Graphic Designer Dave Officer

Podcast Intro

About this podcast episode…

GRAPHIC DESIGNER DAVE OFFICER

What happens when we dare to be different than the dull that surrounds us?

Be it the line of same-sounding introductions that come ahead of our turn at an in-person networking, or in the ever-scrolling social feed.

Freelance graphic designer Dave Officer shares how embracing the funny, creative and outright silly has made him stand out. Using laughs on LinkedIn to get leads. And the kind of work he actually wants to be doing.

If you're wondering if LinkedIn Video can bring you work... yes it can. Dave is the proof. 

With plenty of humorous stories and practical advice, Dave's episode of the Being Freelance is a much listen… or much-watch as this one is available in video too. Watch it here on the site, on YouTube, or Spotify. Enjoy!

Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.

 
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Transcript

Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and graphic designer Dave Officer

Steve Folland: As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?

Dave Officer: Okay. I discovered. Like most freelancers that they hate most other human beings. So I think that's, I think that's the thing, you know, I think that's what we all kind of share. We either, we hate authority hate other people making any sort of decisions for us which then sort of when you distill it into its main sort of component parts, essentially means we just don't like other people talking to us and telling us what to do.

So then you eventually come to the... the decision that you, you, you don't want to be around other people during working hours. So you go off and do your own thing. And I, I got to there later than most people. I was 37 when I finally made the jump. It was one of those things. I think I didn't grow up around anybody who had kind of done their own thing.

So it felt like this mystical, you know, otherworldly thing that was somehow unattainable for the vast majority of my life. So I didn't really ever see it as a possibility until I kind of hit my mid 30s and thought, I kind of, I really love the idea of doing this for myself. Shall I just give it a shot?

And then. You know, the more blogs and stuff you read and podcasts you listen to you can't, you enter that phase. And I've spoken to quite a few people who are, who are looking to take the leap and do it for themselves. You enter this real, this, this weird phase. At least most people do where you just want to consume as much information as possible before you allow yourself to take the leap.

But it's just another form of procrastination. You just right, I haven't listened to enough podcasts yet. I haven't listened to enough. Or I haven't read enough business books, I haven't watched enough YouTube videos, I need to consume them all before I can possibly start on this journey. And that becomes your sort of inner monologue to stop you actually just taking the leap.

So what I recommend to people is to just set yourself a goal for like how long you're going to allow yourself to learn. So as soon as you're sort of like, right, I'm going to go freelance, you give yourself like two months to allow yourself to just consume loads and loads and loads of stuff. But you're never gonna know it all and you'll start finding that people things start repeating themselves or contradicting themselves And they just end up confusing you to just set a date and go for it So yes, how I started doing it was I was in a job that was that I quite enjoyed But it wasn't mine the more and more I was there the more I realized I want something It's mine that I have sort of ultimate autonomy over which I don't know what that says about me psychologically But I think most freelancers are kind of the same.

You want something that's kind of your baby and you can build on it. And you just need to sort of have the cojones to give that shot and try it. So. I was later in life than a lot of people, but it's, it's worked out thus far. So it was a good decision.

Steve Folland: And how long ago was that?

Dave Officer: That was six years ago.

Steve Folland: After all that procrastination and learning and everything, what did you sort of have in place? Had you started freelancing on the side of a job or where were you at?

Dave Officer: Yeah, I'd been freelancing on the side for a long time. And I went through, so my job wasn't design related. I've never I've never been employed as a designer because education knocked that out of me.

So when I was a teenager, I was massively into art and design. And the thing that ultimately got me into it is I was a massive, music fan and back in those days when we actually bought physical, you know records and CDs and cassette tapes and stuff album artwork just fascinated me and I wanted to be that, I wanted to be that dude that made... so I was a big metal fan growing up right, so there was one guy in particular who was making a lot of artwork for heavy metal albums around the sort of early to mid 90s.

I grew up sort of idolizing him and I wanted to be him. So when I, when I got into art college, and it kind of completely just tore my love away from any sort of career aspirations. Because I couldn't do a single thing I wanted, it was just too prescriptive, and I kind of, as a 16, 17 year old, I thought to myself, this is what the world of work's gonna be like.

