[00:00:51] – 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.

[00:00:59] – Steve
Hello! Yes. Each episode, we take a question from the Doing It For The Kids community, do our best to answer it. But we start each episode by looking back at the last one. Last time we were talking about-,

[00:01:09] – Frankie
When you’ve lost your marketing mojo.

[00:01:13.820] – Steve
Jon Richards got in touch and says,

“I’ve recently started to post daily (I know, crazy) on LinkedIn and agree with Steve that just doing it is sometimes enough to make me want to do more. When starting out, I was quite aware that to make it sustainable, it needed to be something I enjoyed. So I worked on this first. I also set accountability for myself — a post every weekday — and I’m a sucker for self-inflicted rules so I stick to it.

Where I have niched down, my content is quite narrow, and for me, this is easier to find things to talk about. It takes me about 20 to 30 minutes to research, write, and design a post, so this is around two and a half hours a week. But I treat it as marketing time, and I’m seeing the benefits of the consistency paying off.

Ps, completely agree with you, Frankie, about the toolbar in Photoshop following you around! So annoying.”

[00:02:01] – Frankie
So annoying!

Nina Lenton says,

“I lost my blogging mojo. I was writing every week, sometimes writing more than one post and then scheduling a few. I enjoyed writing them, but I got fed up because I didn’t think anyone was reading them. So I started experimenting with video last year to see whether that was a medium I could use. I enjoyed doing my videos and my chats and now have a new thing that I think I’ll try to keep up. So maybe there’s something in that? Try a new thing for a while?”

[00:02:28] – Steve
Charles Commins says,

“Steve had better make that AI video.”

[00:02:33] – Frankie
The piss on your chips one?

[00:02:34] – Steve
The piss on your chips one.

Well, I have tried. I tried two apps actually. Very disappointing.

[00:02:41] – Frankie
Yeah… It was also really depressing, like,- I now see where all this content is coming from. These apps!

[00:02:49] – Steve
I was only really able to get the effect we were looking for for ‘piss and chips’ by intervening with the AI and forcing it to do something in particular.

[00:02:59] – Frankie
Manually telling it what to do?

[00:03:00] – Steve
Yeah. One was quite good. They had the stock video of the Mannekin Pis — the little boy urinating? So I had that at the top of the screen and then some chips at the bottom.

[00:03:08] – Frankie
Yeah, that was definitely the best!

[00:03:09] – Steve
Put it this way, whatever you imagined it to be, would be better than what it was.

[00:03:14] – Frankie
The robots aren’t up to par yet.

[00:03:16] – Steve
No. Anyway, to the point at hand.

Charles continues,

“When I lose my mojo with my podcast, I tend to wallow in self-pity for a couple of days and then get knees deep in the community of listeners I have on Slack. Hearing their enthusiasm for the topic and the podcast soon gets me back feeling positive about it again.”

[00:03:34] – Frankie
Yes!

And Jo Watson says,

“I have no idea where one might find one’s mojo, seeing as I can’t even find my bloody car keys. But I will say this — creation of content doesn’t have to be from scratch and on your own platform. Go and see what others are creating and create a conversation. Respond, reply, add thoughts, share views, join in. Content creation at its finest, funnest, and fucking easiest.”

YES.

[00:06:29] – Steve
Okay, we got a question from Katie Beardsley. She’s the owner of Willow & Woods, Life of Sprout and And Other Memories. Although more recently, she’s like a-,

[00:06:40] – Frankie
Surface pattern designer. I think that’s the Willow & Woods bit.

[00:06:44] – Steve
Very cool. Anyway.

[00:06:45] – Frankie
She does a million things!

[00:06:46] – Steve
Katie asks,

“Hi, Frankie and Steve. I’m at a stage with my business where I know what I want to be doing and where it is going, but I need to get myself out there more. With three young kids, three small businesses, a dog and a tortoise-,”

That sounded like a Julia Donaldson book, didn’t it?

[00:07:03] – Frankie
A Squash And Squeeze!!

[00:07:04] – Steve
Katie continues,

“I don’t need to tell you that I really don’t have the time to be doing the marketing that I need to be doing, especially as I’m useless at it and don’t really know what I’m doing. So I’m thinking about hiring some PR help, but this doesn’t come cheap.

I’m sitting on the fence, umming and ahhing over it because I know that I can do it myself, but I don’t want to get it wrong. And I also don’t want to spend money on something that might not work, which has happened in the past.

So after my very long intro, my question is this — how do you know when the right time to be spending money on a business is? Are there certain markers I should be reaching financially or audience-wise before I consider signing up to what is likely to be a minimum three-month contract? What do I do? My brain is going round and round in circles.

Thanks, Katie.”

