Graphic Designer Liz Mosley
About this episode…
GRAPHIC DESIGNER LIZ MOSLEY
When Liz left uni, she was adamant she didn’t want to be a freelancer.
And yet here we are, via starting a stationery business and a family. A 9 year gradual process which has resulted in her switching from treating her freelancing like a hobby, to firmly treating it like a business.
Starting a podcast. Working with Adobe. Diversifying her income and having fun along the way.
This is Episode 300 of the Being Freelance podcast - recorded live in the Being Freelance Community - join us!
Bonus questions in this episode from BFFs (Being Freelance Friends) Angela Lyons and Elizabeth Chesney.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
DIVERSIFY INCOME
In the past 3-4 years, Liz has switched from treating freelancing like a hobby, to treating like a business. She now charges more, finding herideal clients, whilst also having 50% of her income from courses, brand partnerships, affiliates and more….
“When I started taking my freelance business seriously, one of the things that I wanted to do, and probably the pandemic inspired this as well, is diversify my income. So I didn't want to just be reliant on finding clients.”
PODCASTING
In 2021 Liz launched her own podcast. It’s a lot of work, but she’s loving doing it. It’s raised her profile with potential clients, within her peers and has even led to becoming an Adobe Express Ambassador…
“Is it bringing me clients? It's hard to measure that, but I definitely have people who have found me and mention the podcast. So I think it has worked how I wanted it to in terms of marketing. That's not the only reason that I do it. And lots of other sort of amazing things have come out of it as well and I absolutely love it.
It's been incredible for raising my profile, connecting with other creatives, getting myself in front of a whole different audience, which has been really cool.”
100 REJECTIONS
If you seek ‘No’, you might well get a ‘yes’… Liz has decided to gamify the process of asking. Seeking 100 rejections in 6 months. The result has been a whole lot of Yeses to things she would have assumed would be No’s and never asked for in the first place…
“I feel like I'm not very good at dealing with rejection, or I probably don't put myself in situations where I think I'm gonna get rejected. And so I realised that was holding me back.
I set myself this (100 Rejections) challenge - the idea being that it would just sort of take a bit of the pressure off and actually if I did get a rejection, it's not as big a deal because oh, I can just add it to my list for the challenge. There was actually a purpose with it and it's making me pitch for things that I would've held back from pitching for in the past.”
SELF REFLECTION
By reflecting on how we work, how we feel about things, what gets us going, we can tweak our freelance businesses and day-to-day life…
“One of the biggest lessons that I've learned being freelance is how much understanding yourself and how you work is really important. I'm recognising how I work best, what motivates me - setting myself challenges is definitely one.
I would never have predicted, how much self-work I would have to do in running my own business and being freelance.”
DO THINGS IN YOUR OWN TIME
What would Liz tell her younger self?..
“Keep going and just do things in your own time. I spent a lot of my first two years of freelance feeling really frustrated because I felt behind. I was looking at what everybody else was doing and I felt like I was nowhere near where they were.
But so much can happen. So much has changed for me in the last three years. So much can change. And so I think it would just be to ‘keep going and to just trust in the timing of your business and the journey that you are on’.”
“Trust in the timing
of your business and the journey that you are on”
Graphic Designer Liz Mosley
More from LIZ MOsley
Liz’s website
The Building Your Brand Podcast
Liz on Instagram
Liz on TikTok
More from Steve Folland
If you can’t see the embedded video, click here to check it out on YouTube.
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Graphic Designer Liz Mosley
Steve Folland:
As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Liz Mosley:
Well, my first taste of freelance was while I was at university, so I studied graphic design and basically a friend of mine worked for a charity and they needed an annual report and they asked me to do it. And I can't believe they asked me to do it. Cause at that point I didn't even know how to use InDesign. So that was how I learned to do InDesign, designing an annual report for this charity. So that was my first taste of freelance life. But weirdly, when I came out of university, I was adamant that I didn't wanna be freelance.
