Deliberate Freelancer: Recent Episodes
Melanie Padgett Powers
The show for those who want to build a successful freelance business. We are NOT about the hustle. We are NOT about the feast-or-famine cycle. We are about building a business. Deliberately.
On today’s show I share two timely new resources:
Introducing Deliberate Freelancer Clarity Calls!
These are 45-minute Zoom video chats to talk through 1-2 challenges with podcast host Melanie Padgett Powers.
- Are you feeling stuck in your business and need help reigniting your momentum?
- Do you have a million ideas but need help zeroing in on the best one for you?
- Are you overwhelmed with your to-do list and need help cutting through the noise?
- Are you feeling insecure or uncertain about a proposal, project rate or pricing structure?
Schedule a Clarity Call with Melanie — she can be a sounding board to help you cut through the noise and allow your best ideas to shine through. You can talk through roadblocks to help reignite your momentum. Or you can work together to uncover fresh solutions to client and project challenges.
Clarity Calls are for any creative — any independent business owner — in any industry who is selling services. These calls are for those who are already freelancing and have at least a couple of clients — not someone who hasn’t started yet.
This is a soft launch, with four slots open in May and in June. Each Clarity Call is $149.
Learn more about Clarity Calls!
FREE!
Growth Without Burnout Summit
May 6-9, 2025
24 speakers
Podcast guest and friend Austin L. Church created this amazing summit. While it is especially for freelance writers, much of it is focused on the business side, so I think all sorts of freelancers and solo business owners can benefit.
Learn more and get your Growth Without Burnout Summit free ticket.
Purchase a Growth Without Burnout Summit VIP Pass.
What I Learned This Week:
Schedule worry time.
The Bookshelf: “The Safekeep” by Yael van der Wouden
Resources:
New! Deliberate Freelancer Clarity Calls
Growth Without Burnout Summit free ticket
Growth Without Burnout Summit VIP Pass
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Today’s guest is Michelle Rafter, who lives in Portland, Oregon. Michelle is the owner of WordCount Editorial Services. She is a former journalist who is now a ghostwriter of books, research reports and articles for CEOs and management consultants. She’s a former newspaper staff writer, wire service columnist and freelance reporter who covered business, enterprise technology and workplace issues.
Michelle has weathered several economic downturns in her longtime journalism and freelance career. She recently updated her blog post “How to Maintain Your Freelance Business in Bad Times,” so I invited her on the show to go through some of her tips. I also crowdsourced questions from the Deliberate Freelancer community so we could address your questions and concerns about the economy right now and how that may be affecting freelance businesses.
Another potentially helpful resource: The American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) is hosting a webinar at 1 p.m. E.T. on Monday, May 19, called “What the Trump Administration Could Mean for Freelancers.”
In this episode, we talk about:
- The turmoil in the U.S. right now and the “tariff economy.”
- How you can make clients happy by going back to the basics.
- How to be a team player and be flexible with clients, while also sticking to your boundaries.
- How to be the freelancer that your clients know they can count on, especially when they’re stressed or in a jam.
- How to break down larger offerings into smaller, more affordable pieces.
- How to bridge your services to a new service or new niche.
- “Low key” marketing versus marketing during turbulent times.
- How to reach out to former clients, as well as following up on past conversations (that maybe didn’t lead to work at that time).
- Invest wisely when deciding to learn a new skill.
- The importance of having an “abundance mindset.”
- The importance of community and reaching out to a fellow freelancer who “gets it.”
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Michelle’s blog post “How to Maintain Your Freelance Business in Bad Times”
ASJA webinar on May 19: “What the Trump Administration Could Mean for Freelancers” (recording available to purchase afterward)
ASJA on-demand webinar: “Canva Tips and Tricks for Freelance Writers”
ASJA on-demand webinar: “Strategies to Sustain Mental Health in a Turbulent Time”
Episode #199 of Deliberate Freelancer: Struggling? How to Get Clients Now, with Rosanna Campbell
Download transcript of episode 205.
Today’s guest is Sara Kobilka, who lives in New York state. Sara is the owner of Renaissance Woman Consulting. Sara has an insatiable curiosity that has driven her career in many different directions that she’s been able to connect in her freelance work. She primarily works in the STEM space.
Sara is also a career coach, primarily for people looking to change industries or disciplines. She hosts LinkedIn sprints to help freelancers and others increase their presence on LinkedIn.
She is passionate about incorporating diversity, equity, inclusion, access, accessibility, belonging and justice (DEIAABJ) throughout her work. In today’s episode, we focus on accessibility — how we can support people with disabilities and embed accessibility into our work.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The current political climate in the U.S. and how it affects DEIAABJ.
- Why the term DEI is limiting.
- The wide variety of disabilities and the five primary categories of disabilities — it’s so much more than a person who uses a wheelchair.
- The “curb cut effect” — how accessibility designed for people with disabilities ends up benefiting the larger population.
- The disability community is one of the only (or only) marginalized groups you are able to join (when you break a bone, suffer chronic pain, have a temporary condition).
- The movement away from the term “invisible” disability.
- Remember: Progress over perfection.
- Areas to start with: alt text, hashtags, closed captions.
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #176 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use Conscious Language in Content Creation, with Crystal Shelley
Sara’s website, RenWomanConsulting.com
Sara’s LinkedIn Sprints
Sara on LinkedIn
Sara on Facebook
Sara on BlueSky
Sara on Instagram
Lily Zheng’s FAIR framework
Lily Zheng on LinkedIn
AccessibleSocial.com
The Open Notebook’s list of Diversity Style Guides for Journalists
BetterAllies.com
Meryl Evans’ TED Talk: “The Pandemic’s Influence on Accessibility”
Meryl Evans on LinkedIn
Sara’s blog post “Finding Resources to Support Accessible SciComm Efforts”
“10 Resources to Advance Disability Inclusion and Justice” by Lindsey Mandolini
In today’s episode, I recap what my business looked like in January and February. This includes:
- Why I got a slow start to 2025.
- Why I’ve been focusing only on current clients and not marketing.
- How much I earned in January and February.
- How much I worked in January and February.
- The number of clients I did and the types of work.
- How I’m thinking about so-called “low-paying clients.”
- How I offered two options in a proposal for a new client.
- What self-care means to me.
- How I’m playing around with ChatGPT.
What I Learned This Week:
Goat therapy is awesome.
The Bookshelf: “The Silence in Between” by Josie Ferguson
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #200 of Deliberate Freelancer: WTF 2025! (Plus, My 2024 Recap)
Episode #198 of Deliberate Freelancer: November By the Numbers
Today’s guest is Matthew Fenton, who lives in Oregon wine country with his wife and two cats. Matthew is the founder of Three Deuce Branding, a one-man consultancy with a simple mission: “to help good people build great brands.” Since 1997, he has helped hundreds of clients — including Fidelity Investments, Wrigley and Valvoline — to achieve what he calls “brand clarity” by better positioning, strategy, and messaging.
Matthew also spent seven years in client-side brand management, including two as a chief marketing officer. During that time, he launched White Mystery Airheads and led Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers to become the best-selling gummy worm in the U.S.
Matthew is also the founder of Winning Solo, a coaching business designed to help other independent consultants and creatives to enjoy longevity, balance and success on their own terms.
Today’s conversation is divided into two halves: Matthew recently became a fractional chief marketing officer for a longtime client. A “fractional” role has become a buzzword, at least in the U.S. freelancing world, and Matthew is the perfect person to talk about what this means and how we might consider becoming a fractional “whatever” — the role is not limited by industry or service.
Then, we talk about a conversation that he and I had started offline about the importance of improving both the quality of your work and how you are to work with from the client perspective.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How he was failing at the start of his freelance career.
- How he is focusing on his physical and mental health in the chaos of 2025.
- How his career took an unexpected pivot recently.
- What a fractional role is — and what it is not.
- The three qualities you need before you market yourself as a “fractional.”
- How to protect yourself as fractional when it seems you might be putting “all your eggs in one basket.”
- The benefits of being a fractional.
- How to set boundaries with a fractional client so you are not seen as an employee.
- The importance of doing outstanding work and improving your craft every single day.
- Strive to be in the top 5% of your craft.
- The problem with focusing on personal branding first and not your craft.
- “Talent” is not a good enough reason to rehire someone if they are difficult to work with.
- The four areas to evaluate so you can improve as a freelancer: core skills, adjunct skills, the work that brings in the work, and character traits.
- Three ways to ask clients for feedback so you can continue to improve.
- How time tracking has helped us improve our business — but also our craft.
- Ways you can begin to improve your craft.
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Book that Matthew mentions: “Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works” by A. G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin
Matthew on LinkedIn
Matthew’s consulting website
Winning Solo website
Today’s guest is Alan Heymann. Alan is the owner of Peaceful Direction. He is an executive coach and facilitator and is the author of two books on leadership analogies: “Don’t Just Have the Soup” and “Embrace Your Inner Peaches.” Alan is also a faculty member of the Georgetown University Institute for Transformational Leadership.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How we’re dealing with the uncertainty of the world now.
- The importance of being transparent and vulnerable about our businesses on social media and elsewhere.
- Why Alan shared on LinkedIn that in July 2024 his gross revenue was only $600.
- Alan’s freelance world pet peeve.
- How he involved his virtual assistant in a reflection on ideal clients.
- Why LinkedIn is a paradise for introverts.
- How he respects his free time.
- How he checks in with his community or network.
- Why he loves connecting others.
- The journey of breaking out of the “employee mindset” or “late-stage capitalism.”
- How Alan blocks off a time twice a week for “exercise, create and learn.”
Resources:
Alan’s business, Peaceful Direction
Alan’s books
Alan’s LinkedIn post and blog post: “How I made $600 last month”
Episode #62 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Prevent and Deal with Burnout, with Alan Heymann
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
On today’s show I discuss my favorite books I read in 2024 and share my most anticipated books of 2025, plus some popular authors coming out with new books this year. A few statistics first. In 2024:
- I read 67 books.
- I did not finish (DNF) 16 books.
- 67% of my books were fiction, with 33% nonfiction.
- All but one book was for adults; I read one young adult book.
- I read 21 debuts, or first-time-published authors, which was about 31% of all my books.
- All my books were physical books. I don’t use an e-reader or listen to audiobooks.
- Mystery/thriller was my most read genre.
Here are the books I read that were mentioned in this episode:
- Worst Case Scenario by T.J. Newman
- Falling by T.J. Newman
- Drowning by T.J. Newman
- Kill for Me, Kill for You by Steve Cavanaugh
- The Eddie Flynn series by Steve Cavanaugh
- Colored Television by Danzy Senna
- James by Percival Everett
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan
- Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan
- Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan
- The Caretaker by Ron Rash
- Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler
- The Women by Kristin Hannah
- The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
- Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder by Kerryn Mayne
- Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
- The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
- Long Bright River by Liz Moore
- The Frankie Elkin series by Lisa Gardner (loved books 1-2; hated book 3)
- Silent Came the Monster by Amy Hill Hearth
- The Madness by Dawn Kurtagich
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary
- Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner
- Only Say Good Things by Crystal Hefner (memoir)
- The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin (memoir)
- The Message by Ta-Nehisis Coates (nonfiction)
- Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love by Rebecca Frankel (nonfiction)
- How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley
2024 books I tried to read in January but DNFed:
- The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston (very popular but I couldn’t get into it)
- Behind You Is the Sea by Susan Muaddi Darraj (debut I was excited about but discovered the main characters were all teenagers)
2024 books I’m still excited to try:
- The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
- Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
- The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan
- Safe: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family by Mark Daley
- The Wives: A Memoir by Simone Gorrindo
- Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show by Bethany Joy Lenz (memoir)
- A Hunger to Kill: A Serial Killer, a Determined Detective, and the Quest for a Confession That Changed a Small Town Forever by Kim Mager and Lisa Pulitzer
- The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by Sharon McMahon
- We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People by Nemonte Nenquimo and Mitch Anderson
2025 books I’m excited about:
- Back After This by Linda Holmes — publishes Feb. 25 (author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo)
- Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister — publishes Feb. 25 (author of Wrong Place Wrong Time)
- The Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson Walker — publishes Feb. 25 (author of The Age Of Miracles and The Dreamers
- What If I Never Get Over You by Paige Toon — publishes April 15
- It’s a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan — publishes May 27
- Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid — publishes June 3 (author of Daisy Jones & The Six)
- King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby — publishes June 10 (author of All the Sinners Bleed and Razorblade Teers)
- Kiss Her Goodbye by Lisa Gardner (fourth in Frankie Elkin series) — publishes August 12
- All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall — published Jan. 7 (I loved it! Similar in tone to Station Eleven)
- Listen to Your Sister by Neena Viel — published Feb. 4
GoodReads’ “Readers Most Anticipated Books of 2025”
Big-name authors with new books in 2025:
- Fiona Davis
- Anne Tyler
- Jojo Moyes
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Frederik Backman
- Kevin Wilson
- Alice Feeney
- Freida McFadden
- Riley Sager
- Lisa Jewell
- John Scalzi
- Grady Hendrix
- Stephen King — book #4 in the Holly Gibney series publishes May 27
- Ali Hazelwood
- Abby Jimenez
- Jasmine Guillory
- Emily Henry
- Beth O’Leary
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
On today’s show I discuss the rough start to 2025 and share my 2024 end-of-year review, which includes:
- My gross and net income for 2024
- My expenses for 2024
- My income goals and whether I hit those each quarter
- How I landed a new client
- How many hours I worked
- The importance of vacations, mental health days, spontaneous days off, and staycations
- A client mistake I made — you would think I’d know better by now!
- Clients I lost for 2025
What I Learned This Week:
Go to https://5calls.org for an easy and meaningful way to contact your U.S. congressional representatives and senators to let them know that you want them to DO SOMETHING.
How to use 5calls.org and why it works.
“Is Somebody Doing Something?” — A great explanation from an attorney that I found informative and a bit reassuring.
The Bookshelf: “How to Age Disgracefully” by Clare Pooley
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Deliberate Freelancer Starter Pack on Bluesky
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Today’s guest is Rosanna Campbell, a freelance content writer who writes “non-boring content” for B2B SaaS clients like Dock, Lattice, and monday.com. She lives in Madrid, Spain, with her husband, son, and their beagle who eats her furniture.
Rosanna’s been freelancing for eight years. In this episode, we chat in-depth about six tips she shared in a recent LinkedIn post that helped her get clients when she found herself in a “total, terrible, terrifying scramble.”
Rosanna is also consistent on LinkedIn, which we also talk about at the end of the episode. In fact, she is creating a workshop on how to be successful like her on LinkedIn, so I encourage you to follow her on LinkedIn for information on that workshop and lots of other great tips.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why and how she became a freelancer
- How some freelancers are struggling right now
- How she shifted her mindset to better “sell” herself
- How to think about niching down your service and your industry
- How to evaluate your LinkedIn profile and what it says about you
- How to make cold emails work for you
- The opportunities in your email inbox you’re missing out on
- Why she likes virtual coffee chats
- Why and how she’s become much more consistent with LinkedIn
Resources:
Rosanna’s LinkedIn post: “Need to get a new client, like, NOW?”
Follow Rosanna on LinkedIn
Rosanna’s website
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #127 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embrace LinkedIn to Improve Your Business, with Atlas Katari
In today’s episode, I recap what my business looked like in November. This includes:
- How much I worked in November.
- Why I got behind and how I dealt with it.
- The types of work I did and how I charged.
- My total monthly earnings.
- Why I offered to help a new client for “free.”
What I Learned This Week:
How Poet James A. Pearson (and his friend) look at burnout:
“The Hidden Invitation of Burnout”
Poet James A. Pearson on Instagram
The Bookshelf: “The Uncommon Reader” by Alan Bennett
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #194 of Deliberate Freelancer: October By the Numbers
Episode #62 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Prevent and Deal with Burnout, with Alan Heymann
Today’s guest is Melissa Hobson, who does business as The Ocean Writer Ltd. Her writing focuses on marine science and conservation. Melissa lives in Hastings, England. She has written for National Geographic, Scientific American, BBC Wildlife, BBC Countryfile, New Scientist, the Guardian and more. She also does some content and copywriting for NGOs and companies, but still focuses on the ocean and conservation.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The revelation she had after a conversation with a friend.
- Using “I’m so busy” as an excuse.
- Fear of failure.
- What she did in her business after a mindset shift.
- How she gamified her pitching.
- How she organizes her finances.
- Using “busy” as a badge of honor or part of our identity.
- Try this: Ask yourself “why” five times.
- How she became interested in writing about the ocean.
- The importance of following your curiosity.
Resources:
Melissa’s website
Melissa on LinkedIn
Melissa’s article about Fat Bear Week
Fat Bear Week in Katmai National Park, Alaska
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #163 of Deliberate Freelancer: Dealing with Overwhelm and Uncertainty: A Mini Coaching Session, with Helen Jane Campbell
I’m excited about Bluesky! Are you on the platform too? Let’s create a Deliberate Freelancer starter pack — more on that in this episode — but follow me at @MelEdits.
On today’s show, I share five questions to help you wrap up your year to create a “fresh start” in January. I explain the difference between these five questions and larger questions to ask yourself later in a solo business retreat to set up your year for success.
The five questions are:
- What do I need to do now to line up work in January?
- What do I need to do to wrap up the year?
- Do I need to raise rates or fire anyone?
- Where do I need to improve my marketing and networking?
- How much money did I make this year?
What I Learned This Week:
Your standing desk isn’t making you any healthier: https://wapo.st/3ApawfD
The Bookshelf: “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Melanie on Bluesky
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #149 of Deliberate Freelancer: Evaluate—and Expand or Fire—Your Clients for a Strong 2023
Episode #123 of Deliberate Freelancer: My 2021 Business Review and Questions to Help You
Episode #148 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Line Up January Work Now
On today’s show, I talk about how hiring a business coach for a few months helped me get excited about my business again.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- Why I hired a coach.
- The initial goals I had with coaching and how that changed.
- How outlining who my “core self” was helped me with my business direction.
- Insights that my coach had that helped me.
- Why you should ask yourself if the services you provide “light you up” and bring you joy.
- How fight/flight/freeze/fawn may affect our businesses.
- What the Polyvagal Theory is and a few ways to quickly calm your nerves (see links below).
What I Learned This Week: I need to create a menu of joy.
The Bookshelf: “The Caretaker” by Ron Rash
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support ad-free Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
How to find a certified menopause practitioner
Informative Johns Hopkins article about menopause
Menopause expert Dr. Mary Claire Haver on Instagram
Dr. Mary Claire Haver’s book “The New Menopause”
Article “Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Fawn: How We Respond to Threats”
Reels to show you how to calm anxiety and stress through your vagus nerve: https://www.instagram.com/p/C4D5bHNggVY/ https://www.instagram.com/p/C5oyvuRyiFL/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DABReeTMLlp/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DBjkz5RPOgk/ https://www.instagram.com/p/DB9juS0PLO4/
Episode #182 of Deliberate Freelancer: A massive pivot from freelancing to owning a business with her husband, with business coach Jenni Gritters
JenniGritters.com
Episode #126 of Deliberate Freelancer: A Real Talk About Mental Health—and Languishing
Episode #137 of Deliberate Freelancer: I’m Grieving. How Can I Keep My Business Running?
On today’s new regular monthly episode I recap what my business looked like in October. This includes:
- How much I worked in October.
- The types of work I did and how I charged.
- Why a lower-paying passion project can be worth it.
- My total monthly earnings.
- How I landed a new anchor client.
- Why I sometimes break the “freelancing rules” and charge hourly and per word.
What I Learned This Week: I am not as young as I used to be.
The Bookshelf: “The Flatshare” by Beth O’Leary
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Email Melanie feedback or suggestions about “By the Numbers” episodes: melanie@meledits.com
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Today’s guest is Reyna Gobel, MBA, MPH, a New Yorker who is a purpose-driven freelance writer. She writes journalism and content on personal finance, travel, pets, and health and nutrition.
Reyna is a personal finance and health expert and award-winning author. Her articles and quoted advice have appeared in over 300 publications and websites, including Forbes, Money, Reuters, NPR, Harvard Health, and The Atlantic. Michelle Singletary selected three of her books as the book of the month in The Washington Post. Reyna co-created the 30-Day Precision Nutrition Challenge and recently authored the fourth version of Graduation Debt : How to Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How to reduce your “ghost spending.”
- The biggest mistakes she sees freelancers make with their finances.
- The importance of tracking your expenses.
- How budgeting apps can help you.
- How unexplained illnesses led to her nutrition journey.
- What she offers through her nutrition course.
What I Learned This Week:
How AI super users are getting ahead at work
The Bookshelf: “Worst Case Scenario” by TJ Newman
Resources:
30-Day Precision Nutrition Challenge
Book: “Graduation Debt : How to Manage Student Loans and Live Your Life”
Reyna on LinkedIn
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
I am finally back! I know, I know — this was way longer than that a “summer” hiatus. I’m sorry for the delay, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure I was coming back. I’ll talk about that in today’s episode and share why I did come back (mainly because of you, my wonderful listeners).
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- A few minor changes to the podcast.
- How my income goals are going.
- Why my “summer” hiatus took so long.
- How I was reminded to prioritize what’s important to me.
- How I spent my summer vacation.
- Why hiring a business coach was the right move.
What I Learned This Week:
The types of Zoom backgrounds that are most and least likely to cause Zoom fatigue.
The Bookshelf: “Everyone But Myself” by Julie Chavez
Resources:
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #182 of Deliberate Freelancer: A massive pivot from freelancing to owning a business with her husband, with business coach Jenni Gritters
I will be on summer hiatus from June to September. This episode gives you a quick update about my summer plans and provides a sneak peek into what I’m looking forward to talking about in September.
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Melanie’s other podcast, Association Station
Today’s guest is Austin L. Church, who returns to the show to talk about his book “Free Money.”
Austin lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. He helps e-commerce founders stand out online with their brand strategy. Lately, he’s been working as a fractional chief marketing officer, consulting for creator economy companies. He also coaches freelance creatives.
Austin returned to the podcast to talk about his new book, “Free Money,” which I have read and highly recommend for all freelancers.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Who this book is for and why he wrote it.
- How our beliefs about money from childhood affect our businesses now.
- The financial numbers you need to know to run your business.
- What “pessimistic pricing” and “weirdly precise” numbers are.
- Set a price that reduces the chances you will resent the client or the project.
- The fine line between setting boundaries and being difficult to work with.
- Why the “hustle” isn’t sustainable and can lead to burnout.
- The four stages of freelancing: Moonlighter, Hustler, Lifestyler and Diversifier.
- The money mindset questions Austin asks his clients. For example, fill in the blank: Wealthy people are __________. Making money is __________.
- How to address our money beliefs and improve our financial literacy.
- Why investing in a business coach can be important to improve your business.
Resources:
- Austin’s book: “Free Money: Nine Counterintuitive Moves for Life-Changing Freelance Income”
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Today’s guest is Rachel Meltzer. Rachel lives in Massachusetts after doing the “van life” thing for a few years. She is a freelance writer for software as a service companies or SaaS. She’s written for Lenovo, Grammarly, Loom, FarOut, Six Moon Designs and more in the tech and outdoor recreation industries.
She’s also a coach. She’s coached over 100 freelance writers on launching their businesses and getting clients and then scaling their businesses. She loves the freedom that freelancing gives her to thru-hike, live in a van, move whenever she wants, and spend time with her loyal cat, Bonnie.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The winding journey that led her to a freelance writing career.
- How her Appalachian Trail thru-hike in 2018 changed her life.
- The value in community and sharing experiences with other people.
- How she went from a scarcity mindset to a healthier perspective.
- The jealousy we’ve had of other freelancers and how we fight against that.
- What she learned from a failed project.
- The importance of perseverance in landing clients.
- How to “ooch” up your rates.
- A simple system and aggressive outreach to get clients via LinkedIn.
- The script she uses in a LinkedIn connection request.
- What her weekly structure looks like — and why she changes it up about every six months.
- How she schedules time off in advance — instead of taking “burnout” vacations.
Biz Bite: Use ChatGPT to create your weekly schedule.
One of several tips on how to use AI she learned from TikToker SuperHumanCo
Resources:
- Rachel’s free Get Clients on LinkedIn webinar on June 11
- Free Get Clients Guidebook
- Tons of free and low-fee resources from Rachel
- Rachel’s website and 1:1 coaching information
- The Guidebook podcast
- Austin Church on The Guidebook: Austin L. Church's morning marketing habit will change your life
- Jenni Gritters on The Guidebook: Jenni Gritters slowed down
- Episode #182 of Deliberate Freelancer: A massive pivot from freelancing to owning a business with her husband, with business coach Jenni Gritters
- Episode #164 of Deliberate Freelancer: Using a “freakout” protocol to get work now, with Austin Church
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Today’s guest is Louis Tinsley, a DC-based commercial photographer.
Louis has been working in the industry professionally for more than 10 years and sits on the board of the DC chapter of American Photographic Artists, where he runs the annual Photo Assistant Workshop. He also recently joined the Northern Virginia Community College Photography & Media Curriculum Advisory Board. His clients have included General Dynamics Corporation, the TED organization, local news station WTOP, and DASH Alexandria Transit Company in Virginia.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Louis got into photography.
- What he loves about being a freelancer — and what he finds challenging.
- What a good headshot and branding photos can do for your business.
- What we should consider before we hire a photographer.
- What should be included in the conversation with a photographer you are considering hiring — how much retouching is done, what to wear, whether a makeup artist is included.
- How a photographer should work to put a nervous subject at ease.
- What happens after we do a photography shoot and what might be included in the package and services.
- How often we should update our headshots and business photos.
- How AI is affecting photography.
- Advice for freelance photographers about how to keep enjoying the work.
Biz Bite: Try to control the flow of time as best you can.
Resources:
- Louis Tinsley website
- Louis on Instagram
- Louis on Twitter
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Episode #68 of Deliberate Freelancer: Yes, You Need to Build a Personal Brand, with Hilary Sutton
- Episode #106 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use Video to Connect with Your Audience, with Anita Kwan
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Today’s guest is Kelly McSweeney, a content marketing writer. Kelly works from her home office in Massachusetts with a small dog by her side. She has been a self-employed writer for nearly eight years, with clients that include research institutions, big tech companies and marketing agencies. Kelly explains cutting-edge science and emerging technology to intelligent, curious audiences. In recent years, she has added writing video scripts and moderating webinars to her services, which is today’s topic.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The micro services freelancers can provide as a part of the video creation package.
- How Kelly learned the unique style of writing video scripts.
- How script writing is more collaborative and creative than writing articles.
- The length of projects and time involved.
- The different types of videos.
- Working with a video producer (whether freelance or from an agency).
- How to charge and the challenge with a longer pay cycle.
- What to consider when creating the scope of work.
- How to find clients.
- What moderating webinars entails.
- The qualities a good moderator needs.
- How generative artificial intelligence is affecting content marketing.
Biz Bite: Use mind mapping to brainstorm.
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Kelly’s website
- Kelly on LinkedIn
- Episode #106 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use Video to Connect with Your Audience, with Anita Kwan
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
Today’s guest is Annemie Tonken. Annemie lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has been a professional photographer since 2010 and is the owner of Megapixie Photography.
She also teaches creative entrepreneurs how to run profitable, sustainable businesses they love, by focusing on how they can develop helpful business systems and strategies. And, she’s the host of a business podcast for photographers called This Can’t Be That Hard and the creator of the Simple Sales System, which is used by thousands of photographers worldwide to create in-person sales-level income and service in an automated way.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How she became a photographer and later focused on family photography.
- How a surgery left her income and business vulnerable — and she vowed to change that.
- Her lightbulb moment that led to her membership program.
- Why we should think creatively about the business side — and not just the creative services we provide.
- The importance of listening to the challenges many of your clients continue to have.
- Tips on how to set up and sell your own membership program.
- Why this is a good model for branding photographers and writers, too.
- How to adopt this model to service businesses beyond photography.
- What freelance photographers struggle with and how Annemie responds.
- The three phases of business Annemie thinks about.
Biz Bite: Conduct an audit of your business systems — with the goals of automation and outsourcing.
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Annemie’s This Can’t Be That Hard website, podcast and courses
- Annemie’s This Can’t Be That Hard Instagram account
- Annemie’s photography website
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
Today’s guest is Abby Nieten. Abby lives in the Indianapolis, Indiana, area, with her husband and three sons. A year ago she launched her freelance business, Shining Waters Editorial, where she is a copy editor and proofreader specializing in business content and nonfiction manuscripts.
Abby also recently launched a monthly newsletter called Stream of Confidence, which is for authors, writers and other business professionals who want to create and publish content that impacts other humans. It offers a steady stream of encouragement, inspiration, connection and quality assurance tips to help you publish your work with confidence.
In today’s episode, Abby and I talk about:
- How a layoff led to her freelancing career.
- Feeling undervalued and burnt out in the corporate world.
- How she prepared for freelancing while still working full time.
- How she’s getting clients.
- Trying to figure out pricing.
- Four pivotal lessons she’s learned over the past year.
- Why she wishes she had taken a break between being an employee and starting her freelance business.
- Just do it — you don’t have to wait until you build the perfect structure and business plan before you start freelancing.
- The challenge of finding the right client mix to provide more stability.
- The importance of keeping a “sunshine folder” of evidence of your good work.
Biz Bite: Explore the technology you’re already paying for before buying the new “shiny object.”
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Abby’s website: ShiningWatersEditorial.com
- Abby’s Stream of Confidence newsletter
- Abby on LinkedIn
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
Today’s guest is Brionna Ned, a former big-law lawyer and in-house counsel for tech companies. She is now a legal educator and a writer. Her company, The Everyday Lawyer, is a legal education and consulting service for small business owners that provides you with the legal knowledge you need to create solid foundations in your business. She also has a course: Contract Foundations for Freelancers.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Brionna went from lawyer to owning a legal education business.
- What she loves about her business.
- The basics of contracts.
- Why all service providers need a contract — and the reason is probably not what you think.
- How to put boundaries in your contract.
- Why it’s important to customize your contract and be sure you understand what it says.
- What to do if you — or your client — doesn’t want to use a contract.
- What to look for in a contract that a client sends you.
- How to explain to a client (and really, their lawyer) why certain contract provisions don’t apply to you and should be deleted.
- Why indemnification clauses are harmful and how to try to get them removed from a contract.
- If you can’t get indemnification clauses removed, know how to suggest changes to limit them in a scope.
- Don’t sign a non-compete clause.
- The difference between a non-disclosure agreement and a confidentiality agreement.
- How to be proactive in ensuring you will be paid and paid on time.
- What to do when you are not getting paid on time.
Biz Bite: Not all money is good money. (Trust your instincts!)
Resources:
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- The Everyday Lawyer website
- Brionna’s Contract Foundations for Freelancers course
- Brionna on Threads
- Brionna on Instagram
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
On today’s show, I discuss the current state of freelancing, which includes massive layoffs and shuttered clients in the media and tech world. But even if that isn’t affecting you — maybe you’re even having your best year yet — you need to be prepared for the lean times and to set up your business to lessen the risk of feast-or-famine. That includes setting yourself apart, diversifying, always marketing, and more.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- The number of layoffs in the media industry in the past year.
- The hits in the tech industry.
- The number of freelancers in the U.S. — the highest number in history.
- Should you panic — or investigate and embrace opportunities?
- How to be a “futurist” for your industry and why that’s important.
- Reflecting on whether your skills need to improve.
- How to set yourself apart from the competition.
- How to “bridge” to new projects and services.
- Why setting and tracking monthly income goals is crucial.
- At least 10 marketing ideas to try right now.
- When to raise your rates.
Biz Bite: Organize your tasks into front stage and back stage.
The Bookshelf: “Nightwatching” by Tracy Sierra
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Join the discussion in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Episode #64 of Deliberate Freelancer: Using a “freakout” protocol to get work now, with Austin Church
- Episode #180 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Crush Your Fear of Self-Promotion and Get Clients Now, with C.J. Hayden
- Episode #116 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create Case Studies to Land New Clients, with Emma Siemasko
- Episode #160 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Dreaded Feast or Famine!
- Episode #54 of Deliberate Freelancer: Think Digital First and Other Ways to Make Money Now
- Episode #53 of Deliberate Freelancer: Pivoting and Finding Resilience
- C.J. Hayden blog post “Avoiding the Feast or Famine Trap for Your Business”
- MBO Partners “State of Independence in America 2023” report
- “New Study Reveals Surge in Six-Figure Earners”
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
Today’s guest is Jenni Gritters, from Oregon. She is a business coach for freelancers and creators. She’s also a former journalist, and a current writer who runs a small content and community agency called The Riverwoods Media Group. Jenni is the former co-host of The Writer’s Co-op podcast and workshops.
Be sure to check out Jenni’s group coaching program for freelancers, called SUSTAIN.
In today’s episode, Jenni shares how she made a massive shift in her business, going from a freelancer; then part-time freelancer while raising two young kids, while her husband was a critical care nurse; then being the primary income earner while her husband took on the primary household and kid duties (and joined Jenni’s business).
We talk about all that, but we also talk a lot about building a successful business, from Jenni’s coaching perspective, which I really appreciated and learned from.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The many pivots and iterations of Jenni’s business.
- How, as a freelancer, she carried over the same negative work patterns she had as an employee.
- Going from reactive to proactive in our business.
- The decision for her husband to quit his nursing career and Jenni to become the primary income earner.
- Splitting her business between coaching and a content agency.
- How she structures her week — and why she takes Fridays off.
- How she makes money as a coach.
- How she switched from sole proprietor to an LLC to an S-Corp.
- Addressing the pushback against six-figure freelancers.
- How your identity as a journalist may be holding you back.
- How to evaluate and reflect on your business through a business audit.
- How to make micro changes to gradually change the structure of your business.
- Many freelance writers are experiencing a downturn — tips to find more work in this weird season.
Biz Bite: Defining your “needle movers” every Monday
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Jenni’s group coaching program for freelancers: SUSTAIN.
Jenni’s website
Jenni on Instagram
Jenni on Twitter
Subscribe to Jenni’s “Mindset Mastery” free Substack newsletter
Download Jenni’s free business planning workbook
Gusto online payroll tool
In today’s episode, I am turning the microphone over to some of you, the listeners. Last fall I asked listeners to share their successful marketing tactics that landed them new clients. Today, eight listeners share their marketing wins with you.
While each unique to the freelancer, there are a few themes. Often, the win originated from something simple, something that might not even have felt like marketing … and yet it paid off.
Building relationships — which I talk about all the time — is also a theme here, as are staying curious and always looking for the opportunities in front of you.
Here are the eight listeners sharing their success stories:
- Randy Ford
- Jonna Michelle
- Anja Lordanić Mustać
- Cat DiStasio
- Angela Myers
- Belinda Grace Fischer
- Nancy Keaton
- Pete Croatto
Biz Bite: Do an energy audit
The Bookshelf: “Northwoods” by Amy Pease
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Episode #180 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Crush Your Fear of Self-Promotion and Get Clients Now, with C.J. Hayden
Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Today’s guest is business coach and author C.J. Hayden, who lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
C.J. Hayden is the author of seven books and hundreds of blog posts, articles, and courses on marketing, self-employment, and productivity. Her bestselling book “Get Clients Now! A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals, Consultants and Coaches” has become the marketing bible for thousands of self-employed professionals and freelancers.
C.J. has been a business coach for several decades now, helping self-employed professionals and creatives thrive. Her newest book is “Overcoming the Fear of Self-Promotion.” Other books include “The One-Person Marketing Plan Workbook” and “50 Ways Coaches Can Change the World.”
In this episode, we talk about:
- How C.J. helps her coaching clients by being a “thinking partner”
- How the pandemic changed how we connect with clients
- Why referrals are the best way to land clients — and how to cultivate a referral network
- How introverts and shy people can prepare for networking conversations and build business relationships
- Marketing mistakes people make when trying to land new clients
- Consistent tactics — and creating a marketing routine —to get new clients
- Why tracking your follow-ups is important — and how to do it
- 7 types of fears we may have when it comes to self-promotion
- How to discover which fears you have and learn how to overcome them
- How the fear of success might be holding you back
Biz Bite: Shut Up & Write! (a community to help you get your writing done)
Resources:
- Donate $5-$50 to support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Connect with C.J. at https://cjhayden.com
- Download C.J.’s free “Blueprint for a Thriving Mission-Based Business” ebook
- Episode #173 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Rethink — and Land More — Anchor Clients, with Wudan Yan
- Episode #167 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use a “Cornerstone” Piece to Build a Content Marketing Plan, with Cassandra Le
- Episode #164 of Deliberate Freelancer: Using a “freakout” protocol to get work now, with Austin Church
- Episode #61 of Deliberate Freelancer: Getting Very Specific on Who Your Perfect Clients Are, with Eman Ismail
- Connect with Melanie on Threads
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
As we wrap up 2023, please consider donating $25 to this podcast. With more than 175 episodes and almost five years of content, I’m sure you’ve received at least one nugget of information or tactic that has helped your business. If so, please consider donating at Buy Me a Coffee. It really helps offset the costs of producing this show.
In today’s episode, I’m counting down my top 10 books of the year — 8 were published in 2023. I’ll start with a few of my reading statistics, share my top 10 and a few superlatives, and give you a heads-up about a few books coming out in 2024. Please enjoy, my fellow bookworms!
And join us in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group, where we’ll be talking about our best and worst books of 2023!
I don’t want to spoil where my top 10 books fell in the list, so the following books are ones I recommended during this episode, plus superlatives and upcoming releases.
Books mentioned in this episode:
Nonfiction:
What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator by Barbara Butcher
The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet by Jeff Goodell
Fiction:
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll
Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin
Go as a River by Shelley Read
Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash
The Night Shift by Alex Finlay
Every Last Fear by Alex Finlay
Falling by T.J. Newman
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James
Superlatives:
Most deserving of the hype: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Least deserving of the hype: Happiness Falls by Angie Kim
Hyped books that didn’t work for me and that I DNFed: Wellness by Nathan Hill; Shark Heart by Emily Habeck; Upgrade by Blake Crouch; The Quiet Tenant by Clemence Michallon; and In Memoriam by Alice Winn
Most disappointing books: Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano and What Have We Done by Alex Finlay
WORST book: Silver Alert by Lee Smith
Most unputdownable and tense book: Drowning by T.J. Newman
Romances that made me like romances: Nora Goes Off Script by Annabelle Monaghan; The Last Love Note by Emma Grey; Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley
A 2023 book I still want to read: The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
My anticipated 2024 books:
The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan, publishes January 2
No One Can Know by Kate Alice Marshall, publishes January 23 (mystery/thriller)
Radiant Heat by Sarah-Jane Collins, publishes January 23 (for Jane Harper fans)
The Women by Kristin Hannah, publishes February 6 (about Vietnam war)
A Step Past Darkness by Vera Kurian, publishes February 20 (mystery/thriller)
Murder Road by Simone St. James, publishes March 5 (mystery/ghost story)
Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner, publishes March 12 (Book 3 in Frankie Elkin mystery series)
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, publishes April 2 (rom-com with magical realism )
Safe and Sound by Laura McHugh, publishes April 23 (mystery/thriller)
If Something Happens to Me by Alex Finlay, publishes May 28 (mystery/thriller)
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
My admin status is back! Join us in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Episode #151 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Best Books of 2022
Episode #122 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Best Books of 2021 (and Anticipated 2022 Releases)
Episode #87 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Most Anticipated 2021 Books (and Fave 2020 Books)
Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
It’s the end of the year! On today’s show, I give a recap of my fourth quarter (hint: things are looking up!) and then a recap of my entire 2023.
What goals are you setting for yourself? Do you set an annual income goal or a word of the year? What are you most excited about for 2024 in your business? And what do you need to work on? Join me and fellow listeners in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group to share your plans and ideas with each other!
This is the last business-focused episode of 2023. Next week will be my Top 10 books of the year for all you bookworms. I’ll also give a few superlative awards to books I read this year and list some fiction and business books coming out in 2024.
Then, I’ll be on hiatus in January. I plan to return with new episodes in February.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- How much I earned in Q4
- My big win for Q4
- How many hours I worked each week on average in Q4
- How much I earned in 2023, compared to my goal
- The surprises I discovered when I evaluated who my clients were this year
- My 2024 income goal
- My 2024 word of the year
Biz Bite: Plan now for future you
The Bookshelf: “No One Can Know” by Kate Alice Marshall
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- NEW! “Alternative Language to Harmful Indemnification Clauses in Contracts” shared by Melanie
- My admin status is back! Join us in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Episode #174 of Deliberate Freelancer: Wrap Up Your Year with These 5 Questions
- Episode #173 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Rethink — and Land More — Anchor Clients, with Wudan Yan
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
On today’s show I share my thoughts and answers to commonly asked questions I hear from freelancers of all levels and in all industries. These are questions that seem to come up time and time again. There is no one right answer, and each question may have different answers depending on the service, the client and so many other variables.
That said, I hope my answers to the following questions help you and allow you to make a decision that is supportive of you as a freelance business owner.
In this episode, I address these seven questions:
- How do I get steady clients?
- Do I need headshots? Do I need a website? (Do I need XYZ for my business?)
- How do I figure out a day rate?
- I have a client who is so critical of my work! They have tons of edits and comments. This can cause multiple rounds of editing. What do I do?
- My client owes me several thousand dollars. How do I get them to pay me?
- My client included XYZ in their contract. How do I push back?
- How many hours should I be working each week as a full-time freelancer?
Biz Bite: Go on a field trip for office supplies.
The Bookshelf: “This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are” by Melody Warnick
Resources:
Email a voice memo about your successful marketing tactic to melanie@meledits.com to be considered for a future episode. Please include your name.
- Jonna Michelle Photography’s video explaining so well who she is and who she serves.
- NEW! “Alternative Language to Harmful Indemnification Clauses in Contracts” shared by Melanie
- My admin status is back! Join us in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
Deliberate Freelancer Episodes About Finding Clients
- Episode #148 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Line Up January Work Now
- Episode #149 of Deliberate Freelancer: Evaluate—and Expand or Fire—Your Clients for a Strong 2023
- Episode #161 of Deliberate Freelancer: Getting Very Specific on Who Your Perfect Clients Are, with Eman Ismail
- Episode #65 of Deliberate Freelancer: The No. 1 Way I Find New Clients
- Episode #173 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Rethink — and Land More — Anchor Clients, with Wudan Yan
- Episode #98 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Benefits of Selling Strategy and Outcomes, with Austin Church
- Episode #164 of Deliberate Freelancer: Using a “freakout” protocol to get work now, with Austin Church
Deliberate Freelancer Episodes About Pricing & Getting Paid
- Episode #74 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Get Paid on Time & Charge Late Fees, with Wudan Yan
- Episode #91 of Deliberate Freelancer: All Things Pricing: Project Rates, Day Rates, Retainers and More, with Jennifer Duann Fultz
- Episode #136 of Deliberate Freelancer: Money, Money, Money, with Finance and Pricing Mentor Susie Jackson
- Episode #141 of Deliberate Freelancer: Real Talk on Managing Your Money and Paying Taxes, with Bookkeeper Sabrina St. Peter
Deliberate Freelancer Episodes About Scope Creep & Other Difficulties
- Episode #36 of Deliberate Freelancer: Spotting Red Flags and Scope Creep
- Episode #129 of Deliberate Freelancer: A Script for Tough Client Conversations, with Treasa Edmond
Listeners, I need your help! Please contribute to an upcoming episode: Email me a voice memo of you describing a specific marketing tactic you did that landed you a client. Provide your name and helpful details of what you did that might have been unique or persistent that worked in securing new work. Email it to me at melanie@meledits.com to be considered for a future episode that will include tips from other listeners. Thank you!
Today’s episode is from my other podcast, Association Station, where I interview people who work at and with membership associations about a topic related to content, publishing and media.
Many of the Association Station episodes may be relevant to your work too since the main focus is creating strong content. But today’s episode, in particular, is relevant for anyone who creates content — this conversation can help us both in the content we create for our freelance business and the content we create for our clients. We can also learn how to be advocates for less harmful, more aware and more conscious language.
Today’s guest is Crystal Shelley, of Salt Lake City. Crystal is the owner of Rabbit with a Red Pen. She edits fiction and is an authenticity reader. Drawing on her background as a social worker, she unites her love of language and passion for social justice by pushing for writing and representation that’s more dignified, intentional, and just.
Crystal is the creator of the Conscious Language Toolkits for Editors and Writers — these toolkits are fantastic resources.
Crystal also serves on the board of ACES: the Society for Editing and is an instructor for the Editorial Freelancers Association.
In this episode, we talk about:
- What “conscious language” is, a term coined by Karen Yin, who also created the Conscious Style Guide.
- What the difference between “conscious language” and “inclusive language” is.
- Why using conscious language — and critically assessing the language we use — in our content is important.
- Style guides are just that: guides. The primary ones, such as the Associated Press Stylebook and the Chicago Manual of Style, don’t always reflect the most updated and conscious language or the accepted language of a particular group.
- Some pitfalls when editing and striving for conscious language.
- How we can advocate for using more conscious language with clients.
- How we and our clients can respond to readers who criticize using “woke” or “politically correct” language or content.
- Why everyone should embrace and use “singular they” in their content.
- How to think about which words to use when identifying people by race and ethnicity.
- What ableism and ableist language is and how incredibly prevalent it is in our society.
- What “inspiration porn” is and why not to write so-called “inspiring” stories of people with disabilities.
- What an “authenticity reader” or “sensitivity reader” is and how we can use these experts to avoid stereotypes and harming readers.
Resources:
- Crystal’s Conscious Language Toolkits for Editors and Writers
- Crystal’s website
- Crystal on Twitter
- Crystal on Instagram
- Crystal on LinkedIn
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Style Guides:
- Karen Yin’s Conscious Style Guide
- Trans Journalists Association Style Guide
- Native Governance Center Style Guide
- National Center on Disability and Journalism Style Guide
- American Psychosocial Association (APA) Style
- Lydia X. Z Brown’s Glossary of Ableist Phrases
- Authenticity reader directories:
- Editors of Color Database
- ACES–the Society for Editing’s Editors for Hire database
- Editorial Freelancers Association Member Directory
- Writing Diversely Sensitivity Reader Directory
Listeners, I need your help! Please contribute to an upcoming episode: Email me a voice memo of you describing a specific marketing tactic you did that landed you a client. Provide your name and helpful details of what you did that might have been unique or persistent that worked in securing new work. Email it to me at melanie@meledits.com to be considered for a future episode that will include tips from other listeners. Thank you!
Today’s guest is Ericka Andersen, a freelance writer living in Indianapolis. She is the author of two books and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Good Housekeeping, Christianity Today, and more. Ericka coaches writers on how to make a living as freelancers and also how to improve their article pitches to land big bylines.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why Ericka became a freelance writer.
- Lessons Ericka learned as she improved her freelance business.
- How Ericka balances higher-paying anchor clients versus the more creative, passionate work she yearns to do.
- Successful ways Ericka found anchor clients.
- How Ericka improved her own pitching process.
- How Ericka coaches writers on writing better pitches.
- The importance of cultivating a good story idea.
- How to find the right editors to reach out to.
- What makes a good pitch.
- When to follow up and when to send a pitch to a different editor.
- How to become a “dream writer” for an editor to work with.
- How these skills can also help you provide “earned media” services for other clients.
- How writing an opinion piece for a newspaper can get your foot in the door.
Biz Bite: Find solutions to problems your current clients are having.
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Register for Ericka’s free From Pitch to Paycheck course
- Ericka’s business: Pitch&Publish
- Get Ericka’s “10 Proven Tips for Publishing Your Writing This Year”
- Pitch&Publish on Instagram
- Sign up for Sonia Weiser’s twice-weekly Writing Opportunities newsletter
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group — The “join group” isn’t working, so you can temporarily “friend” Melanie on Facebook so she can add you to the group (or anyone you know who is in the group can add you as a new member).
Listeners, I would love your help! Please contribute to an upcoming episode: Email me a voice memo of you describing a specific marketing tactic you did that landed you a client. Provide your name and helpful details of what you did that might have been unique or persistent that worked in securing new work. Email it to me at melanie@meledits.com to be considered for a future episode that will include tips from other listeners.
On today’s show, I share five questions to help you wrap up your year to create a “fresh start” in January. I explain the difference between these five questions and larger questions to ask yourself later in a solo business retreat to set up your year for success.
The five questions are:
- What do I need to do now to line up work in January?
- What do I need to do to wrap up the year?
- Do I need to raise rates or fire anyone?
- Where do I need to improve my marketing and networking?
- How much money did I make this year?
Biz Bite: Front-load your week
The Bookshelf: “Wandering Souls” by Cecile Pin
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Episode #149 of Deliberate Freelancer: Evaluate—and Expand or Fire—Your Clients for a Strong 2023
- Episode #123 of Deliberate Freelancer: My 2021 Business Review and Questions to Help You
- Episode #148 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Line Up January Work Now
- Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
- Episode #162 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Solo Business Retreat Reminded Me to Always Be Marketing
- Episode #139 of Deliberate Freelancer: A Solo Biz Retreat After a Struggling Summer
- 16 of the best virtual gifts for clients and employees
- 25 fun corporate gifts for clients you want to impress
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Today’s guest is Wudan Yan, a narrative writer and independent journalist from Seattle. Wudan is also host of The Writers’ Co-op, a podcast, online community and learning academy for freelance creatives.
In this episode, we talk about:
- The different ways to define an “anchor client.”
- Why and how Wudan is rethinking the concept of an “anchor client.”
- How the current economy is affecting freelance creatives.
- The importance of “offboarding” clients.
- How to turn current clients into anchor clients.
- The importance of building and maintaining business relationships.
- Why Wudan and I charge mostly project rates.
- How Wudan pushes for project rates in service areas that are traditionally paid by the hour.
- Why now is the time to start planning for January and the rest of 2024.
Biz Bite: Do a business audit now at the end of the year
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- The Writers’ Co-op
- Register for the November 29 “The 2023 Business Refresh with The Writers’ Co-op”
- Linktree landing page of resources and events from The Writers’ Co-op
- Wudan on Instagram
- Episode #74 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Get Paid on Time & Charge Late Fees, with Wudan Yan
- Episode #92 of Deliberate Freelancer: Improve Client Relationships with Stellar Onboarding and Offboarding, with Kat Boogaard
- Episode #11 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Find the Right Anchor Clients
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
It’s time for my analysis and reflection on how my third quarter of the year went.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- The many ways tracking my time helps my business.
- How I use Freshbooks and Toggl to help me analyze my progress.
- The steps I use to analyze my quarter:
- Calculated how much I invoiced for that quarter.
- Counted how many clients I worked for.
- Used time tracking data to see how many hours I worked on average each week.
- Did the math to see how much I earned per hour on certain projects by dividing the project rate by the hours it took to complete.
- Reflected and analyzed.
- The amount of money I earned in Q3 and how it compared to Q2 and my goals.
- How a delayed Indiana vacation derailed my schedule.
- How many clients I had in Q3 and the types of clients they were.
- How much I earned on certain article assignments.
- Anchor clients versus rock steady clients versus confetti clients.
- How I landed several of these clients.
How was your third quarter? Have you hit your annual revenue goal? Have you started thinking about if and when you’re going to take off some days around the holidays?
Biz Bite: Embrace whimsy
The Bookshelf: “The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing” by Lara Love Hardin
Resources:
Help out Marvel artist Thomas Tenney via GoFundMe.
Laura Vanderkam’s book “Tranquility by Tuesday”
Episode #168 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Q2 Audit: It Can Only Go Uphill from Here, Right?
Episode #115 of Deliberate Freelancer: Time Tracking Lessons from Deliberate Freelancer Listeners
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Melanie’s other podcast, Association Station
On today’s show I discuss how I think about freelance “dealbreakers,” which aren’t only the red flags I’ve noticed over time but also may simply be quirks of my personality or assumptions I’ve made.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- Rethinking “strategy” and whether saying “I don’t do strategy” is holding me back.
- What I learned from Ed Gandia’s thoughts on strategy.
- Why I like to create “bridge” projects.
- How I’m rethinking some of my more stubborn dealbreakers.
- How some dealbreakers are in my head and only cause me to beat myself up for not sticking to them.
- How you can evaluate your dealbreakers and push yourself out of your comfort zone.
Biz Bite: Set a single goal for your day
The Bookshelf: “In Light of All Darkness: Inside the Polly Klaas Kidnapping and the Search for America’s Child” by Kim Cross
Resources:
- Help out Marvel artist Thomas Tenney via GoFundMe.
- Episode #166 of Deliberate Freelancer: Smart Advice from the Content Byte Summit
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Melanie’s other podcast, Association Station
This month, I am celebrating 10 years of full-time freelancing! I can’t quite believe it’s been that long, but I’ve loved nearly everything about it. 10 years of freedom!
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- What the freedom of freelancing has meant to me and what it has allowed me to do.
- How I now realize I was never cut out for a desk job.
- How I adapt my work schedule around my life schedule.
- The freedom of not having to deal with the drama of a workplace!
- At least three lessons I learned as a freelancer.
- A few things I wished I had done sooner as a freelancer.
Biz Bite: Make it easy for clients to find you!
The Bookshelf: “Lone Women” by Victor LaValle
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Episode #1 of Deliberate Freelancer: Change Your Mindset: You Own a Freelance Business
- Episode #29 of Deliberate Freelancer: 3 Big Financial Changes I Made This Week
- Episode #18 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Higher Rates
- Episode #9 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Money Lessons I’ve Learned the Hard Way
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Melanie’s other podcast, Association Station
Today’s guest is Brian David Hall. Brian is a fellow freelancer who lives in Alabama. He focuses on website strategy for B2B clients. Specifically, he works on conversion optimization, which basically means trying to improve the experience of potential clients going to your website.
Brian is the author “Your Website Sucks, Here’s How To Fix It,” and he has run hundreds of experiments across dozens of websites, which has generated millions of dollars in incremental revenue for his clients.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How having a website can bring in clients.
- Why a blog can be helpful to attract clients.
- Common website mistakes and how to fix them.
- It’s time to improve my website — where do I start?
- How to use a five-second test to evaluate the usability of your site.
- Go through your site on mobile like a client would to make sure it’s easy to navigate.
- How to do a heat map analysis.
- How “hallway usability” testing can be helpful.
Biz Bite: Work with other people in a co-working session online.
Resources:
- Free resources from Brian: https://briandavidhall.com/deliberate-freelancer
- Brian’s book: “Your Website Sucks, Here’s How To Fix It.”
- Website builders: Wix and Squarespace
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
On today’s show, I analyze how the second quarter of the year went for me. It’s delayed because of my summer hiatus, but the “delay” doesn’t really mean anything to listeners — just think of it as “how these three months in a row went.” Learn how many clients I had, how much I earned, and how many hours I worked.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- A quick update on a project I talked about in Q1.
- A sneak peek into something I figured out for my health in Q3.
- What was a huge mental health game-changer for me in Q2.
- How many clients I had and how much money I earned in Q2.
- Why cash flow is critical (hint: an issue with a significantly delayed payment).
- How many hours I worked per week on average in Q2 — and how that compares to past quarters.
- Two examples of how time tracking was helpful in Q2.
Biz Bite: Use templates for everything.
The Bookshelf: “Reef Road” by Deborah Goodrich Royce.
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Melanie’s other podcast, Association Station
- Episode #158 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Four Client Wins and One Fail in Q1
- Episode #160 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Dreaded Feast or Famine!
- How I Work podcast (September 20, 2023): Katy Milkman wants to leave things better than she found them
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
Today’s guest is Cassandra Le, owner of The Quirky Pineapple Studio, a brand strategy and content marketing studio that works with Black, Indigenous and people of color, queer folks and intersectional feminists.
Cassandra is originally from Virginia in the United States, but she now lives in Spain. For more than 13 years, she has been creating content across all mediums (written, graphics, audio, video, photography), and through her business. She works with mission-driven brands and thought leaders around the world in English and Spanish — helping them share their story, connect with their community, and drive brand awareness with content marketing that is enjoyable and anti-oppressive.
Cassandra believes believe business and marketing can be fun AND be used as tools to dismantle systems of oppression.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Cassandra’s studio, The Quirky Pineapple Studio, got its name.
- How she went from freelance travel writing to running her agency.
- Why content marketing is important, even to those who traditionally are able to rely heavily on referrals.
- Cassandra recommends that you start your content marketing strategy with a “cornerstone” piece of content.
- Why you should plan your life before you plan your content.
- Some of the current content marketing trends.
- How to get started on TikTok (and do you need to?).
- Why you should use LinkedIn more.
- How content marketing has changed and why it’s now a long-term game.
- How Cassandra builds an inclusive content marketing strategy through cultural competency and why that’s important to her.
- The new app for Gen Z: BeReal.
Biz Bites: Put phone on “do not disturb” mode. And, “group tabs” on Google Chrome.
Resources:
- The Quirky Pineapple Studio website
- The Quirky Pineapple Studio on Instagram
- Cassandra on Instagram
- I’m lost, so what? podcast
- How to group tabs on Google Chrome
- NPR article: BeReal is Gen Z’s new favorite social media app. Here’s how it works
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
On today’s show I provide a recap of The Content Byte Summit, which was held in Sydney, Australia, September 15-16. I attended virtually and was super impressed with the content, particularly all the discussion around artificial intelligence. There was also a lot of great tactical advice about running your freelance business, so even if you’re not a writer, I think you can learn from some of the advice I’m sharing today.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- A panel about humans versus AI discussed how a writer can stand out nowadays.
- Where AI fails and isn’t helpful.
- AI is a word predictor, so that means it has no original thought, no anecdotes, no creativity, no vulnerability. Those are areas you should include in your content.
- Why Ed Gandia no longer uses the word “strategy.”
- How to stop giving away your strategy and advice to clients for free.
- Tips from a panel on how to escape the low-paying cycle and make more money.
- Why accountability partners and mastermind groups can be good for you.
- What types of letters of introduction (LOIs) to send out.
- Tips from a session on how to find new clients.
- A recap of Jennifer Goforth Gregory’s keynote presentation: “The Secret to My $15,000 Months and How I Consistently Hit Income Targets.”
- Important questions Jennifer encourages us to ask as we build our business.
Biz Bite: Provide a luxury good
The Bookshelf: “What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator” by Barbara Butcher
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- The Content Byte Summit
- The Content Byte podcast
- Ed Gandia’s podcast: High-Income Business Writing
- Jennifer Goforth Gregory’s book and blog: The Freelance Content Marketing Writer
- Writer and editor Carrie Hutchinson
- Freelance journalist Cameron Bayley
- Claire Kimball, founder and managing director of Squiz Media (an Australian news podcast)
- Lindy Alexander and her blog, The Freelancer’s Year
- Episode #156 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Risks and Opportunities of ChatGPT
- Episode #11 of Association Station (Melanie’s other podcast): In Conversation with Jemilah Senter, about Opportunities and Risks of AI Tools Like ChatGPT
- Episode #100 of Deliberate Freelancer: Lessons from a Pandemic Year, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
- Episode #4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
- Episode #164 of Deliberate Freelancer: Using a “freakout” protocol to get work now, with Austin Church
- Episode #98 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Benefits of Selling Strategy and Outcomes, with Austin Church
- Episode #81 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: Focus on a Niche and Partner with Other Freelancers, with Lynne Testoni
- The Content Byte podcast episode with Melanie: Melanie Padgett Powers, US-based healthcare writer and podcaster, shares the secrets of her success
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
The podcast is back after my summer hiatus! Thanks for continuing to listen and support the show.
Here’s what I share with you in today’s episode:
- The importance of taking breaks for your mental fitness and for better client work.
- The types of breaks you should be thinking about and planning for.
- Why planned and unplanned mental health breaks are important.
- What happens when you neglect your networking and marketing and slow down too much.
- Why you have to work at getting referrals.
- How I’m ready to embrace this new “back to school” season — and why I need to get my act together!
- New episodes of my second podcast, Association Station, that might also appeal to you (see links below).
- What happened to my Facebook account and the status of the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Biz Bite: The 1% rule of thumb (by Brian Hood)
The Bookshelf: “Beyond That, the Sea” by Laura Spence-Ash
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
- Melanie’s other podcast, Association Station
- Episode #10 of Association Station: In Conversation with Nabil El-Ghoroury, PhD, CAE, about Stress, Burnout and Other Mental Health Issues
- Episode #11 of Association Station: In Conversation with Jemilah Senter, about Opportunities and Risks of AI Tools Like ChatGPT
- Episode #13 of Association Station: In Conversation with Crystal Shelley, about the Importance of Using Conscious Language in Our Writing and Editing
- Connect with Melanie on Threads @MelEdits_DC
- Connect with Melanie on LinkedIn
- Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group
- Brian Hood’s 6 Figure Creative podcast
- Episode #65 of Deliberate Freelancer: The No. 1 Way I Find New Clients (Referrals)
- Episode #152 of Deliberate Freelancer: How Mary Tindall Began to Earn $200,000 a Year as a Freelancer
- Episode #162 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Solo Business Retreat Reminded Me to Always Be Marketing
Deliberate Freelancer is on a summer hiatus and will return toward the end of August or early September. Take this time to listen to some previous episodes or relisten to favorite guests! Or make a playlist of specific topics, like finding clients or pricing projects.
The Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group will be active during this time, so please join us over there for great conversations with other listeners. You can ask for advice and share your experiences.
If you have benefited from this podcast, please help support the show financially at Buy Me a Coffee.
And check out Melanie’s second podcast, Association Station. Season 1 debuted last summer, and season 2 will be released soon. So, subscribe now on your favorite podcast app.
Today’s guest is Austin Church from Knoxville, Tennessee. Austin helps e-commerce founders stand out online with their brand strategy. Lately, he’s been working as a fractional chief marketing officer (CMO), consulting for creator economy companies. He also coaches freelance creatives.
Austin was one of the six-figure freelancers I featured on the show in May 2021. We’ve since become friends, and his podcast, Freelance Cake, was in my ears during my recent solo business retreat — because I needed all his marketing advice!
I realized you all could benefit from hearing some of his great marketing strategies and tactics too, so I invited him back on the show.
In this episode, we talk about:
- What a “fractional” role is for a freelancer and how Austin moved into that role.
- How Austin defines and sells strategy.
- Why templates are so important.
- How Austin works through a “content road map” with clients.
- Austin’s marketing strategy and his “freakout” protocol.
- The difference between “cold” leads and “warm” leads.
- Austin’s 3 R’s of marketing: repeat business, referrals and relationships.
- How Austin uses LinkedIn to get new clients: tips from Sharon Wu.
- Don’t be afraid to ask other freelancers you know for referrals.
Biz Bite: Have a shut-down ritual that identifies three priorities for the next day and include “marketing” as one of the priorities.
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Austin’s website and his free freelance course: AustinLChurch.com
- Austin on LinkedIn
- Austin’s Freelance Cake podcast episode: 7-Step Freakout Protocol for Getting Last-Minute Freelance Income
- Episode #98 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Benefits of Selling Strategy and Outcomes, with Austin Church
- How Austin uses LinkedIn to get new clients: tips from Sharon Wu
- Find email addresses: Hunter.io
Today’s guest is Helen Jane Campbell. Helen is from Wales and recently moved from Hay-on-Wye, Wales, to Worthing, England.
Helen is a life and business coach for ambitious and creative entrepreneurs, bringing authenticity and energy to all she does.
Clients turn to Helen when they feel ready to bring more joy, energy, and abundance into their lives and their teams. She helps people create space and reconnect with their self-worth and creative freedom.
Prior to becoming a coach, Helen spent two decades of her career in PR and communications strategy — with a focus on creativity and on building and leading effective teams. She worked directly with decision-makers and CEOs.
Helen is the author of the book “Founders, Freelancers & Rebels” and the co-founder of Hay Pride, the Pride celebration Hay-on-Wye. She also hosts monthly sessions on Zoom called Powerful Journaling.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Helen went from employee to freelance PR professional to business coach.
- Helen’s book, “Founders, Freelancers & Rebels.”
- What Helen’s clients are feeling and dealing with now in 2023.
- Ask yourself: What assumptions are you making about your business?
- Dealing with the feeling of uncertainty brought on by the pandemic.
- How Helen responds when people are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.
- What did you love to do when you were 12?
- “RAIN” technique to try when you’re feeling scattered or unmoored.
- The phrase Helen hates and why.
Biz Bite: Fall Back in Love with Your Business
Resources:
- Helen’s website
- Helen’s monthly Powerful Journaling workshop
- Helen’s book, “Founders, Freelancers & Rebels”
- Helen’s Substack newsletter
- Helen on Twitter
- Tara Brach’s RAIN technique
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
On today’s show I share my structure, agenda and my action plan developed during my most recent solo business retreat.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- Please leave a rating and review for Deliberate Freelancer on Apple Podcasts or any other podcast platform.
- Why I chose Thomasville, Georgia, for my latest solo business retreat.
- How I structured my retreat and my theme for the two days.
- What happened when I stopped consistently following my Always Be Marketing rule.
- How Austin Church’s podcast Freelance Cake helped me.
- The two big questions I asked myself as I started my retreat.
- How I evaluated my best income months from 2022 and built lessons and action around what worked in those months.
- How I created a list of top-level services that bring in money and are services I enjoy — so I can focus on getting work in those areas first.
- The two areas I am focusing on as part of the new marketing strategy and action plan I created.
Biz Bite: Let an app do your errands
The Bookshelf: “The Verifiers” by Jane Pek
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Melanie’s other podcast, Association Station
- Episode #153 of Deliberate Freelancer: My 2022 and Q4 Audit and Six Lessons from Last Year
- Episode #152 of Deliberate Freelancer: How Mary Tindall Began to Earn $200,000 a Year as a Freelancer
- Episode #160 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Dreaded Feast or Famine!
- Episode #98 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Benefits of Selling Strategy and Outcomes, with Austin Church
- Freelance Cake podcast: 7-Step Freakout Protocol for Getting Last-Minute Freelance Income
- From the Front Porch podcast
- The Bookshelf in Thomasville, Georgia
Today’s guest is Eman Ismail, an email strategist and copywriter who is originally from England and now lives in Finland. She also coaches copywriters.
Eman is the person to call when you want to make money from your emails. As an email conversion strategist and copywriter, she helps six-figure-plus online business owners and ecommerce brands fire up their conversions, evergreen their sales and turn fans into superfans.
Eman is also the host of the podcast Mistakes That Made Me, which asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistake, so you know what NOT to do on your road to success.
I confess I had trouble coming up with a title for this episode because we cover a lot of ground and Eman shares such great advice and lessons. We talk in-depth about finding your niche and figuring out who the perfect clients are for you. Eman also goes into great detail about her intake form, which weeds out all the not-right clients.
In this episode, we talk about:
- How Eman niched down from a copywriter to an email strategist
- How finding your niche is not the only way to be successful but is perhaps the fastest way
- Try a bit of everything at first — your niche will often find you
- Don’t get distracted by going after the niche where you think you can charge the most; you have to enjoy your niche also
- How defining your core values as a business owner helps you focus your business goals
- Switching from monthly income goals to quarterly income goals
- Paying yourself first, with the same amount every two weeks or every month
- How Eman prepared for maternity leave
- Defining and focusing intently on the clients that are right for you
- Creating a detailed intake form so sales calls happen only with the right clients
- How to go from an intake form to the sales call to landing the client
- Tips for freelancers when creating their own email newsletters
- Why Eman records all her sales calls
- Eman’s podcast Mistakes That Made Me
Biz Bite: Session Buddy
(Google Chrome extension to save your tabs)
Resources:
Eman is offering Deliberate Freelancer listeners 50% off her A Week of Workshops bundle. Go to the link for more information. Click through to checkout and use coupon code: EMAN-MEL-PODCAST.
Eman’s website: Emancopyco.com
Eman’s free 35-minute class The Email Rules
Eman’s Like a Boss course about the business side of running a copywriting business.
“Preparing for Maternity Leave with Eman Ismail” on the Being Boss podcast
Eman’s podcast Mistakes That Made Me
Eman on Instagram
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
On today’s show, I discuss how I found myself in the dreaded “famine” part of the feast-or-famine cycle and what I’m trying to do about it.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- A few tips when you’re in the “feast” phase.
- How to tell clients no — and turn down work when you’re too busy.
- My three-pronged approach to get out of the famine stage.
- The importance of figuring out where your potential clients are and getting involved in that space.
- The upcoming Content Marketing World, which will be outside Cleveland, Ohio, for the first time. It will be held in Washington, DC, September 27-28, 2023.
- The importance of my Always Be Marketing rule.
- Asking yourself big picture questions surrounding “how did I get stuck in this famine stage?”
Biz Bite: Use the two-minute rule to get things done
The Bookshelf: “Nora Goes off Script” by Annabel Monaghan
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Episode #158 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Four Client Wins and One Fail in Q1
- Content Marketing World, Washington, DC, September 27-28, 2023
Today’s guest is Ernie Smith, a longtime writer for nonprofits and membership associations. He also has a lot of experience in graphic design, content strategy, content management systems, newsletter creation, and content.
Ernie is also a tech writer — that includes writing about technology for Vice magazine — and Ernie is a self-proclaimed tech nerd. His name and voice might sound familiar because I just had him on the ChatGPT episode a few weeks ago. That was episode 156.
So, I thought he was the perfect person to come on the show and introduce us to a variety of tech tools that we might want to try out for our businesses.
We broke this discussion down into various categories of tools, ones that can help with writing, note-taking, audio recording, scheduling meetings, graphic design, and newsletter platform tools. Ernie shares dozens of tools and also talks a bit about the benefits of publishing our own newsletter.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Writing tools, including Markdown, Bear, Obsidian, iA writer, Lex AI
- Tool to synchronize programs between computers and phones: Syncthing
- Google Docs feature we might not be taking advantage of
- Note-taking tools: Markdown, Evernote, Notion
- Task management tools: Flow Pomodoro timer
- Meeting and interview recording: Otter.ai, Rev
- Audio routing: Loopback
- Scheduling meetings: Calendly
- The benefits of publishing your own newsletter
- Newsletter platforms: Substack, Beehiiv, Ghost, Newsletter Glue (a WordPress plug-in)
- Graphic design tools: Canva, Pixelmator, Affinity Photo
- The importance of optimizing a few tools that are best for YOU
Resources:
- Ernie’s newsletter: Tedium.co
- Ernie on Twitter
- Ernie on Mastodon: @ernie@writing.exchange
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Episode #156 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Risks and Opportunities of ChatGPT
On today’s show I discuss some client wins, a fail and some ongoing challenges in my freelance business so far in 2023.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- A win in which I didn’t dismiss the client because it wasn’t a straightforward proposal and I had to customize it.
- A “bridge service” win, in which I took an existing service and skill I’m good at and went beyond it a bit, expanded it to create a new, great project.
- A win in which I fired a client that forced me to often track down payments.
- A win in progress in which I’m thinking through how to develop a three-tiered proposal, offering three options at different price points for one potential client who is unclear about the scope of work they need right now.
- A “sort of” fail that reminded me of a few lessons.
- Three challenges I’m facing this year so far: working weekends, lack of consistent marketing, and a feast-or-famine cycle (no!!!!).
Biz Bite: Consider your rubber balls versus your glass balls
(thanks to Alysha Love for sharing this at ACES)
The Bookshelf: “Wake” by Shelley Burr
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Episode #153 of Deliberate Freelancer: My 2022 and Q4 Audit and Six Lessons from Last Year
ACES–the Society for Editing virtual conference: Sept. 27-29, 2023
ACES–the Society for Editing in-person conference: April 4-6, 2024, San Diego
Today’s guest is Eva Stabenow, a Pilates teacher and movement coach who helps freelance writers, translators and other desk workers heal their bodies through movement while continuing to pursue the work they love.
In the early 2010s, after a successful career as a German medical translator, Eva began to suffer from severe shoulder and wrist pain caused by long hours at her desk. After years of searching, Eva finally found lasting relief through corrective Pilates. This inspired her to seek comprehensive training and help other writers find the same lasting relief and enjoy the lifelong health benefits of a tailored Pilates practice.
Today, in addition to empowering others to take charge of their health through movement, Eva works primarily as a health writer specializing in plain-language patient education.
I invited Eva on the show to talk about how Pilates — but also just movement and stretching and strength training is important for our bodies, especially for those of who sit for long periods of time. I don’t think our human bodies were meant to sit in chairs all day, and human evolution hasn’t caught up to the modern world.
Eva shares with us a few things we can do throughout the day and in our lives, in general, to make our desk work less painful and better for our bodies and posture.
In this episode, Eva talks about:
- What Pilates is
- How Pilates helped Eva realign her body and relieve pain
- What happens to our body alignment when we sit too long (forward head posture, back roundness, low back pain, tight hip flexors)
- Why it’s important to strengthen your upper back muscles and move more throughout the day
- Stretching alone isn’t usually enough to prevent pain. You need to work to strengthen certain muscles too.
- We also need to focus on strengthening our feet and ankles.
- Think of your body as a “walking building” with a strong foundation that moves.
- The importance of incorporating movement throughout your day—move in all planes of motion.
- The various types of Pilates and how to do it at home versus taking a group or private class
- Standing desks, treadmill desks and other “solutions” to modern desk work
- Pilates moves to do at your desk: Mermaid stretch, Pilates roll down
- How Pilates helps with mental health also
- Setting timers or booking classes or friend meetups to remind yourself to get up and move
- How to build movement and exercise into habits
- How to find a good Pilates studio and teacher
Biz Bite: Make yourself and your physical health a priority.
Resources:
- Eva’s website: Sunroom Pilates
- Eva on LinkedIn
- Eva’s Sunroom Pilates on Instagram
- Eva’s Sunroom Pilates on Facebook
- Physical therapist Melanie follows on Instagram and video of hip flexor strengthening exercise
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Today’s episode features several guests who all have an interest in ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence (AI). Their varying backgrounds and experiences in tech, writing and editing provide unique insights into the potential and risks of generative AI such as ChatGPT.
ChatGPT has risks and opportunities. Most of us are hearing how ChatGPT plagiarizes, how we can’t fact-check what the sources are, and how formulaic and repetitive the writing is. But we also have to remember this is the first iteration of this program, and it—or others like it—will continue to improve. I don’t think it’s going away.
We have to use ChatGPT with a lot of caution, but it does have benefits for freelancers right now, including helping you brainstorm and generate article and project ideas, do some research (as long as you fact-check it), and even write headlines.
In today’s episode, my guests provide their unique insight into what all this means for freelancers. My guests are:
- Tori Liu, president and CEO of the Association for Intelligent Information Management
- Ernie Smith, a writer for Manifest content marketing agency and a technology nerd
- Michelle Rafter, a longtime freelance writer and former business reporter
- Adrienne Montgomerie, a longtime freelance editor who teaches editing at Canadian universities
- Ben Pines, director of content for AI21 Labs, which has developed its own generative AI tool called WordTune.
Resources:
- The Washington Post article that mentions that ChatGPT makes up information when it doesn’t know the answer (type “Vincent” to go right to that section): “We asked ChatGPT to plan the perfect tour of D.C. Here’s how it went.”
- Tori’s blog post: “Unpacking ChatGPT for the Information Management Industry”
- Ernie’s article in Vice: “Are Google and Bing’s Chat AI Going to Change Search Forever?”
- Adrienne’s series Editor Vs. AI
- Michelle’s LinkedIn posts
- AI21Labs’ WordTune
- Futurism article: “CNET’s AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism”
- The New York Times: “A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled”
- The Associated Press (AP) has been using AI since 2014! “Unlocking the power of AI: 6 lessons from AP for publishers”
- Stay tuned for info on the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) virtual conference June 13-15
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Today’s guest is Michelle Jackson of Denver, Colorado. Michelle is a freelance content creator. She has been blogging, writing and talking about personal finance for the past decade—although she will tell us in today’s episode how she’s pivoting her business away from that.
But, I’ve been following Michelle on Twitter for a while and learning from what she has to say about earning and managing money as a freelancer. So, I invited her to come on the show to talk about how we can prepare ourselves for uncertain times.
Many people are nervous right now about the economy, inflation and clients cutting back on work, so I hope this conversation will help you brainstorm potential new ventures ways to diversify your income.
Michelle’s website, The Brand Building Lab is where, in her own words, she gets to “geek out about all things online entrepreneurship while uplifting voices of color and allies who are doing the work … but may not get on center stage for whatever reason.”
In this episode, Michelle talks about:
- Navigating uncertainty in the economy
- How freelancers underestimate the number of clients they need to sustain their business
- Why you always need systems to be bringing in new clients
- Relying too much on one client for your income
- Asking yourself: Who has the power in your business?
