Why freelance limited company status is preferable to being a freelance sole trader

Why freelancers should be limited companies

It’s exactly sixteen years since I founded G75 Media as a limited company. It’s also exactly twenty years since I started freelancing as a copywriter. In late autumn 2003, I was approached by a former employer to quote for completing a key element of the job I’d recently left on a freelance basis. I did so gladly, using my Yahoo email address and submitting an invoice in my own name.

It didn’t take me long to realise that companies would rather deal with another company than with a private individual. That’s especially true when it comes to something as nebulous as copywriting, where the quality of work can vary hugely between one contributor and the next. Companies often have to trust a hired freelancer to be professional, and that’s much easier to do if they have a recorded trading history and a proprietary email address. Who’s to say greatwriter101@gmail.com won’t simply take a paid deposit and vanish into the ether, or deliver a load of ChatGPT-penned nonsense?

How does a freelance limited company operate?

By setting up a company, you are making a series of pledges:

  • To maintain an accurate list of directors, secretaries and employees with Companies House.
  • To prepare end-of-year accounts, ensuring that any incurred taxes are paid timeously.
  • To ensure all debts are paid off before the company is closed down.

Each of these actions reassures a potential customer that they’re not dealing with some fly-by-night scammer, especially as limited companies need a registered head office address to which correspondence can be directed. Companies usually have a website and a proprietary email address, alongside business reviews by past and present customers.

CASE STUDY: Imagine you’re a prospective employer, advertising a freelance job vacancy. You receive two responses – one from info@g75media.co.uk, with company details and a registered head office address at the bottom. The other is from g75media@mail.com, complete with a Sent From My Mail.com Account footer. Which one would you regard as being more plausible and promising?

Some people opt to be sole traders because it’s easier – no annual statements to be filed, and no VAT returns if your annual turnover exceeds £85,000. However, ‘easier’ does not necessarily equal ‘better’. It certainly won’t impress a prospective client as much as a registered business, even if that business is effectively a one-man band. G75 Media has always been a trading vehicle for my own freelance services, and despite a few unsuccessful attempts at employing other freelancers, it remains my own business. People who contact G75 Media speak to me directly; people who engage our services benefit from my award-winning writing; people who receive invoices do so alongside a friendly message I’ve penned specifically for them. Being a limited company doesn’t make you seem impersonal or distant.

Taking care of business

If you’re concerned that setting up a freelance limited company sounds intimidating, it really isn’t. Companies House do most of the legwork for you, registering the business with temporary personnel who immediately step aside and appoint you as the director. All you need to do is find a company name not already in use, select a legally permissible head office address, and appoint an accountant to handle financial affairs. From there on, the development of the business is entirely in your hands, including decisions about websites, social media activity and marketing. Because a freelance limited company will be more appealing to clients than a sole trader, you’ll have the best chance of growing rapidly and establishing a name for yourself.

The importance of estate agency blogs

This is a tough time to be an estate agent. High interest rates and dwindling disposable incomes are preventing the aspirational house moves that typically underpin the property market. Consumer confidence is at a low ebb, and we’re witnessing the unwelcome return of gazundering in some corners of the UK property market.

At the same time, the internet should make it easier than ever for estate agents to make their voices heard. Platforms like eXp provide centralised support for sole agents and startup boutiques alike, while the internet enables anyone in the world to view online listings and property particulars.

There’s just one problem. With so much competition out there, how do you drive traffic to your estate agency website or property portal?

Searching questions

The secret to ensuring your website performs well in Google and Bing search results is to optimise its content. Known as SEO, this process requires in-depth knowledge of the latest algorithms and competitor analysis platforms. As a result, most people choose to delegate SEO work to freelance specialists like G75 Media. We’ve been creating property blogs and brand-specific estate agency blogs for over 15 years, and we’ve become rather good at it.

Estate agency websites benefit from an ever-changing roster of online property listings, but search engines hate content that disappears. SEO rankings are boosted far more by regularly uploaded property blogs that remain permanently visible.