I didn't. I just thought it wasn't for me. I decided to move to London, and I had various jobs. So I worked in an agency for a bit. I worked in-house at a university and I did those - was still like, no, no, freelance isn't for me. But then basically the sister of one of my colleagues at the university was setting up a boutique clothing shop in Peckham and she needed branding and she adamantly wanted me to do it. I was like, oh no, I haven't really got much time, enough time. And they were like, no, no, we want you to do it. And I was like, oh, okay. And I did it and I had a great time and I really enjoyed it. And so that sort of started to give me, I guess, more of a taste - got me hungry for the freelance life. So what I did was... I started my own stationery shop. I wanted to design stuff that wasn't for clients that I could just design for my taste, my style. And then if anyone wanted to buy them, great. You know, not no big deal. <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
Yeah. I love that. "I've not got time to go freelance, but I know, I'll start a business designing and selling stationery."
Liz Mosley:
I know, I know. So I did that. Really got involved with the sort of small business maker scene in London and would do craft fairs and all that kind of thing. Had a great time doing that. And decided as that picked up that I would go down to four days a week at work and then have one day a week freelance, which was amazing that I was able to do that. So I did that and then got pregnant and I had a baby. So while I was on maternity leave, I was able to sort of keep just doing little bits on my shop, but it was quite nice because there was no client, so there's no deadline. I could just do bits as and when I could, if I couldn't do anything, the bare minimum I had to do was like post out orders.
I wasn't getting loads of orders, so it was quite easy: a little trip to the post office with the baby kind of thing. But after my maternity leave was coming to an end, we decided to leave London and move to Cardiff. So I decided that I wouldn't look for another job and that I would go freelance at that point. Mainly because I could. I was getting more clients. I was doing the stationery thing that was sort of growing a bit, and I could fit it in around having a kid basically. So that was kind of the motivation. But it was quite nice because it felt like a very gradual ease into it. So it wasn't like I just suddenly went freelance, I'd been building it up with little bits on the side.
And then I had another kid and after that maternity leave ended decided that I didn't have enough time to do the branding work and the online stationery shop. So I needed to pick one and go all in. Cause I felt like if I wanted to take them to the next level, I either needed to go gungho with the wholesale for the product-based business, or I needed to really start promoting myself as a branding designer. So I made the decision to go for it as a branding designer. So that was like three to four years ago. And since then I've been really, really going for it freelance and have actually got out of my thinking of them as hobby businesses and taking it really seriously and building an actual business that is making me money. And now I would properly call myself a freelancer and now I don't think I could ever go back <laugh>. Like, I honestly don't think I could work for anyone ever again, <laugh>. Because now I love being freelance, which I just think is hilarious because I was so adamantly anti going freelance when I came out of university.
Steve Folland:
So when you said that you wanted to take it 'next level' - what did 'next level' look like to you?
Liz Mosley:
I think I recognised that I was treating my businesses like a hobby, you know, like I wasn't taking them very seriously. So it was things like getting things properly set up, you know, like having proper contracts for my clients, reassessing my prices. I think probably the amount of income was like a marker for me as to how seriously I was taking the business. You know, like I wanted it to be something, well, especially when I had the product-based business, a lot of the money just went back into the business to buy more stock. So I wanted it to be something where I was actually paying myself a decent amount of money, contributing to supporting my family, basically. So I think those were a few of the things that made me feel like, okay, I'm taking this seriously now, I'm getting systems in place to run this business. Like properly <laugh>, not just very sort of like ad hoc, just little bits all over the place.
Steve Folland:
What were those things that made the difference.? So contracts..?
Liz Mosley:
Contracts was a big one for me. Increasing my prices a lot. I think taking marketing seriously. So at around that time I did a marketing course and I think before that I'd just been playing on Instagram and that was it. I'd never had, I never had a strategy or a plan or, you know, really thought about how it could help my business or support my business beyond, oh, I'll post a picture of this card, maybe some people will buy it kind of thing. <laugh>. So yeah, I think that the marketing piece was a big one for me.
Steve Folland:
In that case, let's talk about marketing. But first - let's rewind to the first clients bit. So there was the people you knew...
Liz Mosley:
A lot of it was word of mouth at that point. Or people recommending me to others. So I would say the whole time that I was employed, I was doing little bits of design stuff for friends. It was very sort of like a bit here and a bit there, you know, like the annual report, an album cover for a friend, a logo for the sister of a colleague, that kind of thing. At that point, my Instagram had always been very much around the product-based business, so I started to change that around and share more about the branding, and really start talking about that a lot more. But yeah, so I did this marketing course and I think it just made me actually think about how I was putting myself out there, thinking of myself as a brand, I guess, you know, like how I was putting myself out there online, who was I trying to attract? How was I gonna communicate with them? You know, where were they hanging out? All of that kind of thing. It's not been, you know, like an overnight thing. It's been a very sort of slow, steady working it out as I go. But I feel like it's working for me now.
