Social Media Strategist Andréa Jones
About this episode…
SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST ANDRÉA JONES
Early success on platforms like Fiverr and UpWork led to Andréa expanding her services and horizons. Using video and podcasting to build trust with clients, she ended up building an agency.
Dealing with the challenges of managing a team, working around family, and staying focussed in a world of shiny objects.
With the 'Savvy Social' Podcasts, YouTube, Membership, courses, retreat… as Andréa points out: it can be summed up quickly, but it happened slowly… With client work still the bulk of her income. Building intentionally as her family grows too.
Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.
More from ANDRÉa jones
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Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and social media strategist Andréa Jones
STEVE:
Hey, Andréa.
ANDRÉA:
Hello, hello. Thanks for having me on the show.
STEVE:
Thanks for doing this. As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, you know, I never wanted to freelance. Both my parents are entrepreneurial, so I saw the life behind the scenes, the ups and the downs. So I got a degree and was hoping to get into the job force, but then I met my husband around that time. I was 24 years old. He lived in Toronto, Canada. I lived in Atlanta, Georgia. We met on YouTube. Yes, it was instant love. Within six months, I moved in with him, so moved to a different country. Less than a year, we were married. So with that whole life change came the question of what am I gonna do with myself? And so I started freelancing in that moment. I was on the social media team when I worked in hospitality. I worked at Marriott Hotels. I had a small internship at a marketing company doing SEO. So I had this background in some of the online marketing space and I started on Fiverr, just writing Facebook posts for $5 and writing product descriptions. And that really was the catalyst for everything, was a necessity to contribute to my new family.
STEVE:
Wow. Okay. So just to put it in perspective, when was that? When would you have jumped on Fiverr?
ANDRÉA:
This was 2014.
STEVE:
So obviously a lot has changed from then. And I'm imagining it happened in increments. But like how how how did it change. Like what happened from there. How long did you spend on Fiverr for example?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, so I was on Fiverr for about a year, and I made my first $100,000 through Fiverr. And when you're working at $5 a gig, you're working a lot. So I realized very quickly, social media was in very high demand, and there wasn't a lot of people creating social media content at that point. We only had Facebook and Instagram, or sorry, Facebook and Twitter. Instagram really wasn't an avenue for businesses. And so I, within a year, tried to take a vacation and realized, oh, I can't turn this off. So I hired my first assistant and then started branching out from Fiverr. I was using ODesk, which is Upwork now, to find higher paying clients. And it just kept growing from there. I would find someone who wanted one gig on Fiverr or Odesk slash Upwork. And then I would say, hey, if you want more, let's take this conversation offline, which you're totally not supposed to do. But that's what I did. And so I would build packages that were repeatable from there. So maybe they were buying five Facebook posts at the time for $5, but then I would go, if you want me to do this every single month, here's the price, here's the package, let's take this off Fiverr. So that worked for the first two years. Then I started getting referrals. I didn't use Fiverr after the first year. Really was reliant on Upwork and just building my network. I added in more team members, so I actually have, I still consider myself a freelance strategist in some ways, in the sense that I am the only strategist on my team, but I have a graphic designer help me with graphics, I have a video editor help me with videos. And so, yeah, fast forward to now, I have a kid now, she's a year and a half, I'm pregnant with my second, and this is all that I do is social media.
STEVE:
So wow, to rewind slightly, like what did what did you find worked on those platforms like Fiverr Upwork as it is now? Yeah, what did you what what worked for you? Because it obviously did.
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, so I leaned into my natural interest in creating content online. So prior to that, I did have a blog. I started a blog in 2004, which was not cool at the time, by the way. That was weird. It was weird. Your friends thought you were weird if you did that. And I started my YouTube channel in 2007, also weird. And so when I was creating these kind of, you have to create your profile on Fiverr, I would lean into my passion for creating content. They have the option to upload a photo or a video and I looked around at what other people were offering and a lot of people had photos. So I created a video that showed my personality and what was it like to work with me. And so I think that helped my profile stand out. And then I talked about my background. So I did fashion blogging for a while. I have a lot of experience in the hospitality space. So I was able to use that video to talk through my experiences, which helped attract that right person. And the same thing with Upwork. People get up work pitches all the time. I always put a video in my pitch to help it stand out a little bit I know mine probably looks very similar to everyone else's but I bet video helped me stand out and I started like showing examples in the video so that people could
STEVE:
More easily make their decision based on who they're going to work with every single day, you know Yeah, I love that and I guess it I bet it in fact built trust because there's there's always going to be an element of fear in the person buying on like the likes of Upwork and so there they are seeing you
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, you're giving your money to the internet basically at that point. And I've been on the other side of this. I bought something and thought it was gonna be great and it wasn't or I bought something and then I got ghosted. I never heard from the person again. So I try to build trust through video so that the people who, I've almost never met any of my clients, completely virtual business. I had to use something to say, hey, I'm a real person. This isn't a scam, you know, I actually will deliver what you're asking for. And here's proof. So I use video to kind of communicate that as best as I could.
