer, you can look into a number of opportunities without the commitment of being tied to one person or a company compared to the employed staff.

Freelance writers tender for writing jobs through e-mail, third-party writing services or through referrals. These guys earn money for their services and the ‘pay’ is usually much higher compared to a company staff.

Examples of ‘S’ opportunities: freelance pay-per-post blogging, ghostwriting services, copywriting services, proof-reading services, rewriting services and much more.

Pros: Flexible schedule, no need to commit to a single client, set your own rates, work on projects that you like, the choice to ‘fire’ your client if things do not work well and lots of money to be made

Cons: The continuous need to tender for writing projects as the fate of your ‘rice bowl’ (a Chinese term synonymous to putting food on your table) depends on your clients. You will also need to build your reputation and deal with late payment issues occasionally.

A writer in the ‘B’ quadrant

A businessman or an entrepreneur in the ‘B’ outsource work to other writers or employs writers.

There comes a time when a freelancer’s reputation and writing rates grow to a great amount and the demand for his time is so pressing that he or she decides to outsource the jobs to a team of writers. The entrepreneur makes most of his money based on the margin he sets based on the cost of outsourcing the work to his writers.

He may also get his team of writers to work on huge projects that require lots of writing work to be done.

Examples of ‘B’ opportunities: Large scale writing services, integrated systems (much like a writing or product creation department for large companies when full-scale projects require entrepreneurs to think like a CEO rather than as a part-time home business freelancer)

Pros: No need to do the writing yourself. You outsource work and take a large cut because of your reputation where clients cannot survive without your writing services and writers cannot survive without you giving them writing projects. You won’t need to trade so much time for money and this model is scalable.

Cons: You will have a management headache. Managing people is one of the most difficult things to do. You will also need to have an abundance of projects to keep every single mouth fed (including your own). At the worst case scenario, you must pay everybody first and pay yourself last.

A writer in the ‘I’ quadrant

‘I’ refers to investors. According to Robert Kiyosaki, you are using the money to earn more money. In the context of writing projects, however, I would improvise and apply this to Internet assets (since Internet assets put money on your table).

Internet assets come in the form of businesses online that generates you money on autopilot (or with low maintenance).

Internet assets leverage on search engine traffic, niche marketing websites, article directories, viral marketing, affiliates and many other technical aspects to earn you money.

This is one of the best ways to make money online using your writings because each ‘asset’ that you create as a result of your writings will generate for you additional income streams.

Examples of ‘I’ opportunities: article directory submissions, content membership sites, newsletters, blogs, viral E-books and much more.

Pros: Autopilot income, leverage on the Internet and market your products through an army of affiliates.

Cons: Requires Internet marketing knowledge, certain level of support issues, time investment and the need to adapt to the many changes on the Internet (for example Google changes their search engine algorithm from time to time)

At the end of the day, no matter what path you choose to take, as long as you find the right people and build a network, you can be assured that writing is an iron rice bowl (you will never go hungry).

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