Communications Specialist Dee Primett
About this podcast episode…
COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST DEE pRIMETT
Dee shares her 10 year journey from a side hustle grinding with content mills to becoming a sought-after freelance communications specialist for healthcare and tech brands.
Dee got her start writing online while juggling young children, slowly carving out a niche in healthcare content and discovering a talent for making complex ideas easy to understand. Her freelancing career evolved from generalist blog posts to strategic content and brand communications, fuelled almost entirely by referrals and word of mouth.
In 2022, Dee was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer. In this honest and inspiring conversation, she opens up about the impact it had on her life and business; from surgery and recovery to reshaping her lifestyle, working patterns, and mindset.
She talks about coping with post-cancer anxiety, the huge difference getting a studio space made, building better boundaries, and leaning into what matters most. We also hear about the Female Copywriters Alliance, the vibrant community she founded for women in copywriting, and her growing interest in creating a micro agency model that supports other freelancers fairly.
Dee brings plenty of humour, heart, and wisdom to this episode of the Being Freelance podcast which you can also watch with video on YouTube and Spotify.
Available as a video podcast too - Watch Dee here on the site, on YouTube, or Spotify.
Read a full transcript & get Links in the tabs.
More from DEE pRIMETT
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and communications specialist Dee Primett
Steve Folland: Freelance communications specialist Dee Primett, as ever we'll get started hearing how she got started being freelance.
Dee Primett: I'm one of those annoying people that kind of just fell into being freelance. Everyone's always said I should be a writer. I've always been good at English. Good way with words.
My auntie actually bought me a book when I was about nine that said how to get into being a writer but obviously back then it was all kind of novels and, and poetry and stuff. I didn't know that commercial writing was a thing. So I did a degree while my kids were small in humanities with the intention of being a teacher.
'cause I kind of felt like as a mom there wasn't much else I could do that would fit around them. And on part of that, I met a guy called Tom Van Capper, and he's passed away now, bless him, much older guy than me. And he introduced me to the concept of writing commercially. He said, well, there's all these businesses and they've got people that don't really know how to write what they want to say for them.
And he put me onto a platform that shall not be named, bit like Voldermort, and that's kind of where I, I started, I created a profile, messed around for a little bit and thought, well, if, if nothing else, I'll make a bit of pocket money. I was between doing my degree and starting my teacher training and I thought, well, if I can make a few quid while I'm sat at home with the kids, then, then that's great.
So I chucked some made up samples that I'd done on there. Applied for a few jobs using my credits, and managed to land a couple of quite easy general type gigs. I think my first job paid 15 pounds or something for 500 words way back when.
Started doing it, started getting some good feedback and then it just kind of grew from there. And before I knew it, I'd been on the platform for about three years, I think at that point. Done quite a few different jobs. And I had one main client that, was an agency based in America and they were very much content mill. Yeah, high volume. Crappy content... Well, obviously I was writing, it's a not so much crappy content.
But they, they, they didn't care. They didn't really care about the quality of their output and they were just sending me all sorts of random different things and they started to niche down a little bit. And so I became their kind of go-to writer for a lot of things.
Sneakily they asked to work with me outside of the platform, which I sneakily said yes to, and then I kind of didn't look... I didn't look back beyond that point. I was earning reasonably good money. I had the flexibility to be a stay at home mum. The kids didn't really know any different 'cause I would kind of work around when they were at school and I thought, why on earth would I go be a teacher when I think everyone doing this?
Steve Folland: Well quite so, 10 years ago?
Dee Primett: 10 years ago, I, yeah, I wrote my very first article in March 2015.
Steve Folland: So that's one thing though. So you've realized actually there's something in this. I can make a, a living, working from home, writing words, I'm enjoying it. But how did you start to get clients, I'm presuming off of that platform and in the 'real world', in quotation marks?
Dee Primett: In the real world? Well, I'll be perfectly honest. For a little while I didn't, because this particular client gave me enough work that I kind of didn't think, oh, I need to look elsewhere. And then I stumbled across the wonderful world that is Twitter, or what used to be the wonderful world of freelance Twitter, because clearly it's not anymore.
And I started talking to people and I realized that there's actually loads of people doing this, and it's a bonafide kind of thing. It's not just me sitting away in, on the laptop, in the dining room, kind of writing things. There are people out there who do this permanently, who have got lots of different clients, work in lots of different sectors, and having those conversations kind of made me realize, oh, there might be a bit more, more to this than kind of what I'm doing.