STEVE:
And how did you go, you know, you started hiring people to help you deliver the content that was playing into the strategies you were building and things. But when you're working on those sites, obviously, there's, I say, obviously, maybe not. There's a perception of a lower price point, right? But you're hiring people. So how did you go about making sure that you were making money out of it, and also that you had the cash flow to pay those people?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, that is always the question, right? So my first, the first person I hired lived in the Philippines. Um, so there was, you know, the offshore lower cost labor, um, question that comes into play. So that definitely helped. I always tell people that other people are helping me, but they're, they're talking to me, right? So I'm still the person that they're talking to. Um, And so clients actually like that. So they like that they're getting two for the price of one, so to speak. As time went on, I had to increase my packages and that became harder and harder. So if I went on Upwork today, my middle of the road package is $3,500. You'd be hard pressed to find someone willing to pay $3,500. to a complete stranger on Upwork. So that's where my referral network comes in now. I think the highest paid gig I got off Upwork was $1,000 a month for context. And I wanna say that was like 2018, so about four years in. And that was probably the last gig that I got off of Upwork at that time. So I would, so essentially, in my mind, I was getting paid to figure this out. So I wasn't getting paid like, you know, $100,000 a year salary. But in my mind, I was getting paid to figure out this freelancing, to figure out this building a business thing. And I was willing to do the work to figure it out, because in those early days, my content actually wasn't that great. Like, if I look back on it now, I kind of cringe a little bit, like, oh, 10 years ago I was doing that? Oh my gosh, it's kind of embarrassing. But look how far we've come. So I was getting paid to learn, right? And so when you have those clients who are willing to work with you, that lower price point gives you that flexibility. I will say I did burn out. At one point in 2018 I had, or 2017, I had 40 clients, like ongoing clients, plus I was still doing some like one-off projects, and I completely spiraled because even just communicating with 40 different clients, writing posts for 40 different clients, coming up with everything for 40 different clients, it was intense. And so that's when I realized I had to change to the higher prices and reduce my client load because the demand was clearly there.
STEVE:
Mmm. How, I mean, how did burnout sort of raise its head to you? Like, how did you recognize that?
ANDRÉA:
I would open my email and, like, freeze, like, literally feel I don't know if panic's the right word. I don't know if anxiety's the right word, because I'm not, this isn't like a diagnosis, but I would feel terrible. I would assume everyone was complaining. I would be like, what do they want now? Even just, I had all the notifications turned on my phone, so you'd see it pop up, and you'd go, oh my gosh. And I was logged into all my clients' accounts, and so it was like that, that feeling of rising panic where I was like, I've gotta change this because this is, I can't live like this, right? It was just constant state of anxiety. So I actually ended up taking two weeks sabbatical, sabbatical at the time. I'm putting that in air quotes, y'all, because that's as much time as I literally could take off. because I had too many clients. So I took two weeks off and was like, hey, I'm off. I just don't, I need to take a mental health break basically. And I spent that time figuring out how to take care of myself so I could take care of my clients. The first thing is like turn off all the notifications on my phone. I started using my desktop way more than my mobile device and set boundaries in place. Like, you know, I work these hours. I don't work on weekends. because I was working around the clock. My husband and I were both business owners. He works in real estate. So we're both working around the clock. We don't have kids at this point. So I had to literally set boundaries, otherwise I'd just be working all the time. And that's really when things shifted for me. I started making more money and I started to feel less panicky about everything.
