Over the past three years, I've worked with hundreds of new freelance writers and copywriters. 

I enjoy mentoring and coaching these new and ambitious freelance professionals, helping them build and grow their businesses. 

But through this process, I've uncovered a disturbing trend. 

This is not something I enjoy talking about. Mainly because it requires that I be blunt about some issues. 

But it's time to shine a light on this painful truth — and what you can do about it if you find yourself in one of these situations.

If you've been freelancing for a few years, chances are you've had trouble getting paid at some point. 

The client was slow to pay. Or they lost your invoice. Or they held your payment for some weird and unfair reason.

When that happens, you have a choice. You can rant about it. Foam at the mouth. Call Tony Soprano. Lose sleep. 

Or you can use that as a learning experience. And change what you do in order to prevent that from happening again (or at least to prevent it from happening as frequently). 

As passionate as I about my business and as much energy as I put into my clients' work, I've chosen to focus on the latter. 

Not only has it been more effective, but it has also enabled me to retain my sanity and peace of mind. And in this episode my guest, Katie Lane will share some very practical ideas for preventing these nightmares from happening. 

The process of picking a niche can be extremely stressful. But I've found that most of that stress and frustration is the result of bad advice. 

In fact, most of what I read and hear on the topic of picking a niche is misguided. It treats the issue as a simple, one-dimensional decision. But in reality, this is a complex, multi-faceted topic that requires you to think about your business at a deeper level. 

At the same time, it requires you to take action, even before you feel 100 percent comfortable with you decision. Because in most cases, your best niche ends up finding YOU. 

I've addressed this topic before. But in this episode, we're going deeper. My guest is Ilise Benun from marketing-mentor.com. Ilise is a frequent guest in my podcasts and classes. And in this interview, she'll share some practical ideas to help you solve your niche puzzle.