Virtual Assistant Erin Buck
About this episode…
VA & Social Media Assistant Erin Buck
A twinge in Erin’s back didn’t go away.
It could have left her housebound, watching daytime TV. Unable to work. Stuck.
Instead she propelled herself into an online business world she hadn’t known existed.
Erin’s optimism, hard work and ability to figure things out, won out.
She has ‘ideas’. Ideas that found her a constant stream of work. That took her into online communities, that then supported her back out into the offline world. Ideas of a future spending winter in the sun. When the real ray of sunshine is her being her true self all along.
It’s an inspiring listen. The flexibility of freelancing. Business growth and personal growth going hand in hand. Buck up your ideas.
Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.
More from ERIN BUCK
Erin’s BizzyBeeBolly website
Erin on Instagram
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Virtual and Social Media Assistant Erin Buck
Steve Folland:
Hey, Erin. As ever. How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Erin Buck:
So I didn't even know what freelance or business was really, because I am 47 and when I was at school, business wasn't a big thing, so I'd never gone down that route. But then I hit 40 and at the time I was working in a school, so I went into education and felt a twinge. And that happened in the April and I thought, oh, that doesn't feel good. Went back to work. By the June, I was taking strong cocordamol to survive being at work. And then told my boss, I literally, I'm in so much pain, I've got to stop.
Steve Folland:
A twinge in what?
Erin Buck:
In my back. It's not something I want to admit. It was going to go. According to the doctor, it would have gone anytime. I could have bent over for a box of shreddies and it was going to go. But what actually happened was I'd got very drunk and I needed to throw up and I went to the toilet and as I threw up, I twisted my back and I felt it pop as it happened. And then I went back to bed and thought, oh, that hurts. But the next morning it had gone away, so I hadn't thought about it.
Erin Buck:
That would have been middle of April, middle of May, beginning of June. I signed off work because I couldn't stand because of a pain. By end of July, I was in a wheelchair, couldn't walk. And by August I had my first back operation. I'd ruptured the disc in my lower back. What it was doing, it was impinging a nerve that was then sort of dying and sending nerve pain down my leg, which is literally just like being electrocuted. So you've got a permanent electrocution feel. By August, I was on naproxen, 80 milligrams of morphine every 4 hours.
Erin Buck:
I have no memory... The night before my operation, I've got a picture. My sister in law came with my nephews. I'm lying on the bed and we're watching the Great British Bake Off and they're all in bed with me. No memory of it. Absolutely no memory. The biggest thing I hate is that my 16 year old son at the time had to go pick his GCSE results up on his own and go through his exams while I was in bed, not knowing who I was, where I was, just terrible. Minute I had my operation, it was like, oh, my God. Thank God the pain has gone.
Erin Buck:
Everything's brilliant. Did six months of recovery. You've got to do exercises and all those kind of things. And then I went back to work. When I went back to work, I didn't love it anymore. And I do believe, for me, anyway, you don't have a drive for something you don't love. And I'm not one for staying in something that is making me unhappy if I can get away with it. So I said to my husband, can I give up my job? And he said, yes, as long as you've got another plan.
Erin Buck:
I was like, all right, okay. Well, I like dogs. So I started a dog walking and dog boarding business, and I planned to do it at weekends, but it took off so quickly that I said, right, this is my route out of education. And so I went to my boss and said, I'm handing my notice in. But I worked in year six, and so I didn't want to leave my year sixes before their SATs. So I said, I'll see it to the end of the year, till July, and then I'm going full time with my dog walking business. Three days before the end of school term, I was going to walk my dogs and I bent over to fasten my shoelace, and I cannot describe the pain. It's like somebody had stabbed me in my lower back and then just gone right up my spine.
Erin Buck:
And I start having Corda Aquina. Now, I don't know if many people don't... You don't know about these medical things till you go through it. Corda Aquina is where you're having permanent damage happening. You are losing function. Not that I did at the time. I was getting that way - in your bladder and your bowel, and it can paralyse you. So they have to act quick, because if they don't act quick, then that's going to happen.
Erin Buck:
So I was blue lighted to Salford, near Manchester, where the neurology department is, and I had another emergency surgery to save everything. And it was the same disc and the same thing had happened. Don't know why they said it wouldn't, shouldn't do. So that was my second microdisectomy, recovered from that, kept on with this dog, freelance dog... If you go and call it freelance, freelance dog business. I got healthy, I worked on my back, everything was great. And then 2019, I thought, what's that pain? Oh, no, it's the same thing. I started to go downhill. I recognized all the signs.
