Graphic Designer Frankie Tortora
About this episode…
Graphic Designer Frankie Tortora
Over 10 years ago Frankie crowd funded her training as a graphic designer. It’s fair to say she doesn’t look at problems the same way everyone does.
And when pregnancy took her flourishing freelance career a few steps back, when she felt isolated amongst parents with full-time jobs, she didn’t settle. She searched. She got creative.
As her first child was born, so was ‘Doing It For The Kids’. Through a blog, Instagram, award-winning podcast and thriving community, she’s forged a second family of freelancers juggling kids & business.
Finding her feet, her people, her niche.
And along the way, finding a co-mentor in Steve Folland (yep, of Being Freelance).
Together, they took to figuring out how to run their ridiculously big side projects around everything else.
Read the highlights in the next tab.
Crowdfunded career
After being made redundant, Frankie decided to become a Freelance Graphic Designer, but there was one catch…she had never been a Graphic Designer before. So she decided to enrol on a course…
“I partially crowdfunded my fees to do this course, which is totally bonkers when you think about it, because why would anybody invest in an individual like that anyway? And why would anybody invest in an individual who's never done design before?”
Creative Blaggers
Within a few months of being freelance, Frankie found herself working in a swanky office in London Bridge…for free.
“We had an entire floor full of all these people doing different creative jobs, starting out, young people trying to make it in various industries. There were filmmakers and animators and people who've gone on to do amazing things and win crazy awards and stuff. But at the time we were all blagging it basically ”
Bad clients refer bad clients
It can be easy to say yes to everything when starting out as a freelancer, and Frankie was no different. But she learnt quickly and found her niche in a world of colour, creativity, and silliness…
“I started off doing all the things. Quickly learnt that 80% of those things I did not enjoy. Quickly learnt the type of clients that I didn't enjoy working for and tried to cut them out. Because what I learnt was if you get 'bad clients', they all refer you to other bad clients and then you're in this bad situation where you're just getting more and more rubbish work for rubbish money. I realised that was a problem.
So I started saying no to certain people and saying yes to other people. It became obvious that the type of projects I really liked doing were colourful and creative and fun and a bit silly. And I didn't really wanna do the corporate stuff.”
When Loneliness opens a world of opportunity
After the birth of Frankie’s first child, she felt lonely and isolated. Not knowing other self employed parents and how to run a business alongside a family. Although it was a tricky time to navigate, it lead to her biggest project yet - ‘Doing It For The Kids’
“It really compounded that feeling of being a bit out on my own at that time. And again, because I have a weird brain, I ended up launching a massive side project, which would allow me to meet people in a very similar situation to me.”
RUNNING A COMMUNITY IS NOT EASY
Frankie’s now taken her successful Doing It For The Kids community away from Facebook into a paid platform. But she doesn’t want anybody thinking this is some kind of get rich quick plan to copy…
“It's not passive income, is it? It's not. I never thought it would be. There's a lot of work involved. It's a high labour thing. If you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna start an online community, I'll be raking it in and I won't have to do very much. You are sadly misinformed.
When I started, I had no idea how much work would be involved and I'm not sure I would've done it had I known how much it would take over my life. I mean, I love it and it's amazing, but it is a lot of work.'“
maintaining your identity
Frankie loves her kids, but it’s her work that keeps her feeling like Frankie…
“My work kept me sane. I remember going back after maternity leave the first time and feeling like a butterfly emerging from its whatever it's called. The day he went to nursery and I cleaned my desk and did updates on my computer and it just felt great. Work makes me happy in a different way than my children do. And it's very important to me. And it's massively tied to my identity and my ability to contribute to the family finances and all that stuff makes me feel good.”
Co-mentoring space
Committing to regular conversations with other freelancers has had a huge impact on Frankie’s career. For the past few years Steve (BF host) and Frankie have been co-mentoring each other. Check out the links tab for a podcast where the two share more on their experience but…
“There are always people who I would talk to about freelancing, but it was never in a formal, regular way. So we (talking about her & Steve) started doing it in this, we're gonna commit to doing this once a month way, which I mean, frankly, why doesn't everybody do that? Because doing it ad hoc in the pub is great, but you get so much more out of it when you commit to having those conversations on a regular basis with consistently the same people. It's had a massive impact. Everybody should do it. Find someone in your life that you can talk to about freelancing.”
BALANCE FROM BOUNDARIES
To get through the younger years of her two children Frankie would regularly work evenings and weekends - there was no balance…
“One of the fundamental things about being freelance and having children and getting any kind of balance is instilling boundaries in your life.
