[00:00:34] – Frankie
Hello. You’re listening to the Doing It For The Kids podcast, where we swear a bit too much and talk a bit too fast about freelance life with kids in the mix. I’m Frankie and this is Steve.

[00:00:44] – Steve
Hello, yes! Each episode we take a question from the Doing It For The Lids community. Do our best to answer it, but we start each one by looking back at the last one. Last time, we were talking about-,

[00:00:54.] – Frankie
Doing good via your small business, whether that’s donations, working in kind, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:01:01] – Steve
Kate Duggan got in touch.

Kate said,

“You can do good by choosing where not to spend your money. For example, Lametta Truffleballs — fab name, by the way…”

I’d forgotten about that. Lametta, that was our anonymous emailer from last time.

Kate continues,

“For example, Lammeta Truffleballs could switch bank account to one that doesn’t fund fossil fuels. Zero cost, big impact. They might even get rewarded for the switch.”

[00:01:25] – Frankie
Dave Smyth says,

“I was a 1% For The Planet member for a few years, but stopped when they increased their membership fee to a level I was uncomfortable with. Now I give 1% of my turnover to charities directly and have a page on my site that explains the giving I do and where I’ve donated. I don’t feel that not having the badge has had any negative impact on my business or perception of the values I hold. With that in mind, I wonder if there’s a low or no commitment way to see if this is viable. If you don’t tell anyone you’re doing this, you could start saving 1% of each invoice to a pot with a view to donating that at the end of twelve months. If you desperately need the money beforehand, you could use it. If not, you can donate the money and make this a part of your business going forward. There’s definitely a point at which it may literally be impossible to set aside money in the business, and I felt that previously. Absolutely no guilt or shame there! But if you feel you do want to do this, perhaps this could be a way to ease yourself in.”

[00:02:16] – Steve
That’s a good idea!

Lucy Critchley says,

“My main thought when listening to this episode was — does it have to be all the time? Every week, every month? Like when I make donations to local charities (perhaps once a quarter) I tell my clients that I’ve done it in my client newsletter. Not because I want them to think I’m amazing and philanthropic — if I’ve even spelled that correctly! — but because I want them to know that by working with me, I’ve been able to make that donation and that makes me feel good.

ps. Private nursery fees can get in the bin.”

[00:02:48] – Frankie
And Laura Ockendon says,

“I think it’s really important to think about how it fits within your business. Like Steve mentioned, I also donate to Ecologi. I specialise in low carbon website builds, so it obviously aligns with that. I make websites that are as efficient as possible, except for the emissions we can’t avoid. Because short of not having a website, there will always be an impact.

When I launch a website for a client, I offset with Ecologi their estimated emissions for the first year and encourage the client to continue to do that moving forward. This way of working feels like I’m not just blindly donating to make myself feel better, but it sits well with what I do overall. But also, if I can just encourage people through my business to be better at reducing their digital carbon footprints, that’s having a positive impact without costing me actual dollar bucks.

There are plenty of ways you can do good without having to just hand over cash, think outside the box and find something that fits with your business and your own goals and interests. And that, as a story, will have far more impact.”

[00:06:20] – Steve
Okay, our first question of the year comes from Nina Lenton, who is a project management expert. She would like your chart Frankie!

[00:06:28] – Frankie
She would, yes.

[00:06:29] – Steve
She’d like that.

[00:06:30] – Frankie
Nina approved. Bing.

[00:06:32] – Steve
Her website is ninalenton.co.uk

Nina says,

“As well as my work as a freelance project director and manager, I have a blog on the subject of everyday joy in life and work, which I write on every now and then. I’d like to do more with it, but I’m afraid I could easily spend all of my time doing that instead of paid work, which, of course isn’t really sensible.

How do people who have similar side projects — a blog, podcast et cetera — manage to balance it with paid work? Or even manage to get paid something for doing the side project?”

Do you know what? It’s taken us about 105 episodes, but we’ve got to one-,

[00:07:11] – Frankie
We actually know something about! Yeah.

[00:07:14] – Steve
I mean, we don’t have a decent answer, but-,

[00:07:18] – Frankie
Still working it out, Nina.

[00:07:19] – Steve
Okay, context…

I went full-time freelance ten years ago. After freelancing on the side for many years, I started the Being Freelance podcast nine years ago, which then turned into the Being Freelance community five years ago. All the time whilst being a freelance video podcast creator and doing the family stuff.

[00:07:41] – Frankie
You missed a bit from that timeline.

[00:07:42] – Steve
What?

[00:07:42] – Frankie
When did you start making any money from either of these things?

[00:07:45] – Steve
Well, I mean, what is making-,

[00:07:47] – Frankie
This is part of this question.

[00:07:48] – Steve
What is making money?