STEVE:
Yeah. What did you have to have in place to make that happen? So were you gradually building real world, as it were, off of those sites, network?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah. So I think the biggest thing at that point for me was starting to actually talk about what I do online. So even though I was a content creator prior to creating content for other people, the second I started freelancing, I did not have time. I didn't have time to update my own Facebook page or write my own blog post or record my own YouTube videos. I didn't have the time. I was spending so much time on client work. So what really helped me initially was starting to build my expertise and show people what I could do online. So I started a Facebook group, then I started a podcast, and I revamped my YouTube channel. and just started consistently releasing content about social media. I did join some communities as well. Paid membership communities have been the second best way for me to expand my network. So, I start connecting with other people in marketing, you know, email marketers, web designers, podcast editors, like people who also serve my clients so that we could refer clients back and forth. So it wasn't, it's easy to say it cause it, you know, it took me what, two sentences to say it, but this was like years and years of, of like expanding it out slowly so that I could, raise my prices to the point where I don't need, you know, Fiverr or Upwork and my referral network could really help sustain me.
STEVE:
Yeah. So it's a combination of getting in those places and creating content that made you the expert that people wanted to work with. So when did you start the podcast?
ANDRÉA:
I started the podcast in 2018.
STEVE:
And so what was the frequency of that? Like, have you kept it going consistently since then?
ANDRÉA:
Yes, I've only missed one week since then. Yeah, even through having a kid and I have I'm pregnant with my second right now. So I release weekly episodes and I started off. with audio only, which was the easiest way for me to do it. So coming from a YouTube background, going to just audio felt super easy. I didn't have to put on my makeup. I didn't have to worry about the lighting. I could just record. And I am a talker, if you couldn't tell. The podcasting part felt easier to me than blogging. It's easier than creating YouTube videos Also about 20 episodes in I got a sponsor. They reached out to me It was a social media scheduling tool and I worked with them for three years. So when I got that sponsor That actually enabled me to hire an editor With that revenue so that also makes it much easier to commit to because I'm not editing the show so I just get to sit down talk record and Then hand it off to my team and then they can do the rest and then
STEVE:
Do you do anything else with that content? So the podcast i s the main thing?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, the podcast is my main thing. So around episode 100, we started filming video as well. And honestly, this is because a client asked us like, hey, do you also film video podcasts? And we were like, I don't know, let's try it. And so they wanted us to help them with their video podcast. So I said, let's us try it first internally. And then if we like it, we can give it a shot. And this really how I approach my business with a lot of things. I'm like, I don't know, let's try it. Um, and so with the video component that also now goes to YouTube, And then we can splice out the video clips for social media, which is also something our clients want for themselves. We turn some of the content into email marketing content, into blog posts, and then we can also turn them into short form social posts. So in the past two years, we've done a lot with our clients on content repurposing, and I get to use my podcast as an example of that. So how do we turn, you know, a podcast episode concept into, you know, 10 slides for Instagram carousel post, right? So I just play around with my team with that. We do produce custom content as well. But the podcast really drives a lot of our other conversations that we have in our marketing.
STEVE:
Amazing. So obviously, you say 'we' a lot. So what does your team look like now?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, so the thing that I changed when I got pregnant was client communication. So before having a kid, I was the central point of contact. And for context, my daughter was born in 2022. So for eight years, I was the one. I had all the client meetings, I had all the client strategy, and I was recording all the podcasts. And as a side note, I released courses, we have a membership program. It was fine until I had a kid, and then I was like, I don't have time for this. So the biggest change for me was I have people who handle client communication. So I have freelancers on my team, who subcontract under me and handle my client communication. So they're facilitating the client meetings and they send me the transcripts and the notes and then I can deploy the strategy from there. So that's the biggest change. I still have graphic designers, video editors, copywriters on my team as well. But I really sometimes feel more like an agency than a freelancer with the client communications off of my plate. Though I still am like right now we have 11 clients I'm so intimately involved in everything that they do that. It's hard for me not like to not It's hard for me to say that I'm an agency because I'm not far removed from what we're doing with our clients
STEVE:
Yeah, yeah. But it's because you wouldn't possibly be able to deliver actual doing because it's there's the strategy and then there's the social media management and the content creation. Yeah.
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, and you know what? I think it would be challenging to sell just the strategy. We do, I do get that very often. So we do have people come in and they already have their team implementing and they just want us to do the strategy. That's great. That's actually my preference. I just get to come in, do the strategy, give it to you, and then maybe we'll check it in three months and see how you're doing. But most businesses that I work with really struggle with the implementation part as well. And so how we position ourselves, and I keep saying we because I couldn't do the day-to-day stuff without my team, is we'll set you up so that you can hire your team. So it's never really my intent to work with people forever. if that makes sense, because at some point it becomes more cost effective for them to just hire internally. But yeah, we get so many people asking us like, Okay, great. And now can you do it that it just makes sense for us to keep delivering the service as well.
