Copywriter Franky Shanahan - Revisited
About this episode…
COPYWRITER FRANKY SHANAHAN
8 years after Franky first appeared on the podcast, it’s time to catch up.
Still a freelance copywriter. Still in Bristol. But so much has changed.
Not just her kids getting taller.
In this episode, Franky shares how she had to reshape her business around a chronic illness, diagnosed less than a year after we last spoke.
And how she found a co-mentor in the back in the taxi. It’s been one heck of a journey. Not just the one back to their homes.
Franky’s business has evolved around her family, her interests and her health. With resilience, determination and good people around us, perhaps the flexibility of freelancing can help us adapt to anything.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
LEARNING TO RESHAPE A BUSINESS
In Spring 2016 Franky was diagnosed with a chronic illness. It mean she had to slow down. She couldn’t work the way she had before. Yes, it was hard in a self-employed world of no sick pay, but at least it was her world and she could reshape it to suit her new reality…
“I learned slowly and gradually through trial and error… I had to make it work with the circumstances that I had. I had to build something to suit this new lifestyle that I was being forced into.
Because although running a business with a chronic illness was hard, there’s no way I could have gone into traditional employment. It just wouldn't have been possible, so it was that or nothing..”
BEHIND THE SCENES ON INSTAGRAM
As @LoveAudrey83 on Instagram, Franky has been able to stay visible on a daily basis in a way that fits around her health. Unlike other freelancers who share tips and tricks, she shares the real behind the scenes of her life and work…
“The way Instagram works for me is it allows people to figure out that I'm someone they want to work with.
It's where I build connections with people that make them want to invest and work with me over anyone else...”
THE best THING? FINDING A CO-MENTOR
At the start of 2017, it was ‘make or break’ time, as Franky set to rebuilding her business around her health she came across the idea of ‘co-mentoring’. She decided to ask her friend Charlie Swift during a cab ride one evening. They’ve been co-mentoring each other ever since and even started a podcast together.
“It's probably the best thing that I did for my business in twelve years: proposition Charlie in the back of that Uber.
I was really craving that kind of external input, like a second opinion, and basically the thing that you don't have when you're working on your own: just someone telling you, you're doing a good job or have you thought about trying this?”
FIGURING OUT WHAT SUCCESS IS
As Franky said in her original episode, it’s important to define success on our own terms. And that can change over time as well…
“I think it's really important to figure out what what we think success looks like and I think that can be constantly evolving as well. As your interests change, your family grows up, your health or just ageing… and I think in recent years for me, one of the things that I feel means success for me is that my ‘Job’ isn't necessarily the most interesting thing about me...”
“If you don't make time for wellness,
you'll be forced to make time for illness...”
Copywriter Franky Shanahan
More from FRANKY SHANAHAN
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and copywriter Franky Shanahan
Steve Folland
So we’ve got Franky, a freelance copywriter based in Bristol. Franky was on the podcast originally in September 2015. I’d love to know how freelancing and life has gone for you in the 8 years since. So let’s start where you were in 2015 and come forward to today!
Franky Shanahan
What was my life like in 2015? Completely different. My business was maybe 3 years old. I had 2 children in primary school, which is just mad, and I was working mostly with small businesses in the wedding industry and I was doing some of the same stuff that I'm doing now but I was also offering a few services that I retired a long time ago. So yeah I was working from my dining room table and mostly only working during school hours and around those very short primary school days, that go in a blink of an eye. And life looks very different now.
Steve Folland
So it might be hard to unravel it. But with your services, how do you decide what to let go? What do you add on?
Franky Shanahan
Well I guess a good point of reference for everything is that actually less than a year after we recorded that podcast episode… So if you fast forward to Spring the following year, 2016, I had quite a major health crisis. I was hospitalised with flu and a bacterial infection and was very very poorly and in hospital for a period of time. And off the back of that I developed a chronic illness. It took another six months for me to be diagnosed, but I was eventually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and that was a huge turning point for my business because it basically turned life upside down in general - and then I had to sort of reshape my business around this new reality that I had living with this chronic illness. So that was a big line in the sand in terms of: I had very limited energy so I had to figure out how to know what to use that limited energy for.
