How I Use Long-Form Writing To Power My $20k p/m One-Person Business
And why writing is the future of all one-person businesses.
My high school English teacher laughed at me.
I told her I wanted to study a Bachelor of Arts. I had dreams of being a writer and author.
To be fair, I can’t blame her.
I’d just scored below average in my exams. I had 0 natural talent when it came to writing. Or any real proof I could write.
But I just believed in myself.
Fast forward 12 years, and I’ve:
Graduated with First Class Honours in Uni.
Grown 103,453+ readers across the world.
Secured a book deal with Earnshaw Books.
Built a multi-six-figure business powered by writing.
Writing is the highest value skill you can learn.
Here’s how you can do it.
The hidden power of ONE.
I power my $15–20k p/m business through:
1 positioning.
1 long-form article.
1 authority building email newsletter.
1 high-converting offer doc for your dream customer.
That’s my entire Operating System.
I’ve built this system through six years of trial and error. I license and install this Operating System into my client’s business. They can also pick and choose which area they want to work on first, given their context.
Some struggle with long-form content. Others with writing a newsletter.
You can scale this workflow to a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly cadence.
That’s the beauty of this system. It’s scalable to your context and business needs. Just pick a cycle that works for you.
Whenever I start working with clients, they always say,
“your system seems too simple”
That’s a compliment.
Why?
The number #1 reason clients pause or churn is that they feel overwhelmed. Too much choice. Too many things to do. When you scale things down to the power of 1, things get more exciting.
Simplicity scales. Complexity fails.
Create an army that never sleeps.
BIG NEWS: I’ve hired 367 salespeople.
While they make me lots of money, I abuse them.
No days off.
No sick leave.
No annual leave.
Heck, I don’t even pay them a salary.
The 367 salespeople are my long-form articles.
That’s 367,000 words that are doing the selling for me.
My long-form writing converts while I:
Sleep.
Eat durians.
Go to the gym.
Travel Southeast Asia.
The results?
I wake up to digital product sales.
Leads saying they want to work with me.
People knowing my name and what I do with no sales calls.
It’s a beautiful feeling.
I never worry about where my next client is coming from. I even get paid to write on platforms like Medium.
So let’s get this straight:
I get paid to write.
I get paid to build an audience.
I get paid to acquire customers.
I get paid to make digital product sales.
Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
That’s unheard of in business.
The cost of customer acquisition is zero.
Every article you write is a salesperson selling for you 24/7, 365 days a year.
Build depth and trust in a mutual language.
I met the Timor-Leste Ambassador to Singapore.
Over some tea and whisky, we spoke about a wide range of topics. Travel, community development, and geopolitics. But when the topic turned to business, I was left stunned. Doing business across Southeast Asia is about trust and reputation.
But we are living in a trust recession.
The current state of geopolitics is a mess. Wars, tariffs, and political polarization are throwing the world order upside down and sideways.
But long-form writing is a bridge.
The power of long-form writing is the ability to cross borders, religions, and political parties.
Trust is built with substance, not style.
Don’t dance half-naked on TikTok.
Don’t post 10x a day on Instagram.
Don’t post random motivation online.
The diversity of Southeast Asia means there needs to be a common language.
And after attending the ASEAN Business Conference in Singapore last week, that common language is English.
Business in this region is still done on trust and relationships.
Long-form writing is how you build that trust. Deepen relationships.
AI is making you 83% stupider.
That’s the findings from a recent peer-reviewed MIT study.
Researchers created 3 test groups:
Group 1: Could use AI to write.
Group 2: Could use Search to write.
Group 3: Could use only their brains to write.
The results were stark.
The group that used AI to write long-form essays reported:
Cognitive atrophy.
Reduced memory coding.
Diminished critical thinking.
Felt less ownership over their work.
Researchers found that the AI group had accumulated cognitive debt.
When the AI group switched to brain-only, they were unable to replicate the engagement or perform as well as the other two groups.
Don’t get me wrong.
I’m not against AI.
I use it every single day.
But there is a trade-off with how you use AI in your workflow. For me, writing unassisted improves my clarity, creativity, and critical thinking.
Plus, I have so much fun when I write.
I wake up every day excited to sit down for 2–3 hours and write. Writing makes me money. But writing also gives me more than just 1s and 0s in my bank.
Just like any tool, use it to create leverage.
AI = big data, manual tasks, low value.
Unassisted = creativity, critical thinking, clarity.
Long-form writing will never die.
To write long-form is to be human.
Solopreneurs don’t ask for permission to Launch.
I have no marketing degree, yet I have a marketing agency.
I have no coaching qualifications, yet I’ve coached 50+ solopreneurs across the world.
I don’t have a writing degree, yet I’ve built a writing-powered business.
I’m not famous, yet I’ve built a 100k+ online audience.
My point?
Stop using what you lack as an excuse not to take action.
Solopreneurs don’t wait to Launch.
We use the power of long-form writing to:
Unlock our expertise
Elevate our authority
Attract our dream clients.
And travel around the world to eat durians whenever we feel like it.
We don’t wait to Launch.
We write to Launch.
👉 Learn how to WEAPONIZE your writing to make more money, build a magnetic personal brand, and grow an online audience that loves your every word. I’ve created a FREE email course to help you turn your words into dollars.