Putting in the non-billable hours - Brand Strategist and Educator Melinda Livsey
What if you could find a mentor who’d teach you everything they know for free?
That’s exactly what happened for Melinda when she connected with Chris Do, founder of online education platform, The Futur.
After talking one on one and realising they could learn from each other, Chris invited Melinda to co-host a series on his YouTube channel, where they’d talk about the real-life issues she was having as she tried to build her freelance graphic design business.
Melinda realised that she needed a brand just like the clients she was designing for, and through her on-camera coaching sessions with Chris, she learned how to grow that brand and her business along with it.
She found community, got confident with social media, launched a newsletter, started a mastermind group, and began teaching what she knows through content, workshops and coaching sessions.
More from Melinda Livsey
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Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with brand strategist and educator Melinda Livsey and Steve Folland
Steve Folland: How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Melinda Livsey: I studied graphic design and illustration in school and I started freelancing right away. Like probably right before graduation. I always have had freelance clients on the side. And then I got picked up and had a full-time job at Oakley. So I worked there on and off for seven years. But while I was doing that I was always freelancing so I always had clients on the side. I even quit at one point and had some time of just doing freelance then and then went back to full-time. Again, still having clients on the side. So yeah, that's where I got my start is first going to school and then just jumping headfirst into it.
Steve Folland: What made you keep freelancing on the side when you were at Oakley?
Melinda Livsey: I always had the desire to work for myself. And so I just was always drawn to doing freelance, and I think the variety too of having all the different types of projects. Because when you work in house at a job and you always are marketing and designing for the same type of product, it gets really boring after a while. And you're like, how many different ways can we design to try and sell this eyewear? It just wasn't that exciting. And so I thought, freelance gave me that variety that I always wanted. And so that's what drew me to it. And then also I always wanted to work for myself. And so I think I always had one foot in the full-time job and then one foot in freelance and I just always wanted to go full-time freelance but was very scared to do so.
Steve Folland: But then you did, so how long did you do it for before you even went back into full-time?
Melinda Livsey: I want to say it was about two years. It was a few years into working full-time. And then I took two years off and I just up and quit that job. But I had no strategy on how am I going to get clients and how am I going to keep this going? And so I just took any freelance thing that came at me. A lot was from that full-time job too. Like I was working for different departments within that company. And so I had a lot of work from there, but I had no plan of, well how am I going to keep this going? And then that full-time job, they actually asked me back but into a different department. So a very specialized branding department that only had a group of about four to five of us. And we worked on special projects and it just seemed really exciting. And so I figured, well I can go back. But yeah, it was about two years that I went off on my own.
Steve Folland: So that chance to go back was also a chance to kind of upgrade yourself. That sounds wrong. Upscale yourself?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, yeah. And getting paid more too. I had a better position and got paid more, so I can't complain.
Steve Folland: How long did you do that before you then left again?
Melinda Livsey: I believe it was three years and then they dissolved that department. So I got laid off three years into that. And I was the happiest person alive because I'm all okay, now I can full-time freelance and it's getting thrown into the deep end. Now I got to make this work.
Steve Folland: Cool. I'm intrigued. What did you do differently the second time around?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, that is such a good question because I did a lot differently. The first six months I was floundering. I was going to different agencies, working on-site, doing things I really did not like doing and marketing material that I didn't want to be doing. But I didn't understand or know what to do yet. And then I took a freelance course, so a course that was teaching freelancers how to get started and how to brand themselves. And I realized that I actually needed a brand just like I was creating brands for my clients. I had to have one myself. I couldn't just be this designer that had a portfolio and would get hired for anything. I had to pick a speciality if I really wanted to start getting more clients. Pick what I'm really good at, pick what I want to do, and pick the type of clients that I want to start getting. And so I branded myself about six months in, redid my website, and I positioned myself as a brand identity designer during that time. So that was a huge difference. I actually put effort into my business and into my career in trying to guide who I'm going to work for and what type of projects I actually wanted. That was a big difference.