Steve Folland
For people who don't know - what does chronic fatigue syndrome feel like? You said it affects your energy.
Franky Shanahan
I mean it's different for everybody. But I suppose that the easiest way to explain it is… When you say fatigue I think people think oh, you're a bit tired, but at its worst, it's like bone crushing exhaustion. It is like not having the energy to lift a cup of tea to your lips. It’s not having the energy to take a shower or wash your hair or sorts of all these basic self-care that we take for granted. And then there's like a whole other host of symptoms that go alongside that like brain fog, poor balance, digestive things, headaches, chronic pain, aching muscles and joints… Yeah, just a whole gamut of unpleasant symptoms really and there's no treatment for it. There's no cure. The only way to deal with it is to manage your energy; so sort of pace yourself. Not not pushing yourself to the point where you would get fatigued - managing your energy so that you never overdo it and never end up in a flare and which was a big learning curve in terms of how I'd previously been running my business.
Basically I was used to really pushing myself and working very intensely and not really resting very much - didn't really know how to rest? And yet that had to change. I had to learn to listen to my body and recognise the signs when I was doing too much. With CFS, at least for me, if I do push myself too hard, if I overdo it and I do end up in a flare then I can't do anything. I'm useless. It's literally like days in bed. .
You know which is interesting when you're self-employed and there's no sick pay.
Steve Folland
So how did you adjust your business to work around that?
Franky Shanahan
I would say I learned slowly and gradually through trial and error. I obviously had this period of time where I was very acutely unwell, when I was in hospital and after I was discharged. Initially, obviously the clients I had at the time knew that I'd been in hospital and there was a lot of understanding and a lot of sympathy and there was also sort of like an understanding that it would take me a while to recover.
When I was discharged from hospital, the doctor said to me, you know, your body has just used absolutely everything it has to save your life, to fight off this infection and it's going to take you a good six weeks to recover. So for that first six weeks I just thought this was it was normal and I was recovering and this was the process and there was a degree of understanding from clients at that point that this was part of getting over this incident.
But I got to that 6 week point and then I got to the eight week point… and then three months later and I was going back to the hospital and saying you know what? I still don't feel well. What's going on.? And it took another three months for them to sort of say ‘yeah you're you're probably not going to get better than you are at this point, or recovery is not going to look like you might imagine or have hoped that it would’.
And that's kind of where I had to think, okay, how do I navigate this? And it was quite lucky because actually just by coincidence I had a few clients that kind of just naturally fell away at that point - they decided to you know, spend their money on other things or or whatever… and maybe at any other time it would have felt like a disaster but I was struggling so much, that it suited me to reduce my workload. And things were quite challenging from a financial point of view at at that point as well - I can't really cut sugarcoat that, I wasn't earning a lot of money and it was definitely a tough, tough period in that sense.
And I think it was at the end of 2016, I had another client that went into administration, which was really stressful at the time - I had unpaid invoices and things from them. And it just really felt like make or break time heading into 2017; I had to figure out… I had to make it work with the circumstances that I had and I had to build something to suit this new lifestyle that I was being forced into. Because although running a business with a chronic illness was hard, there’s no way I could have gone into traditional employment. It just wouldn't have been possible, so it was that or nothing.
But actually in hindsight I feel so lucky that I already had a foundation. I had something that I could reshape. Because I don't know what I would have done if I'd had to figure out how to go back to a job outside of the home or or something with more of the 9 to 5 working day. I mean, the the sick pay might have been nice at certain points in that period, but I wouldn't have been able to do it so I was grateful that I had something that I could reshape.
And to come back to your original question of letting go of, or retiring certain services… That was when I made the decision to stop offering things like social media management that needed a faster turnaround and to be much more responsive and more intense deadlines, because I couldn't rely on my health to be able to cope with the demands of that kind of service. I needed to offer services where I could create lots of buffers and lots of white space in case my health didn’t play ball.