Do I wanna build a business from this? 'cause at that time, I didn't even really consider it a business. It was just kind of earning a bit of money on the side. So it was because I met these wonderful people, some of whom I'm still in contact with today. Quickly name drop, like, Gareth Hancock, and Alice Hollis.
People like that. So they introduced me to this kind of network. I quickly realized I needed to get myself out there a little bit more, but I still didn't build a website until five years in. I mostly found a bit of extra work through word of mouth and people would kind of just pass my name on and say, 'oh, she can help I'm too busy, but you know, Dee's good. She can help and, and do things'.
And it wasn't until five years in that I kind of thought, I really need to have a proper website. I need to have something where people know that I'm bonafide and real and not just this random, crazy woman off the internet. So it wasn't really until I would say the last five years that I turned what was a, a side hustle into a proper business as such.
Steve Folland: So how did it evolve from, from there though? So you've got the website, you've got people you've met online starting to refer you work. Would you say there was a, a certain thing that gradually built it into a business?
Dee Primett: Yeah, I think.. So I started to become known for writing healthcare copy. The content mill agency I was working with in America had started to really focus in on healthcare content.
That's the, the bulk of what they were doing was, well, I did quite a lot of veterinary stuff for a while, which was quite cool. But it was dentists, doctors, aesthetics, clinics. Because I was doing so much of it because I say it was high volume, I was working on loads of pieces of content every single month.
So I would know random facts about, I dunno, glaucoma for example, or root canal treatment, psoriasis or genital warts, or whatever the, the kind of topic of the moment was. And because I kind of knew stuff and, and was doing more and more of that, I became known for it. So anytime anyone said, oh, healthcare writer, people would say, oh, 'Dee does that. Dee does that'.
It's one of those things that I think everyone who niches will get it. The more you get known for something, the more of that type of work kind of comes your way. They also worked with a few tech companies, so that's kind of why my other niche is tech, and I quickly realized that I'm very good at explaining complicated things in a very uncomplicated way.
I'm quite good at learning things that would normally take a lot of people a long time to understand and then digesting it and distilling it into something that, you know, a, a 12-year-old or 16-year-old could read.
So when people are trying to get their message across and when it's something in tech or healthcare, and it's normally something that's either very sensitive or quite complex. Being able to relay that message in a kind of clear and easy to understand way is quite valuable. And that's kind of what led me to where I am now, I guess.
And whilst it all started off as kind of, I dunno, blog posts, a few social media posts and some websites, I'm now much more heavily involved in the strategy side of things.
I understand from a patient perspective what patients need, what patients want from their content. I understand the patient journey, and I've spent so much time immersed in that kind of world now, I can really offer my clients a lot in terms of where their brand needs to go, how to build a, a reputable brand, how to get taken seriously.
And, and that's what I love. I love trying to make a difference for these companies and trying to make a difference ultimately for people's lives. So whilst I do tech, my passion is more around the healthcare side of things because so many people are not able to advocate for their own health. So many people don't understand how to look after themselves or how to ask the appropriate questions, how to get the care they need, and how to find support. And it's quite scary the number of people that aren't able to do that for themselves. And, you know, their lives could be so much different, I suppose, if, if they could do that.
So whilst I can't be a doctor or you know, a psychologist or help in any way that way. I think by making content more accessible and by trying to really connect brands with their audiences and empowering people to understand more about their health and look after themselves, then hopefully I can make a little, a little tiny difference that way.
Steve Folland: And has it all been word of mouth or have you reached out to people? Have you done marketing of some sort?
Dee Primett: Not really. I've never really marketed. I'm very fortunate in that I, I think last year statistics, said something like 90% of my work came through referral, word of mouth. So most of my clients come back time and time again.
A lot of my clients I've worked with for three or four years or more. I've got a very strong network, on LinkedIn of past clients, and also other freelancers. Most of my work comes through word of mouth for other freelancers who recommend me, and pass my details on. I'm very fortunate, kind of in that respect.
I'm not entirely sure what I'd do if I needed to market myself. I might need to get some advice from someone on that. Yeah, I wouldn't really know where to start, but I'd just think by being who I am and what I do, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn doing health awareness stuff, trying to encourage people to look after themselves, and I think that helps tremendously.
Steve Folland: Yeah, so it's partly because you are so well known for, for your niche. Yeah. That people know that if something comes their way that is medical related, they'll go, oh no, I know someone who's better for that. Yeah. But then I know because you talk a lot about it on LinkedIn. That you then faced your own health challenge along the way, right?