And one of those boundaries that I've introduced with myself, is I will not work evenings and weekends unless I really, really, really have to like, I'm on a deadline and I'll miss it if I don't, or if there's a thing I want to do in the evening, that will make me happy.
So yeah, I've tried to get more balance and work more in daytime hours, partly thanks to older children and partly thanks to my own rules with myself about, ‘no Frankie, don't do that’.”
“It's that classic origin story, isn't it?
I had a problem and no one else was solving it. So I went out and solved it myself."
Graphic Designer Frankie Tortora - Founder of Doing It For The Kids
More from Frankie Tortora
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Freelance Graphic Designer Frankie Tortora
Steve Folland:
So we've got Frankie Tortora who's a Freelance Graphic Designer. Hey Frankie!
Frankie Tortora:
Hi, Steve.
Steve Folland:
As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Frankie Tortora:
So I'm a Freelance Graphic Designer and I studied music at university, obviously <laugh> and off the back of that, I ended up in project management jobs, employed jobs, running creative projects for young people. And it was a great job and I loved it, but ultimately I was helping other people to be creative. And I realised that actually I was the one that wanted to get paid to be creative, not facilitate other people's creativity. So, three and a bit years into that, I was like, I'm not doing this anymore. Which also coincided with the job I was doing at the time being made redundant, which is weirdly good for me because, I was only there three years, but I was given a bit of redundancy pay. So I had a bit of a buffer to leave that job and go freelance using that money as a security blanket. But I had never been a graphic designer before.
Steve Folland:
Ah, there's a slight catch.
Frankie Tortora:
<laugh> Yeah, the plan was good. Leave, take the redundancy money, go freelance. Great. But I need to get the skills first. So I had about a year where I knew my job was coming to a close, but I hadn't yet finished it. So I did a night course while I was still in that job two nights a week, I think it was, doing a graphic design course. And that again, weirdly coincided with the end of my contract. And so I jumped in and I said, I'd give myself six months and see what happens. And then 10 years later here we are.
Steve Folland:
Wow. So did you get any freelance clients while you were still full-time employed?
Frankie Tortora:
Sort of. So I did this graphic design course, but it cost £10,000 to do, which was £10,000 I did not have. So I partially crowdfunded my fees to do this course, which is totally bonkers when you think about it, because why would anybody invest in an individual like that anyway? And why would anybody invest in an individual who's never done design before, it's a bit ridiculous. Anyway, I did a little crowdfunding campaign and managed to get friends, but also colleagues and various other people in my life to give me really small jobs. So I did graphic design jobs in exchange for really cheap money.
Steve Folland:
Ah, so that was like a reward in the crowdfunding thing?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. So you would get a logo for £50. It would be crap because I haven't done my course yet. <laugh>
Steve Folland:
It's almost like getting an artist's original. They're getting it before your fame.
Frankie Tortora:
It might be worth something now Steve <laugh> so yeah, I did that kind of exchange of skills, but the skills weren't really there yet. So they paid very little money to get basic graphic design.
Steve Folland:
So it worked?
Frankie Tortora:
I didn't pay for my entire course. It was about 40% of my fees.
Steve Folland:
Wow.
Frankie Tortora:
And I also got a grant through something called the printing charity, which support young people going into training. I was under 30 at the time, so I qualified <laugh>. So I got a bit of money from them, got a bit of money through crowd funding. And then, because I was still working while I was doing this night course I used my salary to pay the rest of my fees off on a monthly or termly basis. But it was the first time that college had ever seen somebody do that.
Steve Folland:
So your last day at that full-time job, did you have any clients lined up for the following day or the Monday after the weekend?
Frankie Tortora:
Oh, that's a good question. I don't think I did to be honest. In fact I'm pretty sure I didn't <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
So you sat down at your desk, cracked open some biscuits.
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. I had this little desk, like a pull down one in an alcove with basically a book shelf <laugh> in our living room in our flat in London. Yeah. Set up my little desk to look professional and sat at it and went what happens now?
Steve Folland:
So how did you get something to do at your desk other than twiddle your thumbs?
Frankie Tortora:
Again, I was quite shameless, so I emailed basically everybody I'd ever met in my entire life, whether that was professionally or personally, I used my personal Facebook, for example, as well as emails from people at work and whatnot. Probably wouldn't fly now, GDPR, anyway, <laugh> at the time it was fine. And it was just, I've left this job and this is what I'm doing now. I had a website of sorts that had mainly student work on it, but it showed that I could do stuff. So I did a bit of that and got a few, not very good calibre of clients off the back of that. But the best thing I did was I joined a co-working space. I think about three months after I went freelance, which was an amazing opportunity. So again, because I was under 30 at the time, this charity called Ideas Tap, who sadly no longer exist, but at the time they supported creative people under 30.
