Bio:
Laura Briggs is a freelance writer and entrepreneur who threw out her entire business model at the end of 2015. She was sick of working on unfulfilling contracts and outsourcing her work to subcontractors – a process that seemed to add far more work and frustration.
Instead of continuing down Burnout Boulevard, she fired half her clients and kicked off the new year with some commitments, one of which was to only work with clients and subcontractors who allowed her to grow my business the way she wanted to.
In this episode, Laura and I talk about why and how she made a major pivot in her business, the importance of knowing when it’s time to outsource and how to go about the hiring process to find the perfect team member for your business.
Get In Touch:
Resource List:
Asana.com – Do more of your best work
Walkie Talkie App for Team Communication | Voxer
The Strategy Hour Podcast: Online Business | Blogging …
Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business
Episode Transcript:
Katie (00:00):
Hi everyone. Thank you for tuning into the Hustlenomics podcast. I’m your host, Katie. And today I am so excited to be talking with Laura Briggs. She is a former teacher, turned freelance writer, freelance and coach speaker, and author. Her first book won the author Academy awards best in business prize her second book. The six figure freelancer will come out in October of 2020. So Laura, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Laura (00:22):
Well, thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk with you.
Katie (00:25):
Absolutely. So I would love to learn more about you kind of your background and how you got to where you are today.
Laura (00:31):
Oh, you know, you mentioned in my bio that I used to be a teacher. I thought I was going to be a teacher for most of my kind of adult life working towards a career. I discovered in the practice of teaching that it was not the right fit for me. I have a lot of respect for teachers and what they do, there was no way I could have done that job for 30 years. So I kind of rapidly backpedaled and figured out, okay, what else can I do with some of the skills that I have and decided to pursue freelance writing? Mostly as a side hustle, I took a job as a marketing associate in a financial and insurance brokerage, and a sort of exploring freelance writing on the side. It eventually got to the point where I was so busy with my side hustle, that it wasn’t really sustainable anymore as just a side hustle. So I did that full time. Since 2013, I worked for myself doing website, copy blogs, eBooks, and other projects. And now I’ve expanded more into helping other people figure out how to launch and grow their freelance businesses. So I do coaching courses and I’m working on books as well.
Katie (01:34):
Okay. Very cool. So I’d love to kind of dive in into that transition that you took from teaching into freelancing. So you mentioned you did writing, was it nonfiction fiction? What kind of writing were you mostly doing?
Laura (01:46):
I was mostly doing nonfiction. You can do fiction work. A lot of the fiction work will fall under the category of ghost writing. There’s a big demand, for example, for romance ghostwriters, who are going to complete a manuscript and turn it into someone else who’s going to publish it under their own name or their own pen name. A lot of the online marketing writing work that’s available today, however, is more nonfiction. So it’s helping people make sure that their website is set up properly, that they have email newsletters and things like that.
Katie (02:15):
Okay, fantastic. And so you mentioned you were getting so busy with your side hustle that you had to, you know, take a step back from your more corporate nine to five jobs. So what were some of those first steps that you took when it came to looking for freelance writing jobs and really starting to get that?
Laura (02:31):
Well, I knew that it would have to be something where I was consistent with it every single week. So every time I come across a new freelancer, that’s some of the most important advice that I pass on to them is that when you have no clients and you’re just getting started your full time job in your side hustle, no matter how many hours you’re doing that, it is marketing. So I probably spent six to eight hours a week of my side hustle, just looking for perspective clients, sending out pitches, connecting with people on LinkedIn scanning boards to try to really build up my clientele. And then my goal was to deliver an amazing experience the first time that I worked with any clients so that they felt really compelled to hire me again.
Katie (03:11):
Okay, fantastic. And I saw on your website that you said in 2015, you throughout your entire business model and kind of restarted everything. Do you mind talking about that?
