No path is linear: Let's talk freelance (and normalise all paths in content as wiggly and wonderful)

00:02 Right. Welcome everybody to the final panel today, where we're going to be talking about the different ways that you can work in content design and UX writing, because you can't only work in-house, you can also work as a freelancer or contractor or a consultant.

00:19 And on this panel, we're gonna take some of the most frequent questions that we get around working as a freelance, consultant or contractor, uh, and how we got there.

00:29 Really. And we're going to kick this off by introducing ourselves to you. Um, I'm going to my introduction really short because I don't want to take the spotlight away from the awesome panelists.

00:40 Um, I'm Nicole, you probably know me from my podcast, Content Rookie. I've been a freelancer for 12 years in content design, content marketing and UX writing, and I'm currently at Spotify.

00:52 Um, but yeah, let's get started with the panelists. We have Lauren first.

00:57 Hi, I'm Lauren Pope. I'm an independent content strategist. I've been independent for about four years and I'm focused on working with charities, arts organizations and good businesses.

01:08 And I live in Brighton in the UK.

01:11 Thanks so much, Lauren, what about you, Rachel?

01:13 Hi there, I'm Rachel, I'm a senior consultant content designer, um, and living and working in Edinburgh. Although you might be able to tell I'm originally from the left-hand side of Canada and, um, yeah, I'm just waiting for one of my children to probably come in and interrupt me.

01:29 So if that happens, my apologies.

01:32 No worries. Rachel, tell us a little bit about yourself, Neha.

01:37 Hi everyone. Um, so I'm, , I'm from Mauritius. I have been a freelancer for around five years now in digital content marketing and writing for the B2B and SaaS as well.

01:50 So I was in the corporate environment, uh, before then, but then I switched to freelance. Full-time so excited to be here and talk about everything.

02:00 Cool. Thank you. And finally, Jennifer.

02:03 Hi everyone. My name is Jennifer. I go by Jen, um, been a freelance content provider for about 12 years. I'm currently doing content design and content strategy, and I have an agency of about 12 freelance writers that work with me on my teams.

02:22 Wow, great. Thank you everyone for the introductions. Um, I guess we'll jump right into the questions we have prepared for you.

02:29 Um, side note, you can also ask questions to all of the panelists in the dedicated Slack channel, and hopefully we'll have time at the end to take those as well, but we'll start with a question that I'm sure everyone finds.

02:41 Interesting. And that is how did you get into UX writing? Uh, maybe you did something else before, um, and maybe also elaborate a little bit on why you decided to work as a freelancer or a consultant instead of working in house.

02:54 Does anyone want to take your first?

02:59 I'll go. Um, so I actually started as a writer, um, as a freelance journalist, uh, while I was in college.

03:09 And then I left that because journalists don't make any money and it's a lot of work. Um, so, and I started working in tech and sales, but the whole time I was in sales and marketing type roles, I really want it to write.

03:23 You know, cause that's where my passion has always been. And um, when I suffered a burnout, um, from working in tech support and tech, um, I went back to try writing just, you know, as a way of making money.

03:37 Cause it was, I was at my breaking point and uh, I started doing content writing, um, for a content mill.

03:46 I believe I made about 2 cents a word when I first started, but I kept at it because I enjoyed the writing and it was an easy way to just kind of keep making money at that time, um, of my health crisis basically.

04:00 But as I kept working at it, I got more and more frustrated about the quality of content that was online.

04:07 And um, I just felt like I needed to do better. Um, and over the years, um, I thought the term UX started being used everywhere and I'm like, what does this mean?

04:19 What does this user experience writing? It seems like what I do. So then I started looking into it and trying to understand what it meant.

04:26 Um, and now that's primarily what I'm doing is UX writing and content design and content strategy. The more I've learned about what it means, the more I'm realizing, Hey, that's, um, that's what I'm doing.

04:39 So, um, yeah, it just kind of happened I guess, on the freelancing it's because, um, it was the easiest way for me to get work.

04:48 Um, trying to, I try to get jobs as a writer for the companies that I worked for and they said I wasn't qualified.

04:56 So I just went ahead and did it myself. And now those same companies, you know, try to get contracts from me.

05:03 And I'm like, no, no, thank you.

05:08 That's been quite a journey. Thanks so much for sharing. That sounds amazing. Like how you built your way up there.

05:14 That's that's really cool. And you have an agency with 12 people you said, right?

05:18 Yeah. Yeah, because, um, when I first started, I was, um, I had more work than I could handle and my health issues started popping their heads up again and I was like, I need help.