A brain going round and round in circles. That would be quite a nice surface pattern, wouldn’t it?

Well, I’m not a PR expert.

[00:07:59] – Frankie
*Newsflash!*

[00:08:00] – Steve
But if you mean you want to be featured in magazines, or want to be on blogs and so on, I would say you probably want to be looking at PR folks who really know your industry, specifically. Do your research on who that might be.

Yeah, you’re right. It probably will be a minimum three month contract, if not six months, because these things take time to build. Weirdly, I did once hire someone PR-wise to try and get me into papers and things like that to do with Being Freelance, to talk about freelancing. And I thought, “Oh, that’d be great. They’ll just send me these things. I’d be in the Guardian before you know it!”

[00:08:50] – Frankie
He wasn’t in the Guardian.

[00:08:51] – Steve
Never. No.

For a start — and as Lucy on Hype Yourself will say a million times — you need to set yourself up for success to begin with. You need to get some good photographs so you’re ready to roll, get all your bio, all of that, all set up. Almost like a little media pack. So that when a story does apply, you can suddenly go and get it.

But yeah, what I did find was — and bearing in mind this was when my kids were much younger and I was very much in the midst of doing very hands-on parenting as well as trying to run my business — was that I kept getting bothered by the people I was paying.

They’d be like, “Hey, there’s this opportunity. Do you want to go for this thing? How would you answer this question? How can we pitch you towards this?” And I was almost like, “Oh, leave me alone!”

[00:09:41] – Frankie
“What have I done??”

[00:09:42] – Steve
Yeah, do you see what I mean? It sounds weird, but I wanted the outcome-

[00:09:45] – Frankie
…without any of the work? “I paid you to do this for me, guys!”

[00:09:48] – Steve
Now, somebody PR-orientated might be listening to that and thinking, “Well, the PR person should have done a better job of interviewing you first to get a much better feel as to what your answers might have been.” And maybe. Perhaps.

[00:10:01] – Frankie
No, I think something like PR, you are part of that process. You’re outsourcing elements of it, but ultimately it’s down to you to do that interview. I haven’t paid someone to do PR for me, but I have tried to do a bit of DIY PR where I’ve tried to get opportunities. And yeah, I found a similar experience in that I was seeking these things out, and then suddenly I’d have journalists being like, “Can I talk to you now at seven o’clock on a Friday? Because I’m writing this thing that goes out tomorrow morning!” And I just found that really stressful, the whole process. I don’t particularly like speaking under pressure anyway, let alone while I’m cooking dinner for two under fours, do you know what I mean? I didn’t find it a lot of fun.

That’s not to say that it’s not worth doing, but maybe there’s an element of, “Am I willing to sign up for this particular, very specific to PR experience at this point in my life?”

Also what you say about long-game is so key. PR 100% is a long game. They can’t guarantee anything if you only take them on for a couple of months or whatever. That’s just not enough time. It’s the same with SEO. You can’t expect somebody to SEO your website overnight and suddenly Google’s going to be like, bing, bing, bing! That is long game process.

[00:11:15] – Steve
You need to think about who am I actually trying to get in front of? I mean, what actually would have been the value of me ever getting in the Guardian anyway?

[00:11:25] – Frankie
Well, yes. That’s the other argument with PR specifically is like — Is that publication even where your people are? Maybe, but they’re probably like 0. 1% of their readership or whatever.

[00:11:34] – Steve
Yeah.

[00:11:35] – Frankie
What are we saying here, Steve?? Are we saying-,

[00:11:36] – Steve
I think maybe a PR expert will help you unpick what it is that you actually need. You say you want to get yourself out there. But where? In front of who? If you’re ever thinking about doing this kind of thing, you want to know that financially you’re in a position to do it. There’s no guaranteed outcomes.

[00:11:59] – Frankie
Especially if you’re signing up for something that is long term, you’re going to be committing to a monthly outgoing.

[00:12:05] – Steve
You want to make sure that the PR person that you hire specifically understands the nuances of what it is that you are after, in the industry that you’re working in. If, however, what you’re actually after is more broad marketing support,- You say “I don’t really have time to be doing the marketing that I need to be doing”, then again, maybe speak to a freelance marketer who can help you get an idea of what it is that you need to be doing to get what you want to happen. Where best to focus your energies. And some of that might be your energy, some of that might be hiring somebody to help you.

[00:12:46] – Frankie
That is a really good point.

How do you know it’s the right time to be spending money on your business? Obviously, you need to be in a financial position to be able to afford to outsource anything, full stop. And that has to be sustainable. Not just, “Oh, I had a really flush month. Let’s chuck it on some outsourcing!” It has to be more sustainable and considered than that.

But also, is your business READY from a overall branding perspective? Have you done the work in terms of what this business is? Who is it for? What is it trying to say? What problem does it solve? Have you done that work first?

