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Building up a buffer - Freelance Copywriter Graeme Piper

Graeme was working as a marketing manager when he realised he enjoyed writing copy. He had an opportunity to take on a project and, after submitting it to his boss he asked “If you’d hired a freelance copywriter for this, would you have paid them?”

His boss said yes, absolutely, and so Graeme got thinking.

“I very quickly had these illusions of working from home, getting clients, drifting around to client meetings, getting paid, and all this sort of stuff. I had to then check myself and think, Right. That's a long way away yet, so let's not get carried away. But I knew that I wanted to do that. That was my ultimate goal.”

Graeme managed to save six months salary before handing in his notice in 2016. He’d continued to work full time while freelancing a little on the side.

“Once I'd made that decision to go freelance, I really had to change my mindset completely and stop my frivolous spending ways, and basically just save every spare penny that I had. Every time I got paid for a copy project, that money would get saved. I just kind of built it up and built it up and didn't spend anything unless I really had to.”

Finding clients as a freelance copywriter

When he first began freelancing on the side, Graeme emailed local businesses to introduce himself and what he could offer. And it worked.

Just before he left his full-time role, he emailed agencies in his local area.

“I was quite bullish about it. I set up meetings and said, "Look, I really want to come talk to you about how I can help you and help your clients." And luckily I got meetings with pretty much all of them. Some of them didn't work out, but a lot of them did. There's a few of them I still work for now, today. So that was a big thing for me, a big moment where I thought, Yes, target the agencies because they don't employ copywriters. That worked really well for me.”

After establishing those relationships early on, Graeme now finds himself with plenty of repeat work.

“Clients also come to me through the website. The majority of clients just do Google searches. I always make a point of asking how they found me, and a lot of them say Google search. "Copywriter in Devon," or whatever it is.

And when it comes to saying no…

“When you've been going for a few years, your radar goes off - "Do I need this? This sounds a bit dodge. Do I want to get involved in this?" Having a financial buffer does give you the freedom or confidence to say, "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm too busy," or whatever it may be.”

Managing your workload as a freelancer

Graeme says that he’s no stranger to overwhelm and he finds it helps to take a step back, breathe and write a list.

“If things really get crazy then I'm lucky that I've got a lot of clients who are repeat clients. I'm very comfortable in emailing them or calling them and just saying, "Look, I know you said you wanted this by Friday. Is there any chance that we could extend that and I can just ping it over on Monday, Tuesday?"
“Nine times out of ten, they're very cool with that. Because you've told them, you've let them know. You're not trying to bury anything. So you think, Right. Okay. I've got a bit breathing space now. So it's a bit of give and take and flexibility with clients. It works wonders really.”

He finds that routine helps, as does having his own office space at home.

“Co-working spaces work for a lot of people but I can’t deal with the noise. I need silence.”

Lots of freelancers struggle with keeping the balance when working from home, but Graeme’s happy with his routine.

“I would say that I am in this office doing something probably seven days a week most of the time. But I don't work all the time, really. That routine is there and I enjoy working.”

Freelancing as an introvert

Graeme’s introverted and says he’s at ease working alone.

“I'm fine if I need to go to meetings and networking events, it's no problem. But I do really enjoy working alone. I enjoy my own company, and I'm not kind of climbing the walls, thinking, "I really need to get out and see somebody."
“There's a great online community through Twitter and various Facebook groups, like Being Freelance, of course. I know it's not quite the same when you're interacting with somebody through a screen, through social media, but I never feel really isolated at all.”

And the one thing Graeme would tell his younger self about being freelance?

“Trust your instincts and trust the process of freelancing.”

— Graeme Piper, freelance copywriter

“It's very easy, if you lose out on a pitch or you quote for something and you don't get it, and there's no real feedback or whatever. Little things like that can kind of knock your confidence, understandably.
“But remember the old classic saying, ‘one door closes, another one opens.’ You've got to trust the process that something else will happen, whatever that may be. You put things out there and you get good stuff back. So try and hold it together and trust the process without freaking out too much.”

Listen to Graeme’s story in full for more insights into life as a freelance copywriter. Play the episode above or find it on your favourite podcast app.