Frankie Tortora:
And one of the things they did was this thing called Creative Space, which was free desk space in their office in London Bridge. And then we had an entire floor full of all these people doing different creative jobs, starting out, young people trying to make it in various industries. There were filmmakers and animators and people who've gone on to do amazing things and win crazy awards and stuff. But at the time we were all blagging it basically <laugh> and you had to go through a bit of an interview process and do a little presentation about how you'd benefit from being there and all that. And they let me in. And so within about three months of leaving my employed job, I was working in this swanky office in London Bridge with my computer. I moved all my gear there. So I didn't have any access to my work at home, which was good from a boundaries perspective. But at the time felt annoying. And 90% of my work at that time was off the people that I met through that space. And I still get work through people that I met there referring me to people that they now work with and their clients.
Steve Folland:
Wow. So was it free?
Frankie Tortora:
100% free. In theory you had to do work for the charity in kind. So I would do graphic design work for them in kind per month. You had like a credit system, but really were they gonna chuck you out if you didn't keep up with that?
Steve Folland:
But also that was good for your portfolio because you didn't have anything.
Frankie Tortora:
Yes. So yeah, totally worked both ways. I did some amazing creative work for them over the years. I did a really cool bunch of coffee table style book, annual report things for them and things I wouldn't have done at that point in my career probably had I not been there. It was such an amazing project and I'm so gutted it no longer exists, but I benefited from it, <laugh> so thanks very much guys.
Steve Folland:
So how did you continue to get clients? But also, you said, the first few jobs you had were low calibre. How did that start to change?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. I owe a lot to that project because I met some incredibly talented people there, and I did some work for them and it's totally word of mouth. It all spread from there. I'd do jobs for them and they liked what I did and therefore they would tell other people in the co-working space, they would tell people that they work with. And because it was a combination of young people in different industries, I really got to access people in vastly different fields to me. But also what I learnt very quickly is that every business needs a designer. No matter what you do and what industry you're in, my skills were useful <laugh> to them. So actually I was quite high demand by the end of the three years that I was there. I was getting a lot of work because everybody needs a designer for something at some point.
Steve Folland:
And would you do anything, as in you weren't oh, I only do this kind of design for this type of people?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. I definitely did anything. And I learned that was not the way forward <laugh>. But yes, at the time I did all sorts. I used to build websites like code websites for people and stuff.
Steve Folland:
Wow.
Frankie Tortora:
I don't do that anymore, but yeah, I would do basically anything designy for money at that stage, for sure. Even if it wasn't amazing, or wasn't particularly good at it or enjoyed it.
Steve Folland:
Would you say you have a niche now?
Frankie Tortora:
Oh yeah. 100%. I started off doing all the things. Quickly learnt that 80% of those things I did not enjoy. Quickly learnt the type of clients that I didn't enjoy working for and tried to cut them out. Because what I learnt was if you get 'bad clients', they all refer you to other bad clients and then you're in this bad situation where you're just getting more and more rubbish work for rubbish money. So I realised that was a problem. So I started saying no to certain people and saying yes to other people. It became obvious that the type of projects I really liked doing were colourful and creative and fun and a bit silly. And I didn't really wanna do the corporate stuff. I did a lot of work for a recruitment company. Oh, don't wanna do that anymore. <laugh>. Maybe there are some really creative recruitment companies. I'm sure there are.
Steve Folland:
You were saying yes to certain stuff, no to other stuff. Did you do anything to try and get more of the stuff you wanted to do?
Frankie Tortora:
Yes. I guess I would hassle the people who I liked working with more than I might have done previously. So if there were people in my space that I really liked working for, I'd be like, 'Hey, we did this thing last month. Is there anything else like that or any of the people that you work with that are like you that might want to hire me for that kind of stuff?' And then I massively overhauled my own marketing and my website and my portfolio. So I cut out all the less creative, fun projects and I only presented the really colourful stuff that I wanted to do more of. And I think in order to do that, I included at least one student project again, because I was like, I want to be doing these things <laugh> and so when you landed on my website, it was very obvious the kind of work that I could do and it started to breed those kind of clients asking me for more work. And now I almost exclusively work with yeah, fun, arty, colourful people.
Steve Folland:
But were you doing anything on any form of social media or going out networking or was it purely referrals and then those referrals checking out your website to suss out whether you're for them?