Steve Folland:
So when you figured out, who am I trying to attract? Who were you trying to work with?
Liz Mosley:
So having sort of been in the small business creative maker scene in London, those were the people that I just loved working with. And so I really positioned myself as a branding designer for small businesses. And so part of that was I was offering, obviously like done-for-you services, so I would create their branding. But I had a lot of inquiries from people who had started a business but maybe didn't have the budget to outsource their branding or just weren't at that point yet where they felt comfortable to spend thousands of pounds on branding. And so I started talking to those people, but creating content for them in a different way. So things like the podcast, I have done a course called Design Your Own branding specifically aimed at them. So like giving them the process and the tools so that they could create something that they could use themselves. So yeah, sort of teaching, I guess more teaching, like doing lots of workshops and I've done that as well for other people. So teaching for other people's memberships. But yeah, it feels like it's all quite aligned, quite nicely around small business owners.
Steve Folland:
So the course came about because you had people who were coming to you but couldn't afford to hire you?
Liz Mosley:
Yeah. That's how it started. Basically, it started off as a workshop. So I did a workshop that was, I guess like teaching the basics of branding for a small business, but you can hardly cover anything in like an hour and a half workshop when it comes to branding. So it was really fast paced and I felt like it wasn't maybe the best format for it to be, so I decided to flesh it out into a longer course and that's actually worked really well and people have had really lovely results from it and I've had like lovely testimonials about it. I think that's worked well. So I feel like I've kind of got all these different strands, but they all kind of align quite nicely together.
Steve Folland:
And your 'Building Your Brand' podcast - when did you launch that?
Liz Mosley:
The beginning of 2021.
Steve Folland:
What's been your experience of doing the podcast? Did you know what the hell you were doing?
Liz Mosley:
<laugh>? You know the saying 'all the gear and no idea'? I would say that really sums me up. So I bought a fancy microphone, bought like, well sort of, not that fancy headphones. And basically I did a skill swap with my podcast producer who's called Lucy Lucraft and is brilliant. And it was something that I'd wanted to do, but just had never sort of spent the time working out how to do it. And she really encouraged me to just go for it. And the thing that was really nice about it is that when we were talking about it, I just had all the ideas, you know, she was like - 'one of the things that you need to think about is do you have enough ideas for content to keep the podcast going'? And that was never an issue for me.
I was like, yeah, I mean, there's like a million people I wanna interview, so many things I wanna chat about. And so it all sort of came together quite easily. So we did a skill swap and she edited my first 12 episodes. And I did it in a season at that point. And I was like, well, I'll just give it a try - if I don't like it, I've done one season, I can just park it, leave it, it's like evergreen content, there's kind of like no harm in trying kind of thing. But obviously turns out I loved it and it was probably one of my favourite things that I've done in my business. So it's still going strong. Now I don't do it in seasons. I do weekly episodes.
I am gonna take a break I think over the summer just cuz I feel like I need to not be always recording podcast episodes. But yeah, again, it's worked really well for me. I dunno about you, but I think podcasting is quite a hard one to like quantify in terms of knowing exactly how many people... like is it bringing me clients? It's hard to measure that, but I definitely have people who have found me and mention the podcast. So I think it has worked how I wanted it to in terms of marketing. That's not the only reason that I do it. And lots of other sort of amazing things have come out of it as well and I absolutely love it.
Steve Folland:
How do you make time for that? Like, each week? It's a big commitment.
Liz Mosley:
Yeah, I mean podcasting -I had no idea how much work went into it. Like it really is a lot of work and I outsource the editing cuz I know that I could sit down and learn how to do it, but I wasn't that interested in doing it. So I was like, well this is a perfect thing to outsource. So I decided to outsource it right from the beginning. I now pay Lucy to do it. We're not still skill-swapping
Steve Folland:
<laugh> constantly rebranding her business.