Erin Buck:
Another MRI and it happened again. And the consultant said, well, you'll be a first for me, because it's unheard of to have a third microdisectomy, and I've never done one, so you're my first. Doing a third one. It's like, marvelous. Glad you can help. And I ended up having my third operation in January 2020. Everything was going great. I thought, right, I'd left...
Erin Buck:
I started my dog business. Six weeks later, you go for a checkup, and everything was going hunky dory. Two days after my six weeks checkup, I went for a walk with the dog. I came back and I said to my husband, I can't feel my foot. I said, there's something wrong with my foot on my bad leg. And he was like, oh, it'll be fine. I said, I'm going to A&E. Oh, you don't want to go to A&E.
Erin Buck:
You'll be there forever. I'm going to A&E. And I ended up being in hospital for a week. And then they said, right, we don't know why it's happened. We think it's the scar tissue in your back. And all of the operations have just permanently damaged the nerve. And so now that gave me foot drop. So I wear a leg brace because it just flops.
Erin Buck:
So when you're walking, you sort of learn to throw it a bit to get it up off the floor. So when it first happened, I kept falling over everywhere. My kids loved it. I have face planted so many times in my front room, and they just come running in and I'm just lying there going, yes, happened again. So I wear this leg brace and I drive an adapted car because my leg can cramp. And when you say leg cramp, my foot goes, like, at a right angle. It looks so weird and I can't get it out. My husband has to push it back to sort of stretch it out.
Erin Buck:
So that is the long story of round I became a freelancer because I got out of hospital in the March and the doctor had told me, you have to give up dog... You can't walk six dogs. You can't look after six dogs. So I had to shut my business and I thought, I'm 44, I'm not ready to watch Jeremy Kyle and This Morning, no matter how good Alison Hammond is, just saying, I'm not going to sit and watch tv, that'll make me just, this is not what I want to do. So I sat and I thought about, okay, what am I good at? Well, I'm pretty good at computers. My whole life has been computers.
Erin Buck:
I'm married to a computer programmer and I'm of the age where the BBC computer was introduced. So I've grown up as computers have. So I thought that and I really like being organized, so I put into Google, what job can I do that involves being organized and use digital stuff? And it came up with virtual assistant and I thought, okay, what's a virtual assistant? So I looked into it and I thought, oh, I'd love doing that. Oh God, I've never had more than 20 emails in my inbox and it freaks me out when people show me messages and I have seen it in the Being Freelance community. There is a picture somewhere where somebody had put a picture of like 6000 emails in there. It's like, that's wrong. It's sick, it's sick. You can sort that out.
Erin Buck:
So I drew a picture of, I thought, okay, what am I going to call myself? I live in Manchester, Cheshire, for some reason is really big on bees and honey and I went to uni in Manchester, so I'm going to use a bee, but I'm going to be quick about it. Instead of having busy bee, I'm going to have bizzy bee. So it sounds like a bee, which obviously I didn't think that people would never know how to spell this or search for it properly on Google so they never get it. But unfortunately bizzy Bee was already taken so it had to be bizzy bee Bolly, which is, I live in a village called Bollington, so that was my progression and I've always used social media, know, Friends Reunited. I was on it, Facebook came out, I was on it. I've always been into that kind of stuff. So I started talking about myself on social media and I've never used paid advertising and it is just purely by me writing my content and getting out there. I'd never been to networking, I didn't even know what networking was.
Erin Buck:
And then I joined some membership groups on Facebook. I got my first client within a month and then next thing I know another one came along that had spoken to them and then my third client was a friend of the second client and it just built like that. Three of my clients have been with me now for three and a half years. They've never left me, bless them, and it's just built and built and built from that, really I didn't realize I'd be good at sort of marketing maybe. I don't know.
Steve Folland:
As in marketing yourself?
Erin Buck:
I didn't know that these had names, these strategies that I was doing. It just made sense. One, I am nobody but me. So obviously, as I say, apologies for my foul language. And as you know, I do have a habit of having a dirty mind from sometimes, but that doesn't affect my professionalism, obviously. But people got to know me, and if they ask me if I can do something, I'm really honest and I'll say, no, I haven't got a clue, but I know somebody that does. Or I give them the option of, I can learn how to do it, but I won't charge you. I'll learn it in my own time if you're wanting me to do that.
Erin Buck:
And so they come along with one job in mind that they want, and then they'll say, can you do this? It's like, yeah, all right, well, could you do this? Yeah, can. And because I do lots of different things, people seem to like it because vas seem to have packages. So if you want someone to, they'll have the website package or the email marketing package or the organizing package. I sort of describe myself as a jack of all trades, which is what people, especially freelancers, because you haven't got departments and you're on your own. Sometimes freelancers get overwhelmed with what they have. So I just say, right, well, what do you need? So one woman came to me to start off with, with just, I want you to make me accountable. So I said, right, okay, if you want to pay me to tell you to get on with your work, that's fine. Can do that.