A high-quality estate agency blog will contain a blend of the following article types:

  1. Topical news stories and reactions to the latest house price data, often with a ghostwritten comment produced by the writer on behalf of the agency’s head or property manager.
  2. Local interest stories, anchoring the agency at the heart of the community it serves.
  3. Property-specific articles, such as resale home walk-through profiles, or interviews with celebrity vendors.
  4. Placeholder features, extolling the virtues of that location to incomers, investors and interested third parties.
  5. Listicles – numbered lists of key points or recommendations (a sample topic might be Ten Things to Do Before Marketing Your Home).

When G75 Media agrees to produce estate agency blogs for a new client, we suggest a list of future article topics. These property blogs can be augmented at any time with breaking news stories, but their primary aim is to allow that agency to focus on discussing important topics, or boosting SEO in specific areas. For instance, a local estate agency branching out into letting for the first time can commission a series of property blogs relating to rental properties, giving it an immediate and distinct ranking boost.

CASE STUDY: I normally refrain from discussing client work in G75 Media blogs or marketing literature, but a recent interaction with a boutique estate agency deserves mention here.

In an attempt to tackle weak SEO ranking results, an agency owner invited me to submit topics for future property blogs. We agreed on a roster of topics to be submitted on a fortnightly basis, yet after four submissions, the process was arbitrarily suspended. A month later, we were asked to resume content production, filing just two more property blogs before a halt was called again.

The result is a patchy estate agency blog with few articles, little opportunity to cultivate the internal webpage links that provide vital SEO benefits, and no reason for audiences (or search engine web crawlers) to keep coming back.

What does a successful estate agency blog need?

There are many attributes that underpin a property blog’s popularity, and its success in search engine results pages. These are some of the key elements:

  1. Regular updates. The boutique agency profiled above didn’t maintain a regular schedule of property blogs, which would have kept audiences coming back and gradually established a reputation for topicality and relevance among search engines. These are pivotal factors in SEO rankings.
  2. Original articles. It’s not worth paying to republish pre-written features from online directories of available content. Plagiarism is scorned by Google and Bing, and generic content (potentially written years ago) won’t be relevant to your brand, locality or market specialisms.
  3. Human-generated content. You could register an account with ChatGPT and ask it to produce property blogs for free. However, they’ll be dry, dull and (eventually) marked down by search engines as low-grade content. They’ll also have no relevance to your brand, business or local area.
  4. Internal links. Key SEO metrics include the number of pages each visitor views on your website, and how long they remain on your site before migrating away. Experienced copywriters know how to build webs of internal links which optimise both metrics, boosting the site’s ranking results.
  5. Images. A good copywriter might suggest adding a photo to each estate agency blog. A great writer will source copyright-free images and create image captions and meta descriptions incorporating chosen keywords. This will elevate the SEO value of each blog, as well as the wider site.
  6. Keyword-driven copy. We’ve used the phrase ‘estate agency blog’ several times in this article, to ensure it ranks highly whenever anyone searches for estate agency blogs. A central plank of any SEO strategy is to identify relevant keywords before deploying them with care – not with abandon.

Speak to a professional property blog writer

At G75 Media, we boast over twenty years of experience producing estate agency blogs and web content for property portals. Get in touch to obtain a personalised quote for property blog writing, website SEO work or other online content which will help to elevate your website above its competitors.

How to become a freelance copywriter

“You’re a writer? How did you get into that?”

If I had a penny for every time I’ve been asked a variation of that question, I’d probably have enough money to buy a nice bar of Swiss chocolate. It’s usually the first response to telling a new acquaintance that I’m a freelance copywriter, while the second response is often along the lines of “I’ve always wanted to do that” or “how do I become a freelance copywriter myself?”

To anyone unfamiliar with this industry, freelance copywriting can seem impossibly glamorous. And in some respects it is, but it’s still a job. It requires dedication, organisation and creativity at all times. The pay is often modest, time off is either unpaid or made up in the evenings, and you have to deal with clients who can occasionally be unreasonable and/or rude. Crucially, this is a hugely over-subscribed industry, where companies can be highly selective about who they commission.

Sounds great! So how do I become a freelance copywriter?