- The importance of setting boundaries
- Understand how your clients make money and what the value is of your work versus what they are paying you
- Be intentional about the work you’re doing
- Why and how to diversify your income
- How to scale your expertise
- “Passive income isn’t passive until it’s passive”—it takes a long time to build up
- Getting comfortable with taking measured risks
- Apply for grants to support a project you want to pursue
Biz Bites: Be clear about your priorities each quarter; batch work; diversify your income; prioritize you.
Resources:
- Michelle’s website: BrandBuildinglab.com
- Michelle on Twitter
- Podcasters Getting Paid newsletter
- Michelle Is Money Hungry podcast
- Kaitlyn Arford’s freelance opportunities newsletter
- Grants for Creators
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Today’s guest is Miranda Marquit. She lives in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Miranda has been writing and podcasting about money on a freelance basis since 2006. Her work has appeared in various media, including CNBC, NPR, Forbes, and TIME.
She has a background in journalism and enjoys telling stories about finances and creating your own financial journey. Miranda has created a successful six-figure freelance career and recently released the second edition of her book about freelancing, “Confessions of a Professional Blogger.” She also developed a freelance writing course with two other successful freelancers, available on Gumroad.
Another freelancer recommended Miranda for the show and when I was doing a bit of research, I came across this blog post she had written about creating your own benefits package as a freelancer — things like health insurance, retirement and paid time off.
I liked how she framed that as a “benefits package.” I think that framing can help us start to plan for these types of things and put them all together into one package, not just randomly think about retirement and take vacations whenever.
As a financial writer, Miranda is also quite knowledgeable about these areas, and in this episode, she dives into the details of various benefits.
In this episode, Miranda talks about:
- When she began thinking of her freelancing as a business.
- Why you should create your own benefits package as a solo business owner.
- How to start to create a benefits package: look at your income and list the most important benefits you need to cover right now.
- You might not be able to have a full benefits package right now, but start to build one.
- Start with health insurance (in the U.S. in particular).
- Consider using a health savings account (HSA) — which provides a triple tax savings.
- Also consider: short-term and long-term disability. Disability coverage can be expensive, but see if your bank has any available plans or build your own “disability fund” or “emergency fund” as a savings account.
- Why you need life insurance.
- Know ahead of time what community resources are available if you need help.
- Make retirement planning a priority and start now if you haven’t already. Even putting away $10 a week can add up.
- Retirement options:
- Roth IRA (pay taxes now, no taxes when you withdraw the money)
- IRA and SEP IRA (deposit money now pre-tax, pay taxes when you withdraw money in retirement)
- Plan ahead for child care needs.
- Include vacation days in your benefits package (plan annually and in each quarter).
- Build in deadline buffers, which can be helpful when you need to take a sick day.
- Building good relationships with clients and always hitting deadlines makes it easier to ask for deadline extensions when you’re having an emergency.
Biz Bite: Outsource tasks
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Miranda’s website
- Miranda on Twitter
- Miranda on Instagram
- Miranda’s book “Confessions of a Professional Blogger: How I make money as an online writer”
- Miranda’s courses for freelancers
- Freelancers Union health plans
- Fidelity article: What is an HSA, and how does it work?
- Lively (company for HSAs)
- HealthEquity (company for HSAs)
- Forbes article: 5 Big Changes To Roth Accounts In Secure Act 2.0
- Betterment online investing company
- Can You Claim the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit?
I finally have had a moment to reflect on last year and look at my numbers. I reflect briefly, taking a qualitative look back, but this is mostly a quantitative look.
Here’s what I share with you in this episode:
- My 2023 income goal (big and audacious!)
- My 2023 word of the year
- A reflection on how 2022 was for me
- My Q4 recap, including an analysis of income and time tracking
- My 2022 total income
- My weekly average number of hours worked last year
- The number of weeks of vacation I took (and one sick week)
- My number of clients and a reflection on “regular” clients vs. one-offs and anchor clients
- Why I fired one “good” client
- Six lessons learned—or gentle reminders I needed—from last year that might be helpful to you also
Biz Bite: Overestimate your time for deep work
The Bookshelf: “The Light Pirate” by Lily Brooks-Dalton
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Episode #152 of Deliberate Freelancer: How Mary Tindall Began to Earn $200,000 a Year as a Freelancer
- Episode #127 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embrace LinkedIn to Improve Your Business, with Atlas Katari
- Episode #147 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Q3 Audit—Grief, Brain Fog and Better Times Ahead
- Episode #139 of Deliberate Freelancer: A Solo Biz Retreat After a Struggling Summer
- Episode #137 of Deliberate Freelancer: I’m Grieving. How Can I Keep My Business Running?
Today’s guest is Mary Tindall. Mary launched Mary Tindall Communications in 2018. She is a content marketer and thought leadership strategist in Orlando, Florida. Mary leads a boutique agency team that specializes in healthcare content marketing, working with leading institutions and innovative startups across the U.S.
Mary became a six-figure freelancer in 2020, which was a goal of hers. Then she grew even more and began to earn $200K in gross revenue on her own. As revenue continued to grow, she hired subcontractors to help with the workload and built a small agency model.
In this episode, Mary talks about:
- The key lessons that led her to earning $200K
- Her work and family structure
- How many hours she works
- Playing the comparison game
- Why getting confident as an expert on a sales call is so important
- The importance of following your energy—not mimicking someone else’s schedule
- Freelancers who are overly flexible or overly rigid
- What she struggles with
- What her daily and weekly schedule looks like
- How she thinks through pricing projects (Hint: Get on the phone and get super clear on the scope of work)
- Figuring out her ideal client—what clients make your blood pressure rise versus the ones you love working with
- How she finds clients, particularly on LinkedIn
Biz Bite: Otter.ai transcription services
Resources:
Institute for Independent Journalists conference
Mary Tindal’s program Break Into B2B is a mentorship course for aspiring B2B health care writers. A new cohort will relaunch later this year. Join the waitlist by visiting her LinkedIn profile.
Mary’s website
Connect with Mary on LinkedIn
Email Mary
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
As the year ends, please consider supporting this free podcast at Buy Me a Coffee. Your support is helpful financially, obviously, but it also boosts my spirits and keeps the show going.
Today’s show is my special wrap-up episode where I share my top 10 books of the year. I read 65 books in 2022, as of December 19, and narrowed down my favorite to 10. Eight of the top 10 were published in 2022, while two were published in 2021. Those were two books I didn’t finish in 2021 and purposely scheduled to read early in 2022, and I’m so glad I did.
I also share which book I hated and wanted to throw across the room, a few disappointing books, and a few extras that were great books, even though they didn’t make my top 10. And I end with a few books that I’m looking forward to that will be published in 2023.
Join us in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group where we’ll be talking about our best and worst books of 2022!
I don’t want to spoil where my top 10 books fell in the list, so the following books are ones I recommended during this episode, but you’ll have to tune in to hear the top 10. Also, I didn’t list the books I hated below because I don’t want people to think I’m recommending them.
Nonfiction:
- Unmasked: My Life-Solving America’s Cold Cases by Paul Holes
- I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
- How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
- Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham
- All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (memoir)
Fiction:
- Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
- The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
- Before She Disappeared by Lisa Gardner
- The Night Shift by Alex Finlay
- Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka
- Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- The Measure by Nikki Erlick
- How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
- Bewilderment by Richard Powers
- Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
- Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
- Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley
- Flying Solo by Linda Holmes
- Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes
- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
- The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
- The Dry (first in the Aaron Falk series) by Jane Harper
- Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
2023 Books I’m Looking Forward to:
- How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, publishes January 17
- Exiles by Jane Harper, publishes January 31
- I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai, publishes February 21
- A Living Remedy by Nicole Chung (memoir), publishes April 4
- The Half Moon by Mary Beth Keane, publishes May 2
Resources:
- Chat books (and freelancing!) in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Episode #122 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Best Books of 2021 (and Anticipated 2022 Releases)
- Episode #104 of Deliberate Freelancer: Best Books of 2021 So Far—and New Releases This Fall
- Episode #87 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Most Anticipated 2021 Books (and Fave 2020 Books)
- Episode #17 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Favorite Books of the Year So Far (2019)
Podcast news: After much deliberation, I’m changing the schedule of Deliberate Freelancer slightly. We will stick to weekly Thursday episodes, and the episode format will remain the same. However, I will now publish in two big seasons, with breaks in between. So, after December 22, 2022, the podcast will go on hiatus until February. Then, the schedule will resume through May.
I will take a summer hiatus, likely June through August, then return for the fall season. I will take another break next year likely similar to this year’s: Christmas through January.
The Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group will remain active during these breaks, so be sure to join us there. And you can also continue to listen to Melanie talk with others about building a successful freelance business on other podcasts she’s been a guest on. You can access those episodes on the Deliberate Freelancer website.
Bookworm alert! Next week’s final episode of the year will be my annual book episode, where I share my favorite books of 2022, disappointing books, books I hated and my most anticipated books coming out in 2023. Tune in December 22!
In today’s episode, I talk about how you can start your own podcast — what you should think about, how much work it entails, how to think about structure and format and some of the technical things you need to know.
Podcasts are still booming! Here are some stats for you:
- 41% of the U.S. population 12 and older have listened to at least one podcast in the last month. That’s nearly half the country.
- That actually increased in 2020 and again 2021, during the pandemic — even though people lost their prime podcast commuting time.
- In 2020, 24% of the U.S. population said they listen to a podcast every week. In early 2021, that had already increased to 28% — or about 80 million people!
- Podcasting has gotten more diverse. What started out as primarily a white boys’ club now has a monthly audience that is 43% non-white. Podcast creators have also become way more diverse.
Podfade: the tendency to start a podcast but quickly stop recording after only a few shows because of the time and effort it takes. The vast majority of shows don’t make it to 20 episodes.
My podcast 3 C’s are consistency, content and clarity.
Consistency: Whether you’re weekly, every other week or monthly, you need to be consistent. Your audience can’t stick with you if you’re putting out episodes on a whim. You need to pick a day and stick to it.
Content: This might sound obvious, but pick a topic you love. Don’t pick a topic based on the market or what you think might be successful. This is a subject you are going to need to talk about a lot so you better like it.
Clarity: Be clear on why you are starting a podcast. It shouldn’t be for the money because very few people make a living solely off podcasting. And it can take a long time to make enough money to have podcasting replace even one good client.
So, why do you want to start a podcast? What is its purpose? Who is its audience?
Here are 5 lessons I’ve learned along the way:
Lesson #1: Don’t wait.
You have to just get in there and do it or you’ll never start. The beauty of podcasting is you can grow and learn and get better along the way. But you have to dive in.
Set a realistic launch date to hold yourself accountable and then work backward from there to create your to-do list and deadlines.
You’ll need to consider your podcast name, music, podcast logo and a podcast hosting site.
Lesson #2: Get help if you can.
Hire someone to help you launch or to teach you audio editing. Or, hire an audio editing company or freelance editor.
Consider hiring a virtual assistant to help with aspects of your podcast. They can help with scheduling guests, writing show notes, uploading to your website and podcast hosting site, and creating and scheduling your social media promos. You can even hire someone who specializes in podcasting and use them only to help you launch.
Lesson #3: Focus on sound quality.
People will turn off a podcast whose topic is perfect for them if the sound quality is poor. So make sure you invest in a good microphone, headphones and audio editor or learn editing yourself. (Audacity is free easy-to-learn editing online software you can use to record and edit.)
Lesson #4: Create a social media strategy for your launch and for each episode.
Lesson #5: Embrace your voice.
Stop criticizing your voice. You do not have to have radio voice. In fact, it helps if you don’t. Women especially, stop channeling sexism stop saying “I hate the sound of my voice.”
I launched a second podcast, Association Station in June 2022 and used lessons I learned from Deliberate Freelancer to make the process easier.
Association Station is marketing and brand awareness for my client base. It’s an interview show with membership association leaders about content, publications and media. That shows my expertise and expands my network in the association industry, where my clients are.
One lesson is that I made every episode a guest episode. It takes about the same amount of work for me to do a guest episode as it does to script out and create a solo episode. However, it’s a different type of work. I have to research and find guests and schedule and record interviews. But I don’t have to create an episode from scratch on my own, which takes more time and creativity.
I also pared down my show notes. Deliberate Freelancer show notes are often written like blog posts. For Association Station, I just include the guest bio at the top and then list out bullet points of topics or themes we discussed.
Association Station is a seasonal podcast. I knew it wouldn’t be sustainable to do it every week and I wasn’t interested in even doing it every month. So, I created a nine-episode season and launched it right before a membership association conference so I could promote it there. I’m hoping to have a second season sometime in early 2023.
Biz Bite: Notice something delightful every day.
Dr. Laurie Santos
The One You Feed podcast
“The Book of Delights” by Ross Gay
The Bookshelf: “The Book of Unknown Americans” by Cristina Henríquez
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Check out my second podcast: Association Station
- Pro Podcast Solutions
- “So You Want to Start a Podcast” by podcaster Kristen Meinzer
- Libsyn podcast hosting site
- Melanie’s microphone: Audio-Technica ATR2100x-USB dynamic microphone
Podcast news: After much deliberation, I’m changing the schedule of Deliberate Freelancer slightly. We will stick to weekly Thursday episodes, and the episode format will remain the same. However, I will now publish in two big seasons, with breaks in between. So, after December 22, 2022, the podcast will go on hiatus until February. Then, the schedule will resume through May.
I will take a summer hiatus, likely June through August, then return for the fall season. I will take another break next year likely similar to this year’s: Christmas through January.
The Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group will remain active during these breaks, so be sure to join us there. And you can also continue to listen to Melanie talk with others about building a successful freelance business on other podcasts she’s been a guest on. You can access those episodes on the Deliberate Freelancer website.
Today’s episode walks you through some ways to evaluate your client list to set you up for a strong 2023. This practice is something I do during my regular solo business retreats. It’s one of the many ways I look at the big picture of my business and set goals for myself.
But first, let’s talk about income goals. Do you set income goals? Do you set and track a yearly, quarterly, monthly or weekly income goal? Setting an income goal not only helps you pay the bills, but it helps you track and stay on track financially, can keep you motivated and can push you beyond what you think you might be able to earn.
As you take time to evaluate your income for the year, go a bit beyond just the final number. Start with how much you earned and then ask yourself a few questions:
-
Where did the bulk of your money come from? Accounting software can run these reports for you. I think it can be enlightening to do the math and figure out the percentages of how much income came from specific clients and then how much came from specific services.
-
Did you enjoy your work this past year? Break that down and ask yourself what bothered you this past year, what drove you bananas, what stressed you out—and then what brought you joy, what energized you, what got you into that flow state.
Your answers could be related both to your clients and to you. Then, dig deeper and figure out how to solve some of those struggles or lean into the joyful areas.
After this, take time to rate and rank your clients. I go into detail in the podcast how to do this, but the formula is: list out all your clients, create categories that you want to rate, rank each client 1-5 (5 is best), and then rank them from top (most points) to bottom (fewest points).
What do the numbers tell you? Did anything surprise you?
Look at the clients at the bottom first. What is the problem there? Can you solve it to improve your relationship or do you need to fire those clients? Or raise their rates to the point that certain things don’t bother you anymore?
Look at your best clients. Can you work with them more? Be creative. What services can you create to help them? Can you offer them a retainer? Or do you simply need to be sure you reach out to them more often for work?
Also, why do you love them? Can you lean into that and find more clients that fit those criteria?
As you take in all this information together—how much money you made, which clients brought in the most income, which clients rank highest in your list—consider if you should raise your rates. And remember: You’re not asking to raise your rates. You’re telling them: I wanted to let you know my rates will increase to XXX on February 1.
By going through this process of rating and ranking my clients every year for the past several years I realized this past summer, after going through this exercise, that I currently love all my clients. What a great place to be!
I firmly believe this evaluation process—and following through with the best and worst ranked in some manner—got me to this place. I’ve fired clients and turned down work. And I’ve really homed in on the types of services I love to provide and that pay well.
Biz Bite: Create a “work declined” email folder.
The Bookshelf: “Love & Saffron” by Kim Fay and bonus pick “84, Charing Cross Road” by Helene Hanff
Resources:
- Join me for the ASJA webinar on Dec. 13 “How to Host a Solo Business Retreat and Gear Up for 2023.”
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Listen to Melanie as a guest on other podcasts.
- Review all back episodes and their show notes and resources at DeliberateFreelancer.com.
If you’re like me, you’ve learned the hard way that if you don’t plan for January right now, you might have a very slow start to the new year.
A lot of places shut down between Christmas and New Year’s Day, which can make that a great time of year to take off from your freelance business — but it can also be a great time to catch up on work or work on your business,
But those last two weeks of the year are not usually a good time to reach out to clients. I highly encourage you to do that outreach now to ensure some income come January.
I’ve said before that my best way to get new clients is through referrals. And while referrals work well for getting new clients, the easiest way for me to get new projects from existing clients is simply to email clients.
In this episode, I share my very basic formula and some suggested email language for January outreach. I focus first on a top-tier group, my favorite clients to work with, and then a larger, broader group. I track it via a spreadsheet.
Another thing I’ve been doing more of is posting on LinkedIn when I have availability for work. See the link below under Resources for an example.
Start your LinkedIn post by clearly focusing on your target audience or call to action, because as people scroll through their feeds they only see the first couple of lines of a LinkedIn post and you want to catch their attention.
Another way to potentially line up work for January is to send a holiday card — this reminds clients you’re out there and available. Email cards are easy, but a paper, snail mail card with a handwritten personalized note will stand out.
Biz Bite: Do a software and tools audit
The Bookshelf: “The Kaiju Preservation Society” by John Scalzi
Resources:
- Join me for the ASJA webinar on Dec. 13 “How to Host a Solo Business Retreat and Gear Up for 2023.”
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Melanie’s LinkedIn marketing post
This week I’m excited to recap the third quarter of my business. Some great news first: I’m starting to feel like myself again, after a summer of grief and anxiety. Even before that, I was definitely languishing through the pandemic, and I’m not sure I’ve felt this great since before the pandemic—almost three years ago!
As for quarter three, you might have noticed there was no Q2 recap, in the midst of my horrible summer. So, I’ll mention it briefly here, as it relates to Q3.
In quarter two, I averaged working 26 hours a week and I exceeded my monthly goal. I spent the most time on non-income work: preparing for attending the AM&P Network AMPLIFY membership association conference in June; then on my new podcast, Association Station; followed by administrative work; work on this podcast; and doing networking and marketing.
In quarter three, I took four weeks off, but only one of those was a true vacation. I averaged 24 hours of work a week (this does not include those four weeks off), but I think that is probably inflated because I felt so sluggish and slow in getting things done.
My average monthly income from Q2 to Q3 dropped 42%. In fact, I only billed for $800 in July! Assignments already established in August and September brought that number back up, but my average was still way below my financial goal.
One thing I did in my analysis this time was go back and see how much I was earning per project. This is where I think I am very successful with my business and how I’m able to earn six figures and not have to work 40 hours a week. If you hear nothing else from me, please hear this: Charge per project!
Know your secret hourly rate that you are trying to hit and go back and see if you actually earned that. If you charge per project and never evaluate it, you might be underpricing yourself and spending way too much time on certain projects or clients. This is where time tracking is so valuable.
If you track your time and find out you are spending too much time on a project to earn your goal rate, something needs to change—if earning more is your goal. I know there are other goals sometimes—times when getting in with a client or learning a new skill or getting something for your portfolio that is more prestigious that you can use to get other clients. Those are all goals too.
Listen to this episode for some examples of what I earned per hour. All of my projects this year (except for small copy editing jobs) averaged out per hour to more than my secret hourly rate, which is great news.
If you want to work “faster,” as I’ve heard some freelancers say, I think the key is figuring out how to improve your processes and be more efficient. You’ll get faster with more experience, and you might need to learn some new skills or take some classes in a particular area. But I also encourage you to focus on efficiency.
And don’t do a $5,000 job if they’re paying you $500. What I mean is don’t be so precious with your work and spend extra time on making it perfect, if they’re not paying you for that. Do a good job, of course, but keep in mind how much they’re paying you.
One way I’m more efficient is by recording my source interviews and having someone else transcribe them. I recently started saving a lot of money by using Otter.ai rather than paying for a person to transcribe. Artificial intelligence transcribing has improved, but even so, Otter lets you listen to the recording online and check and edit the mistakes. You only have to correct the parts you’re going to use, not the entire transcription.
In today’s episode, I answered this listener question from the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group: How do you determine how much work to take on to balance multiple clients’ various deadlines and the amount of time you want to be working. I feel like I constantly say yes to too much! Do you have a goal for how many clients or larger projects you take on versus one-offs?
I’m very analytical, so I typically have a sense of how long something’s going to take. And I also try to think about how much energy something’s going to take. Time tracking also helps here. When I get a new project I try to map out—based on experience and data of the time it takes from previous similar projects—how many hours it might take.
And then I look at my calendar, where everything exists, and I try to figure out where this project will fit in. It’s not just about available time. It’s about realistically looking at when you will have the energy—maybe not after another big project or a lot of Zoom meetings that day, maybe not in your lower productivity time slots. Be honest with yourself and really examine this!
Go ahead and block off the time on your calendar. There’s this phenomenon in which we always think we have more time in the future because very little is scheduled yet. But time is finite, and we rarely have more time because it will get filled up too. So, take care of your future self and put those chunks of time on the calendar now.
As for larger projects versus one-offs, I don’t have a goal. I treat it the same way I just described, seeing if and when I can fit it in my schedule.
Of course, before any of this, first and foremost, I ask myself if I want to do the project and then I ask myself what the price would have to be for me to do this project. That all comes before I take a look at my schedule and consider fitting it in to my schedule.
You have to be willing to walk away. You have to be willing to say no. And if you want to do the project for whatever reason—whether you think it will be fun, or a good learning experience, or it’s just a lot of money—there are ways you can negotiate getting more time. Two examples: Ask for a longer deadline or negotiate a smaller scope of work.
Biz Bite: Schedule your holiday breaks now.
The Bookshelf: “The Haunting of Maddy Clare” by Simone St. James
Resources:
- Join me for the ASJA webinar on Dec. 13 “How to Host a Solo Business Retreat and Gear Up for 2023.”
- Transcribing with Otter.ai
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Episode #134 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Q1 Audit—A Slow Start & 4 Big Decisions
- Episode #111 of Deliberate Freelancer: Offering Courses and Coaching, with Translator Madalena Sanchez Zampaulo
- Episode #10 of Deliberate Freelancer: Think Like a Marketer to Grow Your Business, with Megy Karydes
I have been at a client’s conference all week, so I wanted to share a previous episode that I hope you find it valuable. I originally recorded this episode in February 2020, but it’s definitely relevant today—we all need reminders from time to time on the importance of setting boundaries in your personal and work life.
In this episode, I aim to give you a mix of a pep talk, tactical advice on how to set boundaries, and actual language on what to say to people. I hope you find it helpful.
For the most part, I have figured out how to set boundaries. But I also admit I was quite lucky that when I started my freelance business, my family and friends understood that I was actually working throughout the day and that this wasn’t some hobby. I know some of you are not so lucky and have people occasionally bugging you to help them out with things or hang out with them during the day because you “of course you can’t be working.”
Boundaries tell you and those around you what is acceptable, appropriate human behavior. They vary from person to person. Knowing what your boundaries are and setting them is critical to building healthy, respectful relationships in your life. This is important in both your personal life—setting boundaries with your partner, your family, your friends, and even your neighbors—as well as in your freelance business—with clients, colleagues, and subcontractors.
I want to talk about setting boundaries in your personal life first. An article on PsychCentral.com called people who break your boundaries “emotional manipulators,” a phrase I like because if you think of them as manipulating you, maybe you’ll see how wrong and invasive they are being. The article suggests setting boundaries by first writing down the ways that people in your life are hurting you by the things they say.
Then, consider what the other person’s motivation might be and begin to write down answers to specific comments.
I think it’s important to not only know what you’ll say next time, but also know how to cut the conversation short. You shouldn’t be dragged into a 15-minute conversation in which you’re being forced to explain your life choices.
When you’re figuring out what to say, remember what their motivations might be. That will help you develop a script.
The PsychCentral.com article also makes a couple more recommendations that I think are really helpful to keep in mind. It says “Remember the importance of saying ‘no’ to unreasonable requests, and reasonable ones from time to time, if they conflict with your plans.” Saying no is huge!
I know all of this is really hard. I don’t expect you to get it perfect all the time, and I’m not an expert or a therapist. But I want you to succeed in your business and in your life. I think it’s really important for people—women especially—to learn how to speak up for ourselves, stand up for our own lives, and tell people to stop.
Next, let’s talk about boundary setting when it comes to your freelance business. For some of you, this needs to start with a mindset shift that you are a freelance business owner. You’re not freelancing on a whim, this is not a hobby, and you’re not “just” a freelancer. You own a freelance business.
I think something happens in our brains when we start to think of ourselves as business owners. I firmly believe it builds confidence. You’re not just hustling from one gig to the next. You’re not just taking whatever job you’re offered. You’re not taking whatever fee you’re offered.
When you’re setting boundaries in your business, again, make a list of what boundaries clients and colleagues are breaking. A few big ones expect you to reply after hours, creating scope creep in projects, and you to reply on vacation.
It is up to you to set boundaries with your clients. One of the biggest boundaries you can set right now, if you haven’t already, is to create office hours for yourself. When do you want to work? Be creative! If you’re not a morning person and your peak productivity time is at night, take advantage of that.
Once you’ve set office hours, what other boundaries do you want to set? What is annoying you, getting in the way of your work? Evaluate your days and how you work and where you work.
Biz Bite: Create templates
The Bookshelf: “Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster” by Adam Higginbotham
Resources:
PsychCentral.com article “The Importance of Personal Boundaries”
Episode #1 of Deliberate Freelancer: Change Your Mindset: You Own a Freelance BusinessEpisode #36 of Deliberate Freelancer: Spotting Red Flags and Scope Creep
Today’s guest is Erin Brenner, an editor in Massachusetts. Erin is the owner of the editorial services agency Right Touch Editing, which specializes in providing small and midsized organizations with writing and editing teams. Erin also offers training in writing and editing, particularly for editors and for professionals who write.
Today, Erin talks about how she is building a team of contractors for her editorial agency. I believe her advice and the lessons she’s learned will be helpful both to those of you who WANT to build a small agency from your solo business, as well as those, like me, who DON’T want to build an agency but sometimes want or need to partner with another freelancer on a particular project.
In this episode, Erin dives into the details of how she finds and vets contractors, how she charges clients and then pays contractors, and how she onboards her contractors to represent her business well. She also talks about what you should consider before building a team and what challenges she has faced—and much more.
Erin got to a point in her editing business where she didn’t want to do the editing all the time. She liked managing people and taking on a variety of projects. So, she began to build out her business by hiring contractors to take on the bulk of the work.
She now has 10-12 contractors that she pays by the project. She makes it clear to new clients that she works with a team, that she doesn’t do the work. She let her previous clients know that she was transitioning to this new model. She also reviews all the client work before it goes to the client, and she is the main contact for the client.
Before creating an agency, Erin recommends thinking about how you feel about managing people and managing projects—versus providing the actual hands-on services.
Erin vets contractors by starting with the freelancers closest to her—her mastermind groups—and then moves out to other organizations she’s involved with. She talks about the challenges of advertising publicly.
Then she vets the recommendations by looking at candidates’ resumes, LinkedIn profiles, websites and social media accounts. She’ll narrow that list down to about four people to conduct interviews with, usually via online video. She will then usually narrow it down further to about two candidates and give them an appropriate editing or writing test. During the interview process, Erin talks through how both she and the contractor prefer to communicate and what she expects.
Erin hires W-9 independent contractors, not employees. She requires contractors to sign one contract that includes non-compete and non-disclosure language, as well as outlines the scope of the work and relationship.
Erin adds her contractors to several systems, which include Slack and Google Drive (where she stores resource materials and process sheets). She also uses Zapier Webhooks and Zoho Bigin, which provides a suite that includes software for customer relationship management, hosting meetings, managing social media and more, all in one spot.
Challenges have included making sure there is enough work to keep everyone busy, trying to figure out how many contractors she needs on a team, and dealing with freelancers’ availability.
Erin talks through how she charges clients and how she decides what and how to pay the contractors. She typically pays a contractor a percentage. She also talks about how she made the business case to her clients when moving to agency—and raising her overall rates.
Erin recommends you grow at your own pace. You can start using contractors just on certain projects or every once in awhile. But build out a list of people and vet them now, not when you need them.
Biz Bite: Let software work for you.
“Software is really great at doing small repetitive tasks over and over again, exactly the same way every time.”
Zoho Bigin
Zapier Webhooks
Resources:
- Right Touch Editing
- Erin on LinkedIn
- Erin on Twitter
- erin@righttouchediting.com
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
- Episode #131 of Deliberate Freelancer: Building a Successful Content Marketing Agency, with nurse Portia Wofford
- Episode #88 of Deliberate Freelancer: Positioning Yourself as an Agency and Partnering with Other Freelancers, with Reggie Holmes
Today’s guest is Lauree Ostrofsky, who is a coach and speaker living in the Hudson Valley of New York state. Her business is called Simply Leap. Lauree’s clients are A-students and introverts wanting to feel more confident putting themselves out there in a bigger way, including in their own businesses.
Lauree has written two books: a happy how-to called “Simply Leap: Seven Lessons on Facing Fear and Enjoying the Crap out of Your Life,” and “I’m scared & doing it anyway,” about reinventing her own life after being diagnosed with a brain tumor at 28.
When Lauree was in the hospital with a brain tumor, she had an epiphany about how powerful humans are when we set our minds to something. She realized that while she couldn’t control this thing happening to her, humans do have some control over some aspects their lives even in hard times—the words we choose, the people we surround ourselves with. Lauree realized she wanted to help others recognize how powerful they are, so she decided to take a coaching certification program.
Lauree shares some key messaging that she often discusses with her “A student” coaching clients, such as taking the pressure off yourselves.
She talks about the need to “collect data” in our business. Don’t create a service or a program first. Collect the data first to see what your potential clients actually want from you.
She also brainstorms with her clients their ideal work life and their ideal client.
Societal pressure to be “fearless” can cause us to be unkind to ourselves. It’s OK to recognize that something is new and scary and different—but then find kind ways to help yourself through it.
Fear is a good indicator that you’re on the right path. If you’re not scared to offer a new package or charge a higher price, it might not be that important. That fear shows that you really want that thing.
Melanie asks about not having fear—does this mean we are taking the easy route, or being too comfortable? Lauree talks about how the easy route can be good, but we can also create stretch goals for ourselves.
Lauree (who is a former marketer) and Melanie also talked about how to market our freelance businesses. Lauree says if people have already chosen to work with us, then marketing is already working. “Marketing isn’t this thing over there,” she says. “It’s already happening.”
She encourages people to make a list of all the things that people thank you for, both in work and non-work situations. Write down their words. Do it for a week or two. You’ll see some of the same things that keep coming up, and some of THAT should go into your marketing. That shows you what the other person thinks about you, and that’s what marketing needs to be.
For example, if you’re an accountant, you might think your value is related to being good at your job. But everyone might be thanking you for always having a smile on your face and having extended hours—that’s what you need to market.
Lauree also talks about how we can brainstorm to figure out our ideal clients and what she calls “Jane Goodalling” your potential clients.
Lauree ends the episode by reiterating that whatever our work is, that it can work for us. It’s OK to be scared. But be sure to seek out people who can help; you don’t have to figure all this out by yourself.
Biz Bite: Create a “smile file.”
Resources:
- Lauree’s website: Simply Leap
- Lauree’s books
- Lauree on Instagram
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
In the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group I asked listeners: What questions do you want to know about how I run my six-figure freelance business?
One listener replied: I know you achieve an incredible amount in a relatively short period of time. What’s the secret to this? Do you use a timer? Do you have to shut down distractions?
So, in today’s episode, I talk about self-discipline—how I achieve it, how I strive to achieve it and how I often fail at it.
I think self-discipline is critical to making it as a freelance business owner. My husband, also a business owner, likes to talk about the need to overcoming inertia and then building momentum from there.
Self-discipline is an executive function. It’s a cognitive process. Some people are fantastic at it. Some people have to work at it—or are great in some areas, not in others. And then some people are horrible at it and need to work on it first before they can achieve great things.
To achieve self-discipline, you need to first know what your business goals are. Scroll down for four episode links in which my guests or I have talked about how to set goals. These might make a good “podcast package” to listen to one after the other.
Self-discipline means controlling our impulses. It means doing things you don’t necessarily want to do—or maybe don’t want to do in that moment. It means delaying gratification and doing the work instead.
In this episode I confess one area of self-discipline where I’m failing and need to correct ASAP.
Overcoming procrastination is also a struggle sometimes. But if I can learn to maximize my self-discipline, I can cut down on the procrastination. I outlined several techniques and tips in this episode:
- Know thyself. There’s a fine line between knowing yourself and making excuses.
- Create a startup routine to your work day.
- Create a daily task list—not a long, unachievable to-do list.
- Learn how to focus.
I do this by starting each period of “deep work” or cognitive work with a “highlight song.” I light a candle, put on my noise-canceling headphones and then switch to Mozart.
- Set up multiple processes and structures that will eliminate distractions.
Do a distraction audit over a few days to see what gets you off task and how you can correct it.
Try out various versions of the Pomodoro method. Stop multitasking! Start time tracking—even if you only do it for a week in order to analyze your self-discipline and distractions.
- Improve your health. Make sure you’re hydrated, getting exercise and sleeping well.
- Set small, achievable goals for your day.
- Give yourself grace. Work on improving your self-discipline and thus maximizing your efficiency, which means earning more money in less time. But then, give yourself grace. We and our businesses are all works in progress, and not every day is going to be a banner day.
Biz Bite: Sort your email follow-ups by day.
Biz Bite-related article from Inc.: “Seven Productivity Secrets From the Female Founders 100”
The Bookshelf: “Tin Man” by Sarah Winman
Resources:
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Follow Melanie on Instagram for kitten photos.
- Episode #13 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Better Goals for Your Business, with Andrena Sawyer
- Episode #95 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Dream Bigger and Transform Your Freelance Business, with Cathy Wilkes
- Episode #44 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Track and Reach Your Goals
- Episode #58 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Reimagine Your Goals during a Crisis
A recent “escape” or vacation, and big family news are both helping me get through this summer’s grief, languishing and brain fog. So, in today’s episode, I am thinking about ways we can learn to love our business again when we need a fresh start in business or in life.
I want to embrace this “fresh start” concept starting in October and for this final quarter of the year. You might not be ready for a fresh start right now. Maybe you’re doing fine or you’re in the middle of some struggle and don't, frankly, have the time to think about a fresh start at the moment.
However, I think we all should consider a fresh start at various times in our business. Maybe for many of you that will just be organically in January as we get back from the holidays. Others of you might be in a similar boat as me, where you have that fresh start feeling after a big life change or maybe the end of a big contract or you have a revelation about your business.
Whenever the time is right for you, here are seven things to try out in your business that can help you make that fresh start:
- Lean in to what you love.
- Reach out to your community.
- Reframe your to-do list every day from “I need to do this” to “I GET to do this.”
- Develop a mantra or two to say to yourself each morning.
- Separate the wheat from the chaff.
- Gamify your marketing.
- Write a love letter to your business.
Biz Bite: Get a flu shot.
The Bookshelf: “Wrong Place Wrong Time” by Gillian McAllister
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Follow Melanie on Instagram for kitten photos.
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Episode #137 of Deliberate Freelancer: I’m Grieving. How Can I Keep My Business Running?
Episode #124 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create Better Habits (and My Word of the Year)
In today’s episode, I talk about the power of finding and really zeroing in on your very specific niche and how that’s unique to you. I think there are a lot of benefits to knowing exactly what your niche is and not getting sidetracked by other work—getting to the point where you turn down other work and not just say “yes” because someone asked you to work for them.
Today’s conversation is actually from November 2021. At that time, fellow writer Austin Church invited me to speak about niches as part of his fantastic virtual masterclass event. The conversation you hear today was originally a video conversation we had during that masterclass.
Austin lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. He helps e-commerce founders stand out online with their brand strategy, and he also coaches freelance creatives. He first came on Deliberate Freelancer in May 2021. Scroll down for the link to that episode.
Although technically Austin is interviewing me today, it’s really a back-and-forth conversation, with Austin also sharing his thoughts, advice and experiences. We also just had a lot of fun together. Enjoy!
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
- Episode #98 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Benefits of Selling Strategy and Outcomes, with Austin Church
Today’s guest is Sabrina St. Peter, founder of SmartSpark Business Solutions, a bookkeeping firm that supports brand builders and storytellers, such as professionals in public relations, marketing and advertising. Sabrina, who is based in Chicago, is passionate about small businesses in every form—from the freelancer to agencies with multiple employees. Understanding that most people did not start their business to pour over their bookkeeping, SmartSpark Business Solutions launched in February 2020 to make bookkeeping simple.
Sabrina and Melanie start off by talking about mindset and how we should think about our bookkeeping and finances. Being intimately familiar with your finances coming in and where that money is going will help your business grow more quickly than if you ignore it. Sabrina also talks about how to reframe financial situations. For example, you might be nervous to pay your quarterly taxes or hate “giving” away that money, but paying taxes means you earned a profit that quarter!
Sabrina starts at the basics and defines bookkeeper vs. tax preparer vs. accountants and how each person can help you. A bookkeeper organizes the business’s finances.
Sabrina walks us through how to set ourselves up for bookkeeping success. The first thing to do is have a separate business bank account from your personal account. Then, be honest with yourself about what you’re willing to do with your bookkeeping and what system will work best for you.
Sabrina gives us advice on how to find the bank account and system that’s right for us.
Sabrina recommends carving out time every week for a “money date” with yourself for 15–30 minutes to look at two main numbers: your income and your profit (income minus expenses).
She also recommends doing an expense audit every month: looking at and analyzing your expenses. For example, you might discover you’re paying for software or other subscriptions you no longer use. It also helps you recognize incorrect charges.
Time to talk taxes. If you expect to owe more than $1,000 a year in taxes, you should pay the estimated quarterly taxes or you will be fined. Sabrina gives tips on how to track your taxes, including smart templates that do the math for you.
Sabrina explains why we should keep all receipts, not just credit card statements, and how to store those documents. And it’s not just in case we’re audited. (By the way, the Inflation Reduction Act provided money to the IRS for more people to examine tax returns, which might increase the number of people who get audited.)
Sabrina talks about tax deductions and how we figure out what expenses can be deductions. Every business expense is not necessarily a tax deduction, but every business expense should be tracked.
Sabrina explains how a bookkeeper could help you, but also how you still need to help the bookkeeper and answer their questions.
Sabrina talks about subcontractors. She recommends if you hire anyone for a service, ask them for a W-9. However, if you pay people via credit card, debit card or a system like PayPal or Stripe, you do not have to issue the subcontractor a 1099 because credit card/banking companies will issue those reports. So, you only need to issue a 1099 if you pay them via cash, check or bank transfer.
Biz Bite: Use Text Blaze, a text expander
Resources:
Sabrina’s SmartSpark Business Solutions
Email: hello@yoursmartspark.com
SmartSpark Business Solutions on Instagram
SmartSpark Business Solutions on TikTok
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Online financial institutions:
- Relay
- Novo
Finance systems:
- Wave
- QuickBooks online
Companies that will track and send your taxes for you:
- Wingspan
- Creative Juice
- QuickBooks Self-Employed
Pay your estimated taxes online:
- EFTPS (Electronic Federal Tax Payment System)
- IRS.gov
- IRS2Go app
Apps that store receipts:
- Hubdoc
- Dext
IRS article: How long should I keep my tax returns?
This week’s episode is unique in that it’s a cross-post episode. What that means is that I, Melanie, was invited on Hilary Sutton’s Hustle & Grace podcast recently. Not only does that episode debut on Hilary’s podcast this week, but I agreed to share it here on Deliberate Freelancer.
Hilary is a writer, speaker and consultant. And she has become a real-life friend who lives here in the DC area near me. I encourage you to check out her podcast for great interviews from entrepreneurs and other freelancers and consultants.
So, the tables are turned and Hilary interviews me this week. In this episode I talk about:
- My career journey and why I left employment and became a freelancer.
- Tips on taking that leap into freelancing.
- Why I launched Deliberate Freelancer.
- Why I launched a second podcast, Association Station, this year—and how I used lessons from Deliberate Freelancer to make the creation process more efficient.
- How podcasting has improved my business and built my community, in surprising ways.
- My thoughts on whether we should strive to be six-figure freelancers.
- How to hit your financial goals.
Hilary might sound familiar to you because she has been a guest on Deliberate Freelancer. Scroll down to access that episode about the importance of personal branding.
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
- Episode #68 of Deliberate Freelancer: Yes, You Need to Build a Personal Brand, with Hilary Sutton
- Hustle & Grace Podcast
- HilarySutton.com
- Hilary on Twitter
- Hilary on LinkedIn
- Hilary on Instagram
Trigger warnings: pet death, pet euthanasia, pet illness, grief over the death of a loved one, anxiety, bike accident
I’m back! Back from my extra-long summer hiatus—longer than I expected or planned for. In this episode, I explain why it took me so long to return and share the grief, anxiety and other mental health struggles I’ve been dealing with this summer.
If you are dealing with grief or anxiety or similar feelings, scroll down for some links to previous Deliberate Freelancer episodes that deal with these issues, including interviews with therapists. This, obviously, does not replace mental health counseling, and I am not an expert, but you might find these episodes soothing or helpful in dealing with your struggles.
I sought out a new therapist this summer who said something I couldn’t believe that I’d never heard before: Anxiety can be a symptom of grief. My cat’s death in April, it seems, was affecting me in multiple ways and leading to my newfound anxiety this summer.
After a horrible summer 2022, I am ready for a new season. In the U.S., Labor Day signifies the end of summer and gives nearly all of us a “back to school” feeling. So, I am embracing a new season and bidding farewell to a sucky summer.
What better way to start off this new season than with a solo business retreat?! In the second half of this episode, I will walk you through what I did—and what I learned—during this week’s solo business retreat from my dining room.
I started my retreat with a SWOT analysis. SWOT is a business term that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Corporations and organizations use the strategy, but you can certainly do it as an individual. I find it’s a good way to remind yourself what you’re great at, and for us, that means what our business should be focused on, as well as where we could improve.
Listing out your weaknesses is not an opportunity to beat yourself up. Instead, it might show where you need to improve or delegate, automate or terminate aspects of your business. See link to episode 26 below for more details on how to do this.
Instead of doing an analysis of Q2 this late in the year, I analyzed where my income came from for the entire year so far. I was going to rate and rank my clients—a tactic I highly recommend—but listing out all my clients showed me that I love all of them this year! Don’t roll your eyes. This is not me being too Pollyannaish. It was not a happy accident, either. I have worked hard these past nine years of freelancing to truly analyze what work I accept, who I want to work with, what to charge and when to cut clients loose. And I finally hit a 100% happy success rate!
To rate and rank your client: Make a list of all your clients. Create your own personal ranking system for a variety of things that are important to you, such as great to work with, pays well, pays on time, no scope creep, no phone calls, etc. Then, rank each client on a scale of 1–5. After you rank them, put them in order with the highest ranking at the top. Who’s on the bottom? Should you keep those clients that rank so low? How can you get more work from the clients—or the type of clients—that rank the highest?
Feeling so scattered this summer, I wanted to get ahold of my days and weeks again and create the perfect work day and perfect work week. No Meeting Mondays and Half-Day Fridays have been working great for me, so I’m keeping those. It’s the Tuesday through Thursday I need to get a better handle on. See episode 19’s link below for tips on how to create your perfect work day.
Biz Bite: Set a hurdle rate
The Bookshelf: “Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting” by Clare Pooley
Resources:
- Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
- Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
- Check out my new podcast! Association Station
- Book “Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief: A Revolutionary Approach to Understanding and Healing the Impact of Loss” by Claire Bidwell Smith
- Episode #137 of Deliberate Freelancer: I’m Grieving. How Can I Keep My Business Running?
- Episode #90 of Deliberate Freelancer: Coping with One Year of COVID-19 Lockdown, with Therapist Emily Derouin
- Episode #70 of Deliberate Freelancer: Techniques to Deal with Anxiety from My New Therapist
- Episode #48 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Cope with Coronavirus Anxiety, with Therapist Mira Dineen
- Episode #52 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embracing Self-Care without Guilt, with Acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger
- Episode #26 of Deliberate Freelancer: Delegate, Automate and Terminate to Improve Your Business
- Episode #19 of Deliberate Freelancer: Visualize Your Perfect Work Day—Then Create It
- Episode #42 of Deliberate Freelancer: Tips from My First Solo Business Retreat of 2020
- Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Deliberate Freelancer is on a summer hiatus and will return toward the end of July. Take this time to listen to some previous episodes or relisten to favorite guests! Or make a playlist of specific topics, like finding clients or financial tips.
The Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group will still be active during this time, so please join us over there for great conversations with other listeners. You can ask for advice and share your experiences.
Also, please consider supporting the show by telling your freelancer friends, sharing episodes on social media, and leaving a rating and review on the Apple podcast app.
You can also support this free podcast financially at Buy Me a Coffee.
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
In April 2021, Jasmine Smith quit her full-time job to pursue freedom and creativity through self-employment. She is the Founder of SmithCo, an experiential marketing agency, and co-founder of Open Door Concept, a rental space centered around community, conversation and creativity in Washington, D.C.
Motivated to share her experience and the experience of other Black entrepreneurs, Jasmine launched the podcast Built To Quit in February 2022.
Jasmine centers both her life and business ventures around her personal pillars: builder, connector and human and is adamant about only doing work that’s in alignment with each of these areas.
Jasmine had had many side hustles and had been freelancing on the side for a year before she quit her job. She was burnout, exhausted and didn’t want to do some of the things she was being asked—like more sales work. Instead, she wanted to explore more of her side hustle work and have more freedom over her time and her work.
As an employee, Jasmine was one of only about 5–7 Black people in executive meetings. And she was the youngest Black woman manager. She said it sometimes felt unsettling and uncomfortable. She didn’t feel like she could show up as herself, which wasn’t healthy.
Now, as her own boss, she shows up as her full self and doesn’t feel the need to code-switch anymore.
She has also found the freedom of creating her own structure therapeutic—how she works, what tools she uses, where she works that day. She has also enjoyed having the time to learn new things.
The most challenging part has been continuing to bring in new clients and projects. As she reflects on the past year, she wishes she had paid more attention to her financials. She learned the hard way that there wasn’t a lot of work in December and January. Now, she always forecasts and tries to prepare for slower seasons.
For those who are considering freelancing but haven’t quit their full-time job yet, she encourages you to start freelancing before you quit that job. Line up some work. Structure your business. Be strategic when you choose to leave so you can collect any bonuses and a full final paycheck.
Jasmine thinks your first hire should be an accountant who understands freelancing. “If you start with good financial practices up front, then you won’t have to worry as much. You’ll be a bit smarter and ahead of the game later on down the line.”
Jasmine launched a podcast this year called Built To Quit where she interviews Black entrepreneurs about their journey. She wants to explore the many different ways entrepreneurship can work for people. She recognized that Black people come to ownership—of homes, of businesses—differently and may not have the resources that white people have.
Biz Bite: Set Boundaries in Personal and Business Life
Resources:
Jasmine’s website, SmithCo
Jasmine’s podcast: Built To Quit
Jasmine on Instagram
Jasmine on Twitter
Jasmine on LinkedIn
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Trigger warnings: pet death, pet euthanasia, pet illness, grief over the death of a loved one.
On April 25 my cat Bella died. We had to make the agonizing choice to humanely euthanize her. And I was heartbroken and full of guilt. But I still had a freelance business to run. So, how did I do that when I could not think or concentrate clearly?
In this episode, I share what led up to Bella’s death and how I coped in the immediate days after when I had several client commitments and deadlines. I also asked for advice on the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group and share some of that advice.
The six tips I learned and that we should all keep in mind when grief strikes:
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Take time off. Ask for deadline extensions.
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Recognize that you are going to work slower.
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Get outside.
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Do visualizations or meditations.
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Reach out to people.
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Honor your pet or the person who died.
Biz Bite: Make a to-do list of things that don’t earn your business any money.
The Bookshelf: “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers
Resources:
Article “The Fog of Grief” by April Reese
Conversation about grief on the Deliberate Freelance Facebook page
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Today’s guest is Susie Jackson, a finance and pricing mentor for freelancers from the U.K. Susie helps freelancers figure out how much to charge and how to manage the financial side of our businesses so we can earn a decent living doing what we love.
Susie is also a freelance copy editor and a Spanish-to-English translator specializing in academic texts for the social sciences.
Susie likes that she’s able to build her business around her energy levels. She also builds in one weekday per month to get out into nature, which is critical for her mental health.
A few years ago Susie became a financial and pricing mentor. Her dad was in banking, so she grew up with healthy conversations and lessons about money. She began offering her “Charge with Confidence” group program in 2020.
Susie doesn’t like the approach that many people take: setting their rates based on industry averages or what other people charge. There’s no guarantee that those rates will cover your needs, which can result in a feeling of helplessness and defeatist attitude. And that often means that clients are dictating what they can charge.
Susie believes we as service providers should be setting our own prices—and do so based on what income we need, not what we think our customers can afford.
Not every client is going to have the budget to pay your rate. That’s normal. If you’re never hearing ‘no,’ you could probably be charging more.
Value and affordability are two different things.
Susie recommends including two options when submitting a quote or a proposal. One quote should align with their brief, but then include a second quote at a lower rate, which requires them to compromise on something. “A negotiation is a compromise.”
Providing two (or more) choices is much better than saying, “I’m open to negotiation,” which Susie never recommends saying to a potential client.
Before pricing a project, we need to do some groundwork. The first thing is to understand your financial needs for both your business and personal expenses and then know what your minimum financial goal is—and then also set an aspirational goal.
You also need to figure out how many hours you can realistically do paid work without burning out. We tend to overestimate our available hours, and the only way to beat this is by tracking time, which helps us see what is realistic and sustainable.
Susie also talks in detail about when and how we should think about increasing our rates. She also gives advice on what language to use with clients when raising your rates.
Susie chimes in to the debate of whether we should put our rates on our websites.
Susie recommends a “profit first” system, which is based off the book “Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine” by Mike Michalowicz. The book wasn’t written for freelancers, but Susie goes into detail of how she’s adapted this philosophy for her business.
Susie also talks about how to track our proposals, projects and finances.
Susie does not believe that people are inherently bad with money. When people say, “Oh, I’m just bad with money,” she replies, “How can you expect to be good with money if you’ve never been taught how to manage it?”
Biz Bite: Use a Task Prioritization Grid
Resources:
Susie’s website
Susie’s free resources, including a budgeting spreadsheet, virtual Finance Fridays office hours, blog posts and more.
Blog post “Task Prioritisation and the System I Use to Manage My Workload”
Susie on Instagram
“Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine” by Mike Michalowicz.
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pamela Capalad
Episode #91 of Deliberate Freelancer: #91: All Things Pricing: Project Rates, Day Rates, Retainers and More, with Jennifer Duann Fultz
On today’s show, five Deliberate Freelancer listeners are sharing their tips. Specifically, they share the systems, processes and tools they use that have helped them create a successful freelance business.
Some of these listeners are previous guests. See the resources below for links to their previous guest appearances.
You will hear from:
- Amy Ragland
- Treasa Edmond
- Poornima Apte
- Danna Lorch
- Clare Hastings
I hope you find their experiences helpful!
Biz Bite: How to easily record phone calls
The Bookshelf: “Into the Drowning Deep” by Mira Grant
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Episode #115 of Deliberate Freelancer: Time Tracking Lessons from Deliberate Freelancer Listeners
Episode #59 of Deliberate Freelancer: Parenting while Freelancing (with or without a pandemic), with Amy Ragland
Episode #129 of Deliberate Freelancer: A Script for Tough Client Conversations, with Treasa Edmond
Episode #118 of Deliberate Freelancer: Crash Landing and Being Forced to Restart Your Business, with Danna Lorch
How did your first quarter of the year go with your business? I’m recapping my Q1 in this episode, but I’d love to hear about your Q1 also. Please share in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group your successes, challenges, lessons and any questions you have for your fellow Deliberate Freelancers.
As I talked about in January, I had a slow start to the year because my mental health was struggling. I was definitely languishing. Things perked up in February and March, so I began to do a bit more work and have more energy.
Accounting for vacation time in Q1, I worked 299 hours over 11 weeks, which averages out to about 27 hours a week. Interestingly enough, without me keeping track of my weekly hours from week to week, that number is close to my average of 28 weeks last year. Therefore, that seems to be my mental lode in a good week. That’s what my energy level can take.
When I analyzed how I spent my hours, I was happy to see that although my paid work was way down, I was meeting or exceeding my secret hourly rate for my work, which I often bill as project rates or per-word rates.
In looking at the breakdown of my hours, I spent 50 hours on administrative work. What in the world was I doing in all that time? In quarter two, to keep better track of those little minutes here and there that I slot into “admin work,” I’m going to write down on a sheet of paper next to my desk what types of “admin” I’m actually doing when I choose that in my time tracker app.
I did not consistently hit my monthly financial goal, particularly since January was a slow struggle. However, this is where my savings account and cash flow are really important. I wasn’t panicking because I knew I had money in the bank.
In addition, I knew I could make up that income throughout the year. I also often tally two months’ income together and divide by two to see if I hit my monthly goal that way. A good cash flow allows me to do that. (For example, I went from billing only $4,000 in January to billing for $12,000 in February!)
A good cash flow also allows me to prioritize my mental health—and not beat myself up for not marketing, not looking for new work, for not working that much at times. This mindset was way healthier for me in quarter one.
I did a bunch of outreach in early March and even did a three-hour mini retreat to plan that outreach and brainstorm on some big decisions for my business.
During my mini retreat, I created a simple Excel client tracking sheet. I had one in the past but didn’t keep it updated, so I started over.
I also sent individual, personalized emails to about seven clients I hadn’t talked with in awhile, asking for new work or referrals. I think we sometimes forget how critical email outreach is. Surveys and studies consistently show it’s the No. 1 marketing tool, yet we sometimes focus way more time on social media—which might have a much lower return on investment.
I also sent out a mass email to my contact list (current, past and potential clients I had talked to at least once, plus colleagues and other freelancers). This was not a cold list. These were people I have built some sort of connection or relationship with.
That mass email netted two referrals to potential new clients, and I got work already in one of those cases. One of those individual, personalized emails also prompted someone I had talked about working with before to say, “let’s do this.”
Later this year, I want to create a new list of cold contacts and start emailing and tracking those people.
I also made four big decisions related to my business: dropping one of my anchor clients, no longer using a virtual assistant, changing my Deliberate Freelancer newsletter from weekly to quarterly, and going on a podcast hiatus this summer. Hear more about these decisions in the episode.
Biz Bite: Separate your work and your schedule into head work and heart work.
The Bookshelf: “The Book of Cold Cases” by Simone St. James
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Episode #126 of Deliberate Freelancer: A Real Talk About Mental Health—and Languishing
Episode #123 of Deliberate Freelancer: My 2021 Business Review and Questions to Help You
My marketing strategist, Emily Broderick (I hired her for a VIP Day in fall 2021.)
On today’s episode, I want to be open and candid about a failure I had this year.
Here are three main thoughts or lessons around failure that I’m trying to always keep in mind:
#1. Failure is not necessarily a bad word.
There can be times when you completely mess something up, but there can be times when something just didn’t work out or the client failed, but you feel like a failure anyway.
It sounds cliché, but I think it’s important to learn from our failures. Do a candid debrief with yourself: How did this happen? Why did this happen? How can I prevent this in the future?
#2. When I set an overarching goal for my business—and I remember to stick to that goal—I’m less likely to fail.
Here’s what I mean: My overall goal is to be a go-to and respected writer and editor in the membership association industry. While it’s important sometimes to go out of your comfort zone, I also do better when I stick to my goal and choose projects and clients related to my goal.
#3. Stick to Katherine Reynolds Lewis’ 3 P’s model.
As she explained in episode 132, when Katherine is deciding whether to take on a project, an assignment or a new client, she always considers the 3 P’s: pay, portfolio and passion.
Following this model helps you know your WHY and can keep you on track.
In this episode, I outline a failure I had with a client this year and the lessons I learned from it. I also talk about previous failures in episode 71 (link below).
Biz Bite: Establish a personal board of advisers.
The Bookshelf: “Hell of a Book” by Jason Mott
Resources:
Record and email me a voice memo about your organizational tips, processes and systems to melanie@meledits.com for a future podcast episode.
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Episode #71 of Deliberate Freelancer: 3 Failures and the Lessons They Taught Me
Episode #132 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Choose Projects Using the 3 P’s Model, with Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Today’s guest is Katherine Reynolds Lewis, an independent journalist based in the DC area. After Katherine was laid off in 2008, she started freelancing in the middle of the Great Recession.
What does Katherine love about freelancing? Being self-sufficient, being able to write on a variety of topics and having control over her schedule.
Katherine shares her 3 P’s model that she uses when assessing whether to take on a project: pay, portfolio and passion. Any project or assignment we say yes to should fulfill at least one of those P’s and ideally all three.
As you work on the project, always keep in mind why you are doing the work, which P it falls under. At the end of the work, this model will also help you decide whether it was worth taking on the project or client—and help you assess future projects.
A few years ago, Katherine was setting new goals for what she wanted to do in her career. One of those was to write a long-form journalism narrative article for a big magazine. So, she started looking for opportunities. If successful, the article would be a key piece in her portfolio, that could lead to fellowship opportunities, writing a book or receiving awards.
Katherine tracks her time diligently, and for that particular goal she committed to using some unpaid time to do the research and reporting needed for that article, before she could sell it. The final article called “What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong?” was published in Mother Jones magazine and remains its most viewed online article.
That success led to a literary agent and a book proposal with multiple offers. That launched her paid speaking career, and she won awards on her eventual book, “The Good News About Bad Behavior.”
Researching and writing the book also led her to connect with authors and other people she had admired.
Katherine also talked about the mindset it takes to be a successful freelancer: We are business owners. We have to be accountable to ourselves and know how we’re spending our time and our money. Time is our most valuable resource.
Katherine says, “The biggest myth that I hear is ‘Well, something’s better than nothing.’ It’s not … because any time you take a gig that pays poorly or it’s not exactly in your lane, you are moving yourself further from your goal and you are using up that most valuable resource—your time.”
Katherine also encourages freelancers to shift their mindset from supplicant asking for work to thinking of yourself as a valuable partner that your clients need.
Biz Bite: Streak (Gmail plug-in)
Resources:
Katherine’s website and book
Katherine’s Mother Jones article: “What If Everything You Knew About Disciplining Kids Was Wrong?”
The Center for Independent Journalists
Episode #128 of Deliberate Freelancer: New Organization Supports Freelance Journalists of Color, with Chandra Thomas Whitfield and Katherine Reynolds Lewis
Katherine on Twitter
Katherine on Instagram
Katherine on Facebook
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Please email me your favorite organizational tips, tools, systems and processes for an upcoming episode!
What are the processes and systems that you have implemented that have improved your business? What tactic or app or software program can you not get enough of? Let’s share with each other and help each other out!
Here’s all you need to do:
Use the voice memo app on your smartphone to record a short message, maybe 1–7 minutes, explaining your favorite system or process or app or software and how it has helped you in your business.
Then, just email that file to me at melanie@meledits.com. That’s it! I’ll use your name and your voice memo on a future episode.
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Today’s guest is Portia Wofford, an award-winning nurse, writer and content marketer who lives in Alabama. After dedicating her nursing career to creating content and solutions for employers, Portia now runs a content marketing agency, The PW Agency.
Her agency empowers health and nursing brands to grow their communities through engaging content that connects and converts. As part of her mission to help nurses earn extra income, beyond the bedside, Portia teaches nurses how to get paid and published by showing them how to land their first paid freelance writing gig. Nurses can learn more about her courses and training packages at http://pwenterprises.co/nurses-who-write.
Portia began freelancing in 2018, leaving her home health care nursing career. She created The PW Agency in 2020, so she could bring on more nurse writers and help more health care brands.
Nurses are used to writing in a more academic style, so Portia started teaching nurses how to write blog posts for consumers or a health care audience.
Portia’s agency hires other nurses as freelancers to write for her clients. She also trains nurses how to write, whether they choose to leave nursing or write as a side gig. She has seen an uptick in interest during the pandemic as more nurses leave nursing.
A few lessons Portia has learned that has helped her freelance career: Never stop learning and learn how to take constructive criticism of your work.
Portia says some freelancers rely too much on social media to get clients. You need to get uncomfortable and reach out to potential clients. Understand you’re going to get a lot of “no”s. If a potential client says no, Portia likes to ask if there’s a reason they said no or if there’s a better way she should approach them. Their feedback can be helpful in how she approaches other prospects.
That doesn’t mean Portia doesn’t believe in social media, but it’s only one aspect of marketing. She positioned herself as an expert in content marketing (not a freelancer) and a go-to thought leader in her industry.
Good marketing requires a lot of research. Portia researched specific brands, then went to their websites to try to find the decision makers. She then uses LinkedIn to contact them.
Portia’s research focuses on finding out who the decision-maker is, instead of the gatekeeper.
If a contact says no, Portia will reach back out in 60-90 days and asks “How’s your business doing now? or “How’s your content doing?”
Portia’s social media strategy as a freelancer was to offer a lot of content marketing tips to her potential clients. She doesn’t focus on sales. She always includes a call to action, which could be something like “if you have any questions, contact me at …”
She’ll also say, “drop ‘freelancer’ in the comments if you understand.”
When you create or revise your content marketing strategy, start with your goals and consider what avenue you want to use (certain social media platforms, a blog, etc.). Having a niche also makes it easier to zero in on who your clients are.
Don’t just think of your clients. Think of the end reader—your client’s customers. Who are they? Where are they?
Portia walks us through how she thinks about pricing and what she recommends for nurses.
Portia gives each client a content brief to fill out to gain plenty of information to be able to price the project properly and prepare to work with them. In this episode, she provided a long list of questions to ask clients.
Portia also recommends having a minimum rate. You can tell each client upfront by email: “My minimum rate is $XXX. Are you prepared to invest in this service?” That weeds out clients whose budgets aren’t large enough for your services, without either of you wasting time on a discovery call.
In The PW Agency, Portia has a virtual assistant and several nurses who are sub-contractors, not employees. She has been an LLC from the beginning of her freelance career, which made the transition to an agency smoother.
When she switched to an agency model, she told established clients: “I enjoy working with you. My business has expanded; I’ve brought on some other writers, and I would love for them to be able to take over some of your pieces.”
Portia believes that her strong reputation and rapport with her existing clients reassured them that the agency work would remain high quality. She trains all of her nurse writers in her writing style, and now clients can get more content pieces in a faster amount of time.
Portia recently hired an editing team that reviews the content. She also reviews every piece of content herself before it goes to a client. But the writers get the bylines.
All of her subcontractors sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and a contract that covers confidentiality and other issues. She has protections written in so subcontractors cannot “steal” her clients. Portia found a local attorney who understands freelancing and whom she can meet with in person and establish a relationship with. Hiring an attorney is an important investment in your business to protect yourself.
Hiring a diverse range of nurse writers is important to Portia. Diversity improves the content she creates for her clients too. She tells her clients she won’t work with clients who don’t believe in diversity and promoting health equity. She’s transparent about her values upfront.
Biz Bite: Don’t Procrastinate. Break down a project into bite sizes and do a little bit a day at a time.
Resources:
ThePWAgency.com
TheWriteNurse.com
Portia’s courses for nurses
Portia on Twitter
Portia on Instagram Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group. Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee. Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter. Episode #88 of Deliberate Freelancer: Positioning Yourself as an Agency and Partnering with Other Freelancers, with Reggie Holmes Episode #68 of Deliberate Freelancer: Yes, You Need to Build a Personal Brand, with Hilary Sutton
Today’s guest is a freelance editor from Durham, N.C. Laura is the owner of Archer Editorial Services. She exclusively provides editing to university presses. She also develops and conducts training for editors and publishers.
As defined by the Success Alliance, mastermind groups offer a combination of brainstorming, education, peer accountability and support to sharpen your business and personal skills. A mastermind group helps you and your group members achieve success. Members challenge each other to set strong goals and, more importantly, to accomplish them.
A mastermind group is not a class, group coaching, mentoring or networking, although it can have aspects of each of those things.
Laura became a certified life coach several years ago, which is where she was introduced to mastermind groups. Her mastermind group, called The Quad, started organically via a Facebook chat when she connected with several cool people she kept meeting at conferences. She later realized her group had been functioning like a mastermind group.
The Quad currently has seven members (despite the name) and was formed in 2015. Most of their communication is still through Facebook chat, but they also created a secret Facebook page to share resources.
The Quad has helped Laura with her business goals. Some of the benefits of her mastermind have been honest feedback, being challenged by the group, fresh ideas, accountability, a “kick in the pants,” brainstorming sessions, celebrations of each other’s wins, and support in tough times.
Because of the mastermind group, Laura and Erin Brenner teamed up to buy Copyediting.com, which they reinvigorated. The business broke even and then started making a small profit. After three years of owning it, they sold it to ACES–the Society for Editing.
The Quad is all editors, all freelancers except for one, and all women. A mastermind group could be all people in your industry or could be people from various industries. You would get different benefits from each group.
It’s important that everyone in the mastermind has the same intentions for what the group is and a similar scope of what they want to achieve.
The Quad has held in-person and virtual retreats together since 2016. At the in-person retreats, they invited a well-known person in their industry to have dinner with them.
For their retreats, the members collect data about their own business so they can measure how it’s going. They analyze whether they hit their goals, where things need to change, what they learned.
The Quad’s retreats include a “technology showcase,” where they teach each other certain tech skills. They also do “power hours” of administrative tasks and have one-hour “CEO time sprints,” focusing on the bigger goals.
To start a mastermind, look around you—who do you think is cool and interesting? Just start reaching out to people you want to get to know better. First, see if you “click.” You don’t have to immediately ask them to join your new mastermind group.
To communicate with your mastermind group, you could consider Facebook chat, Slack, Discord or Zoom. It’s important to talk through the format and your communication goals and expectations.
When you are thinking about joining a group, ask about the structure, member expectations, and communication timeline and format.
Biz Bite: Schedule CEO Time
Resources:
Archer Editorial Services Inc.
Laura’s training and courses
Laura’s book, “Juggling on a High Wire: The Art of Work-Life Balance When You’re Self-Employed”
Episode #22 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create a Better Work-Life Balance, with Laura Poole
Laura on Twitter
Laura on LinkedIn
Laura on Instagram
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
In today’s episode, writer Treasa Edmond walks us through several client scenarios many of us struggle with—scope creep, treating us like an employee, not paying us on time—and gives us the script for what to say and how to say it. This episode is like Treasa is handing us all templates on great client management.
Treasa is the owner of Edmond Editing and Writing. She is a ghostwriter and content creator in Missouri. She gets straight A’s for knowing how to communicate with clients—as Melanie witnessed in a writers’ Facebook group. So, she’s here today to teach us her wisdom. In addition, Treasa is currently writing a book about client management and how to have these tough conversations, so Deliberate Freelancer will keep you posted on her book, which may be published within the next year or so.
Is the customer (or client) always right? Treasa learned from her business owner parents the importance of standing up for your business. She combines customer service with client management.
A problem Treasa sees often is freelancers who allow clients to manage them or “run the show” for the project. But the freelancer is the one who needs to take charge. Other challenges include not setting boundaries or not communicating well.
To improve communication with clients, you need to first focus on your mindset and see yourself as a business owner. View client relationships as partnerships, and use the word “partner” as a verb and noun when talking with clients.
Miscommunication and conflict come from an attitude of “you and me,” not a partnership. Instead, use the “royal we” or inclusive “we/our” language. For example, when there’s a problem, you could say: “It looks like we’re having an issue here. This is how I think we can resolve it. Does that work for you?”
Treasa sets boundaries early on—when she agrees she’s going to have that initial discovery call. She emails the potential client a questionnaire before the call. If they don’t fill out that questionnaire, that’s a red flag. Another red flag is not telling you their budget, even if it’s a range.
Treasa believes in taking control of the client relationship from the beginning of the discovery call. You could say: “I’m very glad you’re here today; we have some great things to talk about. My first goal is to learn more about your project.”
Treasa walks us through several situations and suggests how we might respond. Listen to the episode for her suggested language.
Biz Bite: Bonsai client management system for freelancers
Resources:
Edmond Editing and Writing
The Writing Mindset (about writing your book)
Treasa on Twitter
Treasa on Instagram
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
The Center for Independent Journalists, aka The CIJ, is a new organization—launched in September 2021—to provide advocacy, education and support to freelance journalists of color and those from other underrepresented groups in the media. Programming is open to anyone, and white journalists can also join the organization.
It’s open to all freelance journalists, not only writers. Currently, membership for the first year is included when you register for The CIJ’s March 11–12 virtual conference. The CIJ has received grants to support the organization and continues to explore other revenue models that won’t require higher registration fees.
CIJ Co-founder Katherine Reynolds Lewis lives in the DC area and is an award-winning journalist and author who writes about education, equity, mental health, parenting, science and social justice for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, Parents and The Washington Post. Katherine’s 2015 story on the school-to-prison pipeline became Mother Jones’ most-read article ever and led to her bestselling 2018 book, “The Good News About Bad Behavior: Why Kids Are Less Disciplined Than Ever—And What to Do About It.” Her current long-form narrative project on racial justice in education is supported by the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism and the MIT Knight Science Journalism fellowship.
CIJ Co-founder Chandra Thomas Whitfield, who lives in the Denver area, is a multiple award-winning freelance journalist. As a 2019–2020 Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Journalism Fellow, she hosted and produced “In The Gap,” a podcast for In These Times about how the gender pay gap affects the lives of Black women. A former Atlanta Press Club and Atlanta Association of Black Journalists “Journalist of the Year” awardee, she has been honored by the Association for Women in Communications, Colorado Association of Black Journalists and Mental Health America. She is an alum of the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, Education Writers Association, Ted Scripps Environmental Journalism, Soros Justice Media, Kiplinger Public Affairs and Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism fellowships. Her Atlanta Magazine feature made the Atlanta Press Club’s “Atlanta’s Top 10 Favorite Stories of the Past 50 Years” list and is widely credited with contributing to a change in Georgia law and a teen’s early release from a 10-year prison sentence.
The Center for Independent Journalists’ first virtual conference will be March 11–12. The early-bird rate of $49 expires on February 18. You get 14 sessions, including 10 panels and two keynote speakers. The keynotes are Denene Millner, a six-time New York Times best-selling author, Emmy Award-nominated TV show host and award-winning journalist who has written 31 books, as well as David J. Dennis Jr., a senior writer at The Undefeated and author of “The Movement Made Us.”
Katherine and Chandra started The CIJ after forming a group on Zoom for freelance journalists during the pandemic, where people unexpectedly became vulnerable very quickly, sharing their struggles and isolation. Katherine and Chandra realized that if this accomplished group of journalists was struggling, then other freelance journalists must be struggling too—financially, emotionally, with work, etc.
Katherine also recognized she had a lot of advantages that other freelance journalists don’t and was called to give back.
Racial diversity in newsroom leadership has been a longtime challenge, and while there’s been a lot of focus on it, there’s very little progress. Humans learn through story, so we need diverse storytellers to have a robust and thriving media ecosystem.
It’s crucial to a democracy to have a healthy freelance ecosystem. The freelance world is the least powerful part of journalism, and The CIJ aims to strengthen it.
As newsrooms struggle and cut positions and lay off staff, there’s a sentiment among freelancers of color, women and those from other underrepresented groups that they’re the first to be let go. There are also those who are willingly leaving journalism because of microaggressions, office politics and lack of advancement. The CIJ is there to support those journalists in building a freelance career.
Want to be an ally? First, listen and respect the experiences that people are sharing. Don’t try to debate it with them: “Oh, maybe you misunderstood. Oh, that wasn’t their intent.”
Also, those of us not from underrepresented groups should question the lack of diversity in the room. We need to be the ones speaking up about diversity.
Both employees and other freelancers can make the effort to find and hire or refer people from underrepresented groups. Those on the “inside” need to find people on the “outside” and offer them opportunities.
Those who want to be allies—including freelance business owners—can also educate themselves through reading more about racism, prejudice and diversity; recruit diverse panels and speakers; recommend, refer and introduce people; hire a diverse array of subcontractors; diversify your own personal network; and support diverse organizations financially. And don’t be afraid to mess up and say the wrong thing. Just apologize, learn from it and keep trying.
Resources:
Register for The Center for Independent Journalists March 11–12 virtual conference for only $49 before the February 18 early-bird deadline.
The Center for Independent Journalists
Chandra’s In the Gap podcast (how pay discrimination affects Black women)
Episode #61 of Deliberate Freelancer: 6 Ways to Be an Ally with Your Freelance Business
Episode #83 of Deliberate Freelancer: A Conversation about Practicing Anti-Racism in Freelancing, with Eva Jannotta
Episode #89 of Deliberate Freelancer: Being the Only Black Man at a TV News Station, with Mario Boone
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Atlas Katari is the owner of Katari Creative, a B2B organic content marketing agency focused primarily on LinkedIn marketing with some SEO and content creation.
Atlas is a self-described “LinkedIn nerd” and walks us through the latest LinkedIn offerings and how to best use LinkedIn for our businesses. They say that LinkedIn has an incredible organic reach you can use to promote your content.
So many people have only posted their profile on LinkedIn (ages ago) and haven’t looked at it much since. LinkedIn has changed a lot in recent years and offers a lot of new services.
LinkedIn is focusing heavily on creators these days so it’s a great way to show and practice your writing chops, talking about what you know and what you love.
In 2021, LinkedIn rolled out several new services that are a part of its free tier. LinkedIn introduced newsletters for users to create and now has “creator mode,” which allows you to highlight on your profile that you are a creator, choose topics to display in your profile as hashtags, and highlight your original content.
Last year, LinkedIn also fully launched Service Marketplace, which allows people to advertise for short-term projects geared toward freelancers.
If the thought of being more active on another social media platform feels overwhelming, Atlas recommends at least updating your profile — before you comment or create content. Look at fellow freelancers in your industry to get inspiration for your profile style and format.
In your profile, update your headline. Focus on your title; don’t use phrases like “I help this person do this.” LinkedIn is a search engine, so think about keywords. And think about what keywords potential clients are looking for, such as “freelance tech writer.”
Add a strong profile photo (consider a brightly colored, solid background) and focus on your banner image. The banner image should have a purpose and not just be a plain stock image. You can brand it with your photo, business name, a short URL (not clickable) and a call to action.
The About section (previously called the Summary) is also prime space to tell your clients what your services are. And leave a call to action, even if it’s just “email me at XXX.”
Beyond your profile, if you plan to be active on LinkedIn, it’s important to be consistent, rather than perfect. Atlas recommends reviewing your LinkedIn profile quarterly, maybe making small tweaks in your headline or switching to a new URL you want to promote. This could be a good time to add pieces to your portfolio or update your call to action.
Atlas puts their Calendly call scheduling link in their “Featured” section, providing another way people can easily contact them.
Asking for a LinkedIn recommendation can be part of your client offboarding process.
Atlas uses LinkedIn only through the free tier, but they walked us through the paid premium tiers and what each one offers (tiers: Career, Business, Sales Navigator and Recruiter).
Atlas believes LinkedIn Groups will improve and become more popular. Right now, group posts don’t show up in your feed and you don’t get notifications.
LinkedIn Live is a live video option, but you have to apply to be able to use it. Atlas says the criteria are fairly easy though.
Melanie shared how she culled her LinkedIn a few months ago from about 900 connections to 400. Atlas supports these type of “purges” (at least every year) to keep your feed relevant and you focused on your goals.
To also keep your feed relevant, you can follow hashtags and influencers in an industry you want to connect more with. Comment strategically—and provide value through your comment—on popular posts.
Biz Bite: Create a strict boundary for daily time spent on each social media platform.
Resources:
Katari Creative
Linked Into Freelancing course and Substack newsletter subscription
Atlas Katari on LinkedIn
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Today’s show is all about how I’m feeling right now—that blah feeling of languishing. If you feel like that too, or are dealing with any mental health challenges right now, please listen to this episode and then join us in the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group, where we’ll be talking about this and solutions that might help each of us.