Erin Buck:
So I started off doing that, and then she saw my socials and she said, do you think you could do mine? And it was like, yeah, I can give you ideas. And it started off where I just gave ideas, you are the best person to come up with the content, but sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. So when I was talking to my client and she was like, well, what do I write about? I said, well, you can use this. Yeah, but that's obvious. Said, it isn't to me, it is to you, because that's your job and you've been doing it for nigh on 20 years. But not to me. And you're not looking for you as a client. You want the person that doesn't know how to do that and doesn't really want to do that because then they're going to hire you to do it.
Erin Buck:
You're showing them that you know what you're doing. And she's like, all right, so I seem to be able to get on with my client by doing that. I just act dumb and just say, okay, well, let's research this subject and learn it. So I do it a basic level so that you're targeting the right people. So that's the social media side. And also creative freelancers. I always describe them as scatter thinkers. So they've got so many ideas, it's like a mind map.
Erin Buck:
They come to me and go, right. What I'd like to do is... And I go, all right, okay, well, let's put that A-B-C. Let's do it down a route so we know where we're going. And I help them sort of focus where they want to go. And because I'm bossy, they can say, oh, yeah, but I've had this. Yeah, well, we'll do that in a bit because you're going to finish this first. We're going to get on with this.
Erin Buck:
People seem to quite like the fact that they weren't paying for this one job. They pay for my time. And when they first come along, they say, well, how long will it take us? Like, I don't know. So we always have one month where you give me the job. I time myself on everything that I do, and if you think that I've done it in a good enough time, then fine, we keep going. If you think I'm too slow or I'm not doing a good job, we go our separate ways. But you've tried it because you don't know until you try, really.
Steve Folland:
When you said about bossing people about, there's often a thing for freelancers where a client might ask for something or they want something changed or whatever, and you don't necessarily agree. Perhaps you've seen this before. Perhaps you've creatively got a different idea. What do you find works for pushing back or for encouraging somebody in a different direction or being bossy, as you put it.
Erin Buck:
I sort of see it as it's their business, it's their baby. What have I got to say? So I tell them the truth and think I say, I don't really think that's going to work. I think it would be better this way. If they take my advice, brilliant. If they don't take my advice, that's their job. It's not my business. So if they want to have that kind of content, even though I've told them that it's not the content that will work. There's no more that I can do.
Erin Buck:
Why? Why argue with them? It's their business.
Steve Folland:
Yeah.
Erin Buck:
Treat them with the respect. I mean, literally, I don't see myself as their employee, but I see myself as their collaborator. So ultimately they have the final say. If you hired me, I'm not going to come in there and start telling you, oh, you're going to do your podcast like this and blah, blah. It's just not my place. All I can do is advise with what I know, give them the knowledge that what I think I might even push it a second time and say.
Steve Folland:
Are you really sure?
Erin Buck:
I really don't think that that's going to work. But ultimately, if they say, no, I want it this way, it's like, right, okay, I'll crack on.
Steve Folland:
I mean, it's fantastic that you've found. I mean, you literally put, you didn't know a virtual assistant existed. But then not only that, you are seemingly listening to what people come to you with and then figuring out what your business is in order to help.
Erin Buck:
It's really hard because everybody tells you to have a niche. But I don't have a niche. I work with an app developer, a graphic designer, a copywriter, a marketeer, an architect, another copywriter, another graphic designer, and it's all that. They've just started talking to me and said, oh, I know, I struggle with this. Yeah, I can do that for you. And then they see what benefit they get from it. And then they ask me, well, what else do you think it's like? Well, are you good at this? Well, no, I hate doing that. Right, well, pass that to me then.
Erin Buck:
It's bespoke. It's bespoke to the person rather than the package.
Steve Folland:
So you said that a lot of people were inspired by your marketing, but you didn't even know you could do marketing, what it was. So what is it that you did do on social media that is working for you?
Erin Buck:
Well, I could only say what people have told me, but I sort of have because I'm brightly colored and I can be quite energetic and optimistic and things like that. But, I mean, it sounds so cliche now. I never tried to be anybody else, so I told people, I'm 47, I'm disabled, I needed a job, I created one. That's me. And I've learned everything along the way, and it has worked. I don't have a degree in marketing. I don't have any of that, but I do work hard and I do learn things. So when people asked me questions, I was upfront and I was able to say things to them.
Erin Buck:
I think, yeah, I just think this is the bit that I don't get. It's like, well, I've never pretended to be anybody else, and that's what seems to have worked.