Frankie Tortora:
Honestly I owe basically the entire start of my freelance career to that co-working space, but then there were elements of it as well that would be marketing and networking. Part of the programme there, one of the things we could do in exchange for our free desk was do talks for the community. So I did various presentations on design and starting a business, which is hilarious, <laugh> cause I was only like a year into it. And that would be attended by the people in the project, but would also be open to members of the charity, so you had a membership as a young person to the charity, so people outside of the space could come in for the talks as well. So I definitely built a reputation for myself that way, but I really didn't, in fact, I still don't now, I'm really not particularly strong on using social media and doing all the classic digital marketing things I should do as a small business. I don't really do that. Most of my work just, oh, touch all the wood <laugh> most of my work tends to come to me eventually.
Steve Folland:
How did you get on with the sort of pricing side of things?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. Badly. I did a lot of work for very little money for a long time. In fact it makes me feel a bit ill. Some of the work I did for so little money. Yeah. I underpriced myself for way too long. Again, being part of that project was really good because it did make me up my game in many ways actually. But I walked into this amazing space with this amazing window. It was on this muse in central London, prime location. People doing cool stuff. But then once you got through the door, the calibre of the other creative people in that project were also amazing. And they were having important calls with big clients or seemingly were, but it immediately made me feel like, 'oh wow'. You know, I'm surrounded by people doing really cool stuff.
Frankie Tortora:
It made me feel more of a professional, made me be a bit more businessy than I might not have been had I been at home on my sofa. And I think part of that was ultimately by the time I'd finished there after three years, my prices had gone up a lot because I think I got the confidence of being around these other people who were charging more than me <laugh> and there were two other designers there as well, who I spoke to loads. So I'd be like, is this too cheap? Is this enough? We'd have those kind of conversations. And that was really helpful. And he was much further along the line than me. He runs an agency type setup. So I learnt a lot from him. So yes, I started putting my rates up, but it's been a slow and painful process and I've only really got a decent rate in the last two years. Partly thanks to you Steve, our co-mentoring situation. I find pricing myself difficult and uncomfortable and it doesn't seem to be getting much easier. <laugh> maybe a little bit.
Steve Folland:
So it almost feels like there's that validation in somebody else saying, yeah, go on, do it? Maybe you believe it yourself, but somebody else just kicking you and saying, yeah, it's okay to do that?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. I think it's scary when you look at a rate and it's described as like a middleweight designer, for example, and if you're at a stage in your career where you don't feel like you're a middleweight or senior designer and you're looking at that kind of money, I think you'd be intimidating. I think it's just an imposter syndrome thing isn't it really?
Steve Folland:
And you would know what those design rates were because of?
Frankie Tortora:
Various places. There's a few websites, there's a major player's salary survey that breaks down average daily rates for certain creative jobs. And they have various levels of designer and art worker and whatever in there. And I guess if you do that kind of research, it can be intimidating to look at those numbers because if you don't identify as being at that level, even if you are at that level, <laugh> sometimes it takes that other person to push you to go, of course you are, ask for it, it'll be fine. And turns out it was fine. And I could still probably ask for more. Now, in fact, I'm contemplating putting my rates up again.
Steve Folland:
So you said three years at that co-work space and then you left. So did you go to another one or did you start working from home or what?
Frankie Tortora:
I got pregnant. That's what happened! Yeah, I got pregnant and was like, I'm not getting on a bus to London Bridge. <laugh>
Steve Folland:
Why? There's actual signs telling other people to get up and give you a seat!
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah, true. I mean, to be fair, I did commute for a bit while I was pregnant, but by the time I was about six months pregnant, I was like, yeah, I'm done with this now. That's why I left. And then the actual, the entire project closed about a year after that.
Steve Folland:
Couldn't cope without you.
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah, exactly. I got pregnant and was like, I have the flexibility to not commute, so I'm not going to basically, and I'd already got the perks out of it. I already made those connections, so it was fine.
Steve Folland:
So then you start working from home, you've got a baby imminent, because a lot of people I speak to actually end up freelancing further flexibility that suddenly becoming a parent has, but actually you were doing it first. How did freelance life change? Because you can see it, both sides of that point. How did it change after the birth of your child?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah, it changed a lot and sadly not in a particularly positive way. The biggest impact initially was I moved out of that space. I was immediately isolated just by default because I was suddenly back at home on my own <laugh>. I was also isolated in the fact that we were basically the first people of our friendship group to have a baby. So no one else really understood what was happening or what was going to happen. I didn't understand what was going to happen, but we didn't have anybody to compare or confide in about what was going on. And then when I had my baby, I had no time to work whatsoever. And I found that very difficult because, after three years in that co-working space, I'd found my feet and was feeling quite good. And I got all these connections and I was just getting going really. Or it felt like I was just getting going. And then I had a baby and it felt a bit like two steps forward, three steps back. In fact, to be honest, I've got two children now it's felt a bit like that both times. Having a small baby really does kick your career in the ass.