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
New York Times article: “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing”
Psychology Today article: “COVID Left Us Languishing. Here’s Why We Should Care”
Episode #52 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embracing Self-Care without Guilt, with Acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger
Episode #48 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Cope with Coronavirus Anxiety, with Therapist Mira Dineen
Episode #90 of Deliberate Freelancer: Coping with One Year of COVID-19 Lockdown, with Therapist Emily Derouin
Episode #70 of Deliberate Freelancer: Techniques to Deal with Anxiety from My New Therapist
Episode #31 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Get Motivated to Work When You’re Feeling Blah
Today’s guest is Molly Rose Speed, founder of Virtual Assistant Management, which provides trusted virtual assistant (VA) solutions and flawless tech execution for busy entrepreneurs. Molly Rose is the go-to professional for some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the speaker/author and content creator industry. She is also an awarded military spouse and solo world traveler who believes in creating a career and a life that allows you to do more of what you love.
Molly’s company trains and places virtual assistants, the majority of whom are military spouses.
It’s time to consider hiring a VA when you are sacrificing income because you’re spending time on lower-billable or unpaid work such as administrative tasks. It’s also important to spend time working ON your business (building and improving your business), not just IN your business (client work).
Also, keep note of your energy level. Are you exhausted trying to do everything yourself? Are you dreading each work day—on a business you created for yourself and should love!?
There are a wide variety of other freelancers who might call themselves virtual assistants; they might offer high-level skills such as web design, copy writing or course creation. However, general virtual assistants are akin to executive assistants in the corporate world. VAs might help with scheduling, booking, answering phone calls and emails, managing a blog, creating social media.
To find a VA, ask your network and share on social media, being specific about what type of work you need help with. A VA agency can also pair you up with someone.
Before you look for a VA, be very clear about what you want the person to do but also think about whether time zone matters and the personality types that might work best for you. Do you want a leader in your business or someone more behind the scenes?
Ask potential VAs for references. You may also want to consider giving them a paid test in the area you need help with—such as asking them to create five social media posts or draft an email.
One misconception is that you have to hire a VA for 20 hours or so each week. But VAs—like you as a freelancer—often have multiple clients and aren’t available for that many hours. Instead, you can negotiate hours with a VA. Molly recommends hiring them for at least 5 hours a week, or 20 hours a month, and creating a retainer agreement.
You can also hire virtual assistants for one-time projects or at a specific time when you need extra help.
Molly always recommends creating a contract with a VA and paying the VA’s retainer at the end of the month. That way, if they go over their hours (which you have both agreed to that month), you have the flexibility to pay them more at the end of the month based upon an already agreed-upon rate.
Be sure to also have a privacy agreement as part of your contract and a separate non-disclosure agreement to help secure client information, as well as your passwords, banking info, etc.
What about freelancers who say they don’t want to give up the control or take the time to hire a VA? Molly believes that person won’t hire a VA until they’re fully ready, but she tells them: Teaching a VA might take you a “painful hour,” but then it’s going to save you, for example, five hours a month.
She also recommends shooting a Loom.com video to show a VA how to do something and then let them “run with it.”
Make sure you establish good communication with your VA from the beginning. Molly recommends a Monday check-in and setting up checks and balances. Make sure they have access to the tools they need, along with passwords, before they start.
It’s also important to establish and agree upon the style of communication between the two of you.
Ask your VA for a list of their “favorites” so you can send them appropriate, thoughtful gifts. Don’t take your valuable VAs for granted!
Biz Bite: Use Asana project management tool
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Molly’s business: Virtual Assistant Management
“Are you ready to outsource?” free resource guide
Learn how to become a VA
Molly Rose on Instagram
Loom.com video
Voxer walkie talkie app
On today’s show, I talk about my word (phrase) of the year and what I’m hoping to do in 2022. Then, I talk about the importance of habit formation and give several strategies to build better habits.
As I begin to work on developing better habits this year, I want to point out that if you try to introduce too much change into your daily life, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Humans are not great at reorganizing their entire day all at once. We have to start small (so don’t make 10 New Year’s resolutions and expect success).
You know those people who talk about willpower? Well, willpower is a crock. Willpower does not often get you to where you want to go. It’s habit formation that gets you to your goals, and willpower only causes most of us to feel like failures.
Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project” and co-host of the Happier podcast, developed a concept and wrote a book about it a few years ago called “The Four Tendencies.” This framework is based on how a person meets inner and outer expectations. The four types are Upholders, Questioners, Obligers and Rebels. (Take the free quiz to learn what type you are.)
I’m a questioner, which means I have questions and need justifications before I’ll commit to doing something. It also means outer accountability doesn’t matter to me. It’s why I don’t care about joining a mastermind group or having an accountability partner. And I won’t stick with a class just because I paid for.
But that type of accountability works well for obligers, who need accountability to meet inner and outer expectations. These are the people who, when they pay for that yoga class or tell a friend they’ll exercise with them, it works. They do not want to let anyone down so they will show up. You can see how knowing your tendency will help figure out what you need as you start to create habits and try to commit to better habits or new goals.
In his book “Atomic Habits,” James Clear talks about making tiny, tiny habits, just a 1% change each day. So, want to start running? On that first day, just run around the block and come home. Don’t push yourself. Don’t go farther. It’ll take 2 minutes.
That may sound ridiculous, but you need to focus on the process, routine and the change in your routine. Don’t focus on the running; focus on the habit creation.
Starting is the hardest part. Katy Milkman is an economist who studies change behavior at the Wharton School. She was on Dan Harris’ podcast Ten Percent Happier about how to change your habits. Katy talks about this problem of getting started. It’s not about willpower. It’s about the struggle to get started. And that requires habit formation.
Katy also talks about something called the “fresh start” effect—that time when we start a new job, or move to a new city, or when the school year starts in September when it feels like a fresh start. That’s the perfect time to implement new habits.
January and the new year also feels like a “fresh start” to people and can be a perfect time to start new habits. We just have to be careful not to try to start too many at one time.
Gretchen Rubin would say before you start thinking about techniques to use to develop new habits you need to know yourself. That’s why I recommend taking her Four Tendencies quiz. But, in addition, think about the kind of person you are. Are you a night owl? Then, you’re never going to get up at 5 a.m. to exercise! Accept it and aim for a better habit that works for you.
A few habit formation strategies to try:
Pairing
Pair the new habit with something you’re already doing, preferably something you like. For me, that is walking while listening to podcasts—what I like to call Bod and Pod.
Accountability
As I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t work for everyone, but if works for you, try to build more accountability into your daily life. Maybe find an accountability partner who is also a freelance business owner.
Scheduling it
Sounds obvious, but sometimes we just forget to work on our new habits, so put it on your calendar and to-do list and set timers.
Commit to a streak
Start a 30-day challenge where you’re going to do the new habit every day for 30 days.
Make it difficult or inconvenient
Delete apps. Use the Freedom app to block social media websites.
Hide bad cues and display good cues.
Put your phone in another room. Hide junk food. Keep your vitamin bottle visible. Put your water bottle near the front door.
Think about your future self.
Future Melanie will be happy this summer if I already have a regular exercise routine established.
Biz Bite: Embrace hygge
The Bookshelf: “How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America” by Clint Smith
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
“Respair” tweet by Susie Dent
Book “The Four Tendencies” by Gretchen Rubin
Take The Four Tendencies quiz
Book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear
Katy Milkman and her book “How to Change” and podcast “Choiceology”
Katy Milkman on Ten Percent Happier podcast: How to Change Your Habits
Yoga with Adriene
National Novel Writing Month
“A 180 in 365: My Year of Walking” by Alicia Chantal (blog post)
Episode #78 of Deliberate Freelancer: Building Your Community as a Newish Freelancer, with Alicia Chantal
FACEBOOK UPDATE: The Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group is now live! Please join at www.facebook.com/groups/deliberatefreelancer.
In today’s episode, I look back at my time tracking for 2021’s Q4 briefly and then I dive into analyzing the entire year. At the end, I share some questions that can help you evaluate last year and plan for this year.
My average weekly time in Q4 was similar to the previous quarters. I was really proud of myself that I stuck to my “absolutely no work” plan Dec. 23-Jan. 3. And I took at a four-week podcast hiatus. All of that was restorative and rejuvenated my creativity.
The biggest surprise for me was I earned more money last year than I ever had in the past—by a wide margin! I do track my money each month, but I wasn’t really adding up those monthly figures to see what I was making for the year.
While I’m thrilled with how much I earned last year, I’m not sure it’s sustainable. That’s not just pessimism talking. Two big projects I landed in 2020 continued into 2021, but ended or were cut back before the end of the year, and I cannot expect that income this year.
I analyzed where my work came from in 2021. Referrals are always my biggest source of work. In 2021, 37% of my income came from referrals. These percentages are based on income, not number of clients. I want to know where I’m earning the most money.
After referrals, 21% of my income was from my involvement in the group Associations, Media & Publishing Network, specifically the Associations Council. The majority of my clients are associations, so I’ve gone where my clients are. Where are your clients? There’s probably an organization out there where you can start to get involved and subtly show your expertise in the industry that you serve.
Next up, 17% of my income came from cold networking; 13% from letters of introduction; 12% from former jobs.
I also analyzed the type of organization I worked for. I want to focus on membership associations, but did my income reflect that? Yes, it did. I’m pleased to say that 77% of my work came from membership associations last year.
I also analyzed if what I want to do matches up with the services that bring in the most money. It hasn’t always matched up in the past, but I’ve been more purposeful about going after the work I love—managing editing—versus the work I “like”—copy editing and proofreading.
I’m happy to say my numbers in 2021 did match what I had tried to do. 59% of my income came from managing editing work, while 29% came from writing and only 12% came from editing and proofreading.
I encourage you to consider time tracking. I consider it a game changer. Analyzing your time tracking at the end of a big project—that you charged a project rate for—can tell you whether you met your secret hourly rate or whether you undercharged.
Questions to ask yourself:
- What services do you love to do? Is that where you’re focusing your marketing?
- How can you take your business in a new direction? What can you improve upon in your business in 2022?
- What did you learn in 2021? What worked really well for you and your business?
- What didn’t work for you last year? Do you need to drop clients, raise your rates, change your services? And be honest with yourself: Did you do anything last year that you’re frustrated by or disappointed by? What do you need to work on personally?
- Where have you felt stuck in your business? How can you start to make a plan to get unstuck?
A solo business retreat in January is a great way to reflect on these questions and work ON your business, setting yourself up for success this year.
Biz Bite: Create a Success Jar
The Bookshelf: “Miracle Creek” by Angie Kim
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
50 Powerful Questions To Help You Reflect
Episode #65 of Deliberate Freelancer: The No. 1 Way I Find New Clients
Episode #119 of Deliberate Freelancer: Why and How to Pare Down Your Network
Episode #113 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Build Relationships, Not a Network, with Anna Hetzel
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #42 of Deliberate Freelancer: Tips from My First Solo Business Retreat of 2020
Episode #115 of Deliberate Freelancer: Time Tracking Lessons from Deliberate Freelancer Listeners
Episode #86 of Deliberate Freelancer: What I Wish for Your Freelance Business in 2021
Episode #76 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embrace These 7 Core Principles for a Successful Freelance Business
Episode #40 of Deliberate Freelancer: Reflect, Analyze and Plan Now for the New Year
Episode #26 of Deliberate Freelancer: Delegate, Automate and Terminate to Improve Your Business
Episode #23 of Deliberate Freelancer: Five Questions to Evaluate and Diversify Your Services
Episode #19 of Deliberate Freelancer: Visualize Your Perfect Work Day—Then Create It
This episode is all about books! And it’s the last episode of the year. My next episode will be January 6, 2022. Happy holidays!
As of December 5, I read 51 books this year. I will likely finish book #52 this week, but I probably won’t hit my goal of 60 books in 2021, which is OK. I set a goal just because I have fun tracking my books along the way.
In this week’s episode, I rank my top 10 books of the year — all were published in 2021. I then give you two extras that I loved this year that were published in 2020.
I also mention a few other 2021 books that I haven’t read and that don’t seem like my cup of tea but that you might want to check out. And, I mention a few 2021 books that I really want to read but haven’t gotten to yet.
Then I finish up by listing a few 2022 books that I’m looking forward to.
Listen to the episode to hear my top books of the year in ranked order — what will be my #1?! However, all of the books I mentioned in this episode are in the list below.
Fiction
Writers & Lovers by Lily King
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
The Martian by Andy Weir
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
What Could be Saved by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
The Push by Ashley Audrain
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson
All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle
The Family Plot by Megan Collins
Non-fiction
The Promised Land by Barack Obama
Once I Was You by Maria Hinojosa (memoir)
Know My Name by Chanel Miller (memoir)
All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (memoir)
The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch (memoir)
Four-Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain
The Premonition by Michael Lewis
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
The Blind Side by Michael Lewis
Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (memoir)
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
2022 Books I’m Anticipating:
Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades (publishes January 4)
A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham (publishes January 11)
Nine Lives by Peter Swanson (publishes March 15)
The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James (publishes March 15)
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #104 of Deliberate Freelancer: Best Books of 2021 So Far—and New Releases This Fall
Episode #87 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Most Anticipated 2021 Books (and Fave 2020 Books)
Episode #69 of Deliberate Freelancer: 9 Nonfiction Books that Improved My Freelance Business
Episode #17 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Favorite Books of the Year So Far (2019)
American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) fall membership drive. Use the code: 2021FALLDRIVE
ASJA Membership FAQs
On today’s episode, Ashlee Sang talks about how you can work with purpose-driven solopreneurs and service providers. She also explains how you can base everything you do in your freelance businesses around a set of core values—and how that will help you make decisions, find the right clients and grow your business.
Ashlee lives in Central Illinois. She owns Ashlee Sang Consulting, where she works with visionary founders who want to grow their impact and their business in a way that’s rooted in values and propelled by purpose.
Before doing brand messaging strategy and consulting, she worked with a variety of nonprofit organizations, including a human rights education non-governmental organization (NGO) in Senegal and a local branch of Habitat for Humanity. The common thread has been sharing messages that matter.
Ashlee began working with purpose-driven founders after learning about the conscious consumerism movement. She wants to work with businesses that have a mission and impact in the world.
Ashlee always keeps that goal in mind as she selects clients. She has taken plenty of projects in the past that didn’t align with her values and she realized she always dreaded the work and the client. Now she focuses on attraction marketing—walking the talk and standing up for her values as a way to set herself apart.
Before living in Illinois, Ashlee lived in Senegal for four years. Moving there was the most formative decision of her life. She was studying anthropology, French and linguistics as a study-abroad student and ended up meeting her future husband. So, after graduation, she moved to Senegal and landed a job with an NGO.
In Senegal, she learned a lot about herself, about interpersonal and organizational communications, and about viewing different cultures from various perspectives. The years in Senegal shaped how she now views the world and supports her goal to provide empathetic accountability because she has met and spoken to so many different types of people. For example, it has helped her develop clients’ audience personas because she can better get into other people’s heads and hearts.
Ashlee believes in making value-based decisions. She has a set of core values that she operates from. The list includes intentionality, progress, open-mindedness. They guide who she works with as well as her offerings.
Making value-based decisions impacts both your marketing and your operations. For example, it helps with knowing what to post on social media, who to pitch to, how much to charge and who to hire.
Ashlee recommends sitting down and creating a list of values and periodically reevaluating that list.
This way of working supports prioritization and hedges “shiny object syndrome.” It shows up in the everyday work and in the big decisions.
The benefit of basing decisions on your values is alignment: If it feels better for you, it feels better for your clients.
Ashlee supports the nonprofit 1% for the Planet and highlights this on her website. As part of this, she has committed to giving 1% of her revenue to an environmental nonprofit of her choice.
She also lists her brand values on her website, but living your values is more important than just listing them.
When you take the time to do this foundational work—your personal vision, your business mission, your list of values—it makes decision-making throughout your life and business easier.
Biz Bite: Turn Off Email Notifications
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
To help you get clear on your values and how to apply them to your marketing and decision-making, download Ashlee’s free book “Stand Up To Stand Out Workbook.”
AshleeSang.com
Ashlee Sang on LinkedIn
Ashlee Sang on Instagram
1% for the Planet
American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) fall membership drive. Use the code: 2021FALLDRIVE
ASJA Membership FAQs
On today’s episode, I’m leaning in to the theme of the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S. and sharing seven things I am thankful for in my business. Beyond just telling you about these things, I’m sharing why I’m thankful and asking questions to you that I hope will prompt you to think about how to improve your business life.
Thinking about my business this way got me thinking about how I should be building a joyful business in all things that I do. So, as I go through my list, I hope it helps you think about things you are thankful for and perhaps want to change moving forward so you can build a more joyful business.
#1. Complete freedom.
When I decided to go freelance, I looked forward to being my own boss more than anything, but I didn’t fully grasp the complete freedom I would have as a freelancer.
Work is still work. But, I have a lot of control over my business—who I work with, when I work, how I work, where I work and what I work on. I worry that some freelancers haven’t fully embraced this freedom or forget about it every now and then.
I see way too many people working too many hours. Why are we freelancing if not for the freedom in it? You are in charge of your business, for the most part. Shouldn’t freedom be the goal in everything we do?
Are you working with clients you want to work with? Are you working on projects you enjoy? If not, why not? If you are working with clients you don’t love or in an area that doesn’t fascinate you, maybe it’s time to at least start planning on how to find better clients or change your services or niche. Freedom! That’s what I’m really, truly thankful for.
#2. My clients.
I am at a place where I’m really happy with the mix of clients I have. It has always been my goal to work with kind people, fun people, people I respect and who respect me. That is really important to me. I have no time for people who are passive-aggressive, make snide remarks, throw me under the bus, demand unreasonable requests. Again, freedom. Why would I want to work with those people?
Maybe kindness is important to you, but maybe there are other aspects of clients that are really important to you. What types of clients would you like to work with? What is it about your greatest clients that you really love?
Now is also a good time to think about how to thank your clients. Do you send holiday cards or gifts to your best clients? I’ve done this from time to time, and though I usually do it at this time of year, I also love the idea of doing it at surprising times, like sending a thank-you gift after a big project or just randomly in mid-summer—Christmas in July!
If you can find out a bit about your client, you can find more personalized gifts, but I have a few go-tos when I’m not sure what to get people. See the links in Resources below.
#3. Great sources or subject matter experts.
Because I’ve really honed in on my niche and I love my niche, I love the sources I get to interview. I’m almost always interested in what they have to say and often quite fascinated.
#4. Interviewing.
I’m very thankful that my job requires me to interview people. I can’t believe I get paid to talk to people and have the honor of telling their stories!
I absolutely love the process of interviewing. I love the discovery process of when a source says something that leads me to ask a new question or go down a different path or ask them to expound or explain.
I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of having fascinating conversations with medical professionals so I can then write great stories. I’m thankful every day that interviewing is a large part of my work.
What do you absolutely love to do in your work? Do you get to do enough of it? How can you make changes in your business so you get to do more of that?
#5. The ability to change my mind and to scale back.
As an employee, projects or new ideas were often thrusted upon me, and I couldn’t just quit them whenever I wanted.
But in my business, I can change my mind all the time! I didn’t fully appreciate this when I started out. I had this idea that I was going to offer these certain services and that was it. And while I stopped providing social media services early on, I still don’t think I realized at that time that my business could have multiple evolutions over the years.
I can do whatever I want!
At some point, I also realized I could scale back. It’s OK to be a “company of one,” as author Paul Jarvis calls it in his book. His book and podcast really validated the fact that I didn’t want to have employees or multiple subcontractors. I didn’t want to become an agency.
It also helped me this past year as I thought it was time to create courses. I realized I really don’t want to create courses right now. Maybe in the future, but I’m not feeling that urge right now. I’m just not interested. And that’s OK!
I can change my mind, scale back, stay at status quote, not push myself to grow and grow. I’m really thankful for that.
I think it’s important for freelancers to realize we don’t have to work all the time and constantly add new services.
#6. This entrepreneurial mindset.
I never anticipated this when I went freelance, but I love that I’m constantly brainstorming, analyzing and thinking of new ideas for my business. I never imagined or thought of myself as an entrepreneur before I launched my own business.
But I absolutely love the business side and entrepreneurial side of freelancing. I love considering where I want my business to go and how I’m going to make it happen. I love coming up with new ideas and trying them out. I’m thankful that I have such wide parameters that give me the freedom to go in almost any direction. I love being an entrepreneur. It sparks my creativity and keeps me energized.
#7 My freelance community.
Thank you to my podcast listeners. Thank you to my larger community of writers, editors and other freelancers. Perhaps I could still be a successful freelancer without my community, but it would be much harder and very, very lonely.
My community is there when I have questions, need to vent with people who will understand or want to run ideas by them.
I get to nerd out with other editors and share great moments in writing with other writers.
When I became a freelancer, I didn’t fully grasp how important relationship-building and having my community would be. It has been important both to my work—people send me referrals and give me great advice—but it has also been important to my spirit and my mental health. So, I am very thankful for you.
Biz Bite: Schedule breaks for 2022
The Bookshelf: “Never Saw Me Coming” by Vera Kurian
Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) fall membership drive. Use the code: 2021FALLDRIVE
ASJA Membership FAQs
Episode #98 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Benefits of Selling Strategy and Outcomes, with Austin Church
Austin Church’s Fix Your Pricing Masterclass
Fairytale Brownies
Bookshop.org
Sugarwish.com
Company of One, the podcast
“Company of One” by Paul Jarvis (book)
On today’s show, I want to talk about simplicity and how to pare down your network. I talk a lot about building business relationships, which is a different way of considering how to build your network. Former podcast guest Anna Hetzel talked about this also, how to build community intentionally.
By definition, a community will be smaller than a network. A network is often vast and you can’t make personal connections with everyone in your network. A community should be made up of people you actually know and who are invested in your success—and you are invested in theirs.
There have been times in my freelance journey where that large network is overwhelming. I’ve done things related to that network that are exhausting or a waste of time. So, as my business became more successful, I saw what was helpful and were I wanted to invest. I started to intentionally set the rest of it aside. And every now and again, after I try new things and new groups and new resources, I have to remind myself again to pare back.
Here are some examples of potential overwhelm where you might need to pare back:
I purposely started using LinkedIn more and also more strategically this year. I know my client base is more likely to be on LinkedIn than Twitter, where I usually live. However, I was noticing that a lot of the posts I was seeing were from people I didn’t remember ever connecting with. And when I would look at my list of connections, there was image after image of someone I didn’t remember.
I might have met this person once at a social gathering or a conference, but if we’ve never really communicated since, why am I connected with them? I had over 900 connections on LinkedIn! I felt like they were cluttering my feed and preventing me from truly making connections.
After two rounds of culling my list to people I actually know and actually communicate with now and again, I am down to about 400 connections.
Since then, I have noticed a definite difference in my feed. The posts now relate to my business in some way, and I recognize the original posters.
Online community groups
This may mean Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Slack channels, tweet chats or private forums.
I think a lot of us looked for new groups to join, or even started our own online communities, when the pandemic hit, so we could feel connected to other humans while in lockdown. But most of us aren’t in full lockdown anymore, and either way there are probably some groups you outgrew.
It’s OK to join groups and leave them later. These don’t have to be a permanent fixture in your life.
What online communities are you a part of? Where do you spend the most of your time?
Two more questions: What groups are you in that you just don’t participate in? You can easily leave or delete those.
Next: How do those groups make you feel? Are you overwhelmed? Do they create anxiety? Do they contribute to your imposter syndrome?
If these groups are creating negative emotions, I highly recommend cutting back or eliminating them from your life.
Ask yourself: What if you could only be a part of three online communities? What would they be? Rank what you love and stick with those. And delete the rest.
Smaller, more intimate groups
Maybe these are ongoing text chains or regular Zoom chats with small groups. These can be amazing for your business, your mental health, for getting support and having camaraderie. I’m not encouraging you to get rid of all these smaller communities, but it’s worth at least considering each one individually and asking yourself: What do you get out of them? Do they lift your spirits or do they overwhelm you?
Also, please remember that you should never feel obligated to be a part of these communities. You can tell people, at any time, that you are feeling overwhelmed by your responsibilities and the amount of time available in each day and that you need to cut back on some things.
A few more things to consider:
- Email newsletters
- Magazine and newspaper subscriptions.
- Membership organizations and committee involvement.
Biz Bite: Put subscription deadlines on your calendar.
The Bookshelf: “The Thursday Murder Club” by Richard Osman.
Resources:
Jennifer Duann Fultz's Hope You Get Rich course.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #113 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Build Relationships, Not a Network, with Anna Hetzel
Episode #91 of Deliberate Freelancer: All Things Pricing: Project Rates, Day Rates, Retainers and More, with Jennifer Duann Fultz
Episode #112 of Deliberate Freelancer: How and When to Say No
Amy Knightly tweet
Today’s guest is Danna Lorch from Brookline, Massachusetts. Danna has been a freelance writer for 11 years, mostly focusing on journalism. She has covered the visual arts, design, architecture, the trades and parenting. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Architectural Digest and many other publications.
Before becoming a writer, she managed nonprofits in the Middle East and Africa. Then, she covered the emerging art scene in the United Arab Emirates for seven years before “crash landing” back in the U.S. for health reasons, with her husband and young son.
Most recently, Danna pivoted to working for higher education clients and now does about 30% journalism, 70% higher ed.
About four years ago, Danna’s husband became really sick and they had to quickly leave their home in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to move to the U.S. so he could get the treatment he needed. (He is now stable but with some lingering health issues.) Soon after, Danna discovered she had an autoimmune disorder.
All of this has led her to restart her freelance business five times. The current iteration, which she restarted after the pandemic affected her business, has been her most successful. In the past, she’s felt embarrassed to talk about the need to stop and start her freelance journey, especially with so many people sharing their successes on social media. But now, she’s very public about how her personal challenges have affected her business.
After landing an essay in The New York Times after the pandemic hit in 2020, she aimed for several more prestigious bylines to build a strong portfolio. Then, she used that to pivot to higher education. She used the articles she’d written about design, art and architecture as a “bridge” to focus on higher ed clients that have strong niches in those areas.
Danna shifted her mindset to thinking of herself as a business owner. She set values and goals for her business. Now she values finding recurring, reliable work and working with kind clients. She would like her work to be meaningful. And if it can’t be meaningful, it has to pay well.
Danna’s imposter syndrome is often high. She’s had a lot of challenges and taken adventurous leaps and says “when you live your life like that, it’s pretty hard not to sometimes question yourself and feel incompetent.”
Imposter syndrome as a freelancer pops up when people ask, “Oh, are you still writing?” as if it’s a hobby. Danna is also the mom of a young child and says people don’t take “mom businesses” as seriously.
She was also scared to share some of her personal challenges because she didn’t want to be seen as unreliable.
Danna also talks about needing to set boundaries, which she didn’t do in business much before having a child. Now, she sets boundaries as a mom, as an observant Jew and as someone managing an autoimmune disease. She recommends a “tech Sabbath” for everyone!
Biz Bite: Send Handwritten Thank You Notes
Resources:
Episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer: You Need to Set Boundaries
Episode #14 of Deliberate Freelancer: Freelancing with a Chronic Illness, with Christy Batta
Episode #67 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Fight Imposter Syndrome, with Kristen Hicks
www.dannalorch.com
Danna on LinkedIn
Danna on Twitter
Danna on Instagram
Writers’ Co-op podcast
SCORE.org and free business coaching
Y Combinator Startup School
It’s time for my third quarter roundup. Each quarter I review and analyze my time tracking, hours worked, money earned and client mix.
My hours in Q3 were similar to Q2. I worked an average of 28 hours a week in Q2 and an average of 27 hours a week in Q3 when you take out my vacation. However, I made less money, so I have to analyze that a bit more.
Nothing like time tracking to show you when you are not committing to being unplugged during a vacation. I really wanted to take a full week or two off from work when I visited my parents at the end of August. But, like so many times before, I had a few projects I had to finish or things I had to check in with.
Sometimes it’s just easier to finish up a couple of projects when I’m at my parents’ house, rather than stress myself out by finishing them before my trip or waiting until after. So, while visiting my parents for 11 days, I worked for three of those days. During my last week there, I only worked for four hours. Then, when I returned home, I took off the entire Labor Day weekend. So, not too bad.
One of my goals in the near future is to figure out a better system to manage and create my podcast on time. Time tracking showed me that I work, on average, four hours a week on my podcast. That was 18% of my time in the third quarter, larger than any one project. The next closest chunk was administrative work at 13%.
As I said earlier, Q3 was my slowest and lowest-paying quarter, even though I was working more hours. But, a lot of those hours were volunteering to speak at conferences, networking and, again, my podcast. All unpaid. I am definitely rethinking what speaking gigs I accept. It’s ridiculous that most of the opportunities that come my way are unpaid. So, I have vowed to be more strategic about what I say yes to. Either pay me or put me directly in front of my ideal client base.
In Q3, I didn’t do as much marketing or networking as I usually do. In fact, I spent 30 hours networking and marketing in Q2. That dropped to only 17 hours this past quarter.
I definitely felt the buzz word of this past year: “languishing.” I’m sure a lot of you can relate. This is one of the reasons I researched and found a marketing strategist that I hired for a full VIP day. It was a great investment. It helped me regain some inspiration and excitement with my business, and I walked away with a personalized marketing strategy. I’ll talk more about what I learned and what I am implementing in future episodes.
Back to money. So, May remains my highest-grossing month. August came in second highest, but that’s misleading because the month before, in July, I only earned $3900. So, I really have to combine those months and take the average of the two.
This is where cash flow is critical. You can’t always count on projects and payments working out to your timeline. Projects get delayed; payments get delayed and lost. Building up a client base, and focusing on getting anchor clients, so that you can build up a savings and have a consistent cash flow is critical to running a successful freelance business.
One of the things that is frustrating about my business in 2021 is the lack of consistency. People aren’t sure about their budgets or when they might be able to start a project; they’re taking baby steps into projects, not committing to big things or long term. This is happening everywhere during the pandemic as it’s hard to plan ahead, and I feel that in my business too.
Besides implementing my marketing strategy and figuring out a better podcast system, I’m working on two other goals for this fourth quarter: doing better with my goal to only work half-days on Fridays and getting back on the healthy eating wagon.
Biz Bite: Schedule an admin week
The Bookshelf: “Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America” by María Hinojosa
Resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #103 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Time Tracking and Client Analysis for Q2
Episode #94 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Time Tracking Audit for Q1—I Need a Better Schedule
Episode #78 of Deliberate Freelancer: Building Your Community as a Newish Freelancer, with Alicia Chantal
New York Times article: “There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing”
I’m replaying this January 2021 episode to hopefully motivate you, inspire you and encourage you to do some of these things if you haven’t already yet this year. The year is starting to wind down, incredibly enough, so let’s embrace these concepts and set up our businesses for success now.
This episode might also be a good reminder of how to think like a business owner and how now to take time to improve your business.
This episode goes through seven areas that I would love for you to improve upon, if you haven’t already. They are:
-
Embrace a business owner mindset
This idea is what this podcast is based on. Think of yourself as a freelance business owner and all that that entails. Words matter, and the words you tell yourself and others can help to change your mindset. -
Raise your rates
The pandemic has been a hard year economically too, so raising rates for all clients might not be doable. But there are some clients who fared well, and it may be time to raise your rates. It’s certainly time to raise your rates for potential clients — they don’t know what your past rates were!
Also, if you have a secret hourly rate — which helps you determine project rates and/or is the amount you aim to earn every hour you are working for clients — I encourage you to raise it by at least $25 an hour.
And don't ask your client about raising your rates. Remember, you are a business owner and costs go up. So, you can send an email and say “I wanted to let you know that my rates are going up as of such and such a date. My new rate will be this.”
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
It’s important to have anchor clients, but when you commit too much time to an anchor client or become too comfortable with that gig and that income, it can hurt you if you lose that client. Ideally, I would consider not having one client that is more than 35% of your income.
When I talk about don’t put all your eggs in one basket, I also mean your services. This can mean your services and/or your industry. Do you need to expand your niche to have niches that are similar? Can you use your skills to add more services for clients?
- Don’t compare yourself to others
Sometimes you do this without even thinking about it. You look at others in your field, even friends of yours who are freelancers, and see their amazing careers or their clients or the big achievements they’ve reached. I can fall prey to this just like anyone else.
We have to stop comparing ourselves to others. You are a unique individual, and your business is unique. You have different strengths and weaknesses and values and responsibilities and desires.
First, social media. What social media platforms are you on often and how do they make you feel? Are you happy when you scroll through Instagram and see what people are doing and read motivational quotes? Or does it make you feel lazy or like a failure or that you need to do more? Maybe it is time to get off Instagram! This goes for all social media platforms. Take a critical look at how your viewing and interaction with these platforms make you feel.
Another suggestion: Start a gratitude practice. Perhaps you want to start a gratitude journal to write down one to three simple things that you are thankful for that day. I embrace the word “savor” and try to remember to savor all the little things throughout the day.
Another way to express gratitude in your life is to acknowledge and thank other people. You can still do that as a freelancer. You can let your direct client know if a staff member is really helpful on something. Complimenting and acknowledging people is like volunteering; it makes you feel good to make other people feel good.
One more way to stop comparing yourself to others is to be alert for the word “should.” Anytime you say you “should” be doing something, catch yourself or have your partner or a friend call you out on it.
“Should” often comes with shame and guilt. It makes you feel bad and does little to improve any situation. So stop shoulding yourself.
-
Set boundaries
Boundaries tell you and those around you what is acceptable, appropriate human behavior. They vary from person to person. Knowing what your boundaries are and setting them is critical to building healthy, respectful relationships in your life. So, please check out episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer for tips on setting boundaries. -
Get ahold of your finances
For many of us, 2020 blew up our financial goals and plans. Now that the dust has settled a bit, if you haven’t already, I highly encourage you in this first quarter of 2021 to get ahold of your finances. This could be a variety of things — it will be different for everyone,
If you need help with your finances, I highly recommend episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer, with my guest Pam Capalad. Pam is a certified financial planner and a whiz when it comes to this stuff.
- Take a vacation or staycation
Plan time off now! Some freelancers tend to be bad in general about taking time off. My argument is always: If I’m going to take only 2-3 weeks of vacation a year or less, when I’m my own boss, than why am I my own boss? I shouldn’t treat myself worse than an employer would. Freelancing means freedom. If you don’t schedule vacations, staycations and days off, they often won’t happen.
Even if you can’t really go anywhere because of the pandemic, you can play a staycation or other days off.
I want all of you to get into a regular habit of planning and taking vacations — and DO NOT check email or do or check in on client work. That’s not a vacation.
It can be done. Remember, you’re your own boss. You tell your clients you’re going to be away. Depending on how regular the work is you may have to work ahead to get stuff done or hire a subcontractor to fill in. Or, take advantage of slow work times.
You can also create working vacations, like I do in Indiana for two weeks most summers. The freedom to work anywhere gives you the flexibility to go places and keep in touch without having to completely log off work.
Biz Bite: After/then habits
The Bookshelf: “Behold the Dreamers” by Imbolo Mbue
Resources
Episode #1 of Deliberate Freelancer: Change Your Mindset: You Own a Freelance Business
Episode #39 of Deliberate Freelancer: Raise Your Rates—Without Emotion
Episode #23 of Deliberate Freelancer: Five Questions to Evaluate and Diversify Your Services
Episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer: You Need to Set Boundaries
Episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pamela Capalad
https://tinyhabits.com/design/
Today’s guest is Emma Siemasko, the founder of Stories By Us, a content marketing business. Emma, who lives in San Jose, California, also offers freelance writing coach and is co-host of the Freelance Writing Coach podcast.
Emma has been a solopreneur for six years. She is an expert on writing case studies to promote our businesses. She created the DIY Case Study Kit and has created dozens of case studies and customer stories for tech companies and solopreneurs. Emma’s clients include Figma, Grammarly and Salesforce.
A case study is “the story of a customer’s transformation because they used your product or services.” Case studies go beyond testimonials and LinkedIn recommendations. Case studies allow you to get more specific about what it was like to work with you, plus you can share results.
Melanie thinks of case studies as being sprinkled around solopreneurs’ websites. But there are several ways you can use case studies. Case studies can be emailed as pdfs as part of your sales pitch or during onboarding. You can also pull out a quote from a case study and post it as a testimonial on your website.
When choosing which clients to write case studies about, you may want to develop a case study for each one of the services you offer or each one of the niches/industries you cover.
Your case study should tell a great story. This includes sharing your customer’s challenge, how you solved it and the results.
The best case studies require getting a client’s permission and interviewing them about the relationship and project. Have a good set of questions written down. But if you feel uncomfortable or awkward doing that interview, you can outsource the interview part. Once you write the case study, send it to your client for review.
Emma explains how to write a case study if you’re “only” writing an article or doing a straightforward project that doesn’t seem to lend itself to case studies at first—or you aren’t privy to metrics. Results don’t have to be metrics. Results can be how you made their job easier and what you were like to work with. Be creative in how you think about results. What was the value of working with you?
Emma also talks about the nitty-gritty details: length, format, design.
Biz Bite: Use minimal viable systems.
The Bookshelf: “Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire” by Lizzie Johnson
Resources:
Emma’s Go-To Case Study Interview Questions
Case study examples:
The Core Centers
How NFI Used WorkStep Retain to Improve Frontline Retention
How Laura Got a 711% Return on Her Ad Spend
How Kira Hug Helped Business By Design Drive Almost $500,000 in One Launch
How Weebly Saved “a Million” Hours on Content Production and Achieved a 3X ROI
Emma’s website, Stories By Us
Emma on Twitter
Emma on LinkedIn
Freelance Writing Coach podcast
Emma’s DIY Case Study Kit to purchase—use the Code PODCAST to get 20% off.
Emma’s Case Study Email Templates to purchase
Today’s show is all about the benefits of time tracking. But it’s not about my experience today. Instead, five Deliberate Freelancer listeners sent in audio files about their time-tracking experiences and explained the various ways time tracking has helped their freelance business.
Information is power. I believe if you know how you’re really spending your time—rather than making assumptions or incorrectly guessing—you can begin to figure out where you want to make changes and make better use of your time.
I hope you find my guests’ tips helpful today. And thank you to these lovely guests and listeners for participating!
Biz Bite: Download potential clients’ lead magnets.
The Bookshelf: “What Could Be Saved” by Liese O’Halloran Schwarz
Resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #10 of Deliberate Freelancer: Think Like a Marketer to Grow Your Business, with Megy Karydes
Episode #91 of Deliberate Freelancer: All Things Pricing: Project Rates, Day Rates, Retainers and More, with Jennifer Duann Fultz
Episode #59 of Deliberate Freelancer: Parenting while Freelancing (with or without a pandemic), with Amy Ragland
Today’s guest is Courtney Chaal. Courtney is an American now living in Vancouver in Canada.
Courtney helps creatives, coaches and consultants stop being broke and start getting more clients by creating an irresistible service that they can eventually turn into a scalable offer. End goal? Freedom!
Courtney is a copywriter turned business coach obsessed with making complex concepts (like business models and sales copy) simple and tangible to help regular people get big results.
Over the past 10 years, her business has evolved from her writing custom proposals to now launching digital products and programs, including her high-ticket coaching program, called Yay for 100K.
Courtney was diagnosed in July 2020 with ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). Before her diagnosis, she was struggling with managing her business: “I was dropping a lot of balls; I thought I was really organized and I just kept forgetting things. I was struggling with feeling like I should be more on top of things than I was.”
Some ways ADHD manifested in Courtney was that her house was messy, she would forget things—one time, she bought two plane tickets to the same conference.
When her mom first suggested she might have ADHD in 2020, Courtney first took a short online quiz, which found she had a high correlation with ADHD.
One she was formally diagnosed, she said, “I never felt so validated in my entire life. … I thought I had 100 different small problems and what this showed me was that every single thing I was struggling with in my life was one thing.”
Melanie shares that her husband also has ADHD and was only diagnosed a few years ago in his 40s.
Courtney believes the name of ADHD is misleading because people with ADHD don’t often have a lack of attention; they have a lack of control over where their attention goes. In fact, people with ADHD often hyper-focus on something they are interested in at the moment, forgetting many other responsibilities.
Courtney also doesn’t like the word “disorder.” Her ADHD is just a neutral quality of how her brain functions, with both pros and cons.
As Courtney explains, an ADHD brain is wired for interest over importance. Until something becomes an emergency, it’s not important for ADHDers to deal with.
Courtney long knew there were certain things she wasn’t good at in her business—following through, organization—but her diagnosis allowed her to let go of trying to be good at those things. It gave her permission to hire a full-time operations manager.
ADHD has both negatives and positives. Courtney sees her ADHD as her superpower. If she didn’t have ADHD, she would also be giving up her creativity, her out-of-the-box thinking, her problem-solving, her big picture thinking skills, her humor and being quick on her feet. No one person gets to have all the good qualities and none of the challenges.
Instead of developing “coping” strategies, Courtney lets go of other people’s strategies. For example, she tries not to buy the planners at the beginning of the year because she knows that she won’t use a planner.
Outsourcing has helped her tremendously with areas of friction. She outsources her laundry, orders groceries online, hires a cleaning person and uses meal prep services.
You can also find smaller, simpler strategies to help in areas of friction for you. For example, whenever Courtney prepares to leave the house, she always says the mantra “wallet, keys, phone,” so she can be sure not to forget one of those things. She also recently had keyless entry installed on her apartment. She also hates hanging up coats on hangars, so she makes sure to have hooks instead, which she’ll use, and that they’re in the right place.
Biz Bite: Do a brain dump: When you fall into an overwhelming “pit of despair,” stop and write down everything swirling in your brain that you have to get done.
Resources:
CourtneyChaal.com
Courtney on Instagram
Courtney on Twitter
Courtney’s Rebel Productivity Facebook group
A Guide to ADHD
ADDitude magazine
Today’s guest is Anna Hetzel, from Columbus, Ohio. Anna is the owner and founder of Strange Birds, a business they started five years ago in which they convert copywriting and strategy for websites and community design and strategy.
Anna works with service providers and entrepreneurs who are trying to expand their reach and figure out how to talk to their ideal clients and build more scalable offers through paid online communities.
Hear the fun story about how Anna named their business Strange Birds.
A lot of freelance advice is about how to grow your network. But Anna approached it differently. From day one, they approached it based on relationships: “I didn’t give two hoots about how many people I was connected to. What mattered to me was did I have good relationships I was connected to.”
The value of that relationship building showed up when the pandemic hit. Instead of having just a lot of names of people Anna had met, they had real relationships.
Melanie talks about how she hates the traditional cocktail hour networking event where she doesn’t know anyone. Anna offers a tip: Anna’s goal at those events is to make one friend—not one contact, but one friend. That helped them filter out the noise and overwhelm.
At networking events, we may feel pressured to meet 12 new people and begin to develop opportunities. But opportunities take time. Focus on making one new friend instead.
There’s a difference between a network and a community: “It’s the difference between a list of contacts versus a group of people that are mutually invested in each other’s success.”
Your social media following or your email list is a network. They are not a community; they are your audience.
It can be hard to make friends as an adult! Find what you’re good at—like writing or photography—and read related social media posts and comment thoughtfully. Give your energy in that space.
As for virtual events, it’s OK to decline those and set boundaries. Do what makes you feel comfortable. That includes not turning on your video during Zoom calls.
Anna uses the five love languages to build relationships in their business too. The love languages are words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, gift giving and physical touch. Anna modifies the “physical touch” love language for the business world to think of it as “human to human.” Add a human touch, such as by sending gifs of people or a video of you reacting to an email.
Biz Bite: Before tomorrow, write out what an amazing day means to you (both in work and life) and build your business ferociously around those guidelines.
Resources:
Sign up for Anna’s email list at StrangeBirds.land and receive a quick guide to match your unique skills and simple-to-implement scalable ways to move away from transactional contacts and into real relationships.
Anna on Instagram
Episode #112 of Deliberate Freelancer: How and When to Say No
“Hoatzin: the Strangest Bird in the Amazon?”
Loom (send quick video messages)
What Are the Five Love Languages?
I am really good at saying no. Today, I’m going to walk you through nine common scenarios freelance business owners experience and tell you how I say no to these questions and situations. Even if the language I use doesn’t resonate with you, I hope it will get you thinking, encourage you to say no more often and help you figure out how to say no in your own words.
“No” is a complete sentence. You’ve heard that, right? But in business there usually needs to be a bit more finesse than that. And there are a lot of different ways to say no depending on the situation.
Whenever you are considering anything—whenever you are trying to decide whether to do something, always keep in mind: You are a business owner. You are in charge of your business, your life and your career. YOU choose who you work with, just as much as they are choosing you. YOU choose what you are worth. YOU set the parameters. Everything can be negotiated. You are a business owner.
Words to stop using:
Just
Unfortunately
I’m sorry (except in rare cases, like when you actually make a mistake).
Don’t qualify your answer. Don’t apologize for how you run your business. And stop over-explaining things when you say no.
Scenario #1:
You don’t want to do the project.
My answer:
Thanks for reaching out, but this project is not the right fit for me.
Scenario #2:
You don’t have time.
My answers (here’s where it might be OK to say “I’m sorry” if that makes you feel better):
I’m sorry, I am fully booked for the next month.
I’m sorry, I am fully booked for the three weeks. Is there any flexibility with the deadline?
Scenario #3:
You are asked to sign an onerous contract (non-compete, insurance requirement, indemnity clause).
My answers (first, try to negotiate):
Can we strike the indemnity clause from the contract? Indemnity clauses put all legal risk on my solo business and I cannot sign contracts with them.
or, offer to replace the clause:
I cannot sign a contract with an indemnity clause. Indemnity clauses put all legal risk on my solo business. I will guarantee my work, though. Can we replace the indemnity clause with the following guarantee:
The writer guarantees that the articles she writes will not contain material that is consciously libelous or defamatory, to the best of her ability.
If I’m asked to sign a non-compete, the answer is always no. That’s non-negotiable as a freelancer, so I’ll say:
As a freelance business owner with multiple clients, I cannot sign a non-compete.
The end. They can take that or leave it. The same goes for insurance (for me, personally).
Scenario #4:
The pay is too low.
My answer:
This is much lower than what I charge. I charge XX per XX. Is that within your budget?
If they say no, or if they can’t negotiate to an acceptable rate, I usually respond with something like:
I’m unable to do the project at this rate. Thanks for thinking of me and I wish you luck.
Scenario #5:
Vague requests or “can we get on the phone?” or “what are your rates?”
My answer:
Could you email me a bit more about what you’re looking for and what your budget is so I can determine if I might be a good fit?
Scenario #6.
Can you lower your price?
My answer:
No.
In an email, I might say: No, I can’t lower my price.
Scenario #7:
The client asks for something beyond the scope of work.
My answer:
I’m happy to to do this work. However, the original proposal included XYZ and was based on a maximum of XXX words/pages/parameters, which is what I provided. I can do this extra work at an additional rate of $XXX/hour. I would estimate approximately 2-3 more hours would be needed.
Scenario #8:
Can I pick your brain?
My answer—I may not answer an email at all if I don’t know them. You don’t have to respond to people. It’s not the law.
I will also point people to relevant podcast episodes instead—you can do that with a blog or other articles too. Or I say:
I’d be happy to talk with you. My consulting fee is XX per hour.
or
I offer a 30-minute coaching call for XX dollars.
Scenario #9:
Someone asks you to volunteer or speak at an event and you cannot.
My answer:
I’m sorry, I don’t have the capacity to add anything else to my plate right now.
or
I would love to, but I’m completely booked right now and can’t commit to any more volunteering opportunities.
or
What is the payment for speaking? (or What is the compensation?)
or
I don’t do unpaid speaking. Do you have a budget in mind?
Biz Bite: Save a script of how to say no.
The Bookshelf: “The Nothing Man” and ALL the books by Irish crime writer Catherine Ryan Howard
Resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer: You Need to Set Boundaries
Episode #102 of Deliberate Freelancer: Freelancer Survival Skills + a Pep Talk about Boundaries, with Sarah Townsend
Episode #91 of Deliberate Freelancer: All Things Pricing: Project Rates, Day Rates, Retainers and More, with Jennifer Duann Fultz
Today’s guest is Madalena Sanchez Zampaulo. Madalena lives in Southern California and owns a boutique translation agency called Accessible Translation Solutions, which she opened in 2010. She continues to do freelance translation work as well, specializing in medicine and life sciences.
Madalena shares her knowledge and years of research to help freelance translators and interpreters improve their online presence—from their websites and LinkedIn profiles to SEO and copywriting. She does this through her blog, as well as courses, webinars and coaching and as co-host of the podcast Smart Habits for Translators.
I asked Madalena to come on the podcast after I saw how she revamped her website earlier this year. I was impressed with all the services and products she offers other freelancers and how she organized them all into a Resource Library. Today, Madalena talks about blogging, creating courses and becoming a coach for other freelancers.
Madalena translates from Spanish and Portuguese to English. She explains the difference between a translator (written) and an interpreter (spoken).
Madalena is a six-figure freelancer. She offers two ways to get there: Diversify your services and work with the right clients—those who see you as a partner and pay well.
Madalena started marketing her services through a blog and then created an email list to send out new blog posts and other content. She commits to posting on her blog every other week—weekly seemed too cumbersome—but she also takes breaks and vacations when she needs to.
Three areas that have helped her market her business are her email list, social media and word-of-mouth. In fact, the latter is probably the biggest driver for her business. Public speaking also drives a lot of people to her blog, email list and social media.
Madalena breaks down the type of courses she has offered to freelance business owners and how that has evolved over the past few years.
She now offers monthly office hour for her course students over Zoom, modeled after a professor’s “office hours.” She sets a block of time she’s always available and students can hop on Zoom to ask any questions. She also has a community for her course students in Slack.
Before you start creating courses, consider what you can offer that fills a need in the space. What are the motivations people have for taking your course? What is the transformation your students want from your course?
When creating your course think about how to relay complex information in a logical way.
When considering coaching, Madalena said: “I listened to what people were asking me for and decided ‘is this something I can offer well and offer successfully?’”
With coaching, you don’t have to have all the answers or offer advice. Coaching often means offering people a new perspective and new ideas they didn’t think of. You are helping them figure out how to get unstuck or providing encouragement or reassurance.
Before you offer coaching, consider what you can offer that fills a gap for people. There are coaches for every topic. What is it that you can provide that people really need and how can you meet them where they are? How can you be different from what’s already available?
Delivery of coaching is important. Consider whether you want to coach—or your clients want coaching—that is face-to-face, via Zoom, or via phone, text or email. Giving people options can be helpful.
If you’re going to become a coach, think it through. Take the pulse of the people who will actually pay for your services. Try it out. Once you commit to coaching someone, it may be long-term. You can’t just quit it immediately. People are expecting you to show up.
Creating is exhausting. You can be more productive if you give yourself a break. Go for a walk. Do some chores and just let yourself think. That’s part of the creation process—giving yourself enough space to think something through.
Biz Bite: Do something today that your tomorrow self will thank you for.
Resources:
Madalenazampaulo.com
Accessible Translation Solutions
Madalena on Twitter
Madalena on Instagram
Smart Habits for Translators podcast
MemberSpace for courses
Loom for video messaging
Vimeo for videos
Contentstudio for social media management
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
This week is a short episode because I’m supposed to be on vacation. Tune in to hear how this part-working vacation, part unplugged real vacation is going so far.
Biz Bite: Schedule a Monthly Self-Care Reminder
The Bookshelf: “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir
Resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
On today’s show I go over 33 ways you can find new clients. This is a replay of episode #43, which came out January 23, 2020, before we knew what was in store for us.
A couple of my recommendations refer to in-person conferences and in-person networking, which is not happening for most us right now during the pandemic. However, just imagine that I’m saying “virtual conference” every time because I’ve found virtual conferences these page 18 months to be great for networking, providing presentations to a wide audience, and education. So, consider what you can do with virtual conferences to gain new clients.
But before you embark on a project to find new clients, do a little prep work. First, consider what type of work you truly want more of. What do you love to do? What work pays well? Focus on that.
Next, raise your rates. Then, be crystal clear on what you want to say to those potential clients. Focus on how you can help them and what they want. Now, you’re ready to find new clients. Here are my tips (scroll down to the Resources section for a printable pdf of this list):
- Ask current clients for new work.
- Ask current or past clients for referrals.
- Go to industry conferences.
- Maximize your LinkedIn profile and add keywords.
- Send a ridiculous number of letters of introduction (LOIs).
- Follow up on past LOIs or with people you’ve met in real life.
- Add a new service.
- Apply to speak at conferences as an expert in your field.
- Reach out to your contacts who are at new jobs.
- Write a guest blog post in your industry.
- Ramp up your social media game.
- Go old school and mail out postcards to a select group.
- Join organizations and make sure to fill out your profile in the online directory.
- Apply to win awards in your field.
- Be active in Facebook groups and/or Twitter chats.
- Create a private Twitter list of potential clients.
- Launch or revive your blog.
- Create an email list.
- Create a newsletter.
- Create a freebie.
- Set up keyword searches on Twitter.
- Ask for testimonials from happy clients.
- Ask for LinkedIn recommendations.
- Try Facebook Live or Instagram Stories.
- Be a guest on a podcast.
- Revamp your website.
- Update your online portfolio.
- Consider partnerships.
- Answer job ads.
- Go to local events.
- Connect with a co-working space.
- Tell everyone you meet what you do.
- Fire a client.
Biz Bite: Stop reading and listening to things that make you angry.
The Bookshelf: “Daisy Jones & the Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Resources:
33 Ways to Find More Clients printable pdf
Episode #23 of Deliberate Freelancer: Five Questions to Evaluate and Diversify Your Services
Episode #18 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Higher Rates
Episode 22 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create a Better Work-Life Balance, with Laura Poole
Episode #6 of Deliberate Freelancer: Make the Most of Conferences
Episode #24 of Deliberate Freelancer: Networking Tips, Especially as an Introvert
Episode #20 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use LinkedIn Better to Find Clients, with Phaedra Brotherton
Today’s guest is Suzy Bills from Utah. Suzy is an editor and author and a faculty member in the editing and publishing program at Brigham Young University (BYU). She was previously a lead editor for the Joseph Smith Papers, and she’s owned a writing and editing business for more than a decade.
Suzy’s book, “The Freelance Editor’s Handbook” is being published this fall by the University of California Press. She is also starting to offer business consulting and coaching for freelancers.
Suzy began freelancing on the side in 2006 while working as an editor full-time. She became a full-time freelancer in 2011.
She started at BYU as an adjunct professor and was offered a full-time position in 2017. She continues to maintain her writing and editing business.
Perfectionism is a personality characteristic that causes people to strive to be flawless. That causes them to set really high standards and be quite critical in how they evaluate their performance. It often leads people to think they shouldn’t make any mistakes.
Perfectionism can be destructive, but it can also have positive qualities. Suzy saw perfectionism in herself and worked to turn it into a positive attribute.
Perfectionism can lead to obsessive compulsive disorder, depression, eating disorders and more.
There are two types of perfectionism: adaptive/constructive and maladaptive/destructive.
With adaptive perfectionism, people set high standards and are motivated to reach them in encouraging and exciting ways. This can lead to happiness, a sense of meaning and satisfaction with life.
With maladaptive perfectionism, people set high standards but aren’t optimistic they can achieve them. It leads to self-criticism, stress and low self-esteem, which often leads to burnout. And too much stress on yourself can actually lead to lower performance on a project or task.
Overcoming perfectionism is mostly about changing our thinking. We can be working on the exact same project but look at our goals and success in different ways.
Perfectionism causes some people to not even start their freelance business. It causes freelance business owners to not reach out to new clients, to not start new services, to discount projects and give refunds over small mistakes.
Humans, including copy editors, aren’t perfect. Industry standards say 90% accuracy in editing is achievable and acceptable. Copy editors are not always going to be 100% accurate. (This is also a good reason to hire a proofreader later on.)
How can we recognize and manage perfectionism? Practice being self-aware and catching yourself when you’re in a perfectionism spiral. Are you using your perfectionism in a healthy way?
Perfectionism might manifest as being cruel to yourself. At that point, put your thoughts on trial. Stop being the prosecutor and be the objective judge or jury. Find and evaluate the evidence that shows what you are thinking is not accurate (for example, success on a last project, this client rehired you).
You may also identify an area of weakness. That’s OK. If that happens, create a plan about improving that weakness. Ask yourself: Where was the breakdown that led to that mistake? It is a process issue, overwork, lack of sleep or lack of skills?
To encourage a positive mindset, create a mantra that works for you and repeat it multiple times every day. It might feel silly at first, but you will start to internalize it and believe it.
Accountability partners can also help reassure you when you’re being too hard on yourself. It’s also important and helpful for people to talk about their mistakes and weaknesses to normalize that we are not perfect.
Write down your thoughts, especially because people tend to ruminate on the bad thoughts and situation. Writing can help get it out of your mind and allow you to move past it.
Keep a record of positive feedback, whether in an email folder, a smartphone “boost bank” folder or in a praise jar.
If you do discover you made a mistake, you are likely to react physically. So, change that physical reaction. Take deep breaths, move your body to relax it. Walk around. Go for a longer walk.
Next, take responsibility for a mistake with a client. That actually increases respect for you. Then, create an action plan to prevent that type of mistake in the future.
Biz Bite: Set Aside Professional Development Time Every Week
Resources:
Suzy’s book, “The Freelance Editor’s Handbook”
http://writingandeditingbysuzy.com
Suzy Bills on LinkedIn
ACES–the Society for Editing
Episode #70 of Deliberate Freelancer: Techniques to Deal with Anxiety from My New Therapist
Episode #71 of Deliberate Freelancer: 3 Failures and the Lessons They Taught Me
For the past several years, I’ve chosen a word (or words) of the year in January, a theme to keep me focused on a particular goal or area. In 2021, my word was simplicity. I think I needed that after 2020. Plus, in January 2021, things were still looking a bit bleak. COVID numbers were high, I hate winter, a bunch of traitors tried to destroy our U.S. Capitol and harm lawmakers. Whew.
“Simplicity” was quite different from my planned 2020 words of “Explore + Act” (that changed once the pandemic hit) and my 2019 word, “leap.”
But in 2021, I vowed I was going to lean in to simplicity. Well, now it’s August and I’m fighting with myself over that word. I feel like different sides of my personality are battling with each other. Simplicity is lovely and relaxing. But simplicity is also status quo and holding off on big ideas.
I want to explore—and act—on the big ideas I have for this podcast, not sit back and contemplate. But then there’s the other side of me that likes living a calm, simple life.
Several of my podcast guests have talked about setting big goals and not sticking with the status quo. While I get excited about that in theory, what I don’t say to them is: That sounds like a lot of work. And I don’t know if I want to work more. I don’t know that I want to set that big goal and have to put in all the extra hours to achieve it. I like working less than 30 hours a week and not on the weekends.
Is that my fear talking? Am I just lazy? Am I just scared of leaving my comfort zone?
Is it OK to just stay the same with my business? Is it OK to just be comfortable?
Of course it is. But how can I embrace simplicity when I want to explore—and act—on those big ideas?
After almost eight years of freelancing, I’m thinking about scaling up more than at any other time. For me, this involves two sides of my business: MelEdits and Deliberate Freelancer.
Let’s talk about scaling up. It’s a buzzy, jargony, marketing phrase. And I think when we hear it as freelance business owners, we often think that means becoming an agency, or at least hiring a few subcontractors and doing more strategy work, rather than the doing the actual implementation.
But scaling up does not have to mean becoming an agency. And being successful in your freelance business does not mean the next logical step is becoming an agency. You can remain a company of one forever. Hiring virtual assistants and subcontractors as needed can be great, but you don’t even have to do that if you don’t want to. I, for one, want to keep doing the writing and editing.
So, are there other ways to grow your business? What about this idea of passive income? Selling books, courses, templates and other products. (Of course none of this is really passive because you have to create it and then continue to market it.)
I am now thinking of Deliberate Freelancer not just as a podcast, but as a business—as the freelance knowledge and community side of my business.
What if Deliberate Freelancer could build and foster a community—a community of you all, freelance business owners? And what if it could then offer you services to help you grow your freelance business?
Listen to this podcast episode for all the ideas swirling around in my head and stay tuned for how Deliberate Freelancer will be expanding. This free podcast will remain, but there will be new opportunities and offers for you soon.
Have new ideas for Deliberate Freelancer and where it should go? Please let me know! Email me at melanie@meledits.com or tweet me or DM me on Twitter @MelEdits.
So, how can you scale up, or create a new arm of your business, or make more money—but doing that by doing what you love? What big, bold idea gets you excited?
Creating an agency isn’t for everyone. Taking on more work isn’t always the right call. Think creatively and do what ignites a fire in your belly.
Biz Bite: Don’t Do Everything Right Now
The Bookshelf: “Falling” by T.J. Newman
Resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #105 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Procrastination Struggle and Potential Solutions
Episode #95 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Dream Bigger and Transform Your Freelance Business, with Cathy Wilkes
Episode #98 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: The Benefits of Selling Strategy and Outcomes, with Austin Church
Today’s guest is Sarah Greesonbach from Richmond, Virginia. Sarah is a B2B content marketing writer and has been freelancing since 2013. She operates the B2B Content Studio, a freelance consultancy that helps agencies and Fortune 500 technology companies in the HR, retail/e-com and higher education space develop B2B content marketing assets such as white papers, thought leadership articles, case studies and more.
Sarah is also the founder of B2B Writing Institute, which is developing a workforce of highly trained and certified B2B writers to meet the B2B marketing content needs of the future.
Sarah talks about two kinds of doubt: creative doubt and doubt as a freelance business owner. She worked to overcome the doubt for years, but then she realized that being a freelancer means you are going to experience doubt from time to time as clients and projects and income fluctuate.
Sarah talks about how we sometimes say “yes” to work even though we should have stopped because our calendar in that month was full.
“When I look at my calendar and see that it’s not physically possible to do what I’ve said I’ll do, that just creates this stress and anxiety that doesn’t go away very easily.”
Doubt can pop up during those times when you’re too busy, which also can make you start to feel burnt out. Sarah asks herself a couple of questions in those moments to help get her back on track:
How is my cash flow? Fear often pops up as a cash-flow problem, so Sarah tries to keep at least 1–3 months of income in the bank, which causes less stress and for her to say “no” more often.
Sometimes she’ll start to look at employee job postings and daydream about being an employee again. That’s when she asks herself: What am I really missing right now? She considers what she likes in a healthy work life. For her, it’s often purpose, security and community. So, she asks what she’s missing and how can she fix it.
Sarah talks about how to fire clients, including clients where she liked the people but was bored with the work. She listens to her gut when she doesn’t want to do a project anymore. She tells those clients that she is shifting her business.
In one case, she wrote a long letter explaining the situation but then she did not send the letter. You don’t have to share all the details and make it dramatic. It’s just business.
In freelancers who are struggling, she sometimes sees that they have a scarcity mindset—thinking there’s not enough work. But, she sees an overwhelming need for freelance writers in her work.
Sarah has set some parameters around her schedule recently that have transformed her business. Because her work requires a lot of phone interviews, her day was getting taken up by all these 30-minute calls with only short breaks in between—not enough time to do focused work. She began to reserve only a couple of days a week for phone calls—right now she is not doing phone calls on Mondays or Fridays.
Getting control of social media “check ins” was also important. Now, she doesn’t get on Slack or social media until 2 p.m. on work days. She thought she had been keeping in touch and staying “on top of things,” but she hasn’t missed out on anything by waiting until after 2 p.m.
Biz Bite: Comment Back (you never know who will respond!)
Resources:
Sarah’s B2B Writing Institute
Sarah’s podcast: B2B Craftworks
Sarah on LinkedIn
Sarah on Twitter
Freedom app (to block certain websites and social media)
Boomerang app in Gmail (to schedule when emails are delivered to her)
Book “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” by Greg McKeown
Today’s guest is Anita Kwan, from Columbus, Ohio. Anita is the owner of a video production company called Reel Hoot. Her mission is to hold a safe and inclusive space in video production while having fun. She helps women, people of color and LGBTQ+ businesses thrive with video strategy and marketing content.
Connection is important to Anita. She co-runs an online community called PB&Qs, which stands for Professional, Business and Queers. This community hosts monthly events for women, trans and non-binary professionals looking to network and grow professionally. Look for a link
Anita started Reel Hoot Productions about five years ago after getting laid off. When her business took off quickly, she stopped looking for a full-time job.
Because she is focused on live video, Anita’s business took a big hit when the pandemic arrived in the U.S. in spring 2020. However, while the pandemic took away her ability to film, she quickly pivoted to provide services to client. She could still use her editing skills, and she embraced her creativity, using stock images or whatever assets a client had, such as photos or short videos on their phone.
Now, in summer 2021, she’s been able to meet in-person with more people and also embraces shooting outdoors as needed.
Videos are some of the best ways to reach your audience because they are an automatic attention grabber. It’s a great way to take your audience on your journey and build a connection.
Anita encouraged us to ask ourselves: When is video right for my business and why? Who is my audience? You need to be able to answer those questions before you decide to create a video.
Anita says, “I can create a great video for you, but if you don’t have a plan, if you don’t know who your message is going to reach, if you don’t know who your audience is, then it’s just going to be a video with no eyes on it.”
Anita talks us through the array of platforms—Instagram, Facebook Live, YouTube, etc.—and how to choose between them.
Choosing social media video options depends on who you want to reach and on your personality. Some people love doing live video while others prefer to record it first.
Consider how you can repurpose your videos. You can “chop up” a longer video into shorter bits to share on time-limited platforms such as Instagram Reels or Tik-Tok. Anita explains the difference between Instagram photo posts, Stories and Reels and how each works best. Stories is often more the day-to-day sharing and a way to build consistent content. Stories only lasts 24 hours, so don’t worry about the production too much.
Anita believes we should be authentic online and in videos. The “professionalism” demeanor some freelancers think they have to uphold at all times does not mean they can’t talk about their personal lives or how they are feeling about their business or life. For example, businesses and people who were only posting about business during the pandemic came across as “non-human.” They were not connecting to people and recognizing how difficult life was for most people.
The type of video will depend on your goals and your messaging. Anita walked us through a couple of types: branding videos to introduce your business; behind-the scenes videos to show your personality and/or process to build trust and credibility; educational or how-to videos to share your expertise.
A common misconception about video is that it’s easy to create a video, but Anita says a lot of videos are too long, don’t have a direct storyline, are boring, or have poor lighting. A well-produced video follows a three-step process: pre-production (planning), production (filming) and post-production (editing).
The good news is that video is more affordable than ever. And production quality isn’t the top priority for your audience, as we learned during the pandemic when everyone had to make their own videos at home.
If you’re uncomfortable with being on video, Anita says we need to be easier on ourselves. It’s OK to fumble your words, to not look perfect. Get comfortable with being authentic and vulnerable. We are often our own worst critics.
Anita also talks about audio and lighting options and best practices.
To brainstorm on what videos to create, watch a lot of other videos. See what you like about them and draw inspiration from those.
Biz Bite: Find a community to get involved in.
Resources:
Anita’s business, Reel Hoot Productions: www.reelhootproductions.com
Anita and Reel Hoot on Instagram
Anita’s community: Professionals, Business, & Queers (PB&Qs)
PB&Qs on Instagram
Dollar Shave Club’s 2012 hilarious and low-budget branding video
How Dollar Shave Club used video to grow to a $1 billion exit (2020 article)
On today’s episode I am talking through my embarrassing business secret: procrastination. It’s my biggest struggle in my business and the thing I hate the most about my business self. I feel like it makes me look lazy or unreliable.
I’m a big fan of time tracking, and time tracking has showed me that I don’t get a lot done on most Fridays unless I have a meeting scheduled or a deadline. But, because I have every intention of doing some work on Fridays and then it doesn’t happen, I end up doing it on Sunday. And I hate that feeling of the work hanging over my head on Sunday.
Here are some reasons why we procrastinate:
- Fear of failure
I don’t think this is behind my procrastination most of the time. But is it behind yours? We put off things we don’t know how to start or we don’t feel good enough to work on. When you are afraid of failure, you are often overgeneralizing things about yourself or being too hard on yourself. But remember: Your client would not have hired you if you didn’t have some skills.
It can be helpful to give yourself a pep talk: Remind yourself of projects you’ve done similarly that you have succeeded in. In episode 102 of Deliberate Freelancer, guest Sarah Townsend recommended, as her Biz Bite, keeping a Boost Bank, which is when you take a screenshot of all the compliments, good reviews and positive testimonials you have received and then put them all in one photo folder on your phone to look at now on again.
- Not interested in the task
Are you procrastinating simply because you don’t want to do that task? We have all probably experienced this at some point. When this is an issue, I like the idea of “eat the frog,” which means doing the thing you don’t want to do. Just do it first thing at the start of your work day and get it over with. Or, batch several “eat the frog” tasks and do them all at once. It feels so great when you get those annoying things off your to-do list and can quit thinking about them.
- ADHD or depression
Procrastination can also be a sign of having ADHD or depression. This is when it might be time to see a doctor or therapist.
None of these are reasons for my procrastination right now. I think I just have a lack of motivation. I should listen to my own podcast! Back in episode #31, I talked about how to work when you’re feeling blah.
This could be a big neon sign that I need to start taking my afternoon walks again and/or meditate in the morning. I may also need to see my acupuncturist.
One thing I did recently is take a hard look at my schedule and how and when I work. I tried to really think outside the box about what I could be doing differently that would be better for me.
Two good things I’m already doing: I take advantage of morning peak productivity time and I don’t schedule meetings or anything else on Mondays.
But, I had a little debate with myself about whether I should just accept working on Sundays and stop treating it as a Sunday or refuse to work Sundays. I am also debating whether to work half-days on Fridays.
The problem with Fridays is two-fold: I’m lying to myself that I can do things on Friday when I know full-well that by Friday afternoon I’m brain dead and I get very little done. The other problem is that I sit at my desk Friday afternoon and fritter the time away when I should just back away from my desk.
But what if I really worked on switching my mindset? I could declare to myself that I will not work Friday afternoons and I will not work on the weekends. This just needs to be a new mindset shift. And a lot of mindset is how you talk to yourself. What is your self-talk?
Right now, I’ve been telling myself that I do work Fridays and worse, “well, I always have Sunday to catch up.” I hate that feeling, it’s not helpful, and I need to stop.
I also think that a two-day break might be just the thing I need to refresh me and help me not procrastinate during the week. (That person who invented weekends might be on to something!) Maybe working on Sunday is bumming me out, which leads to me procrastinating from lack of motivation during the week—which then causes me to have to work on Sundays! A perpetual cycle. Mind blown.
Before this revelation, I asked some freelancer friends on social media what I should do about procrastination, and I got a lot of good ideas to try out. Here are a few:
- Rethink your entire schedule and set new office hours that fit you better.
- Block your time and batch tasks—do like-minded tasks at the same time. Or, even create solid days of a certain task, like Tuesday is reserved for writing and never meetings.
- Try Caveday.org, an online accountability Zoom call with strangers.
- Create strict boundaries that you know will keep you on task, like going to a coffee shop. (I always focus better when I put on my noise-canceling headphones—even with no music!)
- Meditation.
- Accountability partners.
Biz Bite: Put Times with Your To-Do List
The Bookshelf: “Malibu Rising” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #102 of Deliberate Freelancer: Freelancer Survival Skills + a Pep Talk about Boundaries, with Sarah Townsend (talking about a Boost Bank as the Biz Bite)
Episode #31 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Get Motivated to Work When You’re Feeling Blah
Episode #103 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Time Tracking and Client Analysis for Q2
Episode #52 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embracing Self-Care without Guilt, with Acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger
Today’s episode is all about books and reading! I talk book podcasts and tell you about a great book list app. I also recommend the seven best fiction books and one best nonfiction book I’ve read so far in 2021.
My new favorite book podcasts, which I also support on Patreon to get the extra podcast content, are:
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
From the Front Porch podcast
(from a bookstore called The Bookshelf in Thomasville, Georgia)
The Currently Reading Podcast
(Love their Indie Press list Patreon partnership with Fabled Bookshop & Cafe in Waco, Texas)
I’m also a huge fan of the Book of the Month Club.
The app I use to track my books: Reading List
The best books I’ve read so far in 2021:
The Dry by Jane Harper
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
Sea Wife by Amity Gage
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
When the Stars Go Dark by Paula McLain
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins
Nonfiction:
The Premonition by Michael Lewis
A disappointing book of 2021:
Survive the Night by Riley Sager
Worst book I’ve read so far in 2021:
The Whispering House by Elizabeth Brooks
My most anticipated books for the second half of 2021:
Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
Falling by T.J. Newman
False Witness by Karin Slaughter
A few more books that are getting great reviews this year:
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
The Guncle by Steven Rowley
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
If you love the following authors, here are new books coming out this fall:
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
Oh William! By Elizabeth Strout
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (Outlander series) by Diana Gabaldon
Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult
Biz Bite: Reattach to Work Each Morning
Learn more by clicking on habit #19 here:
https://www.developgoodhabits.com/productivity-hacks/
Related study:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0149206319829823
More resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #51 of Deliberate Freelancer: Reading and Book Recommendations during Coronavirus
Episode #87 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Most Anticipated 2021 Books (and Fave 2020 Books)
At the end of every quarter I’m going to conduct an analysis of my time tracking, income and clients and projects. I use Toggl to track my time, and it is particularly helpful to let me know how much I am earning per hour for projects in which I’m paid per word or per project. It also tells me how much time it takes me to do certain types of projects, instead of just guessing. That is valuable information the next time I create a similar proposal and set a project rate for a potential client.
In the first quarter of 2021, I worked an average of 23 hours per week. I actually wanted to increase that, which I did. In Q2 I worked an average of 28 hours a week. This includes paid work, administrative work, networking and marketing.
I also made sure to take a vacation. Once I was fully vaccinated, I drove to Indiana to visit my parents. Unfortunately, because the vacation wasn’t planned out way in advance like I usually do, I still had deadlines I had to meet. I ended up working a few hours on average each day for the week I was there, which none of us liked. I decided to leave a few days early because I was eager to have a completely work-free, email-free staycation at my house. So, when I got home, I took four days completely off work, followed by a few easier work days.
That time with my parents and then time off completely from work at home rejuvenated me. In fact, I felt like I worked a lot of hours in May and not so many in June. However, when I looked at my time tracking for the two months, I actually worked more hours per week in June than the weeks when I felt frenzied and overwhelmed in May. In June, one week I worked 32 hours and another week I worked almost 35 hours.
I think this is a really important finding—I felt less stress, less overwhelmed and more on task after taking off just four days at home, even though I was working more hours. It is so critical to take time off each week and take real vacations or staycations. I see too many freelancers who don’t take even those little breaks. That is a recipe for burnout.
I am planning to visit my parents later this summer. This time, I have strategically planned when I will go. I chose a time that has fewer deadlines, and I am purposefully not taking projects that I will have to work on at that time.
I also made a lot more money in Q2. You might attribute that to me working more, but I think it was the reverse. I got more work; therefore, I had to work more to do that work. I had a very lean March for me, and then April through June were really strong months. May was my best month of the year.
I haven’t spent a lot of time on marketing recently, and July and August are looking a little lean right now. I have a monthly income goal that I try to meet, and I haven’t quite met that yet for my July and August planning.
I like to know that that income goal is possible a few months out. I don’t like to work week to week. So, July is really going to be a time that I need to do some marketing and networking and letting my current editors know that I am available for new projects and writing assignments.
I want to mention a project I briefly mentioned in a previous episode. It’s an example of a new client that pays less than the per-word rate I normally accept. But I accepted the work for a couple of reasons: I wanted to work for this client and their topic, and it sounded like it would be more consistent work, if not that lucrative.
Because I track my time religiously, I know that although this is below my typical per-word rate that I made over $100 an hour on the projects I’ve done for them. Having the ability to work fast and knowing the subject matter earned me that higher hourly rate.
I want to talk a bit more about how I get clients, what type of marketing I do and what I mean by referrals, which I have said is my No. 1 way to get clients. (See episode #65 of Deliberate Freelancer from July of 2020.)
Recently in the Freelance Content Marketing Writer Facebook group, people were talking about how their 2021 was going so far in terms of clients and income. My friend Holly Leber Simmons followed that thread up with another great thread about how people were getting work and what type of work that was.
