Deliberate Freelancer (Melanie Padgett Powers)
Explore every episode of Deliberate Freelancer
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | ||
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| 22 Oct 2020 | #77: 5 Ways to Make the Most Out of Virtual Conferences | 00:16:48 | ||
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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| 17 Feb 2022 | #129: A Script for Tough Client Conversations, with Treasa Edmond | 00:43:44 | ||
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:
The Writing Mindset (about writing your book)
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter.
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| 04 Apr 2019 | #4: Work Only with Nice Clients, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory | 00:41:21 | ||
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 4:58 7:00 9:40 10:16 12:02 15:00 17:02 20:15 24:00 28:00 31:17 34:00
Resources: Jennifer’s Content Marketing Writer Blog | ||||
| 28 Mar 2024 | #184: Becoming Comfortable and Knowledgeable with Contracts and Other Legalese, with Lawyer Brionna Ned | 00:54:41 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Not all money is good money. (Trust your instincts!) Resources:
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| 22 Nov 2023 | #174: Wrap Up Your Year with These 5 Questions | 00:20:43 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Front-load your week The Bookshelf: “Wandering Souls” by Cecile Pin Resources:
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| 23 Jan 2020 | #43: 33 Ways to Find More Clients | 00:38:21 | ||
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):
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 | ||||
| 08 Jul 2021 | #103: My Time Tracking and Client Analysis for Q2 | 00:45:13 | ||
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
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| 06 Jun 2024 | #191: It’s Summer Hiatus Time! | 00:08:19 | ||
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:
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| 03 Dec 2020 | #82: Six-Figure Freelancing: Embracing an Entrepreneurial Mindset, with Gresham Harkless | 00:41:06 | ||
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). | ||||
| 15 Aug 2019 | #23: Five Questions to Evaluate and Diversify Your Services | 00:21:22 | ||
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 | ||||
| 17 Apr 2020 | #51: Reading and Book Recommendations during Coronavirus | 00:35:23 | ||
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 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) 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 | ||||
| 30 May 2019 | #12: This Is a Smartphone & Social Media Intervention | 00:23:31 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Assigning ringtones to important people. Resources: 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 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” | ||||
| 24 Feb 2022 | #130: Find Support and Accountability with Mastermind Groups, with Laura Poole | 00:36:57 | ||
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 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
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group.
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee.
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| 20 May 2021 | An Extended Memorial Day Hiatus | 00:02:08 | ||
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! | ||||
| 25 Nov 2020 | #81: Six-Figure Freelancing: Focus on a Niche and Partner with Other Freelancers, with Lynne Testoni | 00:48:01 | ||
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 podcast, The Content Byte
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. | ||||
| 08 Aug 2019 | #22: How to Create a Better Work-Life Balance, with Laura Poole | 00:41:31 | ||
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” | ||||
| 30 Jul 2020 | REPLAY #12: This Is a Smartphone & Social Media Intervention | 00:26:45 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Assigning ringtones to important people.
Resources:
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
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” | ||||
| 20 Aug 2020 | #68: Yes, You Need to Build a Personal Brand, with Hilary Sutton | 00:40:01 | ||
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:
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 Hustle & Grace Podcast episode with Dan Pink Episode #55 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use Pinterest to Grow Your Business, with Julia Bocchese | ||||
| 01 Dec 2022 | #148: How to Line Up January Work Now | 00:21:58 | ||
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:
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| 11 Mar 2021 | #91: All Things Pricing: Project Rates, Day Rates, Retainers and More, with Jennifer Duann Fultz | 00:48:26 | ||
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:
Download Jennifer’s Freelance Rate Calculator
Episode #66 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Price Your Projects
Episode #5 of Deliberate Freelancer: Track Your Time for Better Efficiency
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| 26 Sep 2019 | #29: 3 Big Financial Changes I Made This Week | 00:19:57 | ||
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:
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.
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.