Liz Mosley:
Yes, <laugh>. Oh, you want another look? Yeah, totally. Just forever rebranding. Um, one of the things that I did, which has been a game changer, is I automated a lot of the processes. So one of the things with having guests, and you probably find this as well, is that there's a lot of admin, so, you know, like going back and forth, booking a time, all that kind of thing. So I basically created canned emails for every part of that process and an automated scheduler. So all I have to do is approach them and once they've said yes, then they go through this automated email system that basically does everything for me right up until we record. So that has saved me hours and hours. And then the other thing that I tend to do is sort of batch record. So if I've got a quieter period of work, then I'll schedule a whole bunch of them in and just get 'em batch recorded and then Lucy will have them ready to go, like to edit weekly. So that's sort of how I've made it work. I mean, I think it's one of those classic things where if it's something that you enjoy, it's quite easy to make time for it. And so it doesn't feel that hard for me to do in that I really enjoy it. So I fit it in. Yeah,
Steve Folland:
<laugh>. And you said it brought you lots of amazing things?
Liz Mosley:
Well, I say lots. The main one has been an ongoing relationship working with Adobe, which has been incredible. So that's kind of like a bit of a roundabout story, but basically, I guess it was just over a year ago, I posted on stories on my Instagram - 'I'm looking for a podcast sponsor if anyone's knows anything or it is interested get in touch'. And I didn't know this, but a guy from the UK marketing team of Adobe was following me and he messaged me being like, oh yeah, send over the info. And I was like, oh my goodness. Anyway, I sent over the info to him. I didn't even have the info together at that point, so I was like, oh my goodness. So I had to like, put it all together. I sent it over to him, didn't really expect anything to happen because I was fairly certain that my podcast wasn't the sort of size that would interest Adobe - which was correct.
But basically he recommended me to his colleague to become an ambassador for Adobe Express, which is something that I now am and I do. And then off the back of that, I got recommended to become part of the Adobe Live team. So I have a weekly show on Adobe Live every Monday. So basically just have this ongoing relationship with Adobe, which, although they didn't sponsor the podcast, I wouldn't have that if it wasn't for the podcast. So I credit the podcast for it.
Steve Folland:
<laugh>. That's amazing. And just because you put it out there, like you never know who's watching. So you are an Adobe Express Ambassador, what does that entail?
Liz Mosley:
It means that I regularly promote Adobe Express. So it looks like all sorts of different things. A reel on Instagram - like sponsored content basically, but it can be in all sorts of different types of formats. So they have sponsored a few episodes of the podcast, which is really nice. I also got to go to LA to their annual conference, called Adobe Max, which is awesome. So that was really fun. They had like an Adobe Express Ambassador pre-conference, so they have ambassadors all over the world - we all got together for that. And then as part of the Adobe Live team, basically there's like an ongoing sort of running programme of creative sharing their process and how they work, which is really cool. And it's all free to consume, it's on Behance and YouTube.
And so I do a weekly show about Adobe Express. So I do half an hour every Monday - and every Monday tackle a different project basically, and people can follow along and watch. And again, it's really nicely aligned because Adobe Express and, you know, doing the demos is all around supporting and helping small businesses and helping them create their own designs.
Steve Folland:
And I guess it all elevates your brand, like your reputation with your potential customers too.
Liz Mosley:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's been really great for my profile. It's all very sort of serendipitous all these things, you know, like how it all comes about. But I basically got to do a digital talk for the Adobe Max conference. So they have like the in-person stuff, but then they also had a whole conference that was like pre-recorded talks online. So I did one of those and then a design magazine from Germany saw it, got in touch with me and were like, can we interview you for our magazine? You know? So it's all been incredible for raising my profile, connecting with other creatives, getting myself in front of a whole different audience, which has been really cool.
Steve Folland:
Amazing. So that came out of the podcast. How else are you marketing yourself - putting yourself out there?
Liz Mosley:
I've got the podcast, I've got my email mailing list. I've got Instagram and TikTok. I would say those are my main ones. I am on Twitter and LinkedIn, but like very halfheartedly <laugh>. I've also got a YouTube channel - again, very halfhearted. I have dreams of like focusing energy on those, but realistically I just can't, I have to accept that I can't do it all. So those aren't ones that I'm really focusing on at the moment.
Steve Folland:
So what are you doing on Instagram and is it the same as what you're doing on TikTok?