With Holly’s permission, I am going to answer some of her questions here:
Question 1: What ongoing or anchor projects do you have? Who is the client, what are you doing, how are you paid (retainer, hourly, per word, per project), how much time do you spend a week? How did you land the client?
My anchor clients have shifted a lot in the past year during the pandemic, and I’m looking for even steadier anchor clients. My anchor clients tend to be newsletters or magazines for which I’m the managing editor. These are rarely monthly publications. They’re usually bimonthly or quarterly, and I typically get paid per issue, not a monthly retainer.
My time for a magazine varies widely from week to week. We are typically working on two issues at a time, so I might be writing or editing for one magazine while planning out and assigning articles for that same magazine’s next issue. Besides my one local newsletter client, my magazines are from membership associations.
I landed most of my managing editing gigs through referrals and job boards. I’ll break that down more: my local newsletter client I landed after seeing their job ad on a membership association job board. One of the magazines I work on is with one of my best friends; we used to be employees together and she has since hired me on a variety of projects. Another magazine was through a woman I know because of our common work connections. We stay in touch on Twitter and LinkedIn, and when she heard about this magazine opening, she connected me directly with the editor on LinkedIn and I followed up. Another magazine in the past I landed because a fellow freelancer spotted the ad on a job board and forwarded it to me.
The lesson here is NETWORKING! By keeping in touch with previous co-workers and chatting with people in my industry on social media AND letting people know specifically the type of work I’m looking for—Hey, did you know I’m also a managing editor?!—people send me job ads. These are job boards that I’m not always privy to, so referrals have been key.
Another question from Holly:
How much of your work is rolling income, i.e., not an anchor client or retainer? What are some one-off or repeat—but not consistent—projects you have done? How are you finding the work?
One-off work for me is mostly writing for membership associations and/or about health care. A lot of those clients I got through my career working at membership associations as an employee. That built my network, and I get a lot of referrals from association people. For example, I used to work at a public health association, and now because of those connections I write for three different types of public health associations.
This all comes back to your network and checking in with people. I’m also really honest about when I have availability and am specific about what I can help with. As a freelancer, what are you looking for? How can you help? Put that out on there on LinkedIn and send that out in letters of introduction.
Question #3 from Holly:
How much time per week do you spend on marketing and networking? How much time per week do you spend on client work?
In Q2 I spent nearly 30 hours networking and marketing, so that looks like 10 hours a month. However, that’s misleading because in reality most of that time was spent in April at about 19 hours, leaving only about six hours in May and three hours in June. Now, I was also on vacation and then a staycation for the first couple of days of June, and I took it a little easier as I headed toward July. So, it’s probably no coincidence that I don’t have a ton of work lined up for July and August.
That shows that I need to do a little more networking and marketing now and in each month. For me that means talking about my availability and what I do on LinkedIn; sharing articles I’ve written on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn; interacting with editors on LinkedIn and Twitter; and reaching out one-on-one to my current editors and letting them know I’m available for work.
Another good question from Holly:
How’s your mental health? Are you running yourself into the ground?
I’m really glad Holly asked this one because I see a lot of people who say they make six figures or more who might be running themselves ragged. I see freelancers on social media who talk about working most weekends for hours at a time and also feeling exhausted all the time. Sometimes they are the same people who talk about never taking a vacation or time off.
Everyone needs to take time off. You heard me earlier talk about how I actually worked more hours in June than I did in May, but I felt so much better and was definitely more productive in June. Even just four days helps.
So, what did I learn from this analysis of Q2? I’ve reiterated to myself that I definitely need to take time off when I’m feeling overwhelmed, even for a long weekend at home. I feel really good about working 28 hours a week and the hourly rates I’m earning for a variety of projects.
As for July and Q3, I want to both increase and be more strategic about my marketing and reaching out to potential clients and current clients. I want to land another anchor client or two.
Biz Bite: Say no to extraneous meetings and phone calls.
The Bookshelf: “When the Stars Go Dark” by Paula McLain
Resources:
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
Episode #94 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Time Tracking Audit for Q1—I Need a Better Schedule
Episode #65 of Deliberate Freelancer: The No. 1 Way I Find New Clients
Episode #93 of Deliberate Freelancer: Renew Your Business Now for Post-Pandemic Life
Today’s guest is Sarah Townsend from the city of Gloucester in the UK. Sarah has been a freelance marketing copywriter for more than 20 years and is the author of the #1 Amazon bestseller “Survival Skills for Freelancers: Tried and Tested Tips to Help You Ace Self-Employment Without Burnout.”
Sarah uses clever copy to help businesses become more successful, and she’s on a mission to raise awareness about the importance of mental health and wellbeing for freelancers and the small business community. She does this through talks, webinars and interviews.
When Sarah struck out on her own as a freelancer, she was a 20-something-year-old new mom. She couldn’t find business or personal development books that spoke to her needs. They all seemed to be written for middle-aged men in suits. So, in 2020, Sarah published her own book that addressed the needs that she saw.
“I wanted to create a book that people would love for the support and the reality check and the ‘heart on your sleeve’ telling it like it is side. The book very much focuses on mindset.”
Often, freelancers have the talent and the skills. That’s not what they struggle with. Instead, we struggle with things like isolation, not knowing what to charge, having the confidence to grasp opportunities, procrastination, lack of motivation and imposter syndrome. Those are topics Sarah covers in her book.
Sarah doesn’t agree with a common formula that is recommended freelancers use to determine their income goals. That formula is to take the annual salary you want to earn, subtract several weeks for vacation and sick time and then divide it by the number of weeks and then divide that by the number of days you plan on working. And that is your day rate.
However, Sarah says that formula is a recipe for burnout because it assumes you are getting paid for all of those hours. It doesn’t account for unpaid administrative work, professional development, and marketing and following up.
Sarah says not only are we afraid of failure, but we are also afraid of success. This fear of the unknown holds us back because “I know what I like and I like what I know.” We often like our comfort zone.
She encourages us to think about author Marianne Williamson’s famous quote, which is: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.”
Clients can pick up on a lack of confidence, and that may cause them to ask for a lower rate. And if you agree to that lower rate, you’re perpetuating the “client and supplier” relationship, when you should be aiming to work on a level with your clients that is based on mutual trust, understanding and respect.
If you take on the clients that are wrong for you, those are the ones that sap all your energy and take up more space in your week than great clients do.
Melanie recognized that this spring and summer, as people started to emerge from pandemic lockdown in many countries, freelance business owners seemed to be talking a lot about burnout as we figure out a new way to do things.
Sarah often talks about the importance of mental health and wellbeing for freelance business owners. As she says, “if you’re not taking care of you, you don’t have a business because you are your business and you’ll have nothing left to give.”
Burnout starts on a slippery slope, first with day-to-day stress and anxiety, which can lead to overwhelm, which can lead to burnout. Sarah says freelancers almost take for granted that they’ll always feel stressed and overwhelmed. But, freelancers need to set boundaries and get super clear on their process and then make sure their clients know that process and those boundaries. When you manage client expectations in this way, clients are less likely to micromanage you.
Know what your personal signs of burnout are. For Sarah, it’s when she’s not getting enough sleep and not making time to get outdoors every day.
As you consider how to set boundaries with yourself and your client, consider telling clients what your office hours are. And put your office hours in your email signature.
When it comes to pricing, Sarah charges based on her value, not an hourly or day rate. She explains to clients her billing process. She requires a nonrefundable 50% deposit up front. And when she sends the first draft of the project, she also sends the invoice for the balance of the fee. She said some freelancers fall behind in that because they wait until the client “signs off” on the project.
Sarah talks about removing “should” and “just” from your language and emails.
Biz Bite: Create a Boost Bank (a photo album on your phone of screenshots of positive comments about you)
Resources:
Sarah’s Book “Survival Skills for Freelancers”
Buy “Survival Skills for Freelancers” on Amazon
Sarah on Twitter
Sarah on LinkedIn
Sarah on Instagram
Sarah’s copywriting website
Episode #95 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Dream Bigger and Transform Your Freelance Business, with Cathy Wilkes
Episode #90 of Deliberate Freelancer: Coping with One Year of COVID-19 Lockdown, with Therapist Emily Derouin
Hiya call blocker app
Bianca Gonzalez is a marketing writer from New York state who specializes in corporate social responsibility; diversity, equity and inclusion insights; and multicultural consumer insights.
Bianca was preparing to graduate college in the spring of 2020 when the pandemic hit. Because of her health risks as a brain cancer survivor, she turned to freelancing and working from home. Bianca has been able to combine her love of writing with her commitment to social justice and activism. She identifies as a queer, disabled Latina, and she explains her passion around supporting diverse professionals.
She decided to focus on marketing writing, where she recognized there were few non-white employees. Marketers don’t often know how to appeal to certain minority groups, and Bianca is often the first minority on their team, helping them to create inclusive content.
At age 19, Bianca, as an inexperienced drinker, ended up in the hospital, where they gave her a brain scan. They found a lot of fluid on her brain, a condition known as hydrocephalus, which they discovered was caused by a cancerous brain tumor. She had no symptoms.
She had two brain surgeries, followed by radiation, and then returned to her junior of college that fall, while commuting from home. Her community service and the camaraderie from that is what kept her going.
Bianca’s writing takes two forms: activism writing and writing diverse and inclusive marketing content. One of the first times she realized what an impact her writing could have was after writing a piece for Anti-Racism Daily about alleged forced sterilizations in ICE detention camps. An English as a second language (ESL) teacher told Bianca that her ESL students wrote letters to their congressional representatives about immigration after reading her article.
Because of her brain cancer, Bianca suffered brain damage, which has led to a shorter attention span and poor short-term memory. Sometimes her disability is visible and children and adults might stare or make comments in public. Other times, it’s an invisible disability so she says people assume she has recovered 100%.
Having a freelance career with a disability gives her the flexibility to cut back on work on the days when she doesn’t feel as good. She wouldn’t be able to take off that time as easily if she was an employee.
Now that her one-year freelancing career has been successful she’s focusing more on setting up the business side of her career. She is considering establishing an LLC.
Bianca’s advice for other freelancers includes learning how to be OK with small failures to get to big successes.
Bianca finds great clients through a lot of networking and through Twitter engagement.
Biz Bite: Find someone online, in an article or a podcast you have a question for? Be brave and contact them!
Resources:
Anti-Racism Daily newsletter
Sonia Weiser’s Opportunities of the Week newsletter ($3/month)
Bianca on Twitter: @OurStellarWords
Bianca on LinkedIn
Episode #14 of Deliberate Freelancer: Freelancing with a Chronic Illness, with Christy Batta
It’s my 100th episode! For this very special episode, I invited back my very first guest (in episode 4), Jennifer Goforth Gregory. Jennifer focuses on B2B technology content marketing writing. She is a leader in the content marketing writing world—she literally wrote the book “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer”—but like so many of us, the pandemic brought many challenges. She went from working home alone to having her husband and two teenage kids around all the time. And she lost a anchor client quickly, leading her to panic and fear she’d lose all her work. However, she ended up having the best income year of her freelance career in 2020.
During the pandemic, Jennifer struggled with how much to work, faced with a high demand of technology writing. Plus, her husband was laid off and she became the sole breadwinner and felt the financial pressure. On the other hand, her kids would be heading to college soon and she wanted to embrace the “gift of time” and spend plenty of quality time with them.
But because she felt she needed some higher-paying work, she took on an email writing project that was a risk for her. And she realized she was good at it and has since earned about $25,000 writing emails as a copywriter.
Jennifer says her work has three variables: the client, the niche and the type of writing. She realized, through the new email writing project, that she can only have one new variable when she’s trying something new. In this case, it was an existing client in a niche she knew well. Just a new type of writing.
Jennifer was also open about her situation and told existing clients that her husband got laid off and she was looking for more work. That’s how she was offered the initial email writing project.
This pandemic year taught Jennifer to take a better look at her strengths and weaknesses and be honest about what she’s not good at.
One “hidden blessing” from this past year was that Jennifer joined a weekly Zoom meeting with about five other writers, initially to share job leads. They helped her launch a training class, figure out how to price projects and how to handle failure.
Most of Jennifer’s work comes to her directly, from people finding her on LinkedIn, coming across her website or seeing articles she’s written that are similar to their needs. She thinks it’s a mistake for freelancers not to use LinkedIn more.
Do you know your “why?” Why are you a freelance business owner? Jennifer tells the story of how she was supposed to moderate a conference panel when she learned that her son, a senior in high school, was selected for a golf match at the same time. One of her “why”s has been to spend more time with her kids, so she knew she had to be at the golf match. She found a replacement moderator and went and was honest with people about why she was absent.
When Jennifer has a hard personal or work decision, she stops and asks herself, “What am I going to regret when I’m 80?”
Jennifer released her book, “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer,” two years ago. She’s been blown away by the success. She self-published and has covered her publishing costs. Now, any proceeds go to her dog rescue. She plans to update the book in 2021 to add in new lessons.
Jennifer’s Facebook group of the same name, “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer,” now has over 6,000 members.
Jennifer launched a training class, “Make More Money as a Freelance Content Marketing Writer,” and now offers a self-paced version of that class.
Jennifer gives tips on finding the perfect client for you. One of the mistakes freelancers make is they mainly qualify their clients based on price—are they going to pay my rate?—and that should just be the beginning. Instead, you should look for clients that meet your strengths and your weaknesses.
Jennifer actively chooses her clients, not letting them hire her. It’s a mutual decision. She tells them on the initial phone call that she is actively picking her clients and is interviewing them to find if they’re a good fit.
Jennifer also talks about Zoom video calls, which has been a debate in her Facebook group. Some writers hate that seemingly everyone wants to do Zoom video calls now, while other writers find them more helpful. Jennifer thinks video chats are a great way to initially meet with a client to see if they’re a good match. It can also be helpful when doing content marketing interviews with sources.
Jennifer encourages freelancers to actively ask their clients for referrals. And want to get more referrals? Then, give them out frequently for other freelancers. They will return the favor.
Jennifer also makes sure to update her website regularly with new articles in her portfolio. Clients have commented that they like that her clips are very recent.
Biz Bite: Follow up with the people in the “who viewed your profile” section on LinkedIn
Resources:
Episode #4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Jennifer’s book “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer”
Jennifer’s Facebook group: “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer”
Jennifer’s courses
Jennifer’s website
Jennifer on LinkedIn
UPDATE: I have extended my podcast hiatus until Thursday, June 17.
Now could be a perfect time for you to catch up on the 99 (!!) previous episodes. I also encourage you to scroll through the show notes on your podcast app or at deliberatefreelancer.com. The show notes read like blog posts and include a ton of resources at the end.
I will be back on Thursday, June 17, with a brand-new and very special 100th episode! And I have several other guests lined up as well for the summer that I think you’ll love. Happy summer!
Amy Posner lives in Olympia, Washington. She calls herself a serial entrepreneur and has been a business owner for three decades — she had a computer start-up, a New York City agency and then built a very successful (and lucrative) sales team in the telecom industry.
But for the past decade, Amy has been an in-demand conversion and direct response copywriter, coach and copy chief. She now mostly focuses on coaching and training.
Amy currently runs the Magnetic North Mastermind, where she helps each member decide — and then create — their ideal business life. She also has a YouTube channel called Cut to the Copy, which offers short tips about business. And she co-hosts a podcast called Business Badass.
Amy offers a “coaching on demand” service, in which people hire her for coaching for 30 minutes or 60 minutes on one specific issue. She also offers “copy chiefing” in which people have her vet their copy before they submit it to a client.
As a six-figure freelancer, Amy initially had the goal to replace her employee income, which was six figures at the time.
She wasn’t interested in becoming a agency, but she does have a small team of subcontractors, including a new position she recently hired for, “vision and growth manager.” She got the idea for that role after hearing about the position of an “integrator,” who serves as a project manager for the vision. She wanted someone to help her both create the vision but also to create the growth. She finds it exhausting to be both the person focused on growing her business and the person executing work for clients.
She also has her own copywriter for her business, a tech person and a virtual assistant. She hires subcontractors for copywriting clients also.
Persistence and gaining confidence have been critical to Amy’s success. “Your success is directly proportionate to your attitude or your ability to handle the obstacles,” she said.
Don’t dwell on failures or other people’s opinions. It’s OK if you’re a sensitive person, but it’s important to learn how to remove your feelings of failure and move on.
Amy shares her pricing formula: internal hourly rate + your intuition + your gut sense. She stresses that it’s essential that you time your projects at various times throughout the year so that you know how long projects take. That will allow you to price properly. She says freelancers tend to have “leaky boundaries” around their time.
The price that you give a client that feels really good on Monday can often feel too low on Tuesday. So, you should always sleep on the price. Amy also believes if you don’t charge enough, you aren’t seen as that higher level of a professional.
Amy is always considering if a client is a good fit. Red flags that she looks out for include people who think they know more than they do or who want her to execute on bad marketing ideas. Also watch out for those “trial projects” for lower rates with a promise of a future project. That compromises people’s professionalism, and the “more projects” don’t often materialize.
Amy also admits to a “weird” red flag: people who don’t have any sense of humor. Melanie can relate to this and also lists this as one of her red flags!
Amy finds the right clients by getting in the right rooms, where people there need what you offer. Have you figured out what audiences are your potential clients and which ones you’re wasting your time on?
Amy struggles with a couple of boundary issues. She admits to being a Type A workaholic. She also struggles with over-delivering on a project.
Biz Bite: Make a Plan and Work Your Plan (and Remove the Emotion from It)
Resources:
No Sweat Sales Calls course discount link ($100 off):
https://amyposner.podia.com/no-sweat-sales-calls?coupon=MPP
Amy’s website
CutToTheCopy.com YouTube weekly channel
Joanna Wiebe, founder of Copyhackers
Book “Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business” by Gino Wickman
Book “The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters” by Priya Parker
Today’s guest is Austin Church from Knoxville, Tennessee. Austin helps e-commerce founders stand out online with their brand strategy. He also coaches freelance creatives.
After Austin got laid off in spring 2009, during the U.S. recession, he became a freelance copywriter. Does Austin consider himself an agency? Not exactly. He likes to pull in other creatives as necessary, and he serves as the project manager. He calls it the “antique shop” model — bigger antique shops don’t own all the antiques; they provide the space for other dealers, sell their products and earn a commission.
When he first started freelancing, Austin wasn’t great at keeping tabs on his income and expenses, and he didn’t save for or pay his quarterly taxes. When his accountant sister fired him as a client, it was a wakeup call. The book “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz helped Austin figure out a better way to handle his money, mainly by getting several checking accounts and allocating each one toward certain things, like quarterly taxes.
Austin is also a fan of the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Clear says if you make habits obvious and easy, they’re more likely to stick. That resonated with Austin and helped him institute some better business and personal systems.
One system he highly recommends is to create email templates, especially when you’re asking clients for referrals. After a project goes well, at the end, when the client is happy, customize that referral template quickly and email it to your client.
Austin also recommends tracking every client and project lead imaginable and having a simple way to track them. Check in with that spreadsheet every week to see what leads you need to follow up on. It can take several “touches” or interactions with a potential client before you land a project, and without those multiple check-ins you could lose out on great projects and clients.
Austin says we have to put in a statistically significant number of activities. We often give up too soon. But, for example, if you are using Instagram to get clients, you need to have conversations with 100 people, not three.
Austin builds his business on selling strategy. He recognized that about 3 out of every 10 clients know exactly what they want, and he helps them with that. But most are unclear. For example, they might ask for a new website, but what they really need is an entire marketing strategy.
Austin started offering strategy, or strategic planning, which he now calls a “wayfinding workshop.” After talking with the client, he gets the sense of whether they’re lacking clarity and need strategic help. If they’re not willing to pay for that, it’s a red flag for him and isn’t a fit for him as a client.
He also sells “strategy retainers” where he meets with clients every two weeks to work on their strategy. With those packages, he’s not responsible for the implantation phase. He says most freelancers probably skew toward one or the other — they either like the strategy or the implementation. But going back and forth between the two with the same client can cause whiplash.
When Austin sees other freelancers struggling in their freelance business, their challenges often fall under one of the six 6 Ps: positioning, packaging, pricing, pipeline, psychology, process.
Biz Bites: Get a Text Expander App (atext) and Don’t Open Your Email Until 11 a.m.
Resources:
Austin’s website and his free freelance course: AustinLChurch.com
Austin on Twitter
Austin on LinkedIn
Episode #79 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: Consistently Sending LOIs and Using Upwork, with Laura Pennington Briggs
Episode #80 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: Writing B2B Tech Content, with Satta Sarmah Hightower
Episode #81 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: Focus on a Niche and Partner with Other Freelancers, with Lynne Testoni
Episode #82 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: Embracing an Entrepreneurial Mindset, with Gresham Harkless
Book “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz
Book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear
Book “The Business of Expertise” by David C. Baker
Book “Give and Take” by Adam Grant
Book “Million Dollar Consulting” by Alan Weiss
Book “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less” by Greg McKeown
“The Chef Show” on Netflix
iKamper rooftop tent
Today’s guest is Quiana Darden from Richmond, Virginia. She is a launch copywriter, which means she supports coaches and service providers who are launching or rebranding their high-ticket offers. She offers sales page copywriting, email marketing sequences, social media copy, landing pages and ad copy.
She started as an elementary school teacher, but later decided she wanted to home-school her daughter so she brainstormed on how she could work from home. She started as a virtual assistant and then a freelance writer focused on content marketing, but did some copywriting.
She was scared at first to jump into copywriting because there is an expectation of conversion. But a coach encouraged her to go all in. Zeroing in on her very specific niche in copywriting means she can demand higher rates.
Freelancers rely on their online presence to educate their audience about the services they provide. That means quality copywriting — a sales page, social media posts, landing pages.
Freelance writers often think they can write their own copy, but that could be a challenge. It might be difficult to write about yourself or you might have difficulty maintaining the same tone as your service (sales copy tone should match the tone of your blog, podcast, course, etc.). You may tend to write about your own services in a more stilted, robotic way. Or, writing your own copy often gets pushed at the bottom of your to-do list.
When you write copy, you shouldn’t focus solely on the products and services included in the offer. People buy the transformation, so you need to explain what they will gain by purchasing your offer.
Before you hire a copywriter, get clear on the details of the offer, the transformation it will provide, how you are different from your competitors, who your audience is and what their pain points are.
As you decide which project to outsource to a copywriter first, think about what has been on your to-do list for a while but also what is going to give you the most “bang for your buck.” That may mean an email marketing campaign to grow your email list. Or, maybe you need a new sales page because your current one isn’t converting into that many sales.
I also talked to Quiana about her business and her clients. She talks about demanding higher rates after thinking about the value she provides clients and the money they can earn based on her strong copywriting.
Quiana only offers one primary service right now. It’s a Launch Copy VIP Day package — with a turnaround time of 48 hours — and the price is listed on her website. She knows exactly how many of those she needs each month. And the quick turnaround time gives her the flexibility she needs to home-school her daughter.
Quiana shifted to this approach because she was tired of creating custom writing packages for every single client.
When she was a content marketing writer, Quiana found a lot of clients through cold emails or LinkedIn connections and through Facebook groups with business owners. She answered content marketing questions there, which showed she was an expert, and people reached out to hire her.
Now, she is finding her clients through Instagram, after her coach recommended that platform based on Quiana’s audience. Doing weekly live video on Instagram has helped increase her audience. She uses videos to answer common questions her audience asks and also shares her process as a copywriter working with her clients.
Biz Bite: Find Your Power Hours (the time you work best)
Resources:
Subscribe to the new Deliberate Freelancer newsletter at MelEdits.com/newsletter.
Please record a voice memo on your phone about your time tracking lessons and experiences. Email it to melanie@meledits.com for a future podcast episode.
Quiana’s website: The Write Choice
Quiana on Instagram
Episode 56 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use Instagram to Grow Your Business, with Jessica Thiefels
This is a rerelease of episode #22 from August 2019. I am rereleasing this as I catch up on all my work right now, which is ironic considering the name of this episode. Laura Poole offers great advice that we might all need right now about creating a work-life balance that is right for you. But beyond that, Laura is peppy and fun, so I think you’ll enjoy hearing from her.
Laura is a a freelance editor from Durham, N.C., who has been a freelancer for about 24 years, almost her entire career. She provides copyediting for scholarly nonfiction publishers and training for editors and freelancers. She is also a trained, certified life coach.
Biz Bite: Take a few moments of peaceful clarity and think about what you want more of in your life. What do you need to change to make that happen?
Resources:
Laura’s book: “Juggling on a High Wire: The Art of Work-Life Balance When You’re Self-Employed”
Laura on Twitter
On today’s show, I introduce you to Cal Newport’s new book, “A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload.”
First, I talk about his concept of the “hyperactive hive mind” and the problem with email and instant messaging tools like Slack. Then, I talk about his solution briefly. And then I share my own thoughts and tips for getting your email under control, as well as how to reduce the amount of email you get.
Newport points out that our current office environment was not planned so much as it just happened to all of us when email became commonplace. He calls the current workflow of many corporate offices the “hyperactive hive mind.” Freelancers can often push back at this, but we are a part of it because our clients are a part of it.
The constant need to respond to email prevents many of us from doing our actual work—cognitive work, which Newport calls “deep work.” Instead, many of us are constantly task-switching throughout the day. But our brains are not meant to task-switch. Try it—can you think of two separate things at exactly the same time? Nope.
First, I recommend you consider how you can set tougher “I’m checking email now” rules for yourself. How can you stop checking it so often?
Newport argues that tricks to help manage our email systems and clean up our email boxes are all just Band-aids on the problem of the hyperactive hive mind that our workforce lives in. I understand, but currently we are in that hive too, so we should figure out a better email solution.
Newport’s solution to this hive mind is to set up processes and project management systems instead, such as Microsoft Teams, Sharepoint, Asana, Basecamp, Trello and more. I love processes and project management tools and use them for several projects. But, these aren’t perfect. Email may simply be replaced by the chat function in Microsoft Teams, for example.
Newport talks about examining all your emails in one day. Take a look at all those emails going out and coming in and ask yourself what systems you could put in place to eliminate some of those emails. Are there processes that you could establish that would decrease or eliminate the need for some of those emails? I think this is a good practice and good place to start.
By creating checklists, forms, processes and systems, you can decrease your work time, improve your file keeping and reduce the risk of errors.
In addition, despite what Newport says, let’s figure out ways to better manage our email. First, analyze your email inbox. Does it stress you out? What don’t you like about it? What do you want to fix? Make a list of what you wish your email work life looked like.
Here are some potential solutions:
Stop aiming for inbox zero. Instead, pick a realistic number. Then, use folders to sort your emails. I have a folder for each client and then subfolders for each project. When I’ve dealt with the email in my inbox I immediately move it to the correct folder, primarily as an archive.
Delete hundreds or thousands of emails, even the old unopened ones. Are you really going to get to those? In Gmail, it is possible to do batch deletions, including by entire years.
Next, take the time to actually unsubscribe from newsletters. Don’t just delete them. If you don’t have time right now to unsubscribe, create an unsubscribe folder and move those email newsletters into that folder. Then, when you get some admin time, go through and unsubscribe one by one. Or, let your virtual assistant into your email system and have them do it for you.
You may want to create new folders that allow you to prioritize tasks, such as: Action needed today, Action needed this week, Action needed before the end of the month. The key, of course, is that you will go through those folders and reply. But, this makes it more manageable.
Gmail also now has a Snooze feature. If you see an email and know you have to deal with it that day or that week, but you don’t have the time right at that second, you can hit the Snooze feature. That way, it’ll pop up as a new email at the time of your choosing so that it won’t get lost in your inbox.
Use the Boomerang tool to schedule email replies during work hours.
Biz Bite: Move the beans over
The Bookshelf: “Sea Wife” by Amity Gaige
Resources:
Subscribe to the new Deliberate Freelancer newsletter at MelEdits.com/newsletter.
Please record a voice memo on your phone about your time tracking lessons and experiences. Email it to melanie@meledits.com for a future podcast episode.
Episode #94 of Deliberate Freelancer: My Time Tracking Audit for Q1—I Need a Better Schedule
Cal Newport’s new book, “A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload.”
Boomerang to schedule emails
Clear Your Gmail Inbox
Easy Ways to Delete Multiple Messages in Gmail
Snooze Gmail emails until later
Create rules to filter your emails
Today’s guest is Cathy Wilkes, who coaches people through a transformation, helping them figure out what their true dreams and goals are and how to jump-start that transformation.
Previously, Cathy built and led high-performing sales teams in the financial services industry. She used her philosophy of building people up, and helping them find their greatness, to create a better sales team.
Even if you love your freelance business and where you are today, there are still so many good lessons in this episode about mindset, whether our thoughts are holding us back from trying new things — or, whether we’re letting other people’s beliefs and comments about us hold us back.
Cathy says, “I believe there are seeds of greatness in every human being. … When we look at ourselves in the mirror, most of the time we look at our faults. We look at what’s wrong. We’re talking negative. We’re thinking what could happen. We’re sitting in fear, doubt and worry.”
Worry is just a misuse of the imagination. We could easily use that imagination to create something wonderful in our lives.
Cathy sees several things that hold people back in their careers and businesses. One of those is when we ignore our internal wisdom and we consider other people’s opinions about us more important than our internal voice and where we want to go.
Melanie shares that oftentimes it’s more her internal voice pointing out all the barriers to her big idea that keeps her from doing it. Cathy says she thinks often of “paradigms,” which she defines as “mental programs stored in the subconscious mind.” They can work for us or against us, such as thinking patterns that shut us down.
Creatives in particular may be comparing our inside to somebody’s outside, comparing our thoughts and ideas with the success we see someone having — but those are the great qualities that they choose to present to the world and may be only of the final product they created. We don’t see all the work and struggle that went into it. But, we shut ourselves down before ever trying something similar.
Cathy points out that thoughts create feelings, feelings create actions, and actions create results. But it starts with how we think about ourselves.
What if you asked yourself, “What if I could …?” You would likely start to get excited about something, but then your pattern of thinking would start to think of all the barriers and shift to the negative: “But, how are you going to do that?”
Cathy uses the word “transformation,” rather than “change.” She uses a structured step-by-step process with clients to help them transform, which involves leaving behind what is not working for them and gaining new skills and new ways of thinking that will serve where they want to go.
Cathy talks about the difference between self-image — how we see ourselves — versus self-esteem — how we feel about ourselves. Self-image should be primary, and self-esteem, secondary. So, think about where you want to end up and what you want your life and/or business to look like, not “but how am I going to accomplish that?”
Think about the end, rather than the means. The end will draw you to that place. Take a step forward today.
Cathy breaks down goals into three levels: an A goal is something you know how to do; a B goal is something where you know how to get the resources to achieve it; and a C goal is something you would love but have no idea how to do right now. Are you setting C goals?
In your business and in your life, ask yourself: What would I love? Or answer “Wouldn’t it be great if …”
Life is risk. To make a leap in a new direction, you need to choose a different set of risks. Not taking a risk is a risk itself. Taking a risk is exploring your own potential.
Cathy reserves an hour every morning just to think about her business. She takes time to imagine and “live in possibility.”
Cathy grew up thinking failure is bad. But she taught her sons the opposite: Seek failure. Try new things. Fail often.
Failure gives us more freedom to try new things. And what did we learn from that failure?
Cathy and I talk about one of my favorite business topics: mindset. She says the first step is knowing what your mindset is. How do you think about your business? Are they positive or negative thoughts?
Biz Bite: Challenge the conventional approach.
Resources:
CathyWilkes.com
hello@cathywilkes.com
Cathy on LinkedIn
Cathy’s Facebook group: Amplified Living NOW — Blueprint for a full throttle life
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
On today’s show, I’m doing an audit of my time tracking for the first quarter of the year. I used to do time tracking using pen and paper, mostly to keep me on task. That worked, but it didn’t allow me to easily track and analyze my data to improve areas of my freelance business.
I now use the Toggl app to track all of my work time. Today, I will talk about what I learned from time tracking the first quarter of 2021.
Time tracking and analyzing that data can help you figure out whether you’re pricing projects accurately and whether you should delegate or outsource parts of a project. If you track your time for a certain type of project, it can help you create a more accurate project rate for a similar type of project in the future. It can show me whether you underpriced a client and need to increase your rates for them the next time.
I worked, on average, 23 hours each week of 2021 so far, over about 4 ½ days a week. I’m definitely sitting at my desk more because I did not track my break time or social media time, which I plan to track in the second quarter.
That doesn’t sound like I work a lot, which is partly my goal. But I also struggle with the idea that I could do so much more, that I could make more money, that I could expand this podcast or other side projects.
Even though I’m a morning person and don’t do deep work in the afternoon, I also get really tired in the afternoon. I am not sleeping great and could possibly be dehydrated, so I’m going to work on those two things.
Plus, I would like to have a more regular schedule and have a bit more structure to my day.
Here’s what I want to do in quarter two to have a healthier day, feel less tired and create more of a structure:
Track my social media time.
Set a timer for 7 p.m. to remind me not to snack after that.
Set my light alarm for 6 a.m. and take advantage of my morning peak productivity time and energy.
Use a water reminder app to make sure I’m staying hydrated.
As for my client work, I learned a few good lessons from time tracking the first quarter. But, the results were mostly good news, confirming that I am charging appropriately. Listen to the episode for detailed information on a few projects, what I charged and what that earned me per hour of work.
Have you tried time tracking? If so, have you analyzed the data, which then helped you improve your business? I’d love to hear what lessons you have. I’d love to feature several of you on a future episode of Deliberate Freelancer! Email me at melanie@meledits.com.
Biz Bite: Find an expert.
The Bookshelf: “Writers & Lovers” by Lily King
Resources:
Subscribe to the new Deliberate Freelancer newsletter at MelEdits.com/newsletter.
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
Episode #91 of Deliberate Freelancer: All Things Pricing: Project Rates, Day Rates, Retainers and More, with Jennifer Duann Fultz
From the Front Porch podcast—episode 11, Literary Therapy, Volume 6, mentions “Find an Expert”
Kendra Adachi and The Lazy Genius Way
On today’s show, I want to talk about something super positive: post-pandemic life! Let’s look ahead and see where we want our business to be once lockdown is over.
Most of us were affected in our business lives in some way when the pandemic hit last year. We lost clients, or had to suddenly work from home 100% of the time, or had to rethink and change client projects. In-person everything was canceled.
Many of us worked hard last year, working long hours, to try to find new work. And when we did, some of us had a scarcity mindset and that “must work all the time” mentality because we weren’t sure if the projects and clients would keep coming. That was completely understandable last year, but we all know it’s not the way to run a business long term. So, if you haven’t recovered from that mentality yet, I am here to be your cheerleader—and guide—to help you think about how to refresh and renew your business as we head out of full lockdown.
Here are six questions I encourage you to ask yourself.
They revolve around what your business looks like right now versus what it looked like before the pandemic and what you want it to look like post-pandemic.
- Do you like your current clients?
2: Do you like what you are doing?
Evaluate the services you offer and whether you want to change those up.
- What will you do if the clients you lost come back to you in some form?
Don’t feel obligated to work with those past clients if you don’t want to. You can say no. But even if you love them, take the time to check in with yourself and see if you need to change anything about the relationship first.
4: What would allow you to be pickier?
Oftentimes, the answer is money. So, how can you make more money in less time? Would this involve creating a passive income stream?
5: Do you need to slow down work and take care of yourself?
There will definitely be some aspects of our lives that will change soon. We should make time to decide how to treat ourselves and what we want this new life to look like.
Consider creating a Power Hour After list. A power hour is where you take time to blast through that annoying to-do list of chores and errands that you’ve been putting off. Well, there were a lot of things couldn’t be done during the pandemic. So, make a list now of all the things you need to get done, like doctor’s appointments, dry cleaning and dropping off donations.
And then, think of all the fun things you want to do too! (Bookstores, libraries, sporting events, family visits!)
Planning for these things now, while asking yourself these big questions and bettering your business, can lead to more financial freedom and hours in the day. Then, you can spend time with your loved ones and do the things you have missed so much this year.
6: Do you need to plan a new marketing strategy?
Reevaluate your marketing and networking. Did you do some marketing efforts last year that really worked? Will they work post-pandemic? Or, are there new things you need to try to find more and/or better clients?
And think about in-person opportunities and how to prepare for those—maybe you need to create a better social media strategy, revamp your website or perfect your new elevator pitch.
So, to recap, what does your ideal business look like post lockdown? And how can you start planning now to make that happen?
Biz Bite: Simplify your kitchen time.
The Bookshelf: “The Sun Down Motel” by Simone St. James
Resources:
Subscribe to the new Deliberate Freelancer newsletter at MelEdits.com/newsletter.
Jennifer Goforth Gregory’s poll results: “Why the majority of writers in the FCMW Facebook Group made more in 2020 than 2019”
Episode #11 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Find the Right Anchor Clients
Episode #63 of Deliberate Freelancer: How I Got a PPP Loan as a Sole Proprietor talks about the Biz Bite “Create a Power Hour After List”
Imperfect Foods
Today’s guest is Kat Boogaard. Kat is a full-time freelance writer in Wisconsin who provides blog content for software clients in the productivity, project management and business ownership spaces. Some of her past and current clients include Atlassian, Trello, QuickBooks and Loom. She also provides advice and resources for freelancers through her blog, weekly newsletter, private Facebook community and a shop filled with tools and templates.
To maintain strong relationships with clients, first and foremost, you have to deliver great work. But Kat also likes to keep in touch with clients. She sometimes does this outside of the work she’s providing them, so, for example, sending the client an article or tip she thinks would be helpful to them.
Moderation is key — keep in touch without feeling pesky. And don’t underestimate the power of a friendly check-in: “Hey, how have you been?” That outreach keeps you top of mind with clients.
Kat also keeps connected with clients on social media, although she doesn’t usually do hard sells there. She follows her editors and her brands on social media and sometimes “likes” or comments on their posts. Have organic conversations.
Kat has learned the value of refining her processes and taking ownership of the process. That means she sets out the plan and expectations and leads her clients through the process. That shows she knows what she’s doing and increases the trust between her and her client.
Kat thinks of “onboarding” as her client’s first steps with her, and this is where it’s important to make a great first impression. She has developed an onboarding process that includes a series of defined steps that include signing the contract, sharing any materials or tools either party needs, outlining the workflow, and informing the client about her invoice timeline and how she accepts payments.
Onboarding lays the groundwork so you can get into the creative collaborative work with the assurance that all the logistics are taken care of out of the way. On the flip side, “offboarding” is at the end of the project. Business owners tend not to focus on this side as much. You may think you say “thank you” and send the invoice, but there can be so much more to a successful offboarding process.
“Last impressions matter just as much as first impressions. Way too often I see freelancers wrap up projects with clients they loved working and they just turn in the assignment, send their invoice … and they just let that client ride off into the sunset.”
As you develop your onboarding and offboarding processes, reflect on previous client projects and think about what went well and what didn’t. Map out a flow of activities that need to be taken care of and put them in logical order. Processes aren’t set in stone, and there may be a trial-and-error period. Start small before you invest in automation tools or fancy forms.
Biz Bite: Batch your tasks.
Resources:
Subscribe to the new Deliberate Freelancer newsletter at MelEdits.com/newsletter.
Subscribe to Kat’s newsletter at KatBoogard.com.
Kat Boogaard on Twitter
Kat Boogaard on Instagram
#FreelanceChat happens every Thursday on Twitter at 12 p.m. E.S.T. (U.S.)
Today’s guest is Jennifer Duann Fultz from Bloomington, Indiana. Jennifer is a freelance writer and business educator specializing in creating online courses for business owners who want to leverage their expertise through scalable information products. She is also the founder of Chief Executive Auntie, a blog and podcast where she helps Asian American and other BIPOC freelancers and creatives earn more money.
Jennifer thinks of money as a tool. It’s a proxy for time and expertise. Money is a way to achieve your goals and live out your values. Jennifer took a MoneyType assessment and discovered she is a “producer,” which means she likes to earn and save money. But her second type was “nurturer,” which shows that she likes to use money to help others. That helps as she thinks about things like charging nonprofits less and giving money to charity.
Jennifer takes several things into account as she considers whether to take on a project and how to price that project. First, she considers the time it will take and the “opportunity cost” — what she won’t be able to do, both in her business and personal life, if she takes on this project. She also considers the value she is providing to the client.
Jennifer generally recommends against hourly pricing because it punishes you for being good at what you do. If you work faster, you earn less money. And it doesn’t take into account the value you bring, nor all the time it took you to gain your expertise. It also turns you into just a commodity.
Jennifer has been aggressively tracking her time to determine how long certain types of projects take her, which helps her set better project rates and not undercharge. In determining a rate, she also considers the time it takes to create that initial proposal as well.
Jennifer jokingly recommends a “tortoise fee,” which is the opposite of a rush fee. It’s for those times when a client is slow to get you the content you need or respond to emails. If you haven’t been actively working on a project, it takes time and mental energy to get back up to speed. You should charge for that, if you can spot it ahead of time.
Jennifer always sleeps on a quote, instead of rushing to get the proposal out the door. She looks at it again with a fresh perspective the next day. She never lowers the price after sleeping on it, and it also gives her time to reconsider if she’ll resent anything about the project, including a price that is too low.
Jennifer talks through charging clients “day rates” and for “VIP days.” She also talks about monthly retainers, which can be great for stabilizing your income and workload. However, they can also reduce your flexibility for other projects.
A retainer can be based on a fixed amount of time or a fixed scope of work. Retainers are meant to be paid up front — they are paying you to keep that time available for them. Include in your retainer contract how much notice they have to give you before they cancel the contract.
Service packages are a set scope of work or deliverables. Jennifer has a “website in a day” package. To create a service package, first choose a specialty, then the final deliverable. Work backward to set up the scope of work that it would take to get to that deliverable.
Jennifer also has a project minimum — she won’t take on projects unless they earn her that set amount at minimum.
Biz Bite: You cannot fix what you don’t track.
Resources:
www.chiefexecutiveauntie.com
Jennifer on Instagram
Jennifer on Twitter
Download Jennifer’s Freelance Rate Calculator
MoneyType quiz
Episode #66 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Price Your Projects
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
This is a rerelease of episode #73, from September 2020, about the devastating effects the federal PRO Act would have on independent contractors in the U.S.
I am rereleasing this now because the House has announced its plans to vote on this act next week, the week of March 8. We need your help! We must all tell our House representative and our two senators the impact of the PRO Act on our careers. We must explain that we are not “gig workers,” that we are career professionals just like lawyers and accountants. Please tell your story about how you benefit by being an independent contractor.
The PRO Act will likely pass the Democratic House. But, in the 50-50 split Senate, there is hope, but we must get the word out and talk to our legislators and senators now.
This is a call to action!
Here is the edited version of the original show notes from September, with resources below:
Today’s guest are Kim Kavin and Karon Warren, two longtime freelance writers who have built successful freelance businesses. Both are active in the fight against the national PRO Act. Kim was active fighting against a similar state bill in New Jersey, and Karon heads up the national efforts to defeat the PRO Act through the grassroots organization Fight for Freelancers.
The PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize) was introduced in Congress in late 2019. The initial intent of the bill was to protect workers who are misclassified and give them the ability to join a union. However, the bill was amended to add a classification test taken directly from California’s disastrous anti-freelance bill (now law) known as AB5.
That test is called the ABC Test and was written in the 1930s for factory workers. The way the ABC Test is currently written prohibits most independent contractors from working with clients. It doesn’t matter if you call yourself a freelancer, consultant, an agency, whatever — if you are a W9 independent contractor, this affects you.
The rest of the PRO Act does not harm freelancers, so freelancers need to focus their efforts on getting the ABC Test part of the bill changed. The push for this bill is union funded, and Democrats—including President Joe Biden—support the bill.
In California, legislators “weaponized” the ABC Test by deleting some of the original language. The ABC Test has three prongs (A, B, C) that independent contractors must pass in order to do business. It’s the B part that is the problem. B originally had two parts: Part 1 says you can’t be in the same line of business as the company that is paying you to do the work. But Part 2 negates Part 1 if you do all of your work off company premises.
Most freelancers can pass Part 2. However, California deleted Part 2, leaving only the part that says you can’t be in the same line of business as the company paying you. That went into law in January 2020 in the state and destroyed careers of all types of independent contractors, who could no longer work for companies in their industry. This included respiratory therapists and other medical professionals who contract with various hospitals — they lost work when they were needed the most during the pandemic.
Other careers and industries affected include journalists, content writers, editors, real estate appraisers, comedians, theater workers, symphonies and orchestras, truck drivers, translators and more. In fact, California has found more than 300 industries hurt by AB5.
California freelancer writers managed to get an exemption in the law that capped their submissions to 35 a year for each client. The exemption partially helped some writers, but it also had a lot of problems — for example, content writers, blog writers and newspaper columnists could quickly and easily hit 35 submissions, ending their work for that year for that client.
Forbes, Hearst and New York Times were among those who have stopped hiring California freelancers.
In December 2019, the AB5 copycat bills started popping up in Democrat strongholds (blue states), including New York and New Jersey, where Kim lives. The bill was introduced in New Jersey with about six weeks to go in a lame duck session. New Jersey freelance writers organized quickly to educate lawmakers about the damage to freelance careers.
In New Jersey, lawmakers seemed to pay attention when the writers explained that they were “career professionals,” who earn anywhere from $50 to $300 an hour from clients. They compared themselves to specialized accountants and attorneys. They told individual stories that showed that they were professionals, not victims.
The movement created the Twitter hashtag #IRSNotABC, which represents that the IRS standard is a better standard than the ABC Test. We should advocate for the PRO Act and state copycat bills to change their language to follow the IRS standard, not the ABC Test.
The IRS standard already exists. It was written in the 1980s and has been updated since. The standard has about 60 questions to evaluate the relationship between a person and a company.
The IRS website says, “The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work, not what will be done and how it will be done.”
Unlike the B part of ABC, the IRS standard allows independent contractors to work in the same industry as their clients. Most legitimate independent contractors can pass the IRS standard.
Laws already exist to protect exploited freelancers, and individuals can file a report with the IRS if they believe they have been exploited, like if they were hired as a “freelancer” but the company required them to work a full-time schedule and on the premises. That is not freelancing. The U.S. Department of Labor in both the Obama and Trump administrations prosecuted cases against companies who have misclassified employees.
Some freelancers have said that the PRO Act or a state version doesn’t affect them for various reasons. Let’s go through some of these myths to debunk them and let independent contractors know they are in jeopardy:
Myth 1: “I’m protected if I’m an LLC or S Corp.” Not true. While the test says “established business,” you must pass the B prong of the ABC Test to be able to work as an independent contractor. New Jersey advocates asked lawmakers to amend the bill to state that being an LLC or S Corp would exempt independent contractors from the law, but they would not add the language.
Myth 2: “This is a partisan issue and those fighting against it are all Trump supporters or Republicans.” Not true. Karon explains that advocates are not taking political sides; they are talking about fixing this piece of legislation. It’s just a fact that Democrats, including Joe Biden, support the PRO Act and the ABC Test. Therefore, it’s critical to educate Democrat lawmakers about why the ABC Test is harmful to freelancers.
Melanie’s opinion: If you are a Democrat like me and have Democrat representatives and senators, I think it’s even more critical we speak up because it’s the Democrats’ minds we have to change AND we are their constituents and members of their party. Both Democrats and Republicans can educate their Democratic lawmakers and also ensure their Republican lawmakers know about the PRO Act and will work to change it or vote against it.
Myth 3: “Those vocal against the PRO Act are paid by anti-union operatives.” Not true. These are all independent contractors who have created grassroots organizations out of necessity to save their freelance careers. This myth makes it even more important that individual freelancers explain their business and their success to legislators so they can understand who we are.
What You Can Do:
- Educate yourself about the PRO Act and how to fight against it. See resources list below.
- Contact your U.S. House representative and your two state senators THIS WEEK. Ask to speak to them directly or email them. You can gather a small group of freelancers in your state and request a Zoom meeting.
- Tell your lawmakers your individual freelance success stories and the benefits you get from freelancing. Explain how much you are contributing to the economy.
- Then, ask them to change the PRO Act so that it uses the IRS standard, not the ABC Test.
- You can share data that shows most independent contractors want to remain as such. However, keep in mind that your individual stories affect lawmakers more than a bunch of statistics do.
- Share the message widely with other freelancers. Write op-eds for your local newspapers. Share on social media and retweet #IRSNotABC tweets and posts.
In September, the Freelancers Union (which is a nonprofit, not a union) held a webinar with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York who supports unions and the PRO Act. However, Schumer acknowledged in the webinar that he recognizes the problems AB5 caused in California and said he is willing to work with freelancers on the PRO Act. This was a huge acknowledgement. Let’s hold him to that promise. (See press release in resources below.)
Resources:
Share this new video from Fight for Freelancers USA explaining the problems with the PRO Act: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeSiRVOHeMc&feature=youtu.be
www.fightforfreelancersusa.com
Fight for Freelancers USA Facebook page — this is where you will find the most updated information and how to organize
Fight for Freelances USA on Twitter
#IRSNotABC on Twitter
Fight for Freelancers press release “US Senate Minority Leader Acknowledges Major Problem in PRO Act”
Freelance Forward 2020 — Upwork’s latest research on freelancing (statistics to use)
NPR article “Jobs in the Pandemic: More Are Freelance and May Stay That Way Forever”
Contently article “Does the ABC Test Already Exist in Your State, and Could It Harm Your Career?”
Wrapbook blog post “Employee or Contractor? The Complete List of Worker Classification Tests By State”
IRS.gov’s information on independent contractors
Fight for Freelancers New Jersey
The chaos in California
Today’s guest is Emily Derouin, a licensed psychologist in Denver, Colorado. She works as a clinician and supervisor at a community mental health center, where she is a generalist, helping people with a wide variety of issues. She also works one day a week in private practice, where she specializes in eating disorders.
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the pandemic lockdown, Emily helps us figure out how to deal with our emotions around that. Milestones and anniversaries are difficult, partly because they remind us that time is passing. In the case of the pandemic, we’re reminded that not only is time passing, but it’s passing and we still can’t do a lot of the things that we want to do.
Grief has been a common emotion this past year. A lot of people think of grief in terms of a death, and maybe a breakup, but grief applies to any kind of loss—loss of routine, predictability.
A lot of us feel we should be used to this, the lockdown routine, by now. Emily jumped on Melanie’s use of the word “should,” saying “should” is not who we are. “Should” is an idealized version of ourselves or the situation. Stop telling yourself how you “should” feel or what you “should” do.
Emily gives validity to whatever we’re feeling: “There is no right way to feel. Whatever you are feeling right now is valid. You aren’t able to control what pops into your head or the emotions that you feel, and that’s OK.”
The pandemic over the past year has been a rollercoaster as COVID-19 numbers have gone up and down throughout the seasons. And, humans are not built for the long-term stress we’ve been forced to deal with, and our pandemic stress compounds—one thing on top of the other, on top of the other.
Some of the trends Emily has seen: a lot of anxiety early in the pandemic, along with novelty around it as we tried to figure out so many new things, which were a bit distracting from our anxiety. Many of us thought lockdown would only be a few weeks or a few months. Plus, summer was starting, allowing many people to be outside a lot.
Now, a year later, there’s more of a fatigue and depression than anxiety. People feel stuck: “We’re still doing this.” And it’s winter, so we feel more trapped and isolated. (In case you’re wondering, a study in Minneapolis showed that people can stay inside about a month before it starts to affect their mental health.)
Now, people are feeling new emotions related to the vaccine rollout, including anger at the messed-up, inequitable rollout and envy of those who’ve been vaccinated. Some people who got the vaccine may also feel guilt. Emily got vaccinated because she is a health care worker exposed to people with COVID-19, but she had some “weird feelings” about getting the vaccine before others because she’s young and healthy.
By 2022, as the U.S. hopefully beings to open up again, with crowds at sporting events, concerts and busy restaurants, people may feel new emotions, like disappointment or anxiety over being around too many people. We may also go through a grieving process, as some things will never go back to “normal.” We may also grieve the version of ourselves that we lost.
Emily uses acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)—learning how to make space for the things we are feeling, without getting rid of them, while also focusing on the things that make our life meaningful.
You don’t have to engage with your negative feelings. The more you engage with a negative feeling, the worse it feels. Instead, acknowledge your feeling without feeding into it. That’s easier said than done. But, it can be helpful to learn this process of acknowledging your feelings, without trying to get rid of the feelings.
It’s important to know what works for you when you’re feeling certain feelings. For example, when some people are anxious, they find it helpful to exercise, clean their house or play a video game. Know what works for you.
Emily suggests “grounding,” which is anything that helps you connect to the present moment. You can use the five senses to ground yourself: What are five things you can see? What are four things you can touch right now?
Anxiety doesn’t often live in the present. You’re often anxious about a past or future event or situation.
Doing a body scan can help you figure out how you are feeling. Start at your head and scan down. Perhaps you notice tightness in your shoulders or your jaw, which could single stress for you. Perhaps an upset stomach signals anxiety.
In loved ones, including children, be on the lookout for behavior change as a clue to emotions.
New resources, such as online therapy and low-cost therapy, are making it easier to connect with a therapist. Melanie saw a therapist virtually briefly in summer 2020 and found it helpful to learn tools to help her new anxiety but also to talk through her concerns with a nonjudgmental, objective person.
Self-care continues to be important. However, self-care doesn’t have to be a huge thing, which can feel overwhelming or like one more item on your to-do list that you don’t have time for. Self-care can mean getting outside, doing some exercise, eating healthy, getting more sleep.
It’s critical that you are taking care of yourself, that you are “filling your cup.”
Melanie encourages people—especially parents, especially moms—to let some things go on the to-do list. Or, as Emily put it “changing where the bar is.” Maybe you don’t fold the laundry, or clean as often as you want, or you don’t care if the kids don’t make their beds or they heat up a frozen pizza for dinner two nights in a row.
What will this long-term stress do to us? Too much stress can hurt our memory and concentration. Chronic stress—and high levels of cortisol—impacts the brain. Intense stress can kill brain cells. Genetics plays a role, but some people might be suffering from this long-term stress right now.
Resources:
Lower Cost resources for Therapy:
Open Path Collective
Your local Community Mental Health Center, which offers sliding fee scales if someone does not have insurance. It can be as low as $5 a session. Many of them are also taking private insurance now too and have lots of other services such as groups, psychiatrists, case managers and other great resources. Google the county you live in and “mental health.”
Online apps like TalkSpace and Better Help
National Crisis hotline
800-273-8255
While they often have “suicide” in the name, you don’t have to be suicidal to call. The national number will route you to your local call center.
Deliberate Freelancer #48: How to Cope with Coronavirus Anxiety, with Therapist Mira Dineen
Deliberate Freelancer #70: Techniques to Deal with Anxiety from My New Therapist
“Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” by Robert Salposky
The Happiness Trap website—free resources online that Emily likes
Washington Post article “‘Oh, we’re still in this.’ The pandemic wall is here.”
AARP article “COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Comes With a Dose of Guilt and Envy”
Today’s guest is Mario Boone, a science writer for a science organization in the Washington, D.C., area. In fall 2020, Mario gave a presentation as part of the Association Media & Publishing virtual annual conference. The session was about how to attract and embrace diverse employees. During Mario’s portion, he talked about what it was like to be the “only one”—in his case, the only Black man, often the only Black person, working at TV news stations in the U.S., which is how he started out his journalism career.
I thought it would be informative and important for Deliberate Freelancer listeners to hear what Mario had to say, and he graciously agreed to talk with me about his experience working in TV news—the racism, the microaggressions, the fact that, as a Black man, he was not allowed to make any mistakes. These are important conversations for all of us.
Before becoming a science writer, Mario worked in at least five TV newsrooms, working his way up from small to medium to large markets. He was often the only Black man at the news station, sometimes in the entire TV market, until he landed a job in the bigger market of Orlando, Florida, where there were other Black reporters.
He talks about the intense pressure of being a Black man at those stations, how much hasher he was judged compared to his white counterparts. “It is a like a pressure cooker, and it’s tough, and you have to have very thick skin to survive.”
Mario went to college at an HBCU—a historically Black college and university—which he says was like a “utopia” that doesn’t exist in the real world. There, nearly everyone was Black and was supporting him and wanting him to succeed.
Mario developed an ulcer because of the physical toll of the stress he faced in newsrooms. He also wasn’t making much money, so on top of the racism and pressure, he had to worry about paying bills.
By the time he got to the Orlando station, he was not the only Black journalist in the market, so he received support from other reporters. But the competition was extremely high and intense, with no room for error.
Mario shared one microaggression he faced as a Black man at every news station he worked at: A regular problem was photographers (cameramen) refusing to do the extra work and use the equipment to light Mario properly for TV cameras. He would complain and have to get management involved to get the photographers to light him properly. This led people to call him a “diva” and label him as a complainer.
As a general assignment reporter, Mario said he was given what he called the “Black beat,” the stories that happened in predominantly Black neighborhoods or were about Black History Month or Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “I’m not in a box; I’m not only capable of telling the stories that have to do with Black issues, and you shouldn’t want that. Everybody in a newsroom should be able to tell a story regardless of who the subject is.”
He believes that was a disservice to the entire newsroom because it did not allow diverse voices to cover a variety of issues and bring new angles and approaches to a story.
That also meant that Mario wasn’t given the city-wide stories about, for example, the mayor’s budget or other happenings in city hall. This limited him, not allowing him to be fully a part of the team.
Mario left TV after he felt like he accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish. He was ready to try something different. He is now working as a science writer for a science organization, and it’s the happiest he’s been professionally.
He wants to tell his story to help young Black reporters know about the realities of TV and what to expect. “I always feel if I can share my little bit of what I’ve experienced professionally, personally, and that helps a Black journalist, especially one who is just starting out, then I have an obligation to do that.”
Mario talks about how Black people are often put in a position of educating white America on what is acceptable in terms of race. “That is exhausting,” he says. Living every day in America as a Black man is exhausting enough, he says. Adding the so-called responsibility of educating white people about what they can say and do is too much.
It’s also lazy for white people to be let off the hook and not do the research themselves. Also, if they expand their pool of friends, they can learn by observing and listening to all different types of people.
This expectation from white people increased after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and the outpouring of Black Lives Matter protests. Mario wanted to ask “where have you been?” Racism has been going on for a long time, but some white people seemed to just discover it and had a lot of questions.
Mario is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), which believes strongly in helping mentor young Black journalists. It also advocates on behalf of Black journalists. For about seven years, Mario has been a volunteer instructor for the NABJ four-day multimedia journalism short course at North Carolina A&T State University campus in Greensboro, which immerses about 25 Black college journalists in a TV newsroom setting. It also provides students the opportunity to have frank conversations with professional Black journalists and get a “helping hand” about the politics of a newsroom, what they should wear, how to wear their hair, how to handle racism, and more. It’s one of Mario’s most rewarding experiences.
Resources:
HBCU = Historically Black College and University
National Association of Black Journalists
NABJ four-day short course at North Carolina A&T State University
Mario on Twitter
There is no new episode of Deliberate Freelancer this week. However, I have several upcoming guest episodes that I’m excited about, so please listen to this week’s short message for a few teasers and announcements. I also encourage you to listen to last week’s episode—#88, Positioning Yourself as an Agency and Partnering with Other Freelancers, with Reggie Holmes—which has received a lot of great buzz. Please feel free to send me your freelance business topics and questions you’d like covered on the show and/or your guest recommendations (diversity is a plus). Email me at melanie@meledits.com or DM on Twitter @MelEdits.
Today’s guest is Reggie Holmes, the owner and creative director of Enthuse Creative LLC, a branding and design firm based in Tysons, Virginia. Enthuse Creative is a strategic creative partner for businesses and organizations and specializes in brand-focused strategy consulting, brand design and brand management.
Reggie is also a graphic designer, but he’s a strategist first, with his clients and the projects he takes on.
Today, Reggie talks about how, even though he’s essentially a one-person business or a freelancer, he positions himself — and thinks like — an agency. He talks about how and why he embraced that mindset and what it allows him to do with his business.
Being a one-person agency means Reggie often works through partnering with other freelancers or one-person agencies. He sees these people as collaborators, not competitors. And this allows him to bid on larger projects, presenting as a team.
It’s also a mental thing — Reggie aspires to be a bigger agency one day and has found embracing that mindset now helps him move toward his goal.
In the past, at networking events, Reggie would introduce himself as a graphic designer. But a business coach taught him that that’s limiting, that he can do so much more for his clients. “Graphic designer” was “comfortable and convenient” but did not communicate the full scope of value he could bring to clients.
He knew he had to position himself mentally first, believing he was an agency, before he could go out and promote himself as an agency and a strategic creative partner.
It took Reggie awhile to realize there was enough opportunity for everybody — that freelancers should not look at each other as competitors. He began to think about partnerships and collaborations to provide services beyond the skills he personally could do. He now looks for ways to work with friends and colleagues in his freelance network.
Partnerships also are helpful during downturns in the economy, providing more opportunities for work and larger projects. In turn, he’s also creating opportunities for other people, which is important to him.
Reggie says he’s in the “people business, not the pixel business.” He has more opportunities because he builds relationships and has developed a network.
Don’t worry that you’re only one person but are using the corporate “we” as an agency. Speak for your business, with a business name, and what value you can bring.
Reggie also thinks about his company culture, even though it’s just one person (and an intern) right now. He is setting the foundation for his agency with employees down the road. Thinking about your company culture as a company of one helps you know who you want to work with, the type of work environment you want, the boundaries you need to set.
Reggie gets a lot of his work through referrals and LinkedIn outreach. He is strategic about his networking (virtual networking now) and the events he takes part in. You can’t be everywhere. He used to be “wide but not deep.” Now, he takes part in fewer events but does so consistently, thinking of networking more strategically. He is connected with a networking group that meets twice a month and also his local chamber of commerce, where he chairs the marketing committee.
Reggie says it’s also important to maintain connections, especially during the pandemic, with previous clients. He emails them to see if their needs are changing and if he can help with anything new.
Reggie has also been intentional about focusing on strategy, not just design, not only because it’s more lucrative but so he can be involved in the project earlier. (The graphic designer is often brought it after strategy has been decided.)
Position your business and price your projects based on the value you provide, not an hourly rate and not based on a rate sheet that someone else created.
Biz Bite: A project has to meet three criteria: I need to willing, able and available.
Resources:
Enthuse Creative LLC
Enthuse Creative on Instagram
Enthuse Creative on Twitter
Enthuse Creative on LinkedIn
Enthuse Creative on Facebook
On today’s show, I quickly go over my top 10 favorite books of 2020—and the one I absolutely hated—before listing out my most anticipated books of 2021. The 2021 list will include several nonfiction books that could help you as you think about your freelance business.
For more in-depth descriptions and information on my top 10 list for 2020, read my blog post “The Best—and Worst—Books I Read in 2020.”
My Top 10 Books (listed in the order I read them) of 2020:
- “Daisy Jones and The Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- “Long Bright River” by Liz Moore
- “Evvie Drake Starts Over” by Linda Holmes
- “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett
- “The Family Upstairs” by Lisa Jewell
- “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson
- “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart
- “Eight Perfect Murders” by Peter Swanson
- “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- “Know My Name” by Chanel Miller
Honorable mention:
“The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires” by Grady Hendrix
My most hated book in 2020:
“Leave the World Behind” by Rumaan Alam
My Most Anticipated Books of 2021
12 Fiction:
“Hour of the Witch” by Chris Bohjalian — available April 20 in the U.S.
“The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah — available February 2
“The Survivors” by Jane Harper — available February 2
“Malibu Rising” by Taylor Jenkins Reid — available June 1
“The Whispering House” by Elizabeth Brooks — available March 16
“The House on Vesper Sands” by Paraic O’Donnell — published January 12
“Before She Disappeared” by Lisa Gardner — published January 19
“What Comes After” by JoAnne Tompkins — available April 13
“My Year Abroad” by Chang-rae Lee — available February 2
“The Wife Upstairs” by Rachel Hawkins — published January 5
“Ring Shout” by P. Djèlí Clark — published October 13, 2020
“The Women in Black” by Madeleine St. John — paperback published February 11, 2020
9 Nonfiction:
“A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload” by Cal Newport — available March 2
“Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind” by Dr. Judson Brewer — available March 9
“Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It” by Ethan Kross — published January 26
“Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting” by Lisa Genova — available March 23
“Unbound: A Woman's Guide to Power” by Kasia Urbaniak — available March 9
“Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019” edited by Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain — available February 2
“The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power” by Deirdre Mask — paperback published January 26, 2021
“The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart” by Alicia Garza — published October 20, 2020
“Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America” by Maria Hinojosa — hardback published September 15, 2020; paperback available August 31, 2021
Biz Bite: No Talk Mondays
Resources:
MelEdits blog post “The Best—and Worst—Books I Read in 2020.”
Episode #51 of Deliberate Freelancer: Reading and Book Recommendations during Coronavirus
Episode #69 of Deliberate Freelancer: 9 Nonfiction Books that Improved My Freelance Business
Read in January 2021: “The Promised Land” by Barack Obama
Today, I want to hopefully motivate you, inspire you and encourage you to consider the aspects of your business that need improvement or to make a plan to work on things that you personally struggle with. This episode goes through seven areas that I would love for you to improve upon, if you haven’t already. They are:
- Embrace a business owner mindset
This idea is what this podcast is based on. Think of yourself as a freelance business owner and all that that entails. Words matter, and the words you tell yourself and others can help to change your mindset.
- Raise your rates
The pandemic has been a hard year economically too, so raising rates for all clients might not be doable. But there are some clients who fared well, and it may be time to raise your rates. It’s certainly time to raise your rates for potential clients — they don’t know what your past rates were!
Also, if you have a secret hourly rate — which helps you determine project rates and/or is the amount you aim to earn every hour you are working for clients — I encourage you to raise it by at least $25 an hour.
And don't ask your client about raising your rates. Remember, you are a business owner and costs go up. So, you can send an email and say “I wanted to let you know that my rates are going up as of such and such a date. My new rate will be this.”
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
It’s important to have anchor clients, but when you commit too much time to an anchor client or become too comfortable with that gig and that income, it can hurt you if you lose that client. Ideally, I would consider not having one client that is more than 35% of your income.
When I talk about don’t put all your eggs in one basket, I also mean your services. This can mean your services and/or your industry. Do you need to expand your niche to have niches that are similar? Can you use your skills to add more services for clients?
- Don’t compare yourself to others
Sometimes you do this without even thinking about it. You look at others in your field, even friends of yours who are freelancers, and see their amazing careers or their clients or the big achievements they’ve reached. I can fall prey to this just like anyone else.
We have to stop comparing ourselves to others. You are a unique individual, and your business is unique. You have different strengths and weaknesses and values and responsibilities and desires.
First, social media. What social media platforms are you on often and how do they make you feel? Are you happy when you scroll through Instagram and see what people are doing and read motivational quotes? Or does it make you feel lazy or like a failure or that you need to do more? Maybe it is time to get off Instagram! This goes for all social media platforms. Take a critical look at how your viewing and interaction with these platforms make you feel.
Another suggestion: Start a gratitude practice. Perhaps you want to start a gratitude journal to write down one to three simple things that you are thankful for that day. I embrace the word “savor” and try to remember to savor all the little things throughout the day.
Another way to express gratitude in your life is to acknowledge and thank other people. You can still do that as a freelancer. You can let your direct client know if a staff member is really helpful on something. Complimenting and acknowledging people is like volunteering; it makes you feel good to make other people feel good.
One more way to stop comparing yourself to others is to be alert for the word “should.” Anytime you say you “should” be doing something, catch yourself or have your partner or a friend call you out on it.
“Should” often comes with shame and guilt. It makes you feel bad and does little to improve any situation. So stop shoulding yourself.
- Set boundaries
Boundaries tell you and those around you what is acceptable, appropriate human behavior. They vary from person to person. Knowing what your boundaries are and setting them is critical to building healthy, respectful relationships in your life. So, please check out episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer for tips on setting boundaries.
- Get ahold of your finances
For many of us, 2020 blew up our financial goals and plans. Now that the dust has settled a bit, if you haven’t already, I highly encourage you in this first quarter of 2021 to get ahold of your finances. This could be a variety of things — it will be different for everyone,
If you need help with your finances, I highly recommend episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer, with my guest Pam Capalad. Pam is a certified financial planner and a whiz when it comes to this stuff.
- Take a vacation or staycation
Plan time off now! Some freelancers tend to be bad in general about taking time off. My argument is always: If I’m going to take only 2-3 weeks of vacation a year or less, when I’m my own boss, than why am I my own boss? I shouldn’t treat myself worse than an employer would. Freelancing means freedom. If you don’t schedule vacations, staycations and days off, they often won’t happen.
Even if you can’t really go anywhere because of the pandemic, you can play a staycation or other days off.
I want all of you to get into a regular habit of planning and taking vacations — and DO NOT check email or do or check in on client work. That’s not a vacation.
It can be done. Remember, you’re your own boss. You tell your clients you’re going to be away. Depending on how regular the work is you may have to work ahead to get stuff done or hire a subcontractor to fill in. Or, take advantage of slow work times.
You can also create working vacations, like I do in Indiana for two weeks most summers. The freedom to work anywhere gives you the flexibility to go places and keep in touch without having to completely log off work.
Biz Bite: After/then habits
The Bookshelf: “Behold the Dreamers” by Imbolo Mbue
Resources
Episode #1 of Deliberate Freelancer: Change Your Mindset: You Own a Freelance Business
Episode #39 of Deliberate Freelancer: Raise Your Rates—Without Emotion
Episode #23 of Deliberate Freelancer: Five Questions to Evaluate and Diversify Your Services
Episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer: You Need to Set Boundaries
Episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pamela Capalad
https://tinyhabits.com/design/
New Year’s resolutions fail for a lot of reasons, but January can still be a good time to take a new look at your business and personal life. Instead of resolutions, I like to choose a word (or two, or three) of the year. It sets my theme for the year and reminds me to focus on something in particular all year long.
I was inspired to do this a few years ago by marketer Chris Brogan, who actually chooses three words every year. I started out with three words, but in 2019 I chose just one word: Leap. I wanted a visible reminder throughout the year to try new things outside my comfort zone. It reminded me that before I say no to something in my business, think big and truly consider leaping forward instead. It isn’t a coincidence that I started this podcast in 2019, finally taking the steps to make the leap after thinking about it for more than a year.
In 2020, I started with one word: Explore. I wanted to explore new directions and new projects in my business, as well as new places with my husband. Sadly, the pandemic halted any travel plans we had. But before the pandemic, as I considered my word “explore” I reread James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” to start off my year right. In the book, he talks about the idea of “motion versus action.” Basically, sometimes we feel like we’re doing new things, working on projects, being productive, but everything we’re doing is just “motion.” Motion is the research, the planning, the preparation, but it’s not the action of actually doing something.
That really hit me, and I realized that I loved motion and was really good at it, but I needed something to push me to act. So, I added the word “act” to my word “explore” and made a sign that hung on my wall throughout 2020: Explore + Act.
While 2020 didn’t turn out like anyone had planned, I was able to do some exploring and acting in my business anyway, as I had to figure out how to pivot when the pandemic hit and I lost business.
For 2021, I chose the word: Simplicity.
Simplicity feels like meditation or curling up with a good book. It feels like relaxation and leaning into the slow life and the calm. And I really need that during the pandemic and the political upheaval in my country.
Simplicity in my business means focusing on the work and projects I love to do and going after that type of work. But, for me, 2021 does not feel like the “go big or go home” year. I want to take it easy, do the work I need to and keep it simple.
How will you choose your word of the year? Here’s what I recommend: Think briefly about what you want your year to look like. Set a timer for five minutes and write a bunch of words on a piece of paper. Narrow down your list and maybe look up the words in the dictionary and thesaurus.
Say each word out loud. How does each word make you feel? What does it make you think about? Then, choose your word of the year!
Biz Bite: Calendar blocking and batching
The Bookshelf: “The Stranger Diaries” by Elly Griffiths
Resources
Psychology Today article “Why New Year's Resolutions Fail”
My January 2020 blog post “Choose a Word of the Year”
Twitter thread about people’s words of the year
Chris Brogan’s three words for 2021, his words in past years, and tips for choosing your words
Hilary Sutton’s podcast Hustle & Grace
Episode #68 of Deliberate Freelancer: Yes, You Need to Build a Personal Brand, with Hilary Sutton
Happy New Year! On today’s show I talk about where my head is at for 2021, which is essentially that I am not setting huge goals for myself this year. I’m trying to continue to give myself grace—not be so hard on myself—and to focus on my personal wellness, while maintaining a steady income.
I did an audit of my business in 2020, crunching the numbers and analyzing the data, and I share that data and the lessons I learned—and how that info may be able to help you—in today’s episode.
When the pandemic hit in March, I lost my primary anchor client (which is still “on hold”) and a few smaller assignments that were in the works. I had to immediately figure out how I was going to pay my bills and find new clients to recoup about 50% of my income. I quickly sent a mass email to my larger network—current clients, past clients, other freelancers and other colleagues—and let them know I was available for work and how I could help them.
I received a great response, which was so heartwarming. Some of that even led to new clients. From that one email, I earned $40,000 from new clients last year, and another $10,000 from current editors with new assignments.
You don’t have to be hit with a pandemic to send out an email like that. I’ve sent them out individually on a much smaller basis, telling clients and colleagues that I have availability coming up and listing the ways I can help.
With other work in 2020, I was able to make six figures again, but it was way less than I earned in 2019, even though I also received a $20,000 PPP loan.
This financial stress, along with the anxiety surrounding COVID-19, caused me to experience anxiety like I never had before. Initially, in March, I interviewed therapist Mira Dineen on the podcast to talk about dealing with that anxiety, which was a great episode (all links below). Soon after, I brought on my acupuncturist and friend Rachel Brumberger to talk about embracing self-care without the guilt, whether we’re in a pandemic or not.
But later that summer, with my newly discovered and self-diagnosed anxiety, I sought out therapy for the first time. My new therapist gave me some great tools to use when I was feeling anxious and also before I was feeling anxious. You can hear about those tools in episode #70.
Because of the outreach I did in March, by August I was back to my pre-pandemic income levels, without the big anchor client I had lost. But it wasn’t always steady work. September and November were lighter months, and I was constantly working to get new writing assignments, which I don’t do in a typical year. But one-off writing assignments and a few new anchor clients helped me pay the bills and get to six figures in 2020.
In this episode, I also break down the percentages of the type of work I do, the type of clients I work for and where that work came from (networking, referrals, social media, past job connections or LOIs).
A huge chunk of my work comes from past job connections and ongoing referrals, which was not a surprise to me. And most of my work comes from membership associations. The majority of my work is managing editing, followed by writing, then copy editing and proofreading. With the loss of my anchor client, for which I was a managing editor, I thought that percentage would decrease a lot. But in 2020, the income from managing editing was still 57% of my income, partly because I had that main anchor client from January to mid-March and because I gained a new anchor client by August.
Managing editing is my favorite type of work, and I’m trying to figure out how to increase it in 2021. I can’t manage a ton of magazines because it takes a lot of time, but if I’m able to gain more of these types of clients, I may be able to outsource pieces like some of the writing.
The second type of work I do is writing. Writing pays well, but I don’t want to write every day, all day. But new writing assignments helped me survive 2020 because it’s easier to get one-off assignments when I need them, as opposed to ongoing anchor clients. Plus, I write about health care, which came in handy last year.
Although I did time tracking in the fall and winter of 2020, I did it on paper primarily to keep me on task. But I had little interest in doing the math from all those scraps of paper, so I still don’t have as much data as I would like to show me how I am spending my time. Therefore, I started using the time tracking app Toggl in December and hope to use it all year so I can have better information on where my time is going.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to crunch the numbers for 2020 and analyze what you liked doing, where the money came from and the type of clients you enjoy working for. Hopefully, those three areas will connect—or you can make a plan to figure out in 2021 how to work for the clients you love, doing the work you love, for the highest financial reward.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
What five things did you love doing in 2020? Write them down.
What five things in your business did you dislike or were frustrated or bored by?
Are there things you want to accomplish or achieve, but you’ve just felt stuck? How can you get unstuck from projects? Is 2021 the time or should that wait till after the pandemic? Can you take baby steps in 2021 to set you up for an amazing 2022?
Were there red flags with clients? Does that mean you need to deal with those issues or just fire that client? Does that bring up things you personally struggle with that you need to deal with?
Let me know what you learned from your own business audit and how that affects your plans for this year! Message me on Twitter @MelEdits or email me at melanie@meledits.com. I really love hearing from you.