Steve Folland:
So what sort of stuff would you put out on what social media are we talking about?
Erin Buck:
Initially, I started on Instagram was where it first started, so reels came out around the same time. And I loved reels. I would not perform on a stage in front of people, and I get anxiety when I go into a crowd, but for some reason, I could get up and do funny takes on know. I did follow the crowd and did the Celine Dion with the leaf blower thing. Got Richard standing behind the camera doing the leaf blower as I was wearing this blue dress, that kind of thing. I haven't done reels for like, a good year now, though. I sort of lost my confidence with it. When you've got chronic pain and you're getting old.
Erin Buck:
I lost a bit of confidence and it reels sort of started to get a bit boring because so many people. But I started doing it right at the beginning and I really enjoyed that. And it was like, well, look at me. I'm 45 and overweight and old, but I'm getting front of a camera, so can you.
Steve Folland:
So it doesn't sound like that's one of those reels where it's like teaching somebody how to do it.
Erin Buck:
What I did was I split it into two, and it was twelve months ago, I was timid and I had really shit reels. I didn't know what I was doing to twelve months later, I feel empowered, and I suddenly turned into a diva. And then all of a sudden, the leaf blower goes on, my hair goes back, and I've got the dress, and I'm lip syncing to celia Dion. So I was making reels about telling people what I was learning at the time. So that got a bit of a following. Now it's sort of shifted. And that's why I came up with social media assistant. So I had a few people asking me when I first did that.
Erin Buck:
I started off with my name as busy B virtual assistant, and then when more and more clients were saying, I would like you to do our social media, come up with the ideas, because I seem to be an ideas person, I thought, right, okay, well, I'm going to be a social media assistant, not a social media manager, because social media managers have to look at your analytics and have to give you feedback and you've got to work on it like that. I didn't want to do that. That's a different job to being a virtual assistant. So that would be like two jobs and I would be shattered. So I thought doing social media assistant, I can come up with the ideas. I can write captions, but ask for your input so that it sounds like you. So we work as a collaboration copywriters. They're magic.
Erin Buck:
I haven't got a clue how they can do it, but we work together. And then I come up with ideas of either what you're going to film or your graphics, and then I schedule it all for you. But because I'm doing the accountability bit, where people were just willy nilly doing it, I encourage them to plan a month so all my clients will have a month's worth of content all scheduled. And then if they want to add to it and do their own on a whim thing, then that's fine. But they've got that consistency. And so I do that side as well. So they were the kind of, they liked the fact that I was happy, I suppose. Brightly colored.
Erin Buck:
I use bright colors, yellows, reds and greens, and I wear dungarees that are brightly colored. I'm getting old. I used to have bright red hair. And for my 40th, I dressed up as Jessica rabbit. It's got to be done. I'm saying old like a bad thing. I'm 47 in age. I feel 60 in my body because of my pain, but I'm 16 in my head, so I'm still that 16 year old girl that wants to have fun.
Erin Buck:
And so that's what I try to do, even if I am doing it from home on a Zoom channel. Honor in a reel.
Steve Folland:
So, in terms of business pricing, did you know what you were doing?
Erin Buck:
No, not at all. I started off with looking at what other vas were earning, thinking, well, they've been around a while and I haven't, so I can't charge that, so I'll really undercharge myself. And was working for peanuts. And then I thought, well, this is not sustainable. I'm shattered. So I'm going to start up in my prices, and then the people that don't want to pay them will go, nobody left. So then I upped them again. Nobody left, so I upped them again and nobody left.
Erin Buck:
And then I got to a stage where the inquiry started to slow down. So I thought, right, this is my level. So I just worked it. I mean, obviously I didn't do it Monday. And then Oh, I'll put it on Tuesday. I did it staggered.
Steve Folland:
You talked about having so much work, by the sounds of it, but not paying you enough where you're at today. A few years down the line, though, do you have to turn work away? Obviously you're a very organized person, but how do you manage the potential to do so much when time is limited? I guess so.
Erin Buck:
I have a spreadsheet that has the calculation in it. I put in how many days a week I want to work and how many hours a day I want to work, and they're the hours that I'm available. And then I put all of my clients in and how many hours they book me for. So they don't just come along and say, can you do this? It's okay. How many hours a month do you want to pay for? So then they choose and I let them lower them, or quite often they extend them until that capacity is gone. And then I know I can't possibly fit it in at all, but I have a habit of not saying no enough. So literally today I've just said no to two people that have messaged me on LinkedIn saying, I'm not available. Come back in six months and I might have availability.