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. | ||||
| 29 Apr 2021 | #97: How Copywriting Can Grow Your Business, with Quiana Darden | 00:28:54 | ||
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
Episode 56 of Deliberate Freelancer: How to Use Instagram to Grow Your Business, with Jessica Thiefels
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| 13 Jun 2019 | #14: Freelancing with a Chronic Illness, with Christy Batta | 00:49:58 | ||
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: Unofficial Hand Lettering Society of Silver Spring | ||||
| 29 Jul 2021 | #106: How to Use Video to Connect with Your Audience, with Anita Kwan | 00:35:59 | ||
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)
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)
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| 17 Nov 2022 | #147: My Q3 Audit—Grief, Brain Fog and Better Times Ahead | 00:37:44 | ||
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:
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| 22 Feb 2024 | #180: How to Crush Your Fear of Self-Promotion and Get Clients Now, with C.J. Hayden | 00:39:48 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Shut Up & Write! (a community to help you get your writing done) Resources:
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| 17 Sep 2020 | #72: How to Grow Your Email List + Earn Passive Income, with Anthony Moore | 00:35:52 | ||
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
“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)
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| 30 Nov 2023 | #175: How to improve your article pitches and land your dream publications, with Ericka Andersen | 00:37:26 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Find solutions to problems your current clients are having. Resources:
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| 28 Apr 2022 | #136: Money, Money, Money, with Finance and Pricing Mentor Susie Jackson | 00:55:02 | ||
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 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” “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
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| 09 Jan 2020 | #41: How to Create and Stick to Habits—the Backbone of Your Life and Business | 00:27:31 | ||
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:
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:
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:
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:
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 | ||||
| 18 Feb 2021 | #89: Being the Only Black Man at a TV News Station, with Mario Boone | 00:41:19 | ||
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 | ||||
| 19 Dec 2024 | #199: Struggling? How to Get Clients Now, with Rosanna Campbell | 00:55:57 | ||
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:
Resources: Rosanna’s LinkedIn post: “Need to get a new client, like, NOW?” 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 | ||||
| 23 May 2024 | #189: Evicting Freelance Scarcity Mindset and Jealousy, with Rachel Meltzer | 00:55:18 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Use ChatGPT to create your weekly schedule. One of several tips on how to use AI she learned from TikToker SuperHumanCo Resources:
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| 29 Oct 2020 | #78: Building Your Community as a Newish Freelancer, with Alicia Chantal | 00:38:32 | ||
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.
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
Editors’ Association of Earth Facebook group
Outside the Book on Twitter: interviews editors of color and discusses how to increase the number of people of color in editing.
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| 08 Dec 2022 | #149: Evaluate—and Expand or Fire—Your Clients for a Strong 2023 | 00:37:14 | ||
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:
1. 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.
2. 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:
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| 23 Apr 2020 | #52: Embracing Self-Care without Guilt, with Acupuncturist Rachel Brumberger | 00:45:17 | ||
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: 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 | ||||
| 21 Oct 2021 | REPLAY: #86: What I Wish for Your Freelance Business in 2021 | 00:38:54 | ||
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: 1. Embrace a business owner mindset 2. Raise your rates 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.” 3. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket 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? 4. Don’t compare yourself to others 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. 5. Set boundaries 6. Get ahold of your finances 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. 7. Take a vacation or staycation 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/ | ||||
| 26 Oct 2023 | #171: Why It’s Time to Rethink Your Freelance “Dealbreakers” | 00:31:41 | ||
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:
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:
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| 16 Mar 2023 | #156: The Risks and Opportunities of ChatGPT | 00:54:38 | ||
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:
Resources:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group. Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee. | ||||
| 25 Mar 2019 | #2: Discover Your Unique Brilliance | 00:27:04 | ||
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
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| 21 May 2020 | #56: How to Use Instagram to Grow Your Business, with Jessica Thiefels | 00:39:21 | ||
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 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) | ||||