And I think I just learned to work in a different way slowly over time. And it felt quite at odds with the dominant freelance culture at that time - I think things have changed a bit now - but definitely I think 2015-2017, it was still kind of like the height of ‘girl boss’ culture and ‘hustle hard’. In fact I think we maybe even talked about it a little bit at on the podcast: this idea of like ‘no days off’ or ‘you can never have a holiday as a freelancer’ and how seriously you took your business was measured by the fact that you never stopped working on it, or you weren't ever not thinking about it… So I think making a conscious decision to schedule rest into my days and my working weeks and to take holiday, to take time off; that felt kind of at odds with that dominant culture at the time.
Steve Folland
So you let go of those sort of services which were time sensitive. Did you add things as well? Has the way you make money changed?
Franky Shanahan
Yeah, I’ve tried different things over the years I still make the bulk of my income writing words for other people. I still have retainer clients that I create long form content for - blog for them regularly. I still write websites and various whatever people need words for you know, marketing materials and things like that. So that's probably still the bulk of my income but I do also do more in terms of education and training. I've run workshops over the years in various different incarnations, so online, in person… but I haven't really added anything drastically different.
Steve Folland
And you were primarily working with the wedding industry back then.
Franky Shanahan
Yeah, and that's that's really where I got my start. I started out in the wedding industry. I still work with wedding businesses now, but it's a much smaller percentage. To be honest with you, I got it bored in my niche. And I do think niching your business is a good idea. It does work. I think it is helpful in a lot of ways. But I think I ended up… you know I think I'd been doing it for maybe seven years and I was just craving something a bit different.
I think I sort of naturally started to attract some different types of businesses. When I started to be quite open about my health online, on Instagram and things like that - I started talking about what I was doing in terms of working on my own recovery in terms of self-care and well-being and I started to naturally attract clients in that sort of arena.
I've now worked with a lot of therapists and well-being businesses and a lot of coaches. That's the other thing though, is that a lot of the businesses that I worked with way back in the early days when they were wedding businesses, a lot of those business owners have gone on to do other things and started other businesses, or pivoted, and that's kind of naturally expanded to the type of businesses that I've been writing for.
So now I work with a much more eclectic range of businesses. But I think the sort of the niche that I'm in now is still that kind of female owned, small creative businesses and I think a common thread that connects them all even though they might work in very different fields is of being ambitious and wanting to level up their business. It’s often either startups or it's people who've maybe had like a hobby business that they want to take more seriously and develop. So that's definitely the the common thread between them. That kind of ambition and and drive. And I like that. I find that very fulfilling.
Steve Folland
So when you were going through all these changes, obviously you've got your family around you, but were you doing it by yourself or did you have a coach or were you part of any groups or anything like that?
Franky Shanahan
Oh wow. End of 2016, start of 2017. There was a kind of a make or break point where I knew I had to really refocus and rebuild my business after the the horrors of 2016. And I had a an acquaintance that I'd met through blogging - my lovely pal Charlie Swift
And I had seen somebody else, another blogger online talk about this concept of co-mentoring; which was basically where you find someone, not necessarily in the same role as you but somebody else running a business, someone with similar goals or similar sort of desire to work on their business and you basically mentor each other and I thought it sounded like a really good idea. I was really craving that kind of external input, like a second opinion and basically the thing that you don't have when you're working on your own: just someone telling you, you're doing a good job or have you thought about trying this? You know? That kind of that kind of thing.
And I just basically accosted Charlie in the back of an Uber. We were coming back from something social together. And we knew each other fairly well but it was definitely like the the early days of our friendship, we weren't super super close friends or anything. But I knew that she had just gone freelance and so I sort of suggested this idea of co-mentoring to her and she was really up for it.