Erin Buck:
But the thing is, if you're really good at your job, they don't go. Obviously, you don't want your clients to leave. I mean, I've had a couple that have left this year purely because of the economic cris that they've given up their own freelancing business and they've gone to full time work because they've had to. So I lose them for that sake. But, yeah, a lot of people ask because I have this habit of not being able to say no. I direct them. Now that they fill an online form in, I can tell how they answer the questions. I don't want people to think that I'm obviously, what do you call it? I don't know.
Erin Buck:
But you can see a red flag in the way that they're writing. So if they say to me that the maximum they want is 2 hours, but then give me a paragraph of how much work they want to do, I can see that they don't realize what's involved and therefore will expect more than what I can give, and then they can be quite hard. So then I'm able to say, not at this time, come back. But then if something comes in, that's, oh, that's a really interesting job. Oh, I'd really like to work for them. I might try to sneak them in and see if I can fit in hours for them, but now, today, I just can't do anymore. I've been saying yes too many times. So that's it.
Erin Buck:
My books are shut for now, until June.
Steve Folland:
Interesting. Have you been tempted to bring on other people to help you at all?
Erin Buck:
I can cope with a certain level of stress, and I don't want to stress myself out by having an agency. So I do outsource to one person when I'm getting a bit overloaded, and I know other vas. So the associate model is that they sign up, you take the job in, you give it to these vas, and you pay them less than what you're pulling in. So you're taking the cream off the top of the milk while they're doing the work, which is a fine model to have, if that's what you want to do. And it's what I do with my one outsourcing, just a bit of truth. The person I outsource to is my son, so I'm allowed to take the milk off his. I'm not fleecing anybody, but I don't want to do that as an agency with lots of different people. So if I can't do the work, I'd rather just say I can't do the work.
Erin Buck:
But I know such and such. Here's a number. Go give her the work, because then she's earning the full amount of what her fee is rather than getting it through an agency. I'm not precious. If I can't do it, I'd rather build somebody else up so that they can do it. So I've got a nice little list of vas that I know and what their specialties are, so that I'm able to say, go try her.
Steve Folland:
Yeah. Has your health sort of stabilized?
Erin Buck:
It goes up and down. So, like the beginning of last year, I was lying flat on my back. Everybody first got to meet me at some coworkings flat on my back, because I have a desk that tilts. So when the pain is really, really bad, the best thing for me to do is to lie on my back with a heat mat underneath my back. And so then I position the desk and the dog lies next to me, and I tilt it so that the computer is above my head. And I work like that so I can concentrate. I just can't physically do stuff. And I take my painkillers, but they literally just take the pain away.
Erin Buck:
They haven't messed with my mental capacity at all. It just calms it down so that I can concentrate, so I do that. And I've found that I'm a little bit late to the whole in person networking because when being disabled and then, like I say, Covid happened a week after I got out of hospital. So everybody else hated being locked in. For me, it was, well, this has been my life for the last three years. When the pain's really bad, I've been locked in and now you're all experiencing what I've experienced. So it's quite good. It's like you've all joined my party.
Erin Buck:
You all get it. I got more scared when Covid ended because all of a sudden I saw people going out again. So I'd lost my feeling in my foot and the ability of doing stuff. Covid didn't give me a chance to get used to it or compare myself just to look at things. And then obviously when Covid finished, everybody else was going back on hikes with their dogs where I can't walk that far because it hurts my lower back. I should push myself more, which I am doing, but I have to limit certain things because I end up that I have nerve pain because it's been aggravated when I've walked and things like that. So I sort of felt left behind and that affected me mental health wise because it was like before and after this event, there was the errand before that, dressed as Jessica Rabbit and did drink and then there's the errand after that doesn't feel the same. So when it came to going out, it was like, well, I have to wear a leg brace and I'm a bit embarrassed about that or I can't stand up and talk to a lot of people all the time because my back's hurting.
Erin Buck:
So I need to go sit down. So these all created anxiety for me. So I found that locking myself away and having a virtual business was actually. It became a bit of a cocoon for me. It helped me stay safe. But I am getting out and about now. Like, you know, I went to London and what people, some people recognized happened and some people didn't. And everybody in the freelance magazine and the being freelance have been fantastic.
Erin Buck:
So obviously I went down on the train. That was anxiety. But I had everybody from the co working on my computer making me laugh, which helped me get down. When I got there, things went wrong and I had a meltdown. I wasn't feeling good. But Amy, who was coming to the party, messaged me at the time that I was having this panic attack. And, you know, I'm not far from your hotel at the moment. I said, well, please come here.
Erin Buck:
And so she came and gave me a hug, and we came to the party together. And then when I got there, there was Angela there, so I knew to go straight for Angela, who I knew really well. And she gave me a hug that I'd met. She got me to come to being freelance. I'd met her in another group, and she said, come to being freelance. You'll fit in fine.