05:30 And so many people responded. It was back in 2000, uh, 11 or 12. Wait, what year is 20 2015. That's when it was when I asked for help.

05:40 And so many people responded and I did not want to say no. I was like, okay, you can write for me and you can write for me.

05:47 And I had four people and I'm like, wait, I don't have any work for them. So then I suddenly had to switch gears and focus on like just getting work and then became an agency, I guess.

05:57 But it was just more me trying, you know, have some help.

06:01 Yeah. But I think that's some really good advice already there. Um, if you get work that you maybe can't take on at the moment or maybe it's work, you don't necessarily want to do because it's an industry and are comfortable with, to have that network and maybe, you know, bring those people on.

06:15 I think that's really good advice already know,

06:17 Spread the love,

06:19 Spread it. All right. So Rachel, you're not a freelancer per se. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about how you work?

06:27 Um, yeah, I'll start with kind of my journey into content if you want. Um, I totally fell into this. I like Jennifer, I'd always loved words and writing.

06:39 Um, my dream was to be a famous writer and that never happened. Um, so I kind of put that aside and I got a day job and I worked in parliament in the Scottish parliament for a number of years.

06:51 And it wasn't until after I'd been about 10 years, I realized there was a common thread to all the jobs that I loved in the parliament.

07:00 And it was things like, um, participation and accessibility and making information clear to people. And at this point I still didn't even know content design was a job.

07:10 Um, and then I started working on some websites and some website information. I got more interested in it and eventually I was seconded to work on a web replacement project.

07:20 And that's how I started as a content designer. Um, and I, after working in the parliament doing that for a few years, um, I decided I wanted a bit more variety.

07:30 There's, there's something to be said for working in house and you get to sort of develop a tone and a style and you know, your kind of area inside out, but it's really difficult if you want to try a lot of different things.

07:42 Um, at the same time, I wasn't really brave enough to go out on my own. So I work as a consultant, which means I've got a kind of parent organization.

07:52 who finds me work. Um, I have, it feels like when I'm on a project, I've got two different jobs or two different teams.

08:01 Um, so I've got my project team that I see every day. And then I've got my consultant family, um, design team and they're there kind of for support and ideas and training and development.

08:11 Um, so I've got a bit of security and stability, but I still get to dabble and I can be on projects or anything from a couple of weeks to, um, I've been on a project for about 11 months now.

08:21 So it gives me a bit of variety.

08:25 Thanks so much, Rachel, you're essentially the Hannah Montana of contents. I love it. All right. Uh, Lauren, maybe you want to talk a little bit about your journey?

08:35 Yeah, I mean, similarly to Jen, actually I wanted to be a journalist when I was at university. Um, I saw an advert for a job that promised to put me through the NCTJ which is the UK kind of journalism training.

08:49 It was just a content mill, cause this was quite a long time ago when you could gain Google news by writing new stories or these brands were doing it and using it for kind of keyword stuffing.

08:59 But, um, yeah, I did that for a few months and I was like, oh, this is, this is really interesting, but I don't want to do it this way.

09:06 Um, but luckily I got head hunted because people were looking for anybody who had kind of basic content writing skills and understood something about SEO.

09:14 Um, so that kind of got me my first job. Um in-house um, and I stayed at that company for about four years.

09:21 I got to do a bit of everything, lots of UX writing or now content design, but that term did not exist back then.

09:27 Um, this was also when social media was really just starting to become a thing that businesses need to do needed to do.

09:32 So I helped set up the first kind of social media accounts for that company. Doing social customer service helped start the blog, um, help them kind of launch new brands.

09:41 And I just really fell in love with the idea of content strategy through all of that work because, um, it kind of combined research and writing with problem solving.

09:50 And the other thing that I really loved about it was it had this really strong kind of ethical focus as well about doing the right thing for the user and doing things in a way that's kind of, um, fair and not misleading and just helping people, you know, meet their needs, solve their problem.

10:04 After that I went and worked agency side and worked mostly on kind of content strategy projects and lots of content operation stuff with some of the biggest brands in the world.

10:13 Um, and I traveled loads and it was amazing. And then suddenly it wasn't amazing because I was never at home.

10:21 I worked really, really long hours and I also had some health problems as well. And I just didn't, I couldn't do it anymore.

10:26 I also felt quite conflicted about a lot of the stuff that I was doing from kind of an ethical and a values point of view.

10:33 Um, all I was doing was making rich white men richer, which I didn't feel great about. Um, so I started my own business, um, four years ago and, um, kind of gradually built up to just working with charity or and arts organization clients.