Biz Bite: Use Toggl
The Bookshelf: “Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family” by Robert Kolker
Resources:
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #40 of Deliberate Freelancer: Reflect, Analyze and Plan Now for the New Year
Episode #53 of Deliberate Freelancer: Pivoting and Finding Resilience
Episode #48 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Cope with Coronavirus Anxiety, with Therapist Mira Dineen
Episode #52 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embracing Self-Care without Guilt, with Acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger
Episode #70 of Deliberate Freelancer: Techniques to Deal with Anxiety from My New Therapist
Episode #79 of Deliberate Freelancer: Six-Figure Freelancing: Consistently Sending LOIs and Using Upwork, with Laura Pennington Briggs
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
Episode #26 of Deliberate Freelancer: Delegate, Automate and Terminate to Improve Your Business
Episode #13 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Better Goals for Your Business, with Andrena Sawyer
Episode #44 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Track and Reach Your Goals (creating S.M.A.R.T. goals)
The Writers’ Co-op podcast, December 7, 2020 episode: Our End-of-Year Biz Audit
Deliberate Freelancer will be on a holiday hiatus until Thursday, January 7. Please feel free to send me your freelance business topics and questions you’d like covered on the show and/or your guest recommendations: melanie@meledits.com or DM me on Twitter @MelEdits.
Today’s guest is Eva Jannotta. Eva lives in Phoenix, Arizona, and helps bold women leaders defy the status quo, amplify their influence and expand their wealth and power. She does this through providing thought leadership strategy and advisory services as well as communications support. Her Big Hairy Audacious Goal is to end gender and racial discrimination.
Many white people in the U.S. grew up believing racism was overt, discriminatory behavior. In reality, it’s a power structure that was created that we all participate in, without our consent.
In her business, Eva is committed to representing diverse voices in the content and sources she curates and shares with her clients, as well as representing diversity in the images they use. She knows some white people are uncomfortable with the idea of “counting” the number of images or people, as if we’re filling a “quota.” However, “intention does not equal impact.” You need to track and measure how you’re doing compared to your intention. That’s how you measure progress and whether you’re adhering to your values.
For example, you can set a goal such as making sure that 50% of the content you share or curate (for you or your client) is created by people of color. Then, in a spreadsheet, you can add a column to track the race of the author (or interview source, etc.).
Earlier this year, Melanie did an audit of her Deliberate Freelancer podcast guests, and found only 20% diversity (as identified by race and LGBTQ) over about a year. She recommitted to increase the diversity of her guests and began to research and ask on social media for recommendations of diverse voices. Melanie wants experts who are people of color; she isn’t asking people of color to talk only about diversity and inclusion. She is focusing on the expertise they have as it relates to a freelance business.
Melanie is also on the board of Association Media & Publishing, and for the last several years she and others have used their power to push for diversity in content and among speakers. White people need to speak up about diversity, so it’s not left to people of color to bring up the topics of representation or diversity and inclusion every time.
Melanie also talks about how freelancers can share their products with underrepresented groups for free or at a discount. So, for example, give out scholarships to your freelance business course or give away copies of your book or e-book.
Mistakes white people make as they talk and learn about racism include defensiveness (“I didn’t mean that …”) and gaslighting (“I don’t think that’s what the person was really saying …”).
“Perfectionism is the ally’s enemy,” Eva says. We are going to have to make mistakes in order to learn and grow. Perfectionism can hold us back from taking action, from having conversations that may make us feel awkward, from asking questions.
Melanie talks about how she does not like what she perceives as “conflict,” and she’s very sensitive to having uncomfortable conversations. But when it comes to anti-racism work, she knows she has to have and push through uncomfortable conversations.
Our social circles tend to look a lot like us. In a freelance business, that might mean you hire subcontractors or a virtual assistant who are the same race and gender you are, instead of, as white people, looking for more diverse candidates. Eva recognized this problem when hiring for her business — asking for referrals from her network provided candidates with identities similar to Eva’s. Instead, she posted the position on social media and went through an application process. She developed internal criteria and interviewed people.
It does take some extra time to go outside your social circle or your professional network to look for diverse candidates or sources, but it’s important to avoid perpetuating a type of nepotism and only selecting people with identities that are similar to our own.
White freelancers also have a power in referrals. If we expand our network and our pool of various types of freelancers, when our clients or potential clients ask for recommendations for graphic designers, editors, photographers, marketers, writers, translators, etc., we are more able to share names of people from underrepresented groups.
Biz Bite: Create email templates
Resources:
Eva Jannotta on LinkedIn
Eva’s free course: The 5 Pillars of Magnetic Thought Leadership
James Pogue, of JP Enterprises: “The ‘Right’ Kind of Uncomfortable”
Organizer and Activist Leslie Mac
Follow Leslie Mac on Twitter
Episode #61 of Deliberate Freelancer: 6 Ways to Be an Ally with Your Freelance Business
How the concept of “race” began with enslaved Africans in the American colonies
103 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
These 7 courses will teach you how to be anti-racist
Today’s guest is Gresham Harkless, of Alexandria, Virginia. Gresham is the founder of CBNation and Blue 16 Media. CBNation is a business-to-business (B2B) brand. It helps people like you—CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners—with resources and increasing your visibility. It includes blogs under CEO Blog Nation, as well as podcasts and videos.
Blue 16 Media is Gresham’s digital marketing agency. He provides digital marketing services, including web design and SEO, to small- and medium-sized businesses and organizations. Central to his marketing philosophy is: You are a media company. And that means you should be developing a marketing strategy to connect with your target and reach your goals.
Gresham has spent the past eight years or so as an entrepreneur. One of the lessons he learned along the way—as he headed toward his six-figure goal—was that he could not do everything at the same time. Brimming with ideas, he realized he needed to focus on what could make the most impact on his business.
He also learned that it’s important to be able to quickly pivot and adjust to situations, like the pandemic, to be a successful business owner. It’s helpful as a business owner to be comfortable trying new things, changing up your business, taking risks. Being resilient and having an entrepreneurial mindset is important during times of change and challenges.
Gresham struggles with one of the things he loves the most: being able to focus, when he has a lot of ideas and things he wants to develop. He handles that by taking a new big idea and breaking it down into a smaller idea that is more doable with the time and energy he has.
Gresham talks about not having a support system around him as he began to think about starting an entrepreneurial business. Sometimes loved ones won’t support your decision, and that can affect your confidence and self-worth. Connecting with an entrepreneurial community helped him realize his ideas and goals were possible.
Gresham has become more of a morning person as he gets older. He starts with some kind of movement in the morning, before taking his dog for a walk. Then, he has breakfast and does some sort kind of journaling or other writing. Next, he spends about two hours on lead generation for his business. After that, he blocks off about 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. for client work and client meetings. He ends his work day at about 5 or 6 p.m.; pre-pandemic that meant heading to the gym after work.
In the past, he would often work through lunch and not eat and also keep working late into the evening. He realized this was causing low energy and headaches, so he created the habit of going to the gym at the end of each work day.
Lack of support played into Gresham’s self-worth, which led him to undercut his pricing. He recommends trying to find out what the average rates are in your industry, but he also encourages people to realize the value they bring to clients.
Based on past salesperson experience, Gresham learned to provide three tiered project options to clients. He calls them Dominant (the above-and-beyond option), Competitive and Representative (the base option). That allowed him to take his biases out of what a potential client might choose and not undercut himself. He would sometimes be surprised at which clients picked the more expensive option, showing him that he might have been basing previous options and pricing on incorrect assumptions about a client.
This process also allows clients to choose Competitive or Representative but to move up to the next option at a later point, which provides a way to bring in more income. In addition, Gresham points out that if every client chooses the Dominant option, you know you are pricing yourself too low.
Gresham subcontracts with other independent contractors on a regular basis, not just project based. He tries to bring on experts in certain areas before he actually needs them. He will often start them on an internal project to test them out before they start on a client project. That allows him to learn about their work style and communication skills.
Gresham requires a deposit upfront, after being burned a few times and not getting paid. Plus, a deposit shows that a client is serious about moving forward. “Let me think about it” without a deposit often strings you along.
It’s also important to lay out the process for clients so they know what to expect from you and what the steps are throughout the project.
Gresham’s ideal clients are those who aren’t taking advantage of digital products, so he often focuses on meeting people in-person (or via Zoom, during the pandemic). That has also meant joining networking groups.
Gresham encourages entrepreneurs to follow their passions and keep moving forward and taking action.
Biz Bite: Use project management software (Basecamp, Asana)
Resources:
Gresham’s primary website (where you can find links to all of his services and resources).
Blue 16 Media
CEO Podcasts
CEO Blog Nation
You Are a Media Company
Today’s guest is Lynne Testoni, from Sydney, Australia. Lynne is an editor, journalist and content producer who’s worked in high-level editorial positions and as a freelancer for a range of corporate clients. She has been freelancing for only four years, and she specializes in a very specific niche of home design, interior design and food, writing both content marketing and journalism.
Lynne is also the co-host of the podcast The Content Byte, with Rachel Smith.
Lynne earned less than six figures as an employee and wanted to make sure she earned more as a freelancer. She hit the six-figure mark about a year and a half in. Each year she sets a financial goal and a “stretch goal,” and she has since hit her stretch goal every year.
She was inspired by Australian writer Lindy Alexander who writes The Freelancer’s Year blog and who made freelancing and earning six figures seem like achievable goals.
Lynne began to earn more money after she “niched down,” focusing on home interiors. People began to notice her work and came to her, rather than her needing to look for clients. She also was referred a lot by past clients. And because she was in demand for that particular niche, she was able to set her own rates.
Lynne’s advice: Never work for free (unless you’re volunteering your services for a charity you believe in). There are better ways to build a portfolio, and clients that ask you to work for free never end up paying you what you’re worth.
Lynne is generous with her time, mentoring and helping other writers, such as through her podcast, The Content Byte. Giving back, besides making you feel good, often leads to new work too.
Cash flow can be one of the biggest challenges as a freelancer. Try to build a nest egg as you go along so cash flow won’t be a problem down the road. You also have to remember to market all the time, even when you’re busy.
Lynne is a morning person who begins her day with a run or Pilates and then a walk with her dog. She does most of her best work before lunch and saves the afternoons for editing and administrative work.
Lynne thinks in “billable hours.” She works about 40 hours a week, but only about 20 are billable hours. The rest are for administrative tasks, marketing and similar tasks. Her salesman husband taught her a tactic in negotiation: It’s all about the silence. Whenever someone asks for your rate, tell them and then just stay quiet. It’s hard to do but powerful. They will usually agree or come back with a lower rate, but the negotiation has begun.
If a client wants to pay her below what she’s asking, she’ll begin to negotiate the scope of the project. She also knows her own internal rate and how fast she can work on a type of project.
Lynne outsources some things, like transcribing, which she hates to do herself. She also collaborates with photographers and stylists and pitches projects as a team. She usually serves as the project manager and submits one pitch and includes the photographer/stylist rate without a markup on their rate. But she may add a fee for her management of the project.
Require a 50% deposit upfront on projects when working with companies, especially for smaller companies. If they question paying your deposit, that’s a red flag, because you may have to chase down the deposit or the final payments. Lynne says that shows they don’t value your work or contribution.
Lynne is a fan of Facebook groups both for finding clients and building her freelance community. Other freelancers are colleagues, not competitors.
Biz Bite: Use a cloud-based invoicing system.
Resources:
Lynne’s website
Lynne’s podcast, The Content Byte
Lynne on Instagram
Lynne on LinkedIn
Lindy Alexander’s The Freelancer’s Year blog
Find a Finder’s Fee — the name of local Facebook groups that advertise freelance jobs; look for one in your area.
Today’s guest is Satta Sarmah Hightower. Satta is a journalist-turned-content marketer who lives in Boston. She produces content for agencies and brands in the industries of technology, health care IT and financial services. She previously worked for AOL and the Tribune Company and holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Boston University and a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School.
Satta became a full-time freelancer in August 2014 after her second layoff in five years. She realized early on that she could make more money writing B2B content than doing only journalism. Then, she realized she was good at, and enjoyed, writing about B2B technology.
In 2016, Satta hit her goal to make six figures, during her second full year of freelancing. It had been a goal after she came close to that mark in 2015.
Satta believes it’s important to balance higher-earning client projects with your own passion projects, such as coaching, essay writing or podcasting. For Satta, that means developing her fiction writing by taking online fiction writing classes through GrubStreet in Boston.
Satta won’t work for free or do unpaid tests. In fact, she doesn’t like to do any test projects because her resume, clips and experience should be enough for a client to assess whether they want to work with her.
It’s difficult to earn six figures if you’re focused on lifestyle journalism and content (parenting, fashion, health and wellness). The niche is saturated with writers, which brings down the rates. You can still write on these topics, but Satta suggests mixing them in with other, higher-paying niches, such as technology, health care or financial services.
Be easy to work with. As someone who also assigns articles for her clients, Satta has come across too many freelancers who miss deadlines, are hard to reach and/or difficult to work with. Be collaborative with clients and communicate in advance if you run into challenges.
Satta struggles with turning off work at the end of the day. To be present with her young son, it helps her to physically separate herself from her workspace and her work tools. This means sometimes leaving her cellphone in a different room.
Satta is a very early morning person. She often starts her workday at 4:30 a.m. She does this partly to get her work done early so her husband can watch their son in the morning before she takes over in the afternoon. She also knows that she can write easily very early in the morning but struggles to write late at night.
She works about 5–6 hours a day and reserves Fridays for administrative work, recognizing that her brain is tired from writing by the end of the week. She also tries to reserve personal errands and chores for the start or end of the work day, not the middle of the day.
Satta doesn’t work for hourly rates because they penalize her for being efficient. She works for flat fees or retainer agreements. But she does have an “internal hourly rate” that she aims to earn. Tracking her hours and having an internal hourly rate helps her know how to price projects and know whether a proposed fee is fair for her.
Ongoing marketing is crucial to keep the work coming in. You can’t start marketing only when work dries up. Satta gets a lot of work through referrals, including from other freelancers. Working with agencies is helpful because one editor can refer you to other editors at the same company.
LinkedIn is also a good way to get clients. Keep your profile up to date with relevant keywords, and post your work on LinkedIn so potential clients can see that you know certain topics or have worked with certain clients.
Satta tried having a virtual assistant, but it took time to train the person, plus she realized she didn’t want to be anyone’s boss. She prefers the “consultant model,” in which she outsources tasks to third-party services like a transcription service or payroll provider.
Biz Bite: Use an email scheduling tool.
Resources:
Satta on LinkedIn
Satta on Twitter
SattaSarmah.com
GrubStreet in Boston
Book: “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng
ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors)
Quinn popcorn
Temi transcription service
Today’s guest is Laura Pennington Briggs. Laura is a teacher turned entrepreneur, two-time TEDx speaker and freelance writer. She’s the author of the award-winning “How to Start Your Own Freelance Writing Business” and the Amazon bestseller “Six-Figure Freelancer” and the founder of Operation Freelance.
Laura started as a freelance writer and virtual assistant in 2012. Now, she continues to write but also does book marketing and book launch strategy for authors. She started out as a part-time freelancer. But after 18 months of freelancing—only six months of that as a full-time freelancer—she hit the six-figure mark.
To get to that financial goal, Laura tracked her income and financial projections on a legal pad.
Freelancers are often told not to go on Upwork, but Laura used Upwork to build and scale her business. In fact, she earned over $450,000 through the site over the years. But she points out that it’s important to have a strategy when you are using Upwork.
When she was a new freelancer, she aimed to get Upwork jobs primarily for the feedback, not necessarily the fee, so that she could build good ratings on the site, opening the door to better and more work. She called these her “fast, cheap and simple” jobs to deliver the service easily and quickly to get a fast five-star review. She now has more than 200 positive ratings on Upwork, which lands her good work.
You also have to know what the red flags are, such as clients with ridiculous expectations and a very long description for a simple, short project. Also, when clients tell you they’ve worked with lots of other freelancers before and it’s never worked out, that’s a red flag! You can also read other freelancers’ reviews of clients. Trust those reviews.
The two ways that have worked best for Laura to find new clients have been Upwork and emailing cold letters of introduction (LOIs). Laura says if you send 50 LOIs and only one person responds, there’s something wrong with your LOI or your strategy. It’s important to take the time to research the client and explain why you like that company. Make the beginning of an LOI personal and hook the person. Don’t use a standard template for the entire LOI, which is a common mistake.
Great tip: Laura emails an LOI, and then about 30 minutes later she connects with that person on LinkedIn saying, “Spoiler alert: I just pitched you via email.”
Remember: Your perspective clients don’t really care about you, only that you’re qualified. So keep that part of your LOI to about two sentences and focus instead on how you can help them.
Sending LOIs is also a numbers game—you need to send a lot to get responses. You cannot just send a 1–2 LOIs a week and expect to get a bunch of new clients. Laura recommends sending five pitches a week for three months, tracking them and seeing how people respond. Make it a weekly habit.
Laura is a morning person. She works in batches based on the type of work, not the client. For example, she spends time on pitches for different clients during the same time slot, not focusing on all tasks for one client before moving on to another clients’ tasks.
When it comes to pricing, Laura recommends newer freelancers take on smaller projects and try out their rate, rather than committing to a rate and a long-term contract. You should try out your pricing and make sure you feel comfortable with it. Experienced freelancers should examine their pricing every six months. Clients are paying not for your time, but your years of experience and expertise.
Laura does not commit to pricing over the initial phone call. She tells potential clients she will get back to them by email. She may be nervous to quote over the phone, but she may also actually need the time to consider all aspects of the project and what it may truly cost and entail.
Remember that you can negotiate everything, not just price. You can negotiate length, deadline, scope of work and the amount of communication (no phone calls, no strategy sessions unless they pay more). You can also give a discount if they sign a long-term contract.
Laura advises that you have to get comfortable with calling the shots. You might feel like you’re pitching yourself as a freelancer to a client, but you have to believe that you’re a CEO too and you get to decide what your company policies and deal breakers are.
Laura tried to be an agency owner for a year, outsourcing her writing to subcontractors. And she hated it. You do not have to outsource your client work if you don’t want to. Instead, if you want to scale, you can outsource certain pieces of the process, like marketing, administrative work, invoicing or LinkedIn outreach.
Biz Bite: Hire a virtual assistant
Resources:
Laura’s website: Better Biz Academy
Laura’s book “The Six-Figure Freelancer”
Laura’s podcast: Advanced Freelancing
On today’s show I am going to outline 10 micro habits that you can consider implementing in your life to improve your work-life clarity.
Building habits into my life helps me commit to work-life clarity. Micro habits are tiny, incremental things you can start to do that seem so incredibly easy that you might just continue to build them. And, if you find they are working for you in some way, they might grow into larger habits and eventually habits you don’t even think about.
Not all of the micro habits I’m recommending are directly related to your business. Your life and your business are intertwined. Plus, I think we should all be focusing on our health. So, some of these will be healthy micro habits, and some will be things that will lift your energy and put a smile on your face.
I’m not recommending you implement all 10 of these micro habits. It’s better if you start small and just try a few of them. Plus, some of these might not be relevant for your individual life or may not interest you. But I hope they will spark your own ideas of what micro habits you can try out.
- Brush your teeth after dinner.
I first heard about this micro habit as a recommendation on the Happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin. The idea is if you brush your teeth after dinner, you will be less likely to eat again that evening.
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Set an alarm for bedtime.
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Listen to a podcast in the morning.
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Take a lunch break—and do it without your phone.
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Play with your pets.
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Learn something new in five minutes a day.
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Text one important person in your life each week.
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Drink one glass of water in the morning.
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Meditate for one minute each day.
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At the end of your work day, take 5 minutes to write down how you felt about the day.
Biz Bite: Download Restaurant Apps
The Bookshelf: “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” by James Clear
Resources:
Happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin
Duolingo language app
Today’s guest is Alicia Chantal, from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is an editing and writing consultant and the owner of Fresh Look Editing. Alicia is passionate about helping individuals and small businesses create messages that resonate with an audience. She specializes in non-fiction copy editing and proofreading and has a background in public relations.
A couple of cool projects Alicia has worked on lately include two articles that she wrote for the Alberta Cancer Foundation’s summer issue of Leap magazine. And she recently proofread the first book from Laberinto Press, which promotes diverse literature and world lit in translation. That book is “Beyond the Food Court,” an anthology that explores the intersection of cuisine, geography, politics and nostalgia.
I know Alicia from Twitter, but I also saw that she was recently selected as a featured volunteer of Editors Canada, and that’s when I realized how new she was to freelancing. She only started freelancing in 2019, and yet she has already built this great networking community by getting involved in various volunteer opportunities and taking advantage of social media.
In fact, she is the co-coordinator of the Edmonton chapter of Editors Canada, and she is a member of Editors Canada’s Task Force for Statement of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
Alicia began freelancing in 2019 after her father died and she realized life is too short and that she should be doing something she loves.
As a new freelancer, one of the biggest challenges was trying to find a consistent time to work at her desk. That only increased during the pandemic when all three of her sons were now at home after schools shut down in-person learning. This fall, her children are back in in-person school, which allows her to focus on her business during the day again.
Alicia loves having a career that lets her focus strictly on editing and writing. She has discovered that she loves getting to know clients, figuring out what they need and helping them put their best words forward.
Alicia is surprised she’s a freelancer. She never envisioned being her own boss and having a head for business (Melanie can relate!). She did as much research and planning as she could before she launched her business, researching how to set up a business in her province and tapping into local business resources.
She has a tendency to second-guess herself, but reaching out to other freelancers for advice and building her freelance network has been helpful. She also finds podcasts about freelancing helpful.
She took an editing certification course and, through that, she took advantage of a business course for freelancers. She said that solidified what direction she was heading in because she had to create a business plan and think through how she was going to find clients.
Alicia is involved in Editors Canada, similar to ACES–the Society for Editing in the U.S. She joined because she thought the organization would be great for both professional development and building her network.
She wanted to be a volunteer for Editors Canada, not just a regular member, to gain more editing knowledge and experience. Fellow editors there encouraged her to join Twitter to connect with editors across the world. That worked and was even more helpful when the pandemic lockdowns began and she couldn’t go to editing conferences and events.
She has found so many editing resources and a community on Twitter. (See Resources list below.)
Alicia joined Editors Canada’s Task Force for Statement of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). This is a newer task force that was started to provide recommendations to Editors Canada’s national executive council on ways the group can meaningfully implement the EDI statement, which was approved in 2019.
She and the other four task force members are currently researching what EDI barriers members may feel exist in the organization. She says you need evidence to make recommendations, not basing them on gut feelings or guesses or by talking to only one person of color.
Alicia says that while the membership of Editors Canada may not be that diverse, there are diverse editors who may be unknown to the organization.
Alicia is a Black woman and a first-generation Canadian and says that as a member of the BIPOC community, she believes that being able to make effective change starts at home. (BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, Person of Color.)
Freelancers can bring about change on issues of diversity and inclusion in their own industry and in their clients’ work. And you don’t have to be a writer or editor to make a difference through content. You can talk through these issues with your clients, such as whether you should capitalize black and/or white when talking about race.
Consider the images you and your clients use, such as on their website. Melanie talks about how one association did an audit of the diversity of their content, sources, writers and images. One thing they discovered is that a lot of stock art shows hands and those hands are almost always white. So, switching up stock photos to show other skin tones of hands is one “small” way to make a change.
As Alicia considers how her business can grow, she wants to post more often to her blog (a common tale!) to use it partly as a marketing tool. She is researching how to make her blog work better for her business.
She also wants to figure out how to automate more of her processes, such as accounting tasks.
If you’re considering becoming a freelancer or are fairly new to freelancing, Alicia recommends just diving in, not putting it off. That said, she doesn’t recommend saying yes to every project because that will lead to burnout. Also: reach out to others, learn from your successes and don’t be afraid to reach beyond your comfort zone.
Biz Bite: Make work fun.
Resources:
Alicia’s website, Fresh Look Editing
Alicia on LinkedIn
Alicia on Twitter
Editors’ Association of Earth Facebook group
Editors Canada Facebook group
Editors Canada website
ACES–the Society for Editing
Grammar Girl
Outside the Book on Twitter: interviews editors of color and discusses how to increase the number of people of color in editing.
Editors of Color on Twitter
In episode #6 of Deliberate Freelancer I talked about how to make the most of conferences. Well, we’ve all had to pivot, and I cannot go to the 4–6 in-person conferences I typically go to each year. So, I’ve learned to embrace virtual conferences, which may be around until at least summer 2021.
Here are a few tips to make the most of these events:
- Commit to a virtual conference like you would an in-person event.
Block the time off on your calendar and don’t do other work during the event. It can be tough to sit in front of your computer all day, so have some fun with it. Buy some favorite snacks, put on a nice shirt — but with cozy sweatpants and slippers. And switch up your location. You don’t need to sit at your desk all day. You can sit outside if it’s nice or find a cozy spot in your house.
- Prepare for the virtual event ahead of time.
Look over the schedule and make note of what you want to attend. Because a lot of virtual conferences don’t have conference apps, I have been printing out the schedule to give myself a “program book” that I can mark up. It’s easier than toggling between tabs.
Look at the schedule and know where the breaks are and how long they are. In person, you kind of go with the flow and it’s obvious when the breaks are, but it’s not as intuitive online. So, prepare ahead.
Check out the conference social media. Is there a hashtag? Live tweeting is one of my favorite things to do at an in-person event, but it seems more important now because it connects me more to the other attendees. Anything you can do to improve the networking of a virtual conference is important.
Ask on social media or in your network who else is attending. It can be fun to connect with friends at the special networking events or in the online networking rooms during the in-person event.
- Watch as many sessions in real time as you can.
In a lot of virtual sessions, you are watching a recorded video, and you will likely be sent the link later. But we all know, when we sign up for something and are sent the link later, it’s less likely that we will actually make the time to watch the entire thing.
Tell yourself these are not recordings and watch them in real time. This allows you to connect with other attendees in the live chat going on during the session. And you can usually send questions to the presenters, and there is often a short Q&A after the session.
- Take part in all the networking!
The one thing that seems to be the hardest in these virtual environments is replacing the in-person networking. You aren’t going to just randomly meet people in line or because you sat next to them in a session.
In person, I rarely go to happy hours or evening events unless I know a lot of other attendees. But in the virtual world, I have made myself go to every networking opportunity available during the virtual conferences. Some have been great; some have been not so great, but I am trying to connect with as many people as I can.
- Set goals for your conference and follow up afterward.
What do you hope to get out of this event? Is it just to be able to connect with other people who are not your family? Or, are you looking forward to learning new things through the sessions or by connecting with exhibitors?
Set a couple of goals so you have a focus for the event. And then, the next day — put it on your calendar — recap for a few hours: What did you learn? What lessons do you want to implement? Who do you want to follow up with? What new products or services do you want to check out? Do this the day after or you will probably not do it.
Biz Bite: Get a flu shot
The Bookshelf:
The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Eat a Peach by David Chang
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
Resources:
Episode #6 of Deliberate Freelancer: Make the Most of Conferences
Episode #24 of Deliberate Freelancer: Networking Tips, Especially as an Introvert
Episode #33 of Deliberate Freelancer: 5 Lessons for Freelance Business Owners from She Podcasts Conference
On today’s show, I want to talk about some core principles you’ll need to run a successful freelance business — these are ideas I have come to believe strongly in over the past seven years:
Core principle #1: You are a freelance business owner.
Changing your mindset and truly believing you are a business owner and the boss of you helps both the way you look at yourself and the way others perceive you.
Embracing that mindset creates a fundamental shift in how you think about being a freelancer. Tell yourself in everything that you do that you need to base your ideas, plans and actions on how a business owner or entrepreneur would think. That can mean creating a business plan, creating a marketing plan, setting financial and other goals, tracking your money, figuring out how to charge better, having the confidence to ask for more money and increase your rates, and setting boundaries, office hours and a work structure.
Core principle #2: Take charge of your finances.
You could be great at what you do. You may even be charging great rates and bringing in the cash. But if you aren’t handling and tracking your money well, you could be losing money and gaining stress.
Do you have a yearly financial goal? Do you have monthly or weekly financial goals? Basically, do you have any idea how much money you are earning and how much you are spending?
When you set your rates or a project fee, are you accounting for taxes or other expenses as part of the rate you set?
Are you tracking monthly income versus expenses? Do you have a separate business account, not co-mingling your money with a personal account? I finally got a separate business account and a business-only credit card last year.
I started using a 12-month cash flow projection spreadsheet in Excel. This was particularly helpful during the pandemic so I could see if I was earning enough to pay my bills. But that sheet also encouraged me because the numbers kept increasing over the summer as I kept striving to add more clients to those columns. By August, I could see that I had reached my pre-pandemic income level.
And perhaps the most important part of taking charge of your finances: Are you setting aside the right portion of your income for taxes? In the United States, that’s about 28–30%. You have to tell yourself and truly believe that that percentage is not your money. It was never your money. Don’t ever think of it as a safety net or part of your savings.
Once you believe that, set up a system to make that easier to follow. I have a separate online savings account that is only for taxes. I named it Pay My Taxes as a reminder not to touch it. At the end of each month, when I am paying my bills and invoicing my clients, I figure out my monthly income, minus expenses, and take 30% of that and transfer it to my tax account.
Core principle #3: Be stubborn. Be confident.
I know this is easier said than done for some people. This often comes down to personality, but I think we can continue to grow and learn and change and improve parts of ourselves that we struggle with.
For example, I know that I do not like conflict, and I see the most basic disagreements and conversations as “conflict.” I know this is a challenge I struggle with, but being aware of it can be helpful so that I can work around it. So, I have created systems to boost my confidence. One way I do that is by emailing first instead of picking up the phone — at least for that initial conversation — when there is a disagreement, communication or misunderstanding.
I have also come to understand that I suffer from impostor syndrome at times. I didn’t think I struggled with this until I had guest Kristen Hicks on episode #67 and she described the various aspects of impostor syndrome. I struggle sometimes with raising my rates or sticking to a project rate or scope creep. That falls under impostor syndrome too because deep down I’m really thinking, “Who am I to ask for this or to demand this?”
To me, being stubborn means sticking with your principles. Know what your goals and your non-negotiables are in your business. Know the kind of ethical work and philosophy you want to work from. Stick to your principles and be stubborn. Don’t lower your rates. Don’t work for free. Don’t agree to scope creep that makes you uncomfortable. Be stubborn.
Core principle #4: You have to embrace marketing.
This is where reframing comes in handy because many of us don’t like the idea of marketing or networking. You’ve likely heard me say this a few times, but I have reframed marketing and networking into “relationship building.”
You always have to market and network. That saved a lot of us in the pandemic when we lost clients. We reached out to our network and said we had availability. We increased marketing efforts that we had already tried. We weren’t starting from scratch.
Marketing doesn’t have to mean ads and being on every social media platform. But I would encourage you to get to know fellow freelancers, perhaps in your local community or through Twitter or Instagram, or a Facebook group. And then do some sort of marketing by at least having a presence on 1–2 social media channels and keeping your website and/or a portfolio up to date.
Core principle #5: You have to spend money to make money.
This can be challenging, especially if you are new to freelancing. And I don’t want you to buy all the things when you start out. But, you will come to a point where you have a little bit of money or you need to take that next step or you’re struggling in an area you need help with, and you need to spend money to make money.
I’ve often talked about the economic concept of “opportunity cost.” Opportunity cost is when you have a situation with more than one choice. You make a choice and go a particular route. The opportunity cost is the loss of what you did not gain by making the other choice.
I often think of opportunity cost in terms of time. Time is very valuable to me. Money is important and necessary, but time is critical. My goal is to create an efficient freelance business that maximizes the amount of money I can earn in the smallest amount of time.
You can consider this in both your business and personal life. So, for example, if you hire a virtual assistant (VA) to take care of some of your administrative work, you are gaining time to work on client projects. This earns you more money.
Core principle #6: Keep it simple.
This means both for the services and businesses you create, as well as the business systems and structure you set up for yourself. There is a temptation, especially early on in freelancing or at a moment when you are growing your business, to buy all the tools, download all the productivity apps, and use a bunch of fancy systems to do certain things for your business.
I have certainly fallen into that trap, especially downloading a variety of apps that I thought would be helpful to structure my business. But, I realized that it is much more efficient and productive and less stressful to streamline my systems and structure.
I use what works for me, not what every other freelancer says I have to have.
Keep it simple and use what works for you. A good way to test this out is if you are feeling overwhelmed or feel like things are too busy or chaotic. Ask if you need all those tools. What really makes your day better and your business more efficient? Invest in those and ignore the rest.
Core principle #7: You can’t work 24/7.
You need to set the hours and structure that is best for your business, your productivity and your mental and physical health.
The problem I see is freelancers who don’t know when to end their day and just keep on working until they suddenly realize it’s time to eat or their kids are home from school. It’s also not healthy to check email all night long. Even just a glance at work email can be stressful and put you back into work mode, instead of relaxing or spending time with your family.
Everyone needs downtime, and it is not healthy to be on the clock 24/7. This goes for weekends also. I know freelancers who like to work weekends because there are no distractions from clients and they can get a lot more done. That is fine, except I would argue that you need two days off a week, no matter what those days are. That means no emails, no client work and no check-ins. And if you can put down your phone, and unplug completely, that’s even better and healthier for you, especially in these pandemic times.
All of this means you have to set boundaries. This is easier to do once you truly embrace self-care and recognize that burnout is a real concern.
Biz Bite: Outsource on a whim
The Bookshelf: “Eight Perfect Murders” by Peter Swanson
Resources:
Episode #39 of Deliberate Freelancer: Raise Your Rates—Without Emotion
Episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pamela Capalad
Episode #29 of Deliberate Freelancer: 3 Big Financial Changes I Made This Week
Episode #30 of Deliberate Freelancer: How a Virtual Assistant Can Help Your Business, with Cat DiStasio
Episode #67 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Fight Imposter Syndrome, with Kristen Hicks
Episode #68 of Deliberate Freelancer: Yes, You Need to Build a Personal Brand, with Hilary Sutton
Episode #62 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Prevent and Deal with Burnout, with Alan Heymann
Episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer: You Need to Set Boundaries
Episode #19 of Deliberate Freelancer: Visualize Your Perfect Work Day—Then Create It
Episode #22 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create a Better Work-Life Balance, with Laura Poole
Today’s guest is Sarah DeGeorge, a digital marketing specialist who lives in Philadelphia. Sarah works in paid and organic marketing, public relations, and social media marketing and management. She helps small- to mid-size businesses find their authentic voice for their audience.
Sarah started freelancing as a freelance writer while still in college. As she was nearing graduation, she got sick and had trouble doing in-person job interviews, so she turned to freelancing as she started to feel better. She slowly built up her business and learned new skills. Freelancing allowed her to deal with her illness (she feels great today) at the time, which would have been more difficult with a regular 9-5 employee job.
Sarah recommends we consider “mindfulness in marketing” as we look to grow our freelance businesses. She points out that a lot of marketing looks at past performance or future plans—but not the present time. Being mindful means being in the present. So, consider how your marketing is working and how you feel about your marketing right now in the present. (You can use this same idea with your clients when you work on marketing-related projects with them.)
Sarah breaks mindfulness marketing into three pillars:
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Start with yourself: What are your mission and values? How is your marketing plan working right now? How are you feeling about these efforts?
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Now, consider your customer base. What marketing materials and efforts do they expect from you (certain social media interactions, live video, weekly newsletter)? What is resonating with them? What is not resonating with them?
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Finally, look at the data. This could include your website’s Google analytics and Facebook insights. (This could also include client feedback and previous successes.) Connect this with yourself—are you enjoying working on a specific social media platform? Maybe the data shows that you’re not as engaged with a particular platform; maybe you could phase out that particular effort.
This type of analysis will help you figure out what marketing efforts you may need to stop, cut back on or ramp up and what new things you could try.
Sarah came up with the mindfulness in marketing concept during a serious period of burnout. We need to take that moment to check in with ourselves and not just go full-speed ahead all the time.
You do not have to be on all the social media platforms. Focus on what you like and where your clients are. If those two things don’t overlap, perhaps hire a virtual assistant to help you market on a platform where your clients are but that you don’t enjoy as much and aren’t as good at because of that.
Once you’ve analyzed those three pillars and connected the dots of what is and isn’t working, brainstorm how you can make the efforts that are working more robust. Consider how you can pivot and migrate certain efforts, such as changing from a blog to a video, moving from Facebook to Instagram.
Video can be a fun new marketing trend to try out. It doesn’t have to be your own face on video. You can create a short instructional video with slides, based on a blog that you already wrote, and post that on YouTube. YouTube is more of a search engine than a social media platform. So, making a searchable video on YouTube that directs back to your website can be an effective marketing strategy.
A podcast is another good way to market yourself and share your knowledge with your clients.
Biz Bite: Use pen and paper.
Resources:
Sarah on Instagram
sardegeorge@gmail.com
www.sardegeorge.com
Episode #14 of Deliberate Freelancer: Freelancing with a Chronic Illness, with Christy Batta
Episode #67 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Fight Imposter Syndrome, with Kristen Hicks
Episode #62 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Prevent and Deal with Burnout, with Alan Heymann
Today’s guest is Wudan Yan, an independent journalist in Seattle, who covers science and society. She has written for National Geographic, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Elemental, Harper’s and MIT Tech Review. Wudan also writes for brands and is a fact-checker.
She is the co-host of The Writers’ Co-op, a business podcast for freelance writers. Her co-host is Jenni Gritters, also based in Seattle, and the two describe their podcast as an “audio handbook for freelance creatives.”
In summer 2019, Wudan self-published an article on Medium called “I was owed about $5,000 from late-paying publications. I tried to hold them all accountable. Here’s what happened.” The article hit a nerve with freelancers and went viral.
Wudan wrote the article after she returned from a two-week vacation and none of the $5,000 she was owed by clients was in her bank account. She freaked out. But she was also fed up with clients’ excuses about not paying on time.
She had read a social media post from a photojournalist who added a 20% late fee to client invoices. Wudan messaged her to learn more and then began researching laws around late fees. She learned that in 2017 New York City passed the Freelance Isn’t Free Law, which says freelancers must be paid within 30 days of invoicing. It also says that freelancers are entitled to double damages if payment is late. It only covers freelancers who live in the city or clients based in the city. Although Wudan doesn’t live in New York City, one of her clients is based there, which meant she was covered by the law.
Wudan decided to go for a 10% late fee, not double damages, since this was her first time fighting this. She also sought the help of a lawyer.
All three clients had different responses. One major media company kept replying that they don’t pay late fees, but Wudan kept sending her updated invoice. They finally agreed to pay a late fee simply to resolve the issue “amicably.” A second client said essentially, “We paid you for something else on time, so we won’t pay a late fee for this,” which made no sense. The third publisher said the issue was pushed to the CEO of the company and he didn’t like the situation, and the company said if Wudan charged a late fee, they would never work with her again.
She eventually received late fees from all three clients, but she has never worked with any of the three again.
Wudan says she became a journalist, in large part, to hold people accountable. And that goes with her own business. Calling out the publishing industry’s poor practice of late payments was her way of holding the industry accountable. She also wanted other freelancers to know that charging late fees was possible.
Wudan wanted to “flip a switch” in freelancers’ minds from being passive and just waiting on late payments to acting like a business and going after late payments.
After Wudan wrote the piece calling out the publishing industry, she stopped working with clients who paid her late in the past. She also gained more confidence to charge late fees.
Wudan advises freelancers to try to get a late fee built into their contract. Ideally, add in: “Client will pay the contractor 30 days after receipt of invoice. Invoices paid after this timeframe are subject to a XX% late fee.” Specify that the late fee is compounded monthly. You may want to choose a 10% or 20% late fee.
While publishers don’t like the late fee clause, in Wudan’s experience they often agree to that first part: “Client will pay the contractor 30 days after receipt of invoice.” Even if that’s the only part they will agree to, she still includes on her invoices: “Client will pay the contractor 30 days after receipt of invoice. Invoices paid after this timeframe are subject to a XX% compounded monthly late fee.”
If they reply that they only pay 45–60 days after receipt, then Wudan builds interest into her fee.
Wudan uses Google Sheets to track when she filed her invoices. She hired an assistant, who reviews the invoice sheet at the end of every week. If an invoice is almost due or past due, she writes Wudan an email with that list of clients. Wudan set up a separate “bookkeeper” email, and her assistant sends clients notices about late payment through that, which shows more of an appearance of a business. You can create this separate email address yourself, even if you don’t have an assistant.
Chasing down money is emotional labor. Wudan hired an assistant to chase down payments so that she wouldn’t be angry every time she had to write those emails.
Wudan usually goes straight to accounts payable and doesn’t get her editor or direct client involved.
Wudan’s final advice: Freelancers need to push for late fees and on-time payments. Clients often tell Wudan no one has ever asked them for a late fee before, which is indicative of freelancers being more passive when it comes to payment. Maintain good relationships with your editors and clients, and they may be able to change the system from the inside and advocate for freelancers. You can also refuse to do more work until payments are caught up.
Biz Bite: Calendly app
Resources:
Wudan’s article on late payments (originally published on Medium): “I was owed about $5,000 from late-paying publications. I tried to hold them all accountable. Here’s what happened.”
Freelance Isn’t Free Act in New York City
Wudan’s podcast, The Writers’ Co-op
Wudan on Twitter
Wudan on Instagram
WudanYan.com
Today’s guest are Kim Kavin and Karon Warren, two longtime freelance writers who have built successful freelance businesses. Both are active in the fight against the national PRO Act. Kim was active fighting against a similar state bill in New Jersey, and Karon heads up the national efforts to defeat the PRO Act through the grassroots organization Fight for Freelancers.
The PRO Act (Protecting the Right to Organize) was introduced in Congress in late 2019. The initial intent of the bill was to protect workers who are misclassified and give them the ability to join a union. However, the bill was amended to add a classification test taken directly from California’s disastrous anti-freelance bill (now law) known as AB5.
That test is called the ABC Test and was written in the 1930s for factory workers. The way the ABC Test is currently written prohibits most independent contractors from working with clients. It doesn’t matter if you call yourself a freelancer, consultant, an agency, whatever — if you are a W9 independent contractor, this affects you.
The rest of the PRO Act does not harm freelancers, so freelancers need to focus their efforts on getting the ABC Test part of the bill changed. The push for this bill is union funded, and Democrats —including presidential candidate Joe Biden — support the bill.
Kim was involved in fighting a copycat bill in New Jersey. A co-sponsor of the bill told her if she wanted to make changes she needed to negotiate directly with the AFL-CIO. That shows who is controlling and pushing these bills.
In California, legislators “weaponized” the ABC Test by deleting some of the original language. The ABC Test has three prongs (A, B, C) that independent contractors must pass in order to do business. It’s the B part that is the problem. B originally had two parts: Part 1 says you can’t be in the same line of business as the company that is paying you to do the work. But Part 2 negates Part 1 if you do all of your work off company premises.
Most freelancers can pass Part 2. However, California deleted Part 2, leaving only the part that says you can’t be in the same line of business as the company paying you. That went into law in January 2020 in the state and destroyed careers of all types of independent contractors, who could no longer work for companies in their industry. This included respiratory therapists and other medical professionals who contract with various hospitals — they lost work when they were needed the most during the pandemic.
Other careers and industries affected include journalists, content writers, editors, real estate appraisers, comedians, theater workers, symphonies and orchestras, truck drivers, translators and more. In fact, California has found more than 300 industries hurt by AB5.
California freelancer writers managed to get an exemption in the law that capped their submissions to 35 a year for each client. The exemption partially helped some writers, but it also had a lot of problems — for example, content writers, blog writers and newspaper columnists could quickly and easily hit 35 submissions, ending their work for that year for that client.
Forbes, Hearst and New York Times were among those who have stopped hiring California freelancers.
In December 2019, the AB5 copycat bills started popping up in Democrat strongholds (blue states), including New York and New Jersey, where Kim lives. The bill was introduced in New Jersey with about six weeks to go in a lame duck session. New Jersey freelance writers organized quickly to educate lawmakers about the damage to freelance careers.
In New Jersey, lawmakers seemed to pay attention when the writers explained that they were “career professionals,” who earn anywhere from $50 to $300 an hour from clients. They compared themselves to specialized accountants and attorneys. They told individual stories that showed that they were professionals, not victims.
At one hearing, a lawmaker said they were going to protect the freelancers from “nefarious” companies. Kim yelled at a New Jersey senator to stop calling her clients nefarious and exploitative.
The pandemic has helped lawmakers understand how many independent contractors are out there because we got attention when we became eligible for unemployment benefits and the Paycheck Protection Program.
When AB5 went into law in California, the American Society of Journalists and Authors (a membership organization of freelance writers, of which Kim, Karon and Melanie are members) filed a lawsuit with the National Press Photographers Association challenging the new law on First Amendment and other Constitutional grounds.
Karon got involved at that part, even though she’s in Georgia, a red state where a copycat bill does not exist. But Karon knew she needed to fight against the federal PRO Act, which would affect independent contractors in all 50 states.
If the PRO Act passes, companies will begin outsourcing work to people outside of the U.S.
The movement created the Twitter hashtag #IRSNotABC, which represents that the IRS standard is a better standard than the ABC Test. We should advocate for the PRO Act and state copycat bills to change their language to follow the IRS standard, not the ABC Test.
The IRS standard already exists. It was written in the 1980s and has been updated since. The standard has about 60 questions to evaluate the relationship between a person and a company.
The IRS website says, “The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work, not what will be done and how it will be done.”
Unlike the B part of ABC, the IRS standard allows independent contractors to work in the same industry as their clients. Most legitimate independent contractors can pass the IRS standard.
Laws already exist to protect exploited freelancers, and individuals can file a report with the IRS if they believe they have been exploited, like if they were hired as a “freelancer” but the company required them to work a full-time schedule and on the premises. That is not freelancing. The U.S. Department of Labor in both the Obama and Trump administrations have prosecuted cases against companies who have misclassified employees.
Some freelancers have said that the PRO Act or a state version doesn’t affect them for various reasons. Let’s go through some of these myths to debunk them and let independent contractors know they are in jeopardy:
Myth 1: “I’m protected if I’m an LLC or S Corp.” Not true. While the test says “established business,” you must pass the B prong of the ABC Test to be able to work as an independent contractor. New Jersey advocates asked lawmakers to amend the bill to state that being an LLC or S Corp would exempt independent contractors from the law, but they would not add the language.
Myth 2: “This is a partisan issue and those fighting against it are all Trump supporters or Republicans.” Not true. Karon explains that advocates are not taking political sides; they are talking about fixing this piece of legislation. It’s just a fact that Democrats, including presidential candidate Joe Biden, support the PRO Act and the ABC Test. Therefore, it’s critical to educate Democrat lawmakers about why the ABC Test is harmful to freelancers.
Melanie’s opinion: If you are a Democrat like me and have Democrat representatives and senators, I think it’s even more critical we speak up because it’s the Democrats’ minds we have to change AND we are their constituents and members of their party. Both Democrats and Republicans can educate their Democratic lawmakers and also ensure their Republican lawmakers know about the PRO Act and will work to change it or vote against it.
Myth 3: “Those vocal against the PRO Act are paid by anti-union operatives.” Not true. These are all independent contractors who have created grassroots organizations out of necessity to save their freelance careers. This myth makes it even more important that individual freelancers explain their business and their success to legislators so they can understand who we are.
What You Can Do:
- Educate yourself about the PRO Act and how to fight against it. See resources list below.
- Contact your U.S. House representative and your two state senators. Ask to speak to them directly or email them. You can gather a small group of freelancers in your state and request a Zoom meeting.
- Tell your lawmakers your individual freelance success stories and the benefits you get from freelancing. Explain how much you are contributing to the economy.
- Then, ask them to change the PRO Act so that it uses the IRS standard, not the ABC Test.
- You can share data that shows most independent contractors want to remain as such. However, keep in mind that your individual stories affect lawmakers more than a bunch of statistics do.
- Share the message widely with other freelancers. Write op-eds for your local newspapers. Share on social media and retweet #IRSNotABC tweets and posts.
In September, the Freelancers Union (which is a nonprofit, not a union) held a webinar with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York who supports unions and the PRO Act. However, Schumer acknowledged in the webinar that he recognizes the problems AB5 caused in California and said he is willing to work with freelancers on the PRO Act. This was a huge acknowledgement. (See press release in resources below.)
Resources:
www.fightforfreelancersusa.com
Fight for Freelancers USA Facebook page — this is where you will find the most updated information and how to organize
Fight for Freelances USA on Twitter
#IRSNotABC on Twitter
Fight for Freelancers press release “US Senate Minority Leader Acknowledges Major Problem in PRO Act”
Freelance Forward 2020 — Upwork’s latest research on freelancing (statistics to use)
NPR article “Jobs in the Pandemic: More Are Freelance and May Stay That Way Forever”
Contently article “Does the ABC Test Already Exist in Your State, and Could It Harm Your Career?”
Wrapbook blog post “Employee or Contractor? The Complete List of Worker Classification Tests By State”
IRS.gov’s information on independent contractors
Fight for Freelancers New Jersey
The chaos in California
Today’s guest is Anthony Moore, a writer, speaker and coach in California. He is one of the top 100 writers on Medium.com, where he writes about personal growth, self-improvement and writing.
I had trouble trying to name this episode because there were so many things Anthony talked about that I wanted to call your attention to. So, I hope you find all the areas we discussed helpful in your freelance business.
As a freelancer, Anthony has several income streams: writing, coaching, online courses, affiliate links, book sales.
Anthony has been freelancing for about seven years but didn’t make any money the first four and a half years. He decided it was time to get serious about his freelance career and has since amassed over 100,000 email subscribers and 50,000 followers on Medium and will earn a six-figure income in 20202.
Anthony offers courses in both writing and self-improvement. He sells them through webinars and email marketing. He’s failed a lot, and that has shown him what works and doesn’t work. He says one of his “superpowers” is not being afraid to look stupid. That stopped him from trying new things for a long time.
Anthony makes a lot of his income through courses, which, once created, is an online passive income. Then, he upsells to one-on-one coaching.
Anthony gets 100–200 new subscribers to his email list every day. Part of that is due to writing on Medium, where he has 200,000–300,000 views on his articles a month. Other blogs pick up his Medium articles, amplifying his content. He always includes a call to action in his articles to lead readers to his website. He has about a 6% click-through rate to his site, which is where people sign up for his email list.
Anthony’s call to action focuses solely on getting email subscribers. He no longer asks for social media likes and follows because the income he earns comes through his email list, not social media.
On Medium, Anthony focuses on personal growth and self-improvement. The key has been to be vulnerable and share his own stories, including his past issues with addiction and other challenges in his life. He posts only two to three articles a week now, but his content is evergreen.
Anthony shifted his mindset from being a freelancer to being a business when his article views on Medium skyrocketed. He likes a quote from Jay-Z: “I’m not a businessman; I’m a business, man.” Once you shift your mindset, you stop holding yourself back. Then, you can ask yourself: How far can I take my business?
Anthony asked himself what a professional business person would do, and he began to invest in his business by taking writing courses and buying business books.
Anthony spent a lot of time learning how to sell properly without seeming sleazy. He learned that give away a lot of freebies and then every now and then offer something for sale that is aligned with the customers’ values and would be helpful to them. He uses ClickFunnels for his sales funnel system.
He studied up on sales psychology, such as the “star, story, solution” structure or “hook, story, offer” structure. He encourages people to research how to sell your services and products properly.
To grow your email list, in your blog posts or other content, you need a short call to action to send people to your email sign-up. You need to create a landing page and a freebie to give to people who sign up. Your freebie should not be your weekly newsletter; it needs to be something that will be helpful to them, like a free book chapter, worksheet or checklist.
Once you gain email subscribers, you have to focus on retaining them. Tell great stories and continue to give out relevant freebies to keep them engaged.
Anthony calls for freelancers to embrace “radical self-investment”—learn how to sell, market and run a business.
Biz Bite: Use Evernote app to write down your ideas on the go
Resources:
Learn how to be a remote freelance writer with Anthony’s free one-hour video training: FreelanceWriterStarterPackage.com
Anthony Moore on Medium
Anthony Moore on LinkedIn
“Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki
“Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World” by Gary Vaynerchuk
ClickFunnels (sales funnel system)
Mailchimp (for email lists and landing pages)
On today’s episode, I am sharing three experiences in which I failed and the lessons I learned from those situations. Hopefully, you’ll find a few takeaway lessons here and it will also lead you to analyzing your own failures to see what you can change or learn from moving forward. The idea is not to beat yourself up; we are not perfect, but to learn from our failures and to know that all freelancers make mistakes.
Failure No. 1: I had written two articles for a newsstand magazine that went really well. They didn’t pay as much as my content marketing clients, but I liked the topics and having my stories on newsstands.
The magazine offered me a third article, a feature that was a little controversial. I had not done the type of traditional journalism in which people were skeptical about you since I was a newspaper reporter years ago in Indiana. The story required experience and connections in a type of reporting and in this community that I did not have. And I didn’t really have the time to dive into this story.
My failure started because I let my ego get in the way. I liked this client, and two editors were telling me how great I was and how they really wanted me to do this article. I let their flattery cloud my judgment. I should have trusted my gut.
Instead, I worked on the story and had difficulty finding the right sources, finding sources that would trust me and getting an “official source” to even answer my repeated calls and emails. I did not have the time for this along with all my other work—work that paid much more than this journalism story.
I weakly expressed some concern to my immediate editor, and she gave me a few pointers, but it could not save the story and I did not speak up more at that time. So, I trudged on—not because I was stubborn as much as I did not want to tell my editor I was failing.
A few MONTHS went by, and I finally got so fed up that I wanted to quit. I didn’t even care about getting paid for the work I did because it was unusable at that point. So, I emailed my editor and explained why the story was not working out and that I needed to stop working on it entirely. She was gracious and that was that.
The big lesson here? Do not let a client talk you into a project. Do not let their flattery and your ego get in the way of what you know to be true. You know what you’re good at and what you’re not good at, what you have time and energy for and what you don’t. Listen to that knowledge.
Failure No. 2: I was working directly for a content marketing agency that I had worked with before and really liked. They had a new client. The challenge was that that client wanted me to pitch story ideas, which I rarely do. But I came up with a few ideas and they accepted one. It was clear that my agency contact was more excited about that story than the actual editor was. This should have been a red flag.
But, I found the sources, wrote the article and submitted it. The editor had numerous queries, more so than I’ve received on any article in years. But I addressed the edits and sent back my second draft. Then, I received more edits late on a Friday afternoon, and the editor wanted to call me right then. I relented, only so I wouldn’t stress about it all weekend. She only wanted to go through the edits line by line, which was a complete waste of time. I also recognized that some of her edits were actually questioning the science in the article. That’s when it became clear that she did not respect the basis of the pitch or the research behind the article. She should have either rejected the pitch or put her aside her own feelings instead of continuing to ask me to change the article.
I delivered those edits and cc’ed my agency contact on that email. Then, I emailed the agency person separately to tell them what had happened and that I’d gone above and beyond with multiple rounds of extensive edits and that I was done with the article. My contact was gracious, and the agency paid me the full amount (even though the editor never ran the article).
The lesson here? I should have contacted my agency person sooner. They were my direct client, and I should have let them handle the situation—or at least help me walk through the issues. They also needed to be aware of what was happening.
The overall message here is to speak up sooner rather than later.
Failure No. 3: A new client and I had a misunderstanding over the scope of work. I had emailed a proposal outlining the scope of work that we both agreed on, and we had had multiple phone conversations. I thought we were on the same page, but I then received several assignments that seemed to be outside the scope of work.
Here’s what I did wrong: In the proposal, I was very clear on the scope of work involved in my two primary responsibilities. But the client had mentioned a third service, one that wasn’t my expertise, but I agreed to help with now and then. I thought I was being helpful, but in my proposal I described that third service as “as needed.” That was way too vague and would be defined differently by me and the client.
I reached out to a freelance writer friend, who helped me figure out what to say to the client. I also agreed to a phone conversation with the client to work out our issue. (I sent an initial email so as not to blindside her; then we got on the phone.)
My “tough love” lesson here is do not be wishy-washy in your proposals! In my effort to be helpful, I was vague instead and caused a misunderstanding. Other lessons I learned: Ask for advice from your freelance community and get on the phone to talk through sticky situations. Email was not the answer.
Those were three of my big fails—certainly not the only mistakes I’ve made! It’s important to know what your weaknesses are and figure out how to improve upon them or work around them. It’s also important to learn from your failures. What projects and clients stand out to you that make you a little sick to your stomach? Did you learn anything from them or have you repeated the same mistakes over and over?
Take a few minutes to think about those situations and what you have learned or should have learned from them. Maybe there are a few lessons that you could embrace going forward.
Biz Bite: You are already living your worst-case scenario.
Tip from Gayneté Jones: If you are procrastinating on a new service or something to propel your business forward, you’re getting nowhere by not doing the thing. That’s your worst-case scenario. You can only go up from there.
Gayneté Jones is a millennial mentor and keynote speaker. She is founder of G.A.M.E. Changing Industries and creator of Cubicle Ditch Academy.
Hear Gayneté Jones in episode 333 of the podcast Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield.
The Bookshelf: “Recursion” by Blake Crouch
Resources:
Episode #36 of Deliberate Freelancer: Spotting Red Flags and Scope Creep
Episode #45 of Deliberate Freelancer: You Need to Set Boundaries
Episode #67 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Fight Imposter Syndrome, with Kristen Hicks
Episode #70 of Deliberate Freelancer: Techniques to Deal with Anxiety from My New Therapist
I am not a therapist or a doctor, but on today’s show I want to share with you several techniques that I learned from my new therapist that have been very helpful to me, and I hope they will help some of you as well. I also want to help dispel the stigma that comes with mental health issues. Yes, I needed therapy. Yes, I’ve been experiencing more anxiety than usual. So, I sought out help. And that is OK for all of us.
A few months ago, I started to realize that all of the things I used to do to turn off my brain from worrying about things were no longer working. I also realized I was getting really angry at the world at times. It all came to a head one night when I was worried about a leak in our basement. The spinning thoughts in my head would not stop, and I tried to explain my anxiety to my husband. He suggested I reach out a therapist acquaintance we know to ask for therapist recommendations.
The therapist I knew sent me two names. I Googled them and emailed one of them. In our first appointment, I felt like my new therapist was a good fit right away, if only because I was comfortable talking to her through video chat. That was a good start. I explained to her how I was feeling, and because I am a “let’s fix this” person, I told her that I needed tools to use when I started feeling like that, techniques I could use to calm my mind. She gave me several that have been quite helpful, both before I start feeling anxious and when I’m in that anxiety-ridden moment.
Therapy was also beneficial because it meant someone objective was validating my feelings. She validated that I am going through a loss—a loss of a way of life, that I am grieving something, even if I am lucky enough to have not been directly affected by COVID-19. But the upheaval and the uncertainty can definitely create anxiety.
Here are a few techniques I now use regularly:
- Name your worrying thought. What worry are you feeling? Now ask yourself two things: Is that thought accurate? And, is it helpful?
It may not even be accurate. You may be exaggerating reality based on your anxiety. And even if the thought is accurate, is it helpful to think that way? Probably not. Instead, reframe that thought into something helpful, like, “I have lost work during the pandemic. That means I need to do extra marketing each month to get more work.”
- Breathing. I know taking deep, long breaths helps calm your mind and body. But my therapist reminded me how to breathe properly: Take a long deep breath in through your nose—you should feel your belly expand—and then breathe out for a few seconds longer than you breathed in. I like to breathe out through my mouth (when I’m alone) because it feels like I’m pushing out the air more.
One thing my therapist added was that when you breathe out, think of a word and think of pushing that word out and away from you. Typically, this is a negative word like “anxiety” or “stress.” But if you want to just concentrate on the word, you can pick a positive word instead to focus on. If you pick a negative word to push out, you can have fun choosing the word. I like to say “freakin’ pandemic.”
- Visualization. Pick a favorite outdoor location—do you like the beach, the mountains or the forest? Choose your spot. It can even be specific. I choose a specific hidden beach in Key West, one of my favorite places.
Now, use your senses: What does it feel like, sound like, smell like? That alone can help calm you down. But you can go farther and imagine a nearby body of water. Then, cup your hands together and put all your negative thoughts and feelings that you want to get rid of in the cup of your hands and throw them into the water. Watch them until they float away and disappear.
- These next two suggestions aren’t from my therapists, but are good reminders to myself. This one might seem like a no-brainer, but it often needs repeating: Cut back on social media and the news. There’s a balance between being an informed citizen and obsessively tracking the news all day long. You can even quit some platforms or certain groups. I left a bunch of Facebook groups that made me angry too often. I’ve both unfriended people and unfollowed people. When you “unfollow,” you’ll still technically be friends, but you won’t see their posts. This is an easy way to get out of the situation without creating controversy over unfriending a relative. I heard a podcast guest talking about leaving the Bookstagram community on Instagram not because it made her angry but because it felt like too much work right now.
- Accept that this year and the pandemic is just one part of your life. I’m less anxious when I think of it that way, instead of it as something to just get through, something to just wait out. THIS is my life. THIS is part of the journey. It helps me to be thankful for the little things and to focus on those small things: when my cats make me laugh or get super snuggly, watching and feeding the birds and squirrels in my backyard, waving and thanking delivery drivers, smiling at kids who ride past our house on their bikes. I have to hang on to those small moments when the big moments seem so dire and overwhelming.
Biz Bite: Chunk your projects
The Bookshelf: “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” by Isabel Wilkerson
Resources:
Psychology Today Find a Therapist tool
Psychology Today article: “Can You Reduce Anxiety and Stress by the Way You Breathe?”
Episode #48 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Cope with Coronavirus Anxiety, with Therapist Mira Dineen
Episode #52 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embracing Self-Care without Guilt, with Acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger
On today’s show I am recommending nine nonfiction and business books that have helped me create and grow my freelance business:
- “Atomic Habits” by James Clear
For the past two years I have read this book at the beginning of the new year, which might become an annual tradition because it sets me on a good habit course for the year.
One quote from the book I really like is “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” That means if you don’t put a system and habits in place for each of your goals, they’ll just be floating out there with no structure or plan to actually achieve them. You need to create a step-by-step plan for how to achieve each of these goals. And you need to start with baby steps.
Another quote I really like is “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” That means you will not notice an improvement the first time you start a new habit; you may not even see improvements week after week. Transformation takes time.
One of the concrete things James provides in his book are the four simple steps to building better habits. These steps are:
- Cue
- Craving
- Response
-
Reward
-
“Deep Work” by Cal Newport
“Deep work” is that cognitively demanding work, work that requires concentration and creativity and deep thinking—which means no distractions. For me, this is writing. What is it for you in your business?
I am not an effective writer if I’m trying to squeeze writing in in between meetings, checking email and posting on social media. Instead, Newport helps you figure out how to concentrate, minimize distractions and focus deeply on your work. He warns you about the different types of distractions that might pop up and how you can develop strategies to fight against them.
- “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
This book provides time, productivity and focus strategies that are tactical and helpful. This book is a lot breezier to read than the other two books I just recommended, but that doesn’t mean it’s fluff. It has silly illustrations and a fun, conversational tone. There are 87 tactics in this book that you can try to focus better and be more productive.
A couple of the tactics that have helped me:
Pick a highlight for your day—the one thing that you must get done—and then zero in on getting it done. The book calls that “laser focus.”
Pick a soundtrack for your highlight. Choose one song, the same song, to play whenever you start your highlight for that day. I do this now whenever I am going to start deep work like writing. I have one song I play every time, and I’ve become Pavlov’s dog. Any time I hear this song I know that it’s time to buckle down and do a project. It’s my cue to get to work. It really works.
Skip the morning check-in. At the end of each day, I go over my calendar and tasks and write out my to-do list for the next day. I choose my highlight for the next day. Then, when I wake up the next morning, I get straight to work on my highlight. I don’t check email or social media. Or, if I do check email, I check only for emergency emails from clients. I don’t respond to regular emails or even read them. Setting a timer for about 10 minutes can help you from getting sucked into email.
- “Off the Clock” by Laura Vanderkam
This book, by a productivity and time tracking expert, was so much more than I thought it would be. It's not just a quick-read, “here are a few tips” productivity book. Vanderkam teaches us how to live life with more intention, to “linger” and “savor” and to invest in your happiness by being mindful of how you spend your time and how you WANT to spend your time.
Laura talks about “letting it go”—how not to obsess over certain goals and how not to be so hard on yourself when you don’t hit perfection. She talks about little ways to invest in your own happiness and to appreciate the small things in life. Incidentally, these are all concepts that might really help during the pandemic.
- “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain
As an introvert, I wasn’t sure what I could learn from this book. I know how I am and what I like. But I loved this book. It was way more in-depth and researched that I expected—not a fluffy, self-help book at all.
This book explains in detail how being introverted can manifest in the real world, which has really helped me explain to other people why I like the things I like and do the things I do. The book also dives into the history of introvertedness, explaining when the U.S. started treasuring extroverts more. The author explains the values treasured by Eastern versus Western cultures and gives a ton of tips for living with and working with introverts and for raising kids who are introverts.
- “Better than Before” by Gretchen Rubin
Rubin is probably best known for her book “The Happiness Project,” which I also liked. But “Better than Before” is where Rubin first introduces us to her framework The Four Tendencies. She argues that everyone falls into one of four categories based on how we respond to expectations from ourselves and from others—internal and external expectations. She has written a book called “The Four Tendencies” and you can also take a quiz to find out which of the four you are.
Knowing your tendency helps you figure out how to use the right habit creation techniques that work for you. For example, I’m a questioner, and Gretchen helped me realize why “accountability” doesn’t work for me. You hear so often in business to form accountability groups or if you make yourself accountable to others, you’ll get things done. This could mean, if you sign up for a class, and especially if you pay for it, you’ll definitely go. But that doesn’t work for me.
“Better than Before” will help you get to know yourself better and teach you what techniques work for you best. And then, Rubin provides a ton of habit formation tips to help you get things done.
- “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer” by Jennifer Goforth Gregory
This book is gold for content marketing writers, whether you’re brand-new to this type of writing or have been doing it for 20 years. There is also a lot of tactical advice on how to get clients that can be helpful to non-writers as well. Gregory talks about how to use LinkedIn effectively and shares her template for a very short, to-the-point “letter of introduction,” which she compares to a pickup line. As she explains, you’re just trying to get a date with the person; you’re not trying to build an entire relationship with that first LOI.
She also talks about how to price your projects, why freelancers need to talk about money with each other and how to find anchor clients.
- “Secrets of a Freelance Writer: How to Make $100,000 a Year or More” by Robert Bly
This was one of the first freelance books I purchased. It’s a little dated, but the bulk of the book contains really helpful information, especially for newer freelancers or those who need to set themselves up as a freelance business rather than just flying by the seat of their pants.
I gained a lot of confidence from reading this book. For example, Bly talks about how freelancers offer professional services and should not be shy or apologetic about their fees, but simply state them matter of factly. It’s that type of tone and tips that helped me believe I was a freelance business owner.
And while the book is for writers, there is some information in there that would help any freelancer, like how to set your fees, how to network and brand yourself, how to deal with client problems and how to generate sales leads.
- “The Money Book: for Freelancers, Part-Timers and the Self-Employed” by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan
This book is also a bit old, but it’s a good staple, especially for those who need to get a better handle on your income and finances. The book provides a lot of advice about how to rethink how you use, earn and spend money. It can help you with debt and savings and getting your spending under control. It’s one of the few financial books I’ve seen that is written specifically for freelancers.
Biz Bite: Take care of your future self.
The Bookshelf: “The Family Upstairs” by Lisa Jewell
Resources:
Episode #4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Today’s guest is Hilary Sutton. Hilary is the CEO of HSL Digital, a content marketing consultancy. She is a keynote speaker and writer who has contributed to HuffPost, the Washington Post and USA Today. The author of several eBooks and courses, Hilary also hosts the popular Hustle & Grace Podcast where she explores cultivating a flourishing career and life.
Hilary began her career as an actress performing in theaters up and down the East Coast, then transitioned to academics, serving as professor of communications, social media and journalism at Southern New Hampshire University. She has also held digital marketing roles at SpotCo, Pursuant and McKinley Marketing Partners. Hilary lives outside of Washington, DC, with her husband and daughter.
The pandemic affected Hilary when her primary client lost some of their clients, furloughed employees and cut her hours dramatically. But new clients popped up, keeping her income stable. That showed her the importance of always building your personal brand and always connecting with people.
“I have personally found a lot of power and control in being freelancer who works in the digital landscape because that is always going to be there, even if you’re in a pandemic.”
Online communities are powerful, but meeting people in person at conferences and other events has solidified relationships and lead to new clients and new projects.
Hilary defines personal branding as a combination of two things: the content that already exists about you (if someone Googles your name) and what people think of when they think of you.
Everyone has a personal brand, whether you want it or not. There is information out there already telling a story about you. Shouldn’t you take control of that?
A personal brand is not self-promoting. Reframe it to think of it as you telling people how you can help them. If you don’t tell people how you can help them, they won’t know that you can help them.
You don’t have to focus on personal branding 24/7. While you should be consistent with your branding and timing, it is OK to take breaks from branding and social media. We need to prioritize mental health and “building space” in our lives so we don’t experience burnout.
In summer 2019, for the first time in years, Hilary took a one-month break from social media, which was a healthy break and reminder of who is important in her real life. She gained clarity on the friendships and relationships of her inner circle. She also increased her productivity.
The break quieted the social media noise. She says it was healthy to be bored, observe the world around her and be present, especially with her young daughter.
Personal branding started for Hilary when she was a theater actress. She wanted to build a marketing writing career and inform people about the services she offered. She started by launching a blog to share her expertise. She also began to build her personal brand on LinkedIn. Having two websites—one for acting, one for content marketing—was critical to make it very clear what she did for two different audiences.
Consider these three questions things when building—or rebuilding—an intentional personal brand:
- What do you do in your business?
- Who do you serve in your business? (Get clear on who your target audience is.)
- What do you want people to think about when they think about you?
Next, consider how to concretely build that personal brand: build a website, have photos of yourself taken that reflect your brand. Also, claim your name or business name on multiple social media channels. Even if you don’t have a social media plan for all of those platforms now, claim the name and add your contact info, because those sites will rank high in Google when people search your name. In fact, Pinterest is more of a search engine than a social media platform and that can help your rankings.
For more ideas, take Hilary’s 31-day personal brand challenge.
As you build your intentional personal brand, remember to always keep your target audience in mind. And be aware that anything you say online—even if you think it’s via a private message—can be made public.
Hilary created a three-module course to teach you the building blocks of developing a personal brand, available on her website. Hilary’s course: 3 Steps to Start Building a Personal Brand
Hilary also has a podcast, Hustle & Grace, where she interviews high-performing creatives and talks about how to cultivate a flourishing career and a flourishing life.
Biz Bite: Take inventory of your social media presence and Google results
Resources:
Hilary’s course: 3 Steps to Start Building a Personal Brand
Hilary’s 31-day personal brand challenge
HSL Digital
HilarySutton.com
Hilary on Twitter
Hilary on LinkedIn
Hilary on Instagram
Hustle & Grace Podcast
Hustle & Grace Podcast episode with Dan Pink
Episode #55 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use Pinterest to Grow Your Business, with Julia Bocchese
Today’s guest is Kristen Hicks. Kristen is a freelance content marketing writer in Austin, Texas. She specializes in helping B2B businesses connect with their audience through content. Her work has been featured on the Content Marketing Institute, MarketingProfs and Fast Company. She has five furry co-workers, an ever-growing book collection and a (usually) well-stocked wine rack.
Kristen is here to talk about imposter syndrome. Kristen defines imposter syndrome as “worry that you’re not good enough, even when there’s not actual evidence that that’s the case and often in the face of evidence to the contrary.” For freelancers, it often takes the form of entering into client relationships with the feeling that they’re doing you a favor, rather than seeing it as a partnership between equals.
Imposter syndrome can also affect a person’s comfort in charging professional rates, which leads to under charging.
Early in her career, Kristen felt imposter syndrome, which showed up by feeling it was too pushy to require a contract or not pushing back against scope creep.
Anyone doing creative work will have a client that doesn’t like your work at some point. That negative feedback can make you doubt yourself. Plus, people who have had toxic bosses or toxic clients may wonder if that’s normal and start to doubt themselves.
Our society also raises girls and teaches women to be more docile or people pleasing. Women often have to learn how to draw boundaries and stand up for themselves.
Trying to charge decent rates is made worse by seeing job ads with pitiful rates. That can deflate freelancers and make you question your self-worth if you don’t know how to find clients who pay well.
When coming up with rates, aim for project rates and remember that you can negotiate down but you can’t negotiate up.
When you think of setting rates think of all the freelancers in your industry. If you accept very low rates you’re teaching clients that that is OK. You are devaluing the larger market. It’s not just about you anymore.
Melanie talks about her difficulties pushing back on scope creep, which feels like conflict and/or a confrontation, which makes her uncomfortable. Kristen recommends thinking about how to reframe this, because it’s about drawing boundaries for yourself.
Fight against imposter syndrome, in part, by learning how to pay attention to the positive voices in your life over the negative ones. If you have 10 clients who love your work and one who doesn’t, we tend to focus more on the negative one. You have to remind yourself that those 10 people are smart, professional people and if they like your work it’s probably good work.
Building a community and showing your expertise in your field will show you how people respect you as a professional. That, in turn, will help you respect yourself more.
Create a “compliments” email folder where you keep all those positive responses (“great job!”) from clients and periodically look at that to boost your confidence or pull you out of imposter syndrome.
Ask clients for testimonials to add to your website and LinkedIn, which is something that will help convert new clients.
Any time you doubt yourself or the boundaries you’re trying to set with a client, bounce the idea off someone else. Take advantage of the freelance community and ask for others’ opinions. Or, ask a friend, “Is this reasonable?”
If you get negative feedback, walk away to give yourself time to get over that initial emotion so you can look at the feedback more objectively later. Perhaps, it’s constructive criticism. Later, you can view it more reasonably, without emotion clouding your view.
The pandemic may have manifested or increased imposter syndrome in some ways as people have more anxiety, have lost clients and projects, and have had to seek out new clients. There is a lot of concern and discomfort now about what to charge and if you can raise rates because of the economic crisis.
If you’re worried that your work isn’t the best right now, invest in your skills. Maybe hire a consultant to help you out or sign up for courses.
Also, if you can afford it, be picky when selecting clients. Make sure they’re a good fit. Don’t work with clients who are always negative or who talk down to you—that could create imposter syndrome or increase those feelings.
Leave bad clients. If you can’t walk away right now because of finances, draft a marketing plan to secure better clients so you can walk away in the near future.
Biz Bite: Focus on energy management, as well as time management.
Resources:
Kristen Hicks: Austin-Copywriter.com
Kristen on Twitter
Episode #66 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Price Your Projects
Episode #62 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Prevent and Deal with Burnout, with Alan Heymann
On today’s show I am going to talk about why you should aim for providing only project rates and how to go about setting those rates.
A lot of us struggle with pricing, even those of us who have been doing this for a while. But here’s a secret: We’re all just making this up. The best pricing is often project based, and that is a made-up number when it comes down to it.
You need to reframe your mindset and get your head around the fact that you are a freelance business owner. You are the boss. You are in charge of your own business. This means, you need to shift your mindset 180 degrees from waiting to hear what someone will pay you, and asking what someone will pay you, to telling someone what your rate is or telling someone what you charge for that project.
It’s such a huge mindset shift in so many ways when you finally embrace the fact that you are in charge of your business. If someone cannot afford you, then you move on to the next potential client. When many of us start freelancing, we take what we can get and we allow the client to set the pricing and the parameters. Or, when the client asks what our rate is, we give them an hourly rate, often too low. But when you embrace the fact that you are the owner of your own business, you will start to think about pricing differently.
Your overarching goal should be to think of every assignment and gig as a project rate and to propose project rates to every client.
But first, let’s talk about hourly pricing and why it is such a problem. First, hourly pricing means you are charging for your time. And that is one thing we all need to stop doing—charging based on our time.
Time is finite. There is only so much money you can make each week before you run out of time and energy. You will be unable to grow your business this way.
Also, time does not equal the value you bring to a project. You need to base your fees on your value.
Third, hourly pricing penalizes you for working fast. And, if you and the client don’t discuss how many hours a project might take, the client could be surprised and frustrated when they see the invoice at the end of the month.