Liz Mosley:
I treat them differently. I think my Instagram's a bit more curated. So a bit more thought through. TikTok, I think you can be a bit more scrappy and you can just do sort of ad hoc videos. I mean, that's probably not the best advice or the best strategy, but that's what I'm doing with that. And I have had some accidental success with that. So I did have one video that went viral and got a whole bunch of followers off the back of that. So TikTok I feel like I'm less familiar with, so I'm still kind of playing around with that, but for other people I've seen some incredible results and I think it is a really interesting platform to explore.
Steve Folland:
Right. And then your email?
Liz Mosley:
Yes, I've surprised myself and actually been really consistent with that. So I think the two marketing things I'm most consistent with are the podcast and the email. So I usually send out a weekly email, and it's a mix. It's kind of like a behind the scenes, you know, this is what I'm thinking. A lot of it's quite honest behind the scenes of my business. How I'm finding things, what I'm learning, recommending, you know, stuff that I've found that I think people might find useful. And I actually really enjoy that as well and have seen good results of that. So I've found that especially helpful when selling my courses or like one of the things that I've been exploring a bit more is affiliate marketing. I'm determined that I'll only promote things that I would've promoted anyway.
But, you know, so many companies now have affiliate links. It's quite easy to do that and I've had a bit of success with that. I think when, sort of three years ago when I started taking my freelance business seriously, one of the things that I wanted to do, and probably the pandemic inspired this as well, is diversify my income. So I didn't want to just be reliant on finding clients. So the affiliate stuff fits in with that, the course... I'm not very good at picking one thing and doing it <laugh>.
I just sort of find different ways to speak to my audience and help them. And not all of them are me doing branding for them. That's probably like 50% of it. And then the other 50% is made up of a whole host of different things. And I think I just love trying different things. I think part of the reason I love marketing is that I like to see it as a big experiment. And so I love just trying things and seeing what happens. And I find that really fun. It makes my work life way more fun and interesting for me, I think.
Steve Folland:
Now - on your TikTok, I saw a title called One Hundred Rejection Challenge? What's that?
Liz Mosley:
So I feel like I'm not very good at dealing with rejection or I probably don't put myself in situations where I think I'm gonna get rejected. And so I realised that was holding me back. I think I'm the sort of person that works better if I gamify everything. So basically I set myself a challenge to get a hundred rejections in six months. Like, you know, from a work perspective. And I've only been doing it for a couple of weeks. It was inspired by a friend of mine who is an illustrator called Katie. She's @KatieDraws on Instagram, her name's Katie Chapell and she did something similar -she called it A Hundred Nos, which is actually like a friendly way to put it, but she did the same challenge basically, so I stole it from her. I think it's quite a common thing.
And there's like a Ted Talk about similar things and I've seen other people doing it. But yes, I set myself this challenge and the idea being that it would just sort of take a bit of the pressure off and actually if I did get a rejection, it's not as big a deal because oh, I can just add it to my list for the challenge. Like there was actually like a purpose with it and it's making me pitch for things that I would've held back from pitching for in the past.
So a lot of it is gonna be podcast related. So I've pitched for some much bigger names to be on my podcast. I'm pitching myself to be on other podcasts. So actually hilariously, I, I'll find the spreadsheet to show you - on my 'list of rejections to seek' was pitching to be on your podcast <laugh>. And then before I got a chance to, you emailed me <laugh> and asked me to be on it. And so I was just like, ah, amazing.
I mean, ultimately, you know, I wanna get yeses - like that is the whole goal of it, but the idea I guess is I'm asking more people and so the chances of getting yeses, you know... I'll get more yeses as a result. And so far the challenge is going horribly because I've got more yeses than nos <laugh>. But actually the challenge is going amazingly because it's having the exact result that I hoped, which was that I would put myself out there for more stuff. Yeah. And yeah, things would happen. So I'm basically gonna keep going for six months. And then me and Katie, who I mentioned before are gonna record a podcast episode and sort of share our experience of the whole challenge. But I have had some rejections and I feel like I'm handling them better. So even that is a good result as well.
Steve Folland:
Oh my God, I love it. Absolutely love it. You say you're quite competitive, so do you often set yourself like challenges?