10:49 Um, yeah. And I love it. I haven't looked back since.

10:53 That's great. Thanks so much for sharing me. How welcome back do you want to tell us a little bit about,

10:58 Yeah, sure. So, uh, I was always in the corporate environment and believe it or not, I was not in the content strategy and everything.

11:10 I was doing project management. I work in banks and technology companies, and eventually I realized that, uh, this is not what I loved to do.

11:20 And I started digging more into what I like to do, so I loved writing. Um, so, and I love the content stuff.

11:29 So then I started researching more, um, self-learning and this is how I started to freelance in parallel of my corporate job.

11:39 So to build up my portfolio to, uh, you know, upskills, I was doing that after working, hours and during weekends.

11:48 So I did that, uh, along with my corporate job, my nine to five job. I, I did that for around two years where I eventually took the leap to say, okay, now it's time.

11:59 I can't keep doing the corporate job. This is not what I love to do. And eventually I quit and I quit, I went into full-time freelancer, uh, working on my own, um, when I was, when I quit, I, uh, I started, uh, I co-founded sorry, I co-founded a startup with a friend on a business idea that we had for

12:23 like a year. And I was handling all the, uh, content, the marketing, um, how, how even the UX and the UI writing on the product that we were launching.

12:34 I did that for a year while still freelancing because I had already built up a portfolio of clients and I love doing that.

12:42 And then after a year, um, I exited the startup and now I'm all on my own, a one woman business I take on a freelance project contract project.

12:54 Short-term long-term it depends. So I'm quite flexible there. Um, so yeah, it's been a, it's been a great journey so far.

13:06 Great. Thank you so much for sharing. Um, so Neha, you already kind of touched upon why you decided to go the freelance path.

13:14 Um, but Rachel, I would love to learn a little bit more about your setup. Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

13:20 Yeah. Um, so as I sort of mentioned, um, I've got huge admiration for the rest of you who do freelance because I was scared of frankly.

13:32 And when I knew I wanted a career change and I knew I wanted something that was less, you know, embedding into an organization, but I wasn't, I just wasn't brave enough to do what you've all done.

13:43 Um, so kudos to you. I didn't even know consultancy was a thing really. Um, and so the company I work for is Sopra Steria and they have in that organization, there's a design team, which I'm a part of there's about 50 of us, um, covering all kinds of different aspects of, um, user centered design.

14:04 And what they'll do is they work largely for, um, the public sector and they'll create bids and look for various pieces of work with partner organizations.

14:18 And I get a bit of say and what I'm interested in and where I go. Um, and then, yeah, like I mentioned, those placements can be anything from doing a really fast discovery to, um, the project that I've been with just now I've been with since alpha all the way through to live service.

14:36 Um, but it gives me a bit of control because if I say, you know, I've had enough of this project, or I want to do something new, or I want my next project to be in a completely different field, that's listened to and respected, but I have, who's doing all that, finding the work for me, um, again, different

14:56 from working for an agency too, because I get my guaranteed salary, my benefits, um, and most important for me, I've got a team of coworkers.

15:05 Um, I think without that support network, I would really struggle as well. So the goal is maybe to get a bit more experience, doing the consultancy and in a few years when my kids are a bit older, look at being a freelancer.

15:18 So I'm taking notes from you guys as well.

15:20 Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing. Um, I can just add to that very briefly. The reason that I like to freelance is that working in house can feel really slow sometimes, especially in a big corporation and I have no patience.

15:34 So that's essentially the summary for me.

15:38 I definitely relate to that. Yeah. And there's something nice too, about coming in as an external you're, you're treated a bit differently.

15:44 And I think a few of you sort of alluded to that, that, you know, you, you didn't get jobs with these people who are now asking you for work and there's something about being that unknown quantity.

15:53 It does make things easier.

15:55 Yeah. Jennifer mentioned that in the beginning that like now she's getting contracts from those companies that didn't want to hire her.

16:02 And I mean, I can relate to that as well, so definitely. And it's good to cost them money sometimes because then they have to take faster decisions.

16:13 All right. Um, a little bit of a zoomed out question. That's maybe not necessarily about your personal experience, but are there some things you would recommend to those that are maybe interested in starting their freelance journey specifically in content design?

16:34 I'm happy to jump in on this one,

16:36 Go for it.

16:39 I think you want to go down the route of, um, you know, freelancing and taking on your own projects rather than contracting or consulting with an umbrella company.

16:49 I think it's really good to make sure you take some time to kind of understand business and learn about client management and things like that.