Dee Primett: Yeah. Yeah. So in late October, early November, I kind of blanked out in my mind to a certain extent, in 2022, I was diagnosed with stage two breast cancer, which was a total shock. I went to the doctor with something unrelated, and as part of that they did a mammogram and then found that I had a, a little tumor in there.
And, had to have all of the various tests and bits and pieces. And ultimately we decided that the best course of action was for me to have a mastectomy on one side. So I had a, a single mastectomy with a reconstruction, which then failed, which was wonderful. And I had sepsis, so lots to one pick and, and go on with there.
I was very fortunate that because the disease was caught so early, I didn't need radiotherapy or chemotherapy. I am now in chemical menopause because I take a load of drugs. The type of cancer that I had was a hormone fed cancer, which basically means the more estrogen and progesterone you've got in your body those hormones were essentially feeding the cancer and making it develop. So by putting me into menopause and sucking all of the hormones out of me, they can effectively, hopefully, completely stop recurrence. I mean, the, the risk is incredibly low anyway, but obviously I'm taking the preventive drugs for the next five years.
But I've since done a lot of advocacy work about checking your breasts, checking your whole body, knowing your whole body for signs of cancer. Breast cancer in particular seems to be increasingly common now among younger women. As part of my experience, I met quite a few women who were in their thirties and forties who were affected, and that's not the normal demographic.
If, you know, with the NHS screening, with mammograms doesn't kick in until you turn 50. So I've done a little bit of work around encouraging the government to try and lower the age of mammogram screening. Particularly in families where there is a history of breast cancer as there was in mine, although mine was nothing to do with genetics or hereditary in any way.
But yes, so that kind of put a different spin on things for me, and it, it added to my passion to try and work with healthcare organizations, and do my own advocacy work to try and get people to understand their bodies better and know the early signs of different diseases and to make healthier choices.
One of the main things that I learned from my diagnosis was that my lifestyle wasn't helping matters and being overweight, drinking alcohol, not getting enough exercise, were all contributing factors and we know this. We are not, we are not stupid. We all know we could live healthier lifestyles, but actually it's not until something happens that makes you kind of reassess that and think... Crap. You know, I actually really do need to prioritize my health over everything else.
There's that meme, isn't it? It says something like, make time for your wellness, or You'll have to make time for your illness. It's something along along those lines. And then that really resonated with me after that.
So since then I've made a lot of lifestyle changes myself to kind of try and put myself in the best possible health going forwards.
Steve Folland: Man. How at the time. How did you cope with running your business? You know, we don't have, entitlement to healthcare and all of these kind of things. Well, other than the fact that because we're in the uk we have the NHS, but I mean, we don't get sick pay, we don't get somebody else taking our work and all of these things that you get if you work for a company. How, how did you deal with that?
Dee Primett: It was difficult, but I was very lucky that I was working with some really lovely clients at the time who were very understanding. Were able to be quite flexible with things like deadlines.
And actually I couldn't have asked for better people to be by my side as I was kind of going through it. I had a lot of time where I was in and out of hospital with different appointments, and sometimes that meant that I needed to move meetings and things at short notice. But being able to communicate with them, you know, even from my phone, being able to drop them a quick text or an email to say, 'I'm really sorry. I've been, I've been waylaid in hospital. All my appointments run over, blah, blah, blah.' They were really good with things like that.
I was able to take a few weeks off. I had to have surgery, and recover. I had to have two surgeries in the end and recover from both. I had a little safety net savings put aside.
I think as a freelancer you have to have a bit of a, a safety net of savings put aside for if you can't work for any length of time, because it does happen, you know, whether that's through illness or taking time off on holiday or whatever. So that reduced the financial pressure, to a certain extent.
And also it all happened over Christmas. So the surgery, I had my first surgery on the 3rd of December, so a lot of companies were winding down for the Christmas break. I'd already intended on being off for a couple of weeks anyway, the timings kind of worked out in that respect. But the freelance community were also great because they all rallied round all with offers of support, you know? 'Do you need me to contact anybody? Do you need me to do anything for you? If you need someone to write that blog post for you, I'm very happy to step in and, and help and support you in any way that I can.'
Steve Folland: I mean, it's, it's such a scary thought on so many levels, but you're saying when you came back to work, you've, you've made changes to your lifestyle. Have you made changes to the way you work?