Steve Folland:
Thanks.
Erin Buck:
And I made my way to her. And then it was when the guy was doing the trick shot stuff, it was like the adrenaline that I'd felt all up until that point. And I was proud of myself that I'd come, because I didn't think I would come to this kind of gathering. And I just started to cry. I just had tears running down my face. So I sat down on the sofa and put my head down so that people couldn't see that I was crying. But Amy was sat next to me. Ange turned around and saw me.
Erin Buck:
Jessica, she saw, and she came over and asked if I was okay and everything. And then it passed. And then I had an absolutely brilliant time, and I was really proud that I'd done it. And I was getting texts off my husband going, I can't believe you've done it. Well, done all that, then. And then later in the night, I sang a bloody karaoke. I didn't know that I was ever going to do that. That was Mel who got me to do that.
Erin Buck:
It was something I've always wanted to do and never had the courage to do. And she just threw a microphone in my mouth. And my husband still says, I can't even believe you did that. And it was just so good, and it really helped me, so it showed me that I can. So I am starting to build up the confidence to get out and about again. So I just have to take it easy. If I do too much, I just end up pulling it back a little bit.
Steve Folland:
I mean, God, I love the fact that you found the online communities, and they're now stepping out of it as well.
Erin Buck:
I have to, because you all live in London! (laughs)
Steve Folland:
You do a podcast as well, right?
Erin Buck:
Yeah, but that's just something for fun. That worked out when I was on instagram. I was trying to use all the tools, and it was Independent Women's Day, so I decided to do a live with some business women. And again, when you're not in this world, you do not realize how many jobs actually exist and titles and things like that. And it was amazed about all these people. So I started doing it every week, this Instagram live, with a different woman with a different career. And then after a year of doing that, I was a bit tired, so I thought, I'm going to give that a stop. And then I was listening to another podcast, because I was never into podcasts, but now I love them all.
Erin Buck:
And they'd said about how repurposing content and stuff. So this is where my associate Luke, my son, who did music tech at school, he's 24 now. And I said to him, right, do the favor. Go on my Instagram, rip off all my lives, turn them into podcasts, and let me see what you can do. And so that's what he did. And I said, right, well, we'll choose those ones. That's series one. And there's so many more careers I haven't come across yet or people that I've met that I really want to get to know about, be nosy about.
Erin Buck:
So I started women in business, and it's sort of to promote them rather than. It's not like my job, obviously, my job's the virtual assistant bit, but sort of gives me a bit of grounding for an hour where I talk to somebody, and then I send it off to Luke and say, all right, go do something with that then for me, please. Thank you.
Steve Folland:
So how long have you been doing on.
Erin Buck:
I'm recording now series four, and there's only six episodes per series, so I only started last year. So yeah. So that's a fun thing for me, really. And also it helps you make content, doesn't it? So you don't have to make content on a Wednesday. On a Wednesday, yeah, women on a Wednesday. See? Wow.
Steve Folland:
Oh, got you. That's what it was originally called.
Erin Buck:
No, I've just made that up as. All right, see, full of ideas. But yeah, it goes out every Wednesday, so it gives me a break on a Wednesday. All I've got to do is put a clip of the podcast out and that's my content.
Steve Folland:
What does that podcast bring you?
Erin Buck:
It brings me conversation, it brings me connection with people, because other than that, it's just me. And if I'm lucky, my husband's around and I might talk to him. And the know I wouldn't talk to anybody other than my clients otherwise. That's why I do the online co working people think that's such. Know why the hell. I mean, Richard the hubby has learned I won't go nowhere on a Friday morning now because Friday I save some work for Friday. Coworking and being freelance because I laugh so much in the little bits in between. It really cheers me up.
Erin Buck:
And I've got another group that I go to called inclusion, where they're business people that have all got chronic conditions. So that's sort of like understanding. So I can complain. In that group, I found groups, I suppose, like niche found groups that fit with what I need to help me in this world, because otherwise it's a really lonely place being a freelancer. So you have to make connections and talk to people and not just for business, not looking for work, just to listen to other people, that you're not on your own. I learned that when I became a mother. You think that you're on your own and then you go to a mums and tots group and you go, I've had a really, really bad night. And this is what's really bugged me.
Erin Buck:
And you'll find seven other mothers go, oh my God. Yes, I feel the same thing. And it's the same with freelancers. You can think, it must be me, it must be me that this is going wrong for. I'm just really bad at this job. And then you go into your membership and you say, has anybody else experienced that? And all of a sudden you've got 30 comments underneath going. And it's good, it's grounding. It's like, all right, thank God for that.