Laura (03:21):
So there’s two major ways that you can run a freelance business. One is as a solo preneur where you are simply bringing on as much work as you personally want to do for the number of clients that you’d like to have. And the other version is as an agency where you are the person going out and getting the business and possibly assigning the projects, but you’re giving those projects to other subcontractors. So in 2015, I used a lot of subcontracted writers. So I would get the business, I’d get the contract signed. I would get paid by the clients, but I outsource the work to other writers. And I did that for a year and I had some really big projects that I worked on during that time. But at the end of the year, I found out I really hated it. And so it was time to reconsider, you know, what does my business look like if it’s only me doing the writing for my clients, how specific do I have to be about who I choose to work with knowing that I don’t want to be in the business of managing other writers.
Katie (04:14):
Right. So you kind of got rid of some of your clients you were working with and started over. Did that include things like raising your prices or anything like that? It did. And I also got very, very clear on it
Laura (04:25):
And who I would and wouldn’t work with. So I had to walk away from some things that I previously might have taken on when I started my business. Like if someone contacted me and said, Hey, I just need you to write one page for my website as a beginner. I probably would have done that project. But now that my business was growing and there was demand and I wanted to just do the work myself, I focused on the projects that I could do the easiest and the fastest and the ones that I enjoyed the most. So I let go of smaller contracts. I let go of one time projects. I let go of a lot of clients who are difficult to deal with and became laser-focused in a niche as well.
Katie (05:00):
So amazing. So with that overhaul, did that include changing your website and your branding? Or did you kind of just do more change on the client end? I guess I would say it was more than that
Laura (05:09):
Client end. I did take down any references to like having a team of writers. It was a consistent thing that came up with a lot of the clients that I had to, they were asking me specifically, Oh, can you work on my projects rather than it being someone on your writing team? And so I thought, you know, if my clients are asking for me and they’re paying premium prices, because they would like me to complete the project, there’s not really enough revenue in this idea of bringing on other writers and paying those other writers. I’d rather just do the work myself. So I just took out some minor references and repositioned myself as an individual.
Katie (05:44):
Yeah. I love that story. I’m always so fascinated with, you know, when people pivot or maybe just kind of upgrade their business cause it’s kind of a scary transition to make. I definitely would be for me. So I always love hearing about that. And it was a success in your case. And so you mentioned on your website that you always, that you also hired a VA and I work as a virtual assistant and I work with other companies that, you know hire virtual assistants. So what was that experience like for the first time?
Laura (06:10):
It’s very nerve wracking. The first time that you hire a VA. Because a lot of times we don’t think about it the right way as business owners, we’re used to doing everything ourselves and it’s easy to see that as an expense. And I often tell other business owners, your first VA is not an expense. That person is an investment because they are freeing you up either in terms of time or mental space or both to allow you to focus on other things so that you can grow the business because otherwise you get stuck in this hamster wheel of doing all the things in your business and it doesn’t really grow anywhere and you just end up burned out and frustrated. So I learned a lot, my first experience outsourcing to a VA, I learned which things, you know, were better kept that I do them, which ones made sense to give to a VA and how to screen a person like that. I’ve worked with virtual assistants and subcontractors doing things other than writing the entire time I’ve had my business. So right now I have three virtual assistants who work as independent contractors and I’m currently interviewing other people for an executive assistant role who will also be working as an independent contractor. So I’m a big fan of outsourcing and delegating. Even if it’s not client work, my VA’s make it possible for me to do all the things I do because they handle so much behind the scenes.
Katie (07:22):
Yeah. I love that. And it’s so awesome that you were open to that process. I find a lot of entrepreneurs it’s so hard to let go, which I totally get. But once you get more used to it, it’s, it gets easier and easier. And so what was that hiring process like for you? I’m, especially as me asking as someone who’s never hired anybody else before, what was it like for you? And do you have any tips and tricks to really find someone that’s going to work well with you and your business?