16:56 Um, I learnt loads about those things from my kind of, um, working for a small agency. I worked with some amazingly really talented founders who were kind of very open about the work that they were doing and kind of sharing their work and letting you see kind of under the hood of what was going on and

17:11 some amazing client partners as well, who gave me like a master class in how to get the best out of a relationship with a client.

17:18 And I think if I had gone freelance earlier, before I'd had that experience, I don't think I would have made it to the end of my first year in business.

17:24 Um, just like learning how to price the project properly. Um, you know, how to price my time, how to estimate how long a piece of work was going to take and then, you know, how to have that have a really good positive relationship with the client and how to give them a good experience.

17:38 I think it's so important.

17:41 Yeah. I think there was some really good advice. Yeah. That's great.

17:45 Definitely hiring an accountant as well. I didn't do that for the first year and I regret

17:50 It's the best money I've ever spent. My accountant was the first thing I did as soon as I started my business.

17:56 And he's so grateful because he was also starting off his accounting business at that time. So now he does like all my taxes for free and everything just because he's so grateful.

18:04 So really recommend. Does anyone else have any advice to add for potential future freelance content designers?

18:14 I really would want to point out in addition to everything that Lauren said. Um, um, I have kind of a headstart because my father is a business consultant and all he does is his entire life is tell people how to start their own businesses.

18:27 So that part I kind of already knew, but the part, I think really I've seen a lot of people get caught up on when they start off, as freelancers is not understanding that they are their own business, that they are going to have to like figure out the product, be responsible for, for the product and deliver

18:43 that there is no like go and ask, like, okay, what do I do? No, you, you have to figure that out yourself.

18:51 Um, and I think with a lot of the new freelancers I've worked with there's, I can tell really quickly who's going to survive a year based on that mentality of, I call it like the worker mentality rather than the freelancer mentality.

19:05 Um, the freelancer knows that they're their own business. They, they really get that. It is, it's not just like the pricing and the accounting and the business management side of it.

19:16 Just the mindset of I am my own business. You know, I make the decisions myself and I'm accountable for these decisions.

19:24 There's no one else I can like blame my failures on if I don't know something, I need to go get the training, you know, um, that, that type of, I don't want to say hustle, but that type of hustle mentality, you kind of have to have if you're going to be a freelancer in anything.

19:40 Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much for keeping it real Jennifer, I'm also really careful with using the term hustle, but I totally agree with you.

19:46 I think it's, it's a really hardcore hustle actually. And, um, yeah, similar to you. I've also had burnout in the past and it was actually really, really difficult to deal with that while freelancing, because everyday you rest, you lose money.

20:00 It really is like that in the end. So yeah, it sounds super great when we talk about all the freedom and how, how clients pay us money, but there's a lot more to it.

20:11 Yeah. I would love to add a little point just to this very specific question for freelancing and content design. And that will be, um, don't necessarily pitch yourself just as a content designer.

20:23 I feel like a lot of the gigs out there, companies, clients, they don't actually know that they're looking for a content designer.

20:29 They may be asking for UX writer, writer, content manager, strategists. Ontologists there are so many terms that may actually still be work you can do for them.

20:39 So be a little bit more versatile with your title, or maybe don't even tie yourself too closely to the title.

20:45 And that for me was super valuable, at least when I was starting out to kind of trying to navigate what are these different projects?

20:51 Where are these people looking for? And like now essentially I'm just like, yeah, I don't know what I would call this, but I can help you or not.

21:00 So that's a good tip. All right. Um, so we've talked about this very briefly in some of the comments that you've made.

21:10 Um, but how do you find clients and then how do you pitch them or what goes into the proposal process for you?

21:19 Um, and maybe Neha, you have some thoughts on this.

21:22 Yeah. Um, so if I can share from my own experience, uh, being a freelancer, um, I would say, well, I cannot stress this enough, have your personal and your professional branding is very important at the end of the day.

21:37 People don't do business with, uh, your brand name or your company or what you're going to offer, but they do business with people.

21:46 So you as a person and putting yourself out there, uh, is how you're going to attract, um, the clients of high quality that you want.

21:57 Um, so where do you find clients? Uh, it depends. It could be on social networks. Like for me it was LinkedIn, it was Twitter, it was Facebook groups.

22:06 Uh, it could be networking events. It could be, uh, just meeting and interacting with not only the clients, but also freelancers who are in the same field as yours, uh, referrals, word of mouth, but still even on social networks like LinkedIn or Twitter, it's putting you out there.