It's going to be prescriptive, it's going to be a load of projects coming my way that I have very little input in, and I just, I'm just kind of a little Skill Monkey this oh you can move that pixel from there to there can't you? Well this is exactly where it needs to be moved to so you do it. So I realized that Education had made me fall out of love with it slightly and I thought... I convinced myself the world of work would do Exactly the same thing. So I'd kind of gone up through my teens really wanting to do this as a career and then all of a sudden I realized No, I don't because it's going to make me end up hating it and I would rather it just be something that I enjoy and I just do for the love of it and for the crack on the side.

So I decided not to pursue it as a career, I ended up going through all of my sort of 20s and 30s fumbling around in jobs that meant nothing to me and didn't interest me, but.. but they weren't killing my passion, so as far as I was concerned, I was kind of winning, even though I wasn't really.

So, in my thirties I was in a I started playing drums in my teens as well. So in my thirties I found, I joined a business that did drum related things. You know, we sold them, we hired them, we had rehearsal studios. It was just music everywhere and drums everywhere and it was great. And, and that, that was, that was the thing.

So, so that became like a, a job I actually really, really enjoyed. And as I enjoyed it, I thought I can get back into this graphic design thing. Now, and on the side. So I started to do it more on the side. From that job. Started to earn money from it. But it, it was doing this weird sort of peaks and troughs. I would start getting freelance work in, but because I had this full time job, as soon as it became a bit too popular, I would then sort of turn the tap off on it.

Cause I'd be like, well, no, I don't want, you know, I'm doing it cause I'm enjoying it. And it's, you know, it's, it was giving me like a little bit of money, but not much, but that wasn't important. It was just the fact that I was kind of doing it and keeping up my chops and stuff. So we're, we're around sort of 2009, 2010 at this point.

So I just, I went from like 2010 all the way up to 2017 doing that, where I would, I would do it for a little bit, it would start to become too popular and I would go, no, no, no, that's enough. And I would, you know, stop taking it at work and then I would have to, like, I would build it up again. And so I would just do it every so often.

It would be like six months of the year I would do it, six months I wouldn't, six months... So that just kept me enjoying it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I knew that I never wanted to do it working for anybody, because I always put myself back in the position of that sort of 16, 17 year old, hating everything about it.

At the same time, I didn't, I never had the confidence to go full in and do it for myself. Because I am cripplingly self conscious of almost everything that I try to do. At least I was. So I just didn't have the confidence in myself to do it. So, the good thing about that drum company, I suppose, was it was I became a director of that drum company.

It was a small, it was a small little business, but there was a team under us and I was quite sort of instrumental in how we kind of ran that. So it gave me quite a lot of insights into running a business and running a team and all that kind of stuff. So it gave me a ton of confidence to eventually say, I think I can do my own thing.

I just need to bite the bullet and try it and see what happens.

Steve Folland: So where were you getting those clients from?

Dave Officer: Well, it's weird, you know, when you... , When you start wanting to get clients, you find them. You know, you know that thing where, when you, when you start thinking about something or something that starts becoming your goal, you start, you will start seeing opportunities for it absolutely everywhere.

So little things like, there would be people I would be dealing with in the music, in the drum, in the drum shop, essentially. There was like, one of the first things I did was design a website for one of our suppliers. It was like a little, a little dude in in Cornwall who makes his own timpani mallets, right?

So he just sits and lathes, lathes these little, these little bamboo handles and stuff, and then he weaves a little felt beaters and he makes them all different densities and sizes and stuff.

He was building up a bit of a reputation for himself, but he had a quite a shitty little website. So he was like, can you do me like a little logo and design me a site?

I was like, yeah, man, let's do that. It'd be fine so I started to have conversations, the more I was talking to people and they were telling me about what they were up to. I was like, dude, I can do it. Let me, do you want me to design a little logo for you? Yeah, fine. And most of the time it was like, I'll just do it.

You know, I'll just do it. Cause it's just good crack or just throw me 50 quid or whatever. And I'll do something for you. Like it wasn't a money earner at all. It was just for the sheer joy of kind of doing it.