Steve Folland: How would you have been described before that?
Melinda Livsey: I would say a graphic designer. So just that generalist graphic designer that worked on anything. Absolutely anything that came her way.
Steve Folland: Just to rewind back to when you were first starting out freelancing on the side, even through college or whatever, like how were you finding those clients?
Melinda Livsey: It was all referral-based, all of it. It was through people who knew me and it was about one to two degrees of separation. So it was typically someone who knew a family member of mine, someone who knew a really good friend of mine and they just knew, "Ooh, Melinda's a graphic designer. Then why don't you talk to her?" And so it was all referral based.
Steve Folland: And then when you went freelance that first time when you quit your job, was that still referral based?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, it was slightly different because I had already established such strong relationships in that company that I knew a bunch of different people. So it was still referral based, but it was a little different because it was referral based through that company. So it was all the people that I started making relationships with. So I worked for not only the graphic design department, I worked for retail, I worked for PR, I worked for marketing. And then another design department too, the special projects design department that I ended up getting hired full-time in. So I had made relationships and networked with all of these different people in the company. Because this company's, at that time was almost $2 billion. So it's a massive company. But I had been there for a few years already and so I had made such strong relationships there that when everyone knew that I quit and they said, "Oh, what are you doing now? Oh you're freelancing. Perfect. Well, Can you actually hop on this project that we need? Because we need a freelancer here." And yeah, so it's still referrals, but it was through my professional relationships. And then those people that knew me through that job had friends that needed a freelancer too. So just making friendships and networking with people inside the company I was at for years really helped.
Steve Folland: So then third time around as it were, you rebrand yourself as a brand identity strategist?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, I wasn't even a strategist at that point. Just a brand identity designer. So just doing all the visual identity for businesses. At that point I didn't even know what strategy was.
Steve Folland: Well that's good. And just to put things in perspective, when was that? When did you step out that final time?
Melinda Livsey: That was 2015.
Steve Folland: What difference did that make when you called yourself a brand identity designer to how you were working?
Melinda Livsey: Oh, it was huge. It was huge because I was now aiming at a certain type of client. So instead of just taking ... Now, I still took the other jobs for a very long time because I had to pay the bills. But I presented myself as an identity designer because that was my ideal project that I wanted. And so just repositioning myself and showing the world, hey, this is what I do. This is what I do best, this is what I can do for you or for whoever you know. That helped me actually land ideal clients. So although I was still doing the nonsense type of projects, I would call it, all of the stuff that I would never put my portfolio. It's like things I'm embarrassed about. I still was doing that behind the scenes. But yeah, having that website up, having that claim like, hey, this is what I do, this is what I do best, I was actually landing those clients then.
Melinda Livsey: And so people that even referred me, they would see my website and then go, "Oh yeah, I know someone who needs that." Or, I gave a testimonial to my own copywriter and I had a client find me through her website. So just getting myself out there in the world and being known as a brand identity designer, it changed everything for me to do that.
Steve Folland: And how else were you getting out there in the world? Melinda Livsey: I'm trying to think back what I was doing. The first thing I did was get the website up, the new website, and then started talking to people. So telling people what I did and shared my website. So just simply talk ... Even family members, they would ask, "Hey, what are you doing now?" And I told them, "Oh, I just rebranded myself. This is what I do, this is who I've done it for. Here's a case study." So I would just talk about it a lot, but I didn't have ... Oh my gosh, I did not have a social game. I did not have a blog at that time. So I was still writing on a lot of my connections, a lot of referrals, and then about, I want to say two years into that, so 2017, I ended up as a co-host on the YouTube channel, The Futur, to be coached by Chris Do and him helping me with my business.
Melinda Livsey: And so as I got more out there in the world, so getting on YouTube, he taught me how to up my social media game, how to put things on Behance and why I should put things on Behance. And literally just getting myself out there into the world, that's when a lot of my work started picking up because now I wasn't just known within my network, my small network of family and friends, but I was getting known beyond that now. Just by sharing my story, just talking about what I do, and learning, and learning out loud, and learning for everyone to see on the internet. People just started getting to know me for specific things. So that's when I started blogging. That's when I started posting more on social media. And now, I'm still continuing in that too.