| 14 Sep 2023 | #165: I’m Back! Time to Get My Act Together | 00:33:25 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: The 1% rule of thumb (by Brian Hood) The Bookshelf: “Beyond That, the Sea” by Laura Spence-Ash Resources:
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| 28 Sep 2023 | #167: How to Use a “Cornerstone” Piece to Build a Content Marketing Plan, with Cassandra Le | 00:37:14 | ||
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:
Biz Bites: Put phone on “do not disturb” mode. And, “group tabs” on Google Chrome. Resources:
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| 16 Sep 2021 | #112: How and When to Say No | 00:33:18 | ||
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: 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
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| 01 Apr 2021 | #94: My Time Tracking Audit for Q1—I Need a Better Schedule | 00:25:19 | ||
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 | ||||
| 30 Jan 2020 | #44: How to Track and Reach Your Goals | 00:26:16 | ||
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: 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 | ||||
| 19 Aug 2021 | #109: How to Recognize and Overcome Perfectionism, with Suzy Bills | 00:49:13 | ||
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 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
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| 21 Dec 2023 | #178: My 2023 Recap and 2024 Goals | 00:25:38 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Plan now for future you The Bookshelf: “No One Can Know” by Kate Alice Marshall Resources:
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| 18 Apr 2019 | #6: Make the Most of Conferences | 00:18:41 | ||
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 Association Media & Publishing Association Media & Publishing 2019 Annual Meeting My blog post: Networking Is Not a Dirty Word | ||||
| 11 Jun 2020 | #59: Parenting while Freelancing (with or without a pandemic), with Amy Ragland | 00:36:24 | ||
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:
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). | ||||
| 09 Mar 2023 | #155: How to Diversify Your Income—and Protect Against Uncertain Times, with Michelle Jackson | 00:45:53 | ||
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:
Biz Bites: Be clear about your priorities each quarter; batch work; diversify your income; prioritize you. Resources:
Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee. | ||||
| 21 Nov 2019 | #37: California’s Harmful New Freelancer Law, with Randy Dotinga | 00:32:40 | ||
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:
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:
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. 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”
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| 24 Oct 2024 | #192: The Prodigal Daughter Finally Returns to Her Podcast | 00:33:20 | ||
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:
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 | ||||
| 12 May 2022 | #138: Rejecting Corporate Culture and Becoming Your Own Boss, with Jasmine Smith | 00:33:37 | ||
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 podcast: Built To Quit Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group. Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee. Subscribe to the Deliberate Freelancer newsletter. | ||||
| 02 Jul 2020 | #62: How to Prevent and Deal with Burnout, with Alan Heymann | 00:27:09 | ||
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 recommends the book “Deep Work” by Cal Newport (which I also love). | ||||
| 25 Apr 2024 | #187: Offering Video Script Writing and Webinar Moderating, with Kelly McSweeney | 00:53:41 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Use mind mapping to brainstorm. Resources:
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| 23 May 2019 | #11: How to Find the Right Anchor Clients | 00:29:32 | ||
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:
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 | ||||
| 14 Jan 2021 | #85: How and Why You Should Choose a Word of the Year | 00:23:13 | ||
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
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| 29 Aug 2019 | #25: Finding Your Community, with She Podcasts Co-Founder Jessica Kupferman | 00:31:07 | ||
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 Announces Speakers (press release) She Podcasts (the podcast and website) She Podcasts Facebook group—only for women podcasters Lady Business Radio—Jessica’s first podcast | ||||
| 18 Mar 2021 | #92: Improve Client Relationships with Stellar Onboarding and Offboarding, with Kat Boogaard | 00:34:12 | ||
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.
#FreelanceChat happens every Thursday on Twitter at 12 p.m. E.S.T. (U.S.)
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| 06 Jan 2022 | #123: My 2021 Business Review and Questions to Help You | 00:39:05 | ||
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:
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 | ||||
| 12 Dec 2019 | #40: Reflect, Analyze and Plan Now for the New Year | 00:26:49 | ||
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:
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 | ||||
| 07 Jan 2021 | #84: My 2020 Business Audit & Lessons for 2021 | 00:35:34 | ||
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
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| 15 Apr 2021 | #96: Improve Productivity: Stop Letting Email Rule Your Day | 00:30:15 | ||
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.”
Easy Ways to Delete Multiple Messages in Gmail
Snooze Gmail emails until later
Create rules to filter your emails
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| 23 Sep 2021 | #113: How to Build Relationships, Not a Network, with Anna Hetzel | 00:39:15 | ||
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.
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?