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Podcast Transcript

Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Copywriter Graeme Piper

Transcription by humans at Rev - try them for yourself!

Steve Folland: How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance.

Graeme Piper: Well, my previous role was, I was assistant marketing manager for a company in Exeter. I'd been there for about 10 years and I kind of shifted around sort of job roles and job titles, and ended up doing that.

Graeme Piper: As part of my role, I kind of took it upon myself to start writing some of the copy for brochures, and websites, and blogs, and all that sort of thing. But I didn't do too much of it, just now and again. So I never really classed myself as a copywriter in that role at all.

Graeme Piper: The company grew, and the team grew, and we hired a specific copywriter. But of course, when we got really busy, there was obviously too much to write. There was always something to write. It's too much for one person sometimes. So I used to just chip in every now and again.

Graeme Piper: One time my boss said, "We've got a new brochure to write. Do you want to have a go?" So I said, "Well, yeah. Okay." And that was kind of my moment when I thought, "I quite like writing. I quite like doing this."

Graeme Piper: I looked into a bit of research and stuff. I know that I had a bit of a headstart, because I knew the product and our sort of style and how we spoke, and our turn of voice. That was all good. So I had a bit of a headstart.

Graeme Piper: I wrote this content, and I gave it to my boss, and he had a few comments. He took out his red pen and crossed through a few things. At the end of the process, I said, "Look, if you paid a freelance copywriter to write this, and this is what they gave you, would you pay them?" And he said, "Yes. It was fine. This is absolutely great to use. It's no problem."

Graeme Piper: So that was my moment when I thought, "Hmm, maybe I could do something about this and make some money for myself."

Steve Folland: That was a great question to ask. Did you then also say, "And how much would you have paid?"

Graeme Piper: I didn't. I didn't. I should've done. That could have made my whole process of the last four or five years much easier. But no, I failed to do that, obviously. Steve Folland: So what happened then? Because you're still in-house.

Graeme Piper: I was in-house at the time. I was still working, that was my only job. And then when I thought, "Okay, I want to start writing copy for people now." I had very quickly kind of had these illusions of being working from home, and getting clients, and drifting around to client meetings, and getting paid, and all this sort of stuff.

Graeme Piper: I had to then check myself and think, "Right. That's a long way away yet, so let's not get carried away." But I knew that I wanted to do that. That was my ultimate goal.

Graeme Piper: So very quickly I kind of put my thinking cap on and came up with my business name, DropCapCopy. And once I had that, I registered my social media things, and bought a domain name, and kind of got all that side of it done very quickly. Then I kind of thought, "Right. I need some clients. So what do I do?"

Graeme Piper: This is going back to sort of about April 2015, I think. And I thought, "Well, how do I get clients? Nobody knows who I am. I don't even know what I'm doing at this point." But I fired off probably about half a dozen emails and just kind of said, "Look, this is what I do. This is what I can do for you, how I can help," really not expecting anything to come back.

Graeme Piper: And very quickly, I got one response from a local business and ended up doing some editorial for them, for the local newspaper. Which was great. And I got paid and it was brilliant. That was a bit of a moment.

Graeme Piper: I kind of just carried on under the radar. I was at the time doing a copywriting course, learning how to write for specific... Write for web or editorial, that kind of thing. And probably about two months later, I got another email back from this group of people that I emailed. It said, "We're redoing our website. Can you help us?" I was like, "Yes, of course."

Graeme Piper: So I was very lucky and got two clients kind of pretty much straight away, which was great. I mean, looking back, obviously I charged way too little. And looking back now, I'd probably think, "Oh, I can just rewrite that completely." But at the time, I was happy with it, and, more importantly, the client was happy with it. That worked out really well.

Graeme Piper: But I felt no pressure because I was still working. I knew that I needed money. If I wanted to leave my job, I couldn't just quit and say, "Right, here we go. Let's try something new." Obviously mortgage payments and all the rest of it, food. I needed money to sort of back me up.

Graeme Piper: So it was a question, once I'd made that decision to go freelance, I really had to change my mindset completely. And stop my frivolous spending ways, and basically just save every spare penny that I had.