Because if you haven’t done any of that work and you want to go out and just outsource your marketing or your PR, you’re kicking yourself on the foot because if you haven’t honed in on the message that your business is giving out, then how are you going to market it successfully? Do you see what I mean?

It’s like, do you have the money, but have you also done the work in terms of being clear on what it is that you do and sell and who it’s for and what that looks like as a package before you then bring in somebody else to send that message out to a wider audience.

If you haven’t done that work, you could outsource that work. So working with, I don’t know, an agency, a freelancer to work on branding and you know, tone of voice and all that stuff. Before you then think about getting the message out there, you need all of that stuff to be super clear. Because if you get the message out and the message is confused or you get the message out and your website is nowhere near finished or, you know, not doing the work for you, then it’s basically pissing money down the drain. In my opinion

If you’re paying for marketing and getting more people to see your eyes on your thing, is your thing ready to have the eyes on it? So I guess you need to be at a certain point in your development as a business in terms of all of that as well as the money side. But I do also think there’s a thing about you as an individual, like we’ve touched on already. Are you ready for this next stage? Do you want to be answering questions about your business at 6pm on a Friday night, or whatever it is?

And also, if-, say that marketing is successful and you’ve suddenly got a massive influx of orders — are you ready for that? Are you ready for that success, Katie? I feel you are, but it’s worth having a conversation with yourself.

*Picks up phone* I’m really sorry, but I’ve got a voicemail from my shopping delivery driver.

[00:15:13] – Steve
A voicemail? Oh, come on, let’s hear it, yeah.

[00:15:16] – Frankie
Hang on.

[00:15:18] – Voicemail message
Robotic voice: *First new message*.

“Hello, it’s *** from ***. I’m unfortunately going to be 20 to 30 minutes late due to… <pause>… various delays. I’m really sorry and I hope to see you soon, bye, bye.”

[00:15:29] – Steve
Oh, that was curious, wasn’t it?

[00:15:33] – Frankie
He wanted to tell me what the problems were with-,

[00:15:35] – Steve
Yeah. And then he stopped himself!

[00:15:37] – Frankie
“I had to stop and do a massive shit”…?

[00:15:40] – Steve
And then he was like-, like, and then he thought, “No, maybe you don’t want to hear that.” And then he was like, “I hope to see you soon.” What do you mean you hope to see you soon?

“The kitchen towel that you ordered, I had to use that… but, yeah, everything else will be there.”

[00:15:55] – Frankie
“There’s been a new substitution since I left the warehouse”.

[00:15:58] – Steve
Sorry, back to the question…

Seek out the advice of people who have already done the thing that you’re trying to do.

[00:16:05] – Frankie
Yeah, that’s a good shout.

[00:16:06] – Steve
There must be unions or guilds of surface pattern designers or illustrators who have done this kind of thing, who have been interviewed, to share those behind-the-scenes moments.

[00:16:18] – Frankie
I feel like Katie could do with a mentor or someone who’s, like, a little bit further ahead? Who has gone through the process of outsourcing, growing, maybe employing a member of staff. I don’t know. But like, somebody who’s that little bit further along that can go, “Here’s my experience.” Not tell you what to do, but is a sounding board that has that foresight. Foresight? No, the opposite of that. Hindsight.

Everybody listening here can relate to the fact that we can do stuff ourselves, and we do. But there does come a point where you can’t give anymore. You’re aware-, like, she knows what things she needs to be doing. She even says that — “I’m aware that I should be doing all these marketing things to get my business more visible. But I literally don’t have enough hours in the day or I don’t have enough in me to do that thing”. And yes, again, she touches on it. There is a risk that you pay somebody else to do it and it’s not a good as you had hoped it would be. But at least it would be done if you paid somebody else to do it. Do you know what I mean?

Because if we always are like, “But I could do it myself,” in my experience anyway, that means 80% of it just doesn’t happen. The list is there and I’m aware of it. And maybe occasionally when things are quiet, I might tick one of those things off the list. But ultimately, in my experience, most of that stuff just doesn’t get done by me. I don’t have enough to give to do the thing. So the only way that is going to get done at all is to pay somebody else.

I feel like people like us will always have that tick-tick-tick in the background of like, “Oh, would it have been better if I’d have done it myself?” But it wouldn’t have been done, Frankie!! It just wouldn’t exist. So at least if you outsource some of these things, you’re moving in the right direction rather than trying to do everything yourself and feeling a bit stuck. I guess it’s that feeling of stuck is when you know you need to be bringing in help, basically.

[00:18:18] – Steve
Note to self.

[00:18:19] – Frankie
Yeah, exactly. We’re not talking to Katie anymore!