Since some listeners are writers, let’s talk about per word rates. Ideally, everything would be project rates, but sometimes you are in an industry that does dictate the style of pricing. For writers, that’s a per word rate. You can try to push back on this and suggest a flat rate for writing an article, but often editors’ hands are tied based on an antiquated system.
With per word rates (and really, all projects) I build in systems to work faster while still providing top quality. For writing assignments, that could mean recording interviews. Sometimes I record only to listen to certain parts (I mark timestamps in my notes when the person says something great or that I want to check back on). Sometimes I record and have someone else transcribe the interview. It’s worth the financial investment because it saves me time and energy in the long run. (I also hate transcribing with a fiery passion.)
Writers, please know that a per word rate exists often only in journalism. In content marketing, especially for companies, you can often charge a project rate. If you come from the journalism world and are accustomed to per word rates, leave that behind when you are pricing your projects. You might get stuck with a per word rate, but don’t suggest it up front. Start with a project rate.
Now that we accept that we should all be charging by the project, how do we actually do that? I was serious when I said these rates are made up. Not one freelancer or consultant has it figured out and has created the perfect project rate every single time. No two projects are the same. No two clients are the same. Here are just a few things that go into creating a project rate:
- The expertise you bring to that particular job.
- The value the client will get from your work.
- The amount of energy you will need to put into the project versus doing an easy project.
- Whether the client requires regular check-ins or for you to attend phone meetings—charge for those meetings!
- Whether the client is a new client or a beloved current or former client.
- Whether the client is a pain in the butt or has a history of scope creep.
- Whether the client is a major corporation or a small nonprofit you want to help out.
- The extras that are required—are there more rounds of editing? Are there extras like social media posts that need to be included?
- The project timeline—is it reasonable or hurried? Is it a rush job?
And the list goes on and on!
Here is my system for coming up with a project rate. First, I have a secret hourly rate to give me something to start with. Now, I said don’t use an hourly rate, so if you do start with an hourly rate, use this very loosely as just your “base” to get started. Don’t stick to it.
Next, ask yourself all those things about what type of project and client this is, including:
- Are you an expert at this type of work? Are you in high demand? Did you come highly recommended to this client from another client of yours?
- Do you bring a certain skill set that is difficult to find?
- Even if you don’t, are you good at what you do? Have you done this before? Are you confident you can produce a quality product?
- What type of client is this? How much value will they get out of your project?
- How much energy will this project take—this is not time, this is ENERGY. Do you get the sense that this will be a tiring project, taxing on your brain, that the client is a pain in the butt, that you don’t really want to do the job?
Take the time to evaluate to the best of your ability all the parameters around the project, not just the skill set needed to do the project.
One of the best ways to do that is to have an initial phone call with the potential client. I know some of us hate the phone, but a phone call can be critical to finding out this information so that you can provide an appropriate project rate or a proposal. You can also learn a lot about someone when you talk on the phone with them—you can gather hints about what the client will be like to work with that you can’t get over email.
For the phone conversation, write out a list of questions so you don’t forget. In fact, you can create a template of questions to ask every client. Questions you may want to ask, besides the details of the assignment, are:
- How would you like to stay updated?
- Can I just send you emails when I have questions? (This question could tell you a lot if they say something like, “Oh, I’d like you to join us for our weekly check-ins” versus “I trust you. Just let me know if you run into any problems.”
- Do you have samples of previous projects I could take a look at?
- Who is my direct contact? Is it one person? Are there multiple people involved?
- What is the review process like?
- How flexible is the timeline?
A potential client may ask, “What’s your rate?” I often respond with something like, “I’ll be able to put together a proposal for you with a project rate after we’ve talked through the details.”
You can also ask, “Do you have a budget in mind?” Sometimes they won’t and that may be OK. But if they say “about $500” and you are talking about a project that might start out at a base rate of $3,000, you don’t need to waste your time talking with them anymore. It can be helpful to educate them, though, even if they don’t change their budget. You are helping boost your industry by letting them know quality work is worth way more than that $500. And maybe they’ll increase their budget!
Once I have all these questions answered and I have considered all the parameters, I take my base rate and start to increase it.
After you come to a number, ask yourself this very important question: Do I want to do this project for that amount?
You do not want to offer a rate that you will end up resenting—resenting the rate, the project, the client, yourself.
Also know before you get back to the client what number you will not go below, in case you have to negotiate a bit. You don’t want to get flustered and negotiate a number that is too low for you.
If you need to walk away from the project, you can simply email and say, “After further reflection/looking over the details, this is not a good fit for me.”
Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t continue to offer explanation. Don’t over-explain. You are the boss of you. It’s not a good fit. End of story.
Biz Bite: Buy the good pens. (or elevate your workspace)
The Bookshelf: “Notes from a Young Black Chef” by Kwame Onwuachi
Resources:
Episode #39 of Deliberate Freelancer: Raise Your Rates—Without Emotion
Episode #18 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Higher Rates
Episode #1 of Deliberate Freelancer: Change Your Mindset: You Own a Freelance Business
Laura Vanderkam talks about “buying the good pens” on The Productivityist Podcast, episode 322, The New Corner Office with Laura Vanderkam
FreeConferenceCall.com
Rev.com (transcriptionist service)
This is a “tough love” episode. Many of us are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, distracted and too busy. I think a lot of that can be alleviated by decreasing your smartphone usage and fighting against social media and digital addictions. It’s time to take back our lives. It’s time to take control of our schedules. In this episode, I lead you through several steps to cut back on digital distraction, partly inspired by Cal Newport’s new book, “Digital Minimalism.”
Let me take you back in time when baby boomers, Gen Xers and the Oregon Trail Generation can remember a time in our adult lives when smartphones and social media didn’t exist—and cellphones were just for calling people.
As a kid in the 1980s, I would often whine, “I’m bored.” And I just had to figure out what to do about that boredom. Now, no one is ever allowed to be bored. Instead, we reach for our smartphones. Boredom is highly underrated.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, I bought Cal Newport’s new book, “Digital Minimalism.” And I read it in 24 hours. Newport argues that you have to figure HOW you’re going to spend your leisure time BEFORE you cut back on your digital life. If you just force yourself to put down the phone or not use social media at set times—without a plan—you’ll be anxious and fidgety, not knowing what to do with yourself.
I want to focus my leisure time on health, fitness and nutrition. I’m making a plan to walk 10,000 steps several days a week and dusting off my bike to go for fun rides again.
I culled my social media feeds, unfollowing most people on Instagram—only keeping a few real-life friends—and cutting my Twitter followings in half. I also dropped out of 27 Facebook groups! Who knew I was in so many?! I’m focusing on two that are particularly interesting, educational and inspiring, with a true community feel.
Cal Newport also talks about the importance of solitude. He says there’s this myth that solitude means being physically alone, but what it really means is freeing up your mind. We all need this. You may have to actually schedule solitude and downtime until it becomes more of a habit again.
Your tough love, digital intervention marching orders:
- Start tracking your time.
- Decide how you want to spend your leisure or down time.
- Learn more about habit formation.
- Start decluttering your digital world.
Biz Bite: Assigning ringtones to important people.
Resources:
The Oregon Trail Generation
Cal Newport’s book “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World”
Episode 5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
Episode 10 of Deliberate Freelancer, which talks about Cal Newport’s book “Deep Work”: Think Like a Marketer to Grow Your Business, with Megy Karydes
Episode 2 of Deliberate Freelancer about cutting out tasks and outsourcing: Discover Your Unique Brilliance
Episode 3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
The Freelance Content Marketing Writer Facebook group
She Podcasts Facebook group
James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones”
Gretchen Rubin’s book “Better than Before: What I Learned about Making and Breaking Habits—to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life”
As the pandemic changed so many things both personally and professionally, I had to rethink of new ways to market and network in order to find new clients. And in doing so these past four months, I realized what my No. 1 marketing tool is for getting new clients. It’s not sexy or groundbreaking, but it’s solid: My No. 1 way to find new clients is through referrals.
You may not like the words “networking” or “marketing” or “personal branding.” So, why not reframe it and call all those things “relationship building” instead. That’s what I’ve done, and I enjoy building new relationships with people. Some of them even end up becoming true friendships. And that grows my network. And when I grow my network, I expand the possibilities for referrals—not only from current and former clients, but from former co-workers at past jobs, from other editors and writers, from colleagues in the industries I specialize in.
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear from some freelancers is about competition. Your fellow freelancers can be your friends, not your competition. In fact, that’s the way I want to live and be in my business—not in some uber competition with people, but in a non-toxic, stress-free, collegial environment. And, it is just a bonus that those people can be your biggest source of referrals.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been contacted by a potential client who was just not the right fit. Instead of telling them “no” and that being the end of it, I usually offer to connect them with someone that might be a better fit, if I know instinctively that this will not take a lot of time.
I sometimes reach out to freelancer friends that might be a good fit and ask them first if they are interested, without naming the client, and then offering to provide the client their name. Sometimes, the potential client is comfortable with me going ahead and introducing them to one person by email and then I let them take it from there.
When you provide a few contacts to the potential client, not only are you helping out a fellow freelancer, but that client is appreciative and you never know how that might help in the future. I’ve had potential clients come back to me because I went that extra mile and asked me if I was available for a different type of project.
Doing something small like that to help a potential client who has no idea where to look for a writer or editor, or whatever the services that they need help with, keeps you top of mind as a reliable and helpful person. Your name does not get jumbled in with all the other freelancer names they’ve heard. They will remember you—at least more than they will remember the freelancer who never got back to them or just said, “no, it’s not a good fit” and moved on.
When you help out other freelancers in this way, they often reciprocate. You never know what opportunity might come up; it sometimes takes months or even years. But it is amazing how much work I’ve received from other freelancers.
So, when you hear from potential clients with projects that are not quite for you, think of your fellow freelancers. This is easier the bigger the network you have. I actually have lists of friends with their expertise listed because it is hard to think of a perfect fit on the spot. The lists are good reminders of what everybody focuses on and what they’re looking for. In turn, these freelancer friends will hopefully remember you and return the favor, as they have done for me over the years.
The other primary way to get referrals is, of course, your current and past clients. Don’t be shy about letting clients know when you are looking for new work. And be specific about what you are looking for. You may think your client already knows what you do, but they often only know what you have done for them.
Rather than just telling your clients what your services are, phrase it more like: “How can I help you? What do you need?” Then, you can list some of your services, and depending on how much energy and time you want to spend on this, you could also offer to connect them to other freelancers in areas they need help with. For example, if I make this offer and my client needs a new magazine designer, I can connect them with several graphic designers. I’m taking the burden off them, helping to shorten their to-do list.
At the beginning of 2019, I decided to tell my clients directly exactly what I was looking for in the new year, so in my regular newsletter I explained that I was looking for a new newsletter or magazine to be the managing editor of, more membership association clients who needed a magazine writer and magazine proofreading gigs. One of them is now an anchor client.
I remembered the success of that email when I needed to replace lost work at the beginning of the pandemic, so I decided to do something similar. This time, instead of using that smaller email list I had gathered for my newsletter, I pulled together my email contacts of former clients, current clients, friends and colleagues, and almost anyone I had ever had an extended conversation with about work. I then crafted an email and let them know I was looking for new work and spelled out exactly what services I could provide.
I briefly mentioned my 20 years of experience, then created a bulleted list of my services and asked them how I could help them. Again, I offered to help them with whatever they were looking for, mentioning my vast network of other freelancers.
In that bulleted list, I thought of the work that might be needed particularly during the pandemic like writing about public health. I also thought of things specific to the pandemic, like covering virtual conferences, which I used to cover in-person. I also mentioned I could help revamp content editorial calendars since the pandemic destroyed everyone’s editorial calendar.
I ended the email by saying “Please feel free to share my name with—or forward this email to—any editors or colleagues at associations or other organizations who might be looking for a freelance writer or editor, especially someone who specializes in health care and public health.”
My biggest lesson here is ASK. People don’t necessarily think of you unless you ask. Or, they think you don’t need the work. Or, they don’t know what you do. I had a handful of people respond that they didn’t think they could afford me, but as we talked through the project, it turns out they could.
So, again, referrals come from many places. It’s my No. 1 way of getting new clients—and often clients I LOVE because I did the work to make sure we were a good fit.
But you have to ask. And be specific about what you’re looking for, while also saying “how can I help you?” Getting referrals happens through networking, marketing and branding—or, better yet, “relationship building.” And that can still be done virtually right now, through social media, Zoom, texts, phone calls, email and more. Also, be sure to attend virtual conferences and webinars where your clients are—often there are chat features where you can connect with people.
Biz Bite: Strategically reorganize your online portfolio
The Bookshelf: “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett
Resources:
Episode #64 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Increase Your Visibility and Get More Clients, with Amelia Roberts
Episode #49 of Deliberate Freelancer: Appropriate Marketing and Promotion during the Coronavirus Pandemic, with Michelle Garrett
Episode #43 of Deliberate Freelancer: 33 Ways to Find More Clients
Episode #24 of Deliberate Freelancer: Networking Tips, Especially as an Introvert
Today’s guest is Amelia Roberts. Amelia is a digital native who officially became a practitioner of online marketing 12 years ago as a virtual assistant. Now, Amelia helps under-recognized professionals—freelancers, consultants, solopreneurs—stand out, articulate their unique value and get “first dates” in business.
She calls these “visibility opportunities” and she helps manage “visibility projects” for clients, such as getting them guest spots on podcasts and speaking gigs for virtual summits/conferences.
Amelia’s own marketing has changed slightly during the pandemic. She can’t build relationships in person right now, which is how she used to get a lot of clients. But she has reached out to her network and received work through referrals.
For people to work with you, they need to see you. Amelia paraphrases LinkedIn Co-founder Reid Hoffman: All opportunities are firmly attached to humans.
When you are looking for an opportunity, you are really looking for a human. Visibility opportunities mean getting in the ears of your best buyers or referral partners.
Wise clients of Amelia’s quickly changed their focus during the pandemic, when in-person events were no longer possible. Many of the opportunities are simply online versions of previous opportunities. There is still a need for guest experts.
Some speakers aren’t as comfortable switching to a virtual format, which opens up the opportunities for those who make that switch. You will have to make some tweaks, including to your call to action, when you switch from an in-person event to a virtual speaking event.
Amelia recommends following her “NURSE” framework and process:
Needs—what message do your ideal clients need to hear?
Utilization of tools—what tools are they using?
Resources—what resources are they investing in?
Success—what does success look like for them?
Evaluate—evaluate the plan they have.
When you “NURSE” your ideal client, you’ll start to see places that will make sense for you to start to pitch yourself.
With any marketing effort, we don’t want to waste time or money on things that won’t work. And you don’t want to join the wrong online group and find your ideal clients aren’t there. Before you say yes to opportunities, think about the needs and tools of your ideal client—is there an alignment with the opportunity? If the opportunity and person does not share your ideal clients and cannot refer you to your ideal clients, you may want to say no, depending on your time, energy and resources.
Look for people who have audiences you could help. Amelia started this process for her own business with groups related to women in business. Once you help a particular group, research and figure out where else those people hang out.
What about introverts and others who are nervous about public speaking and podcast guesting? You may have to block out time around your event so you give yourself time to prepare and also recover and regroup afterward.
Instead of thinking of this as marketing, think of it as putting yourself out there as a resource. Think of it as serving people. You are looking for people who have a pain that you can solve.
Amelia quotes entrepreneur Monica Shah: “Planning is the highest form of self-care.” This is really important for solopreneurs and solo business owners.
Amelia recommends developing a process and system to prepare for each opportunity. Have a goal in mind before you start your marketing effort. Marketing supports your sales process. So, what is your sales process? Are you offering a freebie, leading people to call you?
Think of any visibility effort as a project that can be managed. Break it down into tasks.
Amelia recommends choosing two efforts and focusing on those for 90 days and then evaluating them. Continue if it makes sense to do so.
During the pandemic, two hot trends are virtual summits and collaborations, such as a Facebook group that partners with a guest expert.
Developing a process and structure for your marketing efforts will also make it easier for you to hire a virtual assistant and know what you need them to focus on.
Biz Bite: Use a project management tool like Asana or Trello to track your marketing efforts
Resources:
Freebie from Amelia: Get In Front of Everyone
Amelia Roberts on LinkedIn
Amelia on Instagram
Amelia on Twitter
CORRECTION: At the 10:18 minute mark, I misspoke and said you should take $56,000 and multiply it by 12. That should say DIVIDE by 12. My math is correct in the episode; I just misspoke. Sorry about that!
In today’s episode I outline my experience with the U.S. Paycheck Protection Program—known as the PPP loan program—and encourage you to consider applying for a loan if you have been hurt financially by the pandemic.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, accountant/CPA, financial services adviser or any other financial expert related to the PPP program. I am solely providing you my experience with the program and offering some things for you to consider. You should doublecheck all information with an expert and do your own research.
Sole proprietors are allowed to apply for a PPP loan at about a maximum of $20,000, depending on how much you earned in 2019. The process to have your entire loan forgiven is fairly straightforward if you are a sole proprietor. This effectively turns the PPP loan into a grant that you do not have to pay back. Even if you do have to pay back part or all of the loan, the interest rate is only 1%.
You may have heard in the beginning of the PPP program that it was hard to get a loan. I cannot speak to whether that is still the case for each individual sole proprietor, but there is a lot of money left in the program and the federal government is concerned that people are not applying. As of July 6, $130 billion was still available for businesses and sole proprietors.
First, let’s talk about applying for the loan. Initially, it appeared to be difficult for people to get these loans. In fact, sole proprietors often faced a burden from their own banks because in the beginning major banks issued their own requirement that you had to have a business checking account with them. And many freelancers do not have that. You should check first with your own bank to see if that is still the case and if you can apply through that bank.
If not, there are other options, such as Kabbage, PayPal, BlueVine and others. You are only allowed to have one PPP loan. This is important. I encourage you to NOT apply for more than one loan at a time, thinking you can just refuse one of the loans if you are offered more than one. I tried this and the Small Business Administration (SBA) had a glitch that did not flag my Social Security number showing that I had already received a loan approval. So, I was approved for two loans, and it took over a month to work out with one of the lenders how to send back the money back and get it all straightened out with the SBA.
To avoid all that, my biggest advice is DO NOT apply for more than one loan at a time.
One of the biggest considerations of whether you should apply for the loan is how much money you made in 2019. The loan amount is supposed to cover paychecks. For you as a sole proprietor, you don’t have employees. So, that means your own income. If you did not make much money in 2019, it might not be worth applying for the loan. The loan application MUST be based on the Schedule C form for your 2019 taxes.
On your 2019 Schedule C, look at your net profit on line 31. If that number is under $100,000 use whatever that number is. If it’s over $100,000, you have to use $100,000. The PPP has a $100,000 cap.
Take that number, whatever yours is, and divide it by 12 to get a monthly total. Then, you multiply that number by 2.5. That is the amount of the loan you are requesting.
The paperwork to apply was fairly easy. I did the entire process in a few hours. I had to scan copies of all the 1099s I received for 2019 work and put them into one pdf to submit with the application. I also had to send in a photocopy of my driver’s license and copies of bank statements, which I easily downloaded online.
Let’s talk about loan forgiveness. The government has changed a few rules since March, actually making the process easier and better for sole proprietors. The loan forgiveness timeline was eight weeks. Now, you can choose to wait for 24 weeks, which means there is a greater chance you’ll have the entire loan forgiven.
To have your loan forgiven, you do have to officially ask your lender. The SBA has created an easier form to do this, called the 3508EZ form.
My CPA recommended that to easily show my PPP lender how I was spending the money, I write myself four checks over the next eight weeks, so one check every two weeks, just like a paycheck. I divided my loan by four and I now write myself a check for $5,208 from my checking account that received the loan into my personal account. He recommended I do this process of writing physical checks, rather than just transferring the money electronically, so that we could easily show photocopies of the check to my lender when asking for forgiveness. Your CPA might have a different solution, so be sure to ask an expert.
Also know that you cannot get the PPP loan if you are getting unemployment. You can’t have both. There’s also another loan program called the EIDL, or economic injury disaster loan, through the SBA. That is a true loan program that you have to pay back. You can have both the EIDL and a PPP loan, but you have to be able to show that the money went for separate areas of your business. I don’t know much about the EIDL, so be sure to do your research and talk to an expert to learn more about that program.
Biz Bite: Create a Power Hour After List
The Bookshelf: “Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood” by Trevor Noah
Resources:
Trump signs extension of PPP small business coronavirus relief fund
Tax Deductions For Paycheck Protection Expenses Remain In Doubt
Loan forgiveness form: 3508EZ
Today’s guest is Alan Heymann, an executive coach. Alan’s coaching company is called Peaceful Direction. He has spent more than two decades in public, government and nonprofit communications. Then, after he hired his own executive coach, he decided to become a coach himself. He founded Peaceful Direction in April 2019.
I invited Alan on the podcast to talk about burnout. Burnout happens to the best of us in our lives and careers, but we are particularly susceptible right now during the pandemic and economic crisis because of all the changes, uncertainty and stressors on us right now.
Alan talks about how you can recognize burnout in yourselves, how you can work to prevent it and what you can do when you’re starting to feel burnout.
Burnout is more of an issue nowadays than before the pandemic because you have uncertainty layered on top of uncertainty layered on top of uncertainty.
Burnout is also showing up in different ways in people. Stress and burnout are different. Stress is more temporary, when we have too much to do with not enough time to do it. Burnout is when the usual things you do in the normal course of your work and life are less possible for you. And it’s happening for longer than just a few minutes or just a few hours.
Burnout can feel like you’re running in mud. You have trouble getting anything accomplished. Or, the tasks that normally take 15 minutes take several hours. You have trouble focusing.
Alan realized that none of his clients are taking vacations or time off because of the pandemic. Many people who are still working are actually busier because of the pandemic, as companies are forced to readjust and are sending out more communications. People don’t feel like they can take vacations when they are already at home and when the pandemic restrictions don’t really allow regular types of travel.
You cannot run the engine—which is you!—24/7 and not expect breakdowns to happen. Alan saw the signs of burnout in himself and realized he needed to schedule a staycation since his family’s summer vacation plans were scrapped.
Alan has only worked for himself for about seven months and fell into a common new freelancer trap: not taking any significant time off. He admitted it’s flattering that the demand for his services was strong. Also, because we’re now in a time of economic uncertainty, it’s common to think you have to work when the work is available. And, of course, if you don’t work, you don’t make money.
But, it’s critical to protect the asset: You.
As an optimist, Alan says among all our feelings of uncertainty, most people have done an amazing and tremendous amount of learning and adapting as a society in a very short period of time. When faced with a challenge, most people will do what they can to rise up to that.
Symptoms of burnout include sleeplessness and waking up in the middle of the night, as well as going to extremes physically—either exercising a lot or stopping all exercise and activity entirely. You may notice that what you are reading is not being absorbed, that you can’t concentrate on reading (for work or pleasure).
If burnout goes unidentified and is not addressed it will affect the value you provide your clients over time. You will not be as effective.
Burnout can be hard to identify in yourself. Do a self-observation—are tasks taking longer? Are you having trouble making decisions?
You may also get signals from loved ones, who recognize your stress, grumpiness or difficulty in getting out of bed in the morning. Encourage those around you to speak up when they notice these burnout signs in you.
Embrace “the power of pause.” Take breaks throughout your workday—go outside, take time for deep breathing, step away from work. Set a timer to remind you to take these breaks 3–4 times a day.
Some type of inner practice is critical. This could be journaling, prayer, meditation, running, walking around the block.
A longer pause is also important. You need to disrupt the flow, so consider taking a staycation. A break also allows new ideas, new ways of thinking to take hold.
Your identity plays into burnout: How do you see yourself? If you see yourself as a “doer,” it is difficult to stop doing. If you see yourself as a successful entrepreneur, it’s difficult to stop working.
If your personal identity is linked strongly to what you do professionally, it can be hard to detach from that when you’re not working.
Ask yourself: Is my identity serving the work or is the work serving my identity?
Alan is taking care of himself by sticking to his running habit, working in his yard and checking in with his family (his wife and middle school daughter) and reading. He also makes sure that he isn’t consuming all serious content all the time. While he gravitates toward non-fiction, he is reminding himself to read novels too. His family has also been watching silly TV shows together.
Setting or resetting boundaries is critical. Know your limits—how many hours you can work effectively in a day, how long your attention span is right now.
There is no shortage of free courses and learning options. But you cannot handle all of that input, so know your limits and stick with them.
Biz Bite: Set email boundaries (Alan does not check email from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m.)
Resources:
Alan’s website: Peaceful Direction
Alan on Twitter
Alan on LinkedIn
Alan recommends the book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport (which I also love).
Three requests for the podcast right now:
- I want to do an Ask Me Anything episode. Please email or DM via Twitter your questions about the business of freelancing and I’ll answer them on a future episode. You can share your name or be anonymous.
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
- I’m considering a series interviewing freelancers who make six figures. So, if you have earned $100,000 or more as a freelance business owner, let me know. I’d love to talk with you more about how you got there so we can provide tactics and inspiration to other freelancers.
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
- I am looking for diverse guests, so please reach out and pitch me your podcast episode idea or recommend guests who are from marginalized groups. I’m doing my own research and outreach, but I’m open to pitches and recommendations too.
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
In this week’s episode I want to offer six ways you can be an ally through your freelance business. Your first reaction may be that you’re “just” a freelancer or solopreneur, that you don’t have a lot of power or a huge platform. But there are things that you can do through your role as a business owner to support Black and Brown people and those from other marginalized groups, especially if you are White.
- Hire diverse subcontractors.
Not all of us have regular subcontractors, but occasionally we do hire people to help us with a project or partner with us on a proposal or we hire a virtual assistant to help our business. When you are considering hiring subcontractors, do a bit more research and reach beyond your immediate networks to see if you can hire someone from a marginalized group.
Humans often interact and hire people who look like us. Our circles are not often that diverse. It’s the same reason that people from marginalized groups have trouble getting hired as employees. But you can help break down the barriers in your own little world by asking people for recommendations and reaching out to a more diverse group. And just be honest: Tell people you are looking to expand your list of potential subcontractors to have a more diverse pool to choose from.
- Refer and recommend work.
Many of us refer other freelancers or pass on work to people when we are over capacity or a gig isn’t right for us. As you expand your list of diverse freelancers, consider passing on that work to someone from a marginalized group. You can help them open the door to a new client and give them a connection they didn’t have before. This helps all of us because the more diversity we have in the workforce—and in the content we create—the more creative we all become.
You can also be transparent in Facebook groups and other networks you belong to, telling fellow freelancers what a client might pay, which clients are not great to work for, and recommending clients and projects when you hear of an opportunity.
- Widen and diversify your network.
It can be difficult to learn different viewpoints or to hire for diversity if your network isn’t that large. Often, again, we hang out with and work with people who look like us.
You can do this quite easily on social media. On Twitter, I follow a lot of Black professors, journalists, authors, researchers and other freelancers. I also file several transgender people. All of this diversifies the news and perspectives that are reaching me. On Instagram you can follow a lot of great entrepreneurs, influencers and freelance business owners from diverse backgrounds. You can also follow specific hashtags, which lead you to more and more people and new ideas.
You can also do research and consider joining more diverse groups. Ask around. Ask people in your industry what other groups they’re members of. Look at any statements associations or organizations put out recently about Black Lives Matter and then look at the photos of their boards to see if they really are diverse.
- Amplify diverse voices.
Are you a member of or a volunteer in a group in your industry? You can be a champion in helping make the groups you’re involved in more diverse. It’s not just about encouraging your friends and colleagues who are Black or Brown to join and get more involved. That can be important, but you need to make sure you’re inviting them into a safe and inclusive space, not just one that talks the talk without doing the work. First, ask questions like why isn’t the volunteer board more diverse; who chooses the volunteer committee members; how can you make conference sessions, webinar speakers and tweet chat hosts more diverse? This last one about having more diverse speakers is really important and overdue at a lot of organizations.
How many times do you see all-male panels? There’s even a name for this: manels. You would think we would have at least moved beyond this antiquated situation and added a few women. But nope, it still goes on.
A software company called Bizzabo did a survey analyzing the gender diversity of more than 60,000 event speakers over a five-year period, from 2013 to 2018 in 23 countries. They found that 69% of all speakers were male. So, how do you think these organizations are doing on racial and ethnic diversity? I bet we can all guess.
This brings up another issue: Pay your conference speakers when you can. We often ask people to volunteer as speakers for webinars and events. I volunteer all the time, both as a way to give back to my industry and to expand my network, which can lead to new clients in the future. However, the people who can often speak for free at an event have the money to be able to do this, especially if they have to pay for travel. These are likely wealthier freelancers and/or employees representing companies that want to connect with that audience.
It can be more difficult for people from marginalized groups to spend the time and money to work for free. Freelancers in general are often asked to work for free, and it’s often only the privileged freelancers who can do this. But other freelancers in marginalized groups are practically forced to do this as they build their portfolio or are asked to take free tests in order to get a gig.
And think about what a group is doing when it asks a person from a marginalized group to present or speak on a panel about diversity and being marginalized in their industry. And then the group doesn’t pay them? They’re doing the very thing they asked the person to speak out about.
Don’t just invite people from marginalized groups to speak at your event or webinar only on the topics of diversity. I have seen this a lot—the diversity panel is the only spot of diversity at a conference. You should be inviting diverse voices to speak on topics they’re actually experts on, whether that is graphic design, video production, photography or building their freelance business.
- Educate your clients.
Some of you may balk at this. You may think that you’re not an “activist” or you don’t want to be “radical.” But if you are a White person who truly wants to be an ally, you have to work on being “anti-racist” (against racism—as opposed to just “not racist” yourself).
You can speak out on the systemic racist policies you see around you. And you can still do this in professional ways with your clients. If they are looking to hire people, you can recommend diverse candidates. If you are an editor or writer, you can ask them for—or choose on your own—diverse sources to interview and include in articles. As an editor, I point out problematic phrasing or errors and make sure to explain why I edited something as a way to educate people.
Look for ways you can educate your clients about their hiring practices, their language and their ideas.
- Buy from minority-owned businesses.
Recently, there has been an uptick in book sales from Black-owned bookstores. And people have been sharing lists of local Black-owned restaurants and national online businesses they can buy from.
Do some research and ask around to see what local businesses you can buy from to support minority-owned businesses. Buying local is a good idea can in general, but this takes it one step further. Instead of buying from one of the big box stores, is there a local alternative?
Biz Bite: Share your pronouns
The Bookshelf: “She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman” by Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Resources:
97 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
All-male panels called out on Tumblr
Bizzabo study: Almost 70% of Professional Event Speakers Are Male
Being anti-racist (lessons from the National Museum of African American History and Culture)
Drop the Hyphen in Asian American
These 7 courses will teach you how to be anti-racist
Black-owned independent bookstores
Black-owned bookstores by state
Black-owned business directory—provided by Official Black Wall Street
Bookshop.org—Buy books from the independent bookstore of your choice
Three requests for the podcast right now:
- I want to do an Ask Me Anything episode. Please email or DM via Twitter your questions about the business of freelancing and I’ll answer them on a future episode. You can share your name or be anonymous.
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
- I’m considering a series interviewing freelancers who make six figures. So, if you have earned $100,000 or more as a freelance business owner, let me know. I’d love to talk with you more about how you got there so we can provide tactics and inspiration to other freelancers.
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
- I am looking for diverse guests, so please reach out and pitch me your podcast episode idea or recommend guests who are from marginalized groups. I’m doing my own research and outreach, but I’m open to pitches and recommendations too.
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
In this week’s episode, let’s talk money again. First, let’s talk about setting an income goal, then about how to track it regularly. This is important for your freelance business at any time, but your plans and goals may have changed during the pandemic and you may need to update your goal.
I also think it’s important that we’re transparent about money, especially to lift up other freelancers, including those from marginalized groups. I often talk about my “secret hourly rate,” which is the idea that I have a rate that I try to earn at minimum for most projects I’m working on.
To determine whether you’re hitting that rate throughout your week, it could be a helpful exercise to track not only your hours for a particular project but to track your hours for all your work in a given month or a full quarter. Then, do the math to see how much you earned per hour for each project, and then figure out what that averaged out to for all projects during that month and quarter. That could give you valuable data about whether you are charging enough, taking on the right clients or you need to figure out how to work faster in some way.
Do you have an annual income goal? Do you need to change it because of the pandemic? Or do you just work all the time and hope you can pay the bills? Or maybe you know how much you need each money to pay the bills and everything after that is gravy?
Money isn’t everything, but it gives me the freedom to not stress about money. So, I encourage you to set an income goal that is higher than just paying your bills. You may not hit it the first year, especially if you’re relatively new to freelancing or if you were hit hard during the pandemic, but you can strive to hit it. And that will likely keep you striving to get more, better-paying clients and to continue to market yourself.
In order to create this income goal, write down or create an Excel spreadsheet of all your expenses. Start with your monthly ongoing expenses—mortgage or rent, utilities, internet, cable, phone. Do you know how much you spend on groceries? What about household items, like shampoo and soap and laundry detergent?
Some of you with significant others may have to do this part in tandem with your partner. If your partner is paying part of these bills, do you know how much you are contributing? Have you discussed with your partner how much the both of you think you should be contributing? Are you the breadwinner? Is it split 50/50 or do you pay certain bills and they pay certain bills?
I encourage you to talk this over so you’re both on the same page. This could be particularly helpful right now during the pandemic if one or both of you had hits to your income and things have changed.
Talk also about who is responsible for what bills and if that needs to change. This is also a good time to discuss ways you can cut back on various subscriptions or services you might not need right now. You can also renegotiate if you’re willing to put in the time and money. Oftentimes, when you call up companies like your cable company, internet provider, phone service, etc. and tell them you want to cancel, they will cut your monthly payments or offer you a “one-time deal.”
Once you have figured out your monthly costs and made a list of subscriptions to cancel or renegotiate, look at yearly costs. For example, car insurance premiums, holiday presents.
Next, add in the extras. If you could earn plenty of money, what would you spend it on? What would you like to have? Think of things that could make your life easier but also things you love to do and buy for yourself. Do the math and estimate how much those things would cost each month or over the course of the year.
Now, you have two numbers: the bare minimum you need to earn each month and the ideal goal you’d like to earn each month.
Next, how many hours do you want to work each week? Don’t say 40. Think paid work. You will have a lot of unpaid work—answering emails, marketing, doing social media, invoicing. No one pays us for that, but it’s all important to your business.
I don’t have a magic number for you to tell you how much time you should work on paid work versus unpaid work. I also can’t tell you how much time your paid work will take you. It is different for everyone. I can tell you that if you have no idea, tracking your time for a week or two can be really helpful. I mean, tracking ALL of your time—keep track of the time for each individual project. That will start to tell you how long it takes you to do specific types of projects for clients. Also, keep track of all the unpaid work. You might find out you’re spending hours on marketing—is there a better way? Are you spending way too much time on social media? Is it paying off?
Think also about how many hours you would like to work each day and what those hours are. Ideally, I’d love to work from about 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. with an hour break for lunch and a few smaller breaks throughout the day, about 10 minutes here and there. What is your ideal?
My pre-pandemic income goal also had to drastically change since March because I lost my anchor client, which was nearly half my income. So, I had to up my marketing game, look for new clients, take on new types of assignments and completely refocus my business.
Even though things are so up in the air right now it helps to still have that income goal, even if it has changed. That goal will tell you not only how much money you need to earn each month, but it will help you figure out if you can say no to work that isn’t the right fit or pays too little.
When you know your yearly goal, as I talked about, it’s often helpful to break it down into monthly goals to keep you on track. But I also like to think in terms of quarters. Some months are busier than others, and looking at quarters can help you average it out for that time period.
Now that you’ve set all your goals, they do you no good if you’re not tracking them. For invoicing, I already had an Excel spreadsheet for each month. In that document, I have separate tabs for each client. I keep it open all the time and add in projects as they come in with the deadline and fee. So, I just added a tab to that monthly file to track the work that came in for that month. That tab has all the work for each month of the year, separated by columns/month. Each column totals up at the bottom so that I can see how on target I am for the month and whether I need to get more work or not.
I am continuing to use that system during the pandemic too, which really helps me keep track of my income.
As you work toward your income goal, how do you make sure you are paying bills, saving money and not spending frivolously? One thing I have found helpful is to have a separate checking account for personal and one for business. Put all your income into the business account and pay for business expenses out of that account. And then every two weeks or at the end of the month, pay yourself what you earned into your personal account so you can pay your bills.
Now is also a good time to ask your clients about direct deposit. Many are a lot more receptive to this while so many people are working at home during the pandemic.
Biz Bite: Take a Mental Health Day
The Bookshelf: “The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century” by Kirk Wallace Johnson
Resources:
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
Episode #9 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Money Lessons I’ve Learned the Hard Way
Episode #18 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Higher Rates
Episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pamela Capalad
Episode #29 of Deliberate Freelancer: 3 Big Financial Changes I Made This Week
Today’s guest is Amy Ragland, a freelance marketing writer and content strategist in Wichita, Kansas. She writes mostly for financial services clients. Amy and her husband have two daughters, ages 13 and 11.
Amy began freelancing in 2002, before she was married. She began freelancing on the side when someone asked her to do a particular project. For a long time, it was only a side hustle and sporadic “play money.”
After she had her children, she stayed home full-time with them for three years. Freelancing helped her keep her brain sharp, bring in a bit of extra income and feel like she was contributing financially to the household. Later, she began full-time freelancing to have a more flexible schedule as a parent.
Freelancing allows her to structure her days so that she’s most focused and productive when her children are in school. She can also make more money in less time than when she was an employee.
The flexibility also allows her to volunteer and get involved in her kids’ school activities and events throughout the day. Pre-pandemic, Amy took her kids to school and picked them up, which she felt was important.
Another flexibility perk is the ability to help out her parents, in-laws and her grandmother, who live nearby, if they need help with something.
Amy is someone who likes to have a plan and for that plan to work out. The “topsy-turvy” aspect of the pandemic has been frustrating. She is used to having quiet and being able to concentrate on writing, and that’s been difficult with her kids at home.
Freelancing can also be lonely. Amy tries to protect her writing hours so that she can do her work done during work hours and focus on her kids after school. But that doesn’t leave much time for connecting or meeting up with other freelancers. She recommends being very strategic about reaching out to others so you aren’t isolating yourself and not getting into a rut of work-family, work-family.
Freelancing as a parent changes as children get older. Now, Amy’s kids can stay home by themselves so that (pre-pandemic) Amy could meet up with someone for coffee or run an errand.
As Amy’s children got older, it became easier to say, “Go away now, I need to work.” The kids respect that, and she doesn’t have to supervise them 24/7.
During the pandemic, many freelancers accustomed to being home alone now have partners, children and/or roommates at home now. Not getting enough alone time has been difficult on Amy.
Amy’s daily structure has changed during the pandemic. Her husband is considered an essential worker, working for an electrical contractor, so this spring Amy was trying to run her business while being thrust into full-time schoolteacher.
Her “mom guilt” went into overdrive because she felt like she needed to work, but then she felt guilty that she was ignoring her kids.
The pandemic is also difficult on kids, who have suddenly lost their daily routines and structure. Amy tries to remember to give everyone—herself included—grace. “Grace” is also tied in with letting go of our expectations. You may need to give yourself some grace and let go, or adjust, some of your personal and professional goals this year.
Early in the pandemic, Amy talked with her children about what their new daily routine would look like. She doesn’t allow her kids to stay up late or sleep in. Instead, they aimed to stay on a fairly structured routine, which has helped them during the pandemic. She also began to delegate more household chores.
Amy uses the Pomodoro technique. Pre-pandemic, she would work for about 1 ½ hours with a 30-minute break. But she has adjusted that to now work for about 40 minutes. She can tell her kids she has to work for 40 minutes and that they can talk to her after that. That helped lessen the interruptions and helped Amy stay in a writing flow.
For self-care, Amy makes sure to find some alone time. She will go into a room and close the door and read a book, even for just 20 minutes.
Amy also reminds herself that she got into freelancing for the flexibility and to be available to her family. She tries to be very conscious right now of how many freelance projects she takes on. She tends to say “yes” to everything in general, and right now it can feel “foolish” to turn away potential income. But she works to stay tuned in to her time limitations.
Amy has adjusted her business during the pandemic also. She typically does quick-turnaround projects for clients, but right now she has asked her clients to give her a little more notice.
Freelancers who might not have a lot of work right might want to take the opportunity to try something new they didn’t have time for before.
Amy tries to look for the silver lining during the pandemic: What lessons can she learn right now? How can she improve her business and become a better person?
One positive thing Amy has noticed: Her daughters have gotten along pretty well during the pandemic. She has watched them become buddies and take care of each other. She and her husband and daughters have also done more activities together as a family, like doing puzzles and taking walks. They bought a basketball goal for their driveway and have been playing HORSE nonstop.
The biggest advice Amy can give freelancing parents is to be strategic with your time. That will get easier as your kids get older. Set yourself up for success. Structure your day to take advantage of the best time to work. When her kids were little, trying to plan to work during naptime often got derailed, which was frustrating. But Amy shifted her mindset to be more strategic with her time throughout the day, which made her feel more in control with her day.
Resources:
AmyRagland.com
Amy on LinkedIn
Amy on Twitter
Biz Bite:
Create Excel spreadsheets with the regular resources and links you consult for your business (so you aren’t Googling the same info every time).
Writers can also create an Excel spreadsheet for the articles they write (include date, client, topic).
First, Black Lives Matter. Let’s talk …
On today’s show I am going to go over how you can relook, reimagine and reexamine your goals in the midst of a crisis, like this global pandemic. But first, I want to talk about the protests happening this week in our country after the murder of George Floyd by police and the “weaponization” of race by a white woman, Amy Cooper, in Central Park.
As if the pandemic wasn’t stressful and heartbreaking enough, racism—which has long been a cancer in our society—has really come to a head in recent weeks. I am a privileged white woman, but I try to be an ally and to listen and learn. I believe that Black Lives Matter. And if we are upset and angry about buildings on fire and broken glass, then we should be 1000% angrier about black men and women and boys and girls being abused, beaten and even murdered by police and other people in our society.
You may not have tuned into this podcast for politics, but we cannot simply talk about our freelance businesses without recognizing what is happening around us and how the anguish and racism affects all of us. We who are white need to listen and learn from others, we need to speak out, we need to try to understand. And to those who are black, to those communities who have been harmed and abused and forgotten, to my fellow freelancers, to colleagues, strangers and friends, I am so, so sorry.
One way we can help as freelance business owners is to be an ally to people who are not white, not heterosexual, who don’t have the privilege some of us were born into. For example, if you hire subcontractors, you can do a little extra work to go outside your regular circle and try to hire people from marginalized groups. You can buy products from minority-owned businesses. You can reach out to other freelancers when you hear of gigs that aren’t the right fit for you.
In this podcast I made a conscious decision from the beginning to try to have a diverse array of voices when I have guests on. And I haven’t done a great job at this—mostly because I have often brought on guests I knew in real life and that tends to be other white women. This is a common problem in our society—we stay in our bubbles when hiring, reaching out, mentoring. And our bubbles often look like us.
I just did an audit of my podcast guest list, and out of 20 guests since I launched last year, I’ve had five people of color on my podcast. So, 20%. The rest were 12 white women and 3 white men. That’s not good enough. I need to do much better. I need to search out more diverse voices, even if that is more work.
So, that’s what I plan to do. And when I say diversity, I mean racial and ethnic, but also LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, regional diversity and more.
I commit to doing this work, but if you know of freelancers—or people who are experts in a certain area who could help freelancers—and you want to suggest names to me, feel free to DM or tag me on Twitter @MelEdits or email me at melanie@meledits.com.
Now, reimagining your goals.
Time to pivot … Let’s talk about how to reimagine your goals during a time of crisis. This could be any crisis in your life, whether global or very personal. Right now, of course we’re dealing with a health pandemic and a global economic crisis that affects all of us in varying degrees.
In episode 53, I talked about how to find your resilience and pivot right now and the fact that you are being forced to pivot because of the pandemic. But I want to think of this a little differently this week. How can you shift your mindset and see this as an opportunity to reexamine and change up your goals?
First, what were your goals this year? Did you set some? If you didn’t have them written down or they were kind of vague, take some time now to think back to December and January. What did you imagine yourself doing this year in your personal life and in your business?
I had some big goals this year, including a huge income goal that I was really excited about. More money would mean more travel with my husband and fixing a few things around the house. Now, of course I’m doing my best just to cover the bills. And this could be my worst financial year in my 7 years as a freelancer.
Let’s first talk about our income goals. There are two main areas I see that could affect your income goal right now—that you are losing clients but also that you might have less time, particularly if you have children now at home.
If you are taking care of children, can you realistically continue to work the same amount of hours you were working pre-pandemic? And if you have lost work, how much money can you realistically earn right now? For the past few months you may have been marketing and networking and reaching out and taking whatever work comes your way. In other words, you have been constantly hustling to get more work. And I understand the need for that.
But, you need to take the time to take a breath and figure out a long-term strategy. What areas of your business are doing the best right now? What services can you offer that people want? What industries and companies can you go after that are doing OK in the pandemic, maybe even doing well and are hiring? Start adjusting your goals or creating new ones based on your answers.
Here’s what I’ve done: I’m a writer and an editor. I offer a variety of services, but what I really love to do is put together publications as a managing editor of magazines and newsletters. But that takes a lot of time and I can only commit to a few of those clients at a time. Pre-pandemic, I had two clients where I was managing editor. Now, I have one.
As a managing editor, I didn’t have a lot of time to write articles. I usually only wrote a couple of big articles every month or two, with four-week deadlines, plus maybe a few smaller articles.
And I didn’t actually want to be only a freelance writer. I liked editing and having a variety of services. But, writing in my industry pays well and by the project, so during this current crisis I switched up my goals and decided to double-down on writing. I’m a health care writer so I was able to stress that I could write about the coronavirus, science and public health, as I reached out to previous and potential new clients.
I quickly received two big assignments related to coronavirus, as well as a few more smaller articles on other topics. My new goal was suddenly to be a full-time freelance writer, with editing—except for my one remaining managing editing gig—taking a backseat.
And I surprised myself by liking this focus on writing. I started to contemplate what would happen if I got my anchor client back. Would I want to go back or would I want to stick with writing more?
It took a global pandemic for me to reimagine my goals and embrace this new mindset of writing more. Ask yourself: Has there been any little thing that has come out of this pandemic that you might have been forced to do in your business that you enjoyed just a bit? Or have you lost a specific client or type of work and realized you don’t miss it at all?
The pandemic has also forced me to slow down, which opened up my day to try new marketing tactics, to network more, to take courses. Now is the time to take advantage of all these free courses.
Another goal I’ve switched up is to go back to former work. Several years ago I cut back on some copy editing projects to make room for other more enjoyable, more lucrative work. But I stayed in touch with those previous clients and recently contacted them. One of them hired me again for copy editing, and I was able to pick up right where I left off.
Being able to be at home every day also allowed me to take on a new editing project as well, where I’m kind of “on call.” It could have been a mental adjustment to be on call every day. I’m a planner and like my calendar mapped out for the week. But for some reason it wasn’t stressful. I think part of that is the anxiety I’ve felt during the pandemic; if I can deal with the anxiety of this health and economic crisis, I can certainly change my mindset to accept a more flexible daily schedule.
You may not have even realized it yet, but you also may have become more accepting and resilient of things that you said you’d never do. You may be more open to new types of work or certain work parameters. So question those hard-and-fast rules you’ve been holding onto in your business. Are they reasonable? Can they be adjusted? Can you be more flexible?
In episode 53 about pivoting, I talked about how I told myself to think way, way, way outside the box. And even though I was doing that several weeks ago, it took a few more weeks for me to realize I could adjust my mindset even further.
As you’re thinking about all this, continue to ask yourself some big questions, like: What have I always dreamed of doing? What have I put off trying because I didn’t have the time? What areas of my business make the most money and how can I double-down on those? How could I create packages of services to offer right now? What do my clients need and want RIGHT NOW?
Biz Bite: Set a daily timer for dinner prep.
The Bookshelf: “An American Marriage” by Tayari Jones
Resources:
Episode #53 of Deliberate Freelancer: Pivoting and Finding Resilience
Episode #2 of Deliberate Freelancer: Discover Your Unique Brilliance
Book list: “An Essential Reading Guide for Fighting Racism”
“For Our White Friends Desiring to Be Allies”
Black Lives Matter website—What We Believe (and how you can help)
This week is a mini episode because I’m doing what I’m preaching: Taking a break. I apologize for the brevity, but I will be back next week with regular episodes.
This past weekend was the three-day Memorial Day weekend. And while it looked very different during this pandemic, I still focused on taking most of the weekend off, completely unplugged from work. And I encourage you to take a break too.
Even if you aren’t that busy with your business right now, don’t feel guilty about taking a break. Everyone—no matter what our workload is right now—needs a physical and mental break from work.
So, consider what a break looks like to you and take a few hours, a full day or a weekend off. My wish for you this week is to go easier on yourself, to not feel guilty for taking some time off from work and family, and to put yourself first by taking a break.
I promise I’ll be back next week with regular episodes. Be well and take care.
Today’s guest is Jessica Thiefels, an organic content marketer, which means she focuses on creating content and content strategies for clients—but doesn’t work with paid marketing and sales. Jessica now lives in Burlington, Vermont, after traveling for eight months last year with her husband.
Jessica also has a new podcast called Mindset Reset Radio, which helps millennials get intentional in their life, business and career.
Instagram has 1 billion users, and users tend to be very active. The primary age range is about 25–35. People are looking for content that showcases the most authentic part of your brand or business. It’s not about sharing other people’s content as much as on Twitter or Facebook.
That personal touch allows people to forge deeper connections with potential clients, which builds brand loyalty.
While Instagram was built for beautiful images and lends itself well to businesses like fashion and travel, other businesses and freelancers can do well on Instagram by creating their own graphics. However, Instagram is mostly for B2C businesses, not B2B, because businesses themselves aren’t as likely to be on Instagram.
Graphics can be a mix of providing inspirational and educational content, with also showing the behind-the-scenes of your business.
Here’s how to learn whether your audience is on Instagram and if it’s worth it for you to build up your presence: If your target audience is 35 and older, you’re not as likely to find them on Instagram. Research your competitors and see if they are having Instagram success.
Remember, you should only focus on a few social media platforms, not ALL of them. Look at your own data, such as Google analytics, to see where your website traffic is coming from.
Most Instagram users use it on their phone, not their computer. However, now Instagram allows you to use its messaging app on your computer, which makes it easier to copy/paste email addresses and other links. You can only post Stories via the phone, although you can watch Stories on your computer.
Jessica reminds us that our social media efforts must be aligned with our business goals. Write out your top 3 business goals and then write down how Instagram can support those business goals.
You can schedule your Instagram posts, saving you time.
Instagram Stories is critical to your Instagram business strategy. If you’re not using Stories, you won’t be as successful on Instagram. Jessica recommends posting on Stories at least 3–5 times a day because every time you post a new Story you get bumped to the front of that line.
Stories works by posting text, a photo or video. You can use a Story to share what’s going on behind the scenes with your business throughout the day. You can also share other people’s posts through the “add to my story” option.
Instagram Live Stories—you shooting a live video—have been a lot more popular during the pandemic, possibly because of the real-time connection. During Live Stories, people can comment and ask you questions.
Stories only last 24 hours, but you can add them to your Highlight to make them last longer. You may want to create an “about me” Highlight, creating a video telling people what your business is all about when they find you for the first time.
Freelancers and consultants who are selling services, not products, can see Instagram success. Jessica points to two tactics: You can stay strictly educational, showcasing your expertise in a field through your posts and Stories. The second way is to build your brand and show yourself as the face of your brand. This means sharing more personal information about yourself.
Let’s talk Instagram hashtags: Instagram uses a lot of hashtags per post. Have a mix of high-volume hashtags (about 1 million posts) and lower-volume hashtags. Don’t go over 1 million because those hashtags are too saturated and broad. Consider the hashtags that your potential clients are following or searching for.
Here’s the formula Jessica uses:
First 3–5 hashtags should fall into the 300,000 to 1 million posts range.
Next 3–5 hashtags should fall into the 80,000 to 300,000 range.
The last 3–5 should be anything lower than 80,000 posts.
That last category can be super niche and focused on your very specific industry. You can also create your own branded hashtag (like #DeliberateFreelancer).
When you start to type a hashtag in Instagram, it will auto-populate and also show you the number of posts. You can also search for hashtags and the number of posts they have on the Instagram website on your computer, which can be easier when you’re researching.
You will also need to engage with others on Instagram. Search a common hashtag for your business (or follow that hashtag) and go through and engage by commenting, liking a post or sharing a post in your Story.
You have to be social on Instagram. You can’t expect people to engage with you and not do the same. Make sure you’re replying to comments and direct messages.
You can reshare Instagram images through certain apps (Repost, InstaRepost) or just screenshot the image and paste in your feed. Oftentimes, it’s best to get permission first, and always give the original poster credit.
If you have a limited amount of time for Instagram, choose one day of the week and plan and schedule out all of your content in 1–3 hours (choose images, write your captions, schedule it). Then, throughout the week, engage with others in 5-minute increments when you’re in between tasks. Jessica puts a 15-minute timer on so she doesn’t go down the rabbit hole.
Biz Bite: Use Boomerang to Schedule Emails.
Resources:
Jessica Thiefels Consulting website
Jessica’s podcast: Mindset Reset Radio
Jessica on Instagram
Jessica on Twitter
Jessica has a new book on Amazon: “10 Questions That Answer Life’s Biggest Questions”
Planoly (Instagram scheduler)
Later (Instagram scheduler)
“How to Use Instagram Hashtags for Business: A Strategy for Visibility” (via Social Media Examiner)
“How to Repost on Instagram: 4 Ways to Reshare Content from Other Users” (via HubSpot)
Today’s guest is Julia Bocchese, an SEO consultant and Pinterest strategist for creative small businesses. Her goal is to make SEO and Pinterest strategies approachable and easy to implement for all small businesses so they can reach their ideal clients organically. She lives in Philadelphia with her Siberian Husky sidekick and her husband. And on the side, she runs a travel photography site and goes to grad school for history to study Vikings.
In this episode, Julia provides a lot of strategy and tips on how to use Pinterest for your freelance business, whether you’re brand-new to Pinterest or you need to ramp up your efforts. I was concerned that Pinterest was only for businesses that are heavy into images like photographers or fashion bloggers, but Julia assured me that most businesses can benefit from Pinterest.
Please know that Julia is hosting a virtual workshop on Pinterest on Tuesday, May 26, so check out the link under Resources below for more information.
Pinterest is a visual search engine, not a typical social media platform. Followers don’t matter as much as they do with other platforms. You can still get a lot of traffic and engagement with just a handful of followers.
You can spend less time on Pinterest as well, scheduling out pins and not engaging with people directly as much as on other platforms. Pinterest pins can rank high in Google, so keyword research is important in Pinterest.
People think of Pinterest as visual mood boards for your individual interest, but it can be very helpful for businesses. Pinterest can be for almost all businesses, except for brick-and-mortar local businesses like a drycleaning business.
Pinterest also allows you to have secret boards, so you can have your personal interests, such as recipes, fashion, home decorating, on your business Pinterest account too. You can also have secret lists of your competitors or clients you want to keep tabs on.
You can pin any type of content you create, like blog posts, videos or podcast episodes. Create vertical images—you can take a stock image and put a text overlay with your content title over it using Canva.com. Canva has Pinterest templates you can use.
Pinterest’s algorithm favors “fresh content,” meaning a new link or a new image. So, create multiple graphics for the same blog post so you can pin more than one pin. Space them out across a few weeks or months.
You should pin something every day, but you can schedule them through an app called Tailwind and only spend a few hours a month scheduling for the entire month. If you’re just getting started and don’t have a lot of content to post, it can be helpful to post other people’s contents; those can also be scheduled in Tailwind.
Follow people in your industry to see what pins work well for them, but it doesn’t matter how many followers you have, unlike other social media platforms.
There are a few ways to find out if your ideal audience is on Pinterest, such as searching on Pinterest for topics you have written about or cover in your business. Look for people in your industry.
You can also find out who has pinned your website content by typing in:
www.pinterest.com/source/YOUR WEBSITE NAME. This shows you which of your content is gaining traction. If no one has pinned your information yet, Pinterest might not be the best platform for your business.
SEO is important for Pinterest. Pinterest doesn’t have a great keyword search tool yet, although you can type in topics in the Pinterest search tool and they will auto-populate. Optimize your pins’ headlines and descriptions with strong keywords and be smart about who you are targeting. You can rank high in Google with pins—and not just in the Google image search.
If you have a limited amount of time for Pinterest, focus first on creating great content to pin. Then, create a few graphics to pin for your new content. Use Tailwind to fill out your schedule for the month. Then, look at your analytics at least once a month to see which pins and which content are performing the best.
You will need to have a business Pinterest account to see Pinterest’s analytics and will need to claim your website through Pinterest. It’s easy to switch your personal Pinterest account to a business account.
It can take a long time to build up your Pinterest efforts, similar to Google. It could take up to three months to start seeing traction. But pins can live on for months and years, unlike tweets and Facebook posts.
Biz Bite: Have a CEO Day Each Week.
Resources:
Julia Renee Consulting website
Julia on Pinterest
Julia on Instagram
Julia’s blog post “How the Coronavirus Is Affecting Female Entrepreneurs Around the World”
Julia’s blog post “How to Use Pinterest for Small Businesses: 9 Easy Tips to Get You Started”
Julia’s blog post “Pinterest Strategy Tips for Small Businesses”
Julia’s virtual workshop “Grow Your Business with Easy Strategies for Pinterest!” on May 26
Canva.com (to create easy graphics)
Tailwind (Pinterest scheduling tool)
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how to get new clients right now. I’ve also been thinking about how I will have to change my business and plan for the next several months or year or two, even though so many things are unknown during this pandemic.
First, here are some reminders about how to be a rock star for your clients. This is about your personality, attitude and ability to be helpful. What you should always do, but especially right now:
Respond quickly. I know this isn’t always possible. There are exceptions. But when a client emails you, especially if you’re already working on an assignment for them, get back to them quickly—as in that same day if possible. Don’t leave them hanging.
Don’t ghost clients. This should be obvious, but I’ve had freelancers working for me who did not only respond quickly, they just didn’t respond at all. For days. On a deadline. And I never hired those people again.
Meet your deadlines. If you are having trouble with your deadline, reach out to your client as soon as possible. The worst thing is to reach out the day of and say you can’t meet the deadline. You just sound like you procrastinated. Instead, contact your client several days before your deadline, apologize and ask for an extension.
Do the little things. For writers, that might mean suggesting headlines and subheads and creating a list of all sources with contact information for fast fact-checking.
Don’t overshare. Clients don’t have the time or mental energy to hear all about your troubles. They just want their project on time and done right.
Be helpful. Be polite.
Now, I want to share four ideas to consider as you pivot and work to earn more money and gain new clients:
- Think digital FIRST. And think digital for EVERYTHING.
I know some of you might have video chat/Zoom fatigue, but we have to be all digital most of the time. We don’t have a choice. This is the world we live in now. Whether you are already providing services digitally (writing, website design, etc.) or not, you have to think digital for everything right now.
On one end of the spectrum are courses and webinars. What skills can you teach online right now? Aim to make money, but this is also about expanding your network and showcasing yourself as an expert—which can then lead to new work.
But you can also start smaller, perhaps with Instagram videos or Facebook Live sessions. What are you an expert in that people want to know more about?
- Join an online practice group, accountability group or Facebook groups.
In short, expand your support network. But this is not just about networking. It’s about gathering with people in your industry—or an adjacent industry—to share best practices and ideas about how everyone is pivoting right now. And the people in these groups can also commiserate with you as we all struggle through this.
- Be a part of the conversation.
It can be helpful to talk to friends and commiserate with other freelancers right now, but it’s also important to be a part of the larger conversation as an expert in your field. Pose questions on LinkedIn. Answer questions in Facebook groups. Take part in tweet chats, such as #FreelanceChat every Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern time.
You can also consider being a guest on a podcast—or even starting your own. Write a guest blog post.
Be strategic about all this: Who are you trying to reach? Is there a way to reach your potential clients? How can you get out front and center in your industry?
- Be really helpful.
Ask nearly everyone you know: How can I help with your work? What are you struggling with in your position? What does your organization need?
Maybe they won’t have work for you right now, but I bet they remember you for asking. Maybe they can offer you a smaller project or you can charge a bit less than you normally would. Or if you can’t help or they need a service you don’t provide, you can refer them to a freelancer who might be able to.
If you take nothing else out of this episode, I highly encourage you to think digital first. Think digital for everything. What new and creative ways can you pivot into providing digital services and content for your audience?
Biz Bite: Work outside
The Bookshelf: “The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir” by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
Resources:
Episode #53 of Deliberate Freelancer: Pivoting and Finding Resilience
Episode #43 of Deliberate Freelancer: 33 Ways to Find More Clients
On today’s show I talk about how the pandemic is forcing some of us (me included) to pivot and how we need to find our own resilience to be able to pivot and work on our freelance business.
I don’t actually want to pivot right now. I like what I was doing with my business and where it was going. But I don’t have a choice, as I’ve lost clients and projects and need to replace that income.
I had an anchor client that was about 48% of my income. I knew that was risky; I knew that wasn’t recommended. You should aim instead to have several anchor clients, no more than about 30% of your income. Now, that anchor client is on hold, so I’m forced to pivot—and I don’t know for how long.
Some days I am optimistic and know that if I work hard I can get new writing assignments from regular clients and past clients. But I still feel sad and upset and annoyed that I lost clients and have to do other things now. My husband reminded me that I’m in mourning, mourning for the type of business I had and the client I liked to work for every week.
Grief is about loss—it doesn’t have to be only about death. And the uncertainty can sometimes be the hardest part. That is called “anticipatory grief.” We have no idea how long this will continue or what things will look like in a few months, a year or two years.
You are allowed to be sad, annoyed, upset. You’re allowed to grieve for what you had just a few months ago. You’re allowed to grieve for all those plans you had for 2020. (So many plans!)
Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from hard times. Think of it as mental toughness. Think of it as “bouncing back.” Being resilient doesn’t mean you won’t still be worried or scared or sad at times. But if you can find your own resilience, you can start to figure out how to better manage this sheltering-in-place and how to manage your freelance business. You can start to accept this pandemic and economic collapse for what it is and start to look forward at how life might change and what you can and need to do.
I don’t want to be Pollyanna. I know some of you have lost all or almost all of your freelance income. I am sorry. That is scary. But resilience means figuring out what you are going to do with your time now and how you can plan for the future, even if it’s not possible to get work right now. Maybe you can pivot, but maybe you can’t. Maybe you need to focus on applying for unemployment and loans and seeing how you can downsize.
A PositivePsychology.com article cites the American Psychological Association, which describes several factors that contribute to resilience. These include:
- The capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out.
- A positive view of yourself and confidence in your strengths and abilities.
- Skills in communication and problem-solving.
- The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses.
Having a strong self-esteem and confidence in yourself is really helpful right now. But what if you don’t have those? You can build a stronger self-esteem. Just to name a few tips: Allow yourself to feel a wide range of emotions. Now is not the time to bottle up your emotions or hide them. In fact, so many people are feeling similar feelings. Plus, people are really understanding right now.
Focus on self-care. What helps keep you going? What helps make you happy? We would all do well to get more sleep, eat healthy, drink more water. But what unique things do you love?
Another way to find your resilience is creating a structure and routine. That has been hard recently as everyone’s routines have been upended. But now we’re fully in this pandemic and we’re going to be here for a while, so what new routine and structure can you create for yourself?
But remember to give yourself some grace. Don’t beat yourself up when you fall out of your structure. Just get back on the horse and try again.
I’ve been working on getting up early—after sleeping in most days till 8 or 9 a.m. during the first six weeks of my shelter-in-place.
I also want to create a habit of doing a 20-minute yoga/stretching routine every morning as soon as I get up.
Businessman and speaker Michael Hyatt talks about his “morning ritual.” I already have a morning ritual and I bet you do too—but is it the best ritual for you? Is it how you want your mornings to start off? Think about how to set up your morning to have your best day.
Another thing that helps build resilience is taking action—no matter how small. Figure out what you can do right now to work on your business. You can start by writing down all the challenges you face right now in a column. Then, make a second column to the right of the first on potential solutions to those challenges. Then, pick just one. What can you do today to start to meet that challenge head-on?
One idea is to draft an email to all previous clients asking how you can help them. Tell them you have some availability (to put it mildly!) and outline the services you offer. Your clients likely don’t know all the things you can do, so let them know all the ways you can help.
A writer friend emailed all her friends, family and colleagues, outlining the skills she has and the services she can offer. It might feel weird to ask for help, but there should be no shame in this. Offer ways you can help.
Let’s talk about how to pivot. Now might be the time to work ON your business. That’s one way of pivoting. But you will also likely need to focus on getting some actual paying work. Some of this might be linked—like updating your website, which you had already been wanting to do.
Here’s a tactic I used to figure out what I could pivot to:
Play some fun, lively music. Dance around for about five minutes to get yourself peppy and psyched up.
Then, take out a piece of paper and turn on your phone timer for 5 minutes. In that time, write down every type of pivot you can think of. Just keep writing. Challenge yourself to answer: How could I change my business NOW and in the immediate future to get more clients?
Think way, way, way outside the box. Ask yourself: What do my clients need and want right now? What new skills could I learn? What have I always dreamed of doing? What hobbies and activities do I love? How could I create packages of services to offer? How could I partner with other freelancers to create projects? How could I promote myself to get my name out there more?
Then, type up the list. Don’t edit it yet.
Then, prioritize the items. Put the ones with the most potential—those that would be the easiest and quickest to implement—at the top.
You’re not done yet. In his book “Atomic Habits,” James Clear talks about the challenge of “motion versus action.” The idea is that sometimes we feel like we’re doing new things—working on projects, being productive—but everything we’re doing is just “motion.” Motion is the research, the planning, the preparation. But it’s not the action of actually doing something.
I realized I am really good at motion. But I need to be better at action.
So, after you’ve brainstormed on how to pivot your business, ask yourself how you need to act. That could mean creating a to-do list for a couple of items. It could also mean putting those items on your calendar and sticking to that schedule. That will cause you to act and actually do something.
Biz Bite: Take a Free Course.
The Bookshelf: author Maeve Binchy
Resources:
Connect with Melanie:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MelEdits
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meledits_dc
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meledits
Website: https://meledits.com
Email: melanie@meledits.com
Harvard Business Review article: “That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief”
Fortune article: “With work drying up, here’s how freelancers can pivot to make it through the coronavirus pandemic”
PositivePsychology.com article: “What Is Resilience and Why Is It Important to Bounce Back?”
American Psychological Association: “Building your resilience”
Michael Hyatt “Free to Focus” book and Lead to Win podcast
Episode #52 of Deliberate Freelancer: Embracing Self-Care without Guilt, with Acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger
Episode #48 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Cope with Coronavirus Anxiety, with Therapist Mira Dineen
Episode #41 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create and Stick to Habits—the Backbone of Your Life and Business
Today’s guest is acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger, here to talk about acupuncture and Chinese medicine and how you can use those principles to do some self-care at home right now.
Rachel began studying acupuncture in 2009. She has earned a master in acupuncture, a master of Oriental medicine and a postgraduate certificate in women’s holistic health—all from the Maryland University of Integrative Health. She co-founded Third Space Wellness in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, about five years ago. Then, in 2019 she started Rachel Brumberger LLC, which is the home of her clinic, writing projects and wellness for workplaces. She now has her own practice for clients in downtown Bethesda, Maryland.
Rachel explains the concepts behind acupuncture. It’s whole body medicine, recognizing that the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual are all connected. Therefore, acupuncture can help with a wide variety of ailments, including migraines, menstrual disharmony, back pain, sleep issues, anxiety, depression and infertility.
Even though I dislike winter, the past two years as we have come out of winter, I notice I feel more blah than usual. I don’t feel like myself. So, two years ago I decided to go to Rachel—who I had received acupuncture from before—just to see if she could soothe me. She knew exactly the feelings I was talking about as we changed seasons.
As Rachel explains, human beings have seasons just like Mother Nature. It’s common for people to come out of winter—which should be a slow, hibernating season—and feel strange or blah.
“We reflect the season, and sometimes our bodies need a minute and need a little help catching up to that movement so that we can move into it with more ease. As we regulate the energy within the body we’re basically synching up to the nature around us.”
As we’re all dealing with new and enhanced feelings that can change daily during this coronavirus pandemic, Rachel asks us first to pause and acknowledge our feelings. Sit with your emotions before you try to “do” something about them.
Rachel compares emotions and feelings to waves forming in the ocean. Picture yourself at the beach and how the waves come in, crest, go out and come back. Our emotions are like that. And it’s important to allow your feelings to come in like waves before you try to fix them, label them, judge them, stop them, heal them.
This could mean watching a sad movie and crying through it. It might mean laughing, yelling or crying with a partner or a close friend on Zoom—or it might be a very private thing you do by yourself. Take a quiet moment with no work, no kids, no phone, no immediate responsibilities. Clear the space and sit with your thoughts and feelings. Some people find it easier to do this at night when the rest of the world is quiet.
After you do this for a bit, then you can begin to think about self-care tools you can try.
Right now, there is a lot of noise in our world, especially for those people who are being asked to be on video chats all day long. Even extroverts are recognizing they need some peace and quiet right now.
“We can’t really go anywhere too much and yet it still feels loud, too loud, to do our feelings.”
There is no shame in having a wide range of emotions. Acknowledge that you are a human and that these are the emotions that humans experience. If you weren’t supposed to have a full range of emotions, you wouldn’t. Humans are built this way. That helps to not judge yourself.
Recognize that if a friend was experiencing these feelings you would not judge them about their emotions. So, why judge yourself?
“There’s all kinds of fascinating dynamic emotions people are experiencing right now that they maybe never had before, or never this big, or not for a long time, so it can be very confusing.”
Can you listen to yourself and your emotions—with love and respect—and not judge yourself right now?
Now, what are some of the tools we can use? First, come back to your breath. Start by lying on the floor or at least put both of your feet flat on the floor. Take a few breaths—that is the cheapest, most accessible tool we all have. It can slow down our brain and our nerves and calm us.
You can do this yourself or search out meditation apps like Calm or Breathe.
As you’re waiting for each Zoom chat to start up, sit with both feet on the floor and take a few deep breaths. Take deep breaths while you’re cooking or while you’re taking a shower. It doesn’t have to be 40 minutes of meditation. Where can you put it in your day where it’s easy?
Unclench your jaw, drop your shoulders, unfurl your brow. Breathing deeply helps.
Write “Breath” on Post-it Notes and stick them around your house to remind you.
Drink water. Think of a wilted or dried-up plant. Our bodies are 70% water, so remember to hydrate, which can affect your emotions too.
If you don’t love water, add a pinch of salt or a lemon or a berry. Even drop a tea bag in your water—something that makes the water seem more like food for the body. Sip the water—don’t gulp—throughout the day.
If you can, eat as healthy as possible. Consider canned and frozen fruits and vegetables if you can’t easily get fresh ones right now.
Write down the three times of day that are best for you to eat. It differs for everyone. What times work for you? Write it down and stick to that schedule.
If you skip breakfast or you push your lunch back a few hours or eat dinner later than you are used to, you start getting crankier and that can increase anxiety.
You can use principles of acupuncture at home on yourself or others to take care of yourself. A “scraping” technique is called Gua Sha, which helps the body move stagnation. Watch Rachel’s helpful how-to Instagram video to learn this easy method: www.instagram.com/p/B-Ablj1B1Jl.
You can do Gua Sha on sore muscles, or on the chest to relieve anxiety and anger, and on the chest or back to help general moodiness.
You can also massage acupuncture points on your own body. See links below under Resources for information about a couple of points. Do the ones that feel good to you. When you find an acupressure point oftentimes the area will feel tender. However, the rest of the body will start to respond to that massage and start to regulate itself.
You can also use the five senses. For example, take the sense of smell. What smells good to you? A particular spice, a flower, a candle, your shampoo? Use your nose to smell those scents regularly to calm yourself.
How do you get through these tough emotions when you have an immediate deadline or kids to take care of? Take a minute away from work, away from your family and jump up and down for a few seconds. It might sound silly, but it helps. You can also take one hand and wipe it down the other arm, like you’re wiping something off. Then do the other arm.
If you are feeling angry and annoyed—like Melanie admits she gets some days during pandemic—and if you have the flexibility in your schedule, just stop the work day. Take a break. Give yourself a “permission slip” to just stop.
You can also tell the other person exactly how you’re feeling. Ask for a minute. Ask to call them back or postpone the meeting. That rarely crosses our mind because we’ve been taught to suck it up or leave it at the door. But if you name that feeling and admit to it, it’s easier to blow away those feelings.
People are more understanding and sympathetic than they probably ever have been. Unlike other hard moments, we’re experiencing this with so many other people. It’s not just our tough moment or problem.
Sometimes it just helps to sleep on your feelings—if you aren’t having trouble sleeping. And if you have to make a decision, tell the other person, “I need a minute. Let me sleep on it and I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
Melanie—who is a fan of naps anyway—decided to take a nap recently on a day when she could not stop her anxiety from spiraling. So she just took a nap and woke up two hours later feeling better. Not perfect, but the anxiety had calmed way down.
Think of yourself like a toddler—when you get overwhelmed, troubled, cranky, you may need to go to the bathroom, eat, get some exercise or sunshine, or take a nap.
Even before a meeting, open a window or step outside even for one minute to breathe in some fresh air and feel the sun. Or you can even just lie down on your floor and look out the window and listen to the birds.
Thank yourself, give gratitude for your body, mind and spirt, for freaking out. Your body is taking care of you and trying to save you in the “flight or fight” moment. Tell your body that is OK to calm yourself down. Practicing gratitude acknowledges your feelings and prepares you to begin breathing practices.
Resources:
RachelBrumberger.com
Rachel on Instagram
Rachel on Facebook
Rachel demonstrates how to do Gua Sha at home in this Instagram video.
Yintang acupressure point to try at home
Liver 3 acupressure point to try at home
This is a slight diversion from the usual episode, but I know a lot of you are bookworms, like me. However, you might be finding it hard to read right now because you’re too stressed. Or you don’t want to read the same type of books. Or you’re having trouble getting books because you always relied on your local library, which is now shut down. So, I’m going to talk about all these things today, while also giving some book recommendations.
I’m also going to talk about some non-fiction business books that have really helped me and my freelance business over the years. If you want to skip to just the business book recommendations, fast-forward to 29:00.
I was in a bit of a book slump when the pandemic hit, so after reading one good book, I struggled to figure out what to read next. And while many of us might be struggling to read at times, turns out we’re buying a lot of books online.
Let’s first talk about how you can access or buy books right now. First, audiobooks. The obvious place to start is Audible, which is Amazon’s audiobookstore. Audible offers the first month free for you to try it out. But I know many of you are anti-Amazon and would prefer to give your money to someone else.
So, you might want to instead try Libro.FM, which allows you to buy audiobooks directly through your favorite independent bookstore. You can choose to buy audiobooks whenever you want or you can sign up for a monthly membership for about $15 a month. That gives you one audiobook a month, plus 30% off additional audiobooks. Libro’s profits are split with the indie bookstore of your choice.
Get audiobooks from your local library through an app called Overdrive or an app called Libby, which is also by Overdrive.
Now, let’s talk about buying books. Twitter pointed me to Better World Books, which is an online used bookstore that, turns out, is based in my home state of Indiana. Every time you buy a book, Better World Books donates a book to someone.
The company also collects discarded books from libraries. Libraries need to get rid of books to make room for new ones, and sometimes these books end up in the landfills. But Better World Books takes in all those books, sells what they can and then donates a lot of them. And only then do they get rid of the rest—by recycling them.
Better World Books right now is offering 20% off with free shipping if you have buy at least two books. I bought five books on my TBR list for $40 total.
Another used book option is Half Price Books, which is a brick-and-mortar chain that sells mostly used books but also some new books. I bought four books from Half Price online as gifts for my parents. The store charged me for shipping for each book, which seemed strange even if it still wasn’t that expensive. But I soon realized it was because each book was pulled from whichever store had it in stock and shipped from that store.