STEVE:
Is there a ceiling though? Is there like, oh, we can't take any more clients? Like, do you turn work away?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, very often. So I get to be picky now because of where our price point is at and who we work with. So for example, if an e-commerce business came to me right now, I would just refer them out to someone else. I've done it in the past. My specialty right now is like coaches and therapists and thought leaders, like personality brands. And so I turned people away for that. And then I really, so this, again, a lot of this shifted when I had kids. Before kids, 25 clients was like a good spot for me. Now I'm like 10, maybe 12. I don't really wanna spend all day on this, because I gotta chase after a toddler after this. You know, that's my sweet spot now. And honestly, my profit, because I work with a lot of freelancers and contractors, my profit is about the same, whether I have 12 clients or 25. Because when I start scaling up, I just have to hire more man power or woman power. And so to me, I just rather at this point in my life just say no and go, I'm happy with where I'm at. And then maybe it'll change when everyone's in regular school.
STEVE:
Yeah. What have you found most challenging about, you know, like creating a team and running yourself as an agency who isn't an agency?
ANDRÉA:
That's honestly the hardest part. I fantasize all the time about not having a team. It's a lot of responsibility. It's a lot of work. You're managing different personalities. You're managing multiple competing deadlines. Most of my team, if not all of them, have other clients. So there's a lot to manage in that. And I do think at some point I would go even lower. Sometimes I'm like, maybe three or four clients would be nice, you know? But I had to learn the skill of managing a team. I signed up for several leadership courses and read lots of books on how to be a leader because I just, especially with a virtual team where they could just log off of Slack and I would never hear from them again if they wanted to. It's been very challenging. That's been the most challenging part of the last few years. And I think that if I didn't have kids, I would probably do things differently. But I'm just at the point in my life where it's steady and it's working, and so I'm not changing it yet. But I definitely can see myself in the future going, the team is a big responsibility. I have to pay a lot of people to keep this thing going.
STEVE:
Yeah. And it's funny, though, because you said earlier, you know, it's a point where it becomes cost effective for your clients to take it in house. And so have you been tempted to actually, you know, have employee ease who only work for you? You're their only client because they work for you.
ANDRÉA:
Yes, and I actually do have two employees on my team now. One who is more of like an admin role, and then one of the account managers is an employee as well. So yes, I do have employees. Honestly, I find it even more stressful. So especially being in Canada, right like Thankfully being in Canada. There's so much There's so many resources for employees There's so much so many benefits for being an employee and in fact a lot of people like my friends who went on mat leave for a year like why would you hire have your own business because now you don't get a year of paid mat leave, you know, I So there's a lot of things like that where it's beneficial to be employee, but from an employer perspective, it's way more responsibility to have employees. So now that I have them, I'm happy and I won't change that, but I'm very hesitant to hire. more because the financial responsibility is pretty high. So let's say in the hypothetical world they decide to quit or I let someone go, the process of that is so much more complicated than when you just have a contractor.
STEVE:
yeah so you mentioned a Facebook group, a retreat. .. courses um so i think we need to dig into some of that so this is the main thing you have services and you're delivering those to clients but along the way you've created other things for who
ANDRÉA:
Yes, so I initially started recording trainings for contractors who were working with me. Like, here's how I edit this graphic in Canva. Or here's how I, you know, write this caption. And because I was creating podcast videos, sorry, podcast episodes and videos around social media, people kept asking me, I want to learn more. And so I launched my first course. around Canva and was like, here it is. And then people were asking me more, so I launched a membership. But to this day, so last year, 2022, 80% of my revenue is services. So while I have the retreat and I have a membership and I also do some speaking and affiliate collaborations, those are all secondary. My services are the main revenue driver. And then the second one I would say is, so after services it would be the membership. So the membership serves the same audience So those online coaches, therapists, thought leaders, but they're not yet ready to hire financially. So whatever I'm doing for my clients, I share with them as well. So if there is some major update on LinkedIn, I usually make a video update for my clients anyways, because I like video. And then I'd also put it in my membership. So it just serves that dual purpose. Sometimes as well, because we're training our client's new team, like that's our goal, is for them to be able to hire an internal team. I have all of these resources already where, you know, it's part of their fee now. You also get all of these training materials for your team. And then same thing for my team. If I were to hire a new graphic designer, it's like, here's how we edit this Canva graphic for this client. It's already all there. So a lot of those materials started from, I need to train my team, then train my client's team. And then now I just also sell them as well.