Steve Folland:
That's the slogan, isn't it?
Frankie Tortora:
<laugh> I know there are people who make it work, but I'm a time for money freelancer. That's how my business model works. And when I had a little baby and we were living in London where childcare is extortionate, I had no time and therefore didn't make a lot of money, and found the whole thing quite difficult.
Steve Folland:
And what about that side of it, where as you say, you were suddenly isolated at home because you had built up your whole freelance career, you'd been surrounded by other creatives?
Frankie Tortora:
I was isolated at home. None of our friends really understood. And then I was going to baby meet-ups with random people that live in your area and they all had employed jobs and were on 18 month maternity leaves and you know, 'How long are you taking off Frankie?' And I was like, 'I don't know, 14 days.' <laugh> They're all very nice. And you know, I still see some of those people, but it really, compounded that feeling. Compounded?
Steve Folland:
Go with it. It's a nice word.
Frankie Tortora:
It really compounded that feeling of being a bit out on my own at that time. And again, because I have a weird brain, I ended up launching a massive side project, which would allow me to meet people in a very similar situation to me.
Steve Folland:
So that side project is 'Doing It For The Kids'.
Frankie Tortora:
Correct.
Steve Folland:
You said, oh, so I create this massive side project. What, what did you actually create? Like what was your aim?
Frankie Tortora:
The aim was to feel less alone. It was a totally selfish project. <laugh> Basically I had this baby and I'd been freelancing already and then suddenly my freelance career went. So I went to the internet to try and find anybody who had been through a similar thing. There wasn't anything local to me, for people who were self-employed with children, and then I couldn't find anything on the internet. The only things I could find on the internet were like, 'Hey, we train while on maternity, leave your employed job. We train, live the business dream, do this course, blah, blah, blah.' Great. But I was like, I'm already doing it. I don't need to do a course. I want to talk to people who are managing this tiny person and this tiny business at the same time and the impact that one has on the other.
Frankie Tortora:
And anyway, I couldn't find anything like that. So, there was this day where my son was probably nine months old, just started to move around. We were in his bedroom and he was destroying my flat, but I was letting it happen because I was in the zone, thinking about this project that I wanted to start. I was sat on my laptop on my feeding chair, letting him run riot and typing out all these ideas I had for this thing, like manically typing, such a moment. I can see it so vividly, I just wrote down what my struggles were, what I wanted to exist, what it should look like, what it could do, what the blue sky version of it would be. At one point I was like, I'm gonna make an app, like a dating app for freelance parents to meet other people in the local area, Peanut style, Mush Mum's type thing. But for freelancers.
Frankie Tortora:
I had all these crazy ideas. I applied for a Google startup programme. Didn't get it. But you know, I knew that this thing was something people needed, what I felt like it was, because I needed it. So I had these like grand plans. In reality, it started out as a blog <laugh>. Well the first thing I did actually was I wrote a little questionnaire and anyone I knew through my Facebook friends, I did a bit of a call out on Facebook. Anyone I knew through mutual friends who was in a similar situation, I got them to fill out a little market research questionnaire and got some responses through that, which helped me. And then I built a website with the help of a really old family friend who did it for free.
Frankie Tortora:
He helped me make this WordPress site. It was a blog and it was a collaborative blog. It wasn't frankiefreelancers.com. The whole idea was it was stories from people like me, beyond me, who had been through this or were going through this and how they managed. So I launched that and then I launched an Instagram page at the same time. And then I'd shout about the blog to try and get people to write for it. And then when somebody wrote for it, I'd shout about that on Instagram and the two things built up a bit of a following quite quickly. Those two things helped promote the project. And then on Instagram we were trying to talk about the content of these build posts between us. And it's so hard to have a conversation with anybody on Instagram. It's just content, comments getting lost. It's not really a platform for people to talk to each other. It's more of a broadcasting type platform. So somebody somewhere was like, oh, we should have a Facebook group, and I was like, that's an excellent idea. So I opened this Facebook group, not knowing if anybody would join and they did. Hundreds of them quite quickly <laugh> and I think it was three years ago now. It was a couple of years into the blog. I'm not sure.
Steve Folland:
Three years ago?
Frankie Tortora:
Something like that.
Steve Folland:
Wow.
Frankie Tortora:
So yeah, that launched and then, that just kicked off really quickly. And I there's now nearly 10,000 people in there and I get about 35 requests to join a day and it's all a bit nuts.