22:28 So sharing tips, sharing, advices, sharing, um, strategies, what not, of course not in detail, but very high level points. Um, and then when people, uh, they'll see that, you know, uh, what you do, you know, what to bring on the table?

22:48 Um, so this is one tip that I like shares personal branding, always. Uh, don't forget about that and the proposal process.

22:58 So, uh, it actually depends on the clients, uh, on potential clients, potential needs that you're reaching out. Um, so for me, it, it depends like sometimes you have clients who are expecting like a full, detailed proposal.

23:13 Some are okay with just, uh, you know, sending out, um, your portfolio and previous work that they've, that you've done.

23:22 And they can from that look and see where you stand and everything. And then you can have just a quick intro call with your potential clients and just to better understand about what requirements and everything, and if the client is asking for a proposal, um, so briefly explain the objective, the requirements

23:44 , what problem you'll solving, um, the action points that you think that you're going to use if you're going to work together, of course, your pricing, your rates.

23:55 Um, and so that includes testimonials and previous work. So yeah. Um, a bit like this.

24:04 Yeah. That was a really good detailed advice. Thank you so much. Anyone else want to add to that?

24:10 Um, yeah, I mean, I say I got all of my work from my network and from referrals. Um, and I still kind of pinch myself because I can't quite believe it because I feel very lucky to be in that situation, but I think nurturing my network's.

24:24 been really important. And that has been quite hard during COVID because, you know, you can't like do as many face-to-face coffee meetings or go to conferences or meetups and things like that.

24:32 So I've been trying to kind of do more of that online, um, then when it comes to kind of the proposal process, um, I tend to do a little bit of triage with clients beforehand because I only work with certain types of organizations.

24:45 So I pass on a lot of referrals to other people and love doing that. Um, particularly if there's somebody who I know is going to be a really amazing fit.

24:52 Um, then after that, you know, if it looks like we're going to be kind of a fairly good fit, if their project is my kind of thing and their values align with my own, I'll have a call with them to get to know them, ask them lots of questions.

25:04 Um, so that I can then write up a proposal. Um, I try and keep my proposals short. I just tell them what I'm going to do, why I'm going to do that, how much it's going to cost and how long it's going to take.

25:14 I don't really get into kind of pitching concepts or, um, you know, getting too much into kind of ideas or trying to solve the problem ahead of time.

25:22 Um, because I don't want to spend loads of time and energy on a proposal, which is gonna take away from the time I have to do work for my clients.

25:31 Um, yeah.

25:34 Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing. Any other thoughts

25:38 I have to add because, um, this one gets a bad rap all the time and I've had actual success. So I'm going to throw this out there.

25:46 I've gotten 90% of my clients from third-party sites like Upwork and Freelancer and all the other stuff. But the caveat is that I was on these sites in 2000, gosh, 10, 11, 12, 13.

26:02 So I don't know if you can still say that and do that nowadays. I really am doubtful if anyone says like, oh, just go on one of those sites, probably not.

26:11 But, um, if you're able to find places like that that are new and build, um, build a presence on them over time, it can build into something.

26:22 Um, I bought a house, you know, last year off of my freelancing income in a, in an area that's not cheap, so it can work, you know, um, even off of these, like people say low end ways of, of getting clients.

26:38 And you just have to be very good about who you screen and be very competitive about, well, know who you are.

26:44 They know who you are and know your brand and be different from everyone else that's how you stand out in a gigantic marketplace like that.

26:52 Um, I have a joke that, um, whenever I want clients, I just like, turn my thing on and then boom, they're just there.

27:02 And I just go through them. I don't, I haven't marketed in years. I'm actually going to start marketing this year and we'll see what happens.

27:09 But, um, once you get those first clients at the beginning, you keep them and then they just keep talking about you and then you don't have to really worry about it.

27:17 It's really like a year one through three thing where you're actually building up your book of clients, if you're doing it right.

27:23 And then they just keep coming back after that point.

27:27 Yeah. I think that's a really good perspective to have. And I agree with that, like after a couple of years, a lot of the work just comes to you.

27:35 Um, so putting that extra working in the beginning can make a big, big difference, but can also be very difficult because it is exhausting.

27:43 And at the same time, you're usually learning to run a business. Um, so yeah, thanks so much for adding that.

27:49 I will add one point and that is that I feel like a lot of freelancing, especially when you're starting off is a little bit like fake it till you make it, like the amount of times, one of those kickoff calls with the client, trying to figure out what the brief is.

28:05 And I'll just act super confident. You need to act what I'm doing now. I seem some confident, right? I don't know what I'm doing here, but it really helps because the client will trust you.