Yeah, I suppose because it was in my mind as a thing I wanted to do, and I wanted to find more work from, you kind of, you can shoehorn it into almost any conversation you're having with someone.

If it's something you want to do, especially if it's something you're willing to do for free. So when you're in a position where you can do that and you're doing it for fun, you can throw the opportunity of, I can design something for you as, As Paula Scher says, absolutely everything is design, everything you look at throughout your day is designed by somebody.

So, no matter what, who you're talking to, and they're up to some sort of little project, there'll be some part of that process that you can get involved in to design a little thing for them. So you just, you just start poking your thoughts into people's conversations. Oh, you'll probably need a poster for that.

Do you want me to do it? I'll just do it. You know, so it was, it was kind of that. poking myself in where I wasn't necessarily wanted.

Steve Folland: Did you continue just to poke away when you then went full time freelance though, or did you get more sort of strategic about it?

Dave Officer: Yeah, I did get more strategic. Yeah.

Because it becomes sort of squeaky bum time, doesn't it? So I made the goal that I'd set myself was to, it was to figure out how much I needed to cover the mortgage. The bills, food, you know, work out like what the bare minimum is I have to have every month. And then make sure I have that amount times three.

You know, so that, that was my kind of, my goal. So, I need exactly this amount, let's make sure I have that for three months. So that if I get, if absolutely nothing happens for three months, I'm still okay, and then if I get to the end of three months and I haven't got anything in then I probably shouldn't be doing this Anyway, so that was kind of I got myself to that stage and I went right, okay, I'm fine I can go off and do this now.

And then I started to network. Hard. Physical networking, which I know is nightmare fuel for most people and one of the very first ones I did was a BNI as well and they are proper nightmare fuel for most people. That was horrific the first one I went to was it was properly horrific. But in saying that there were tons... there are tons of networking events around the area I live.

So I just started going to them. And a lot of them required you to do a sort of a 60 second, like a 30 second to a 60 second introduction. So they'd go around the room, right? It could be like, you know, 60 people at some of these events. And you're going around the room, listening to everybody talk. And I've always been a fan of not taking myself particularly seriously.

Being acutely aware of you have to do something different than whatever anyone else is doing. So kind of the first few of these events that I did, they were moving around the room and people would just stand up and say, "hello my name is Tim. I do this for... I, I don't know. I coiffe your goats in the Greater Manchester area and, you know, nothing that interesting, but they would say what they did and where they did it.

 . And it would be, and then they would... do you remember old episodes of like, Strike It Lucky or Bullseye, when, like, so, they, when they talk to the contestants, they say to them, oh, you've got a bit of an interesting story, don't you, and then the contestant, whatever toothless simpleton they've got on that week, will tell, their will tell their supposedly humorous story of when they were in a sweet shop in 1989 and they didn't have the sweets that they wanted.

So they ended up going home without the sweets and you think is that your humorous story you've been alive for 63 years! Is that the only? You chose that to talk about on national television? So, you know so that and then this host will have to pretend that it was amusing and move on to the next person.

But that's what people were doing at these networking events. They stand up and they'll tell you exactly what it is their business does, who they serve, and then they'll try and be relatable by telling you the most uninteresting story imaginable about whatever they've been up to for the past 50 years of their life.

And then they sit down and then the next person does it and then the next person does it. And by the time it gets round to you, you're tying a noose. You know, you're just tying a little noose and you're like, oh shit, it's me. So you put your noose down and you think, Like, for me, being subjected to that about three or four times was enough for me to go fuck this.

I am, I am taking, I am taking the royal piss out of this completely. So, I, I would, I would wing them most of the time and just stand up and just say weird... I don't even remember, the fact that I was winging them, I don't really remember what I was doing other than not caring about what I was saying.

Sometimes I would get up, pretend to really suck at a magic trick, and just throw an entire deck of cards around the room, or, or just, or spill my, you know, spill my water all over my head, like stand up like I was about to do it, and then just spill it everywhere, and then, and then find a way to link that into whatever, it was, whatever was around me at the time, I was just, I knew everybody in that room was going to be so bored of what they'd just been subjected to with all of these little pitches.

I was like, you just, just do something that just triggers a different response. So I just started doing that and then I remember the first time, and I really, this is the first time I thought, there's something in this networking.