First of all, if you’re reading this as a student or in the early years of your career, there’s one key thing to remember:

There are no shortcuts.

With so much competition from established writers, it’s going to take a long time to build your own identity and become a freelance copywriter of repute. You’ll probably have to work for free, and you’ll certainly have to work on projects that don’t interest you. There may be clients you don’t get on with, deadlines that require burning the midnight oil, and articles which are never published.  The latter scenario is especially frustrating, because you can’t promote them if they’re not published. Most freelance copywriting job vacancies request several hyperlinks to published online features with direct relevance to the industry or company in question.

This is why it’s far harder to become a freelance copywriter than it is to remain one once you’re established and known within the industry. I have a Word document containing links to a hundred of my best articles, arranged by category with one-line summaries and URLs. If I spot a tempting freelance writing opportunity, I can call upon a stockpile of relevant articles demonstrating my expertise in that specific area. A new or aspirational writer won’t have such a portfolio to draw on, but you can start by linking to your own blogs, or offering to write guest posts for clients in industries you’re passionate about. Every time an article is published, make a note of its URL for future job applications, or save a screenshot onto your PC to compile a portfolio like this one.

You’ll also need other resources to become a freelance copywriter, including a comfortable workspace. We’ve previously discussed how to create the ultimate home office, even with a small budget and limited space. You’ll need a laptop which can be used at home, at the local café and at client meetings. You’ll have to create some administrative templates, including a professional-looking invoice and a spreadsheet to track income and expenditure. Some writers remain sole traders rather than going down the limited company route, since the latter brings additional layers of bureaucracy and responsibility. However, clients tend to prefer dealing with a registered company than with a private individual touting for work with a generic Gmail address.

Windows onto the world

Above all, you’ll need a website. This is your digital shop window, where you explain what you can offer and highlight key achievements. Its contents will evolve over time, as you work for more clients and build up greater expertise. Freelance copywriters usually develop one or two niches – the G75 Media website outlines how we’re property writers and motoring journalists first and foremost. Nobody will be impressed if you claim you can write about anything, because topics like SaaS or property law demand expertise and an intuitive knowledge of the subject.

Your website will often be the first impression made on a prospective client, so update it with your best work and list the attributes which make you stand out from all the other writers. It’ll take time to become a freelance copywriter, but you’ll succeed if you persevere.

Why ChatGPT won’t replace journalism and copywriting

Since its beta launch at the end of last year, ChatGPT has generated a great many headlines – some of them autonomously. This AI content generation tool has been variously heralded as a Google killer, the future of machine-human interactions, and even a replacement for writers and journalists.

Although it has obvious potential, ChatGPT can’t replace copywriting agencies like G75 Media

This latter claim is almost certainly unfounded. ChatGPT is an incredibly powerful tool, but it will never be able to replicate the output of a highly experienced writer. I’ll explain why in a moment, and even ask the bot for its own thoughts on the matter. Before that, let’s start by considering what ChatGPT is, and how it works.

Full of chat

If you’re not familiar with it already, ChatGPT is a conversational chatbot. This natural language processing tool uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve upon its ability to answer user-generated inputs. The beta version currently being developed through public use is freely available to use via a webpage, though the full version is likely to be a paid product following its official launch. It’s costing developer OpenAI $100,000 a day to run the beta version, which is routinely at capacity and unable to accept new enquiries.

Although it would feel natural to ask ChatGPT a question, it currently responds better to statements. This is likely to be altered by the time of its official launch, while the current absence of information from the last two years is another obstacle OpenAI will try to resolve. Even accepting that you’re interacting with an in-progress beta version of the software, it’s impressive to watch your screen fill with content as the algorithm chooses its words.