Liz Mosley:
I feel like I'm not competitive with other people, I'm just internally competitive. If I don't have like a deadline or a goal or something that I'm working towards. So I think setting challenges, you know, where I can sort of like document it and I know what I need to do really helps me. I think that one of the biggest lessons that I've learned being freelance is how much understanding yourself and how you work is really important. And I would never have predicted or I would've never guessed, how much self work I would have to do in running my own business and being freelance. I'm recognising how I work best, what motivates me and setting myself like these challenges is definitely one.
So like another one that I do, which isn't really a challenge, it's more just like an ongoing project - it's a pattern challenge. So every week, a friend of mine creates prompts and we design a pattern every week and we post it on Instagram and then other people have started to join us, which is awesome. So yeah, I mean that those sort of things help me to do things consistently and I feel like I need that, I need some tricks and tips to help me do stuff, get stuff done.
Steve Folland:
Did you know what you were doing business wise? Like when it came to pricing? How have you got on with that?
Liz Mosley:
Oh my goodness. I think I will forever find pricing difficult. And I think I have really struggled with underpricing myself a lot and probably a lot of people would say that I still under price myself. I'm a lot happier with my prices now. And I feel like I've got much better at consistently putting them up. So I'll sort of like review them every like six months and put them up. But yeah, I mean that is something that I've always struggled with. And actually sort of going back to the knowing yourself sort of piece of it, I think I've had to do like a lot of sort of digging around. I think there's sort of... you know, without this spinning into a therapy session, I think there's a lot of issues that I've had to unpick that have then fed into why I've priced myself too low in the past.
And I think part of it was before I was thinking, you know, going back to what we were talking about, I was thinking of it as a hobby business. And so when you have that attitude, it's really hard to price yourself correctly. And I think as soon as I got out of that way of thinking, it became much easier to price myself better and in a more sustainable way, you know, like this can actually be a profitable business way. Yeah, I feel like I think it's something that I'm always going to struggle with though and have to work through - will always be working on.
I think one of the things that I have noticed that's helped me, is a few jobs where I've underpriced myself by the end of the project, I really resented doing the work. And that's been interesting for me because that's been a very clear sign. Okay, I did not price myself right because I obviously don't feel like I'm being paid the right amount and that's helped me work out what should be the right amount - for me anyway. And I think that's the thing is like no one can really tell you - there's not one size fits all. You can get advice, you know, there's lots of great organisations that'll give you advice about what sort of prices to charge in your industry, but there's so many factors that impact it, you know, like where you live, how much you want to earn, what type of clients you're trying to attract. And so I think that's the thing that's quite tricky about it. I think one of the things that I've enjoyed about diversifying my income is that it means that I can still price myself in a way that I can attract the clients that I want to work with, which is small businesses, but that's not my only income. So I'm almost like supplementing it with other things that I'm doing that aren't so much, um, I'm selling my time for money, if that makes sense.
Steve Folland:
Yeah, absolutely. Very early on in this story you had a child, then you had another one. How have you found work life balance?
Liz Mosley:
I mean, not great, I'll be honest. No ... well in some senses amazing. Like I really love the life I build for myself in the sense that I really appreciate the flexibility I have being self-employed. So the fact that if my kid's sick I can, you know, look after them - I mean, it's still a juggle, right? Cuz there's deadlines and clients and stuff, but I'm not having to ask someone's permission to be at home with my kid when they're sick. I'm not having to ask permission to go to their school play, you know, all of those sort of things. I really love that I'm in control and I can plan my workload around them and what they need and what we need and all that kind of thing. The area that I'm struggling with and not doing so well is the, I guess the boundaries.
So obviously when you run your own business, it's really hard to mentally switch off from it. And because at the moment I work from home that blurs the boundary even more because it's always tempting to be like, oh, I just need to quickly go and reply to this email or I just need to do this, I just need to do that. So that's something that I'm working on at the moment is how to, um, I guess be present with the thing that I'm doing. So if I'm working, be present and focus on working and if I'm with the kids, be present and focus on them. And I feel like that's something I have struggled with. I'm getting better at it, but I think it, again, it's a work in progress.
Steve Folland:
Liz, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Liz Mosley:
I think it would be to keep going and to just do things in your own time. I spent a lot of my first two years of freelance feeling really frustrated because I felt behind and I felt like I was looking at what everybody else was doing. I felt like I was nowhere near where they were, but so much can happen. So much has changed for me in the last three years. So much can change. And so I think it would just be to keep going and to just trust in the sort of timing of your business and the journey that you are on.