Don't ask me what I did, but, but I, I, I stood up and, for 60 seconds, just verbal diarrhea, I don't know what I said. People laughing, it must have been amusing, I've no idea, don't, don't know what I did. They finished going around the room with everybody who's talking, and they said, right, that's the, that's the introduction session over.

You can all go and, you know, chat freely now for 15, 20 minutes or something, and then we'll have our presenter do a talk on, you know, something equally as bland.

So I sat down and kind of gathered my stuff together, and I looked up, and there was a queue of people ready to talk to me. And I ended up getting quite a bit of work off that one little event.

And also in that one event, I met someone who's become like one of my closest friends as well. So it was really, really weird. So that was my sort of first glimpse into, oh my God, there's actually, there's some worth in these, so I will keep them up. So I started... that was how I started getting work in around the local sort of area before I then took it onto social media to broaden my reach, essentially.

 

Steve Folland: Do you still go to events today or is it all online now?

Dave Officer: No, it's, it's all online. It's all online. There's a, there's a time and a place for networking events. The thing is I, I've met some just amazing people through networking events. Some of them I'm still in regular contact with. Some of them I absolutely adore.

I'm going, there was a networking group I used to be a part of. locally and I'm not in it anymore, but they're having Christmas drinks and I'm gonna go along to that and I will laugh until I'm in pain at that. I guarantee you because they are a hilarious bunch So I still you know get invited to some little things like that but I don't go to them because I kind of weighed up the time and effort that I put into producing content online and the opportunities that gives me versus the time I was then putting into networking events and the opportunities that would give me it was a no brainer really to cut the physical networking off at some point and purely focus on the online stuff. But when I needed it at the beginning, it was invaluable.

It was really really useful

Steve Folland: Well, let's chat about what you do online then. So when did you start creating content for social media? Like has that changed like what's what's that look like?

Dave Officer: So it's 2018 When I quit the job and went off on my own. So it was the tail end of 2018. Early 2019, I was thinking to myself, I really need to do some social media stuff.

I'd only ever dabbled in it before with the companies that was, I'd never done anything that had worked on it. Never done anything well with it.

I kept hearing people talk about how good LinkedIn was for organic reach, you know, no one was really talking like Tiktok wasn't on anyone's radar really and Well, not to the extent it is now not in 2019.

It was 2020 that it really sort of kicked off massively, I think so at this point 2019 everybody's talking about either being on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn. And out of all four of those, the only one that was still sharing decent organic reach was LinkedIn. The others were all very sort of... Instagram you had to have been taking it seriously for about four or five years up to that point to really, you know, be getting anything from it. To start a start a new on it is, was almost impossible. You'd have to be on there, like constantly living on it. Facebook is pay to play essentially at this point. Twitter, Twitter you've got to be tweeting six, seven, eight times a day.

And then, and then there was LinkedIn, which is like, it's actually, there's still to this day only 1 percent of people who are on LinkedIn who actually, put content out on it. And back then there were fewer users on it. So that was even fewer people. And, and it was even... and it's still bland as hell today, but it was even more bland in 2019.

So I thought there's a, there's a real opportunity here because a, it's actually willing to show your posts to people without you having to, you know, bend over backwards or pay them a load of money. And, and two, it's so hideously dull. That surely it won't be that hard to stand out against the noise. It was, the closest analogy was the, that networking group that I was in, when everybody is standing up and giving their own version of an incredibly bland introduction.

You be the person that stands up and throws faeces against the wall. Or what? Not that, obviously. So I thought that would be the online version of that. Just be the one person that stands up and does the intro that's just different to what the 20 people who have gone before you have done. Surely that's enough just to make enough of a, enough of a decent noise.

So there was a period of time in the beginning of 2019 where I was just sort of testing things and not really having a clue what I was doing. Most graphic designers online just tend to share, well at least then did just tend to share static images of things they've designed. Which, no matter how good it is, no one cares really.

You know, even if it is this immaculately designed thing that has done wonders for the client that you designed it for. It's just, there's no story behind it. Like, the person who's looking at it might think it's aesthetically pleasing, but there's no real reason for them to hang around and engage with it. It's not really that important to them or that interesting.