Graeme Piper: As this was going on, I was trying to pick up the odd client here and there. Every time I got paid for a copy project, that money would get saved. I just kind of built it up and built it up and sort of didn't spend anything unless I really had to.

Graeme Piper: In the end, I gave myself a bit of a war chest of finances, which was great. When I finally did hand my notice in, I gave them three months notice, and they also wanted me to do a little bit more on top of that. So I just kind of had all that extra little bit of cash coming in.

Graeme Piper: Yeah, so when I first started, I thought, "Right, I've got now, if I never get any clients ever again, I've got probably about six months worth of money to see me through before I need to start getting a proper job."

Steve Folland: That's brilliant. And how long was that period where you were working on the side as well as still working?

Graeme Piper: Well, that first batch of emails I sent out was, I think it was about April 2015. And I finally had my handed my notice in... Oh, when was it? I think it was April 2016. So there was a year of saving money and also working on the side and saving all that money as well.

Graeme Piper: Then I finally left in... When was it? August. August 2016. So there was about 15 months or thereabouts between having that kind of light bulb moment and actually doing it. Steve Folland: And how long... Obviously, so we're talking just, well, five years ago, four years ago.

Graeme Piper: Yeah. Steve Folland: But how long had you been working? I don't know how old you are, for example, but I'm just trying to figure out how long had you been working previous to that? So you were a marketing manager.

Graeme Piper: Yeah. I mean, basically I left school and dived into a, now this is going to show my age, a YTS scheme. Which nowadays I think is the equivalent to being an apprentice. I did that, and I kind of worked solidly up until then, really. So it was my whole career.

Graeme Piper: Probably about 2013, I started thinking that I wanted a change, because I'd been there for a number of years. I joined that company in 2006 as a graphic designer. It was a bit of a shift. But the team grew, and we got in another graphic designer, and he was great, and I kind of moved into the assistant manager role.

Graeme Piper: But, yeah, I'd been working the whole time. I started off as a printer, so I was kind of always around copy. And I moved into the graphic design side of it, playing around with words on screen and page layouts and all that sort of stuff.

Graeme Piper: Then I started to write this copy in amongst my other roles as assistant manager. Yeah, that's where it kind of came from.

Steve Folland: So that's a wealth of companies, and connections, and years, if you like.

Graeme Piper: Yes. Indeed. Steve Folland: Did that help at all when you were then looking for clients as a freelance copy writer?

Graeme Piper: Yes, very much so. Because I knew from my background in print and marketing and stuff, that many businesses that we used sometimes in all our brochure output and stuff like that... We used agencies every now and again, and I knew that a lot of the agencies that we used were fairly small. Maybe just a handful of permanent employees.

Graeme Piper: And obviously, unless you're an absolutely huge agency, you can't afford to employ full-time web developers and full-time photographers and copywriters and illustrators and all that sort of stuff. So the penny kind of dropped pretty quickly. And I thought, "Well, if they don't employ them in-house, then they have to get them from somewhere. They obviously look to freelancers."

Graeme Piper: So I kind of had that in my head anyway. And just before I left that role, I emailed a lot of agencies around where I live, so in Exeter and Plymouth and Torquay, and places like that. I emailed them, and I was quite bullish about it. I set up meetings and said, "Look, I really want to come talk to you about how I can help you and help your clients."

Graeme Piper: And luckily I got meetings with pretty much all of them. Some of them didn't work out, but a lot of them did. There's a few of them I still work for now, today. So that was a big thing for me, a big moment where I thought, "Yes, target the agencies because they don't employ copywriters." That worked really well for me.

Steve Folland: Nice. I want to ask, you decided right from the off, by the sounds of it, to choose a business name rather than saying, Graeme Piper, copywriter.

Graeme Piper: Yes.

Steve Folland: What was the thinking behind that?

Graeme Piper: Quite simply, I don't like my name as a business name. I'm not that keen on my name anyway, actually. But to use it as-

Steve Folland: Oh, Graeme. You're breaking my heart. It's a lovely name.

Graeme Piper: I know, I think it's probably a personal thing. Some people love their name, other people hate their name. I don't hate my name, but it didn't suit me to be, like you say, Graeme Piper Copywriting. It just didn't work. It didn't have a ring to it.

