05.26.23

11 years of freelancing: Things I’m still working on

Today, I celebrate 11 years of freelancing.

It feels like just yesterday when I wrote about a decade of doing this. In wedding anniversary materials, I should be gifting myself with something made of steel (blah blah about being married to my work). In the past, I’ve done posts that list the things I’ve learned, but I’m switching it up this time to 11 things I’m working on.

Thinking back to my early days of freelancing, I remember comparing myself to others further in their careers. I thought they knew everything and were so put together. So I’m here to combat that belief: I don’t know everything and I’m still kind of messy.

Here are 11 things I’m still working on (lots of reframing work happening here):

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02.22.23

my writing process

My writing workflow is probably more elaborate than it should be. I’m a slow writer. At least, I believe I am. I would never survive in a newsroom. It takes me what feels like forever to gather interviews, and that part alone isn’t a single task.

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02.15.23

There is always a budget even if they don’t tell you so

In my experience as a consultant and freelancer—trying out different ways of handling new client inquiries—asking for the budget is one of the ways to weed out those who aren’t serious yet about hiring you. I make the intake question required, though people have filled it out before without actually putting in a number. I don’t ask for an exact amount; a range is fine. What I really want to know is whether you put a little thought into what a project might cost you.

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11.17.22

Remembering Twitter

A eulogy, of sorts.

At the end of 2008, I was finishing my first semester as a college senior. When I started undergrad, I’d already had a Xanga, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and a barely touched MySpace. Facebook had just opened signups to non-college emails. The online world fascinated me and here came along this network that you could micro-blog on!

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08.24.22

I’m a lurker, you’re a lurker, we’re all lurkers

It is said that 90% of any online social readership are lurkers. Lurkers are those who consume the content but don’t respond to it. Nine percent are contributors and only one percent create content, forming the 90-9-1 rule. This is not a new marketing rule and it seems to apply only in spaces for online communities, such as Twitter, Reddit, interest-based forums, Twitch, etc.

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07.13.22

Cultural competence & pop culture

Do you need to have a working knowledge of pop culture to be effective at marketing?

This is the question that I’ve been mulling over for a bit. The cultural competence part came in when I read a piece about therapists and building up a cultural competence of those who are “extremely online.” In marketing, it doesn’t seem like we call it cultural competence. Instead, we create buyer personas and market research. We do focus groups and ask if someone’s interested in such and such product, dutifully noting down their demographics.

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06.15.22

Why I’m a marketing specialist and not a generalist

A few times a month, I receive work inquiries about consulting with a company that is not in the coffee industry. They’ve sometimes found me through my writing on Sprout Social or through a google search. Some have even read my note about taking on only specialty coffee coaching clients, referencing the note in their form, and yet still email thinking that I am the solution to their problems.

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05.26.22

10 Lessons from 10 years of freelancing

Today, I celebrate a decade of freelancing/self-employment.

Something funny happens when you give notice at a job: people ask you what you’re going to do next. So when I put in my notice at Groupon a decade ago, after burning out twice, I did it because I was on the edge of a third burnout. I had enough saved up at the time and very few expenses so I was able to leave without thinking of what I’d do next. But because people kept asking, I ended up scrambling for an answer and blurted out, “I’m starting a business! I’m going to do coffee crawls!”

Wow, I was so naive. Fast forward through creating and ending that business, part-time jobs, a “full-time” client that paid me as a consultant, and offering and stopping services, here I am.

One decade is a long time. If you’ve been following along in my journey, you’ll know that I like to celebrate the wins, no matter how small. My freelance-versary is a big win: it’s marked in my calendar, I usually do something to celebrate it, and I write one of these posts to mark where I was in the journey. You can read my 9-year post from last year here.

Here are 10 lessons I’ve learned from 10 years of freelancing:

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