Erin Buck:
It's not just me.
Steve Folland:
How do you find the work life balance?
Erin Buck:
Really hard. Really hard. I'm terrible. I have a problem that I like to have things finished. So I have to keep reminding myself that the way my model works is at the beginning of the month, you have a jar full of pebbles, which are your hours. And as every time I do work for you, I take them out until eventually your jar is empty. And at the beginning of the month, I fill it back up again. So I panic that I am not going to spend all your hours for you.
Erin Buck:
And then that means that you're getting shortchanged. So I work my butt off late into the evening at weekends, and then by week three, I haven't got anything to do because I've done it all. So I'm learning to sort of say to myself, it is only week one. It is only week one. You've got another three weeks to spend these hours, spread it out. But it meant that I was having a cycle of burning out by mid month and then panicking. I haven't got enough work because I didn't have enough to do, taking more on and then realizing, oh, actually back at the beginning of the month, now I've got even more work to do. So that was stressing me out and affecting my mental health as well.
Erin Buck:
So I'm learning to stagger it much, much better.
Steve Folland:
That's a really interesting effect, I guess, of a retainer. I'm guessing these are retainers, right. So you're like, you want me to do these hours for you each month, which sounds amazing, except that you almost, yeah, they've always got things for me.
Erin Buck:
To do and I don't let the hours go over because then it would get confusing with my tracking my finances if somebody had got hours left over and things like that. So you have these hours, you use them up. And what everyone keeps telling me is, well, then that's up to them. But if they're not using the hours, then I start panicking because I don't want them to be shortchanged. So then I start messaging, going, you've still got these amount of hours. Is there anything you want me to do? I can do this for you. I can do that for you. Let's do this.
Erin Buck:
Let's use up your hours. I don't like being paid for doing nothing. I think it's just not ethical. So if it means I have to find or teach you how to delegate so that you give me some stuff, then I will try my hardest to spend the hours so that you're not being shortchanged and I have a retainer so they get a little bit of a loyalty discount for a retainer, where they just promise to work with me for six months at least. And then it's like a rolling contract. My retainers get priority. So people that aren't on retainers, if they send me work, yes, I can do it. But if then a returner client comes in and says, I need this doing, I will still get this work done, but they'll get their work done first.
Erin Buck:
So that shows that there's got to be an incentive for them to promise to work with me. So then I've got like a pipeline, so I know how much I'm earning for the next six months.
Steve Folland:
Nice.
Erin Buck:
I'm just grateful that I am always working, so even on holiday, I never go away.
Steve Folland:
Do you actually take work on holiday with you?
Erin Buck:
Yeah. I wasn't just showing off to you lot in co working that I was in Gran Canaria. Richard works for himself as well. So what we did is he had a deadline and I had some work... Because this is the life that we want - we want to go away and live for three months in the sun and we both have got jobs that can do it. So when we go on holiday, we practice and we like the slow, going slow. So we'd get up, we have breakfast, we work for a couple of hours, and then we shut the computers and then we went to the beach. That was the day.
Erin Buck:
And then in the evening we were abroad, or there was foreign telly, couldn't watch any tv, so we worked for a bit. So I was able to keep on top of quite a lot of stuff. And it just shows us that it's really what we want to do. It just reinforced how brilliant it was to take the afternoon off and go and sit in the beach and swim in the sea and then go back and do some work.
Steve Folland:
Nice. So you think that the two of you will have that sort of almost digital nomad?
Erin Buck:
Yeah, that's how. See, I always feel bad because that was our plan. We had kids. Young. Well, youngish. I mean, like I said, I'm 47 and I've got a 24 year old and a 20 year old that turns 21 this year. And they are both self sufficient and have jobs and do their own thing. This was the time that Richard and I were going to go traveling, but then I got ill and so it's grounded.
Erin Buck:
Can't. There's certain things I can't do. I can't go hiking the great wall of China and things like that, which is, again, it's a dream that's just not going to happen. So we adapted it and thought, you know what? We nearly paid off our mortgage. I've got no pension or anything like that. But we just said, well, what would we do for retirement? And we both want to be warm, and we don't like winter, and english winter is just rubbish. So we started with that idea. That's why we go away every January, and we've been going to different spanish islands to see which ones we like the most every year.
Erin Buck:
So that ultimately, when I know that my youngest son is settled and in his own house, because he still lives at home, because I'm not leaving him here to look after mine, we'll shut the house down for three months and we'll go and rent a. I mean, Richard even came up with the idea while we were away. Why do we have to stick to one island? We could have January in Gran Canaria and then Airbnb and jump over to Tenerife for a month and then go to Fuerteventura for a month. So, yeah, that's our dream. That's what I'm working. You know, when people gone about goals, that's what I'm working for, to have the life that Richard and I can rent a flat. Kids can come over for a weekend in the sun, if they want to, hour away. But then we're back in England because we used to live in America, so we came back to England because I missed so much things about England.