Steve Folland: Wow. How were you the one that was picked to be on The Futur? So this would have been a couple of years ago. And by the way, if you don't know The Futur, depending on the field you work in, your either very aware or not, then check out for links as ever for everything our guests do at beingfreelance.com. Because well worth checking out. Yeah. How did you get on Chris's radar and then get picked to do that?
Melinda Livsey: It's kind of funny because I thought at that time that I needed, which I did at that time, I needed more clients. And I didn't know how to get them. So what I thought I should do was get better at my craft. So I thought, well I'm going to go out there online and I'm going to find who teaches logo design and just refine my skill. I had happened upon Chris's content and his Facebook page and I thought, oh my gosh, this person who taught at a very good, prestigious art school, not only went there but also taught there, he was giving away all of his teaching for free. And I thought, well I wanted to go to that school but I didn't have the guts to actually apply back when I was going into college. And I thought, well if he's teaching all of this, and at that moment he was teaching how to design a better logo.
Melinda Livsey: And I thought, well I want to design really good logos so I'm going to learn from him. So what I did was I was reading up on all of his posts that he had on Facebook and he had assignments and he would just post them for free. And I thought, oh my goodness, I need to be listening to this because I wanted to go to that school and I'm getting this for free. So I spent weeks and hours, hours during those weeks of going through his assignments. And I remember the first few, it was like find the masters' logos. So things by Paul Rand, Saul Bass. And find those logos by masters and trace them. And do it as perfectly as you possibly can. Because his argument was, if you are able to replicate something that is is good design, then you can start deconstructing it and understand how they made those decisions.
Melinda Livsey: And I thought, well I want to know how to do that. So I did those assignments, I traced the logos and then his next assignment was to study the logo and actually just make notes about them. To see the relationships of shapes and make notes about what you see, so you're starting to train your eye. And so I was doing these very diligently, very religiously every week as he would post all of this. And he would comment back and ask, "Why are you doing this? Because you obviously don't need to." Because I put a lot of work into them. Like I made them as perfect as I possibly could. And he's like, "You're obviously not bad at what you do, so why are you doing this?" And so we ended up messaging each other. He messaged me and he said, "Do you run a studio? Do you run your own business? Tell me more about what you do."
Melinda Livsey: And so I told him, I said, "Yeah, I do brand identity and I just want to get better at logo design." And then he said, "Can you hop on a Skype call right now?" And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm so scared cause this guy, he's well known and I respect him. And it was very scary. It was like jumping on a call with a celebrity. And I said, "Yeah, sure I can jump on a call." So he ended up giving me free coaching on that call. We talked for about an hour and a half and he just asked me everything about my business and how I was getting clients and what my roadblocks were. And I was very frustrated at that time and I said, "I watch your content, I watch how you say that we can charge $18,000 for a logo. And I don't know how to get there. I don't know. And I don't see anywhere in your content how you can actually give me the steps to get there. And I'm really frustrated."
Melinda Livsey: And so it was a really cool conversation because it was very honest and he could see that I was asking questions that he didn't even know he needed to answer to the audience. And so then, a few weeks later ... We had a call every week. He'd called me up and say, "Hey, did you do the things I told you to do? How'd they work out for you?" And he was mentoring me for free. And then all of a sudden he said, "Hey, what do you think about being on YouTube? And we'll bring these conversations that we're having online so that other people can learn from it."
Melinda Livsey: "Because," he said, "You're asking questions that I know the audience is asking but the way that" ... We had really good chemistry too, back and forth. And he said, "The way that you ask questions is very clear and I think it would make for a good show. So as long as you're willing to be honest and come with all of the problems that you're dealing with in your business, I'll help you. And I'll help you get the clients that you need and what you want. And all I ask is that you're utterly honest with what you're going through." And I was like, "Well I can do that." So that's how I ended up being the one that got on the show.