Laura (07:46):
Yeah. So the first thing is to know your own personality, because that’s something that you can’t really change about someone else. I think that the first time a lot of people outsource, they tend to want to hire the person who seems to have the best skills for the job, but all the skills in the world. So if this person is amazing at Pinterest, or they’re incredible with managing a calendar or email, but you too have a personality conflict, or you think, and work in different ways, that is going to be an uphill battle every single day. And I learned that message the hard way by hiring some of the wrong people. And it was just like, man, it’s like, I keep giving instructions and it’s not very clear and they want their hands to be held through the process. And that’s not really my style.
Laura (08:26):
I don’t like to be micromanaged. So I don’t micromanage anyone I work with. And I realized that those were things that I needed to be mindful of. And I started putting them in my job descriptions. And so when I just, you know, even today, like last week I wrote this job description for an executive assistant, I was very clear like, Hey, these are my strengths. These are also my weaknesses. And this is how my personality is. And this is the type of person I work best with. Because part of my goal in that is asking those people are looking at the job description to opt out if they immediately go, Oh, that’s not me. So maybe you love giving written instruction, but your VA doesn’t learn that way. Your VA learns by watching videos. So you’ve got to think about all those kinds of things.
Laura (09:09):
That’s a question I always ask now too, is how do you best receive instruction? And if someone answers the way that is going to, I know is just going to be really difficult for me to keep up with or figure out that’s probably not going to be a good relationship going forward. So step number one is definitely knowing yourself. And step number two is to be really clear about what it is you’re asking them to do. I think as business owners, we T we do a lot of things. And so we tend to think, well, if I hire a VA, it’s going to be this magical unicorn VA who can do all 35 tasks on my list and do all of them at a hundred percent level of perfection. And what happens is you overload the VA. They might only be good at a handful of those tasks, the other ones they hate.
Laura (09:52):
So they start dreading the work communication drops off. And if you just said, you know, what, what are the five most important things I really need my VA to do? Can those all reasonably be done by one person and then screened for that one person in that role, you would have been much more effective because if you picked the tasks that would move your business forward the most, rather than trying to say, well, here’s 35 things I do. Some are more important than others, but I’m not really going to tell you which ones and all of that. It just sets the VA up for failure, kind of from the beginning. Yeah.
Katie (10:22):
That’s such great advice. And I can say on the side of working as a virtual assistant, that is so helpful when you come into the conversation and the relationship with that in mind, very, very helpful advice. And you do some coaching as well. Do you mind just kind of touching on what you do with coaching?
Laura (10:38):
Yeah. So it’s really similar in the way that I built my freelance business. I tried to figure out what am I best at? So I personally don’t love having phone calls on my schedule. So I coach all of my clients through Voxer, which is a voice app. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s kind of like leaving an instant voicemail message for somebody within the app. And it goes back and forth kind of all day. So I do sort of one day Voxer packages where I’ve transitioned from strategy sessions to doing that. So that’s for the person who doesn’t need ongoing support, but it’s just like, you know what? I have like five questions or I’m really stuck with scaling or adding this new part of my business or hiring a VA for the first time. And I need a day of support.
Laura (11:18):
And then I also coach freelancers on an ongoing basis. It’s kind of an unlimited coaching model for three months at a time. They get access to me as much as they need through boxer throughout the day during business days. And it really has been very interesting and very helpful to be able to guide other people through their businesses as well. Because one of the things that I find really cool, most of my clients are six figure and above income earners with their freelance business. And so they have different questions and concerns from a freelancer who is just starting. And it’s really amazing to see just how many other people out there are able to really healthy and successful freelance businesses.
Katie (11:56):
Yeah, that’s very cool. I’ve never heard of using Voxer as a way to communicate. I think that’s such an innovative and new way to do it. I love that. And then, so you were talking about some of your courses in your coaching as well. And I see you have a course on LinkedIn and I have so many questions about LinkedIn. It’s one of the social media platforms that I do use, but not as much as maybe like Pinterest or Facebook or Instagram. So how do you encourage freelancers to use LinkedIn to really grow their business?