Steve Folland:
So you were feeling isolated, but you found the people you needed to find by starting something?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. It's that classic origin story, isn't it? It's like I had a problem and no one else was solving it. So I went out and solved it myself <laugh>
Steve Folland:
Which is awesome from a feeling seen and feeling part of something point of view. But also one of the problems that you pointed out was that you had no time to do any work and yet you just seem to have created time doing something that wasn't work. So how was work going at that same time?
Frankie Tortora:
Work was interesting when I first came back from maternity leave the first time, I actually had a really great gig, again through someone in that co-working space, they set me up on this magazine job where I did a quarterly magazine about mobile technology, but it was a quarterly gig. So I was working on it like a lot of the year, cause it was a big mag and I was doing it entirely on my own. We didn't have any illustrators or anything. It was just me and I got paid pretty well for it. I was actually doing alright at that point. I had other stuff as well, but that was my regular income. And then I got dropped from that. I can't remember exactly when, maybe I did it for 18 months or something.
Frankie Tortora:
I feel like in a way that coincided with when my child was even harder to look after because when they're a baby, they sleep during the day that is, maybe not at night, but they are sort of easier to manage in a way when they're really small. And me losing that magazine job was basically when my child suddenly could walk and talk and was demanding a lot more of me. I found recovering financially from that quite difficult mainly because the cost of childcare is just so extortionate. It's crazy. I appreciate it'll be cheaper if you live elsewhere in the UK, but where we were, it was.
Steve Folland:
It's like having another mortgage sort of thing.
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. More than <laugh> for like two days a week, a month. And it's just mad.
Steve Folland:
Did you ever think, is it even worth me working?
Frankie Tortora:
Yes. 100%. We talked about that, which is one of the really shocking things about the modern world that we live in is that that's still a conversation that mainly women are having with their partners. 'Oh, maybe you should give up your job so you could look after your child' and no shade to anybody who does, that's totally up to you. But me and my husband had a conversation about it and he was like, we're not doing that. You would lose your mind basically. And I would, I'm not designed to be in my house all the time. Looking after a small person, I love my small people, but I would've probably been quite depressed to be honest, had I been doing that full-time. My work kept me sane. I remember going back after maternity leave the first time and feeling like a butterfly emerging from its whatever it's called. The day he went to nursery and I cleaned my desk and did updates on my computer and it just felt great. Work makes me happy in a different way than my children do. And it's very important to me. And it's massively tied to my identity and my ability to contribute to the family finances and all that stuff makes me feel good.
Steve Folland:
But then when you are paying such a large amount of money for them to be in care for that day, did that change how you then approached that day? All the updates have been done. Your desk is clean, like how you actually approached the work?
Frankie Tortora:
Oh yeah. It was like work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work solidly. Keep working, never stop working. And then I worked nights. I worked three or four nights a week for years. Oh awful. <laugh> I know people are in it now in my community, but it's such a rough time when you put your children to bed and then you stay up till 1, 2, 3, and then it's always like the minute you put your head on the pillow, they start crying. It's like sods law. It could be quite a challenging time. So yeah, I'd work a lot of nights. I'd work a lot of weekends to make sure that the money I had coming in was that childcare cost and more otherwise what's the point. I should have put my rates up Steve, that's what I should have done <laugh>.
Steve Folland:
But meanwhile, this Doing It For The Kids' community takes off?
Frankie Tortora:
Yes. So the joy of that is I could do it from my phone. I didn't have to be tied to my desk because I didn't have any time, but I could be doing that while my son was rolling around on the floor and I was making mashed potatoes and whatever. I could be talking to people on my phone, wherever I was, which is how that project managed to survive, I think. Had I needed to be on my computer to run it, it just wouldn't have happened because it would've taken up nursery time, which would've been crazy. It wouldn't have make any sense. And it made me happy, running that project made me happy. As I say on a selfish level, I felt seen and heard and was getting amazing advice from other people who were a bit further along than me. It transformed how I felt about the situation I was in, being able to talk to other people who were doing it.
Steve Folland:
And the thing is, I love that you say that. It made you happy, because it wasn't making you money. The work was making you money. This was taking up lots of time, but that's that whole thing of doing something because it feels like it's doing something so much more, I guess.
Frankie Tortora:
It's emotional money. Emotional credit in the bank rather than financial.
Steve Folland:
Yeah. I mean, does that take us more towards where we are now or has stuff happened in between?
Frankie Tortora:
Not a lot has happened as a designer. I've just done more work for more people that do cool things that I want to work on. <laugh>. As in, I've gone more niche. My website's more in your face colour than it ever has been. And I get paid normal now because I've put my rates up three, four times now. So that's all just kind of continued as you would expect it to. I'm not the kind of person who wants to open an agency. I don't wanna start employing people. I'm just very happy getting paid to do creative work for cool people basically.