STEVE:
And is there like a community element to it, as in they're talking to each other in that membership?
ANDRÉA:
Yes, so there is a community component. We use Circle for our community space. So there are courses, we have live kind of like strategy sessions, co-working sessions, as well as my team does double duty. So my Facebook ads person on my team, she does all the Facebook ads for our clients, and then also teaches a monthly session in the school. So like my contractors can then do double duty in that way. And then there's tons of templates. So because we oftentimes template things for our clients, we can then translate that into broader templates for our members as well. And so there's so many resources, like so much stuff that we do in the agency that's easy to reflect in the membership, but there's a community component where they get to connect with each other too. So if someone's like, hey, I'm going live on, you know, live on Facebook, can someone join me? Then, you know, members can like join in and cheer them on and that sort of thing. So it's kind of fun to see from that perspective.
STEVE:
Nice. And you did an in-person event as well, right?
ANDRÉA:
So the retreat started off as a way to get my clients together. I've never met a single client, okay that's a lie, I met one client in the 10 years that I've been doing this in person. And that's because she just happened to live near me. So I live in like Niagara region in Canada, she lives in Toronto which is not that far away. So I really started it as an idea to get my clients together and to meet some of these amazing people I've been working with for years. Then it kind of expanded to like some of my members wanted to go And then, you know, I've been recording this podcast for a long time. So like listeners of the show want to go So I just it turned into this thing that was so amazing to experience And it was really cool. It's like a really cool way to meet people in person and I think I think it's my new favorite thing now. It's like I've been working by myself in my office for 10 years and it was just so freaking cool to like look at someone and go, oh, you're way taller than I thought you were. But yeah, that was that was the retreat. We will do another one. I am pregnant right now. So I'm taking some time to just focus on that. But the next one will likely be in 2025.
STEVE:
But am I right in thinking because I'm sure I heard you say this on your podcast. that you had never done any event before doing a three-day retreat?
ANDRÉA:
Yes, welcome to my world. My husband's always like, can we start small? And I'm like, no, big, let's do it all, you know? No, I'd never even hosted an in-person workshop. Like I do virtual events all of the time, but I'd never hosted an event in person ever. I will tell you, it was way more expensive than I thought it would be. That was the only downside as I was like, oh, that's pretty expensive but otherwise it was Yeah, my first time and I was like three days a retreat all about conversation. Let's make it completely different, too It's not like a conference or anything.
STEVE:
Let's just switch it up amazing Which made me think like, you know, you've been doing this for 10 years in in various forms Along that time, there's been lots of social media things come along, lots of different marketing advice, lots of business advice. How do you choose what to maybe go with that whole shiny object thing? You've obviously resisted doing in person events for a very long time. But yeah, how do you choose what to work on?
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, so I have like a Google Keep little notes app. Y'all know what Google Keep is, right? So every time I come up with an idea, it goes in there. I'm an ideas person. It is my Achilles heel. I have business ideas every day. So it goes in the Google Keep app. If I'm still enchanted by it, then I will explore it later on. But if I don't write it down, I will become obsessed over it and think that that's gonna be my life now. So for example, last year I got into reading tarot cards. And yeah, as a hobby. And then suddenly I'm like, I could read tarot cards for business owners. And like, I have this whole idea as like a tarot card reader for business owners in my Google Keep app. If I just let it fester in my brain, I will buy domain names, I will start the podcast. I go too far. I have to write it down, and then something about writing down makes me feel like I took the action of doing something, and then I feel really satisfied by having written out an entire business plan for how this would work. But it is my biggest challenge, is the ideas. So if it's an idea that I can match with my current business model, I will try to do it. And typically I'll just try to put it in my membership. So right now, for instance, I'm working on a podcasting course because I want to share how I have done the podcast. We have almost 300 episodes now. Um, that's just going into the membership. It doesn't need to be something separate. It, the same people in there will find it beneficial even if they don't, they have so much other stuff in there. So sometimes some of these little projects, I just put them in there. Um, but even the podcasting course that was written down as a note two years ago and then I started filming it earlier this year, got really tired and stopped halfway through and now I'm wrapping it up. So I guess to put a long story short, some of these ideas don't go anywhere. Most of them don't. And if I can fit it into my current business model, I'll give it a shot. The worst thing that could happen is it doesn't work.