It was maybe November 2016 and we had our first co-mentoring session in the January. We started meeting regularly once a month: mentoring each other and supporting each other. Charlie was just starting out and building her services andI was trying to rebuild and figure everything out after this horrendous year.
It's probably the best thing that I did for my business in twelve years, I think was proposition Charlie in the back of that Uber. And we still co mentor each other now. We started a podcast off the back of co-mentoring which has been going since 2018 I think, and I think we might have inspired a few other people to try co-mentoring.
Steve Folland
Absolutely. Myself and Frankie Tortora from the Doing It For The Kids community are one of those pairings. Whenever I get asked about co-mentoring I always refer back to you and your podcast Friends With Business Benefits (great name) as the inspiration.
That's so cool that it’s been so positive for you though, coming out of such a tough time. So your co-mentoring sessions - that’s a monthly chance to sort of say where you're at, to say where they're at, to bounce ideas around?
Franky Shanahan
Yeah, I think the best thing, has been that sort of accountability - having someone else to hold you accountable. If you're somebody who is quite good at setting goals, and you have things that you want to do but you maybe struggle in terms of taking the action or you know figuring out how to get to those goals. That's probably the the greatest thing that Charlie gives me. The most valuable thing is that she reminds me what I’m supposed to be working towards and she helps me stick to that path.
Steve Folland
If somebody's listening to this and they're thinking hmmm, who is that person I could co-mentor with, do you have any advice?
Franky Shanahan
There's probably someone already in your network that you already know, that would be a suitable person. It needs to be somebody that you feel comfortable with, somebody that you trust. Don't feel that they have to do exactly the same thing as you. Charlie and I, although there's like some overlap in terms of what our businesses do, the job that we do is very different. She's a creative business mentor, I'm a copywriter and so we understand each other's businesses, but we can also bring a completely different perspective because we just do different things.
It doesn't need to be somebody with more experience than you. They don't necessarily need to be somebody who feels more senior or anything like that… It's about finding someone like minded. That’s probably the most important thing. Just suggest it to them and gauge their response: their enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm is probably a good good measure.
So I think trust and feeling comfortable, because you'll get more out of it if you can be a bit vulnerable with them and I think that’s something I really value in that relationship is that we can both say when things are really not great, but also we'll celebrate each other's wins as well. You want someone who'll be happy for you when you succeed as well.
Steve Folland
How do clients find you these days? Back when we spoke in 2015, 95% of it was word of mouth. That's what you said. Now, you’ve mentioned Instagram stories, you've mentioned clients evolving their own businesses, you’ve also got a podcast. So yeah, how how do clients find you today?
Franky Shanahan
I think word of mouth is still a big one for me. As well as returning clients. And I feel really lucky… it's not luck, it's it's down to hard work and doing a good job consistently, that people want to come back to you and work with you again. But I I feel very grateful for that.
So that's still a big part of how people find me or how I get work. And I think in recent years I've put a lot of energy into my own content so that, as well as the podcast, I blog regularly, I have a mailing list, I do show up on Instagram most days. It’s just being visible - being there and showing up is probably part of it.
And I don't know if people find me through Instagram but I think the way Instagram works for me is it allows people to figure out that I'm someone they want to work with. It's where I build connections with people that make them want to invest and work with me over anyone else.
And I think it helps with having returning clients - I think that Instagram and the content I put out there plays a part in that. It’s that kind of brand loyalty thing - people become quite invested don't they? We do - we become invested with people's lives on the internet I think. And I don't know if anyone has ever found me through the podcast, but I think that, again it plays a similar role. The podcast is where I talk the most about business. That's where I'm the most businessy person version of myself - on the podcast.
Steve Folland
Yes, because on Instagram it’s not like you’re someone who is sharing business advice or tips and son on. It’s all that connection. But it's daily. It's consistently getting to know you.