Next up, let’s support independent bookstores. I chose to buy two new books directly from Wild Geese Bookshop in my college town, Franklin, Indiana.
Wild Geese is only a few years old. It opened in the fall of 2016. I heard about it through friends, and my mom and I checked it out a few years ago and instantly fell in love with this tiny, perfectly curated shop.
Another way I could have bought from Wild Geese Bookshop or other indie bookstores is through a new website called Bookshop. At Bookshop.org you can buy books all in one spot but choose which independent bookstore the sale will benefit.
Here’s how Bookshop works: Independent bookstores place affiliate links on their own websites, social media, e-newsletters, etc. For every book sold through that link, that bookstore receives 25% commission.
Another way to find a good independent bookstore is through Indiebound.org, which also has the Indie Next List, a fun list of book recommendations from indie booksellers.
Next up, my favorite book podcasts. My absolute favorite is What Should I Read Next by Anne Bogel, in which Anne asks a guest to talk about three books they love and one book they hate and what they would like to be different in their reading life. Then, she recommends three books to them on the spot.
Other book podcasts that are new to me:
All the Books! by Book Riot
Currently Reading
From the Front Porch
And check out my friends at Writer’s Bone, where they interview authors about writing and their books.
Book talks: A lot of book talks have now gone online, so it doesn’t matter where you live. Here in DC, Politics and Prose was known for having an author talk in the store every single night. Now, those talks are being streamed online. Other stores are doing the same. You can also check in with your favorite authors’ websites and social media accounts to see what they’re up to and where they might be streaming next.
Anne Bogel did a Stay at Home Book Tour with several authors over the past few weeks via Zoom. All of these were recorded and you can watch them at your leisure.
Book recommendations:
“The Splendid and the Vile,” by Erik Larson
“The Glass Hotel,” by Emily St. John Mandel
“Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel
“The Resisters,” by Gish Jen
“The Red Lotus,” by Chris Bohjalian
“Still Life,” book 1 in the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny
“The Widows of Malabar Hill” (book 1), by Sujata Massey
“The Satapur Moonstone (book 2), by Sujata Massey
“Murder on the Orient Express,” by Agatha Christie
“And Then There Were None,” by Agatha Christie
“Evvie Drake Starts Over,” by Linda Holmes
“Daisy Jones & the Six,” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
“Most Likely,” by Sarah Watson
“The Freelance Content Marketing Writer,” by Jennifer Goforth Gregory
“Atomic Habits,” by James Clear
“Make Time,” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
“Deep Work,” by Cal Newport
“Digital Minimalism,” by Cal Newport
Biz Bite: Take Your Office Outside
Resources:
Book recommendations are all linked above.
“Book sales surge as self-isolating readers stock up on ‘bucket list’ novels”
“Books Are My Secret For Fighting Coronavirus Anxiety”
“Overdrive vs. Libby: Which Will Serve You Best?”
“How to Get Books When Bookstores and Libraries Are Closed”
Episode #4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Audible
Libro.FM
Overdrive
Libby
Better World Books
Half Price Books
Politics and Prose (DC)
Kramerbooks (DC)
Loyalty Books (DC)
The Strand (New York City)
Powell’s City of Books (Portland, Oregon)
Wild Geese Bookshop (Franklin, Indiana)
Bookshop.org
Indiebound.org
What Should I Read Next? podcast
All the Books! podcast by Book Riot
Currently Reading podcast
From the Front Porch podcast
Writer’s Bone podcast
Stay at Home Book Tour
Today’s guest is Omar Gallaga, a technology and culture freelance writer from the Austin, Texas, area. Omar has been writing about technology for years. He has written for NPR, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Hispanic Magazine. He spent 21 years as a reporter and editor for the Austin American-Statesman—where he helped launch the Spanish-language newspaper ¡ahora sí!, as well as a personal tech section called Technopolis and two podcasts, called "Statesman Shots" and “I Love You So Much,” which he co-hosted.
Omar helped create NPR’s “All Tech Considered” segments, and he can be heard every week on the radio program Texas Standard talking about technology news.
Most of us are used to working from home and have figured out the technology to make it work. But during the coronavirus pandemic, you might have clients that are learning how to use new tech tools or wanting to try new things as they figure out working from home for the first time. And you may suddenly find yourself in a not-so-quiet house if you suddenly have a partner/spouse and/or kids suddenly home all the time.
Omar explains video conferencing tools like Zoom, Zoom alternatives, security issues and the need to set a password for your Zoom chat. Discord, which gamers are more familiar with, is an alternative to Zoom and Skye, especially if you only need audio. Omar found Discord video a little “finicky,” especially on Macs.
Consider the background and setup of a video conference call, but you don’t need to buy fancy lights. However, make sure you’re not backlit and can be seen clearly on video. Consider investing in an external microphone, which sounds much better than using the computer’s internal microphone, if you’re doing a lot of video chats.
Omar’s family has been using Jackbox and Zoom to play games with family members, but without an external mic at each location, the other players have trouble hearing each other.
Headphones are also beneficial because they cut down on echo and feedback. Melanie recommends Bose noise-canceling headphones, which she uses for her podcast interviews.
Think about the etiquette of video chats, like dressing appropriately, muting your mic, not using the “private chat,” which might not be private. Be aware what’s in your video frame and in the background.
Omar goes through some of the options for project management apps like Basecamp and Asana and how you can choose which tool is best for you. Melanie has used Basecamp twice before, but was pulled into it from client/vendor. She didn’t purchase it. Melanie used Asana effectively with her virtual assistant, to keep track of tasks and set deadlines, without the risk of such tasks getting lost in email.
Omar also talks about how to use Slack chat effectively. Be aware that some employers may add you to Slack, which can then be filled with non-work Slack channels that can be distracting.
You can also consider using Slack for projects you as a freelancer are managing that involves subcontractors. You can use Slack just for the duration of the project and then close that Slack chain down when the project is finished.
Most of these tools integrate well with software such as Google Docs and Microsoft Word, so you can easily share links.
Omar talks about tools and tips for families that are now all together sheltering-in-place and how to find quiet work time. He prioritizes one room in the house and takes advantage of their back patio. He also recommends headphones and external microphones, which cuts out the background noise. Some microphones, like the Blue Yeti, can be set to pick up only the sound from the front of the microphone, not all sides.
Melanie’s husband invested in a smartphone tripod so he can create online videos for his own outdoor adventure and team-building business. There are also smartphone stabilizers to steady your camera better. You may also want to look into getting new lenses for your phone to improve video and photos.
Be sure to have a backup to your backup. Use something in the cloud, like Google Drive, Carbonite or Dropbox, but then have an external hard drive as well.
Let’s talk ergonomics. If you have the means, now is the time to invest in creating a more comfortable, usable office setup. You may want to also consider buying a bigger monitor to decrease your eye strain.
If possible, invest in a quality ergonomic office chair to reduce back and neck pain. Omar and Melanie are both fans of Herman Miller Aeron chairs (which is what Melanie has used for the past seven years and had previously as an employee).
After neck pain 4–5 years into freelancing, Melanie realized she needed to improve her ergonomics. Just using a laptop means either your eyes are level and your hands are held too high or your hands are at the right height and your eyes are looking down. Instead, Melanie bought a desk riser—which has hydraulics that converts it into an optional standing desk—and a separate keyboard and mouse.
Resources:
Omar on Twitter
Omar on Instagram
Omar’s website: Tech Minute (which includes 200 audio segments on technology)
“Zoom: Every security issue uncovered in the video chat app”
“Are Zoom Chats Private? Here’s Why You Should Think Before Opening The App”
Discord video and audio chat
Blue Yeti mic
Blue Snowball mic
Melanie’s mic: Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB
Jackbox games
Wunderlist to-do list app is now called Microsoft To Do
Drobo external backup system
Herman Miller Aeron chairs
Melanie’s desk riser and standing desk
Today’s guest is Michelle Garrett, a public relations consultant, content creator, blogger, speaker and freelance writer. She is also the host of the weekly tweet chat #FreelanceChat, which you can join every Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern time.
Michelle is the first guest to return to the show. She first appeared on episode #7 to talk about blogging and tweeting to build your business. I invited Michelle back because I knew she would have great advice about how to do marketing, social media and PR for our clients right now during the coronavirus pandemic—while being thoughtful and not tone-deaf. And I knew she would have advice for freelance business owners on how we can continue to market ourselves, network and get new work.
Michelle says her clients are all handling marketing and PR during this coronavirus in different ways. The most important thing is to be mindful and thoughtful. As she said, “It’s common sense a little bit. The things that didn’t work before are not going to work now—pushy, salesy.”
Be careful about automating social media posts and newsletters. But stopping social media entirely isn’t necessarily the answer because you don’t want to have completely silent social media accounts for several months just to suddenly start again.
You have to be aware of the crisis and its effect on people, but not every post and message has to be connected to the coronavirus. Some people will want to escape that for a while.
Be careful about your email newsletters and messaging. You don’t want to send emails that talk about how concerned you are for your customers and then make an abrupt pivot to a sales pitch offering a discount.
Companies should not disappear. That’s probably the biggest mistake. Think about how your clients can communicate appropriately and effectively.
As for freelancers, stay connected with your network, including on social media. Instead of just posting, though, engage with people more. Focus on just a few platforms that you like or that work for you.
“It’s OK to email or message clients to check in—How are you doing? How are you getting along?—something subtle, nothing pushy.”
Some clients will struggle financially too. But if you’ve already done work, be sure to follow up with the client to be sure you get paid on time.
If work is slow, it might be a good time to evaluate your business and your services. Invest that extra time back into your business. How do you want your business to look when this is over? Consider learning new skills. There are a lot of discounted or new online courses right now.
Work on getting yourself and your client ready for when the sheltering-in-place ends and businesses start to reopen. Consider what your ideal clients are and be ready when demand picks up again.
Moving forward, if you can, start saving money for a crisis, so you won’t panic (as much) next time. Michelle likes to say “make hay while the sun shines.” Try to work as much as you can when the opportunities are there, as much as you feel comfortable. (Melanie took a lower-paying gig recently for $300 that in normal times she might have declined, but cash is critical right now.)
Save money where you can. Melanie is holding off on paying her first quarter taxes, even though she has the money. She’s going to wait until quarter two payments are due and possibly pay both quarters at that time, seeing first if she needs that cash to pay her bills between now and then. The IRS has moved the tax deadline from April 15 to July 15, including for estimated taxes. However, the regularly scheduled June 30 estimated tax payment deadline has not been extended. And you should check with your state about its quarterly payments—some states have extended the deadline, while others have not.
Self-care is also important. Michelle has been taking walks outside for her self-care—as opposed to her previous routine of walking on a treadmill while watching the news.
Resources:
Episode #7 of Deliberate Freelancer: Blogging and Tweeting to Build Your Business, with Michelle Garrett
Michelle Garrett’s website
Michelle Garrett’s blog
Michelle Garrett on Twitter
#FreelanceChat — Twitter chat for freelancers every Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern (U.S.) time
Frequently asked questions about the coronavirus tax deadline extension
On today’s show I talk about how sometimes I’m just not feeling it. Sometimes I just feel blah and unmotivated. But, I have client work to do. But, I’m having a hard time kicking my butt into gear.
Two interesting reasons I might be feeling blah that I learned about in recent years:
One, I learned from my acupuncturist that some people feel blah or out of sorts when seasons change. The past two years, I’ve noticed this feeling as winter turns into spring—which is strange because I’m a much bigger fan of spring than I am of winter—but I feel out of sorts around April. And now, this week, my favorite season, summer, has slowly disappeared as October has arrived. That change of seasons might be causing some of my malaise.
Another thing that women should be aware of: When your hormone levels go down, you might feel a little unmotivated and not like yourself. This can happen before or during your menstrual cycle, and for those of us in our 40s, it can happen as we head into menopause. A lot of women start experiencing menopausal symptoms in their 40s, so you might want to talk with your doctor about this.
Back to feeling blah. As an employee, you can feel blah and show up to work and go through the motions. Maybe you won’t be that productive that day and not on your game, but you’re there and you’re collecting a paycheck.
But as a freelancer and business owner, it’s all about discipline. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. So, how do you push through that malaise and get to work?
First, consider taking the day off and NOT pushing through. It will depend on your schedule, but we should not feel guilty for taking a Mental Health Day. So, if your schedule allows, take the day off and do something fun. Treat yourself.
That wasn’t an option for me this past Monday. I had work to do. But I ignored my 7 a.m. alarm and dragged myself out of bed at 8 a.m. I took a shower, which is a morning requirement for me, but I realized I needed a plan to push through my lack of motivation. A plan might not help me feel better, but I needed to work.
I started by making myself some tea with caffeine. Then I did a few guided meditations for 15 minutes using the Breathe app. Then I listened to a few fun songs, but I cannot listen to music with lyrics while I’m working, so I turned the music off after a few minutes and dug into my email.
I asked people on Twitter what they do when they’re struggling like this. Here’s what some of them said:
Sarah Brodsky said: I break up the work into 100-word chunks. After writing each chunk, I watch for a few minutes as a reward.
I asked Sarah how she keeps from watching too much TV because I think that would be my challenge, even though I really like this idea, and she said the dread of not getting the work done usually keeps her focused. For me, I think I would either need to set a timer to stop watching TV or stand up the entire time, so I’m just watching 10–15 minutes.
Chloe Brooks recommended: Break it into chunks with rewards in between! Give yourself 30 minutes to work on something you’d rather do and then bust out the client work.
Chloe tells Siri to set a timer. And her rewards may be as simple as stretching in a different room, taking a quick walk around the block, doing a load of dishes/laundry so it stops bugging her. But sometimes she eats some chocolate or watches an episode of something funny. She’s a fan of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Bob’s Burgers.
Chloe also recommended just moving to a different room of the house, which also works for me and was a good reminder.
KiKi L’Italien said: I’ll turn off all notifications, shut my office door, set the Insight timer app for 15-20 minutes, and practice a little deep breathing and purposeful NON-action. It works as a reset! Usually I realize how lucky I am to have the work in front of me and it shifts my mindset.
Jackie MacDougall said: I give myself one small task. That’s usually enough to trigger motivation. OR I take the day and get up the next day at 5 a.m. to do it.
Sometimes I too would rather take the day off or take the afternoon off and just get up super early the next day.
A few more tactics that I use:
Time tracking. Time tracking usually keeps me on task. I like breaking up the day into chunks of time and time tracking—for whatever reason—keeps me accountable to myself. For example, if I waste time by playing on social media or I take a long lunch while catching up on “The Voice,” I have to look at my time tracking that I scribbled onto a piece of paper. I don’t like the look of spending 30 minutes on Facebook randomly scrolling in the middle of the day or taking a two-hour lunch when I have work to do.
Pick one thing. I choose one thing that I absolute have to do that day and focus on getting it done. Its sounds simple, but the concept is described in detail in the book “Make Time,” which describes how you pick a highlight for your day and then laser focus on getting it done by eliminating all distractions.
Pick three things. Michael Hyatt, who wrote the book “Free to Focus,” chooses just three things on his to-do list each day and works solely on those. That’s not possible for all of us every day, but when it is, it’s a way to keep you focused. Zero in on those three things and don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked by anything else.
Reach out to people. This helped me feel a little better by Monday afternoon, even though I did it on accident. As an introvert, I like to be alone, so when I’m feeling down, I definitely don’t think immediately, “Hey, I need to be around people. I should call my friends!”
But three things happened on Monday that made me realize I needed people interactions: I interviewed an inspiring podcast guest who lifted my spirits. Then, by reaching out to my Twitter community and asking them how they dealt with these feelings, I connected with my network online that knows exactly what it’s like to run a freelance business. And the third thing was my husband offered to take my walk with me that afternoon and we spent an hour walking and talking about non-work stuff.
Please know that as freelance business owners, sometimes we’re going to feel unmotivated and severely lacking in discipline. Whether you can take the day off or have to push through those feelings, that’s OK. It’s totally normal to feel like this occasionally.
I’d love to know what you do to keep on track when crappy moods hit you. Feel free to email me at melanie@meledits.com or tweet me @MelEdits.
Biz Bite: Spend Your Morning Focused on Email
The Bookshelf: “All You Can Ever Know” by Nicole Chung
Resources:
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
“Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
“Free to Focus” by Michael Hyatt
Breathe guided meditation app
InsightTimer guided meditation app
Today’s guest is Mira Dineen, a registered social worker and organizational consultant in Toronto, Canada. In her clinical counseling practice, Mira specializes in working with women with anxiety, worry and perfectionism. As a consultant, she designs and delivers wellness programming in post-secondary institutions, startups and nonprofits.
While Mira is only allowed to offer clinical therapy to people living in Ontario, she is available to everyone else as a consultant—she offers wellness coaching and organizational consulting services. Her links are below under Resources
I interrupted my previously announced March podcast hiatus because I wanted to bring you this episode during the coronavirus pandemic. I know I needed some reassurance and coping strategies to manage my anxiety, and Mira offers both of those in this episode.
I know I’m not the only one dealing with the rollercoaster of anxiety—one day paralyzed by fear or on the verge of tears, and the next day feeling fine and ready to spend all day diving into work.
Mira offers gentle, comforting words. But she also offers very practical advice and strategies for all of us, but specifically for freelance business owners.
Please know that anxiety is completely normal right now. Have some self-compassion—you can’t be expected to work your normal productive 9–5 schedule right now. Let’s stop beating ourselves up and let’s do the best we can.
Mira offers strategies on how to figure out what your own individual anxiety triggers are and then how to minimize those triggers. She also talks about how to boost our capacity to work more effectively.
Mira referred to these current times as a “collective uncertainty.” We don’t know what is going to happen day to day, but I hope this episode helps reassure you and provides some strategies to keep your anxiety at bay and help you figure how to keep doing your freelance work.
Resources
Mira Dineen’s website
Mira Dineen on Twitter
Mira Dineen on Instagram
Freedom app (to cut back on social media)
Good News Network (curated positive stories)
Good News Gurus podcast
How to Use Netflix Party to Binge-watch with Your Friends
I Homeschool My Kids and Also Work From Home — Here's How I Do It
6 Tips for Getting Work Done with Kids at Home
DC Hero Chef Jose Andres closes DC restaurants and turns some into community kitchens during coronavirus
U2’s Bono creates new song during coronavirus, Let Your Love Be Known
Penguins at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium explore the closed aquarium
Where do you want to go in the new year (metaphorically)?
On today’s show, we’re going to set you up right for the new year. I’m going to talk about how you can reflect back on the past year, analyze the good and the bad, and then plan for next year.
The end of the year is the perfect time to think about the big questions surrounding your freelance business. What does success and growth look like to you? To me, growing my business means continuing to earn more money in less time, so I can have a personal life, pursue new interests outside of work and travel a lot.
This is the perfect time to schedule a solo business retreat—a time of reflection, analysis and evaluation of the INSIDE of your business. It’s a time to step away from client work and the busyness of our lives.
First up, you need to look back to look forward. Evaluate your freelance business in 2019. What were five successes you had or five things you really loved about your work this year? Write them down.
Next, write down five things you disliked or hated or that were frustrating this past year. Even areas where you thought you failed spectacularly. Write them down.
Now, begin to evaluate those lists. What areas do you love that you want to double-down on? What areas do you hate that you want to avoid getting into next year?
Are there things you want to accomplish or achieve, but you’ve just felt stuck? How can you get unstuck from projects?
Were there red flags with clients that got you involved in a project that is now frustrating you in some way? Are there clients that just get you down? Do you get emails from certain people and immediately want to run and hide? Maybe it’s time to fire some clients and/or look how to replace that income.
Now, do a mini performance evaluation of yourself. What do you personally need to improve upon, what areas do you struggle with, what are you not great at? This is where you can think of the things in your business that you can delegate, automate and terminate. Some things you can delegate to others; some things you can automate through apps and services; and some things you can just terminate from your business.
When it comes to delegation, hiring a virtual assistant (VA) might be a good option.
Another thing you might want to think about for next year is defining or redefining your value proposition. Your value proposition is WHY someone should hire you. What do you offer that no one else can? What sets you apart?
A few years ago, I created an ultimate goal that defines me for the year. My goal states: To be a respected, go-to writer-and editor in the association industry.
I printed out that goal, which is hanging near my desk. That sign reminds me constantly that everything I do needs to go back to that goal—unless I have a good reason that a project or client doesn’t meet that goal. This process really helps me from straying too far from what I want to do with my business.
So, what would be your big goal that everything goes back to? What are you trying to do with your business? Who do you want to reach? What projects do you want to focus on? See if you can put that in one sentence that encompasses most of what you want to strive to do with your business.
Lightning-round questions you could also consider during your solo business retreat:
- If money were no object, but you still had a freelance business, what would you be doing?
- What are your non-negotiables? What do you want to stop doing in 2020?
- What marketing tool or event would you like to invest in?
- What is your big financial goal next year? Be bold!
- What is a dream client or project?
Quotes about Failure:
Bill Gates: “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
Biz Bite: Pick a word of the year
The Bookshelf: “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel
Resources:
Paul Jarvis’ idea of the Company of One (book, podcast)
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #36 of Deliberate Freelancer: Spotting Red Flags and Scope Creep
Episode #39 of Deliberate Freelancer: Raise Your Rates—Without Emotion
Episode #30 of Deliberate Freelancer: How a Virtual Assistant Can Help Your Business, with Cat DiStasio
Episode #26 of Deliberate Freelancer: Delegate, Automate and Terminate to Improve Your Business
On today’s show I help you visualize your absolute perfect work day and then help you figure out how to make that happen—providing tips and tactics. I believe you need to visualize your perfect work day step by step so you can start to implement systems, processes, habits and goals to create that type of day.
Let’s daydream to start: How would you wake up on your perfect work day? What would you do before work? How would your actual work day begin? Would you exercise? Meditate? Relax a bit with coffee or tea?
My perfect morning routine would look like this:
Get up naturally or easily at 5:30 or 6 a.m. without using a snooze alarm.
Go for a walk in my neighborhood for 15 or 30 minutes, either listening to a podcast or brainstorming on a work problem.
Come home, shower and get ready while listening to an inspiring podcast.
Fix my healthy breakfast and indulge in my fancy hot tea.
Start my day.
My perfect work day would end around 3 p.m. To make this happen, I need to be more efficient. To do that, focus on your peak productivity time. Do you know when that is for you?
Maximize your time by focusing on deep work without distractions. Maybe try the Pomodoro method, which is when you work in 25-minute blocks, then take a 5-minute break before working for another 25-minute block of time.
Next, get rid of distractions. Email is my biggest distraction. I either tackle email first thing for a set period of time (set an alarm) or I skip it for a few hours and don’t check it till mid-morning.
Definitely turn off email notifications on both your computer and your smartphone. Those distractions are terrible for your productivity and focus.
Try a batch time or day: Combine like tasks into one set period of time and stick to that time period every week.
Figure out how to work on projects you love that pay you well. First, analyze your freelance business to determine the projects that you love to do the most—not just the projects you might be good at.
To start to make more money, analyze your rates and how you landed your best clients. Make a list of your highest-paying clients. Then circle the ones you love to work with. How did you get these clients? Focus on getting more of those clients from the same places.
Make another list of all your regular clients and services and how much you charged. Put them in order of the most money you earn to the least money you earn per client. Why do you have those rates? Did you set them? Or did the client offer them to you? Can you raise those rates?
Create a wrap-up-the-day routine. For me, this includes creating a short to-do list for the next day and shutting my laptop, leaving my computer and my smartphone in my office for the night.
Biz Bite: Set timers for appointments and phone calls.
Resources:
My favorite tea (hot Cincinnati spice black tea) from Churchill’s Fine Teas
My favorite podcasts:
Before Breakfast
Company of One
Crime Writers On…True Crime Review
Ear Hustle
Happier in Hollywood
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
High-Income Business Writing (with Ed Gandia)
Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield
Unemployable: Advice for Freelancers and Entrepreneurs
What Should I Read Next?
Writer’s Bone
Boomerang plugin for Gmail
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #18 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Higher Rates
Stop hustling. Stop flying by the seat of your pants. Host your own solo business retreat and take a step back to analyze your business and where you want to go—and how you can get there.
On today’s show I want to stress the importance of getting a good night’s sleep—especially when you are a freelance business owner.
I’m really good at sleeping. I need about eight or nine hours a night, and I prioritize my sleep. I’ve also purposefully developed several habits to master and create the perfect sleep environment. And I want to share them with you.
As an employee, you might have been able to get through the day when you were tired, even if you weren’t your best self. But as a freelance business owner, everything is based on your own discipline. You have to make yourself get up, get into work mode, start projects, stick to a task, work when you might not feel like it. It can be way too easy to get distracted and browse social media or spend too much time on admin work, “pretending” to yourself that you’re really working.
All of this is amplified when you are tired. If you do not get enough sleep, you are not likely to have much discipline that day. Or even if you are trying to do work, your brain is not at its best.
There’s one thing I used to do an as employee to sabotage my own sleep needs, even though I knew I was doing it. If you are your own boss and doing this thing, it’s a warning sign: I would stay up way too late at night to prolong the evening so the next day would not arrive. I was dreading something about the next day. As an employee, remember those Sunday blues?
Do you ever feel like that as a freelance business owner? I think that’s a warning sign. Ask yourself why you’re dreading the next day. Have you taken on a project you don’t like? Do you have a regular client who you don’t enjoy working with? What can you do so that you look forward to Mondays—or at least not dread them?
Now, let’s talk about how to create a conducive sleep environment. Start by creating a cool, dark room. The National Sleep Foundation recommends you keep your bedroom between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit for optimal sleep. Another tip: Wear socks to bed to help your internal body temperature find the right setting.
Other ideas: black-out curtains or dark, heavy curtains. Ceiling fans or standing fans if the AC doesn’t make it cool enough. Think about noise too. Maybe invest in a white noise machine or noise-masking headphones. And I highly recommend always taking ear plugs with you when you travel, and, at the hotel, request a room on the quiet side of the building. This may be the back of the hotel and you may lose the view, but at least you’ll sleep.
Consider a humidifier in the winter. Dry air can irritate your throat and nose and can cause nasal congestion, coughing, even nosebleeds. I also use a stand-alone air purifier to help clean allergens out of our bedroom.
Consider the age and style of your pillow and mattress. I’ve been using a Tempur-Pedic neck pillow for years and my neck is never sore when I get up. I couldn’t say that in the past with regular pillows.
One more overarching thing about your bedroom: Your bedroom should be a cozy, calming place. Get rid of any clutter. If you have cold floors, buy an area rug or slippers. Add a cozy chair with a blanket or hang some calming photos or art. I like to get into a bed with crisp, clean sheets pulled taut so I make my bed every morning.
Now, let’s talk about going to bed and sleep habits. Think about how you go to sleep now. Do you go to sleep at different times each night? Do you stay up so late that you’re almost too tired to drag yourself upstairs? Are you mindlessly watching Netflix or scrolling Instagram all night on the sofa because you’re too tired to do anything else? If you have kids, do you use the time after they go to bed to do chores and catch up on work?
Analyze how you typically go to bed. What is your routine? What do you think you’re doing now that you could improve upon? I encourage you to figure out how to wind down before you go to bed—to create a routine that you look forward to. You need a buffer between your daily activities and trying to go to sleep.
We’ve all heard that we need to stay away from our screens right before we go to bed. If you have your laptop or phone in your bedroom, you’re likely not feeling very relaxed or winding down. You’re also being affected by blue light, which suppresses the secretion of melatonin—melatonin is what affects our circadian rhythm, or our internal clock.
Go to your smartphones and computers right now. Go to Settings and then Display and look for something called Night Shift or Blue Light Filter. You can set the hours you’d like to filter out the blue light, which gives your screen a much warmer, less bright display.
Are there other ways you can create a set bedtime routine? What about going to bed the same time every night, just like we did as kids?
One suggestion I’ve heard if you’re a parent is to get ready for bed at the same time as your kids—brush your teeth, wash your face, take out your contacts. Do this even if it is only 7:30 at night. You’ll get these necessities out of the way and start to signal to your body that you’re winding down for the night, even if you’re awake for another three or four hours.
I love to read before bed, so I’ve focused on making that a habit. I get completely ready for bed and read in bed. Sometimes I read for only 15 minutes; sometimes I read for two hours.
Let’s talk about caffeine. I gave up caffeine completely in 2009. I was heavily addicted to soda. I went years without any caffeine until a few years ago when I started drinking just one cup of caffeinated tea. But I don’t have it every day, and I try never to drink tea past 11 a.m. because I can tell at night if I’ve had caffeine too late in the day. On my caffeine-free days, I like to drink Rooibos tea, a tea from South Africa that doesn’t have caffeine.
If you want to stamp out your caffeine addiction, figure out if you’re the type of person who can gradually taper off or if you have to quit cold turkey. If you aim for cold turkey, I suggest planning it out. Maybe stop on a Thursday when you know you can be free from work and any activities from Thursday through Sunday—because the withdrawal process will make you exhausted and likely give you headaches. But you can do it!
What are your sleep habits? I’d love to hear from you!
Biz Bite: Follow the one-minute rule
The Bookshelf: “Long Bright River” by Liz Moore
Resources:
Bluetooth sleep headphones
My Tempur-Pedic neck pillow
Rooibos teas that I love (my favorite is Hot Cincinnati Spice)
Today’s show is a bit shorter than usual because I’m tired. Not physically tired as much as mentally tired. I get enough sleep—I’m really good at prioritizing that—but you know as a freelance business owner that your brain is always on. It’s hard to stop thinking about your business.
Plus, February is my busiest month. But what really got me off track last week was the infuriating and frustrating news that the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 2474, a bill that, at first glance, doesn’t seem to have much to do with freelancing. It’s a pro-union bill heavily supported by Democrats (who control the House), which is how it passed easily. However, the bill defines independent contractors in such restrictive terms that it would require most of our clients to hire us as employees or not to use us at all. This would affect ALL independent contractors and freelancers in ANY industry, which is why we need to fight against his bill.
If you’ve heard of AB5 in California, which became law this year, H.R. 2474 is similar—except AB5 actually has some exceptions for certain industries. The national bill does not, making it much more dangerous. The bill comes up in the Senate next (Senate bill 1306), and while it will likely not pass in the Republican-controlled Senate, that doesn’t mean we can slack off. We have to educate our representatives and senators about the dangers of this bill because a future Democrat-controlled Senate and House would likely pass this bill. A Democrat president would sign it. A Republican president would likely veto it, so then it would depend on whether Congress had the votes to override the veto.
Please check out the links below and start educating yourself about these national bills. I promise to have much more about this and what we can do in a future episode. For now, all of this is to say that I was frustrated, angry and mentally drained last week as the House was voting. So, I went off social media and email all weekend, which gave me a much-needed mental break. Plus, my husband kept reminding me that yes, I have to fight this bill, but I didn’t have to do it immediately, not necessarily that day.
In this podcast, I try to provide you inspiration and tips every week so you can build a successful freelance business. But I want you to know that I struggle too. I procrastinate. I stress about money. I definitely stress about the world around us—and then feel guilty for turning off the news and burying my head in the sand.
But I also really love where I am in my life. And a huge part of that is because I’m my own boss. Freelancing has given me the freedom to do what I want, when I want, how I want. Freelancing really is about freedom, and I treasure it, even when it can be stressful.
Biz Bite: Practice professional greetings and goodbyes
The Bookshelf: “If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now” by Christopher Ingraham
Resources:
Episode #37 of Deliberate Freelancer: California’s Harmful New Freelancer Law, with Randy Dotinga
An archive of AB5 news articles
A compilation of personal stories from California freelancers about how AB5 is hurting them.
HR 2474 bill text and actions by Congress
Senate version of the bill, S. 1306
Fight for Freelancers New York Facebook group
Fight for Freelancers New Jersey Facebook group
Follow freelance writer Kim Kavin’s blog—she’s been fighting against these bills for several months.
On today’s show I talk about boundaries, both in your business and your personal life. For the most part, I have figured out how to set boundaries. But I also admit I was quite lucky that when I started my freelance business, my family and friends understood that I was actually working throughout the day and that this wasn’t some hobby. I know some of you are not so lucky and have people occasionally bugging you to help them out with things or hang out with them during the day because you “of course you can’t be working.”
Boundaries tell you and those around you what is acceptable, appropriate human behavior. They vary from person to person. Knowing what your boundaries are and setting them is critical to building healthy, respectful relationships in your life. This is important in both your personal life—setting boundaries with your partner, your family, your friends, even your neighbors—as well as in your freelance business—with clients, colleagues, subcontractors.
I want to talk about setting boundaries in your personal life first.
An article on PsychCentral.com called people who break your boundaries “emotional manipulators,” a phrase I like because if you think of them as manipulating you, maybe you’ll see how wrong and invasive they are being. The article suggests setting boundaries by first writing down the ways that people in your life are hurting you by the things they say.
Then, consider what the other person’s motivation might be and begin to write down answers to specific comments.
I think it’s important to not only know what you’ll say next time, but also know how to cut the conversation short. You shouldn’t be dragged into a 15-minute conversation in which you’re being forced to explain your life choices.
When you’re figuring out what to say, remember what their motivations might be. Then, you might say something like, “I know you only want the best for me and you’re worried that I will have trouble paying my bills, but the decision to be a freelancer is mine. I am going to work really hard at this for a while. I’ve already gained a few clients and am talking with other freelancers about how to build my business. Please don’t criticize or question my choices anymore. I would appreciate your support instead.”
And if you hear in return, “but, but, but …” I recommend you cut the conversation short. Be prepared to say, “I’m not going to discuss this with you. I’ve told you my plans and asked you not to criticize me. We’re done talking about this.”
Depending on the person’s role in your life, you could even say, “Listen, I love you, but you have to stop.”
And then stay strong. Be prepared to hang up the phone, walk away, stop texting. Stop responding and back away or the person will just keep going.
And if that same person starts in on you again later on, remind them of this conversation: “No, no, remember this is my life. I have already asked you to not criticize or question my choices. I only want your support or we’re not talking about this at all.”
The PsychCentral.com article also makes a couple more recommendations that I think are really helpful to keep in mind. It says “Remember the importance of saying ‘no’ to unreasonable requests, and reasonable ones from time to time, if they conflict with your plans.”
Yes, saying no is huge! I am actually really good at saying no in my personal life. Where I have trouble saying no is with volunteering in my industry. That’s where I am practicing saying no this year.
One more thing the PsychCentral article recommends is to challenge all insults masked as humor.
I know all of this is really hard. I don’t expect you to get it perfect all the time, and I’m not an expert or a therapist. But I want you to succeed in your business and in your life. I think it’s really important for people—women especially—to learn how to speak up for ourselves, stand up for our own lives, tell people to stop.
Next, let’s talk about boundary setting when it comes to your freelance business. For some of you, this needs to start with a mindset shift that you are a freelance business owner. You’re not freelancing on a whim, this is not a hobby, you’re not “just” a freelancer. You own a freelance business.
I think something happens in our brains when we start to think of ourselves as business owners. I firmly believe it builds confidence. You’re not just hustling from one gig to the next. You’re not just taking whatever job you’re offered. You’re not taking whatever fee you’re offered.
Your language changes. Instead of asking, “how much do you pay?” you can say, “My rate for this type of project is XXX.” You are in charge.
When you’re setting boundaries in your business, again, make a list of what boundaries clients and colleagues are breaking. A few big ones are expecting you to reply after hours, creating scope creep in projects, and expecting you to reply on vacation.
I have news for you: Most clients are only expecting those things from you because you set that expectation. It’s the hard truth. If you are responding to emails, phone calls and texts at all hours of the day and night, well, what client wouldn’t love that?
It is up to you to set boundaries with your clients. One of the biggest boundaries you can set right now, if you haven’t already, is to create office hours for yourself. When do you want to work? Be creative! If you’re not a morning person and your peak productivity time is at night, take advantage of that.
I’ve never told my clients my schedule because it falls into the typical 9–5 workday. But, if I had a new client who was expecting me to check email all hours of the night, I would speak up and say something like, “I wanted to let you know that my office hours are 9–5. I don’t check email after those hours unless we’re on a deadline that we’ve already agreed to.”
And then don’t check email! I know some people find this really hard and think checking email at night is particularly harmless if you’re not responding to it. But you’re still working when you told yourself you wouldn’t be. You’re still mentally pulling yourself back into work.
Once you’ve set office hours, what other boundaries do you want to set? What is annoying you, getting in the way of your work? Evaluate your days and how you work and where you work. This also means setting boundaries for yourself. We often push against our own boundaries—procrastinating or not unplugging and taking true vacations.
Another boundary you might need to set is how you want people to communicate with you (email, phone, text). Another is scope creep—when a client starts asking you to do things you didn’t think were part of the project, things that are taking more time and energy.
Biz Bite: Create templates
The Bookshelf: “Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster” by Adam Higginbotham
Resources:
PsychCentral.com article “The Importance of Personal Boundaries”
Episode #1 of Deliberate Freelancer: Change Your Mindset: You Own a Freelance Business
Episode #36 of Deliberate Freelancer: Spotting Red Flags and Scope Creep
On today’s episode, we’re talking about goals—setting them, working on them, tracking them, achieving them. Goal-setting can be tough, and I think part of that is the words we use. For example, New Year’s resolutions are essentially goals, but about 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail by February.
We’re all eager in January to jump on those resolutions, but then we get bored, or we forget or life gets too busy and gets in the way.
Goal-setting can happen at any time. You can wait for that feeling to hit you that you want to work toward some new things, or you can be proactive throughout the year.
To get started, I recommend setting only a few big goals at a time. Otherwise, you fall into that New Year’s resolutions trap again. First, start by setting one to three goals for your business. Your goals should be specific so that you can later tie them to step-by-step goals and habits to implement. Saying you want to grow your business is not a specific goal. On the personal side, wanting to become a better runner or get in shape are not specific goals.
To set goals for your business, take a few hours or even a day to focus on what you want for your freelance business. This is deep work. Turn off the phone and social media notifications. Better yet, set your computer aside and use pen and paper. Physically writing when you’re brainstorming helps spark your creativity and solidify your ideas.
And make it fun. This year—although I admitted to myself that I wasn’t going to use the actual calendar in a planner—I bought a planner for inspiration and brainstorming. I bought the Alter planner, which was made just for freelancers.
Once you have evaluated some potential goals, you need to set goals that are actually doable, attainable and specific enough that you know how to get started on them.
Use the SMART technique:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-based
When you have a couple of goals that meet all the criteria in the SMART formula, you need to put an actual plan in place to work on those goals. James Clear, author of “Atomic Habits,” says: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
That means if you don’t put a system and habits in place for each of your goals, they’ll just be goals with no structure or plan. You need to create a step-by-step plan for how to achieve each of these goals.
Start with one of your goals and begin to write down all the “to do” items you need to make that happen. Then, begin to think of a structure—and the habits you need—to get that to-do list accomplished.
Part of the SMART goal formula is to develop a goal that is measurable. Tracking and measuring your goal is critical to that goal’s success, but this is often an area we struggle in. As you set up your systems and habits, include a process for how and when you will measure that goal. I use an Excel spreadsheet to track my financial goals and keep that sheet open all the time on my laptop.
There are also dozens of apps that will track things, so a phone app might be the best option for you and your goals.
Track your goals regularly, maybe weekly or monthly. But then do a more intensive check-in and measuring of your goal each quarter to make sure that goal is still working for you. Even if you don’t hit your goal, you’ll likely get closer than if you had no goal at all. Or, you might realize you need to adjust your goal at some point throughout the year, and that’s OK.
Biz Bite: Create a ta-da list
The Bookshelf: “Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder” by Caroline Fraser
Resources:
Alter planner
The Essential Guide to Writing SMART Goals
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #13 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Better Goals for Your Business, with Andrena Sawyer
Episode #23 of Deliberate Freelancer: Five Questions to Evaluate and Diversify Your Services
Episode #26 of Deliberate Freelancer: Delegate, Automate and Terminate to Improve Your Business
Episode #40 of Deliberate Freelancer: Reflect, Analyze and Plan Now for the New Year
On today’s show I am going over 33 ways you can find new clients. But before you embark on that project, you’ll need to do a little prep work. First, consider what type of work you truly want more of. What do you love to do? What work pays well? Focus on that.
Next, raise your rates. Then, be crystal clear on what you want to say to those potential clients. Focus on how you can help them and what they want. Now, you’re ready to find new clients. Here are my tips (scroll down to the Resources section for a printable pdf of this list):
- Ask current clients for new work.
- Ask current or past clients for referrals.
- Go to industry conferences.
- Maximize your LinkedIn profile and add keywords.
- Send a ridiculous number of letters of introduction (LOIs).
- Follow up on past LOIs or with people you’ve met in real life.
- Add a new service.
- Apply to speak at conferences as an expert in your field.
- Reach out to your contacts who are at new jobs.
- Write a guest blog post in your industry.
- Ramp up your social media game.
- Go old school and mail out postcards to a select group.
- Join organizations and make sure to fill out your profile in the online directory.
- Apply to win awards in your field.
- Be active in Facebook groups and/or Twitter chats.
- Create a private Twitter list of potential clients.
- Launch or revive your blog.
- Create an email list.
- Create a newsletter.
- Create a freebie.
- Set up keyword searches on Twitter.
- Ask for testimonials from happy clients.
- Ask for LinkedIn recommendations.
- Try Facebook Live or Instagram Stories.
- Be a guest on a podcast.
- Revamp your website.
- Update your online portfolio.
- Consider partnerships.
- Answer job ads.
- Go to local events.
- Connect with a co-working space.
- Tell everyone you meet what you do.
- Fire a client.
Biz Bite: Stop reading and listening to things that make you angry.
The Bookshelf: “Daisy Jones & the Six” by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Resources:
33 Ways to Find More Clients printable pdf
Episode #23 of Deliberate Freelancer: Five Questions to Evaluate and Diversify Your Services
Episode #18 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Higher Rates
Episode 22 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create a Better Work-Life Balance, with Laura Poole
Episode #6 of Deliberate Freelancer: Make the Most of Conferences
Episode #24 of Deliberate Freelancer: Networking Tips, Especially as an Introvert
Episode #20 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use LinkedIn Better to Find Clients, with Phaedra Brotherton
On today’s show, I’m going to report on what I did during my most recent solo business retreat and my lessons learned.
Some of you already know I love taking a solo business retreat about once a quarter—or at minimum, twice a year. A solo business retreat is just you, away from your regular workspace—even in that means just heading to another room in your home—and taking a half day, entire day or even two days to step back. It’s a time to think big and to work ON your business, not just IN your business.
In episode 3, I talk about how to host your own solo business retreat—what you need, where you can go to do it, what to think about.
Two episodes ago, episode 40, I gave tips and hopefully some inspiration for things that would work well during a solo business retreat—how you could evaluate the past year of your business and then analyze what you needed to do differently this year.
I also mentioned in that episode that I was going to host my first solo business retreat outside my city. It was in Chicago last week, and it was amazing.
I started by making a list of all my clients and how much I made from each one of them last year. Then, I marked which ones were likely one-offs because they were one-time projects from the client’s perspective and which ones were one-offs because I didn’t want to work with that client anymore. The good news is that only two were ones I didn’t want to work with anymore—in one case, it was a one-off project, and in the other I think the client felt the same way I did. So, I didn’t have to fire any clients!
My calculations also confirmed what I already knew from past years: My primary anchor client is about 48% of my net income each year. That’s a lot. That security also comes with cautions: What if that client suddenly lets me go or kills our project? The challenge is that because the workload for this client is like a part-time job, I can’t take on a lot of other big anchor clients.
So, I’ve tried to prepare myself for losing this client, though I hope that never happens. First, it helps just that I’m aware of it. Knowing that relying on one client for 48% of your income is a gamble is the first step. You don’t want to be blindsided if the client goes away.
I’ve also been working to build up my savings to provide a cushion, and I continue to market and stay in touch with past clients. It’s important to always be marketing. It can take months or even years in some cases to get a project from a potential client. Waiting until you need the work will not likely pay off—plus, it can make you desperate. You might take on low-paying clients or clients who don’t treat you well.
After calculating where my money came from last year, I made a short list of the clients I really loved who I wanted to work with more. Some of these were newer clients that have started off great, and I want to keep that momentum going. Others are longer-time clients that I need to reach out to more.
I also had one client where my editor left last year. So, I quickly looked up the new person’s contact information so I could email them a letter of introduction.
The next part of my business retreat was to make a list of my successes, failures and challenges from last year.
My successes included two regular clients that I worked with substantially more last year. Other successes were two new regular clients and my podcast launch.
Failures included a client who was really difficult to work with. Another was not keeping up with my business receipts in a timely manner.
On the list of challenges I added batching, the idea of doing like work all at once and saving time from switching tasks. I’m still working on doing a better job of batching.
Another challenge was taking on projects that are not in my sweet spot. I should have said no. In fact, I’ve dubbed 2020 as the year of saying no, particularly saying “no” to volunteering so much in my industry. I love helping other freelancers build their businesses—that’s why I do this podcast—and I also love helping out in my industries. But I need to be careful what I say “yes” to because it can eat into the time I should be focused on paid work or my personal life. It often leads to me feeling overwhelmed and stressed. So, I’m being really picky about this year.
One thing that has been harder to say “no” to are coffee dates or email requests. I have had some well-intended friends or acquaintances email me and connect me with a connection of theirs. Usually they say something like “my friend wants to become a freelancer. Can you give her some tips?” First, I would prefer the person I know to ask me first, not assume or pass of the person off to me.
Second, those types of questions are vague and broad. And third, I don’t have time to help every stranger who wants a personal list of what they should do to become successful. So, I’m still figuring out how best to say “no” to those requests without feeling rude.
My retreat wrapped up with me making a list of the healthy work habits I want to implement this year. Then, I made a list of the systems I could create to make those happen. I talk about habits and how you need a system to make them actually stick in last week’s episode, episode 41.
At the end of my retreat, I had dinner with my friend and fellow writer Megy Karydes. Megy was a guest on episode 10, and she reminded me how regimented she is in sticking with her systems each day. Megy knows—to the penny—how much she needs to earn each DAY. And, she keeps diligent track of it. I was inspired to try to do better tracking of my income goals. I will likely break down my monthly goals into weekly goals to track.
I hope to tie this into time tracking—which Megy is also quite diligent about—because when I do time tracking it helps me stay on task and be more efficient. Plus, I gather important data about how long certain types of projects take so that I know how to charge for them.
Biz Bite: Create an end-of-the-day routine.
The Bookshelf: “The Yellow House” by Sarah M. Broom
Resources:
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #40 of Deliberate Freelancer: Reflect, Analyze and Plan Now for the New Year
Episode #41 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create and Stick to Habits—the Backbone of Your Life and Business
Episode #19 of Deliberate Freelancer: Visualize Your Perfect Work Day—Then Create It
Episode #10 of Deliberate Freelancer: Think Like a Marketer to Grow Your Business, with Megy Karydes
On today’s show I am going to go through several tips and tools for creating and sticking to new habits, as outlined and inspired by James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits.”
But first, please consider donating $5–10 to a fellow freelancer, Cat DiStasio, who is recovering from a severe stroke that happened right before Christmas 2019. Cat was my guest on episode 30 about how a virtual assistant (VA) can help your business. She is a former VA and now focuses on writing and project management.
Cat is a single parent and the sole income earner for her and her child. Unfortunately, in the U.S., we don’t have a safety net system when things like this happen to people. We have to rely on our community and the goodwill of others.
Under Resources below, you will find the link to a GoFundMe account set up by fellow freelance writer Jennifer Goforth Gregory. As a fellow freelancer, I’m sure you understand the fear of what would happen if you got sick or injured and couldn’t work—especially if you are the sole or primary income earner for yourself or your family. So, please consider donating whatever you can.
On the last episode, the Biz Bite I recommended was to pick a word of the year. I love this process because it allows me to focus on what I want to accomplish or improve in the coming year. For 2020, I have two words: Explore + Act.
Now, on to habit creation …
I believe habits are the backbones of our lives—and they can be the backbones of your freelance business too. Building a system of habits doesn’t mean you have to have this impossible, rigid structure throughout your day. It doesn’t mean you’re going to become a robot. You can still have spontaneity. You can have unstructured time in your days.
But when you truly embrace a new habit, it becomes old hat. You don’t even think about it anymore. It can be something you look forward to. A habit takes away the mental energy and anxiety and stress of thinking about what you should be doing next and the process and steps it takes.
Clear says something that I absolutely love and agree with: “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
How many times do we set a goal for ourselves or for our businesses and then don’t really put a system in place to achieve that goal? This is one of the reasons New Year’s resolutions fail so miserably. What system have you put in place to achieve a goal? It’s not about willpower. It’s not even about reminding yourself of this goal. You need a system—you need a series of steps that will make this a habit.
Clear also says: “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.” This means you will not notice an improvement the first time you start a new habit; you may not even see improvements week after week. Transformation takes time. Clear believes we should aim to improve by just 1 percent each day. That doesn’t seem like much. But it definitely adds up.
For me, I’m trying to meditate every work day, anywhere from 5–15 minutes. I don’t really notice a difference right now. I feel the same. It feels like this weird chore I’m doing, maybe even a waste of time.
But if I meditate day after day, there will be a cumulative effect that I will eventually realize. The goal of meditation is not just to meditate. For me, it’s to build a healthy habit so that eventually meditation will help reduce any anxiety I am feeling and will calm down my racing mind before a busy, hectic day. Meditation will be the thing I know I can turn to when I’m feeling overwhelmed and need to take a quiet moment to calm myself, slow my breathing. That is my goal.
But I need a system to make sure I stick with the habit. So, I have a Post-It note on my laptop that says “Meditate.” That is my cue each morning. And I’ve paired meditation with my tea. So, after I fix my tea, I take a lovely sip and then set it aside while I do my meditation, returning to my tea treat after I meditate.
I also use a meditation app. In my case, I use the Breathe app. And it tallies my meditation streak—I want to keep my streak going. Plus, it gives me little badges for meditation milestones.
One of the concrete things Clear provides in his book are the four simple steps to building better habits:
- Cue
- Craving
- Response
- Reward
The cue is what triggers your brain to start a behavior. The cravings are what motivate you to do the habit. There has to be some sort of desire for you to do the thing or you won’t do it. The response is the actual habit. And the reward is what you get out of it.
To put that into action for your freelance business, think of a good habit you want to implement. Let’s say you want to be at your desk, ready to work, at 8 a.m. every day. To implement any habit, Clear takes his idea of cue, craving, response and reward and creates a practical way to implement it. He calls this the Four Laws of Behavior Change. They are:
- Make it obvious.
- Make it attractive.
- Make it easy.
- Make it satisfying.
For every habit ask yourself how you can make it obvious, attractive, easy or satisfying. If you’re working on breaking a bad habit, you just inverse this: Make the habit not obvious, unattractive, difficult and unsatisfying.
I also highly recommend checking out Gretchen Rubin’s work on this. Her book “Better than Before” is all about habit change, and she gives dozens of ways you can create and stick with habits.
So, for example, let’s take “obvious” and “easy” together. If you want to be at your desk at 8 a.m. every day, you need a system that makes that obvious for you each morning. First, you need to decide what time you need to get up to be at your desk by 8 a.m. What time do you need to wake up to be ready? What time, then, do you need to go to bed to get up at that time? Maybe you need to set a bedtime alarm to remind yourself to go to bed.
Another way to make a habit obvious is to design your environment. One habit I’m working on is to eat apples as snacks, instead of reaching for chocolate. So, instead of having candy out and within my eyesight, I placed a bowl of apples on our coffee table. That’s the first food option I see when I’m thinking about snacking at night. I designed my environment to support my habit.
On the Happier podcast, Rubin and her sister, Elizabeth Craft, talk about the idea of reframing. Two ways to do this that I like is:
- Ask yourself what kind of person you want to be.
- Put a positive spin on a habit by saying you “get” to do something, not that you “have” to do something. (“I get to go to the gym. I get to eat healthy food.”)
Think also about how you can make your habit irresistible or attractive. I like to use the strategies of pairing and rewards. What would be a healthy treat for you each morning? How could you pair that with your morning routine or your 8 a.m. start?
One thing I do for exercise is I pair walking with listening to a podcast. I scroll through the latest podcast episodes each morning and listen to something while I get ready for my day. But, if I’m supposed to work out that day, I save the episode I really want to listen to and only allow myself to listen to it when I go for my walk. It’s a treat that I look forward to.
Clear’s last rule of habit change is to make it satisfying. He gives an example of a couple who wanted to stop eating out so much. They created an online savings account and named it “Trip to Europe.” Every time they wanted to go out to eat but didn’t, they transferred $50 into that account.
As you think about the habits you want to create, don’t just think about what habits you think would be good for you: more exercise, healthier eating, more sleep.
Ask yourself the bigger questions:
- Who do you want to be?
- What do you want your freelance business to look like?
- What do you want to accomplish this year?
- What major lifestyle changes do you want to implement?
- What bad habits have gone on way too long in your life that you’re sick of and you want to change?
Scan through your day and week and analyze how you spend your time. What is good about that and what could be improved? What is missing from your life? What do you want more of?
Then, break down those aspirations into habit goals. From there, use the tools offered by people like Clear and Rubin to build the systems into your life and your business that will allow you to meet those goals.
Biz Bite: Set your non-negotiables
The Bookshelf: “Final Girls” by Riley Sager`
Resources:
GoFundMe: Help Cat DiStasio Pay Bills After a Stroke
Episode #30 of Deliberate Freelancer: How a Virtual Assistant Can Help Your Business, with Cat DiStasio
Episode #40 of Deliberate Freelancer: Reflect, Analyze and Plan Now for the New Year
“Atomic Habits” by James Clear—book, blog and website
“Better than Before” by Gretchen Rubin—book, videos and blog
Happier podcast
Where do you want to go in the new year (metaphorically)?
On today’s show, we’re going to set you up right for the new year. I’m going to talk about how you can reflect back on the past year, analyze the good and the bad, and then plan for next year.
The end of the year is the perfect time to think about the big questions surrounding your freelance business. What does success and growth look like to you? To me, growing my business means continuing to earn more money in less time, so I can have a personal life, pursue new interests outside of work and travel a lot.
This is the perfect time to schedule a solo business retreat—a time of reflection, analysis and evaluation of the INSIDE of your business. It’s a time to step away from client work and the busyness of our lives.
First up, you need to look back to look forward. Evaluate your freelance business in 2019. What were five successes you had or five things you really loved about your work this year? Write them down.
Next, write down five things you disliked or hated or that were frustrating this past year. Even areas where you thought you failed spectacularly. Write them down.
Now, begin to evaluate those lists. What areas do you love that you want to double-down on? What areas do you hate that you want to avoid getting into next year?
Are there things you want to accomplish or achieve, but you’ve just felt stuck? How can you get unstuck from projects?
Were there red flags with clients that got you involved in a project that is now frustrating you in some way? Are there clients that just get you down? Do you get emails from certain people and immediately want to run and hide? Maybe it’s time to fire some clients and/or look how to replace that income.
Now, do a mini performance evaluation of yourself. What do you personally need to improve upon, what areas do you struggle with, what are you not great at? This is where you can think of the things in your business that you can delegate, automate and terminate. Some things you can delegate to others; some things you can automate through apps and services; and some things you can just terminate from your business.
When it comes to delegation, hiring a virtual assistant (VA) might be a good option.
Another thing you might want to think about for next year is defining or redefining your value proposition. Your value proposition is WHY someone should hire you. What do you offer that no one else can? What sets you apart?
A few years ago, I created an ultimate goal that defines me for the year. My goal states: To be a respected, go-to writer-and editor in the association industry.
I printed out that goal, which is hanging near my desk. That sign reminds me constantly that everything I do needs to go back to that goal—unless I have a good reason that a project or client doesn’t meet that goal. This process really helps me from straying too far from what I want to do with my business.
So, what would be your big goal that everything goes back to? What are you trying to do with your business? Who do you want to reach? What projects do you want to focus on? See if you can put that in one sentence that encompasses most of what you want to strive to do with your business.
Lightning-round questions you could also consider during your solo business retreat:
- If money were no object, but you still had a freelance business, what would you be doing?
- What are your non-negotiables? What do you want to stop doing in 2020?
- What marketing tool or event would you like to invest in?
- What is your big financial goal next year? Be bold!
- What is a dream client or project?
Quotes about Failure:
Bill Gates: “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
Biz Bite: Pick a word of the year
The Bookshelf: “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel
Resources:
Paul Jarvis’ idea of the Company of One (book, podcast)
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #36 of Deliberate Freelancer: Spotting Red Flags and Scope Creep
Episode #39 of Deliberate Freelancer: Raise Your Rates—Without Emotion
Episode #30 of Deliberate Freelancer: How a Virtual Assistant Can Help Your Business, with Cat DiStasio
Episode #26 of Deliberate Freelancer: Delegate, Automate and Terminate to Improve Your Business
Today’s episode focuses on how to raise your rates. Raising your rates is not about if you should raise them, but when and how. On episode 28 of Deliberate Freelancer, my guest Pam Capalad talked about the need to take the emotion out of raising your rates. I thought that was so smart—and easier said than done.
Pam recognized that a lot of issues tend to pop up when we talk about raising our rates: imposter syndrome, fear of rejection, wanting to be liked.
All of that is emotion. I wish I could help you instantly channel the confidence of a successful businessman who was born into privilege and never questions how much he charges his customers. But I can’t, so let’s talk about how to raise rates for your freelance business.
- Start by eliminating your hourly rate. Start charging by the project. If you work fast, you are
penalized for charging an hourly rate. And, an hourly rate doesn’t recognize the value you’re bringing to a project.
- Instead, create a secret hourly rate.
Aim to earn way more than your secret hourly rate. This is where project rates shine.
- Don’t underestimate that nagging, resentful, frustrated feeling. Don’t agree to rates that you don’t feel good about! Take a beat every time you come up with a rate—right before you send the proposal off—and gauge your feelings on it. This is where it’s OK for emotion to come into play.
And if the potential client comes back to your proposal with a counter-offer, take another pause and make sure you are comfortable with the lower rate they are suggesting.
- All clients are not created equal.
One mistake a lot of freelancers make in the beginning is having one rate for everyone. Don’t. You may have rates that are higher for corporations that have more money than what you charge a small nonprofit in your community. You may charge more for more technical projects or projects that are a pain in the butt or have challenging clients. There are a million reasons you might charge differently. Look at each client and each project on a case-by-case basis.
- Raise your rates for all new clients. Create project rates based on your new secret hourly rate for all new clients.
- Raise your rates for existing clients. Start by making a list of all your clients and how much you charge them. Go down the list—treating each client differently—and ask yourself how much you could raise the rate. Once you decide on the new rates, you need to email your clients and inform them of the new rates. Don’t ASK them if the new rate is OK. TELL them what your new rate is.
- Track your time on specific projects.
Time-tracking specific types of projects you do often will give you a sense of how much time certain types of projects will take you. You might be surprised to learn you are underestimating or overestimating how long a project takes. Be sure to include your research, all that emailing back and forth, any phone conversations. It all adds up.
Biz Bite: Stop talking.
The Bookshelf: “Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries” by Kory Stamper
Resources:
Episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pamela Capalad
Episode #22 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Create a Better Work-Life Balance, with Laura Poole
Episode #28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Spotting Red Flags and Scope Creep
Toggl time-tracking app
On today’s show, I’m going to take you through my nutrition journey and how I’ve learned to eat healthier over the past few years, which is invaluable to me as a freelance business owner. As freelancers, in particular, we need to focus on our health. Often, we sit at home all day behind a computer. Many of us are not getting enough exercise—we’re not even getting up enough throughout the day to stand, walk or stretch. And food temptations are just a room or two away.
As freelancers, if we don’t work, we don’t make money. If you’re eating foods that make you feel sluggish, or you’re dehydrated and tired, or you’re hopped up on too much caffeine, you’re not going to do your best work. Your brain might not be as sharp that day, or you’re just tired and want a nap. As an employee, you can feel this way and either push through or just suffer through the day—but you get paid either way. Not so as a freelancer. You need to be on your game and doing your best work.
This episode is not about weight, even though I do want to lose a few pounds. I’m trying really hard to focus on the health aspects in my own life, which does include not gaining any more weight.
First up: water. I have finally embraced how magnificent water is. Of course, I knew this intellectually. But I never drank it. Instead, throughout my 20s, I would drink 3–6 cans of Mountain Dew every day. In my 30s, I switched to Diet Mountain Dew to get away from the calories, but now I was consuming the aspartame sweetener also.
I tried to give up caffeine several times and finally succeeded in giving it up cold turkey in 2009. To do that, I started on a Thursday so I could suffer my caffeine withdrawals mostly over the weekend. However, for several years, I just replaced my Diet Mountain Dew with Sprite or Sierra Mist or root beer.
I did start drinking caffeinated tea a few years ago, but I make sure not to get addicted. In fact, this year I switched to drinking mostly rooibos tea, which is delicious and doesn’t have caffeine.
Then, just a couple of years ago I finally gave up Sprite and all soda in favor of water. But I needed help to do so. I’m a former newspaper reporter and a very curious person. I’m also a “questioner,” according to Gretchen Rubin’s book “The Four Tendencies.” Gretchen divides people into four categories based on how we respond to expectations and make decisions in our life.
A questioner tends to meet inner expectations when we set our mind to something—like when I finally decided to quit caffeine cold turkey—but we tend to resist outer expectations if there’s no reason we can believe in. The catch is that I will meet outer societal expectations if I respect the rule, the person or the process.
With that in mind, I decided to hire a nutritionist at Third Space Wellness here in Silver Spring, Maryland, a few years ago, to help me out on my journey.
I worked with my nutritionist, Susie, for a couple of months. She presented me with facts about food, and she worked to help me develop new healthy habits into my life. Our first step: getting rid of Sprite. And drinking water.
Susie helped me realize that to drink more water I needed to have it with me all the time. So I bought an insulated water bottle and began by drinking 8–16 oz. of water every day and worked my way up to more.
Another tip from Susie: Fill up your water bottle at night and put it on your nightstand. We all start out our mornings already dehydrated, so drinking 8–16 oz. of water each morning starts us off on the right path.
Susie also helped me find healthier snacks. She encouraged me to take a fun field trip to local markets new to me and scour the shelves for healthier alternatives. I headed to Mom’s Organic Market, where Susie recommended I try Hope’s spicy avocado hummus. I now eat it with Jovial organic einkorn sourdough crackers. I also eat more fruit and am trying out Medjool dates, which are a sweet, soft and chewy fruit.
My dad is an avid cyclist. He has been tall and thin and in great shape all of his adult life. However, his cholesterol was sky-high, no matter how much he exercised. So, last year, my dad adopted a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle, which is essentially vegan—except he’s doing it solely for health reasons.
Dad heard about the whole-food, plant-based lifestyle from his cycling friend Ian Cramer, an allied health care professional with degrees in kinesiology and athletic training. Ian has a podcast called the Ian Cramer Podcast, where he interviews doctors and scholars of lifestyle medicine and plant-based nutrition.
My dad had long conversations with Ian about this new lifestyle and decided to try it. He’s lucky that my mom loves to cook and was willing to switch over all of her cooking for both of them to vegan meals. They had fun looking for and trying out new recipes together. Dad ate Brussels sprouts for the first time, discovering he loved them. He bought a Ninja blender to make smoothies with almond milk and fruit.
After six months or so, he dropped 20 pounds—he’s leaner and even healthier looking now. And his bad cholesterol level dropped 62 points! He has kept track of his bike rides for years, and after changing his diet, his cycling app showed him riding faster up hills and riding more miles overall.
I was inspired. So, August 11, 2018, was the last time I ate meat. I don’t miss it, and it was easy for me to give it up, which was a huge surprise. However, I still eat fish and seafood, which I love, though I’ve definitely cut back and usually only eat it in restaurants, not at home.
The other thing I gave up was dairy—mostly. I love cheese, but, again, I cut way back. I don’t have it in the house and usually only eat it when I go out to eat, as a treat. If it’s just a topping, I often ask for the cheese to be left off. But I gave up milk, yogurt, butter, ice cream, plus eggs.
I consider myself about 80% whole-food, plant-based. On most days, I’m fully living a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle. Other days, I’m vegetarian, and some days I’m pescatarian—eating fish that day. But it’s a journey.
So, what do I eat? I usually start off my day with oatmeal: Nature’s Path’s Blueberry Cinnamon Flax instant oatmeal. I add chia seeds, flax seeds, cinnamon and fresh blueberries and strawberries. On days when I’m in a hurry, I eat KIND blueberry almond breakfast bars.
I’ve been trying to eat more beans for fiber and protein. I eat a lot of vegetables—I love mushrooms.
I love to cook, but I also aim for convenience, so rice bowls with jasmine rice are an easy meal. I also like tacos and fajitas and trying new Indian and Asian recipes.
If you like sandwiches, you can make meatless sandwiches that are filling and tasty. I use a vegan mayo or hummus for the spread and then fill the sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes and avocado. I especially love buying unique types of tomatoes at the farmers market when they’re in season and trying all those different flavors.
My next step in my nutrition journey is to cut back on sugar. This will probably be the hardest food-related action I’ve ever taken. I think I’m more addicted to sugar than I ever was to caffeine. I’m not quite ready to say I’m cutting out sugar completely though. I’ll be testing myself this holiday season to cut back on sugar, to sometimes refuse the cookies or cakes, pies or candy.
Biz Bite: Use an app to remind you to drink more water.
Some apps to choose from: My Water Balance; Drink Water Reminder; Daily Water; Waterlogged
The Bookshelf: “Ask Again, Yes” by Mary Beth Keane
Resources:
“The Four Tendencies” by Gretchen Rubin
Third Space Wellness in Silver Spring, Maryland
Ian Cramer Podcast
Melanie’s dad’s blog post: “1000s of miles of cycling couldn’t save me from a poor diet”
Learn more about whole-food, plant-based living at Forks Over Knives.
Churchill’s Fine Teas in Cincinnati
Mom’s Organic Market
Hope spicy avocado hummus
Jovial einkorn sourdough crackers
Nature’s Path Blueberry Cinnamon Flax instant oatmeal
KIND blueberry almond breakfast bars
Forks Over Knives vegan Thanksgiving recipes
Creamy avocado basil pesto spaghetti
Maple-glazed cooked carrots
Vegan Chickpea Cauliflower Tots
Tot sauce: mix equal parts vegan mayo and honey together; add Dijon mustard to taste.
Linguine with sautéed asparagus (1 bunch, cut in small pieces) and cremini mushrooms (8–12 ounces): Sauté the vegetables together and add one-fourth cup of white cooking wine and two tablespoons of lemon juice and stir. Add one-fourth teaspoon of red pepper flakes, more if you like heat. Mix sauce with cooked linguine in a large serving bowl.
Today’s episode is a little different. I have invited a guest on to explain a dangerous new law in California called AB5 that all freelancers need to know about. It threatens the very existence of freelancing. Even if you don’t live in California, you need to know about this law because other states are following suit. In fact, after I recorded this episode, I learned that New Jersey Democrats are enthusiastically supporting a bill based on California’s bill. New York state is also working on a similar law, and every Democratic presidential candidate is said to support this type of law because they see it as pro labor.
So what is this and why should we worry? Assembly Bill 5—or AB5—takes effect in California on January 1. My guest in this episode, Randy Dotinga, a fellow freelance writer, explains the law and its ramifications to us. Randy is the former president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and has been a full-time freelance writer for 20 years. He lives in California and continues to advocate against this law to state lawmakers.
AB5 includes a three-pronged test that says California residents who are paid for their labor or services should be employees unless the companies paying them prove individuals meet the following three things:
- They must be free from the company’s control
- They must perform tasks outside the company’s main business
- They must operate a truly independent business
It’s that second prong that will be particularly harmful to freelancers. As a writer working for a news site, newspaper or magazine, I am NOT performing tasks outside their main business. Therefore, I don’t meet that criteria and might have to be hired as an employee.
One good note for freelance writers and photographers is that they were able to get included in the law a cap, which states that freelance writers and photographers can work as a freelancer for one company for up to 35 submissions of content per year. But after 35 submissions, they should be employees. As Randy says: “It’s like [the AB5 bill author] saved our lives, but it’s like she made us cut off a limb. I don’t know how grateful we should be about that.”
And the law is not that simple. In fact, there are a lot of exemptions for certain industries. For some reason, grant writers, marketing professionals and graphic designers were awarded exemptions. Those freelancers who weren’t so lucky and were not exempt include writers, photographers, editors, audio editors, videographers, transcriptionists, translators, court reporters, truck drivers and on and on.
What you’ll hear in this episode from Randy:
Companies outside California have already stopped hiring California freelancers. It’s the company’s responsibility to make sure freelancers meet the criteria to NOT be considered employees. It’s complicated and cumbersome, so companies are just looking elsewhere—they can easily hire freelancers in other states that don’t potentially jeopardize their company.
Alternative newspapers and websites run by underrepresented communities rely on freelancers and cannot afford to hire writers as employees. In one example, a taxi driver who writes a weekly column about driving a cab for the local alternative newspaper will no longer be able to write that column.
Randy says they’ve heard from people with disabilities who say freelancing allows them to have a flexible schedule, something being an employee doesn’t often provide.
The law does have a business-to-business exemption. But there is a long list of criteria an individual has to meet to be considered a small business.
Creating an LLC doesn’t seem to protect people because the law covers any independent contractor. However, creating an LLC may help convince your clients that you are a small business and make them feel more comfortable about hiring you.
New York and other states—particularly Democrat-run states—support this type of law. Just this week, New Jersey announced a bill similar to California’s.
Randy is working with ASJA and other groups to try to get the law changed. But they’re up against strong unions and other pro-labor groups.
There’s a private Facebook group of mostly California writers organizing against this law. Search for Randy on Facebook and ask him for an invite. There are about 700 members now.
Resources:
The full text of AB5
Friend Randy on Facebook and ask to be invited to the Facebook group of California freelancers organizing against this law. Even if you’re not in California, the group can help you get educated on this issue and how to fight it.
Randy Dotinga on Twitter
American Society of Journalists and Authors
American Society of Journalists and Authors on Twitter
Associated Press: “Truckers File 1st Lawsuit Against California Gig Economy Law”
Washington Examiner: “Proposed New Jersey Legislation Threatens Independent Contractors”
New York Law Journal: “Generation Gig: Can New York State Learn From California’s Legislation?”
Dame magazine: “Will This California Law End Freelance Work?”
The Hollywood Reporter: “‘Everybody Is Freaking Out’: Freelance Writers Scramble to Make Sense of New California Law”
Los Angeles Times column: “Freelancers Fear California’s New Gig Worker Law Will Wipe Them Out”
On today’s show I am going to outline several red flags to look out for when you’re a freelance business owner. I’m sure many of you have learned some of these the hard way. I know I have. But it’s important to recognize when they happen and keep a mental list of what to watch out for. In some “red flag” cases, you can find a work-around and figure out a solution that works for you. In other cases, you need to run screaming in the other direction.
Red flag #1: Not respecting your rate or low-balling you.
Red flag #2: Wanting to jump on the phone too quickly.
Red flag #3: An amorphous deadline. Or no deadline.
Red flag #4: A client who doesn’t know what they want.
Red flag #5: The dreaded phrase from a potential client “let’s see how it goes.”
Red flag #6: Scope creep.
Red flag #7: Not respecting your boundaries.
Red flag #8: A potential client’s personality that doesn’t mesh with yours.
Biz Bite: Calendly
The Bookshelf: “Molly” by Colin Butcher
Resources:
Episode #4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Episode #34 of Deliberate Freelancer: Recognize and Relieve Burnout with a Refill Plan, with Latisha Carr
Boomerang email scheduling tool
Today’s guest is Jonathan Small, an award-winning journalist and editor based in Los Angeles. He is the host of the podcast Write About Now, where he interviews successful writers about their journeys and what they’ve learned along the way.
He is also the founder of Write About Now Media, a creative consultancy group specializing in non-fiction writing, editing and podcast production. He is also editor-in-chief of Green Entrepreneur, which is a new website and print magazine about the cannabis industry that is published by the editors of Entrepreneur magazine.
Jonathan has had an interesting career, moving from editing major magazines in New York, including Stuff, Glamour and Fitness. Then, he moved to LA and got into film and video and later was the vice president of content for the Game Show Network and later the chief creative officer at DanceOn, a YouTube-funded dance and pop culture channel co-owned by Madonna.
Jonathan likes being his own boss and believes freelancers need to be self-starters and know how to organize their days. You also have to know when to give yourself a break and take time off of work.
Jonathan aims to structure his day each morning by saying things such as “I’m going to give myself three hours to work on this project today.” However, things pop up that are out of his control, so he needs to be flexible too.
When he needs to do deep work, he shuts down his email and internet tabs so he can focus. He also likes the advice to designate only a few times a day to look at your email inbox, instead of constantly looking at it all day long. He hasn’t embraced that approach yet, but he does try to flag important emails to get back to them later in the afternoon.
Having steady gigs, not pitching, is better for a sustainable freelance business. For a long time, Jonathan wrote the Ask Him Anything column for Cosmo magazine.
Now as a magazine editor he is seeing freelancers who are difficult to work with. Yeah, don’t be that guy. You can’t sustain your business by being difficult. Jonathan’s freelancer maxim: Under-promise, over-deliver.
You can advocate for yourself and ask for more money, but when the answer is no, you have to take it or leave it. Complaining about it only means that that editor is not going to hire you again and will not refer you to others.
Around 2000–2001 Jonathan was getting burnt out on magazines, so he pivoted and moved from New York City to LA to work with a friend who was starting a business in the film industry. He pivoted a few more times, to digital publishing, then video production and branded content.
It was helpful for Jonathan to learn new skills and be able to course-correct at various times in his career. Turned out that podcasting has been his favorite part of his career.
It’s hard to make a living solely pitching as a journalist nowadays. We’re no longer able to routinely earn $2/word at print magazines. On the flip side, there are a lot more avenues open to freelance writers, like podcasting, content marketing and creating blogs. Jonathan believes it’s important to establish your brand.
Jonathan started his Write About Now podcast through a digital marketing class assignment.
The podcast has morphed into a show where he interviews successful journalists and writers about their careers and what they learned along the way.
Podcasting combined everything he loves into one thing: interviewing people, creating audio, hosting, telling stories. Most of his listeners are aspiring writers, but about 30% of his audience are non-writers who just like hearing good stories.
On a recent episode, Mignon Fogarty, aka Grammar Girl, dove into grammar with him. That episode includes fun conversations about how Webster wrote his dictionary and the history of the semicolon.
Biz Bite: Run Your Content Through Grammarly
Resources:
Write About Now website and podcast
Green Entrepreneur magazine
Jonathan on Twitter
Write About Now podcast on Instagram
Grammar Girl podcast episode
Jonathan on Grammar Girl’s podcast
Today’s guest is Latisha Carr. Latisha is a trained life coach and self-care strategist who helps entrepreneurs build both a healthy personal foundation and healthy business cultures. Her signature framework allows her to help business owners find their essence—all while addressing thoughts and behaviors that are ineffective in helping them reach their goals and dreams.
She leads events that help creatives and entrepreneurs develop new businesses, reach higher goals and create effective self-care plans. Latisha has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in counseling and then completed an intensive life coach and leadership training program.
After earning her master’s degree, Latisha realized she wanted to help people “create a life that they love” so she became a life coach instead of a therapist. She now focuses on helping entrepreneurs and business owners embrace self-care and wellbeing practices.
Latisha experienced burnout herself when she was working in the mental health field. She says we can lose our passion for the thing that we love very easily because being an entrepreneur or solo business owner is so tiring. She has “found it in my heart” to help people create a structure in their business and life that makes self-care and wellness part of the foundation.
Latisha explains what burnout is and how it pops up in your business. Signs of burnout include resentment toward your work, colleagues or family, or a feeling of being lost or a loss of passion for your business.
Burnout can be a normal part of your life experience. But when you’re an entrepreneur, it might bother you more because your work typically “sparks joy” and suddenly it isn’t.
It’s best to recognize burnout when the symptoms first appear. And that means knowing the signs of burnout to watch out for. When you first recognize signs of burnout, Latisha recommends first writing down what you’re feeling in that moment. What is going on in that moment that is different from other times?
Once you recognize burnout, identify the things in your life that make you feel “refilled” and that spark joy in your life. What makes you happy? Learn how to hit the reset button on your purpose and your passion.