STEVE:
Yeah. There was a point very early on where you said about burning out. How is work life balance for you these days?
ANDRÉA:
chaotic. You know, I have a one and a half year old, she's very vibrant and delightful. And she forces me to stop working. So thankfully, she's in daycare now. But she wasn't in daycare for the first 18 months. So, my husband and I would just kind of pass her back and forth, and when I'm with her, I'm with her. So, work doesn't exist anymore, which made it very challenging because it became very apparent very quickly what was actually important and what wasn't. The podcast course is a great example. Not urgent. Anything not client-related, not urgent. So, you know, we did see member retention go down, for instance, when I had the baby, because I'm not putting as much effort into my membership as I was pre-baby. So for me, it's like, I can know based on my QuickBooks, 80% of my revenue comes from clients. My clients get 100% of my attention. If I have extra time, then it can go into the other things. And it makes me sad sometimes, because I have all of these ideas and I want to do them. So they're in my Google Keep for when I have time. But that's how I currently manage it, is I really have to be focused on work when I'm working. And when I'm not working, I have to be focused on my family. That's a huge priority for me. It's why we have a family anyways. Like, why do we start doing this thing anyways? We could have just not had kids and kept working, right? And so that's how I balance it all. And I will also say I still have moments where I totally burn out. That happened to me earlier this year. I'm trying to do the most, this retreat too. It took a lot of planning. And so I ended up stop consuming a lot of the marketing material. So stopped listening to marketing podcasts. I stopped reading the marketing emails, because I was just so inundated with all the information. And I started focusing on other things. So I got really into reading romance novels. I went back to crocheting. And so those things outside of work helped me deal with the burnout of work all the time.
STEVE:
Hmm. Yeah, I like that. Well, not the burnout bit, but the filling your head with other things. Yeah, it kind of took a pandemic for me to go Oh, actually, I could stop working and go and watch that film with my family. I could read a novel. instead of a business book. Nice. Also, I'm aware of time, there's so much I could ask you about. You mentioned earlier about taking courses. Like what support have you given yourself or sought after in terms of building your business? Or have you figured it all out yourself?
ANDRÉA:
No, I know I still don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time I like to find people who I can be I can mentor under them. I can be their mentee basically so my first mentor I found on Twitter is And ever since her, she had a really big impact on my business. This was back when I was doing Fiverr and Upwork. And she taught me how to become embeddable. So be so into your client's business that they can't imagine not having you as a lifeline. And that's where the title of Social Media Strategist came from, because before then I would just say, yeah, I'll write your Facebook posts. But she taught me to go so much deeper and look at things from so many different angles. So I just find people who I can get under their wing and be like, teach me your ways because I need help. And so that's consistently been my model. Every other year or so, as I'm growing, I'll find new mentors who have new areas of expertise that I want to explore. So right now I'm in my content creator era. I feel like I want to be better at creating content. So I just signed up for Jay Klaus's membership all about creating content online because he's doing an excellent job and I want to learn from him.
STEVE:
I was going to ask, actually, when you say, you know, I seek out a mentor, whether that is a paid situation, for example, or just a conversational thing.
ANDRÉA:
Usually, I will go and consume all of their content first. So I want to get their perspective. And then if I find something that I can apply, I apply it and I find it helps me, then I'll pay for their program or whatever it is they offer.
STEVE:
yeah but then at some point you move on i don't know you've you've kind of reached what you needed and then you head off
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, yeah, there's only been one time where I hired someone and I was like, ah, that wasn't really helpful. But most of the time I'm learning things and applying them in my business and leveling up. Every level of growth comes with so many challenges in this business world. So I know that the next thing, there'll be something else where I'm like, oh, I'm really struggling with this, I need help. And then I'll go read a book or listen to a podcast and find someone else who can help me with it.
STEVE:
yeah do you find sometimes that you you know there's quite a lot of online entrepreneur business noise out there and obviously you're freelance you've created this services thing you've also you know created uh an agency of sorts and and a membership and courses and there's a lot basically and certain people online would be telling you what to do, or you can do this, you can build this, you can create this. Do you listen to that? Do you block it out? I don't know.