Laura (12:22):
Linkedin is one of the most under utilized social media platforms. And it’s also the easiest one to do business on because it isn’t as commodified, I guess, as Facebook, you know, like Facebook is pushing more and more towards people paying to extend their reach. And LinkedIn still has a really good organic reach model. And so a lot of our prospective clients as freelancers are spending time on LinkedIn. These are the chief marketing officers the CEOs, the VP of marketing. These are the people that we want to be talking to as freelancers. And they are still likely to check their own LinkedIn account, even if they do not check their own email account. And so it’s a great way to get yourself in front of thought leaders and visionaries and people who make decisions about where creative projects will go. So there’s kind of, you know, a couple of different tips that I include in my course, you know, the three main things with LinkedIn is you need to have a really incredible profile that works to your advantage with the way that the LinkedIn search engine works.
Laura (13:23):
You also want to be connecting with the right people and not connecting with the wrong people. And then also having really compelling outreach and marketing methods for when you do connect with those right people on LinkedIn and over time, that’s the success on that platform really builds on itself. And you’ll find that recruiters and people reach out to you. You kind of can easily establish yourself as a thought leader there, and I’ve helped a number of freelancers. And even some executives at companies really get themselves found and kind of claim their own expertise on LinkedIn to land speaking gigs and do all kinds of things.
Katie (13:59):
Wonderful. Well guys, absolutely check out the courses that Laura has to offer. And another resource that you have is your book. And so I said in your bio that it won the author Academy awards best in business prize, which is incredible. Congratulations on that. So I’d love to hear more about
Laura (14:14):
It’s in that book. So the book is really written as the guide that I wish I had when I got started as a freelance writer, it’s all of the business aspects of writing. So where do you find clients? How do you pitch, how do you negotiate with clients? What belongs in a contract? How do you deal with a client? Who’s a problem. All of these things that a lot of us freelancers have to figure out on our own for better or worse. And so the focus of the book is really to walk people through considering some of those things to either start their own freelance writing business, or maybe read it and realize, Hey, this isn’t for me, based on, you know, what this person has been doing it for seven years told me. So it’s written very honestly I give examples of daily schedules. I T I talked very candidly about some of the challenges and potential downsides of being a freelance writer, so that people have a really honest perspective on what it looks like in case they have something in their head about what they anticipate the life of a writer, really being like
Katie (15:10):
Wonderful. I absolutely would check that out and I’ll link to it in the show notes. And I’m not sure if you talk about this in your book, you probably do, but for someone who’s just starting out in the freelance world and maybe wants to focus on writing, are there some things to watch out for some do’s and don’ts for somebody who’s just in the early stages of considering this, that you would tell, tell them to watch out?
Laura (15:30):
Yes. So you want to be wary of anyone who offers to pay you in exposure, which basically means that they want you to work for free. I don’t believe that freelancers should do free work ever. When I bring on new subcontractors, either there is always a paid trial or a paid test project. People deserve to be paid for their time. So be very cautious about anyone who, you know, promises you, that you’ll have benefits in some other way. That’s just free and unpaid work, and also pay attention to the way that the client speaks to you during the initial call, if they’re really abrasive and difficult to get along with, from the beginning, it’s likely that you’re going to experience that throughout the whole relationship. So start to look for those little clues, another very difficult client to work with it as a beginning writer is the client who doesn’t know what they want an experienced writer can kind of guide somebody through that process and ask the right questions and suggest strategies. But it, beginning writer is really going to feel in over their head with that. So try to steer away from clients who are completely unclear about what they want, and don’t really give you enough direction to be successful.
Katie (16:37):
Awesome, fantastic advice. And you have another book coming out this year. What’s that topic going to be?