Dee Primett: I have incorporated a lot better work-life balance. I suffer quite badly with what is known as post-cancer, PTSD. So it's a a common basically anxiety spiral type thing that happens to a lot of people after they have cancer is that they then worry that absolutely anything they get ill with is a sign of recurrence.
So the slightest thing, and I found that my anxiety was stopping me functioning as well as, as it should do. And I had to try and find ways of managing that. And one of the key things I started doing was walking a lot more, chucking the headphones in, marching the pavements, marching down by the river, because I kind of found, it's gonna sound really stupid if I could walk I wasn't dying.
It's a, it's a really, it's a really like stupid thought process, but I had to make time in my work schedule to be able to fit that in, because if I didn't. I would just like have a nervous breakdown. So I started to walk more, and then I realized that actually I was doing better work because I was having more breaks.
I was outside, I was in the fresh air. I could be more focused and more present when I was back at my desk. And then a year ago I started an outdoor fitness class, so that was two or three times a week as well. So it meant that I would finish work a bit earlier because I knew I would have to have dinner and get ready and then go out and do my, my fitness class.
So. I wasn't working all the hours that I was before. I think initially, the first couple of months after I kind of just threw myself into work and, and said yes to everything because I thought all the time I'm working, I, I don't need to think about it. I don't need to, to process, but that's not a helpful.
Because eventually it catches up with you. You can put it off and put it off and put it off, but you know, fuck me, at some point it's, it's gonna come point where you need to address the elephant in the room. And that's kind of where the boundaries came in. And I thought, okay, I need to be...
I didn't feel like I was present in anything. I didn't feel like I was present in my home life. I didn't feel like I was fully present at work. I was just kind of battling all of these different things. And so last year I also took up, a place of work. So I previously, I'd always worked from home, and then last year I took out a lease on a studio, which is about 20 minutes from my house, and I come here to work now.
So it's added to this kind of... I feel like I've got more control over my life, which has helped massively with the PTSD. Helped massively with my work life because when I'm at work, I'm fully focused on work and work only. There's no dishwasher to distract me or pets as you as you, as you know, know, no cats ro around over my desk or things to put me off so I can be fully present when I'm here.
And actually my studio is right next to the river, so I can go for my walks as well. So if I'm feeling a bit anxious or a bit stressed. I can literally, I can see the river while I'm talking to you. It's a hundred metres that way. So putting all of those things together has allowed me to create a much more healthy work-life balance, and I feel more in control and, and kind of just better all around, really better in my business, better as a mum and a wife at home, and better in my kind of mental and physical health as well.
Steve Folland: Wow. Well, that's great to hear. But I mean, there's a lot in there, but it's interesting that getting an office, getting a studio played such a big part in that, by the sounds of it.
Dee Primett: Yeah. I wish I'd done it a lot earlier, but I always kind of, it's always one of those things you think, oh, do I really need it? Oh, it's just another cost, blah, blah, blah.
It helped massively that my kids are older now, so obviously when you've got little ones at home, you can't leave your four and six-year-old at home unattended, strangely, and when you go off to work. But now mine are older. My daughter's just an 18 and my son's nearly 15.
They can come home from school. They don't need me there, but it means that when I am there, I'm more present. So they're not coming in from school and mum's in a meeting or I can't talk to mum because she's doing X, Y, and Z. When I go home. The, the door is shut and I am mum and that's, you know, I very rarely, I think this week I picked up the laptop for about two hours in total at home.
Whereas before I was kind of working all hours, working in the day, then getting distracted and going and emptying the dishwasher and putting the laundry out and this, that and the other. And then having to work into the evenings to catch up on what I'd kind of missed during the day. And now I feel fully present in whatever role that I am in, at that particular point in time.
Steve Folland: Mm-hmm. Another side of this as well is that you, and, and by the way, if you're listening to this, there's no right or wrong way to, to deal with this sort of situation, but you, you dealt with it very publicly by the sounds of it, as in you were very open with it on LinkedIn, for example, or on Twitter or, or, or wherever and that sounds like it really helped you.
Dee Primett: Yeah, I've always been a very open person. My mum would probably say I'm too open and I need to sometimes be a little bit more restrained, but it's just, I'm rubbish at keeping secrets. I'm rubbish at lying. I'm just, I'm a very kind of open book, and I think people need to know that this stuff happens.
Like you always look at things, oh, it'll never happen to me. Oh, it's always somebody else, blah, blah, blah. And actually realizing that people, you know, can have their whole lives turned upside down. Just in, in the blink of an eye.