Franky Shanahan
So first of all, in terms of sharing ticks, tips and advice - I’ve been quite open about the fact that I'm really crap at that like and I find it really hard. Like it's a barrier that I have and whenever I do it I get a massive vulnerability hangover afterwards and I have to go hide for a bit - which I don't get on the podcast. The podcast feels like a safe space and I can talk about copywriting and I can really lean into the decade of knowledge that I have in terms of what I do. And it's not that I don't feel like an expert, it’s just that I find creating the sort of generalised tips that that Instagram kind of demands… I find that really hard. And I think I find it hard because I take a very bespoke approach to what I do, so I just I find it really hard to to sort of make sweeping generalisations like ‘this is how you should write your copy’, ‘this is how you should write your about page’, and I just think that maybe that's not my strong suit. So I don't do it. And it seems to be working.
I like to think of Instagram stories as more ‘behind the scenes’. If my website is my shop front, then Instagram stories is me inviting you into the stock room for a cuppa or something if once you've come inside. And it's partly evolved that way as well because of my health. I figured out that if I only showed up online when I felt healthy and when I felt ‘professional’, then I wouldn't show up very often.
Certainly when I was first ill, I just wouldn't have been able to show up at all really. So I think it evolved that way because it allows me to just be there no matter what's going on, what I'm feeling like. I like to think I weave the work in and I talk about work a fair bit. But yeah, I'm not good with the whole tips and advice and really shareable graphics about how to do stuff, but there are other people out there who do a really good job of that so I'm just going to leave that to them and I'm going to keep sharing my lunch every day.
Steve Folland
Now last time we spoke, September 2105, it was the first summer you’d just had where you had two weeks off. How how have you managed over the past few years with taking time off?
Franky Shanahan
Well, last summer I took six weeks off which was amazing. That had been a long-term goal of mine to take the entire summer off and I achieved it - I went to Australia for six weeks (Franky has family there) and it was incredible.
Steve Folland
How did you prepare your business to take six weeks off and and go to Australia? So you didn't work the whole time you were there?
Franky Shanahan
I didn't work at all while I was there, which which wasn't actually the plan but… So the first six months of 2022 I worked very intensely. I'm lucky that with my business model, I have these retainer clients that have a set package of content each month and basically I spoke to them at the beginning of the year, that this was my plan, so that I would be working in advance on their content for the summer so that they would all be ready to go before before I left for Australia, but that they would still pay in the same way as if it was being produced month to month.
So I knew I would have income coming in while I was away. I built up some savings - obviously you've saved to go on a big holiday anyway. But yeah I built up some savings that kind of allowed me to do that. And I just wrote a really good Out Of Office, like “see ya suckers! Back in September!" No, not really. And I did show up on Instagram while I was away. So I think I sort of stayed visible in that sense.
And then when I came back I wrote quite a bit and and shared quite a bit about the experience as well. And I think most of the clients that I spoke to were so supportive and so encouraging and I think it was a good reminder sometimes… you know when you do things that maybe feel a bit scary, like it's scary to step away from your business for six weeks - I didn't you know… I was fairly confident I would be okay, but you don't know do you? But it's a good reminder that when you do that, it kind of gives other people permission to do it as well - and that's a positive thing isn't it? That sometimes taking a risk, maybe that can be a motivating thing for you… like, if I do this, if I try this and it goes well, then other people will feel that they can do it too.
So yeah and I mean I think even before taking that summer off, taking time off became a non-negotiable thing for me. I don't want to be a business owner who never takes a holiday. That attitude still slightly lingers a little bit in in our freelance world, that being an entrepreneur, being a successful entrepreneur means never not thinking about work… And I know I don't want to be like that. So I take two weeks off at Christmas, at least two weeks off in the summer and you know whenever else. Whenever. If I think I can get away with it at any other point in the year, I'll take that off as well.
Steve Folland
Another big thing which must have changed since we spoke in 2015 - because you you already hinted.. Back then your kids were both at primary school…
Franky Shanahan
Yeah, they were tiny. So I think I mentioned on the podcast that we were shopping for secondary schools for our eldest. And that eldest child has just finished compulsory education completely and my youngest is starting Year 10 - starting his GCSEs (the main exams you do aged 16 in the UK).