Steve Folland: Wow. Melinda Livsey: Yeah. Steve Folland: And how long did that go on for?
Melinda Livsey: Well, it's still actually going on. I'm not on the show as much. It was, I would say about ... Gosh, I was on there a lot for maybe six months. Three to six months, I was on there a lot and getting coached from him. I would go into the studio because it takes about a couple of hours to get there for me. And I would go into the studio and we'd film a couple of episodes and then I'd come in every other week. So I was on there a lot for about six months. And then I had to take a break because I said, "You're giving me so much to do, which is great, but I need to go implement this. Like, I need to go work on those case studies and I need to go land those clients and I need to do all this stuff." And then at that time, that was when he introduced me to brand strategy and that's when I pivoted my services to include brand strategy.
Melinda Livsey: Because I knew that that was going to be a lot more valuable to my clients than just ... Not that it's not valuable to design the logo and the identity, but I realized that I was really good at strategy and that way of thinking. And so when he introduced me to that and to help clients in a new way, I also needed to learn that. So I told him, "I need to take a break and let me just implement all this. Let me actually land more clients and do brand strategy with them. And then I'll come back on the show." So yeah, I've been on the show, on and off for the past, it's going to be three years in June. So already it's been two and a half years. And so yeah. And when I have an idea for a show now, he goes, "Just tell me what idea you have and come on the show and we'll talk about it." So, yeah. Steve Folland: That's so cool. But, as you say, well it's not just YouTube, it was your real-life and it's your real career. So how did you find putting those things into practice?
Melinda Livsey: Oh man, it was hard. The first four months of putting everything into practice, I didn't have any clients. And I told him, "What are you the kiss of death to my business? I learned all this stuff and I don't have clients coming in." But it was also because I was pivoting everything. I was working on case studies. I wasn't really working on lead generation and getting clients in. And I was learning how to present myself and in this mud of redoing my website again and redoing even my case studies because they didn't portray the level of work that I did for my clients. And so yeah, I spent a lot of time learning brand strategy. I spent a lot of time updating my website again. And also updating the messaging that was on my website and how I talk about what I do.
Melinda Livsey: I also spent a lot of time working on just posting on social media. So I started posting the logo studies because I had nothing else really to post. I didn't know what to post at all on social media. And so that's where the majority of my time was going to. And then as I just kept posting, as I kept just showing up, even though I was learning ... I know a lot of people are like, "Well you have to create content to attract your ideal client," which is true. But I even found just being out there and just by people knowing me on the show, I was starting to get leads finally after for months. But my first lead that came in after those four months was someone that saw me on the show. So they literally just liked my personality and they liked what they heard me say on the show and they're like, "I'd love to work with you." So it's just getting known.
Steve Folland: And so as you were trying to get yourself known then separately from just being on that channel, were you tempted to start making your own videos that is, or were you doing Instagram stories? Like, how did it feel when you were sharing all of those?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah. Yeah. At first, I was just sharing my logo studies on Instagram and I actually got a pretty good-sized following just from doing that. Because no one else was doing it at all. And so I was studying the logos. I also used a lot of the golden ratio in my studies because it helped me train my eye and to see the different proportions. And so I was doing that. Nobody was doing that on Instagram, barely. I mean really the only other person that was doing it was Chris himself. And he didn't do it to the extent that I did. And so I'd keep posting those. So I was spending a lot of time doing that. And so I did gain a pretty good following with that. And then what I did, because he kept telling me, "You need to start your own show. You need to start your own YouTube show."
Melinda Livsey: I'm like, "That's so much work. Like the production of it, the editing of it, just the whole" ... There was so much investment in it and I said, "I just would rather be on your show." But what I did end up doing during that time was I started a weekly newsletter and that was huge because people wanted to follow along with my journey. They wanted to hear what I was doing. They wanted to hear even behind the scenes of, well, how are you implementing everything? How are you growing your business? How are you doing sales? What did you work on this week? Like they were invested now in my story. And so I have a mixture of clients and designers and a bunch of different people that just want to hear what I'm doing behind the scenes.