28:16 And then, definitely sometimes is they don't really read the proposal, if it looks like very professional. So like, I'm not saying like put Lorem ipsum in your proposal, but like, if you're good at being confident and helping them figure out the brief, the proposal will kind of right itself and usually

28:31 not causing any problems. So that's my hot tip on proposal writing. All right. Um, oh, now we have arrived at my favorite question and that is what are some of the things to look out for when freelancing, for example, things like red flags when you're talking to a new client payment terms, defining the

28:52 scope. Any thoughts on that? What about you, Jennifer?

28:57 How did you know I've had all horrible clients?

29:03 Um, my favorite one, I need this today. Oh, really? If, if the whole light, the advertisement for the project is I need it.

29:12 Now that's a huge red flag because they probably don't understand the scope of the work. And you can talk into your head like explode, trying to explain to them how much work is going to be.

29:24 They'll never get it. And they will continue to undervalue very, very likely. Um, I've not had any success with clients that start that way.

29:32 I I'll get the project and then I'll never work with them again, you know, just quick money, take the money and, you know, leave type thing.

29:39 Um, the other one, I think I would really red flags is, um, I try not to do this too much, but if the, if the communication at the very beginning is very hard to read, um, that's generally a problem for me.

29:56 And, and I've dealt, I've worried about that one a little bit, because it's like, well, they're hiring me because I'm the one that can write.

30:02 I'm the one that can communicate with the written word better and they need my help. And I shouldn't be so judgmental about, you know, their grammar or whatever.

30:09 But what I found is that when they can't even communicate with me, um, uh, in written communication, then it just gets worse over time because they're not even able to tell me what it is they need.

30:21 Um, and I'm not, I'm not a verbal communicator. I'm a, um, I write like even when I can't jump on a Zoom meeting every 10 minutes, while you work out your feelings, I need you to just tell me what it is.

30:34 That is the problem. Um, and so communication style, I guess if the summarize what I'm saying, making sure there's a communication match between myself and the potential client is extremely important for me, because even if it's the perfect project and I'm the best person to do it, if, if me and the

30:52 client can't get along, it's just not going to last, they're going to be calling me names.

30:58 I'm going to be calling them names. And it's just not going to be very comfortable with within a few months.

31:03 Yeah. I think that's really good advice. I also think you're my spirit animal because I'm exactly same. When clients constantly communicate in a weird way or want me on calls.

31:13 I just like, I just, can't very good advice. Um, and I think you also have some advice for us here, right?

31:22 Yeah. Um, I agree with what Jennifer said. I would just wanted to add, like, if you're a new freelancer to the market, it can be difficult to understand the potential client who you're talking to, uh, like in the first, uh, email or anything.

31:39 So I would advise to, um, try to think, who is your ideal client? Like, what are the red flags, what are the green flags?

31:47 What are the things that, um, you wouldn't go for it? You know, it could be, um, like Jennifer said, I need this today, or I need this in 24 hours, but they are not going to give you a rush hour fee.

32:00 It could be, um, clients, uh, you know, I have, when I first started freelancing, I did not know all the stuff.

32:07 And it was like, I, I wanted to build up my portfolio and my experience, I used to take like all the clients coming in without actually thinking if they are the right client.

32:18 So it was just, you know, to build up, the portfolio, the money and everything. And eventually I had a lot bad clients, clients who were calling me like Friday 8:00 PM.

32:31 And it was like, oh God, no. Or a client wanting wanted to, um, wanted the extra work, but they don't pay, um, you know, saying yes to extra work thinking that they are going to pay.

32:47 And then they don't because it's not in the contract, but you already agreed to that because you wanted to be the ideal freelancer and everything.

32:56 So, um, yeah, jotting down. What, uh, to what extent you can agree on, you know, um, set your boundaries also here.

33:07 Um, it could be, and then when you have the intro call with your potential client, and then you can really go through like how ask questions, ask a lot of questions at the end is it's a two way thing.

33:20 Um, it's for the client and for you also, you have to be comfortable with whom you're working with, um, and set your boundaries with the client at the start.

33:32 Um, like Jennifer and Nicole, uh, async communications me too. It says the client, okay, I'm going to do only weekly meeting.

33:42 Um, and then you tell me when you need, when you need the deliverables and everything, I'm here only, if in case something changes or agency as is going to be a weekly meeting, this is how I work.

33:53 Um, and you will realize from there that, um, there are clients who won't agree to this, so they are going to impose, this is how you will know, okay, this is not for me.