Putting it out there, making people aware to, to look at your boobs, look at your bits, you know, actually think to yourself, yes, you might be under the age demographic for something really nasty to happen to you, but, but it can happen.
And actually showing people how I dealt with it might give them some ideas if, you know, if they ever come through a difficult period in their life, how they might deal with it. I mean, I use humor. That's kind of my thing. I constantly take the piss out myself out of everybody else. It's just how I deal with things.
I talk about everything very frankly and very really. And I don't see the point in kind of... I dunno, sugarcoating and it's horrible. Cancer's horrible. It's bloody horrible. Anyone who's had anyone had go through it, they know that it's bloody horrible and they need to kind of be frank about it. What's, what's the point in sugarcoating it?
That's, that's kind of how I see. So I gave a very warts and all kind of, this is what's happened. This is where I'm going, this is what I'm having happened to me. This is what's happened after. And I've talked a little bit about the life after cancer thing because it's all very well talking about treatment, and it's all very well talking about surgery and this, that, and the other.
But what they don't tell you or no one tells you is that after you get given the all clear. There's nothing, there's like, it's like a void and you're like expected to just get over it, and that doesn't happen. And I think you need to keep talking about it. You need to keep talking about the anxiety side of things.
Some of the, the women that I've met that have cancer, I mean, one of them emailed me literally this morning. Saying about how she's thrown herself into exercise and things as well, and that one of her friends recently got diagnosed with something and it's her often an anxiety spiral. All of those things, it, it, it's forever That doesn't kind of go away and you have to learn to be a functional human, irrespective of the fact that you are crapping yourself because you've got sore throat and you're panicking because your anxiety's spiraling and everything's kind of coming back.
I can't go into the hospital without getting sweaty palms like and stuff like that anymore, but talking about it helps even if you're just talking into the void on, on LinkedIn or whatever, and so many people have messaged me since I started sharing stuff, saying thank you because of you, I went and had something checked. Thank you. You've made me realize that I'm not alone in all of this. Or even just, you know, oh, I can appreciate now more what it must be like for people. So when they turn around and say, like, one of, for me, one of the worst things is when people go, how is your health?
And I hate that question and I, I very much appreciate anybody who takes the time to ask me how I am, but it just. It's a horrible question to have to deal with because every time you kind of feel like you have to talk about it, and sometimes you get so sick of talking about it all the time to everybody and go, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
It's all fine. And just sometimes you wanna go, yeah, it all, all this shit happened. I'm okay, but I just don't wanna, don't wanna relive it again for the kind of gazillion time. And other times it's fine. Like, you know. Like today, like other times I've, I've been asked to speak about it to different groups of people and, and it, it's fine, but it, it can get very wearing and I think being open and honest with people helps others to understand that part of the journey.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Now, I know you didn't talk about it online for this reason, but did that openness and that frankness have any change to your business? Who contacted you or the way they contacted you, the sort of work that you got, or?
Dee Primett: Not massively actually. So I did some work with one company who were developing an, an aid for breast self-examination. So they'd seen some of the stuff that I'd posted and they contacted me because they thought I would help with the messaging, which I did. and that was a great product by the way, so it's a, like a second skin that fits over the breast that enhances the, the feel, so it makes it easy to feel any lumps and bumps and stuff like that. So it was a great product.
But apart from that, I don't think it's really done anything other than. I dunno, positioned me more in people's minds as someone who deals with health stuff who, who people can talk to. Not only about, you know, if they want work, that's great. If, yeah, I'd love to work with more cancer charities. I'd love to work with more doctors and hospitals and patient groups and things like that.
But I'd just like to help more people. And even if that's just someone messaging me, saying, oh my God, I found a lump. What do I do? Like, I'm so happy to just talk to those people on, on DM and stuff like that and, and try and offer any advice and support that I can.
Steve Folland: Speaking of supporting other people, though you also started a community, right?
Dee Primett: My babies, my girls, yes, I did. So obviously we all know that Twitter went to crap, a few years ago and all the wonderful world than it was the wonderful, supportive community than it was, is much less so now.
So in 2021, so we were midway through the, the Covid Pandemic cluster fuck that we were going through, and everyone was kind of like... everyone felt so isolated, even online, even like trying to talk to people online. Everyone still felt really isolated. And I noticed that a lot of women were trying to talk about various challenges that they were facing and they were, with all due respect to men out there, 'cause it's not all men, but they were being shouted down by various groups of men.