So I went through a stage of being that guy and then I went through a stage of being the person who just shared articles that they'd find online just sharing the link and sharing a very bland thought that I'd had along with that Oh just read this blog on color theory.

I agree with it You should read it. Send.

Being as bland as everybody else essentially, until, until I started to get a bit more comfortable when I was, you know, putting stuff out. It's, it's, it's a bit of a test. You know, throw shit to the wall and see what sticks. And until you kind of, you realise what kind of works and you realise what you're comfortable with.

And then you realise kind of how you want to be perceived. So there was a bit, there was a bit of that. And then, but there was a good six months. I, I'd kind of resigned myself to the fact that I would spend 12 months. Before I would really expect anything from it. So I'd say I was going to show up two, three times every single week constantly posting stuff, constantly engaging with other people, constantly connecting with other people commenting on their stuff, DMing them, just introducing like no hard ball selling at all.

Just being a person who's kind of there and showing up and not expecting anything from it for about a year. So still doing the networking stuff. But I was like, I'm going to go all in on this one. And I'm not going to let it beat me down if within 2,3,4,5,6 months I still haven't seen anything from this.

Because they're people who have been doing this for years that swear by it, so you have to figure it out and not let it drag you down. So there was a period of four, five, six months where nothing, nothing was coming. Following was growing ever, ever so slightly and I was seeing no work coming off it. And it was just one day, one post that I did went absolutely bonkers.

So I went from doing absolutely nothing. No one cared about anything I was putting out really until I decided to do something that was a little bit different. And it skyrocketed. My DMs went mental. It brought me a ton of work in. And that's when I realised. Ah, okay. There's actually some truth in the whole thing. You can get some work from social media.

Because I'd never seen any proof of it before that. I'd only heard people say 'Put yourself out on social media and you'll bring work in'. So that sounded like a myth to me up until this point. Until something had done really really well, and it had directly correlated to money in my bank account, and I went oh, okay this is worth going balls in on.

So then I, then I did that.

Steve Folland: Well, I see you doing a lot of videos. Is that what you were doing, when it took off, or?

Dave Officer: No, no, I hadn't gone into videos at that point. It was all sort of images, and, like, carousels.

And, it was all that kind of stuff at that point. The video stuff, I didn't start getting into until 2020. And now, it's the, now it's the thing I do the most of, because one, it's actually the thing I enjoy doing the most, and I think that's kind of important. You need to kind of figure out, if you're gonna market yourself consistently, so do something every week, then you have to find something you enjoy doing, or you just won't bother doing it.

Or it'll be soul destroying. You'll give it up after a month.

So videos are the stuff that I do actually really enjoy. editing stuff and then filming it and putting it together. That's, it's a lot of fun. And because it's the thing most of the platforms are sort of putting the most eyeballs on now, then it makes sense to do it.

You know, LinkedIn have just released obviously a million years behind everybody else, but they've now released a video feed for portrait videos. YouTube Shorts is obviously a thing that has only recently allowed you to upload up to three minute long videos. Instagram reels. TikTok, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

They now all accept the exact same format, a portrait video, a 9 by 16 portrait video that they're all putting eyeballs on. So it's a, it is a good time to be doing stuff like that. And for me, LinkedIn is still the best for me, it's still, it's still the best place to meet people. I've still met some of my favorite people through LinkedIn.

It's still where I get the most sort of work from. The next one would be TikTok after that. And then Instagram and then I don't ever think I've seen a peep from YouTube, but yeah, so it makes sense because it's fun for me and it's, it allows me to create one thing and put it out to multiple platforms, which was never possible.

So that's kind of useful.

Steve Folland: And a lot of your videos, are you creating a potential project, like a mythical, like making up a project. Would it, or do you have, is that a bad summary of your content? ,

Dave Officer: Not at all. Not at all. It's just, I've had an idea that's amused me. So I'll try and think of a way of shoehorning design into it.

Is essentially it. But it

Steve Folland: shows you, it shows a process, it shows the work, which whatever ridiculous the idea of being funny. Also shows that this guy actually knows what he's doing. Okay, you've got to take a look. I'll put a link Of course at being freelance. com so you can see the sort of videos that Dave is creating but I did notice as well that on quite a few you've collaborated with other people So as much as you don't like other people as we established at the beginning you you do really

Dave Officer: Yeah, so I do in small doses I do.