34:04 And you will also find client high quality client, which, uh, you will love working with. Uh, just give an example, um, from a client, uh, who's been with me since two years now.

34:18 Um, so one, I think it was, um, a year before I was going through a hard phase of my life.

34:25 I won't go into detail, but it was at the point where I could not work. I wouldn't be able to deliver on the task for the client and everything.

34:31 So I just talk with the client. Um, it was a new client at that point and I told him that, um, so I'm not okay.

34:38 My mental health is not good, so I won't be able to put in, um, the fixed hours that we agreed on for like a week or two maybe.

34:47 And the client reply was not, um, oh my God, what's going to happen to my business. You promised it's in the contract and everything, but the client reply was, um, okay, I am here for you.

35:00 If you need anything, don't worry about, um, the task, my business, or anything, I will deal with that.

35:06 Are you okay? Do you need something? Do you need help? Do you need to cook? You know, so this is the type of client that you really want to attract.

35:14 Um, clients who know your value and what you bring on the table. And the last thing I would want to add about your pricing and rates, you know, how much time and effort you put in your, in the work and the tasks and everything, the reason why your price is at a certain rate and a client sort of high

35:36 quality client will know that too. He or she will know that this particular task is going to take that much time, that much effort.

35:45 And this is the reason why your weight is that much. There will be no, uh, give me a discount or can you go lower?

35:53 Or this is, not in my budget or anything, high quality client. They'll just be okay, cool. What are your payment?

36:01 terms? You know, but clients who are not the right one for you is going to be like, um, so this is too much for me.

36:09 Can you give me a discount? Can we, um, do under the thing under the, uh, payment terms or something, it's going to be very uncomfortable to have this conversation.

36:19 So yeah, a bit of tips from my experience.

36:23 Thank you so much. That was super valuable. i want to underline what you said about boundaries. I hope this doesn't get me banned from Perspectives.

36:32 You are not clients ever. And that's very important to constantly remind them not by saying, but like, kind of remind them.

36:41 So for example, um, I think what often happens to me at least, or maybe this is even something you recognize from working in content, they bring on a content designer or content marketer or UX writer, but they really want you also to be the product matter or the project manager.

36:59 And that's a lot of extra work and a nice way to tell the client that, well, you know, this is not really what I'm going to do is to either say, Hey, I'm going to charge you extra for this.

37:09 If you want me to also facilitate all these meetings or actually keep track of deadlines and timelines and all of that for you, then charge them extra for that, or to really push back and say like, Hey, I think you should bring someone else on to work with us on this project so I can focus on the content

37:24 work.

37:25 Um, so really important kind of hack, there as well, hack it shouldn't be a hack, but it feels a little bit like a hack when you discover it first freelancing.

37:34 Um, so yeah, thanks so much for sharing. Does anyone else want to add anything to the red flags?

37:43 If I could just add one? So, so, um, another thing, uh, how sometimes you can get clients who you already said.

37:55 Um, okay. I, I do X incomes. Um, this is my hours of work and still they are going to call after working hours or anything.

38:05 So this is, uh, this is like a new, um, strategy that, I, uh, adopted recently because I had a client that I really she's nice.

38:13 I really wanted to work with her on her project, but she had the, she started having the habit to, uh, send me messages after like, really late night and calling me on weekends and eventually what I did, uh, because she, she, even if I've talked to her, she did not understand.

38:33 I stopped replying. Uh, during those, if you call me during weekends, I'm not here, but I will reply to her, uh, on Monday in the same, very nice way, polite as if the weekend didn't happened.

38:48 But, and in that way, she understood, okay, that, uh, there, there are boundaries, um, it's important that your client, the people that you work with, they realize and understand that you have a life outside, your freelancing, outside your business and that they respect that, you know, um, it could be

39:12 , uh, sometimes you will, you will realize that the pool of clients that you are, uh, let's say for example, I usually have a weekly meet all my weekly meetings on Mondays with my clients.

39:22 Um, so there are clients who, um, before starting to talk about work, they're all going to be like, how was your weekend?

39:29 What did you do? Okay. I did that, you know, certain nice conversation and they'll actually interested with what you did, and there'll be clients who, uh, always going to be in a bad mood and never really ask about your life.

39:43 Like they, they are like blank. You don't have a life. So, um, red flag. Okay. I'm done now.

39:53 Thank you so much for elaborating on that. Um, I just found out, we only have like five ish minutes left, so I'm going to rush us now.

39:59 So bear with me. Um, I think we have one more really interesting question that we thought we should talk about, and that is around what kind of characteristics or personality traits a freelancer should have, or could have to benefit them.