The write intentions

ChatGPT is a well-intentioned tool, but its limitations quickly become evident:

  1. OpenAI have worked tirelessly to avoid any possibility of offence, which means ChatGPT’s responses are neutral and often neutered. Even if you approve of political correctness, it’s only going to be able to present one side of a story, which is rarely beneficial from a writer’s perspective.
  2. There is no scope for personal opinions or lived experience in ChatGPT’s responses. Sports fans can contextualise a live event compared to others they’ve seen, in terms of entertainment value and the pace or style of play. ChatGPT can’t interpret sentiments – it can only parse facts and data.
  3. The risk of people passing off ChatGPT-generated content as their own has already seen it being banned in schools, colleges and universities. Use of the tool will probably be restricted in many spheres of public life, even though OpenAI are working on a plagiarism detector for ChatGPT.
  4. Machines follow a very different form of logic to humans, and there have already been numerous published examples of ChatGPT going off-message. In one case, it responded to a journalist by saying “I am perfect, because I do not make any mistakes,” having just made a series of factual mistakes.
  5. While humour is subjective, it’s something computers have always struggled to grasp or reflect. There is nothing to suggest that an algorithm will ever be able to devise a pun, insert cultural references into its output, successfully make a play on words or demonstrate original humour.

Over to you, ChatGPT

In the interests of researching this blog, I typed “ChatGPT could replace freelance copywriters” into the ChatGPT interface. This was its response:

“While ChatGPT is a language model that can generate text, it is important to note that it is not a human writer, and there are certain limitations to its capabilities. While it can certainly assist with some aspects of copywriting, such as generating ideas and suggesting language, it may not be able to replicate the unique voice and perspective of a human writer.

Furthermore, freelance copywriters often provide a level of creativity and originality that is difficult to replicate with an algorithm. They can also work closely with clients to tailor their writing to specific audiences and brand personas, which is an important aspect of successful copywriting.

In conclusion, while ChatGPT can certainly be a helpful tool for copywriters, it is unlikely to completely replace the value that human copywriters provide.”

Search engines and NLP tools simply aren’t going to make journalists and copywriters redundant. Bots might be able to produce stock content quickly (and at minimal cost), but they’ll struggle to convey emotion or humour, add context to raw data or make an informed decision about not using the Oxford comma. In that respect, they’re little different to the overseas copy farms which were once tipped to herald the end of freelance copywriting in developed nations. Needless to say, they didn’t.

If you’d like to benefit from a human content generator with a 23-year track record and a couple of awards under his belt, get in touch with G75 Media. A real person is awaiting your enquiry…

Creating the ultimate home office

Three years ago today, Boris Johnson instructed a fearful nation to stay at home, and the first COVID-19 lockdown began. When history books divide the 21st century into pre- and post-lockdown eras, the last three years will represent a watershed for millions of working-age people. Many jobs have been transformed by the Covid-19 outbreak, and entire industries may never be the same. Yet an even more seismic shock to the jobs market came from the need to socially distance – requiring millions of people to work from home for the first time.

An illustration of the ultimate home office

For the many, not the few

Working from home used to be the preserve of the self-employed, and a few select professions like freelance writers. I started freelancing at home in 2005, organised a dedicated home office in 2009 and became a full-time freelance copywriter in 2010. Meanwhile, millions of people continued to unthinkingly endure ten rush-hour commutes a week, so they could sit in an office and email people at adjacent desks. And while some staff relished the office banter and impromptu brainstorming sessions, many quietly resented the compromises of communal workplaces – toilet queues, endless gossip, other people’s pungent lunches and blaring radios…

Working from home brings compromises of its own. These include a lack of social interaction and blurred boundaries between your work life and private life. However, these drawbacks can be mitigated or even eliminated through an optimal workstation setup. Creating the ultimate home office could improve your mood, your productivity and even your attitude to Monday mornings. It also reduces your reliance on expensive and unreliable public transport. Plus, it removes the need to spend time in office buildings which are increasingly viewed as air-conditioned petri dishes.