[00:07:49] – Frankie
What is money?? What does it mean?

[00:07:51] – Steve
So yes, eventually I got sponsorship for the podcast and eventually the community became a membership. But I’ve put in so many more hours. In fact, I worked it out once. I’ve spent-,

[00:08:03] – Frankie
You worked it out? Why would you do that?

[00:08:05] – Steve
No, not for the community side of it, but just for the podcast. I worked out that it takes me about a day per podcast and I’ve put out over 300 episodes. So that’s literally a year of my life over the past nine years.

[00:08:16] – Frankie
Wow.

[00:08:16] – Steve
That I have given to that project. So it can’t be about money. Yes, you can grow blogs and podcasts and communities into things that make you money, but it has to be something more than that, don’t you think? Yes, I could have made so much more money for my business if I had put all of the time I spent-,

[00:08:36] – Frankie
If you’d put those hours into your freelancing!

[00:08:38] – Steve
Yeah, that I put into Being Freelance, that you put into Doing It For The Kids. It would have been much better spent, without a doubt. So how do we balance these things with paid work? Because the fear Nina has is that she could easily end up spending all her time doing that fun side project instead of client work.

[00:08:57] – Frankie
I mean, I feel like I’m not the best person to be answering this question. While I have a lot of experience in this area, I didn’t have that balance right for quite a long time and was spending far too much time on Doing It For The Kids when it was paying me nothing. Nil points. In fact, I was putting on meetups that were losing me money, I was paying to put on meetups…!

So, how do you balance that? I don’t know, but I think what Steve said — his initial reaction is so, so true. In that, if you love it, you will just do it. And actually the payoff psychologically or energy wise, happiness wise is with considering. You’re talking about your blog, that is literally about ‘everyday joy’. If the blog that you write about ‘everyday joy’ is bringing you joy, I would advocate for making time for that, even if from a business perspective it might be eating into paid time. But if you’re going to be happier as a result, and maybe you’ll be more productive in your paid job as a result? Do it. But you’re right, there is a massive risk that you’ll just want to do that and you will neglect your actual business. And yeah, I have done that.

[00:10:09] – Steve
Yeah, me too.

[00:10:11] – Frankie
I’m not going to pretend I haven’t.

[00:10:12] – Steve
So some people ask me: How do you manage to put out the Being Freelance podcast (even ignoring the community side of it..) How do you manage to put out the Being Freelance podcast when you’ve got so much going on — family and work wise? Often I get asked that and I always say, “Because you treat it like a client”.

[00:10:28] – Frankie
Yes.

[00:10:29] – Steve
So if you say to yourself, “I am going to put out this podcast every Sunday or every other Sunday”, or with Doing It For The Kids, every other Thursday — it’s on the wall chart!

[00:10:40] – Frankie
It is on mine!

[00:10:42] – Steve
If you do that, then it becomes like a client project that keeps it regular. You have to prioritise your client work. You have to because it’s paying the bills. But you can maintain consistency with your side project by treating it like a client, which means putting it in the diary, which means making time for it. Now that might be one afternoon a week or a morning or a day or Saturday morning or just putting it in the diary.

[00:11:12] – Frankie
So my out of office for my graphic design business says I work Monday to Thursday, which is a lie. I now have childcare Monday to Friday because my daughter’s at school. But Fridays I try and protect for other stuff. And historically that was, yeah — a lot of Doing It For The Kids stuff that I wasn’t getting paid for would happen on a Friday. That makes it sound really simple. Obviously some people who are listening to this are going to have two days of childcare, full stop, and that’s just not realistic for them. And I would say to those people, my reality was I just worked a hell of a lot of nights. And that sounds grim and horrible and like, why would you do that to yourself?

But I’m telling you, if you really love that side project, you will do it, even if it feels on paper, totally counterintuitive and is going to make you more tired. It’s like a guttural thing that you can’t not do — so maybe, therefore, I’m in a privileged position because that was a really easy decision to make. I was going to carve out time for DIFTK, whatever. Maybe if you don’t feel quite like that about your side project, it’s much harder to make decisions about making time or when that time is going to happen. Not sure if any of that is helpful. Work nights, grind yourself into the ground, be really tired, lose money…

[00:12:25] – Steve
Yeah, but we have both done that, right?

[00:12:29] – Frankie
We have. But do you know what? There’s payoff. And let’s talk about the positives on the other side of that. You know, often when people ask me, Steve, “How do you make time for it? Or why did you make time for it?” And I make a joke about it being the most grandiose marketing campaign I’ve ever done in my life. Like Doing It For The Kids is this massive marketing campaign that gets me graphic design work (which is not what it is and why it exists) but I do get clients through the fact that I run this community of freelancers.