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| 28 Jan 2021 | #87: My Most Anticipated 2021 Books (and Fave 2020 Books) | 00:35:39 | ||
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:
Honorable mention: 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 | ||||
| 24 Mar 2022 | #133: My Big Failure of 2022 (So Far) | 00:29:42 | ||
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
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| 08 Oct 2020 | #75: How to Embrace Mindfulness in Your Marketing, with Sarah DeGeorge | 00:33:04 | ||
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:
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:
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
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| 05 Mar 2020 | REPLAY #19: Visualize Your Perfect Work Day and Then Create It | 00:33:02 | ||
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 | ||||
| 20 Feb 2020 | #47: How to Get Better Sleep to Improve your Freelance Life | 00:28:10 | ||
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: Rooibos teas that I love (my favorite is Hot Cincinnati Spice) | ||||
| 05 Sep 2019 | #26: Delegate, Automate and Terminate to Improve Your Business | 00:27:15 | ||
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 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 Rev (transcriptions) | ||||
| 02 Nov 2023 | #172: My Q3 Audit: Better, But Still Room for Improvement | 00:32:37 | ||
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:
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 | ||||
| 22 Aug 2019 | #24: Networking Tips, Especially as an Introvert | 00:37:39 | ||
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 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 | ||||
| 19 Sep 2019 | #28: Take Charge of Your Finances, with Pamela Capalad | 00:38:56 | ||
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 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.” | ||||
| 09 Jul 2020 | #63: How I Got a PPP Loan as a Sole Proprietor | 00:21:18 | ||
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 | ||||
| 21 Nov 2024 | #196: Wrap Up the Year on a High Note | 00:25:27 | ||
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 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 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 | ||||
| 31 Oct 2024 | #193: How to Improve Your Money and Your Nutrition Habits, with Reyna Gobel | 00:37:41 | ||
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:
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” Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee | ||||
| 07 Dec 2023 | #176: How to Use Conscious Language in Content Creation, with Crystal Shelley | 00:49:30 | ||
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:
Resources:
Style Guides:
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| 20 Oct 2022 | #145: Scared (Uncomfortable, Intimidated) and Doing It Anyway, with Lauree Ostrofsky | 00:49:31 | ||
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:
Join the Deliberate Freelancer Facebook group. Support Deliberate Freelancer at Buy Me a Coffee. | ||||
| 17 Oct 2019 | #32: Time Freedom: Work Less for More Money, with Vincent Pugliese | 00:35:40 | ||
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
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| 01 Oct 2020 | #74: How to Get Paid on Time & Charge Late Fees, with Wudan Yan | 00:35:49 | ||
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 | ||||
| 25 Jul 2019 | #20: How to Use LinkedIn Better to Find Clients, with Phaedra Brotherton | 00:35:12 | ||
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? | ||||
| 13 Oct 2022 | #144: How I Succeed and Fail at Self-Discipline | 00:35:16 | ||
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:
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.
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.
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:
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| 12 Mar 2020 | REPLAY #40: Reflect, Analyze and Plan for the New Year | 00:28:52 | ||
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:
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 | ||||
| 14 May 2020 | #55: How to Use Pinterest to Grow Your Business, with Julia Bocchese | 00:31:44 | ||
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: 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’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) | ||||
| 22 Jul 2021 | #105: My Procrastination Struggle and Potential Solutions | 00:33:57 | ||
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:
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.
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.
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:
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 | ||||
| 25 Jun 2020 | #61: 6 Ways to Be an Ally with Your Freelance Business | 00:26:29 | ||
Three requests for the podcast right now:
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
melanie@meledits.com or DM @MelEdits on Twitter
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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| 07 Oct 2021 | #115: Time Tracking Lessons from Deliberate Freelancer Listeners | 00:21:16 | ||
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
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| 23 Jul 2020 | #65: The No. 1 Way I Find New Clients | 00:26:36 | ||
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 | ||||
| 03 Mar 2021 | REPLAY #73: We Must Fight Against the Anti-Freelance PRO Act, with Kim Kavin & Karon Warren | 00:43:06 | ||
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:
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 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 | ||||
| 27 Feb 2020 | REPLAY #3: Host a Solo Business Retreat | 00:17:21 | ||
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. | ||||
| 06 Aug 2020 | #66: How to Price Your Projects | 00:30:42 | ||
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:
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:
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:
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 Rev.com (transcriptionist service)
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| 04 Jun 2020 | #58: How to Reimagine Your Goals during a Crisis | 00:21:16 | ||
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) | ||||
| 17 Jun 2021 | #100: Lessons from a Pandemic Year, with Jennifer Goforth Gregory | 00:56:53 | ||
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”
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| 02 Mar 2023 | #154: How to Create Your Own Benefits Package, with Miranda Marquit | 00:50:36 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Outsource tasks Resources:
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| 11 Apr 2024 | #186: Creating a Netflix-like Membership Program for Your Clients, with photographer Annemie Tonken | 00:46:25 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Conduct an audit of your business systems — with the goals of automation and outsourcing. Resources:
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| 13 Apr 2023 | #160: The Dreaded Feast or Famine! | 00:26:49 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Use the two-minute rule to get things done The Bookshelf: “Nora Goes off Script” by Annabel Monaghan Resources:
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| 04 May 2023 | #162: My Solo Business Retreat Reminded Me to Always Be Marketing | 00:28:33 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Let an app do your errands The Bookshelf: “The Verifiers” by Jane Pek Resources:
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| 22 Apr 2021 | REPLAY #22: How to Create a Better Work-Life Balance, with Laura Poole | 00:41:31 | ||
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”
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| 23 Feb 2023 | #153: My 2022 and Q4 Audit and Six Lessons from Last Year | 00:37:59 | ||
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:
Biz Bite: Overestimate your time for deep work The Bookshelf: “The Light Pirate” by Lily Brooks-Dalton Resources:
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