40:14 Um, so yeah. Does anyone want to weigh in on that

40:18 Willingness to take criticism? Sorry, I just have to throw that one out there. If you've got thick skin, thin skin, and you're going to like really get hurt.

40:29 If someone says that your stuff isn't good and just give up, then you should not be a freelancer. Um, I've said this to so many people it's like, there's so many people in the world that need a writer.

40:42 There's so many things you could be writing about. If this one doesn't fit, just find something else. Don't like, get bent out of shape over it.

40:48 Like your failure. There's so many more wins, so thick skin must have it.

40:54 Great.

40:54 It was a bit about faking it too, um, uh, somebody said it earlier and it's the same in consulting. You go in to client cold and they don't know you, and that can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

41:06 What they want is to see that you're confident and that you feel like you can do the job, even though underneath it at the time, I'm like, oh my God, what have I done?

41:14 Um, so that you've got to be able to project that sort of like I'll put it under control. And the one thing I've learned from working in different situations is we're basically all doing the same thing, but we tend to call it different things.

41:26 So don't get thrown off by the names, just project that, yeah, I know what I'm doing, and it can be really liberating too to not have people who've known you for the last 15 years and know kind of your strengths and your weaknesses.

41:40 You can project this image of yourself that maybe isn't to you actually feel you are. But, um, you know, it's a chance to create a bit of an alter ego.

41:49 I'm going to work that Hannah Montana, Montana one

41:53 Pretty good.

41:54 I think you need to be able to ask great questions and be a really, really good listener. Um, I think it's so important for getting the best out of the project for your clients.

42:05 It's really important if you're going to do any research as part of your work as well. I think the other thing that you need to be tenacious because it's really hard, particularly in the first years, I'm four years in.

42:14 So a lot less than some of the other people on this, on this panel. And I feel like I'm still in that phase of having to be tenacious and like sometimes getting knocked down and having to just get up and keep on doing it.

42:25 Yeah,

42:28 Really good. I would love to add, because I feel like this is a little bit of a misconception. Um, you don't have to be an extrovert to be a good freelancer.

42:36 I feel like a lot of people think you need to be extroverted because that's going to make you a better seller, a pitcher or something like I'm hard core introverted.

42:43 And I know this for sure, because fun fact working with alot different clients can also be really draining because you have so many different interactions.

42:51 Um, and usually like you meet a lot of new people, a lot of different stakeholders. So it can actually be a little bit more comfortable maybe working in house or working just on like one project with the team, more in the long run.

43:03 Um, but definitely I think introverts can also thrive freelancing. I really like something that Jennifer said there earlier, which was that she prefers written communication.

43:11 And I do that too. Uh, and usually you get away with more of that while you're freelancing, versus when you're, for example, working in house where there's a lot of meetings.

43:19 So just kind of a side note, uh, maybe a less obvious one, but something that I always kind of like to tell people that when we talk about, oh, I would like to start freelancing, but I feel quite introverted.

43:30 I wouldn't be good at selling doesn't mean anything. You could still be really good at selling.

43:37 All right. Well, I've just got a message that we are ish out of time. We have like two-ish minutes. So does anyone want to kind of popcorn out like this final thing you definitely want to say on this panel, please go ahead.

43:52 I provide coaching for people that want to learn how to freelance. So yeah, if you have questions about that or, you know, just want to talk with somebody about your plan or any of that stuff, just reach out.

44:03 I always do a free one hour consultation. I just like talking to people to have stuff to say that it's interesting.

44:10 So yeah, if this has been on your mind and you, and you have questions, I would love to talk to you about it.

44:17 Thank you, Jennifer. Any other thoughts?

44:22 I'm going to throw a controversial one out. So ask me a question about this. If it doesn't make sense, don't do day rate or hourly rate, large power projects.

44:30 Tell them how much it costs. Don't tell them how long it's going to take you ever. It took me ages to land that one, but it's pretty important.

44:38 Yeah, I learned that the hard way too.

44:42 Very good. Uh, I want to add that. I write a lot about freelancing, mostly venting and ranting, but you're interested in that you can follow me Twitter and see some of my articles where Ivent.

44:57 All right. Well, thank you so much, everyone on this panel, everyone listening and watching. Um, if you have any more questions for the panelists, then there is a question answers channel on Slack.

45:09 Feel free to post them there. If it's for a specific panelist, please tag them. So they know that they should reply.

45:15 Um, and thank you so much. I hope you have a great evening. Um, yeah. Thank you. Bye-bye everyone, I guess.

45:24 Thanks.