I think Covid made everyone more antsy than usual. I think it didn't bring out the best attributes in people's personalities. People were spending a lot more time online, keyboard warrioring and, and all of that type of thing. And I wanted to create a space where women who were copywriters could come together and talk about the things that were bugging them, but without necessarily having a male viewpoint on everything.
So I created a space. So I chatted about it with my good friends, Catherine Jones, and Mary Whitehouse, they're two of my copywriter friends. And I said, look, I've got this idea for a community. What do you think? And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, go with it. And I didn't really think it would be anything other than like a, I don't know, a little close-knit group of, I don't know, 10 of us or something, just having a bit of a, a bit of a moan, bouncing ideas off of each other, having a chat when things weren't going so well.
And I set it up on Discord. Then before I knew it, someone told someone and someone told someone else a bit like your community. And then all of a sudden I've got like 60 odd women all going, oh yeah, yeah, we wanna be part of this group. We wanna be part of this group.
And it's grown kind of from there. I mean, we've got probably, I think we've got 300 members in total. We've probably got about 50 to 60 very active members, as in posting most days or every, every few days. And we talk about, we talk about all the work stuff. We talk about how to find clients and how to write contracts and whether you spell maneuver with an O and an E around that way, all that way, and debate the you, the placement of the Oxford comma and all of those nuance things, but actually it's become much more of a, a friendship group beyond that.
So we've got channels where people can talk about TV and, you know, fashion and holidays and kids and husbands and all, all sorts of different, different things and just to have a group of people who feel like colleagues, because ultimately as freelancers, the one thing we all don't have in a technical term is, is colleagues.
We rely on our networks. We rely on the Being Freelance Community and and other networks of people to talk to and ask questions to. And my little kind of gang of ladies has become a bit of a family I'd like to say I love them all dearly. It sounds really pathetic, doesn't it? But they are all genuinely really lovely ladies, and they're all very generous with their time and their knowledge.
And we've got people on there who've been freelancing for 30 odd years. And then we've got people who are new and they've just started out and they're, they're feeling their way and we all know that it's a bit of a rough economy, a rough gig for freelancers and things. At the minute, it's not potentially the best time to be dipping your toe into the freelance copywriting world, but everyone is so generous with their time and their advice and their expertise and everything. So I think it's a really warm, welcoming kind of place to be involved.
The first time I met some of them in real life, it literally felt like I'd known them for ever. It is like meeting up with you. If I met up with you for a coffee, it would be like knowing, like, you know, we've known each other for a very long time.
Steve Folland: Well, how flipping lovely is that get into, had you, had you been hanging out with many freelancers in real life before that?
Dee Primett: I had literally, I don't think I'd even met one. I don't even think I'd met one before that point in time. And now I know loads and. Actually, I know it doesn't come across like it always, but I get really bad anxiety about meeting new people.
Like the first year I went to Copy Con I was crapping my pants the whole time. So I was like, I don't know anybody. I dunno what to say, I dunno what to do. But everyone is, is, you know, it's cliche, but within the copywriting community, everyone is so lovely. And to be fair, within the whole freelance community that I've met.
Yeah, everyone is so lovely. Everyone is very welcoming and it does genuinely feel like you've known them forever. It's, it's a really nice space to be in and I think, you know, if you'd have told me a long time ago that that's what freelance meant, then I would've hopefully got into it a lot sooner,
Steve Folland: Now you mentioned stats earlier on, just in passing, but you were like, yeah, if I look at my stats from last year, this number of, so are you somebody who likes to monitor what's going on in your business?
Dee Primett: I'm a bit OCD, like that. I, I, I like, I hate spreadsheets, but I love spreadsheets at the same time because I just, I never used to track anything until about, I don't know, three or four years ago, and then I saw someone else doing it.
I was thinking, oh, oh, that looks good. And it's been a really useful metric to kind of see. So I track my inquiries. I track what converts and I track my sales and stuff like that, to see the patterns. So like for example, I know that August is normally very quiet for me. It's normally always very quiet unless you've got an agency that suddenly promised something and they've, all of their stuff have gone off on annual leave and they can't deliver.
But it, it's helped me kind of prepare a little bit more 'cause I can identify the peaks and troughs of where I've been quiet, where I've been busy. It helps me see who gives me referrals, where that work comes from. I like to always send a little gift as a, as a thank you for a referral. So I like to know where, where they come from and yeah, just to generally know how my business is performing.
The types of projects have been evolving as I've worked through the, the different years. So that's been interesting to kind of track as well. So I've gone from doing blogs and, and websites to being involved in much more strategic content. I've also done quite a lot in campaigns over the last few years as well, so digital health campaigns and stuff.