Steve Folland:
That was something I thought that you said, I'm very much a time for money freelancer, which is true, but do you literally do things for hourly rates or do you always do project rates? What do you do?
Frankie Tortora:
I do a mixture of both. I do some hourly rate work and then I have kind of set fees for, I do a lot of branding projects, so I have a branding package that's a set fee. So yeah, I do a combination of the two.
Steve Folland:
It's funny because of course somewhere in this moment we obviously met <laugh>
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah.
Steve Folland:
I feel like I've been invited to a press screening and I know what's coming up sort of thing. <laugh>
Frankie Tortora:
Don't spoil it Steve.
Steve Folland:
Yeah, exactly. Don't wanna spoil it.
Frankie Tortora:
We met up, just us, to talk about Being Freelance, Doing it for Kids, blah, blah, blah. And then we started co-mentoring each other, which was your idea via Franky Shanahan and Charlie Swift. So yeah, you suggested that, and then we started doing this kind of chatting to each other once a month about business and life and side projects thing. And then off the back of that we made a podcast.
Steve Folland:
Did co-mentoring have an impact?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. It had a massive impact. I literally wouldn't be doing most of the things I'm doing now had we not started doing that, but it's funny because when I think about it, I probably had co-mentors in my life previously. People like Harry at the co-working space who I would always talk to about stuff. There are always people who I would talk to about freelancing, but it was never in a formal, regular way. So we started doing it in this, we're gonna commit to doing this once a month way, which I mean, frankly, why doesn't everybody do that? Because doing it ad hoc in the pub is great, but you get so much more out of it when you commit to having those conversations on a regular basis with consistently the same people. It's had a massive impact. Everybody should do it. Find someone in your life that you can talk to about freelancing.
Steve Folland:
Do you feel that doing the podcast made a difference to your business?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. If you were to ask me about marketing my business, I don't market my business. I occasionally post on my graphics Instagram and go look, I made this thing <laugh> but I say occasionally like once every six months. My website is deeply out date. My biggest marketing project is Doing It For The Kids. And even then I'm not particularly good at shouting about the facts. I'm a designer in it. But yeah, it's built a profile for me that I wouldn't have had otherwise. And I've got clients through it that I wouldn't have got had I not met those people through that project. And then I think the podcast has helped people buy from people thing, it's helped people to get to know me better and therefore feel that, they can email me and say, 'Hey, I've got this thing I'd love for you to work on it', in a way that they might not do if it was a cold, just go to a website exchange. And also I like to think sometimes it proves that I know something about what I'm doing. <laugh> Not always, but it shows I have some knowledge, shows that I take myself seriously and I'm a freelancer that's worth investing in. Hopefully, maybe.
Steve Folland:
So somehow we end up like today where you've recently taken that Facebook group and launched the same community, but different community off of Facebook.
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. So I was running this Facebook group and for a long time it was wonderful. I mean, it still is wonderful, but it got a bit big, it's a private group. But in terms of like things you can access on the internet, a Facebook group is pretty low barriers to entry. So frankly there are a lot of people in there who don't necessarily get what the project is about, haven't necessarily even been on the website, don't know who I am, a lot of people in there who are just trying flog whatever they're trying to flog. There were some amazing people in there as well, but over time, it's become diluted and it's lost a bit of the joy and not just the joy but, for a really long time, you could see the benefit it was having for the people in there. You could see the connections being made on a daily basis.
Frankie Tortora:
I knew almost everybody by name and vaguely what they did and I could connect those people in a real way that they could go on and like work together or refer. It was great. And now it's just a bit out of control. Part of the whole process of taking it off Facebook and I'm asking people to pay for it now it's not free anymore, part of that entire process is to make it smaller again, and to get people in there who really want to be there and who really understand the vibe and like what it's about, bring it back to how it felt originally when it was smaller and also on a personal level. Ultimately I don't really wanna be on Facebook anymore. So it's a combination of those two things. I want to leave. I don't want Doing It For The Kids to just die.
Frankie Tortora:
<laugh> I want it to be manageable and enjoyable again. So I've relaunched it on a new platform called Circle and it's all the good stuff from the Facebook group, but in my opinion, way better. It's much better organised than a Facebook group can be. It's a bit like Slack vibes, it's got different channel type things for different types of conversations. There's a jobs board. There's a directory where people are listed by their skills. And it's just all the things we were trying to do in the Facebook group to connect with each other. But we never could. It's all of those things we can now do on this new platform. So it's better for me in terms of running it, but it's also infinitely better for the people in the community. And hopefully they're already getting loads out of it, but hopefully, going forward, it's going to be even more powerful than it was on Facebook.