If you’re not fully burnt out, but if you’re just burnt out that day, Latisha recommends having an emergency self-care kit. She created a “happy playlist” of music that peps her up. Maybe you need to treat yourself to some chocolate or go for a 15-minute walk outside.
She also points out that a lot of people neglect drinking enough water and go through the day dehydrated. Take some time to drink water, focus on your breathing, sit and relax.
Latisha has created a “refill plan” that aims to help people replenish their mind, body, spirit and business. She encourages people to look at the practices you can build into your lifestyle and business that help you stay refilled and replenished.
In the area of your mind, you should set boundaries in your life and business, like setting specific business hours. You might want to adopt mindfulness practices.
In the area of your body, adopt healthy sleep habits, have a nutrition plan, drink plenty of water and have exercise goals.
In the area of spirit, do you have a connection with your God or with nature or do you have a spiritual component in your life? Consider building spiritual-filling practices into your lifestyle. For some people that’s prayer; for others it might be meditation. Being in nature can also be spiritual for many people.
In the area of business, set boundaries like business hours and the way you allow your clients to reach you. Create effective systems in your business that help your self-care. For example, are you on your computer all day long taking care of everything—including administrative tasks like invoicing—without getting any help (like a virtual assistant or an accountant)?
When discussing setting business hours and boundaries—not answering client emails 24/7—Latisha gives the analogy of Target’s business hours. If Target opens at 7 a.m., you can’t show up at 6:30 a.m. and knock on the door and expect to get in. Solo business owners and creatives should think the same way.
Latisha also talks about imposter syndrome. She sees it from two perspectives: feeling like you don’t belong in the room, but also the flip side of the coin where you are “playing small” in your business. You might actually be the big fish in a small pond and could do more but you’re “sitting in your comfort” instead.
Ask yourself: How do you show up as your full, equipped self in every space you go into? Not playing too small but also not feeling like the little kid at the big kids’ table.
Acknowledging your imposter syndrome, especially for women, is important. For example, women minimize themselves often by saying “just.” Let’s delete minimizing words in our vocabulary. And acknowledge your achievements and experience and recognize that you are qualified for a certain task or project.
Create affirmations to say each day. Saying “I am” statements can be powerful: “I am a leader in my community.” “I am a talented and creative ________.”
Latisha says we have to stop minimizing our achievements, even in our day-to-day lives because it can have a big impact on your self-confidence.
Biz Bite: Build self-care and wellness practices that work specifically for your lifestyle and business.
Resources:
Latisha is offering listeners a free 30-minute consultation. Go to latishacarr.com/schedule and click on “Discover Call 30 minutes.”
Latisha Carr website
Latisha’s The Refill podcast
On today’s show I am going to outline five lessons I learned at the She Podcasts LIVE conference that are relevant to freelance business owners.
She Podcasts LIVE was an inaugural conference for the She Podcasts community, which started as a Facebook group that now has 14,000 members—all women podcasters. There’s also a She Podcasts podcast hosted by co-creators Elsie Escobar and Jessica Kupferman.
While I learned a bunch of podcast strategies and tips at the conference, there were also tips and reminders that can be helpful for all freelance business owners, no matter what service you provide.
Lesson #1 is brought to you by Erica Mandy, host of the very successful podcast the NewsWorthy. Erica is an experienced broadcast journalist who quit her job and launched a daily 10-minute news podcast just a few years ago. In her session at She Podcasts, she offered up the The Six Cs of Success. No. 1 is confidence.
Erica says you have to have the confidence that you are resourceful and that you can figure out the solutions. She posed the question: What is the traffic jam in your business?
We ask this of our clients, but we should also ask it of ourselves: What is the problem you’re trying to solve?
This also reminds me of the book I’m reading right now: Marie Forleo’s “Everything Is Figureoutable.”
Lesson #2 was also from Erica’s list: consistency. As Erica said: You have to take it seriously when no one is looking.
It takes a lot of work to work ON your business, not just IN your business. Are we doing the marketing and networking and analyzing and planning when no one is looking?
Lesson #3 comes from Phylecia Jones, creator of iFind You Close, a research company that helps people find speaking gigs.
During a period of time when Phylecia was trying to get more people to pay attention to her and her podcast—which was called Ask the Budgetologist—she asked herself every morning: Who needs to know my name today?
Think about it: Don’t you want clients and potential clients to immediately think of you when they need a freelancer that provides the services you do?
Almost all of my work is from referrals. That means people know my name. My clients think of me when they have work, but they also think to recommend me to others.
Lesson #4 is a combo. It’s spend more time with LinkedIn.
At the She Podcasts conference, Karen Yankovich, CEO of Uplevel Media, presented a stellar presentation on how to maximize LinkedIn. A few quick tips:
- Put LinkedIn on your phone and log in and save the password, so you can more quickly respond to LinkedIn outreach.
- If you spot a green dot on someone’s profile photo that means they are on LinkedIn now, so you should contact them no.
- Make sure the keywords that pop up on Your Dashboard (on your profile page) are the keywords you want to be known for.
Lesson #5: Take care of yourself.
I’ve mentioned before how much I love conferences but also that I’m a complete introvert. I have to prepare myself for all that networking and people time. While I loved the overall She Podcasts vibe, a few sessions started out with bold interaction, including describing our podcasts to a stranger in a superhero voice.
I implore all conference speakers and meeting planners: I know you’re looking to make conferences more interactive, but please consider introverts. If you are doing some sort of interactive thing, you need to put that in the session description and you need to say it up front when people walk in the room. Please.
As for individuals, You need to take care of yourself in all situations. There’s a balance between opening yourself up to new experiences and taking care of your own needs. This may mean walking out if you are uncomfortable, saying no, skipping sessions to relax alone in your hotel room.
In your business, this means structuring your business around what works best for your productivity but also your mental health. It could mean not taking calls after work hours. Not working on weekends. Saying no to a project with glaring red flags. Saying no to volunteer activities because you’re overwhelmed.
Notice how a lot of these examples are simply saying no. YOU are the owner and creator of your business. YOU are in charge. You don’t want to put off the vibe that you’re desperate and will do ANYTHING for a client or to accept a project. It needs to be the right fit for YOU. So, take care of yourself.
Biz Bite: Embrace whimsy
The Bookshelf: “The Widows of Malabar Hill” by Sujata Massey
Resources:
Episode #24 of Deliberate Freelancer: Networking Tips, Especially as an Introvert
Episode #6 of Deliberate Freelancer: Make the Most of Conferences
Episode #25 of Deliberate Freelancer: Finding Your Community, with She Podcasts Co-Founder Jessica Kupferman
She Podcasts
Erica Mandy’s The NewsWorthy podcast
“Everything is Figureoutable” by Marie Forleo
Phylecia Jones’ iFind You Close
Ask the Budgetologist podcast
Karen Yankovich and Good Girls Get Rich podcast
Today’s guest is Vincent Pugliese, the owner and founder of Total Life Freedom, an exclusive and intimate mastermind group of generous entrepreneurs and freelancers who are building and helping others create a life of money, time and location freedom.
Vincent also wrote a book on this idea of money, time and location freedom called “Freelance to Freedom.” He is generously giving you all a free audio version of the book, so scroll down for a link to that book.
Vincent was a professional photographer for 22 years, as a freelancer, a newspaper employee and then as a business owner with his wife, Elizabeth. Vincent is also the host the Total Life Freedom podcast. Vincent and his wife—who is also a photographer—now live in Pittsburgh with their their sons.
Hear why Vincent was angry after winning a prestigious national sports photography award and what he did next.
When he called his dad, his father told him, “I’ve been trying to tell you … You have a skill but you’re not using it correctly. You’ve settled for $32,000 a year and benefits. … You’re settling for security.”
That day, Vincent called his pregnant wife and said, “We’re starting our own business.”
People would often call the newspaper where Vincent and his wife were both photographers—in Evansville, Indiana—and ask if anyone there shot weddings. But the journalists always said no. Vincent now told his co-workers to send all those calls to him. He also began to read business books in between his photography assignments.
Before they had shot a single wedding, the couple told people they shot weddings. Immediately after they booked their first gig, Vincent’s wife built their website. “It’s funny how things start working out when you put yourself out there,” Vincent says.
The couple built their wedding photography business in the Evansville area from there, all from building a network and getting word-of-mouth referrals.
They made a classic freelance newbie mistake of taking on a lot of different projects, not just weddings. But then they read about the 80/20 rule: 20% of what you do leads to 80% of your success. They realized they needed to cut out the smaller shoots that didn’t pay as well and that they didn’t love to focus all their attention on what they loved, were great at and paid well: weddings.
Vincent and his wife focused on building their business not to become rich with money, but to become “time rich,” so that they could spend time together with their three sons. When people asked for photography that Vincent and his wife didn’t do, like portrait photography, instead of saying no, they would find a photographer to recommend instead. That built their network with other photographers and clients because people on both ends appreciated it.
After about 10 years in wedding photography, Vincent got bored and wanted to try something new. He wasn’t feeling challenged anymore.
He had already been coaching photographers on how to run a business, an area they struggled in. He began to expand the coaching business and wrote a book called “Freelance to Freedom.”
People who do want time freedom often get stuck on the money—they don’t know how to start something new or cut back because they’ve gotten to a place where they need the current amount of money they’re making. “They trap themselves,” Vincent says.
“When you realize you don’t need that much to get by to do what you really love to do … Our biggest advantage is we don’t need that much and I don’t care what you think. And when I think that way it allows me to do whatever I want to do. And doing what I want to do led to the time freedom.”
Vincent argues that when you can free up some time to lessen your stress and take a break, that’s when you’ll come up with smart ideas. “When you can take a three-hour walk, you’ll come up with ideas you’ll never think of when you’re stressed out,” he says.
“The time freedom led to mental freedom, and the mental freedom led to the ideas, and the ideas led to the money. It wasn’t about going for the money.”
The time freedom has allowed Vincent’s family to travel for months at a time—they home school their kids.
But too many people are afraid of making huge changes. Vincent talks about how employees are scared to change and make mistakes because they’re used to following the rules and we are not rewarded for making mistakes. Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are given credit for making mistakes. So, it’s helpful for new business owners to think of themselves as entrepreneurs.
Vincent has created a mastermind group that is for entrepreneurs who want a life of time, money and location freedom. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s for the people who want to take action.
You can build your network through being generous, by helping others and not focusing on what you’ll get in return. This is possible for introverts too, who often don’t like promoting themselves.
Biz Bite: Be curious. Don’t act like you have the answer—dive into new things.
Resources:
Get a free copy of Vincent’s book, “Freelance to Freedom”
Vincent’s website, Total Life Freedom
Connect with Vincent on LinkedIn
Connect with Vincent on Facebook
On today’s show I talk about how sometimes I’m just not feeling it. Sometimes I just feel blah and unmotivated. But, I have client work to do. But, I’m having a hard time kicking my butt into gear.
Two interesting reasons I might be feeling blah that I learned about in recent years:
One, I learned from my acupuncturist that some people feel blah or out of sorts when seasons change. The past two years, I’ve noticed this feeling as winter turns into spring—which is strange because I’m a much bigger fan of spring than I am of winter—but I feel out of sorts around April. And now, this week, my favorite season, summer, has slowly disappeared as October has arrived. That change of seasons might be causing some of my malaise.
Another thing that women should be aware of: When your hormone levels go down, you might feel a little unmotivated and not like yourself. This can happen before or during your menstrual cycle, and for those of us in our 40s, it can happen as we head into menopause. A lot of women start experiencing menopausal symptoms in their 40s, so you might want to talk with your doctor about this.
Back to feeling blah. As an employee, you can feel blah and show up to work and go through the motions. Maybe you won’t be that productive that day and not on your game, but you’re there and you’re collecting a paycheck.
But as a freelancer and business owner, it’s all about discipline. If you don’t work, you don’t get paid. So, how do you push through that malaise and get to work?
First, consider taking the day off and NOT pushing through. It will depend on your schedule, but we should not feel guilty for taking a Mental Health Day. So, if your schedule allows, take the day off and do something fun. Treat yourself.
That wasn’t an option for me this past Monday. I had work to do. But I ignored my 7 a.m. alarm and dragged myself out of bed at 8 a.m. I took a shower, which is a morning requirement for me, but I realized I needed a plan to push through my lack of motivation. A plan might not help me feel better, but I needed to work.
I started by making myself some tea with caffeine. Then I did a few guided meditations for 15 minutes using the Breathe app. Then I listened to a few fun songs, but I cannot listen to music with lyrics while I’m working, so I turned the music off after a few minutes and dug into my email.
I asked people on Twitter what they do when they’re struggling like this. Here’s what some of them said:
Sarah Brodsky said: I break up the work into 100-word chunks. After writing each chunk, I watch for a few minutes as a reward.
I asked Sarah how she keeps from watching too much TV because I think that would be my challenge, even though I really like this idea, and she said the dread of not getting the work done usually keeps her focused. For me, I think I would either need to set a timer to stop watching TV or stand up the entire time, so I’m just watching 10–15 minutes.
Chloe Brooks recommended: Break it into chunks with rewards in between! Give yourself 30 minutes to work on something you’d rather do and then bust out the client work.
Chloe tells Siri to set a timer. And her rewards may be as simple as stretching in a different room, taking a quick walk around the block, doing a load of dishes/laundry so it stops bugging her. But sometimes she eats some chocolate or watches an episode of something funny. She’s a fan of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Bob’s Burgers.
Chloe also recommended just moving to a different room of the house, which also works for me and was a good reminder.
KiKi L’Italien said: I’ll turn off all notifications, shut my office door, set the Insight timer app for 15-20 minutes, and practice a little deep breathing and purposeful NON-action. It works as a reset! Usually I realize how lucky I am to have the work in front of me and it shifts my mindset.
Jackie MacDougall said: I give myself one small task. That’s usually enough to trigger motivation. OR I take the day and get up the next day at 5 a.m. to do it.
Sometimes I too would rather take the day off or take the afternoon off and just get up super early the next day.
A few more tactics that I use:
Time tracking. Time tracking usually keeps me on task. I like breaking up the day into chunks of time and time tracking—for whatever reason—keeps me accountable to myself. For example, if I waste time by playing on social media or I take a long lunch while catching up on “The Voice,” I have to look at my time tracking that I scribbled onto a piece of paper. I don’t like the look of spending 30 minutes on Facebook randomly scrolling in the middle of the day or taking a two-hour lunch when I have work to do.
Pick one thing. I choose one thing that I absolute have to do that day and focus on getting it done. Its sounds simple, but the concept is described in detail in the book “Make Time,” which describes how you pick a highlight for your day and then laser focus on getting it done by eliminating all distractions.
Pick three things. Michael Hyatt, who wrote the book “Free to Focus,” chooses just three things on his to-do list each day and works solely on those. That’s not possible for all of us every day, but when it is, it’s a way to keep you focused. Zero in on those three things and don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked by anything else.
Reach out to people. This helped me feel a little better by Monday afternoon, even though I did it on accident. As an introvert, I like to be alone, so when I’m feeling down, I definitely don’t think immediately, “Hey, I need to be around people. I should call my friends!”
But three things happened on Monday that made me realize I needed people interactions: I interviewed an inspiring podcast guest who lifted my spirits. Then, by reaching out to my Twitter community and asking them how they dealt with these feelings, I connected with my network online that knows exactly what it’s like to run a freelance business. And the third thing was my husband offered to take my walk with me that afternoon and we spent an hour walking and talking about non-work stuff.
Please know that as freelance business owners, sometimes we’re going to feel unmotivated and severely lacking in discipline. Whether you can take the day off or have to push through those feelings, that’s OK. It’s totally normal to feel like this occasionally.
I’d love to know what you do to keep on track when crappy moods hit you. Feel free to email me at melanie@meledits.com or tweet me @MelEdits.
Biz Bite: Spend Your Morning Focused on Email
The Bookshelf: “All You Can Ever Know” by Nicole Chung
Resources:
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
“Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
“Free to Focus” by Michael Hyatt
Breathe guided meditation app
InsightTimer guided meditation app
Today’s guest is Cat DiStasio, a freelance writer and project manager who specializes in human resources, business, marketing and technology. Cat also consults with small businesses on HR processes, teaches content marketing writers how to market their services, and blogs about the business of freelancing.
Cat has also been a virtual assistant—or VA—although she is now transitioning out of that kind of work. But she still knows a lot about hiring a VA and graciously helps connect freelancers and VAs to each other.
Cat says to think of a VA like an executive assistant in the corporate world: an administrative person who can do a lot of things, such as proofreading, research, travel support, email and calendar management. They can also help you with brainstorming and developing processes. A good VA can be a sounding board for your business.
Cat recommends making a list of the things you keep putting off or tasks you are bad at. And then find a VA who loves doing those things.
Think you can’t afford a VA? A VA is a freelancer just like you, and you can scale up. You can hire a VA for just 2–3 hours a month to start.
Do the math. You can spend $100 a month, for example, to hire a VA to help free up a few hours so you can focus on your work and make more than $100 during that time.
As your income increases, you can outsource more work to a VA—or even more than one VA, focusing on various skill sets.
Working with a VA is scalable, flexible and customizable.
How can you find a VA? It can be difficult to find the person right for you who is skilled, reliable and nice to work with.
Tip 1: Get involved in social media groups about the topics you cover. VAs will look for work in those groups.
Tip 2: Ask. Referrals and word-of-mouth are some of the best ways to find potential VAs.
There is a gap between all the VAs and the people who want to hire them. There isn’t one well-known organization that everyone knows they can go to to find a VA.
There are virtual assistant agencies, but Cat is skeptical of their model, in which you pay the agency to connect you with a VA.
Let’s talk VA rates. Cat believes $15–20 an hour for a VA is too low. She doesn’t think that is high enough for someone you’re expecting professional work from. She recommends looking for a VA in the $30–35 range and expect fantastic work for that pay. Some VAs with more specialized skills might charge more than that, especially if they’re doing project management work for you.
A well-paid VA is going to be happier and more engaged and be a partner in your business.
How should you interview a VA? As far as personality, it’s similar to how you vet clients: Is the person easy to communicate with? Do you enjoy talking with them? Does it seem like they understand what you’re saying?
When it comes to their skills, test them. Hire that VA for a small project that might take a couple of hours and then see if you are happy with the results. And definitely pay them for their time. Don’t ask them to work for free.
Consider finding 3–4 candidates and test them all at once—not one right after the other, which wastes time by dragging out the hiring process.
When you’re ready to hire a VA, consider whether you need a contract and also a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) because you’ll be sharing client information with them. You need to know if your contracts with your clients have any clauses about hiring any subcontractors. Be sure you’re following those clauses when it comes to your VA.
You might also want a confidentiality agreement between you and your VA.
Biz Bite: Give yourself a break!
#1: Don’t be too hard on yourself but also #2: give yourself an actual rest break.
Resources:
Cat DiStasio website
10 Tasks You Can Outsource to a Virtual Assistant blog post
and.co = an app to help freelance business owners; Cat uses it to create contracts
Today’s show is a follow-up episode to last week’s episode with guest Pam Capalad, who taught us how to take charge of our finances. Pam is a certified financial planner and accredited financial counselor in Brooklyn. She created this cool program called Brunch & Budget, which provides people a more comfortable space to talk about their money—over brunch with Pam.
Pam gave so many great tips in that episode—and my interview with her served as a good kick in the pants for me to do a bunch of financial stuff I had been putting off or didn’t think I needed to do.
So, in this episode, I’m going to update you on my progress and talk through why I did what I did. Hopefully, that will inspire you to take some needed steps to improve your financial situation.
I took three steps after Pam’s episode aired last week:
- I used Pam’s 12-month cash-flow projection spreadsheet.
Here’s how that works: At the beginning of the year, you try to anticipate how much money you will make that year and you determine what your income goals are. You can break this down month to month and client to client.
Because we’re nearly finished with this year, I did a retrospective cash flow analysis, filling in how much money I already made this year each month and from each client and then analyzed that. I plan to use this spreadsheet again to plan for 2020.
- I separated my personal and business accounts by opening up a second checking account just for business purposes.
The plan is that I will deposit my checks into this second “business” account. I will pay all of my expenses out of that account. And then I will pay myself by transferring money from that new account into my old personal checking account to pay personal bills like my mortgage, utilities, groceries, etc.
- I opened a business-only credit card.
Now, as Pam pointed out in the last episode, while having a separate business card will make tracking my expenses easier, credit card receipts DO NOT take place of actual receipts for individual items, especially in an audit. So you still need to keep all your receipts and hang on to them.
So, that’s it. I’m on my way with these new financial commitments to myself. I’m going to project out my income by client and by month for 2020 and then track it better to see if I’m hitting my monthly financial goals.
I have a new checking account that will be business only, so I will have separated my personal and business finances. And I have a business-only credit card to help me better keep track of business expenses.
I’d love to hear what areas of your finances you’ve made changes to lately or areas you’re struggling with. And feel free to send me questions for future guests.
Also, please send me your financial tips—things you’ve done over the years to improve how you handle your money or improve your overall outlook on money. I’d love to hear from you. Email me at melanie@meledits.com or tweet me @MelEdits.
Biz Bite: Schedule a Power Hour
The Bookshelf: “The Lost Man” by Jane Harper
Resources:
Episode 28 of Deliberate Freelancer: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pam Capalad
Brunch & Budget 12-Month Cash Flow Projection Template—Download and use this worksheet.
Today’s guest is Pamela Capalad, a certified financial planner and accredited financial counselor in Brooklyn. Pam created this really cool program called Brunch & Budget, which helps people who feel ashamed or embarrassed about money have a safe and friendly place to talk about their finances—over brunch with Pam. I think this is genius. It makes people more comfortable and really open up to Pam, whose mission is to make financial planning as affordable as possible for the communities who need it most.
We didn’t get into it in this episode, but Pam and her husband teach hip hop and finance workshops to kids, teens and college students across the country through a program called Pockets Change. They also host the Brunch & Budget podcast, where they discuss how personal finance and racial economic justice intersect. And—if that’s not enough—they started a financial planning program designed for the needs of people of color called See Change.
In this episode, learn how Pam went from working in wealth management to financial planning—first, for her friends. A conversation with a friend led to Pam’s business, Brunch & Budget. While the first meeting is usually an in-person brunch, Pam then meets with clients virtually every month to help them put together a financial plan and to actually implement it.
Pam goes over the most-asked questions she gets from freelancers, which includes issues related to quarterly taxes and an inconsistent income.
Pam also helps freelancers figure out how to raise their rates.
Pam gives us the scoop on new IRS rules that benefit freelancers—the IRS won’t be charging penalties if you didn’t pay your 2018 taxes on time every quarter. And going forward, they’re going to less strict about freelancers paying taxes every quarter as long as you get all the taxes paid by January.
Pam explains why it’s important to build a good relationship with an accountant who works with freelancers.
Pam is a big believer in creating a 12-month cash flow projection of how much money you anticipate you will make and what your income goals are. It’s important to have monthly, quarterly and annual goals, partly because a freelancer’s income can be inconsistent. That cash flow projection will help you notice income patterns as income ebbs and flows throughout the year. Then, you can plan your action steps around your income goals and track and measure whether you’re hitting your income goals.
She also encourages freelancers to take a VACATION when the months are low.
Pam talks about how imposter syndrome relates to money—and sometimes increases as you get more successful.
When you are setting your rates, you need to figure out how to take the emotion out of it. Pam admits undervaluing herself when she first started providing her financial planning services.
But then Pam took the emotion out of creating her rates by making herself stick to a rule that every time she gained two or three new clients, she had to raise her rates for all future clients. She also recommends coming up with the “least I’m willing to take” rate.
If you do take a project below your rate, consider what non-monetary things you can negotiate with the client—a referral, a longer contract, additional projects.
Pam helps us figure out how to commit to a savings account. She recommends a “high-yield” savings account so you can gain a bit more interest than what you would at your local bank. Know what your minimum personal expenses and your minimum business expenses are each month. That way when you exceed those, a chunk of that money can go directly into your savings account.
Make sure you have a separate savings account just for taxes. That money is not yours. Set aside 25–30 percent of whatever you make and pretend that money doesn’t exist.
From there, take your monthly income, subtract the minimum personal and business expenses and put the rest in savings.
Pam touches on the supposed upcoming recession. Planning for a recession or an income loss is helped by having a savings account. A potential loss of income is also why it’s important to diversify where your income is coming from—so strive to have several clients and not rely too much on one big client.
Pam believes in paying yourself first. Think of your savings account as another bill you have to pay. Think of savings as “self care”—a way to take care of your future self.
Pam also recommends having a separation between your business and personal expenses. Don’t co-mingle those—it makes it harder to figure out taxes and track your income and goals. Plus, freelancers are 10x more at risk for audits, so plan ahead for that. Furthermore, you can pay yourself like a regular employee into your personal checking account, which makes budgeting for personal expenses easier.
Having all your business expenses on one, separate credit card makes it easier to track also. But note that you can’t use credit card statements for an audit, so continue to save your receipts.
Biz Bite: Outsource! Hire out for work you hate.
Resources:
Brunch & Budget
Brunch & Budget 12-Month Cash Flow Projection Template—Download and use this worksheet! (Thanks for sharing, Pam!)
Great article about Pam and her husband in Forbes, “This Couple Created A Multilevel Curriculum To Teach All Ages Financial Literacy.”
Brunch & Budget on Twitter
Brunch & Budget on Instagram
On today’s show I am going to outline 10 micro habits that you can consider implementing in your life to improve your work-life clarity.
Building habits into my life helps me commit to work-life clarity. Micro habits are tiny, incremental things you can start to do that seem so incredibly easy that you might just continue to build them. And, if you find they are working for you in some way, they might grow into larger habits and eventually habits you don’t even think about.
Not all of the micro habits I’m recommending are directly related to your business. Your life and your business are intertwined. Plus, I think we should all be focusing on our health. So, some of these will be healthy micro habits, and some will be things that will lift your energy and put a smile on your face.
I’m not recommending you implement all 10 of these micro habits. It’s better if you start small and just try a few of them. Plus, some of these might not be relevant for your individual life or may not interest you. But I hope they will spark your own ideas of what micro habits you can try out.
- Brush your teeth after dinner.
I first heard about this micro habit as a recommendation on the Happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin. The idea is if you brush your teeth after dinner, you will be less likely to eat again that evening.
- Set an alarm for bedtime.
- Listen to a podcast in the morning.
- Take a lunch break—and do it without your phone.
- Play with your pets.
- Learn something new in five minutes a day.
- Text one important person in your life each week.
- Drink one glass of water in the morning.
- Meditate for one minute each day.
- At the end of your work day, take 5 minutes to write down how you felt about the day.
Biz Bite: Download Restaurant Apps
The Bookshelf: “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” by James Clear
Resources:
Happier podcast with Gretchen Rubin
Duolingo language app
On today’s show I am going to go over three concepts that will help you better manage your time and focus on the parts of your freelance business that you love.
But first: an update on my early morning walk. I’ve actually become so hooked on walking that I’ve been getting up earlier 5–6 days a week to do my daily walk in the morning. I walk fast for about an hour while listening to podcasts. And I have a loop around my neighborhood, which means I don’t have to think about which direction I want to go in each day.
Let’s discuss three concepts to improve your business: delegate, automate and terminate.
I actually stumbled upon these concepts gradually as my freelance business started to grow, and I realized I couldn’t do it all. There’s only one of me and there are only so many hours in the day—more importantly, there are only so many hours that I want to WORK in a day.
But it’s not just about managing your time or even managing your energy. I believe you should delegate, automate and terminate so you can actually focus on the things you LOVE to do.
I talked about this previously in episode 2 of the Deliberate Freelancer, Discover Your Unique Brilliance. I explained how a coach of mine I was working with on another project realized I was having some serious work-life balance issues and offered to help me. She drew a quadrant on a piece of paper and labeled each square: incompetence, competence, high competence and unique brilliance.
Michael Hyatt talks about similar concepts in his new book “Free to Focus.” However, he breaks up his quadrant into the Drudgery Zone, Disinterest Zone, Distraction Zone and Desire Zone.
The idea is figure out how you can spend the majority of your time in the Desire Zone—or by focusing on your own Unique Brilliance.
What are the things you absolutely LOVE about your freelance business? Think about both the services you provide AND the business side of your business.
What is your unique brilliance? What do you love to do? What WOULD you like to pursue that you’re not doing now? Or what would you like to scale up that you’re not doing as much of now?
Now, on the opposite end, what would fall in your incompetence quadrant or your Drudgery Zone?
Consider things outside of work also, things that you are required to do as a responsible human being, like clean your house or apartment.
It’s that incompetent zone we need to tackle by automating, delegating and terminating.
First, sit down and write out a massive to-do list. Don’t get too stressed over it—this will not actually be your to-do list, but it’s all the things you think you have to do right now, all those projects you have hanging over your head, those phone calls you know you need to make, that online research you know you need to do, the chores and errands you keep putting off.
Now, make a second list called the business boredom list and write down all the things about your business that you don’t like to do.
Let’s start with terminate: On the massive to-do list in particular, ask yourself if you really have to do all those things. What are the things on the list that won’t make much of a difference if you just forget about them, just terminate them? I encourage you to push yourself here, especially if you made promises you can’t keep or if you’re a people pleaser.
Another aspect of terminate is actually terminating clients. Firing clients. They don’t have to be horrible clients, but are there projects or types of services you’re providing now that you want to cut back on or no longer want to do? Maybe the pay is too low. Or maybe it’s tedious work. Or maybe it’s taken too much of your time away from projects that you love. You can fire clients.
I’ve fired bad clients, but I’ve also fired clients I liked because I didn’t want to do that type of work anymore. In that case, I simply said that I was going in a new direction and cutting back on that type of work. And I connected those clients with other freelancers to replace me.
Now, you can’t cancel everything. So, now let’s focus on what you can automate. With automate, we often think about apps and tools, but that’s not the only one way to automate. You can create processes and habits that are also a form of automation. Take my morning walk, for instance. I walk the same route every day, and all my gear for my walk is in a cabinet by the front door. I don’t have to hunt for items, and I don’t have to think about the direction I’m heading during my walk. I’ve automated my exercise routine.
Another great way to automate things is by taking the time to create a checklist. Checklists ensure you won’t miss a crucial step, but they also save you time and brain power. Think about the projects that you do that every time you have to stop and think, “OK, what do I do first again? How do I start this?” Taking the time to create checklists will remind you in the future.
Checklists are great to pair with batching. Batching is when you do a bunch of similar tasks at the same time. For example, do all of your invoices at the same time each month or on every Friday and follow your checklist. This can be much more efficient than trying to remember the entire invoice process each time.
The other aspect of automation are the tools and apps we think about. What areas of your massive to-do list and business boredom list can you use tools for? Social media scheduling tools is an obvious one. Look at the Resources list below for all recommended tools.
You can also go the simple route and just create an Excel spreadsheet, which I do quite often. I use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of my client work each month. Each document represents one month, and I have separate tabs for each client.
The last category is delegate. What things on your massive to-do list and business boredom list can and should you delegate? I’ve said it so many times before, but hiring a house cleaner changed my life. When I got to the place where I could afford a regular cleaner, I was so much happier.
To hire a cleaner, I had to get over my Midwestern hang-ups about how it was my responsibility to take care of my own house. No one I knew growing up had a house cleaner. That was for rich people on TV. But I finally convinced myself that I could focus more on the things I loved and on making money rather than doing something I dreaded.
If you’re thinking there’s no way you could afford a cleaner, or you’re thinking, “but I’m just a single person who lives in a small apartment,” please reconsider your options. I encourage you to investigate this a bit. Ask on your neighborhood listserves for recommendations and find out what a person would actually cost. Then, if you can’t afford it, maybe set that as a goal to make that amount of money each month so you can afford it.
Delegating of course also means delegating for your business. The first thing to think about is a virtual assistant. What are the items on your lists that must get done—but they don’t have to get done by you? Depending on a virtual assistant’s skill set, they can help you with many more things than administrative tasks, such as social media management, marketing or prospecting leads.
Another area of delegation is subcontractors. There are a wide variety of ways you can hire subcontractors. You can pair up with people on a project, but you can also hire people on a regular basis to do the stuff you don’t want to do.
The thing I love about running my own freelance business is the freedom to do almost anything I want. And if I can’t afford to do something right now, I can figure out the steps and the goals I need to set to make that happen. So, dream big and aim to build a business where you’re focusing the majority of your time on the parts you love.
Biz Bite: Create a Computer Cleanup Day
CleanMyMac X
The Bookshelf: “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed” by Lori Gottlieb.
Resources:
Episode 19 of Deliberate Freelancer: Visualize Your Perfect Work Day—Then Create It
Episode 2 of Deliberate Freelancer: Discover Your Unique Brilliance
“Free to Focus” by Michael Hyatt
Buffer
Hootsuite
MeetEdgar
TweetDeck
Rev (transcriptions)
Calendly
FreshBooks
TextExpander
Today’s guest is Jessica Kupferman, co-founder of She Podcasts (the podcast, the brand and the live event). She Podcasts has an incredible community, primarily through an awesome female-only Facebook group. The She Podcasts brand currently supports over 13,000 female podcasters and has a digital marketing reach of over 50,000 content creators. And October 11–13 in Atlanta, for the first time, She Podcasts is becoming a conference: She Podcasts LIVE, which was funded through Kickstarter.
Jessica talks about how she got started in podcasting around 2013—when very few women were podcasting and especially not about entrepreneurial topics.
As her then-podcast, Lady Business Radio, became popular, she was getting pitched a lot of guests and saying yes to many of them. Then, she realized her show was becoming an opportunity for guests to use her show for their gain, but she wasn’t having the conversations she wanted. She decided to let that show go and focus on She Podcasts.
Jessica talks about how she met Elsie Escobar, her She Podcasts co-founder, about the same time Jessica realized that the men in the podcasting world weren’t giving advice that was conducive to women or those busy raising children or doing podcasting while holding down another full-time job.
Jessica has been an entrepreneur since 2005, but until 2011 she didn’t have a community of like-minded, supportive people in her industry. But then she took an online course that came with an online community and she realized what she was missing.
Jessica talks about all the benefits of forming your own community.
Jessica explains how She Podcasts LIVE came about. Hint: The travel bug plays a role.
She Podcasts LIVE is happening thanks to a very successful Kickstarter campaign—an idea Jessica and Elsie got from Podcast Movement, which started six years ago with a Kickstarter.
The She Podcasts LIVE Kickstarter was a huge success, doubling the $25,000 goal and selling 200 event tickets.
Jessica explains how she is planning for a different vibe and aesthetic for this conference, as well as having amazing speakers.
She wants the event to have an atmosphere that is nurturing, that encourages people to ask any questions they have and to feel like they’re in a room full of friends.
Diversity is also important to Jessica and Elsie. The 100+ speakers are about 45 percent women of color and/or LGBTQ.
Biz Bite: Notion is an all-in-one workspace.
Resources:
She Podcasts LIVE
She Podcasts LIVE Announces Speakers (press release)
She Podcasts (the podcast and website)
She Podcasts Facebook group—only for women podcasters
She Podcasts on Twitter
Jessica Kupferman on Twitter
Lady Business Radio—Jessica’s first podcast
On today’s show I am going to go over several networking tips that will be particularly helpful to introverts. But I also know extroverts who don’t love networking, so I think you extroverts out there will find these tactics useful as well.
Let’s be clear: I am an introvert. In this episode, I tell you about my solo adventures in Europe, where I enjoyed being alone with my thoughts and experiences and reactions.
Several things that I like are common among introverts:
I am comfortable doing things alone.
I enjoy being alone with my thoughts and my inner monologue.
I don’t have trouble filling alone time.
I like being with other people but usually one-on-one or in small groups and only for a short time.
All of this seems counterintuitive to everything we think about networking. How many of you would say you hate networking? Many people think of networking as those happy hour/reception-type events with strangers. But that’s only one small part of networking.
First, let’s reframe networking in our minds. I have renamed it: “relationship building.”
And “relationship building” is a necessary part of building your freelance business. You cannot sit in your home office all day and just do the work, without meeting new people, marketing your business, making connections. You MUST talk about your business A LOT. Life is word of mouth.
I’ll start with three steps to prepare for networking events:
Step 1: Set a monthly networking goal. Choose the number of networking events you will commit to in one month. Put it on your calendar to plan this out at the beginning of each month.
Search on Twitter, go to Meetup.com, search Facebook events in your area, and Google the local chapters of national organizations you are interested in or already belong to.
Step 2: Develop ice-breaker questions ahead of time.
Step 3: Set a networking goal for that particular event. For example, tell yourself you are going to meet 3–5 new people. And when you hit that goal, give yourself permission to leave.
Now, I want to also talk about email networking. You may not think of this as networking, but you can build great business relationships and connections through email.
Here’s one of the best tips I got when I started my freelance business: Email everyone you know.
Not just former co-workers and friends. Email family, neighbors, classmates, former bosses, even other freelancers who you might think of as competitors. Tell them you are starting your own business and explain your services. Focus on how you can help people solve their challenges.
If you didn’t do this when you started freelancing, it’s not too late. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been freelancing; you can do this at any time. It just takes tweaking the email. Maybe explain that you are looking for new clients—or even that you added new services—and that you wanted to see if they could use your services or know of anyone who could.
Here’s the trick: Don’t just say, “please let me know if you know of anyone who might be interested in my services.” ASK for that person’s contact info: Do you know of anyone who might be in need of my help? Would you mind sharing their contact info with me so I can reach out to them directly?
That is the critical piece because if you don’t ask for the contact info, they may not forward your email on and you’ll have no idea who might see it.
Now, let’s talk about conferences, which I love. Before you go to a conference, download the conference app. Don’t just look at the schedule; look at the speakers and attendees (if the app allows this).
Search the conference hashtag regularly in the week leading up to the conference. You can even tweet something obvious like “Hey, who’s going to hashtag XYC next week?” You may realize that people you’ve known only on Twitter will be there. Go ahead and suggest you meet up. You can move your conversation to the Twitter DMs or email or text to make plans.
I recently went to the Podcast Movement conference for the second time. Having a podcast provided the perfect question to approach strangers with: What is your podcast about?
I noticed that because of this, there was a culture at Podcast Movement of introducing yourself to people you sat next to during sessions. I’ve never seen that happen to that extent at any other conference.
Podcast Movement has an friendly vibe and culture. I saw more than once people commenting on Facebook and Twitter just how NICE everyone is. There were about 3,000 people there this year, a huge conference in my mind. I could so easily be overwhelmed and not talk to anyone.
But this friendliness was contagious. After a day or so, I too was automatically introducing myself to the people I sat next to. I had great conversations about podcasting, found some people who have similar focuses and audiences as I do, found other freelancers, and just learned new things. It was exhilarating, and I’m really going to try to remind myself of this at my future conferences so I can help implement this awesome culture into other events.
One note about conferences and being an introvert: All those people can be EXHAUSTING— especially when you’re doing all that extra networking.
Introverts get their energy from within and get tired after a while of being around so many people. So take care of yourself and your energy. For me, this means I always splurge a bit and stay at the conference hotel so I can just pop upstairs to my room to rest.
Don’t feel guilty if you skip a session to rest and relax in your room. Even take a nap. You are paying for this conference and you need to get out of it what you want. Sometimes that means taking a break from people in the middle of the day so you can rally for the late afternoon sessions or evening events. I often eat lunch at conferences by myself. If lunch isn’t provided, I leave the convention and go find some healthy fast food. And I take it back to my hotel room. I don’t stay in the restaurant, which is also loud and full of people.
At conferences, it’s important to be aware of how you’re feeling and if your energy is waning. Don’t be afraid to escape for a bit.
Biz Bite: Finding Podcasts via Google
The Bookshelf: “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” by Cal Newport
Resources:
“Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking” by Susan Cain
Meetup.com
Podcast Movement
By the Book podcast
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah: Ears Edition (podcast)
Episode #9 of Deliberate Freelancer: This Is a Smartphone & Social Media Intervention
On today’s show I want to help you go through a series of 5 questions so you can evaluate the services you offer clients and think about focusing on the services you LOVE the most—and also think about diversifying your services.
You know I believe you need to think like, act like and BE a business owner. And that includes evaluating the services you provide now and figuring out how to diversify your services and your clients. Parts of my business look very different now than they did when I started almost six years ago. And that’s because I evaluated my services several times through the year and I’ve pivoted as needed. And you need to do the same. I want you to ask yourself a series of 5 questions:
1:What services do you offer your clients?
List them out and be specific.
2: How many services did you just come up with that you offer your clients?
3: Let’s break down the services that you just listed out. Which ones do you love to do? Are there any that you dislike? Any that are just OK?
If you love to do something, why aren’t you focusing more on that? Maybe the thing that you love the most doesn’t pay as well and isn’t as sustainable. However, I encourage you to think about it a bit more. Can you focus on that love with better paying clients? Can you raise your rates for it? Can you package it with something else to increase the fee?
4: What new services can you offer?
5: What do you do as good as or better than any of your competitors? What comes really easy for you? And what do your clients need help with?
I encourage you to really take the time to brainstorm on this and think way outside your current services. Think about what you’re great at and what you love and then think about how you can create a service from that that your clients desperately need.
Biz Bite: Think like a millionaire.
Listen to Ramit Sethi talk about Money Dials on the Financial Independence podcast.
Ramit Sethi, “I Will Teach You to Be Rich”
Ramit’s Money Dials concept
The Bookshelf: “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead
Today’s guest is Laura Poole, a freelance editor from Durham, N.C. Laura has been a freelancer for about 22 years, almost her entire career. She provides copyediting for scholarly nonfiction publishers and training for editors and freelancers. She is also a trained, certified life coach. In this episode, Laura talks about creating work-life balance while running a freelance business.
Laura explains that work-life balance is about creating the life you want, which is a personal definition for everyone. It’s not about time and task management. It’s about having the things that you want in life.
Laura had two key moments in her life and career when she realized she needed to improve her work-life balance. The first is when she and her husband started talking about having a child and she realized she had to let go of some things to make room for a baby.
The second realization came when she asked herself why she was working evenings and weekends. The point of freelancing was so she could work when she wanted.
“I woke up to my own justifications,” Laura said. Two years ago she challenged herself to stop working weekends and now she never works weekends. Raising rates and finding higher-paying clients helped make that possible.
Laura talks about the problem of saying yes all the time, which leads to overwork. And many women are people pleasers who have a hard time saying no. (I also think it makes it hard for my Midwestern polite self to say no.)
Laura shares a helpful tool to learn when to say yes and when to say no. Ask yourself:
If I say yes to this, what else am I saying yes to? What am I saying no to?
If I say no to this, what am I saying yes to? What am I saying no to?
These questions will help you discover the values you hold.
No is a complete sentence. That’s true, but it’s often hard to say no. Laura provides some tips, including how to be direct.
Laura doubled her rates a few years ago: “Waking up to my own value was key. I believe in getting paid for the value of my work, not my time.” Brilliant!
That realization and effort gave her back time to get back into hobbies she loved, like quilting and baking.
When it comes to the business side of freelancing, ask yourself what you really need to do and what’s most effective. Focus on that. You can’t do it all and you need to take breaks.
Laura talks about breaking the feast-or-famine cycle, partly by noticing patterns in your work schedule throughout the year.
And when times are slow? Take some time off! Restorative time is important.
Laura is a big fan of experimenting with things, like going to a conference and tracking what happens from that for an entire year.
Biz Bite: Take a few moments of peaceful clarity and think about what you want more of in your life. What do you need to change to make that happen?
Resources:
Laura’s book: “Juggling on a High Wire: The Art of Work-Life Balance When You’re Self-Employed”
Laura on Twitter
Today’s show is a micro-mini, teeny-tiny episode because I’m on vacation and decided I had to give myself a break. And that meant I didn’t have time to finish the guest episode I was planning for this week.
I am the first one to preach that we need breaks and vacations. I especially need a complete break from email. But I did that thing that most of us do at some point as freelancers. I underestimated how much time all this work was going to take, and I didn’t finish everything I wanted to before vacation. Can you relate?
So, I finally declared this an actual vacation and stepped away from the computer. I’ll be back next week with a new full-length episode.
Biz Bite: Create an alternative workspace
Today’s guest is Phaedra Brotherton, a career branding and job search coach in the Washington, D.C., area. She helps mid-career and executive professionals who work at nonprofits transition into more satisfying jobs or new careers. She offers career coaching, resume writing, LinkedIn profile writing, and job search coaching services. Phaedra is certified as both a career coach and a professional resume writer.
In this episode Phaedra shares tactical tips on how we, as freelance business owners, can optimize our LinkedIn profiles, find potential clients, and learn how to better network on LinkedIn.
Learn how going to a conference led Phaedra down a new career path.
Phaedra shares why it’s important for freelancers and solopreneurs to be active on LinkedIn. For one thing, potential clients find us often through a Google search, and your LinkedIn profile is often one of the top search results.
You need to start by optimizing your LinkedIn profile. This means being clear on what services you provide and who your clients are.
There are four main areas in your profile to focus on: your headline, photo, summary or what is now called “About,” and your experience section.
Phaedra recommends that we aim to have at least 500 connections on LinkedIn! She explains why these connections are critical.
You need to proactively seek recommendations from people to gain “social proof.”
Use LinkedIn as a portfolio—and keep it updated!—to show your best samples that highlight the work appropriate for your ideal clients.
Phaedra explains how to use the LinkedIn search function most effectively.
Consider joining LinkedIn groups primarily to connect with more people.
There are two main ways to post on LinkedIn: an update or actually writing an article or blog post in LinkedIn. When you post an update, think about what comment, information or link you can share that best shows your expertise to your potential clients.
Consider posting 3–5 times a week and maybe writing a blog post every other week or once a month. Being consistent is important to stay top of mind to potential clients.
LinkedIn job boards sometimes have freelance opportunities. You can set up alerts.
Connect with your alma mater and university alumni to gain more connections.
Look into LinkedIn’s ProFinder service for freelancers. It’s not for everyone, but you might find it beneficial.
Biz Bite:
Phaedra recommends two apps:
Feedly (a news aggregator) to find appropriate content to post on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.
Pocket to collect and manage that content.
Resources:
Phaedra Brotherton on LinkedIn
Resumes & Career Strategies website
phaedra@resumesandcareerstrategies.com
LinkedIn ProFinder for Freelancers: Will It Help You Find Clients?
On today’s show I help you visualize your absolute perfect work day and then help you figure out how to make that happen—providing tips and tactics. I believe you need to visualize your perfect work day step by step so you can start to implement systems, processes, habits and goals to create that type of day.
Let’s daydream to start: How would you wake up on your perfect work day? What would you do before work? How would your actual work day begin? Would you exercise? Meditate? Relax a bit with coffee or tea?
My perfect morning routine would look like this:
Get up naturally or easily at 5:30 or 6 a.m. without using a snooze alarm.
Go for a walk in my neighborhood for 15 or 30 minutes, either listening to a podcast or brainstorming on a work problem.
Come home, shower and get ready while listening to an inspiring podcast.
Fix my healthy breakfast and indulge in my fancy hot tea.
Start my day.
My perfect work day would end around 3 p.m. To make this happen, I need to be more efficient. To do that, focus on your peak productivity time. Do you know when that is for you?
Maximize your time by focusing on deep work without distractions. Maybe try the Pomodoro method, which is when you work in 25-minute blocks, then take a 5-minute break before working for another 25-minute block of time.
Next, get rid of distractions. Email is my biggest distraction. I either tackle email first thing for a set period of time (set an alarm) or I skip it for a few hours and don’t check it till mid-morning.
Definitely turn off email notifications on both your computer and your smartphone. Those distractions are terrible for your productivity and focus.
Try a batch time or day: Combine like tasks into one set period of time and stick to that time period every week.
Figure out how to work on projects you love that pay you well. First, analyze your freelance business to determine the projects that you love to do the most—not just the projects you might be good at.
To start to make more money, analyze your rates and how you landed your best clients. Make a list of your highest-paying clients. Then circle the ones you love to work with. How did you get these clients? Focus on getting more of those clients from the same places.
Make another list of all your regular clients and services and how much you charged. Put them in order of the most money you earn to the least money you earn per client. Why do you have those rates? Did you set them? Or did the client offer them to you? Can you raise those rates?
Create a wrap-up-the-day routine. For me, this includes creating a short to-do list for the next day and shutting my laptop, leaving my computer and my smartphone in my office for the night.
Biz Bite: Set timers for appointments and phone calls.
Resources:
My favorite tea (hot Cincinnati spice black tea) from Churchill’s Fine Teas
My favorite podcasts:
Before Breakfast
Company of One
Crime Writers On…True Crime Review
Ear Hustle
Happier in Hollywood
Happier with Gretchen Rubin
High-Income Business Writing (with Ed Gandia)
Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield
Unemployable: Advice for Freelancers and Entrepreneurs
What Should I Read Next?
Writer’s Bone
Boomerang plugin for Gmail
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #18 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Higher Rates
Setting higher rates, better rates, and asking for more money takes confidence. There’s so much emotion and self-esteem wrapped up in what we charge. It’s often fear that keeps us from charging more. So I’m here to give you a pep talk and then explain why you should start creating project rates and stop offering an hourly rate. But, every freelancer should have their own SECRET minimum hourly rate they are aiming for, which will help you develop higher-paying project rates.
When I started freelancing, my business coach called me out on the “low” rate she thought I was offering per hour. And I learned what I was afraid of: people telling me “no.”
You can always negotiate down; you can’t negotiate up. So aim high.
Hourly rates penalize you if you have more experience and you’re fast. They can also scare off potential clients because they don’t want to get a huge bill. And some clients will easily say yes to a flat project rate but balk at what they see as a high hourly rate.
So, stop telling people your hourly rate. But create your own secret minimum hourly rate that you use to create project rates.
To create each client’s project rate, talk through the project on the phone. You’ll get more information to see if you want to even do the project, and you can both see if you’re a good fit.
If you do the same type of project over and over, make a list of questions that you ask every client every time to ensure you are understanding the full scope of the project so you can set an appropriate rate.
Do not tell clients the rate over the phone. You need to give yourself some time to think through the project and what it will take and then develop the rate.
Your project proposals should include both a Scope of Work section and an Outside the Scope of Work section.
If you often do the same types of projects with a few custom tweaks per client, create templates for your proposals.
Avoid putting rates on your website—but there are exceptions. Perhaps add a
minimum rate or a range on your website to weed out low-paying clients.
Consider creating specific one-off packages and list those on your website with a fee.
Let’s talk about rate shaming. If you are taking rates considered low in your industry, try not to get defensive when people encourage you to charge more. Instead, work at figuring out how to gradually start to increase your rate and where you can get better work.
Biz Bite: Take a Real Lunch Break.
Resources:
Episode #1 of Deliberate Freelancer: Change Your Mindset: You Own a Freelance Business
Episode #3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Episode #9 of Deliberate Freelancer: The Money Lessons I’ve Learned the Hard Way
Episode #13 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Set Better Goals for Your Business, with Andrena Sawyer
It’s July Fourth—a great time for a little diversion from our regularly scheduled programming. This week I recommend my favorite books I’ve read so far this year. I’ve read 20 books as we hit the year’s halfway point, but my goal is 52, so I need to get a move on! Turns out, my personal favorite book genre is literary fiction in which I completely fall in love with the characters and want to hug them and help them and wish the best for them. Not sure what you call that, but that’s what I love. I also love memoirs, and five of the 20 books I’ve read are memoirs; I include one recommendation here. Happy reading!
Biz Bite: Use your library’s hold system.
Resources:
My Goodreads profile and reviews
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
The One-in-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Celeste Ng on Twitter
“Celeste Ng Is More than a Novelist”
A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
A Place for Us—“Sarah Jessica Parker Has a Book She Wants You to Read”
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
“5 Books to Read After Dark Matter Rewires Your Brain”
The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth
Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane
“‘Ask Again, Yes’ Is A Profound Yet Unpretentious Family Drama”
Maid by Stephanie Land
What Should I Read Next podcast
Melanie appears on the What Should I Read Next podcast! Check out the time stamp 22:55 in episode 185: What should you read this summer?
Daniel and I talk about our love of reading and books, including a mutual love for V.C. Andrews.
Learn how Daniel and his friend Sean Tuohy started the Writer’s Bone podcast in 2014 and how their original idea changed and grew to what it is today, which is primarily interviews with both well-known and lesser-known authors.
Next, Writer’s Bone grew into a podcast network, adding the podcasts Novel Class, Film Freaks Forever and Pop Literacy.
Daniel talks about juggling all his interests and responsibilities with his day job. It comes down to scheduling everything. He also uses his lunch hour to work on his podcast network.
Daniel has written a novel and a collection of short stories—both through an independent publishing house. Learn how that differs from the traditional and the self-publishing routes.
Daniel explains how he landed with an independent publisher and what he gains from that type of publisher.
Daniel is a marketer, so it’s natural for him to do some of his own marketing. Learn what marketing techniques worked for him while promoting his books.
Daniel recommends you find the independent publisher that is right for you. And he cautions that writing and publishing a book is still a lot of hard work. Don’t think you can write a book for six months and then be ready to publish. Share it with others to get feedback before you send it to publishers.
Ask potential publishers about distribution. Get a lawyer to look over your book contract. And if you have a question of your publisher, ask it.
Don’t be afraid to fight for your work during the editing process.
Biz Bite:
Take some time and effort to think about how you want your business to be run. And invest some money to strengthen your initial product.
Resources:
Daniel’s podcast network:
Writer’s Bone
Novel Class
Film Freaks Forever!
Pop Literacy
Daniel’s books:
Black Coffee—available July 1 from 50/50 Press!
Sid Sanford Lives!
Books Daniel and Melanie mention:
“Trust Exercise” by Susan Choi
“What Should Be Wild” by Julia Fine
“Miracle Creek” by Angie Kim
“The Missing Ones” (A Hester Thursby Mystery book 2) by Edwin Hills
“Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb
“The Emperor of Ice-Cream” by Gary Almeter
Melanie’s first guest stint on Writer’s Bone
Melanie’s second guest appearance on Writer’s Bone
Melanie’s Writer’s Bone guest blog post: Stop Calling Yourself a Freelancer
Boston area bookstores:
Trident Booksellers
Belmont Books
Porter Square Books
Papercuts J.P.
I AM books
New York bookstore:
Kew & Willow Books, Kew Gardens, N.Y.
Summer is here, summer is here! It’s my favorite time of the year, but for many people it’s the slowest time for their freelance business. It depends on the industry, but oftentimes your clients and potential clients are taking time off in the summer. The summer slowdown has begun for some of you. But even if summer isn’t your slowest time, you probably do have slow times throughout the year. These are the ideal times for a marketing and networking push—all those things you’ve been meaning to do but never seem to have time for. Now is the time. In this episode, I go through six tips of things you can do to find more work when times are slow.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
6 Tips to Get More Work during Slow Periods:
- Contact your previous and current clients.
I make a list of the clients I’ve worked with in the past year. You can even go back 2–3 years to pull out those clients you loved working with and/or who paid really well.
- Plan for the year in seasons.
At the beginning of the fall, winter, spring and summer, I think about how much work I need to line up, but I also consider my personal and professional commitments. Combined with tip #1, I look ahead throughout that season and then email my current editors to let them know I’m available. In May, I emailed several editors the following: “I wanted to check in and see if you needed some freelance writing in the next month or so. I have some availability in June and particularly in July and would love to write another feature for you.”
- Reach out to your network.
This is where networking and relationship building with fellow creatives is so important. I believe there’s enough work for everyone, and I know plenty of people who—when they get too busy or are offered a project that is just not a good fit for them—connect that client with another freelancer they know. I do this myself. It also shows the client how helpful you are. You are solving a problem for them.
- Up your marketing game.
While this sounds obvious, most of us don’t do enough marketing, and downtimes are the perfect time for it. Start by reaching out to potential clients you’ve connected with in the past, who, for whatever reason, never sent work your way. Now is a good time to create a spreadsheet of all these people; collect all those names that are scattered in various places—from business cards, previous email conversations or LinkedIn connections—and put them into one spreadsheet.
- Volunteer in your industry.
Give presentations. Volunteer for conferences. Offer to write blog posts. Ask to be a podcast guest. It builds your network.
- Host a solo business retreat.
A solo business retreat is a time for reflection, to ask yourself big questions: Where does my freelance business stand? Where do I want it to go? What new type of work do I want to pursue? What old type of work do I want to get rid of? It can also be a time to focus on getting new work.
Biz Bite:
Boomerang for Gmail
Resources:
Jennifer Goforth Gregory’s book, “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer: Find your perfect clients, Make tons of money and Build a business you love.”
Episode 4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Episode 3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Today’s guest is Christy Batta, a freelance graphic designer I know in real life. Christy works primarily with nonprofits, creating or freshening up their brands, designing logos or print materials, and developing event materials. Christy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, or MS, when she was just 23. A few years ago, when people were debating health care in this country, she remembers hearing a lot of rhetoric about “sick people costing more” and “sick people” driving up all our health care costs. The discussion of how people with chronic illnesses and diseases were being portrayed irritated her. She decided to start speaking out more about living with a chronic illness—and running a freelance business with a chronic illness—because she wants people to understand that so-called “sick people” are all around us and are contributing, valuable members of society.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
Learn how working with a branding coach helped Christy’s freelance business. She was able to learn why her clients valued her and use that information to promote her business.
Christy shares how she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease, when she was just 23 and in graduate school.
Hear about the challenges of having a “hidden illness.” It often comes down to how much to communicate to people.
Christy has to focus on self-care to manage her MS, but these are lessons everyone needs: eat healthy, get enough sleep, don’t work 24/7. In fact, Christy says it helps her to see other freelancers not hustling nonstop because it validates that you can be a freelancer without working nonstop.
Christy talks about why she is now speaking out more about having MS.
Christy talks about how she got health insurance as a freelancer.
Christy describes how she uses “spoon theory” to manage her illness and why all freelancers should embrace the idea that we have a limited number of “spoons” a day, so we should be intentional about what we focus our energy on.
When freelancers take breaks and embrace a better work-life balance, they’re normalizing downtime for those freelancers who don’t have the “luxury” of working nonstop.
Christy is the co-founder of the Unofficial Hand Lettering Society of Silver Spring, a club that encourages people to doodle and color and create.
Biz Bite:
Create a Welcome Package for Your Clients
Welcome packages can set expectations and establish boundaries with your clients. Christy got the idea from her friend Rachel Wynn at Starlight Social.
Resources:
Christy Batta Design
Unofficial Hand Lettering Society of Silver Spring
Christy’s Etsy Shop: Human + Kind
Human + Kind on Instagram
Starlight Social and Rachel Wynn
Today’s guest is Andrena Sawyer, president of P.E.R.K. Consulting, an advisory firm for small to mid-sized nonprofits and businesses. Andrena works actively to mobilize and empower others—and that is exactly what she does in this episode. Andrena walks us through how to set better goals for our business, using the SMART formula. But she goes deeper than that, providing brilliant advice on how we should be setting a vision for our business. And she explains why we should focus more time on our business, not just providing services to clients nonstop.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
Hear how Andrena went from law school to being an entrepreneur.
When Andrena launched P.E.R.K. Consulting she still had a full-time job, but she quickly realized her energy was being split. She knew she had to commit full-time to consulting in order to make it work.
If we learned anything at all about goal setting, we probably learned a linear approach. But Andrena recommends a circular approach, which starts first with an assessment to see if your goal is even viable. To do that, use the SMART approach to goal setting: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
Learn the four steps entrepreneurs should take before they implement their idea. It all starts with vision casting—where you want to be with your business. Create a vision board of what you envision your business will be.
As you create and grow your business, you need to focus on all four pillars of business: financial, operational, capacity and customer.
Andrena recommends—at minimum—an annual retreat. (She’s speaking my language!) It’s even better, she says, to have a quarterly retreat to focus on your business. I love this comment from Andrena: “A lot of people don’t understand that you have to work ON your business in order to work IN your business effectively.”
Andrena outlines the mistakes to avoid when setting your goals.
Biz Bite:
Prioritize your mental health. Take care of yourself by creating balance.
Resources:
P.E.R.K. Consulting
Andrena’s book, “The Misadventures of a New Entrepreneur: 5 Things They Won’t Teach You in Business School”
SMART goals
Episode 3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
This is a “tough love” episode. Many of us are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, distracted and too busy. I think a lot of that can be alleviated by decreasing your smartphone usage and fighting against social media and digital addictions. It’s time to take back our lives. It’s time to take control of our schedules. In this episode, I lead you through several steps to cut back on digital distraction, partly inspired by Cal Newport’s new book,“Digital Minimalism.”
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
Let me take you back in time when baby boomers, Gen Xers and the Oregon Trail Generation can remember a time in our adult lives when smartphones and social media didn’t exist—and cellphones were just for calling people.
As a kid in the 1980s, I would often whine, “I’m bored.” And I just had to figure out what to do about that boredom. Now, no one is ever allowed to be bored. Instead, we reach for our smartphones. Boredom is highly underrated.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, I bought Cal Newport’s new book, “Digital Minimalism.” And I read it in 24 hours. Newport argues that you have to figure HOW you’re going to spend your leisure time BEFORE you cut back on your digital life. If you just force yourself to put down the phone or not use social media at set times—without a plan—you’ll be anxious and fidgety, not knowing what to do with yourself.
I want to focus my leisure time on health, fitness and nutrition. I’m making a plan to walk 10,000 steps several days a week and dusting off my bike to go for fun rides again.
I culled my social media feeds, unfollowing most people on Instagram—only keeping a few real-life friends—and cutting my Twitter followings in half. I also dropped out of 27 Facebook groups! Who knew I was in so many?! I’m focusing on two that are particularly interesting, educational and inspiring, with a true community feel.
Cal Newport also talks about the importance of solitude. He says there’s this myth that solitude means being physically alone, but what it really means is freeing up your mind. We all need this. You may have to actually schedule solitude and downtime until it becomes more of a habit again.
Your tough love, digital intervention marching orders:
- Start tracking your time.
- Decide how you want to spend your leisure or down time.
- Learn more about habit formation.
- Start decluttering your digital world.
Biz Bite: Assigning ringtones to important people.
Resources:
The Oregon Trail Generation
Cal Newport’s book “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World”
Episode 5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
Episode 10 of Deliberate Freelancer, which talks about Cal Newport’s book “Deep Work”: Think Like a Marketer to Grow Your Business, with Megy Karydes
Episode 2 of Deliberate Freelancer about cutting out tasks and outsourcing: Discover Your Unique Brilliance
Episode 3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
The Freelance Content Marketing Writer Facebook group
She Podcasts Facebook group
James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones”
Gretchen Rubin’s book “Better than Before: What I Learned about Making and Breaking Habits—to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life”
I like the term anchor client because an anchor on a boat keeps you steady and secure and is something you can rely on. We should all have a couple of anchor clients that provide just that—security and a steady income. I aim to find anchor clients on social media and via email referrals, but I also spend a lot of time meeting up with people in real life. I think many freelance business owners, especially introverts, don’t spend enough time building relationships and expanding their client work through face-to-face contact. In this episode, we’ll talk about using social media—especially Twitter and LinkedIn—to get anchor clients, but also how to get out there and meet people regularly.
Deliberate Freelancer Show Notes
You need to figure out—and actually write down—the type of work and clients you’re looking for. Ask yourself these three questions:
- WHO do I want to work for?
- WHAT types of projects do I want to work on?
- What OTHER services can I provide?
Once you figure out all the services you can provide, it’s time to think about social media. WHERE are your potential clients? A mistake a lot of freelancers make is to try to be on several different social media platforms.
Maximize your LinkedIn profile. Be very specific with your headline, using searchable keywords. Don’t be catchy with your headline and don’t be too broad.
Put your contact information in your LinkedIn description. Don’t make people look for it.
Ask clients for LinkedIn testimonials.
Consider paying—at least for a few dedicated months—for Premium LinkedIn so you can see the “see who viewed your page recently” list. Reach out to those people to see if they need your help.
On Twitter, take part in tweet chats and build public and private Twitter lists of people you want to connect with more often.
As for in-person networking—building relationships!—consider what organizations you can join and what local events you can go to. Some ideas: national organizations, including local chapter meetings; local organizations; library events; co-working spaces. And take your local clients to lunch or for coffee!
Be ready to expand your work with current clients and learn new skills.
Always tell your clients about ALL the services you provide. They may only think you do that one thing you’re already doing for them.
Ask for specific work. Tell clients when you have availability or an opening for a new project.
Biz Bite:
Get Serious about Sleep
Resources:
Episode 4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Episode 8 of Deliberate Freelancer: 5 Ways to Make Your Clients’ Jobs Easier
Email address finder: Hunter.io
American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA)
Association Media & Publishing (AM&P)
Today’s guest, Megy Karydes, lives in Chicago and has owned her communications and marketing consultant practice for the past 12 years. Megy is all about systems and structure. She is very disciplined about sticking to a set schedule throughout her work day. Megy uses systems like time tracking and knowing her peak productivity time to create this discipline—and it’s a system to be admired. Hear how she does it and what tips you can pick up to try to build more structure into your routine.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
Learn the system Megy uses to schedule her day. She is regimented about sticking to her schedule and minimizing distractions.
Time tracking every 15 minutes showed Megy how to find more time in her day and how much time it took her to do certain types of projects.
Megy’s a fan of Cal Newport’s book, “Deep Work,” which showed her the importance of setting aside uninterrupted two-hour blocks of time to do work that required concentration and deep thinking.
Megy uses exercise as a good afternoon break and an energy refresher.
Megy and Melanie talk about why knowing their peak productivity times is critical to their work.
Biz Bites from Megy:
- Ask clients for testimonials.
- Send clients handwritten thank-you cards.
Resources:
Read Megy’s latest blog post, which contains a link to the Excel spreadsheet she uses to schedule her day. Try the spreadsheet out for a while to see if it works for you.
“The Freelance Content Marketing Writer” by Jennifer Goforth Gregory
“Six-Figure Freelancing: The Writer’s Guide to Making More Money” by Kelly James-Enger
“Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done” by Laura Vanderkam
“Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World” by Cal Newport
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
Episode #4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
American Society of Journalists and Authors (an association for freelance writers)
American Society of Journalists and Authors Annual Writers Conference
What kind of money personality do you have? This is important to know as you handle your finances for your freelance business.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
My budgeting goes all the way back to childhood and my $2 allowance.
Hear about my huge money confession and tax mistake. I immediately implemented two things to prevent that mistake in the future: I take 30% of my monthly income and place it into an online savings account that is earmarked only for taxes.
You have to spend money to make money. If you are the only one in your business, two things are going to happen: You are eventually going to reach your capacity. There are only so many hours in the day, and if you are doing everything, eventually you’re going to come to the end of what you can do. Short of raising all your rates all the time, your business is not going to earn more money.
Embrace the economic concept of opportunity cost: Opportunity cost is when you have a situation with more than one choice. You make a choice and go a particular route. The opportunity cost is the loss of what you did not gain by making the other choice.
Opportunity cost makes you consider the consequences of every choice. Should you work, work, work and do it all yourself—and lose time and energy and potentially higher paying clients? Or should you hire someone to help—and lose that money but gain more money, ideally, because you gain time to work for better, higher paying clients?
Know your hourly rate. Even if you don’t charge hourly, you need to know for yourself what your hourly rate is so that you know what things cost you. You want to pay people or a service less than your hourly rate so that you can gain back that time to either just enjoy it or to earn more than you’re paying those people per hour.
Set a monthly financial goal. Push yourself. Set a big audacious monthly financial goal. But remember, you have to spend money to make money.
Biz Bite: Play Mozart
The Mozart Effect How Music Makes You Smarter
Resources:
What Is Opportunity Cost?
Episode 3 of Deliberate Freelancer: Host a Solo Business Retreat
Working at a content marketing agency for two years and now hiring subcontractors has helped me learn what freelancers can do to make their clients’ jobs easier. I learned what I DON’T want to do and what I COULD do to make myself stand out from the crowd. In this episode, I dive into five areas where any freelance business owner could help make their clients’ jobs easier.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
Learn why you shouldn’t share all the details of your schedule and your life with your client—but figure out the fine line of when you need to tell them something that interferes with your work, like a funeral or an unexpected flu bug.
Learn why it’s necessary to create a backup list of other freelancers and how you can create that list.
Quick tip: When you’re too busy to take on work, telling your client or potential client you don’t have the “capacity” right now shows that you’re in demand and talented.
Figure out what little things you can do that go above and beyond for your client—within reason. Figure out how to stand out from your competitors.
Learn why I put some of my prices on my website.
Consider creating package deals and listing them on your website.
Consider adding an information form to your website for potential clients.
Biz Bite: Create a Batch Day
Resources:
Episode #4 of Deliberate Freelancer: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory
Episode #6 of Deliberate Freelancer: Make the Most of Conferences
Today’s guest, Michelle Garrett, has been a freelancer for 20 years. Michelle describes herself as being at the intersection of PR, content marketing and social media. She is a public relations consultant, content creator, blogger, speaker and freelance writer. She is also the host of the weekly tweet chat #FreelanceChat, which she launched in September 2018. Michelle has grown her freelance business through a strategic and effective use of blogging and social media, primarily Twitter. Learn how Michelle keeps up with blogging and interacts on Twitter and how she repurposes her content. You’ll also hear why she launched #FreelanceChat. Michelle mentions several great online tools; the links are in the resource list below.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
4:46—How working at an agency later helped Michelle with her freelance business.
6:57—Providing an array of services helps build stronger relationships with clients.
7:30—How Michelle’s blogging career took off.
12:50—Michelle collects links and tweets as a “blog idea” file so she always has something to write about.
14:15—Michelle offers tips on repurposing your content to market your freelance business.
17:00—Michelle took the time to analyze her blog traffic, which showed her, to her surprise, that Twitter was the primary driver, way ahead of LinkedIn. This analysis changed her marketing tactics.
19:00—Michelle uses a Twitter scheduling tool, but she says that only using a scheduling tool—without engaging with people directly—is a mistake.
21:44—Learn more about the tweet chat #FreelanceChat that Michelle hosts every Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern (U.S.) time. (Join us!)
28:59—Biz Bite: Schedule Social Media with Buffer
Resources:
Michelle Garrett’s website
Michelle Garrett’s blog
Michelle Garrett on Muck Rack
#FreelanceChat — Twitter chat for freelancers every Thursday at 12 p.m. Eastern (U.S.) time
MeetEdgar (social media management tool)
Buffer (social media management tool)
Pablo by Buffer (image creation tool)
Unsplash (royalty-free images)
Pixabay (royalty-free images)
Soon after I started my freelance business I quickly realized how much I loved going to conferences. It has become an investment in my business—a way for me to learn new skills, find clients, bond with fellow creative types and get inspired to try new things. I’m always invigorated after conferences, buzzing with fresh new ideas and excitement about things I want to try with my freelance business. Learn how to find the right conference for you, what to do beforehand to prepare for the conference and what “must-haves” you should take to the conference.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
1:50—
How I discovered “my people” at ACES–the Society for Editing.
4:51—
How to find your “people” in your industry and its conferences.
5:19—
There are two types of conferences: the ones with your fellow creatives and the ones with potential clients.
7:10—
Why I’m so involved in an organization called Association Media & Publishing.
8:08—
The five things you should do before you go to a conference.
11:11—
Nine things you should take to a conference.
16:54—
Biz Bite: Create a Today List
Resources:
Cheat Sheet—5 Things to Do Before a Conference & 9 Things to Take to a Conference
ACES–the Society for Editing
Association Media & Publishing
Association Media & Publishing 2019 Annual Meeting
My blog post: Networking Is Not a Dirty Word
“Busyness is laziness.” Raise your hand if you reply “busy!” whenever someone asks how you are. Let’s get rid of that hectic, way too busy, frenzied feeling. Time tracking can help. Time tracking can show you how you’re spending your time and set you on a better course.
DELIBERATE FREELANCER SHOW NOTES
1:13
Learn about the research that shows how being “busy” has become a high status symbol in the U.S.
3:28
Hear Melanie’s confession about procrastinating.
4:04
Learn how time tracking can hold you accountable and help you discover where all your time is really going.
6:50
The struggle and the shame of checking Facebook nonstop.
9:08
Why Melanie is cautious about the word “productive.”
11:16
How to analyze your own time tracking data.
12:10
Biz Bite: Pick a Work Song
Resources:
Busy Beings: Melanie’s interview with a Georgetown University professor about the professor’s research on the status of being busy.
Laura Vanderkam website—learn all about time tracking from the master.
“168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think,” by Laura Vanderkam
“Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day,” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky
Today’s guest, Jennifer Goforth Gregory, is a six-figure freelance content marketing writer who has firmly embraced the business mindset. Jennifer, who wrote the very useful and praised book “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer,” will only work with clients she deems nice. And she trusts her gut to figure that out. She also looks at each potential client as a partnership between equals, not as if she’s applying for work. It changes the dynamic, showing she’s in demand and that she can be choosy. And it leads to working with only the best clients. Learn how she does it and how you can implement these tactics in your own freelance business.
SHOW NOTES
2:44
Learn how and why Jennifer became a freelance content marketing writer.
4:58
Connections really matter, Jennifer says. And being nice and helping other freelancers helps you also, besides being the right thing to do.
7:00
It’s important to know when a client or project is not the right fit. Look for the red flags and trust your gut feeling.
9:40
Jennifer looks back at the year she started thinking—and acting—like a business owner. That was the first year she broke six figures.
10:16
Jennifer believes it’s important to work only with nice clients. As freelancers, we have a choice who we work with.
12:02
When Jennifer first talks with a potential client, it’s not a job interview. She sees it as two equals looking to do business together, not just whether she can land new work.
15:00
Even successful freelancers like Jennifer sometimes fall into the trap of taking on projects because they feel desperate for money.
17:02
Melanie may not like the word “hustle,” but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to market and network constantly. The key is to figure out the types of marketing you’re comfortable with.
20:15
Hear why it’s important to ask for referrals from clients and ask your clients if there are other projects in-house that you can work on.
24:00
Know that you’re not a good fit for every client. And that’s OK.
28:00
Jennifer explains why she decided to write her book, “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer.”
31:17
Jennifer talks about a passion outside her work: dachshund dog rescue.
34:00
Biz Bites from Jennifer:
- Have a Freelance Buddy: Jennifer runs all new clients and proposals by her freelance buddy.
- Outsource Tasks: Jennifer pays others to do things she’s not good at—like proofreading, transcribing and house cleaning—which actually saves her money.
Resources:Jennifer’s book, “The Freelance Content Marketing Writer: Find your perfect clients, Make tons of money and Build a business you love.”
Jennifer’s Content Marketing Writer Blog
The Freelance Content Marketing Writer Facebook Group
Stop hustling. Stop flying by the seat of your pants. Host your own solo business retreat and take a step back to analyze your business and where you want to go—and how you can get there.
SHOW NOTES
3:14
Where to hold your business retreat.
4:26
The supplies you need for a retreat.
5:13
Why you need a retreat agenda.
5:40
Six things you can consider doing during your one-day business retreat.
12:36
Biz Bite: Apps
Learn why you need to download your bank’s app and the Tripit app right now.
14:18
Future episodes will have special guests!
Resources:
My blog post: How You Can Create Your Own Solo Business Retreat
You are uniquely brilliant. It’s time to laser in on that brilliance and make THAT the focus of your business. When my workshop coach drew a simple quadrant on a piece of paper, I changed a huge part of my business and began outsourcing parts of my life.
SHOW NOTES
6:01 How to use a simple quadrant on a piece of paper to determine your incompetence, competence, high competence and unique brilliance.
8:24 Why hiring a house cleaner can be the greatest gift you give yourself and your business.
12:15 How hiring someone to take care of my yard helped my business.
14:13 Why I fired four clients I liked.
23:44 Biz Bite: Scheduling your social media posts. Be diligent about scheduling social media posts—and consider enlisting a virtual assistant to help you.
Resources: My blog post: How I Got to Know Myself Better—and Improved My Freelance Business
I believe that freelancers can only succeed when you embrace a fundamental fact: You are a business owner. Stop thinking of yourself as “just” a freelancer. Say goodbye to the hustle and the feast-or-famine cycle. Instead, build a business.
SHOW NOTES
1:01
The dream of being a freelancer vs. the reality.
3:29
Four fundamental beliefs I have about being a freelancer.
4:20
Learn more about me, your host, Melanie Padgett Powers, and how I got started in this career.
7:05
Six pillars the Deliberate Freelancer podcast will focus on.
9:54
Why you need to think and act like a business.
13:32
Biz Bite: Reading. Learn how to find time to read more, and end your day in a more calming manner.