So seeing the, the business evolve has been a good learning curve for me, especially for like planning for the future.
Steve Folland: I was gonna say, does that lead to you? Are you someone who has goals, who thinks about the future?
Dee Primett: I never really used to, 'cause I'm always, I'm very glass half full all the time. I'm very happy. I'm very happy with my business as it is now. I don't necessarily have massive aspirations at the moment I'm very fortunate that I've got. Like, I'm pretty much fully but with retainer work, so I'm not actively kind of seeking new things, but I, I've, I've got ideas and things for the future, but they're more, at the moment, they're more related to the community, the female Copywriters Alliance, and they are specifically to my business.
I'd like to do more to help other copywriters, and see that side of things grow.
Steve Folland: Yeah. Actually, speaking of, you mentioned your business, which of course at the beginning of this you didn't think you had started a business. I was the same. I must admit, but you have a business name. Wicked Creative.?
Dee Primett: I do.
Steve Folland: Yeah. When did, so, when did that come into existence and why?
Dee Primett: Five years ago when I built the website and I thought, oh crap I need a name. I need something. I didn't know what to, and I didn't just wanna use my name. I just. I dunno. I just had a thing and I was like, I don't just wanna use my name. It doesn't mean anything.
I'm not necessarily sure my current business name means anything, but I knew I wanted 'creative' in the title because I knew I didn't wanna just limit myself to copywriting because there are so many other things that I enjoy doing. And 'Wicked' was just a, you know, when people, people used to use the term back in the day, they meant wicked was cool, didn't they?
Obviously you wouldn't, I dunno what the, what the current term is for that my kids would probably listen to since, and God, my God mum that's so embarrassing. but when, when I was a child, at least back in the nineties, 'wicked' was considered a cool term. So I just thought, you know, oh, that's Wicked Creative.
That, that's really cool. so, and I just, I. Said to a few people and they were like, oh yeah, we like that. And it just stuck. And I just thought, do you know what? And now it's known and I don't wanna change it for anything else,
Steve Folland: But you manage, it seems to me at least to have a known company name, business name, and still be known as Dee Primett.
Dee Primett: Yeah, some would say, I hate that wanky term personal brand, but it's, it exists, doesn't it, for you are. Yeah. I suppose you are your brand, your brand is you, and there's a a little bit of overlap. Yeah. I've got no plans to change it at the moment. Some people have said, oh, maybe you should have a more healthcare orientated name or something, but I've, I've toyed with a few.
And the thing is, my sense of humor means it's not gonna be appropriate as I come up with. So it's just not even, you know, the, the nature of healthcare is that it's quite a serious, and it is a serious thing. I, of course, it's a serious thing, but I deal with serious things with humor. That's just my personality.
So, yeah, if I, I, you know, my LinkedIn bio says "tits and bits" for God's sakes. It, it, that kind of says everything you need to know about my personality.
Steve Folland: So you run the Female Copywriters Alliance, but I didn't introduce you as a copywriter. I introduced you as a.. Free.. Checks notes.. "Freelance communications specialist".
How have you settled upon using that phrase? How have you come to that?
Dee Primett: 'cause I do copywriting, but I also do a lot of positioning stuff about how they talk to their, the customers. I do a lot of patient journey stuff now as well. So I talk about how, you connect with your patients on, on a level that they can understand.
So it's the overall communications package, not just necessarily doing the writing anymore. One of my clients, I actually have a team of writers that I oversee.
Steve Folland: Ah, I see. Has that changed the way you, express yourself on your website or anything as well?
Dee Primett: Not yet. It's, it's a work in progress my website, I hate websites.
I will eventually change my website, so it'll be a little bit more. So I'm actually in the process of contemplating the idea of a micro agency because I'm being asked, I regularly get asked to work on projects, I don't have time to work on anymore. I'm actually booked out four days a week on retainers now.
So I don't really have time for, i, I know project work. If I had a quote recently for a website. I said I can't deliver that quickly. I've got one day a week that's, that's, that's kind of my ceiling, of what I'm available for, and it would've taken me like three months to write this website for them.
So I'm at the moment contemplating this idea of an ad hoc, kind of micro agency that brings freelancers from my community together to work on projects when I'm not able to. And I would like oversee and pitch for those particular projects, or if I get inquiry, I don't tend to pitch, but if I get inquiries, that come through, I can say, well, I can do this and I have a little team of people to, to support me.