Melinda Livsey: And I started that newsletter and I have written about ... I want to say I'm almost at 70 newsletters. And there was a time where, I want to say a good eight months straight, that I did a newsletter every single week. And now I'm going to go back to it. But I had to take a break from that for a little while. But that was one of the main things I was concentrating on is the newsletter and people would hear about it, they would share it too. They'd screenshot it and they would share it and tag me on Instagram and Facebook. And so I had enough of a following that people started getting invested in my own story. And so I was posting the newsletter, I then started blogging and now I'm working on ... I need to work on my process. I really do. But I now write newsletters, I post them on my blog, I then post the blog on LinkedIn. I also screenshot some of that and post it on stories. So now I finally am feeling a lot more comfortable in what I share out there in the public. But during that first time, it was like I just shared the logo studies because that's all I had really.
Steve Folland: All of that feels like it takes quite a lot of work. How did you find the balance between actually doing the paid work and doing this other thing which is kind of growing you and growing an audience but perhaps you don't see an immediate monetary return for example?
Melinda Livsey: I'm so glad you brought that up because that's such a wonderful question to go over with a big shift I had in my mindset. And it was also from meeting a lot of friends through that channel and just my network that I started to build. I learned that ... And this was a huge mindset shift for me. I learned that as I was bringing more value to my clients, the more I could charge. That means that I didn't have to have as many clients but I could. So it started being where I was getting less and less clients, but now I was charging a lot more money. So when that happens, that means that I don't have to be on client projects as much as I used to be. So then I have all this time. But then all that time is not just time to sit around, it's actually time that I needed to invest in those things that we're talking about.
Melinda Livsey: Posting on Instagram, and getting known, and getting on podcasts, and writing newsletters. And I learned from one of my friends, she said ... I want to say she said that she spends right now even, about 60% of her time doing non-billable work. That is marketing. So she spent 60% of her time on Instagram, on creating whatever it is, if she's doing blogging, if she's doing newsletters. I think mainly right now for her it's mainly Instagram. She spends 60% of her time developing the community and her brand on Instagram. And so when I heard that, I realized, okay, so now things are shifting. Whereas previously, in my previous life as a designer, most of my time was on billable hours because I wasn't getting paid that much.
Melinda Livsey: So I needed to be working all the time on client work and maybe I had a couple of hours a week to work on marketing. Maybe. And I never really used it very well. But now it's the complete opposite where the majority of my time is developing relationships. It's being on podcasts, it's writing blogs, it's being on shows, it's creating my own shows. It's all of this stuff that's really free, I guess you could say. I'm not getting paid for it. But those things are actually helping me land those really big fish, those really big clients. So then you get a big fish and then you're able to ride on that one client for a month or two. Whereas previously I had to work with 12 clients to make that same amount of money. So it's a complete shift.
Steve Folland: It sounds like you're really good at questioning things and sort of reevaluating. How have you developed that sense of, I don't know, self-awareness or self-reflection maybe?
Melinda Livsey: That's an interesting question.
Steve Folland: I know. That's a question I don't normally ask.
Melinda Livsey: No. I love it.
Steve Folland: I'm sitting here thinking it sounds like you really have done that a lot.
Melinda Livsey: I do. I do. I think about my own thinking a lot and I don't know if that's just because I'm more of a ... Like I'm an INTJ on the Myers-Briggs. I'm an observer and maybe that's just how I am that I've always been very self-reflective. I've been to therapy, I've been to support groups. So I'm used to that way of living, of being self-reflective. And I think that's one thing that really drew Chris to me when he was coaching me because we're the same personality type too. So we're investigators, we're intuitive, we're introverts. And having a coach to bounce all my questions off of that was willing to listen to all my questions also really helped me because he helped me question the right things too. And he gave me the space to be self-reflective and ask those questions. So I think having that coach too was very, very helpful.