Graeme Piper: So that's when I quickly thought, "Right, I need a business name." Everyone knows it's me anyway, my website says it's me. It's just me. Me, myself and I. But I wanted that name just to make me feel like I was actually doing something proper. And it wasn't just me, even though is of course. But it made it a bit more rounded, if that makes sense.

Steve Folland: So how has it grown then, over the past few years. Has it changed?

Graeme Piper: I want to say, "Yes. I've grown exponentially and it's huge." But no, realistically my processes haven't really changed. The way I find clients hasn't really changed. Obviously my client base has grown. I've got more clients now than I did have then, which is a good thing.

Graeme Piper: But I've really kind of purposely kept things small. Reading Paul Jarvis's book, Company of One, was a great kind of leveler. I thought, "Yes, I'm doing something right. I am maintaining my level. I'm sticking in my lane."

Graeme Piper: I'm keeping small purposely because I'm a freelancer. I don't want to be an agency, or to grow and employ lots of people, and that sort of thing. Lots of people do, and they move into that, and it's great. But it's not for me.

Graeme Piper: So I purposely keep things small, and I purposely keep it just me. And that's the way it works best for me. That's the way I like it.

Steve Folland: Do you still, for example, send out cold emails? How do your clients come to you now?

Graeme Piper: My clients really... Because I fostered a lot of those relationships in the early days with agencies, I've been very lucky and had a lot of repeat work from them over the years, which is great. Some agencies come to me, they might just use me once, for projects. Others come back repeatedly. So that's been a big thing for me. Like I said, the agency work has really paid off.

Graeme Piper: Clients also come to me through the website. Majority of clients just do Google searches. I always make a point of asking how they found me, and a lot of them say, just Google search. "Copyright in Devon," or whatever it is. Steve Folland: Oh, nice.

Graeme Piper: So that's good. But also I get from various direct clients, as well as agencies, I get a lot of referrals as well. Not huge amounts. I mean, I'm not overloaded with referrals and things. But every now and again they say, "Oh yeah, so-and-so told us about you, and we're looking for some copy for X, Y, Z, can you help?"

Graeme Piper: So I've been very lucky. But I think there was a lot of work in those early days of trying to focus my attention on agencies, and make myself known, and make myself available to them. And it's kind of paid dividends really over the years.

Steve Folland: How do you manage your workload?

Graeme Piper: Sometimes it feels like with great difficulty. If I'm fortunate enough to be very busy, it can get a little overwhelming sometimes. Because you suddenly think, "Oh my God, I've got this, this, this and this. Oh, and there's this deadline. Oh, no, how's it going to work?" And you start to sort of freak out a little bit.

Graeme Piper: But you know, generally, take a deep breath, take a step back, write a list. And once you write that list, then you suddenly think, "Actually this job, I can't carry on with that at the moment. Because I'm waiting for them to come back to me. This job, I'm waiting for them to sign the contract, and stuff like that."

Graeme Piper: So once you work through things like that, things kind of tend to thin out a little bit, and you think, "Right. Okay, well I'll just focus on this. Get that one out of the way," and just work through it.

Graeme Piper: There's often elements of panic. There's often elements of worry, when you don't have enough work coming in, or seemingly. But yeah, it's just a big old juggling act, really.

Graeme Piper: And if things really get kind of crazy, then I'm lucky that I've got a lot of clients who are repeat clients. I'm very comfortable in emailing them or calling them and just saying, "Look, I know you said you wanted this by Friday. Is there any chance that we could extend that and I can just ping it over on sort of Monday, Tuesday?"

Graeme Piper: Nine times out of 10, they're very cool with that. Because you've told them, you've let them know. You're not trying to bury anything. And they're happy and say, "Yeah. That's fine. No problem." So you think, "Right. Okay. I've got a bit breathing space now."

Graeme Piper: So it's a bit of give and take and flexibility with clients. It works wonders really.

Steve Folland: And how about where you work? Graeme Piper: Where I work? In terms of location, or in my little home office?

Steve Folland: Ah, well there you are. So you have a home office. Graeme Piper: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve Folland: Is that where you've been all along or have you tried other ways?