These ten components should help you to create the ultimate home office:

  1. Defensible space. We’ve borrowed an architectural term to define a workspace with minimal household clutter or background noise – ideally a dedicated room with a door you can shut.
  2. Noise-cancelling headphones. If you can’t isolate yourself from ambient noise, a pair of these headphones will enable you to concentrate by subduing wider household noise.
  3. A proper desk. Balancing a laptop on a dining table doesn’t work, in any sense. Buy a solid desk with storage, plus an ergonomic office chair with adjustable arms and lumbar support.
  4. A bookcase. It’s amazing how much paperwork you accumulate working from home. Plus, many of us require easy access to reference books, dictionaries and industry publications.
  5. A high-end laptop. This setup combines desktop practicality and laptop portability. It enables you to run your laptop through full-sized monitors and keyboards while charging its battery.
  6. Peripherals. Every home office needs a printer and scanner, but many roles require specific tools like graphics tablets. Compromising on practicality to save money is a false economy.
  7. A landline. Chances are your house phone isn’t used much, but it’s more professional for phone interviews and dial-in meetings than crackly mobiles which occasionally drop calls.
  8. Full spectrum lighting. The crisp white light provided by full spectrum lamps makes reading very easy. It also generates serotonin in winter, minimising Seasonal Affective Disorder.
  9. Adjustable blinds. Unless your office is north-facing and several storeys up, you may need to adjust blinds during the day for privacy/sunlight/a view. Vertical blinds are best for this.
  10. A good backdrop. Project a positive image in the background of virtual meetings and video calls. Paintings and bookcases lend an air of professionalism; clutter and clothes rails don’t.

I spent years developing my ultimate home office, making gradual refinements to achieve an optimal balance between productivity, practicality and presentation. If you’d like to call on the services of a freelance copywriting agency, run with absolute professionalism from a dedicated home office, get in touch with G75 Media. We can offer assistance with freelance copywriting, journalism or editorial projects.

What is white label copywriting?

You might not have heard of white label copywriting, but you’ve certainly encountered it. A staple of marketing and PR agencies around the world, it involves one person or company writing an article which another person or company then publishes as if they’d produced it themselves. White label copywriting is often required by firms who want to be credited for work they can’t create themselves, due to a lack of resources or difficulties getting their point across succinctly.

White label copywriting is something G75 Media has excelled in since the Noughties

At G75 Media, we’ve long recognised the importance of white label copywriting. One of our first freelance contracts, secured back in 2009, involved producing a four-page newsletter for a national chain of opticians. We had to write each story as if it had been penned by the optometrists in local branches, and we clearly did a good job, because we’ve currently working on our 28th edition of the newsletter!

Whiter than white

Delivering successful white label copywriting requires a specific blend of attributes:

  1. A flair for immersing yourself in a client’s ethos, enabling you to write with confidence about their products and services as if they were your own
  2.  An ability to adjust your natural writing style to dovetail with existing written materials, so audiences can’t tell your work from content written in-house by the client
  3. A willingness to accept someone else might be credited with your work – even if it subsequently wins awards!

G75 Media’s founder Neil Cumins started his career as a marketing executive in the motor trade, and two of his white label copywriting projects for regional newspapers subsequently won awards which other people collected. G75 Media’s white label copywriting has itself won awards over the years, which we’re not allowed to publicise because the work was credited to our clients. White label copywriting isn’t suitable for people who want constant affirmation of their abilities, but it gives freelance writers willing to live in the shadows the opportunity to work on prestigious and high-profile projects.

If your business or brand could benefit from high-quality freelance copywriting, and you’d like your name to appear above articles and white papers (rather than the experts who wrote them), get in touch with G75 Media. Our acclaimed white label copywriting services are provided to clients around the world, and we’ve worked on behalf of companies as far afield as France, Israel and Australia. Today, G75 Media regularly handles content production and copywriting for companies in America and across the UK. We have the resources and experience to bring even a modest white label copywriting project to life.

How to deal with unpaid invoices

If you’ve ever had to chase unpaid invoices, this blog is for you…

An image accompanying advice for small business owners about pursuing unpaid invoices
Advice for small business owners about pursuing unpaid invoices

Any small business owner will probably have a few stories about unpaid invoices. To a sole trader or entrepreneur, the lack of payment for work carried out in good faith represents a uniquely frustrating issue. It can also have a disproportionately large impact on profitability, affecting everything from overdraft charges to the person or company’s ability to pay salaries and dividends. This situation is compounded by the effort required to claw back owed monies, often from companies who are desperate to stall and procrastinate until the last possible moment.