Steve Folland: And how about the broader work-life balance?
Melinda Livsey: I feel like that's always a struggle. I want to work all the time. Like it's always on my mind. Always. And I have to cut myself off from either creating stuff for Instagram or writing. So it's always been a struggle for me to stop working because I want to do it. I like doing it. So it's hard. And now at this point too, in my career, I am not only doing work for brand strategy clients, but I'm also teaching designers how to do it too. Because I really teaching. I enjoy learning, implementing, having success but then turning around and teaching someone else exactly how to do the same thing. And I feel that it solidifies what I'm doing and learning so much more because I can turn around and teach it. Because when you teach something you learn it so much better.
Melinda Livsey: But it's hard. It's hard for me because I'm then balancing essentially two businesses. One actually doing the brand strategy work, and then the other teaching. And I love it. I love doing it. So I almost have to force myself to stop. To go live life.
Steve Folland: And how do you do that?
Melinda Livsey: Oh man. I live by my calendar. If people see my calendar they really freak out because it's all colour-coded and there are time blocks in there. So I really try to stick with the allotted time that I have to do things and then cut myself off at like 6:00 PM. I try to not work past six. My absolute cutoff is 8:00 PM. But I really try to do that. And then I also will plan a lot of social things with my friends because I feel like I need to get myself out of the house and present with other people because I work from home.
Melinda Livsey: And so it's so easy for me to just want to stay home and then like, oh I'll just pull out my computer and write some emails. So to force myself out, I literally will plan things with friends and get myself out of the house. So that's been really helpful for me.
Steve Folland: So you book in the work and you book in the life?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah. And so typically I will book in my life first, and then I'll book work around my life.
Steve Folland: Well that's a healthy way of doing it.
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, it's helped me. It's helped me to focus on my actual life. Because otherwise, I would just work all the time.
Steve Folland: How have you found that the business side of being freelance, across these different stages of you doing it as well? Melinda Livsey: It's hard. It's hard. Because at the beginning, when I was just focusing on the logo studies, I just wanted to do my craft. Like, I didn't want to think about the business side. And I think that is a struggle for a lot of creative people, is that they literally just want to do their craft. And I just want to do that thing. And so the business side of things, it was difficult and I think I still have a difficulty with the lead generation. I'm getting better, much better at business development. So meeting people, networking so much better. But it's just not something that, that the Legion, the business development was not something I naturally did. I had to learn how to do that and it was difficult. And then all the behind the scenes stuff, I taught piano lessons when I was 16 and did that for about six years. And so I learned how to at least run a very small business. But I learned how to handle the finances and all of that. So I felt like I came in prepared with that kind of stuff. The behind the scenes, financial things. But yeah, learning processes too, how to document processes, that's all been new. It's been a lot of a learning curve for me.
Steve Folland: You obviously had a very visible mentor with Chris when you were doing that on YouTube. And as you say, you still continue doing that, but do you have a ... I don't know. I guess people around your community, accountability beyond what we might see on screen for example?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, I do. So Chris has a pro group of about 300 people in a Facebook group and they get on calls with him. So it's like an 80 person Zoom call once a week. And so I started there and met a ton of people there. And I feel like community is such a huge thing for me now, where I met most of my closest friends in that group. And then from there, I'm still in that group, I still meet a lot of people there. I started going to a lot more design events, conferences and luckily I had a lot of connection through The Futur. So I met a lot of people through that and just tried to go to as many design events as I could and meeting people. And so I have a really good core group of friends that I had met a few years ago in that group.
Melinda Livsey: And then I add to that and I meet more people and more people from that community. So that would be my main community that I had developed. And gosh, throughout these past few years, we've formed groups like accountability groups. I'm in a lot of Slack groups too with these people. And so I have different workspaces with friends and we'll just check up on each other daily and we'll say, "Hey, what are you working on today? Do you want to hop on a quick call?" And so community has been massive for me to even get me to where I'm at now. And I had a small group of friends that I met through that pro group that we learned strategy together and how to do brand strategy. And we would go out and do it for clients, we'd come back in our group and we'd share everything that we learned with each other.