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, I do. I am a romantic at heart, so I do fall for it very often. And that's where there was one mentor I hired. Basically, she said I should focus on one thing. and get rid of everything else. And that's just not my style. I like having a lot of things that I'm doing. And so I try now to look for people who, A, I wanna emulate them and their business model. and they have values that are similar to mine. And my values have changed over the years, especially I keep talking about kids, but that like totally changed how I look at my business. And so now when I hire people, I look at people who are like, if they say I have to post, you know, I should be doing this, that, and the other thing. And you have to hustle, hustle, hustle. That's not the mode that I'm in right now. And so I really look for values that align with the way that I want to show up in my business. But yeah, I get caught up by the shiny objects too. And I think this is where before I hire someone, I usually go through their content. and then I try to apply something. Because there have been many times where I go through their content and I try to do it and I'm like, I'm exhausted. I can't hard pitch 20 people every single day. I just, I can't do that. Or people who hire closers to fill their calendar with all these sales calls, I can't do that. I just don't wanna do that. So there are certain people who, It may sound nice to have, you know, multi-million dollar company. That's not what the life I want to live.
STEVE:
Now, Andrea, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
ANDRÉA:
Take it one day at a time. I think if I knew what I know now and someone said you had to start freelancing, I wouldn't do it because it's very hard. So I think sometimes, especially now, you can really see what everyone's doing on social media. They tell you everything you're doing. And if you look at even my business model and you go, okay, team, classes, podcasts, membership, YouTube, it's a lot. So one little little baby step at a time. It took me 10 years to get to this point And I think that's advice. I'd give my younger self is just one little step at a time.
STEVE:
Yeah Do you know I was thinking as well? with the fact that there was an element where you Had a sort of phrase it Maybe this is less a question. I almost feel like I'm falling into a trap of Therapy But I tell you what I struggle with and I don't know how you don't so that's kind of how I'm phrasing this question Oh, okay, and it's based on this is the fact that how you can, how you continue to show up regularly online on social media as a freelancer, like we're told that that's what we should do. We should be appearing online, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, but also the fact that social media isn't just about shouting about what you do, but having conversations, which means you really do have to show up online. Like, how have you come across that? And I realized that you are a social media professional. So maybe it's a slightly different answer, but Yeah, you seem to be doing it.
ANDRÉA:
Yeah, I do say that I am the exception. So like in my membership, for instance, I do have a lot of marketers in there because they want to learn how to do it for their clients. And I tell them to pick one. And if you're going to pick one, pick LinkedIn. It's the easiest one because you don't have to post every day. Their algorithm is great. You could post on Monday. People will still see it on Friday. So I tell people LinkedIn and then carve out some time. Maybe you have one day where you post and then the rest of the days you're in there commenting and engaging and you give yourself 15, 20 minutes a day to do that. That is manageable for a lot of people. I, however, study it. So I feel like it's my job, my responsibility to study social media. So I spend a lot of time doing it to study it. I don't want to get caught up too much in just following what other marketers say, because I do want to be, you know, an industry leader and be cutting edge in the way that I approach it. So while I do follow a lot of news and I follow a lot of what other marketers do, I actually try things and usually when I'm doing something I'm trying it because I'm trying to figure it out for a client. So for me it's kind of double, it plays a double role. It is exhausting though and I lean on my backlog a lot. I repurpose content a ton. So if I filmed an Instagram reel a year ago, y'all may see that same reel next year. It's coming back because I don't have time to film new content all of the time. So that's kind of how I deal with the content creation side of it, is I repurpose a lot and then I just test things out for my clients. The networking side of it, I connect a lot with my collaboration partners. So people who I want them to send me business or I send them business, that's where I spend my time on social media. I don't focus so much on like my potential clients, because honestly, they're not on social media. That's why they need me. So usually it's like other professionals in my space. So then it just feels like you know, office talk around the water cooler. And that feels a lot easier to approach for me than like, oh, I have to be this like thought leader and come up with amazing ideas all the time. And instead I can be like, what is happening with chat GPT right now? Like open AI, what are you doing? You know, and it feels a little more conversational.
STEVE:
Andrea, it's been great chatting to you. And wherever you just got this podcast, go and look for the Savvy Social Podcast. You won't be disappointed. I guarantee it. Search for the Savvy Social Podcast. We didn't even get to talk about Mr. Al. So you're going to have to listen to Andrea's podcast to find out who he is and where he features in this story. But for now, Andrea, thank you so much and all the best being freelance!
ANDRÉA:
Thank you so much for having me on the show.