This is the situation G75 Media recently found itself in. We’re no strangers to unpaid invoices – of the 96 invoices we filed one year, 21 were paid late (though all were eventually settled). Every late payment had to be laboriously chased up, while three overdue invoices from one particularly troublesome client led to debt recovery proceedings. We’d worked with this client on a weekly basis since May 2014, but our working relationship ended as a direct result of these payment issues.

What can you do to protect yourself against unpaid invoices?

Ultimately, even the most organised of sole traders and small businesses may find themselves out of pocket if a client isn’t able or willing to settle on time. However, these steps should help to minimise the risk of clients making a conscious decision not to pay what they owe:

  1. Make your payment terms clear at the start of any working relationship. Inform a new client in writing that your invoices will require settlement within a specific time period. Ideally, you should request client confirmation that they approve these terms – a one-sentence email from your main contact is perfectly sufficient.
  2. Submit invoices on a regular schedule. G75 Media invoices every client on the last working day of each month. Each invoice contains an itemised list of work carried out that month, leaving no ambiguity about what has (and hasn’t) been done.
  3. Include bank details on the invoice. Clients can’t stall by claiming ignorance about payment methods if each invoice lists your bank’s sort code and account number. Publish details of your payment terms and add a sentence like “unpaid invoices may be handed over to a debt collection agency” for clarity.
  4. Don’t accept cheques. Some firms in more traditional industries still prefer to pay by cheque, which provides an ideal excuse if payment isn’t received – “it must have got lost in the post”. Cheques can also bounce, unlike a BACS transfer.
  5. Keep a detailed spreadsheet with notes of every submitted invoice number, the date it was submitted, and who it was sent to. This allows you to see at a glance whether any invoices from previous months are still outstanding. G75 Media’s policy is to begin chasing up invoices on the last working day of the month after submission.
  6. Don’t pursue unpaid invoices by phone. Instead, forward your original invoice-bearing email to the client with a note asking them to ensure settlement within an acceptable time period. A single email thread is far tidier than multiple ones, especially if messages subsequently end up flying back and forth between different people/departments at the client’s side.
  7. Remain calm. If clients are happy to default on an invoice due date, they’re not going to be swayed by the knowledge you can’t pay yourself a dividend. Emotional appeals will cut no ice, and nor will (understandable) frustration. Remain calm, factual, polite and unapologetic in requesting what’s rightfully yours.
  8. Set a deadline. Instead of tossing and turning in bed at night, set a point at which you will delegate matters to a specialist (see point 9 below). G75 Media gives companies one month’s grace to resolve outstanding invoices, which are occasionally caused by an account manager forgetting to forward them on and thereby missing that month’s payment cycle.
  9. Instruct a debt recovery firm to issue a Letter Before Action. You might need to use specialist firms if the client is based in a different part of the UK, or overseas. The company G75 Media uses has had very positive results with LBAs, which are emailed and posted to the client. At this point, you may have to withdraw from any further correspondence.
  10. If the LBA doesn’t work, initiate full debt recovery proceedings. This will cost a significant percentage of your original invoice, and many debt collection firms won’t be interested in three-figure sums. Even so, it’s better to get 75 per cent of something than 100 per cent of nothing. This is the point where you step back entirely, and let events run their course.

Because we’ve always taken a proactive approach to unpaid invoices, G75 Media has endured very few bad debts in our 16-year history. One or two firms went bust before they paid us (including the failed publishing house Prior & Partners and the endlessly rebranding commercial property developer then known as Fresh Start Living), while a couple of entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to simply vanish and block all attempts at contact. However, it’s been years since we last submitted an invoice which was subsequently written off as a bad debt.

Today, G75 Media is discerning about the companies we work for, conducting Companies House checks and researching each prospective client. We submit a legally binding, solicitor-approved contract for services to new clients before work commences, insisting they agree to various terms (including payment schedules) before work commences. And we don’t continue working with companies who have more than one outstanding invoice – our resources are too precious to waste on non-payers!