Melinda Livsey: So I can't stress the idea of having a community enough. It is so important to have that. Whether that is just one friend, it'd be great to have more, a small group of friends that you just bounce ideas off of, that you ask questions, that you learn with, is huge. And then from there I actually have a mastermind group that I run that I call them my inner circle. And they are my inner circle. We all share what we're going through, the goals that we're trying to achieve. We support one another. We even form an Instagram pod where if anyone posts something on Instagram, we're right there commenting and liking and being a support to each other. So yeah, there's a lot of community going on in the background that people don't see.
Steve Folland: That's so nice. Actually, I'm intrigued about this additional ... I mean, earlier on you called it like you have two businesses. So there's the brand strategy, but then there's the mastermind, the educating, that whole helping others do what you do. And so what would you say your balance is between the two?
Melinda Livsey: I would say last year it was about 75% client work and then 25% teaching. And this year I'm looking to flip that. So at least be 50 to 75% teaching. And then the rest of the time be clients that I really want to work with. And so I'm working to pivot right now more into teaching.
Steve Folland: Where's that come from? Is that because that's what you're enjoying? Like when you're thinking about that decision. Because that could sound scary.
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, it is. I enjoy it. I enjoy teaching. I enjoy building communities. Because every time that I teach, I have a class, they get to know one another, they get to know me. I'm forming this really tight community and I love that. And again, I love teaching too and I find that client work, although I really enjoy doing brand strategy, I really love working on branding, it's really tiring. Client work is extremely tiring for me. And I find that I'm much more energized by teaching. So that's how I'm looking at things. And then I figure, well, the client work that I actually do get, it's stuff that I really want to be working on and then I can also practise what I'm teaching right at the same time that I'm teaching it.
Melinda Livsey: Then I have those clients still that I can learn from and teach, but it's pretty exhausting for me to to do client work. And I also realize that when I do teach that I'm my own client. Now I can decide how do I position myself in the marketplace? I'm not tied to my email at all anymore like I was with client work. And if you've never had that feeling, it is an amazing feeling to not have to check your email. Literally, there are some days where I'm like, I don't feel well. I'm not even going to work today. And I don't have to work because I'm not tied to that client work anymore. And it's an amazing feeling to be your own client.
Steve Folland: When there is so much in front of you that you could possibly do, how do you decide what to focus on? How do you stay focused?
Melinda Livsey: Oh gosh. That's like how do creatives stop the shiny object syndrome?
Steve Folland: Yeah. I mean you said you're always thinking about work, you want to work, you stop yourself working, but how do you choose what to work on?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah. First, I try to understand who am I? I actually had friends do ... When we were learning brand strategy, we did brand strategy on each other. So we were able to figure out who am I, what do I like doing, what am I best at? So I could be doing a ton of video, I could be doing Instagram, but I look at how much energy do I have, how much interest in that thing do I have, how much talent do I have in that? And I realized that I actually really liked to write. And so I concentrate on things that I know I'm really good at. And there is an exercise too, another way of figuring this out. At the end of the year, I go over this exercise where I first think of my vision of what do I want the next year to be like?
Melinda Livsey: And so this coming year, 2020 that we're in right now, my vision is I want to be known as a brand strategist. I want to build the machine of my business so that it's sustainable. I want to be my own client. That's my vision. And I also outlined my five archetypes. So what do I naturally do? I coach. And so I call myself the coach, the innovator, the investigator, the observer, the Sage. Those are my archetypes. And then I listed out all of the things that I do or could do that support those archetypes. And so I'm really trying to understand who am I, what do I do best? And then after that I actually outlined my focus for the year. So knowing who I am, knowing my vision, what should I be focusing on now? And that's when I outline, if that's Instagram, if that's video, if that's blogging.