Graeme Piper: No. Well when I was still working and I was just dabbling with this copywriting lark, I used to get my laptop and have it on my lap in front of the TV downstairs. And very quickly I thought, "This isn't working. This is no good. I can't concentrate." So I then took myself up to our small back room upstairs.

Graeme Piper: It's a third bedroom and it's very small, a box room. And I used to work in there. We had this kind of ratty old desk that I used to work at. Then once it kind of gathered pace and I was getting more clients and more work, I, over time, kind of commandeered this room and said, "Right, this is my office."

Graeme Piper: And now it's completely my office. I've just kind of made it my own so I can come in, shut the door if I need to, and work away.

Steve Folland: And do you tend to work set hours?

Graeme Piper: Yeah, well, I'm quite regimented. I think it's just years of sort of working for the man. You've got to turn up at nine o'clock and leave at five or whatever hours. I've always kind of had that routine. Plus my wife leaves at 7:45. I just then go upstairs, quick shower, and I'm back at the desk by quarter past eight, something like that.

Graeme Piper: I can kind of work straight through, but I do have lots of breaks. And of course working from home, you know, the postman rings, or you think, "I've got to load the dishwasher," or "I've got to unload the washing," and all that sort of stuff. So you get these kind of natural breaks, which gives you enough time away from the screen to sort of process things in the old subconscious.

Graeme Piper: No, this way works very well. And I don't think... I mean, co-working spaces work for a lot of people, yourself included. But I can't deal with noise. I need silence. I'd spent many years in that marketing team, surrounded by a team of about 15 people. Lots of talking and shouting across at each other. Not very conducive to writing copy, really.

Graeme Piper: I was very fortunate to come back to my own little space and have silence, as and when I needed it. So yeah, I've been very lucky.

Steve Folland: And do you feel like, by having a home office, you've got a good separation between home and work?

Graeme Piper: Yeah, I think I do. I know that people say, "Oh, if you're working at home, you never can quite leave it alone. Whereas if you're in a co-working space, you've actually got to leave the house and go somewhere else. So there's probably not as great to temptation."

Graeme Piper: I would say that I am in this office doing something probably seven days a week, most of the time. But then again, people might think, "Oh my God, you're working all the time." I don't work all the time, really. Weekends, generally I say I don't work weekends. If I'm busy, then I will work one day of the weekend. But it might not even be a full day, just enough to sort of clear the decks.

Graeme Piper: But yeah, that routine is there, and I enjoy working. So, I don't see it as like, "Oh God, I've got to do work today." Well, sometimes you do, if the weather is nice. But I just see it as an opportunity.

Graeme Piper: And especially if my wife is out doing something, whatever, then I think, "Oh, well, rather than just padding around doing not a lot, I'll just carry on and finish that blog or whatever it may be."

Steve Folland: But working from home, being by yourself all day, do you feel isolated? Or are you part of a local community? Or how do you feel about that side of it?

Graeme Piper: I'm quite at ease with working alone. I mean, it's not a thing for me. I'm kind of a bit of an introverted freelancer. I'm fine if I need to go to meetings and networking events and things like that, I can sort of get into that. It's no problem. But I do really enjoy working alone, and I enjoy my own company, and I'm not kind of climbing the walls, thinking, "I really need to get out and see somebody."

Graeme Piper: I know it's not the same, but there's a great online community through Twitter and various Facebook groups, like Being Freelance, of course. I know it's not quite the same when you're interacting with somebody through a screen, through social media, but I never feel really isolated at all.

Graeme Piper: I think that's mainly down to just my nature or my personality. So I don't have that kind of issue really. I'm quite fortunate in that respect as well.

Steve Folland: In which case, I'm sitting here thinking, "What does he find challenging?" This all seems to be going swimmingly. Have you found anything challenging?

Graeme Piper: Yeah, there's various things that challenge. There's that constant challenge of, you've got to find work, basically. You can't expect work to just fall into your lap.

Graeme Piper: I know I have over the years, been lucky with my clients, which is great. But sometimes, being a freelancer, you get slow months. And you think, "Once I finish this, that, and that, I've actually got nothing in the pipeline. Oh God." So you do have that panic and you think, "What am I going to do? I need to do something here."