It's a funny thing because we had children quite young. So my husband and I, if we're with people the same age as us, they’ve often got children a lot younger. For context I just turned forty in August and my eldest is 18… so I always want to be like the beacon of hope for those people who are still in the trenches of having small children and still dealing with that school run twice a day and really feeling like their work time is limited and that juggle. Because it gets so much easier. Your time, your working day, just gradually stretches. Once they start secondary school even, they're out of the house much earlier. You're not doing a school run. They make their own way home. There's way more extracurricular activities that don't cost anything.
And it just shifts and changes so much. Now I barely see my children. And the weird thing is, that you pine for the old days when they when wanted you to hold their hand and walk them to school. But yeah, your working day just stretches and in your head you get more headspace. And it's not to say that parenting teenagers isn't demanding, it definitely is in a different way to parenting toddlers or young school-age children.
But yeah, it's different and I think (back when we originally spoke in 2015) maybe you asked a question about what did I want for the future and I think I said something about my business just like evolving as my children grew up… And that is exactly what's happened. It's just shifted and evolved each time there's been a transition. You know, this time next year we might only have one child at home. My eldest has got plans to go off traveling and hopes to go off to drama school next autumn. So yeah, it's crazy.
But when you're really in the depths of that time, where it's really difficult when they're small and especially the school holidays - the demands of the school holidays where they really do require supervision and entertainment the entire time they're awake. It's so hard. But it's so fleeting. It doesn't feel like it at the time but it is.
I mean what do they say?… ‘The days are long but the years are short’…
They don’t need me now. I’m obsolete.
Steve Folland
Far from it I'm sure. Bu it's amazing. Your business has evolved around your family. It's evolved around your health. It’s evolved around your interests. It's changed a lot. And yet if still feels very linked to 2015 You.
Franky Shanahan
Yeah. Listening back to that episode I did feel like ‘oh baby Franky’. She didn't know what was coming. What was just around the corner. I don't know, it did make me cringe a bit. But yeah, I think back then I talked about not wanting to just adhere to somebody else's definition of success - to figure out what success means to me individually.
I think it's really easy when you're self-employed and especially if you've come from a different background, like if you've come from something more corporate… it takes a while to unravel yourself from the brainwashing of that traditional workplace or even when we were at school - what we were taught was possible. You know our generation, I think it'll be different for younger people because working for yourself ad working from home feels much more of a possibility now than it did thirty years ago when I was at the secondary school… We didn't even know that what we do now was possible. The internet didn't exist as it does now and. We didn't have social media and things.
So I think it's really important to figure out what what we think success looks like and I think that can be constantly evolving as well. You know like you said, as your interests change, your family grows up, your health or just aging… and I think in recent years for me, one of the things that I feel means something that means success for me is that my
‘Job’ isn't necessarily the most interesting thing about me.
And I think that's a shift for me and very much different from my parents where their work/job was a very defining part of their identity. I just want there to be more than just what I do for a living. And so in terms of like Work Life Balance. That's become quite important to me - that I pursue things, there’s an equal priority to what I do in my free time and what I do for work and part of that comes back to my kids growing up because I guess the point where there's a a time of life where you're working and you're giving everything to your children. They're getting the the rest of you kind of thing. And now my children need me less so I can be a bit more selfish and do things just for fun, for me and kind of figure out who I am outside of work.
Steve Folland
Franky, if you could tell your younger self and by your younger self I mean 2015 Franky, one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Franky Shanahan
I actually wrote this down, because it felt really important what I wanted to say and this is what I would tell 2015 Franky… If you don't make time for wellness, you'll be forced to make time for illness. And you can achieve your wildest creative dreams going slow and resting often. Mic drop.
Steve Folland
Wow. I'm imagining 2015 Franky actually being visited by 2023 Franky at night.
Franky Shanahan
Yeah, the ghost of freelance life to come.
I'd have probably completely dismissed her.
I wouldn't have listened.
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