Success leaves clues. Finance Strategists sat down with Toby Nwazor, founder of Millionaire Writers Agency. He shared his thoughts on the past, present, and future of the company, as well as the insight he gained from running the business. Q: Who are you and what’s your background? My name is Toby Nwazor, I am the founder of Millionaire Writers Agency, and I am a Nigerian. It has always been a shocker for many people when I share my educational background with them, but I have a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering, and my interest in startups led me to go for an MBA in Business Administration. However, I have always loved to write. As a high school student, I discovered I had a passion for writing. But I had this gnawing fear that becoming a writer meant I would end up poor. That fear drove me to opt for Chemical Engineering, with the hopes that I could get employed in the Oil and Gas sector after my graduation. Unfortunately, that never happened. At that point, I remembered my first love: writing. When I discovered I could build a successful career writing, I went all out for it. Q: Who has been your biggest influence, and why did they have such a significant effect on you? My biggest influence as a writer is Bamidele Onibalusi. He is a Nigerian freelance writer just like me. And when I started out, seeing him making waves as a Nigerian in the freelance writing world gave me the necessary boost I needed to pursue my goals too. He was the first relatable person I could see that could boast of a five and six-figure income as a writer. It inspired me greatly. For me, having him meant, “Toby if Bamidele can succeed as a writer even though he is living in Nigeria, then so can you.” He had a very huge influence on me because although I could see a lot of other freelance writers like Elna Cain and Carol Tice, I could not really relate to their stories. But Bamidele was different. He was living in Africa, just like I was. He faced the same power outage, poverty, and poor internet connectivity challenges that I faced. Seeing him succeed gave me all the boost I needed to have. Q: Knowing what you know now, what would you have told yourself when you were in your twenties? Knowing what I know about running a business now, I would certainly do better. This means creating a structure for running my freelance writing business. This means having a marketing structure and following through on it instead of relying on job boards or personal relationships. These days, whenever I start a new website, I don’t make the mistake of waiting. I make sure I start building my list. When I started off, it wasn’t like that. I ran away from list building and the email marketing subject because I thought it was complicated. In fact, I ran away from anything tech-related, and that will lead us to the third point. From list building to email marketing to the installation of themes and designing a landing page, I ran away from anything that looked like it would involve any amount of technology because of the limiting belief I had that tech was complicated. Now I know better. These things are simpler than you can imagine. Q: What is Millionaire Writers Agency? The name of my company is Millionaire Writers Agency. It has two major arms: the writing arm and the training arm. The writing arm is the part of our company that relates with the outside world: our clients. We offer a wide range of services. From blog post writing to web content development, to transcription services, editing services, ghostwriting services, content marketing services, and of course, copywriting services. Our training arm is targeted at writers and business owners that need to learn the art of content creation for their business too. We teach writers how to write better and get their clients to their destinations using their writing service as the vehicle. We also teach business owners the art of content creation and how they can develop content for their businesses to generate leads and increase conversions. Q: What makes your company different from its competitors? Integrity For us at Millionaire Writers Agency, integrity is not just a watchword, it is a culture. This means that it reflects in everything we do. If we tell you that your content would be ready in 48 hours, for instance, you can take our words to the bank. Partnership We believe that our clients are on a journey. They desire to get to a destination. These destinations vary for different people. It could be traffic, sales, better reputation, fame, PR, more email subscribers, etc. We see ourselves as partners to our clients. We are the drivers, they are the passengers, and we use our services as vehicles to take them to their destination. Value We will never ask you for your money if we are not helping you make money. This means that we are not after your money, but after the value we add to you. Q: What led you to start Millionaire Writers Agency? I started Millionaire Writers mainly because there were a lot of businesses that needed content for their websites, email newsletters, and blogs, but didn’t know how to go about it. I saw a need for people who understood Search Engines and how they work and who could incorporate that knowledge into content creation so as to generate organic traffic. I had been doing it for years and I decided to share the knowledge with more people so as to meet that need and at the same time have a team that can help me with the demand that was rising. At a point when it was becoming more difficult to meet up, I saw the need to officially start offering training services to business owners so they can develop the content themselves. These trainings have proven to be very helpful as these entrepreneurs can now find their way around content creation. Lastly, I saw a huge gap between writers who knew how to write and making money from it. So I started teaching extensively on how these writers can get paying jobs. This has been my passion for more than five years now and it still drives us. Q: What has the experience of building the business taught you? Over the years, I have learned that entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted, but I have learned some vital lessons too. I will highlight three. I have some clients today that I have been working with for about five years and we still work together on many occasions. These repeat customers are the reasons we are still in business today. And the only reason they have stayed with us is the excellent customer experience they have had, and the value they have gotten. Over the years, many of us have evolved to become friends. This means that even when we are not working, we still get to relate. There are so many lessons I would have wanted to talk about, but this one strikes a chord in my heart. I will try and explain the principle this way. Many times as a startup, you get to invest a lot of your time, energy, and resources into your new business and it seems like the business is swallowing everything but there is no progress. The quantum leap principle simply tells you that if you keep making those investments into your business, one day soon enough, you will watch yourself go from a 13, 14, 15, and jump to 74, 93, 108. Although the leap seems unjustifiable, it simply shows that the efforts you have been putting into the business over the years count. At the right time, they will show. This lesson is quite straightforward. Q: Where do you see things headed for you in the next 5 years? I see us becoming a freelance writing hub in the next five years. I look forward to turning Millionaire Writers Agency into a portal where businesses can come and share their content needs and qualified writers can log in and develop the content that is required to meet those needs and everything gets handled systematically without the involvement and interference of my team. All we get to do would be to serve as a go-between to ensure that the writers get paid promptly, and to ensure that nobody gets paid without delivering the service they signed up for. About Millionaire Writers Agency: Millionaire Writers is an agency that puts freelance writers in contact with entrepreneurs that need help with content writing. They can write blog posts, transcription, editing, ghostwriting, and more. They also provide training and resources to help freelance writers better hone their craft. Learn more at millionairewriters.com.
Introduction
Who is Toby Nwazor?
Business
True Tamplin is a published author, public speaker, CEO of UpDigital, and founder of Finance Strategists.
True is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF®), author of The Handy Financial Ratios Guide, a member of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, contributes to his financial education site, Finance Strategists, and has spoken to various financial communities such as the CFA Institute, as well as university students like his Alma mater, Biola University, where he received a bachelor of science in business and data analytics.
To learn more about True, visit his personal website or view his author profiles on Amazon, Nasdaq and Forbes.