Steve Folland:
Love it. So, we're doing this episode 300 live in the Being Freelance Community. Let's see if anyone listening to your story has a question... Here we go - a question from Ange.
Angela Lyons:
Liz, you are totally awesome and you're totally brilliant and I've loved hearing about your journey and it seems that you've done brilliantly. Did you do it all by yourself or did you have help along the way? Did you have a coach or did you have awesome freelancers around you or do you just wing it, do it yourself? <laugh>?
Liz Mosley:
Definitely didn't do it by myself. Like I've definitely had lots of support. So I did have a coach for a while called Susie Dark, who's amazing. And basically my course would never have come out if it wasn't for her because I had so many crises about it and she basically helped me get it over the line so that she helped me at that particular period of time. I think the other thing that I would say is I have been really lucky in that I've had some amazing freelance small biz friends who I basically like voice note all the time. We really support - I guess we coach each other effectively, not at all in any sort of formal way, but we just like help each other. So a few that I would say, who I actually learn a lot about marketing from was Menekse Stewart, who's a friend of mine.
She's been amazing. I'm in a membership at the moment with Hannah Isted. She's got a really lovely membership called the Best 90 Days Ever. And she does like a little marketing prompt every day. And we WhatsApp all the time and help each other out with our businesses. So I, I definitely feel like I've had lots of support from people around me.
Steve Folland:
Amazing. That was a great question Ange. Next, we've got Elizabeth joining us...
Elizabeth Chesney:
So you've done lots of things that have been really successful and I wanted to know - have you done something that was really a bad mistake but actually turned out to be really helpful?
Steve Folland:
Cool! So have you made a mistake in your business? But in hindsight it's been good.
Liz Mosley:
I feel like I've made tonnes to be honest. <laugh> I definitely feel like the whole thing is a real big learning process. I think two spring to mind. One idea I had a while ago was to create semi-customizable logos. So the logo, like the branding was sort of like predesigned and then people could sort of like buy it off the shelf and like put their business information in it and it was like unique one of a kind - you know, so a lot of people do this on Etsy but they sell the logo like millions of times, whereas this wasn't like that. And I spent ages making it all and then didn't really tell anyone anything about it and it was an utter flop <laugh>. And I think maybe it worked out for the best because my heart obviously wasn't really in it and that's why I didn't really tell anyone about it. And so I think it was like - now I look back on it and I'm like, oh actually I'm really glad I didn't go down that route. But it was like good to I guess try it.
I think another thing would be, I had an experience a couple of years ago where I had a couple of client situations where on reflection, looking back, they weren't the right fit for me and there were sort of like red flags that came up. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but just that I should have picked up on as in to why I wasn't the right fit for them. And then like the project didn't go well or one of them decided to stop the project before it finished. And I found that incredibly hard at the time, but it probably had the most impact on my business in terms of the improvements that I made off the back of that. So improvements in my processes, improvements in how I communicate with clients and I would say it had a much bigger impact than any job that's gone very well, if that makes sense.
Steve Folland:
Excellent question Elizabeth. Thank you so much. Just to go a little bit further on that whole coach or support bit Ange asked about. So it's a mix of things that you pay for and people you've found along the way?
Liz Mosley:
Yeah, I would say so. So obviously I paid for the coaching, and I paid to... like I'm in the Doing It For The Kids membership. I'm in Hannah's membership that I talked about. So getting support those ways. And then I think, yeah, people that have just become real life friends. I think a lot of the people who are physically around me don't really understand the nitty gritty of my business and what I do. So it's just having those people that really get it and that I can just like WhatsApp message. I'd say like another one is my podcast producer Lucy. Like, yes I pay her, but we've also become friends and we also sort of help each other in our businesses as well. So we'll just like What'sApp each other and be like, oh I've got this idea, what do you think? Um, oh I've written this. Does it sound ridiculous? You know, just little things like that sort of throughout the day. I guess they're kind of like my colleagues over voice note. Obviously you've gotta find people that enjoy voice notes as well cause not everybody does <laugh>, but I'm quite lucky that I found fellow voice note lovers who are happy to chat to me all day long.
Steve Folland:
<laugh>. Well honestly, Liz, I could chat to you all day long. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and all the best being freelance!
Liz Mosley:
Thank you so much for having me.