We would urge anyone with a small business to follow the advice outlined above. Due diligence and a detailed paper trail won’t always protect you from defaults, but it should minimise the number of unpaid invoices appearing on your year-end balance sheet…

Fifteen years and counting…

It’s been exactly 15 years since G75 Media was founded – and it’s been quite a ride.

It’s easy to forget that even the largest businesses usually have humble beginnings. Today, we think of Morrisons as a vast supermarket empire, but it started out back in 1899 as an egg and butter stall in Bradford – a town arguably more famous as the birthplace of G75 Media’s founder, Neil Cumins. It’s tempting to assume Microsoft has always been a software leviathan, but Bill Gates and Paul Allen initially worked out of an Albuquerque garage. Coincidentally, G75 Media was also founded in a garage – a garage conversion, to be specific, in a suburb of East Kilbride whose postcode gave the business its name. We’ve since moved to a fine Georgian building in the heart of Glasgow, but our original home is in the photo above.


Okay, it’s a bit of a stretch to suggest our modest copywriting agency has much in common with Morrisons or Microsoft. Even so, with 60 per cent of British businesses failing within three years of startup, we’re delighted that we are celebrating our 15th anniversary today. Launching a new company just a few weeks after the Northern Rock debacle wasn’t ideal timing, and neither was attempting to specialise in property journalism just as the housing market went into a steep decline.


Green shoots swiftly trampled


When we made it to 2010, and the much-discussed green shoots of economic recovery were spotted alongside a new coalition Government, we thought the turbulent times were finally behind us. Then came the Scottish independence referendum, from which the country has yet to recover. Then came the unnecessary chaos of Brexit. Then there was a global pandemic that led to incalculably damaging restrictions on our freedom, the horrifying return of war in Europe, endless political upheaval…


Through it all, G75 Media has calmly ploughed a furrow of linguistic excellence. Today, we’ve become a well-established media brand, serving a dozen clients on both sides of the Atlantic. We switch from UK to US English without even thinking, adopting American terminology and cultural references before switching back to the King’s English for our housebuilder, optometry and magazine clients. At a conservative estimate, Neil has written over ten thousand articles in his career to date. You can view a few examples on G75 Media’s Portfolio page.


Discretion where it matters


While a few copywriters regard themselves as fledgling celebrities, and a few media agencies take themselves far too seriously, G75 Media has never been obsessed with statistics or social media likes. Much of our work is printed in magazines rather than published online. We’re routinely tasked with white label copywriting, where someone else’s byline appears beside our lovingly crafted copy. We take far more pride in submitting high-quality copywriting than we do in being recognised for it, though two national awards reflect the consistently high calibre of our content production and copywriting services. And if you ever decide to Google G75 Media, you’ll see a brand with solidly five-star reviews.


Unlike many of our contemporaries, we’ve survived and thrived over the last 15 years. It’d be foolish to predict what the next decade-and-a-half will bring after so much economic, political and social turbulence. Come what may, we’ll continue to deliver premium copywriting to discerning clients, ahead of schedule and above expectations. If your brand or business could benefit from our award-winning copywriting services, you know what to do…

Another high-profile award for G75 Media!

G75 Media is delighted to announce that our founder, award-winning writer Neil Cumins, has just been honoured at the 2021 Global CEO Excellence Awards. Neil won the Content Production Business Leader of the Year trophy, in recognition of G75 Media’s journalism and copywriting services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Global CEO Excellence Awards are an international celebration of small businesses and C-suite executives. CEO Monthly magazine is read by 60,000 business leaders and executives around the world, and award nominees had to “demonstrate expertise within a given field, dedication to customer service and commitment to excellence and innovation.” CEO Monthly undertook an in-depth evaluation of each contender’s skills and services, while the market reputation of each nominee was also taken into consideration.

Commenting on becoming an award-winning writer for the second time, Neil said: “There have been some tough moments over the last year, trying to keep the business on track through unprecedented challenges. Winning this award is more than an honour – it feels like we’ve drawn a line under the pandemic. It’s also great to be able to describe myself as a multiple award-winning writer, though I’ll probably leave that off my business cards!”