Laura (16:42):
Yes. So this is the, this is actually the first book that I wanted to write and the publisher wanted to have the beginner book first. So this book is called the six figure freelancer, and it’s really all of the topics, habits, and strategies that I have found working with so many, six figure freelancers for them to have in common. So the way they structure their business and the way that they handle contracts and the way they decide who to work with and who not to work with. So it’s really about now that you have an established business, how do you scale that? How do you make the most of your time, make sure that you’re getting paid fairly for your experience and your expertise and really running your business more like a CEO and less like somebody who’s, you know, maybe just trying it out as a side hustle.
Katie (17:24):
Awesome. I will definitely keep an eye out for that and put it in the show notes when that’s released. And you’ve mentioned a bunch of great tools already, like a sauna and things like that. But there, are there any other tools or apps that you use on everyday basis that you couldn’t live without? That may be somebody else who’s listening could implement to make their life and their business days a little bit easier?
Laura (17:44):
Yes. So of course I recommend Voxer because it’s so easy. Like whether you’re communicating your subcontractors or your team or my coaching clients, I hate email. And so I want to get people out of my email inbox whenever possible. So Voxer is a big one. If you do need to use email, one of my favorite plugins is called boomerang. It allows you to send messages back to your inbox at a later time. So if I get an influx of emails, but none of them are high priority, I’ll just ping them to come back tomorrow morning and two days next week, whenever so that I don’t feel like I have a hundred messages in my inbox. It’s a great tool for staying organized. And also reminding you like, Hey, if you pitch somebody and they don’t answer, you can send it to come back into your email inbox in a couple of days so that you can follow up with them. So those are probably some of my favorites.
Katie (18:31):
Fantastic. And what about any books or podcasts or courses out there that have been helpful for personal development or in your business that you would recommend?
Laura (18:38):
So I love the strategy hour podcast with Emily and Abigail from the boss project. They’re incredible. They’re very candid about behind the scenes in their business. So that is one of my personal favorites that I listened to all the time. If you’re thinking about freelancing and thinking about going the solo route, rather than the agency route, I also recommend a book by Paul Jarvis, which is called company of one. And it’s all about not scaling just for the sake of scaling. So how do you set up your business to be successful as a one person operation? And don’t feel forced by outside parties or, you know, societal pressure to grow it beyond that and have this multimillion dollar business. So kind of how to decide what business model is right for you. It’s a great tool for that.
Katie (19:22):
Fantastic. Thank you for sharing those. I always love asking this question. I’m especially to very busy entrepreneurs like yourself. A lot of the time, we’re so focused on business and we set our own schedules. So we’re doing it all the time, but is there anything going on in your life that you love to do? That’s just pure fun that has nothing to do with business that kind of lets you recharge and rejuvenate before jumping back into the business stuff.
Laura (19:44):
Yes. So every Wednesday I go to a women’s adult tap dance class here in the town where I live, it’s like five minutes from my house. So there’s no excuses. Even when we have terrible Minnesota weather, I’ve been tap dancing for over 30 years and it’s just a really great midweek break for me to step away from my office, physically leave the house. And we have a lot of fun in there. We laugh, we make a lot of mistakes, we poke fun at ourselves. And so that hour, every week is like instrumental in helping me kind of reset and recharge for the remainder of the week. And it’s so totally unrelated to business and doesn’t need to be monetized in any way. So it’s just fun to have that sort of low, no pressure environment.
Katie (20:26):
Oh, I love that. That sounds like so much fun. I do a lot of work with the theater. So, you know, sometimes you just have to be, you know, totally out of your mind and do something like that outside of your head space, you know, to, to really recharge and come back ready the next day. So that’s really awesome. And I’m sure everyone’s going to want to check out all of your amazing resources as well as follow your journey. So can you tell people where find you online? Sure. You can check out my website@betterbizacademy.com. There’s details there about my book and also my podcast, which is geared towards advanced freelancers. Okay, fantastic. Well guys, I’ll link to all of that in the show notes, so you can follow everything online and thank you so much for coming on the show today. It’s been such a pleasure to talk to you. Hey, thanks for having me. It was great to talk to you too.