Melinda Livsey: So it's first knowing yourself, knowing who you are, knowing what you're good at, knowing where you want to head, and that will really help you to focus on exactly what it is that you should be doing.
Steve Folland: So that helps you know when to say no.
Melinda Livsey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, if it doesn't align with my focuses, if it doesn't align with my archetypes and who I know myself to be, I say no.
Steve Folland: And when you say you're building up the machine of your business?
Melinda Livsey: Yeah, and specifically this year because I'm pivoting more to teaching. I want to build the machine of that class that I'm teaching. And so that will look like ... I want to refine the product. So I want to make sure that the whole class is very streamlined and I hired someone to help me with that, to help refine the class. So they actually, we'll get on calls together and he'll ask me all these questions and pull out, okay, what should be in the course, what should it look like, what resources do we need to be putting in here? So that's part of it is refining the product.
Melinda Livsey: I will be hiring some people to help with content marketing too. So taking all this content that I've already been a part of. So podcasting, video, writing and how can we leverage everything I've already done and pump it out even more. To get to fill the top of the funnel, to get more people aware of what I do and who I am. So eventually we'll be hiring more people for that. So learning how to build a machine of marketing. So how do you pump out stuff? How do you post it? Having a schedule with that, because I'm very all over the place with when I post and when I write. So I want to get myself more on a schedule too of like, okay this is when I do Instagram, this is when I write my newsletter, this is how someone could take that. So like an assistant, I do have an admin assistant too who can take all of my writings and then distribute them across the different platforms. So those types of things, I really would love to get on a schedule with that and then delegate them to different people. That would be absolutely ideal.
Steve Folland: And does all of that scare you in any way?
Melinda Livsey: Oh, terrifies me. Yeah. Instagram. The writing doesn't as much just because I've been doing it for the past couple of years, so I'm getting really used to talking about what I do. So being on video, I'm much more comfortable being on video. Usually other people's videos so I don't have to edit it. And so that marketing is not as scary. Where I get really scared is like this new class that I'm coming out with. Like what if nobody buys it? I've done a beta course for it. Everyone loved it, but it was a much cheaper price. And so I'm looking at raising my price for it and I get scared. Whenever I pivot or whenever I do something really new, it terrifies me because I'm like, what if it doesn't work? What if nobody cares? What if nobody purchases? It's scary. It's very scary.
Steve Folland: It's been so good to chat to you. Make sure you go to beingfreelance.com. Click through all of the links so that you can find out what Melinda is up to. And do you trade as Melinda? I meant to ask you this earlier. As in a company name.
Melinda Livsey: Oh, so I was using Marks and Maker for a while. When I switched to doing brand identity, I was using that name. So when I rebranded myself or when I really branded myself the first time, I was using Marks and Maker. I still use it on my website. But Melinda Livsey, Mark's and Maker, it goes to the same place. But now that I'm getting known more as Melinda Livsey, I'm using that more so.
Steve Folland: Interesting. Because I know a lot of people, we toss up, should I have a company name? Should I be my own name? What was your feeling on it?
Melinda Livsey: Oh I was completely confused for so long and then I realized, okay, just pick something, Melinda. Just picked whatever you want. Go forward. But then once I started getting known more and known as my personal brand as Melinda Livsey, that's when I realized, okay, I need ... And I looked at my Google analytics too, and the number one thing people were searching was my first and last name. So I figured, okay, because now I'm getting known in the industry as myself and not through my business name, then I'm going to leverage that. I'm going to lean into that. But I would say for anyone wondering, pick. Literally pick whatever you want and then move forward because action will create clarity. So that's my suggestion for anyone who's struggling.
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Melinda Livsey: Learn how to market yourself. Get out there. Learn how to do it. When you don't have client work, don't just sit around. Like, be working on your business and put the majority of your time in working on your business. Learn how to work on your business, learn marketing, learn business development, learn business to help you. I wish I would've started that sooner.