Steve Folland: So how did those sort of collaborations come about? Yeah What's the thinking behind that?

Dave Officer: I've done loads of them this year actually. It's just nice to have someone else occasionally to bounce daft ideas around with. So if I find someone who has... I massively espect, espect?! That's not a word. See? I massively respect people who have a great command of the English language.

Unlike me, obviously, as just demonstrated.

So copywriters I absolutely adore for example, for an example. They're just... that skill eludes me and I just, and people who can who can take a complicated idea, distill it into a really concise. sentence or two or like a little tagline and then also make it like amusing and oh my god, man I just I adore that as a skill.

So most of the people that I collaborated with have that skill because that's the one I just... I'm shocking at it and they are just I just I admire that massively.

So, I've done a few this year. One of the most recent ones was Dan Kelsall, who's a marketing guy but he's also a great copywriter. And we just invented a product. We just thought, let's find a category in the supermarket that hasn't been touched for a little while. And see what our take on it would be.

We both went separately and had a look around a supermarket and we saw that deodorant hasn't really been shaken up in a little while. And the most exciting deodorant brand out there is Lynx, which is tragic. Because you don't want to wear Lynx once you get out of school. You know, it's, it just reminds you of P. E. changing rooms. And it's the most sort of exciting brand out there night and so nothing new is coming that that's interesting. So we thought let's try and create something around that.

So we came up with a name. Then I designed a logo. Then Dan created some tone of voice stuff around it. Then I created the packaging. Then Dan thought some marketing ideas. Then I created the designs around that. And so the interesting thing about that is working with someone like that who's hilarious and it gave us a chance to get, to get together for an afternoon and just film a load of absolute mental stuff.

But, you've got a, the real challenge for me and the real interesting thing about doing something like that for me is, you... firstly get to create all of those assets. Then you've got to put all of that together and distill it into like a 3 minute long video. You've gotta get across what it is you're trying to do how you went about doing it, process for each part of those, so we... we had to find a product that we had to find a product category that needed shaking up.

Here's what we found. Then we decided we needed to come up with our own version. Here's how we come up with a name for it. Here's how we come up with a logo for it. Here's how we come up with a visual identity for it. The packaging, the tone of voice, marketing ideas, and here's us creating all of that. We created physical prints.

We created the packaging for the... . Do all that in a way that still makes sense and that takes people through the journey. At not an explosive enough speed that no one can keep up or it just annoys people. So the challenge of all of that I just find insanely enjoyable. So it's little things like that.

So I like collaborating with people who have, a skill that I absolutely adore and I am shocking at, which is most skills.

Steve Folland: And how long would you say then that you have to spend creating content that goes out online?

Dave Officer: It varies. Some of the... the collaboration stuff is generally the longest stuff because there's someone else involved. And we generally have a few back and forth.

Whereas it's just me. I can just sit at my desk and do it. So I generally spend about a day, a week, probably, on a day, slash two days sometimes on just content creation. I'll tell you for why. I've noticed loads of benefits with it. Chiefly, obviously, is it brings in work, it brings in opportunities.

And I needed to experiment with it for a bit before I could really figure that out. I am not a person, if anybody listening to this goes and looks at some of my videos, I'm hoping it'll give you confidence, because what you will see is the vast majority of my content bombs, like, like completely dies on its arse and I don't care because it's, it's, it's enjoyable.

So it's... it does bring in work, right? And one thing that you don't see as a casual observer, especially someone who hasn't really taken the plunge to A, working for themselves or B, sort of marketing themselves seriously. One thing that you don't really see is view numbers very rarely, if ever correlate to leads.

So If you go on to LinkedIn, if you look at my Instagram, my Instagram especially, like, no... Instagram shows my videos to barely anybody. But, if you look at some of my videos, that have the most views. They've very rarely got me any sort of decent work. If you look at some of my videos and you think, Oh, that one didn't do too well, You might be... you're probably wrong.