Erin Buck:
But it's spring, summer and autumn that I like, so we would come back in time for the daffodils, then have a nice summer, see friends and everything, and then as winter comes back over to the sunny land.
Steve Folland:
I like that. It's like a migratory bird, but with a laptop.
Erin Buck:
Absolutely. I'd like to think that I was a nice, small, thin bird, but I've sort of got an albatross in my mind.
Steve Folland:
That's all right. They keep going forever. They're great.
Okay, Erin, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Erin Buck:
I did write this down. I first wrote do it sooner because I haven't regretted becoming freelance. It helped me in a sort of a recovery. But then I thought, no, my advice would be find the thing that drives you, because I've noticed that I didn't have a drive when I was 13, 1418. I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I just went with the flow and I went and did an astronomy, started astronomy degree, and then I went and did the nursing and then I ended up working in education. And while I was training in education, I worked in a co op. Yes, I've gained experience and I don't regret any of the choices. But I didn't have a drive until I started this.
Erin Buck:
And it was something that was important. And so it drives me to come to work, it drives me to keep going, it drives me to do the best that I can do. So I would say for freelancing, don't just come into it because you think it's an easy option. You've got to have a certain level of drive to keep going.
Steve Folland:
I wonder what that is, though. I wonder whether it's something you can find or whether you just have to sort of pay attention.
Erin Buck:
I used to think that it was just something that somebody had. So like, my husband's been driven in his. He's always, he's very driven at things that he does, but I never was. So I just thought, oh, well, that's the way he is and this is the way I am. And then all of a sudden I had a trauma that made me think, well, this is not what I want to do with my life. I've got to think of what I'm good at, how I can make what I'm good at work for me. And I have to be proactive. I have to drive.
Erin Buck:
It's not going to just come to me because I'm sitting here and I love the story about Jim Carrey and his 10 million pound check. Have you heard that one?
Steve Folland:
No.
Erin Buck:
So when he was a jobbing actor and he was fed up, he wrote himself a check for 10 million pounds and put a date on it and said, I am going to cash this check on this date because that's what I'll be earning. And the day before that check date ran out, he got paid for mask and he got paid that amount of money. But then he says it, everyone's like, oh, wow. And you only ever see that part of the interview. But then he follows it with, but I'm not saying I wrote the check and sat on my bum and waited for it to come. I wrote that check as my goal, but then I was driven to get to where I was going and I worked hard to get there. So you've got to have the thing that you want. So for me, I wanted a sense of purpose, because when I became disabled, I felt useless.
Erin Buck:
I felt like, what's my point of being here? My kids don't need me. My husband's doing everything because he's my carer. I need to help people. I need to do something so that I feel worthy for myself. That became my drive to keep going. So I don't think 13 year olds are going to know what the thing is that's going to drive them. But I think when you're getting into the freelancing world, think about why you're doing it. What's the drive for you to do this and then work your butt off to get there.
Steve Folland:
Erin, it's been so good to talk to you. Go to beingfreelance.com. There'll be a link through so that you can find Erin's website, you can find her online, you can reach out to her, you can say hi, just.
Erin Buck:
Talk to me, please, just talk to me.
Steve Folland:
You can come and join the being freelance community and see Erin in there at Co, working quite clearly on a Friday and in the chat in between as well. But Erin, I'm just so pleased. Well, I'm not pleased that you ended up disabled, but going through what you went through, but the attitude that you then took from it and the fact that you found this thing that works for you, because if you weren't freelance.
Erin Buck:
No job's going to let me lie. Well, let's not go there. No job's going to let me lie flat on my back. Well, certainly wouldn't earn enough, but if I was in the co op, I can't lie on my back when my back's really bad on the till, can I? It's not a thing that you're going to be able to see, and that's what. And I can't do heavy lifting jobs and I can't be on my feet all the time, so I am never going to be able to have a normal job. I hate the word normal. Normal is a social construct bound to people, but I was never going to get that. But at the same time, I'm not a housewife.
Erin Buck:
I couldn't just sit there. What else would I have to do with my life? And that's the big thing. I want to let other people know. It doesn't matter what your age is, it doesn't matter what your ability is, you can find something in you that you can use to push yourself forward. So, for me, I found that I really like organising embossing people about Erin.
Steve Folland:
It's been so good to talk to you. Thank you so much. And all the best being freelance.
Erin Buck:
Thank you.