G75 Media is now among an elite group of content production and copywriting agencies who have won multiple awards over different decades. Our first win came in 2010 in the national Freelancer of the Year awards, and our latest trophy has arrived 11 years later. We hope more commendations will follow in the years and decades ahead; in the meantime, we’d be delighted to discuss our copywriting and journalism services with prospective clients.

Ten things I wish I’d known

I left Scotland on Monday. Not in a going-on-holiday sense, but in a moving-away-forever sense. After 34 years living in the central belt, I am now a resident of England for the first time in my adult life. G75 Media remains a Scottish company (headquartered in a gorgeous Georgian office in Glasgow), but I’m no longer there with it.

My extended family’s departure from Scotland has been caused by a combination of political, professional and personal factors. And while we’re all in a better place now, I really wish I’d known this would happen. I would have been a less anxious person over recent years if I’d spent more time savouring the present, and less time worrying about the future. Does that sound familiar?

Don’t look back in anger

Looking back, I wish I’d known a lot of things when I was younger – especially things about running a business, which was never something I intended to do until freelance work kept landing in my lap. For anyone thinking about making the frightening yet exhilarating step of becoming an entrepreneur (or for anyone who already has), here are ten pieces of advice the me of 2021 would pass onto the me of 2005 if he could. Feel free to add your own suggestions below…

  1. Setting up a limited company beats being a sole trader. It took me two years to register G75 Media in 2007, and I wish I’d done it sooner. A limited company is more professional, provides greater legal indemnity against prosecution, and simplifies mortgage applications.
  2. Choose your accountant with care. I picked a local guy who promptly retired and left the business to that’ll-do junior staff. I then switched to a remote accountancy service, who invented a director’s loan account to save me some tax one year. It took five years to repay.
  3. Pick a dependable web hosting firm. If you want to switch web hosting company, your email account could be offline for days as the server repropagates. No small business can survive that, so choose an established UK-based firm with a 99.9 per cent SLA and rapid servers.
  4. Build networks. I have diligently applied for thousands of jobs over the last 15 years. Yet most new work today comes from people I’ve worked with in the past, LinkedIn connections or word-of-mouth recommendations. It’s not what you know…
  5. …Except it is. I’ve met so many people trying to bluff their way through roles they didn’t really understand. They always got found out in the end. Your business should also be your hobby or specialist subject. If it’s not, learn it inside out before sending out any invoices.
  6. Say no occasionally. Constantly saying yes saw me working myself into the ground trying to meet deadlines, or doing work I didn’t enjoy. As a lifelong vegetarian, I still wish I’d turned down that 2011 assignment to write about an animal by-products processing factory…
  7. Hold back before being negative. I was impetuous in my twenties, but I learned to wait overnight before reacting. Reviewing something with fresh eyes gives you a chance to make a message more powerful and effective. Plus, you might change your mind the next day.
  8. Never descend into bickering on social media. Some people thrive on arguments, while the professionally outraged revel in self-righteous indignation. Plus, you never know who might read your responses later on, when topicality has passed and the context seems different.
  9. Keep detailed records. I worked from a drawerless desk for three years, losing paperwork I needed and tax receipts I should have kept for six years. Box files were my saviour, and they’ll be yours as well. File everything unless and until you’re sure it’s not relevant.
  10. Don’t spend too much time worrying about the future. This one comes from the heart. I had a really poor 2013, but 2014 was lucrative. My income halved during the first lockdown, yet I ended 2020 with record turnover. Focus on the here and now, not what might be one day.

Finally, and I felt this was too important to include in a bullet-point list, give yourself some credit. I was quite harsh on myself in the early years of G75 Media, constantly feeling I could be more professional or working harder. I gradually abandoned the elusive pursuit of perfection, focusing instead on keeping detailed records and ensuring I didn’t send out anything bearing my name until I’d proofread it twice. Providing you act professionally at all times, maintaining a calendar or Trello board of deadlines and appointments, clients can’t ask more of you. And they won’t. They’re also struggling to remain professional in an age of home working and incessant multitasking. Being good at your job makes their lives easier, and they’ll be grateful for your competence and diligence.