Graeme Piper: But aside from the sort of day-to-day challenges of running your business and being a freelancer, I think it's worked out well. I think that's down to sort of good planning in the early days.

Graeme Piper: I mean, work challenges you, obviously. Every day there's something that challenges you. How to write something specifically, or trying to get inside the mind of the client, or understand some of these briefs. There's all these challenges. Financial challenges all the time, as you know.

Graeme Piper: There's always these little things. I've been lucky in that there's been no major challenge. But I think, like I say, a lot of it comes down to how I planned and did things. Not necessarily in the right order, but I did things before I quit my job to make sure that I had some sort of protection from things. Do you know what I mean? It's difficult to explain.

Graeme Piper: There's always challenges. But it's just how you figure it out and work with it to get over it, or whatever you need to do to, to work around it.

Steve Folland: True. So you had a six month buffer when you first went freelance. Did you need it? Or did it work out okay from the off?

Graeme Piper: Well, in the early days, of course it was quite slow. I had that little kind of pocket of clients and work coming in, but it wasn't particularly all the time straight away. So I was quite lucky that I had that money. And I did kind of dip into it a little bit.

Graeme Piper: But I was very lucky again that clients came to me. And in the early days, of course I was a bit more kind of out there. Going to networking things, and making myself known, and putting the word out there. So I was kind of doing the right things in trying to get clients and get work.

Graeme Piper: I might have dipped into it a little bit at the beginning, but I was quite lucky in that the money and the work was coming in relatively regularly. So, it kind of worked out okay. I didn't really need to dip in that much.

Steve Folland: Did you then maintain that buffer going forward?

Graeme Piper: Yeah, well, if you don't spend anything, then it's kind of still there. So everything on top, came in and it just kind of added to it. Then, of course, once you've been going a few years, you need to dip in. "Oh, yeah, I need a new iMac." So, that happened. And buying a printer and different things. You sort of chip away at it.

Graeme Piper: But then I always knew, of course, that I needed to pay a tax bill. I think when I first started out, I earned money doing little jobs for clients. One of the first things I wanted to do was to buy a new iPad, and I thought, "Oh, hang on a minute. I'm going to be taxed on this kind of small sum I've earned. So I better not spend any of it, just in case."

Graeme Piper: It was just that kind of mindset of, "Right. Well, I know that I need to pay tax, payment on my account in July, and my tax bill in January." It's just kind of fear. "Don't spend too much because there's always something to pay out for, not least of all your tax bill."

Graeme Piper: It's just paranoia and fear really. I don't spend any money unless I really have to.

Steve Folland: Wonderfully sensible. Does that also, though, give you the confidence to say no to things?

Graeme Piper: Yeah. I think when you have been going for a few years, your radar goes off and you can tell the signs about, "Do I need this? This sounds a bit dodgy. Do I want to get involved in this?" And it does give you that kind of freedom almost of having the confidence to say, "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm too busy," or whatever it may be. And you sort of don't accept that job.

Graeme Piper: I think you could probably count the amount of times I've turned down work on one hand, really. And I've tried to take work whenever I can, because if you get too complacent, "Oh no, I don't need that job," then you're on the road to hiding, really.

Graeme Piper: So I've tried to accept work whenever I can, just to make sure that I've got the money coming in and to cover my outgoings. And the tax bill, like I said,

Steve Folland: Now, Graeme, if you could tell your younger self, one thing about being freelance, what would that be?

Graeme Piper: Well, there's so many things. It's very difficult to nail it down to just one thing. But I think, in general, I would just say just to, "Trust your instincts and trust the process of freelancing."

Graeme Piper: Because it's very easy, if you lose out on a pitch or you quote for something and you don't get it, and there's no real feedback or whatever. Little things like that can kind of knock your confidence, understandably.

Graeme Piper: But in the old classic saying, "One door closes, another one opens." You've got to trust the process that something else will happen, whatever that may be. Somebody might phone you that you talked to six months ago and say, "Oh, we've got this project," whatever.

Graeme Piper: I think just to, not so much go with the flow, but trust the process and trust that things will happen. You put things out there and you get good stuff back. So try and sort of basically hold it together and trust the process without freaking out too much.