There's prob... That's probably attracted a decent bit of work. And so they very rarely corelate, which is why I don't, I don't get too hung up on stats and stuff. Cause I can make no sense of, I have no idea if a video is going to work for bringing me in work if it's going to work for getting me in views. I have tested all sorts of formats, I haven't got a fucking clue what works and what doesn't. And i've been doing it consistently for about five years I haven't got a fecking clue.

People ask me sometimes to help them with social media strategies and i'm like i'm the worst person on earth man. I've been doing this for five years. I can't tell you what works I put something out yesterday on TikTok and it, it died so horrifically, but it did really well on LinkedIn. So like, ah fuck, I have no idea what works and what doesn't.

But that, anyway, that's not the point. That's not important. I try not to get too deep into thinking what's going to work and what isn't.

The day I stop getting leads in will be the day that I sit back and try and think strategically about it. But at the minute, as long as I'm putting out a video that I'm enjoying the idea of. And it showcases my skills to an extent. That seems to be the sort of sweet spot for me. It also helps with creativity.

So one thing that I mentioned earlier on is a lot of people that decide to go freelance do it because they sort of, they're generally anti authority and they don't really want to work with a lot of other people. They like having their own sort of space and their own autonomy on things. And when you do spend your week Monday through to Friday, working on other projects for other people that does start to grate on you.

Because... not that you don't enjoy the people you're working with, the projects you're doing, or any of that kind of stuff. But when it's the only thing you're doing, when your only creative outlet is solely determined by what someone else is telling you to do, that can't help but grate on you. It's just, it's how we're wired.

If you separate a bit of time every single week to do something creative that is entirely for you, no one can tell you they don't like it. No one can tell you to change the direction you're going in. No one has any say in it, it's just for you. Even if you don't put it out on social media, right? If you, if you're the sort of person fortunate enough to get work and you don't need to put stuff out from social media, believe me, I am insanely envious of you. In an ideal world I would create stuff for a laugh and I would show it to no one.

So don't worry about creating things to get views on social media. That's the, that's the stuff we should be trying to eliminate. But creating stuff just for the sheer shits and giggles of it. If you can break up your week into such a way that you do allow yourself that outlet.

And, and if you can turn that outlet into something that's then becomes marketing material for you, that gets you in work, then it's a sort of, it's a double whammy, and it's a, you know, a win win, and that's kind of how I treat it. So I, I make sure every single week now, regardless of how busy I am, regardless of how many projects I've got in, no matter what else is going on in my life, I make absolutely sure Every single week that there is time in my diary to sit down and come up with some daft video that I'm going to, that I'm going to put out online because the benefits for me mentally and for me financially, have just made so much sense.

That It just makes sense to clear that time.

I don't even know if I've answered the question you asked me.

Steve Folland: I can't remember what the question was anymore.

Dave Officer: I'm talking way too much.

Steve Folland: That's great. When you were really focusing on that, did you also notice a change in the sort of people who approached you or the sort of work that you were being asked to do?

Dave Officer: Yeah, yeah, very much so, very much so. The work started to get a hell of a lot better when I... weirdly, when I started creating sort of just fictional ideas. So there was a point this was at some point last year, I wanted to do more sort of branding and packaging sort of design. I really wanted to get into that world a bit more.

I'd only kind of dipped my toe in it before. So I did a video. Where I focused heavily on here's some packaging I would design and off the back of that I got a load of work for packaging design and it seems that whenever I want to shake it up a little bit. At the minute I want to I want to do more logos because they're enjoyable for me but in about a month i'll probably be bored of doing logos.And I'll want to do something else. So i'll put like..

Essentially whatever video you see me doing is what what work I want to get in at any given time. So, I found that I got people who were willing to do things a little bit differently. So, I tend to attract the sort of client that I want to work with now.

The sort of person who isn't overly corporate, doesn't take themselves too seriously, is willing to try things that are genuinely different. Even... even at the risk of that different thing not working because you have to just test stuff.

You... You won't be interesting to anybody if you merge in with what everyone else is doing so try something a little bit left of centre and you will... you will definitely get some attention and then you have to decide whether that attention is the kind of attention you want

And then you sort of steer into whatever's sort of happening with that.