[00:12:57] – Steve
We’re looking at it from a freelancing business side of things. But I do think if you’d put time into a side project — that even if you were to go for a full-time job at some point — I think it sets you apart from other people. Like, it’s a major draw. Look at all this time and energy I’ve put into creating this thing off my own back. In certain instances, it might speak volumes of your personality as well, so that people get to know you, people are drawn to that, so it can help in that way as well. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be a big ‘successful’ in quotation marks, side project. (What is success??) But it’s true.

[00:13:36] – Frankie
We still haven’t done an episode just on that.

[00:13:38] – Steve
I feel like Being Freelance could be so… I’ve been doing it for nine years, for goodness sake. It could be so much bigger than it is if I’d have actually put more effort into growth tactics and so on. But I haven’t. I’ve just let it plod away quite happily, organically, whilst doing my other stuff. And I’m very happy with it, thanks very much.

Nina asks, “Or even managed to get paid something for doing the side project.” So, like we touched on, I wouldn’t go into a side project with that as your goal. But ultimately, to get paid for your side project, you have to grow an audience. Whether that’s to sell things to people, or to sell advertising to people to put their thing in front of your audience’s eyes. Do it for the right reasons, build the audience for the right reasons. And then, yeah, you might spot opportunities.

Yes, you might want to put adverts on your blog, or you might have such a large readership that you can start doing partnerships with companies. Works particularly well if you have a niche thing. So for us, freelancing or freelancing/parenting for Doing It For The Kids. So if you have a really specific niche, then it makes it easier to do advertising type opportunities. I hesitate to say the word ‘easier’, actually, because it’s really not easy. It’s quite hard. Easy might be signing up for-, can you still do that thing from Google where you just have random adverts put on your blog?

[00:15:04] – Frankie
No. That’s very 1995, isn’t it? I mean, the most obvious way to monetise a blog is do something like Substack. So people pay you to access the content and people are very successful with that format you’re looking to-,

[00:15:14] – Steve
Ah, but-, sorry. And I agree. Substack, that’s a really good suggestion for this format of what Nina’s doing. But a lot of the people who say that they’re ‘successful’ on Substack, you will find that they have historic audiences from other places.

[00:15:29] – Frankie
That they’re taking to Substack. Yes, agreed.

[00:15:31] – Steve
Substack can be a really good place, and it has funding built into it, just like Patreon and stuff. It’s really pretty good, but the most successful people already built audiences elsewhere.

[00:15:46] – Frankie
But then there’s an argument here, like, if you’re doing something for joy, is it still going to bring you joy when it essentially becomes a part of your job? Because once you start monetising it, it becomes work. Like, by definition, it shifts. And is that something you want to do? Like, how is that going to make you feel? Will you be motivated to do it more if you’re getting paid? Or do you think it might not be as fun and rewarding for you if it becomes a chore, or feels like it’s a chore? I mean, you might not know that until you get to that point, but it’s something to consider. I’m sure we did an episode about monetising your hobbies. Like, some hobbies should just remain hobbies! You do them outside of work for a reason.

Like, I’m talking about doing this gardening podcast (which I really want to do by the way) but part of me is like — do I want to do it? Because then I have to make gardening, like, another thing that I’m making content about. Can’t I just go out in my pyjamas and get muddy on my own and enjoy that without talking to other people about it? You know what I mean?

Yeah, I guess this is more questions than answers Nina. But sometimes side projects and joyous hobbies are exactly that. And that’s why they’re good for us and that’s why we make time for them. And maybe if you start to make money from something, it changes the dynamic of the thing?

[00:17:08] – Steve
Do you know what, though? Every time I would record an episode of the Being Freelance podcast… Like thinking back over the years… Especially to the time when perhaps there weren’t even that many listeners and there certainly wasn’t bringing me money (and I definitely didn’t have the time to do it!) But every time I would get off a recording call — I would feel happier.

[00:17:28] – Frankie
Right!

[00:17:29] – Steve
Especially because so much of my day I wasn’t even speaking to adults or seeing adults. But yeah, it would light me up. So if you’ve got those feelings about it — then making time for something that gives you something that your client work doesn’t. It’s a great feeling. It’s great.

[00:17:50] – Frankie
Don’t underestimate the power of a side project!

Coming soon to Gladiators: New Gladiator, ‘Side Project’. She’s lean, she’s mean, she’ll eat up all your time!

[00:18:03] – Steve
Alright, if you have got advice for Nina, maybe you also do a side project. Maybe you have turned it into financial-ness. Or maybe you did and then you didn’t like it. I don’t know. Get in touch. Wherever Frankie’s posted about this, be it on Instagram or LinkedIn or of course in the Doing It For The Kids Community for freelance mums and dads.