Steve Folland:
So that is now then adding a new income stream?
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. So my aim for it was to get about a 50/50 balance of this community making money and me doing my freelance work and the community would take the edge off that monthly cash flow thing, allowing me more freedom to choose the projects that I really want to do and maybe do projects that don't have the budget that I would like, but I'd still like to work with them. I would have the freedom to do those kind of things as well. It's only early days, so I don't know how it's going to feel, but it's a very different model to the one I'm used to and have been doing for 10 years.
Steve Folland:
There's still a lot of work involved.
Frankie Tortora:
Yeah. So you say I'm not doing time for money, but right now, I am speaking to every person in my community personally, multiple times a day, I'm interacting with every thread, comment, everything. There's also a lot of planning going on behind the scenes and writing content and we make a podcast. There's a lot of work that goes into that. It's not passive income, is it? It's not. I never thought it would be. There's a lot of work involved. It's a high labour thing. If you're thinking, oh, I'm gonna start an online community, I'll be raking it in and I won't have to do very much. You are sadly misinformed. <laugh>.
Frankie Tortora:
I didn't, when I started, I had no idea how much work would be involved and I'm not sure I would've done it. Had I known how much it would take over my life. I mean, I love it and it's amazing, but it is a lot of work. But one of my aims for the new paid platform is to turn over enough to also pay people in the community to help me run it, to create a little bubble of Doing It For The Kids, freelancers who are all getting paid by Doing It For The Kids. But yeah, I love the idea of some of that money being spent back in the community itself. Like that's kind of cool.
Steve Folland:
I can't not ask you about work life balance. Clearly, running a business alongside a family is integral to everything that you do and talk about and things, but how do you find it?
Frankie Tortora:
Well, one of the joys of having small humans in your house is they change on the daily. And had you asked me that question three years ago? I would've give you a very different answer to the one I'm going to give you now. <laugh> Because when I was working three or four nights a week, I didn't have any balance. I was exhausted. It was rubbish. <laugh> Working nights and weekends was not the one. I'm now at a point where I think it's a combination of two things. One is my children are older and I'm more self-sufficient. I mean she's only three and a half, but <laugh>, she can go to the toilet now. You know, things like that. Yeah. So partly my children are older, but also one of the fundamental things about being freelance and having children and getting any kind of balance is instilling boundaries in your life.
Frankie Tortora:
And one of those boundaries that I've introduced with myself, is I will not work evenings and weekends unless I really, really, really have to like, I'm on a deadline and I'll miss it if I don't, or if there's a thing I want to do in the evening, that will make me happy, like it's a job that I enjoy. There are parts of my job that I enjoy doing. <laugh> particularly in my community now, like chatting to somebody at nine o'clock at night, doesn't sound that, I mean, maybe it does sound bad to somebody that doesn't live my life, but that's okay to me. Whereas before I would've just been working evenings by default because that's how it was at that time. So yeah, I've tried to get more balance and work more in daytime hours, partly thanks to older children and partly thanks to my own rules with myself about, no Frankie don't do that.
Frankie Tortora:
Because you'll be knackered the next day. That's it. You're always catching up with yourself and then you lose hours in your child free time where you're having a nap. And that's fine. But I don't know, everyone works differently as well. I know I'm the most productive in the morning, but somebody else might, there are a lot of night hours in the community who do their best work at 10 o'clock at night. I'm not going to deny them that option. That's the joy of it right? Flexibility. So that's probably important to say in that balance to me is going to look very different to somebody else. And my version of that is not working until midnight, but somebody else might thrive at midnight.
Steve Folland:
Okay. Frankie, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Frankie Tortora:
Well, I would tell my younger self, I know this is so dull. I would tell my younger self to educate herself about class four national insurance.
Steve Folland:
<laugh> You're right. That's so dull <laugh>,
Frankie Tortora:
But I got burnt so hard by class four national insurance and it took me years to recover from that debt.
Steve Folland:
In what way?
Frankie Tortora:
I didn't even know it was a thing I had to save. I didn't know it was a thing I had to save. I had the tax, but I did not have the class four national insurance and I didn't have the money and I had to put it on credit cards and it was bad.
Steve Folland:
How did you find out that you owed it?
Frankie Tortora:
Because I put all the numbers on the self assessment on the 31st of January. And it said you owe us two and a half grand more than you thought you did. I know that's really boring, but had I known that I would've saved myself a lot of pain.
Steve Folland:
Frankie, thank you so much. And all the best being freelance.
Frankie Tortora:
Thanks.
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