So, yeah as soon as I sort of started to lean into the daft side of design, then I, I, I definitely got attention from way more people that I actually wanted to work with and not the kind of people... there's , there are so many people who would look at the kind of videos that I do and sneer and think, Oh, that's, that's either unprofessional or that guy doesn't take himself seriously. So he's certainly not going to take my brand seriously.

And anybody who thinks like that is the kind of person I wouldn't really want to work with anyway. So it, it does, it does work at attracting the right people. Yeah.

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

Dave Officer: This might be a crap answer. I wouldn't tell him anything. And that's mainly because my younger self was a twat. So I imagine, I imagine me as a youngster seeing this old version of me walking up to him and telling him something. I would, I guarantee you, the younger version of himself would make sure that I didn't do whatever the old bearded fool just told me to do. Just out of spite.

So I probably wouldn't tell myself anything. Also, because there's a load of... of how this freelance stuff works that I have not figured out yet, right? Don't get me wrong. I am the furthest thing from a completed article, right? Some things are going well, some things are going atrociously.

And I think that's something not a lot of people touch on when they, when they talk in like interviews and podcasts and stuff. And I think that's another thing that's sort of important to mention that yes, I've been doing this for six years and I found a way of marketing myself through social media, which has worked.

There's still some months where there are tumbleweeds. I still haven't got this figured out. I have no fucking idea how people do work life balance. What is that? I'm still working like way later and way longer hours than I should do. I haven't figured that part out yet. There's ways of making passive income that I see people smashing online all the time.

I haven't got a clue how that works. I'm trying to figure that out. There's so many things. That I haven't figured out. But the point I'm getting to is that regardless of all of that stuff, I am, I, I, I massively enjoy this. Like, massively enjoy this. In comparison to any other job I did prior to this or any way I've spent my time prior to this.

That was all horrific in comparison to what I do now. I absolutely adore this. And I think if I put any... I've watched enough time travel movies to know that if I put any, if I, if I move the butterfly wings in any other direction in the past, then this probably won't happen. So for that reason, I wouldn't tell...

What I'm doing now is a sort of a calamitous mess of stuff that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. But if you put all that aside, I'm fucking enjoying myself and that is the only thing I really, really care about. So I would probably mess that up if I, if I intervened with my younger self in some sort of way.

So that's a crap answer. I know, but that's, that's, I wouldn't say anything.

Steve Folland: Dave, it's been so good to talk to you. Go to beingfreelance. com. You've got to click through and find Dave online if you haven't already. Don't just trust the algorithm too quickly. Get him in front of your eyes.

Dave Officer: No, it won't. It won't

Steve Folland: I'll tell you how I found you though Dave. It was through, I was scrolling through the Linkedin video when it came out

Dave Officer: Oh, really?

Steve Folland: Right? Yeah, and they were I was scrolling thinking christ. This is just the worst. This is just the worst No, next. No, next. It was awful. Yeah. Part of me was thinking, how are my videos not in amongst all this? I'm so offended because this is so And then, suddenly

Dave Officer: What was it? Do you remember?

Steve Folland: I can't remember, no.

Dave Officer: Yeah, that's how good it was, see?

Steve Folland: No, but I've watched so many of your videos since

Dave Officer: I know

Steve Folland: Because I immediately then clicked through of course and binged A load of different things, but it goes to show You've just there's a sweet spot of people getting frustrated with looking at dross on LinkedIn.

Dave Officer: There is, there really really is

Steve Folland: And then they'll find you

Dave Officer: Yeah, yeah, because if you go on the if you go on the normal feed, which is sort of predominantly text based posts or people with selfies that don't relate to what they're saying in any way shape or form there's there's all of that which is another level of dullery and then if you click onto the video feed it's exactly the same thing.

There's loads of loads of crap videos, so just be the, just spend, all I would implore anyone to do is spend 30 minutes on the LinkedIn feed, and everything that you see, just be the polar opposite of that. Just try that, and you'll probably be fine.

Steve Folland: Ah Dave, thank you so much, all the best with it, and yeah, all the best, being freelance.

Dave Officer: Thank you mate, you too.

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designerSteve Follandmarketing, networking, social media, video, linkedinComment