Steve Folland: Interesting. Oh, well, we'll keep an eye out for how that goes. That's interesting as well though, that you are, well, you are so booked out with retainers. Sounds like a marvelous place to be. Like, is, is there a good, bad side to retainers? How, what's your experience?
Dee Primett: Obviously I'm very fortunate. I know freelancing has been crap for a lot of people for the last couple of years, and the market's been really hard. So to be in a position where I'm booked up four days a week on retainers is, is outstanding. And I love it because obviously I've got the safety net of work.
I'm not having to scramble around and worry about pitching projects and things. I think the only thing is. It doesn't give you the freedom to work on those bigger kind of ad hoc projects with one day a week kind of at your disposal as it were, you know, if a previous client.. I get a lot of clients that come back to me, put it that way, but it is not regular, regular, but it's sort of, I work with a software company in the States and every couple of months or so they'll come back and say, oh, can you help us with a white paper?
Or can you...? Those types. I can't book out a week to work on a project for anybody anymore. You know, I can do the odd thing, I can consult, which I do a lot of consultancy type work now. It's, I know stuff, apparently, I dunno, I don't feel like I know stuff, but apparently I know stuff. So I do some consultancy type work and I can do the odd article or blog post or case study or something on that ad hoc day, but I can't get involved in kind of deeper, bigger projects anymore. So I suppose that's the only downside is having to say to long-term clients that I might not be able to help you with that.
Steve Folland: Mm. Hence the idea of utilizing those, you know, around you who maybe don't have the work, but still overseeing it.
Dee Primett: Yes.
Steve Folland: How do you cope with putting your rates up when you work with people over such a, you know, so many years, which is brilliant.
Dee Primett: My retainer contracts are always based on, I've got a clause in that says that this rate is valid until X date, and then at that date it gets reviewed. I've always had that since, since I discovered I needed a contract, about six years ago, and I was like, oh yeah, crap, I need a contract.
But learning all the time, there's always something new. There's always a.. Nikki had something great in one of her contracts that I pinched the other month because she was like, oh, I've got this, this thing in my contract, this clause. I was like, oh, oh, I want one of those in my contract. So this kind of sharing of ideas and, and learning from each other is I think really, really important.
And that's kind of why also I wanna do the micro agency idea because I see so many freelancers getting shit on all the time by big, big businesses or you know, companies not taking care of them and, and not paying them properly. Because we are in the unique position. We know how freelance works, we know how freelancers work, we know how they need to get paid. We understand all of that, and I think that puts us in a unique position in terms of employing them to work on different projects and different contracts.
So if I, for example, the quote I've just done that I have based on having a micro agency. The costs I have factored in to make sure that freelancers are incredibly well paid as part of that. My cut is actually, if, if it comes off my cut for managing the project is very small in comparison to, because to me it's important that I use people that I trust and the people that I trust get paid fairly for their work. I've seen some shocking business models over the years of, of people outsourcing to the Philippines and paying peanuts to people because they want cheap labor and to create a massive markup for themselves, and it doesn't sit well with me like that.
Steve Folland: Dee, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Dee Primett: That you don't have to be in it alone. I didn't really know what freelance meant. Like back when I first started you, you'd heard the term kind of banded about you didn't really, I didn't really know what it meant, but I always envisaged somebody just being on their own.
They just work for that company on their own. They don't really talk to anybody else. And I would say, you don't have to be alone. In fact, I would recommend that you don't be alone and that you join wonderful communities in the freelance world and make friends for life, because that's what I've done.
Steve Folland: Dee it has been so good talking to you, and thank you for being so open as well. All the best being freelance.
Dee Primett: Thank you
Episode sponsored by Riverside
Record high quality video & audio with Riverside.
Plus let AI help you create social media ready clips.
Massive time saver.
Even stream to the likes of LinkedIn and YouTube, record webinars with an audience in your own branded studio… and then repurpose that recording with AI summaries and video clips ready to go before you’ve made a cup of tea to celebrate.
See how recording with Riverside can help your freelance business.
It’s free to get started
- use code BEINGFREELANCE to save 15% on a paid plan 🎧🙌
Episode sponsored by PORKBUN
Yep, Porkbun - the place to get a domain name for your website.
Getting the right domain can make such a difference for your business.
As well as .com, Porkbun has hundreds of other domain extensions, like .pro, .dev, .design, .studio.
Porkbun has low prices and is highly rated.
Use the link beingfreelance.com/porkbun