Niche Reputation - Facebook Ads Consultant Mojca Zove
The first part of Mocja’s freelance career was spent building her reputation. Starting with local companies in her native Slovenia, eventually spreading out to the US.
Through content marketing, podcast appearances, nurturing Twitter relationships and speaking/attending conferences, she built a reputation as the go-to-person for Facebook ads.
Then she hit ‘delete’ on all her other services to really focus on her niche.
Now, with her reputation as her foundation, she’s building her business to suit the lifestyle she wants to lead.
Turns out when you get fired from your first job, you can convince the world to hire you.
More from Mojca Zove
Mojca’s course - The Science Of Facbook Ads
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of Being Freelance podcast with Mojca Zove
Steve Folland: This week's guest, over in Slovenia, Facebook Ads consultant, Mocja Zove. Hey, Mocja.
Mocja Zove: Hey there. Thank you for having me here.
Steve Folland: Thank you for being on. So, I'm really looking forward to this. You're the first Facebook Ads consultant, so how you've ended up in that niche in particular I'm sure we'll come to. But, yeah, let's get started hearing how you got started being freelance.
Mocja Zove: So, it's an interesting story, because, first of all, I'm a college dropout. I never finished college because it was boring, to be honest. I was just fed up with school at that point, so I went to work for an advertising agency. That advertising agency was a very traditional one. They did radio ads and TV ads and newspaper ads, but we never ... We did websites, but never anything advertising or marketing related in a digital world.
Mocja Zove: So, what happened is, I started to really push for Facebook. Facebook pages were introduced back then, and Facebook advertising was just starting, and I really pushed for that. I really wanted us to start doing that. All of our clients were actually begging us to do that, but they just weren't interested in that. So, our philosophies started to drift apart, and we argued a lot, so I got fired from my job. Very typical.
Mocja Zove: But, yeah, what I did is, I went home, poured myself a glass of wine, thought it through, and I decided, you know what? I really hated the nine to five, I hated my job, so I decided to just establish my own business and go freelancing, and just see what I can do. That's how I got started.
Steve Folland: Whoa. So, to put this in perspective, when was that, and how long were you at that company?
Mocja Zove: I was at that company, I think, for a year and a half. That was maybe five, six years ago. So, yeah, about that time, I think. Yeah.
Steve Folland: So, how did you go about finding those first clients? 'Cause it's all well and good to say, "Right, so I decided to go freelance," but how did you get that first bit of work coming in?
Mocja Zove: Yeah. It was quite hard, because you cannot exactly take the clients from the agency, and go to them and say, "You know what? I'm going freelance now, do you want to work with me?" I couldn't do that, and I basically started from scratch. The experience I had was just working for the ad agency, and that was it.
Mocja Zove: So, what I did, I wanted to do not exactly Facebook Ads, but social media marketing at that time. So, now I niche down to Facebook Ads, but previously I did basic and general social media strategies. I wanted to work with companies who had Facebook pages, but didn't know exactly what to do and what kind of content to create.
Mocja Zove: So, what I did is, I just went on my Facebook news feed and observed what was happening. Some of the companies really popped out, and by popped out I mean the content was really bad and they weren't getting any engagement. I mean, we're talking about quite big companies at that point, so what I did is, I just created a list of 100 of them. I did my research, and researched for their emails, for their phone number. What I did is, I just cold emailed them. When I didn't hear back, I called them.
Mocja Zove: So, it was a combination of cold emails and cold calls, and that's how I got my, I think, first two or three clients. So, cold emails, cold calls, just hard work, to be honest.
Steve Folland: Yeah. How long did it take to pay off?
Mocja Zove: Oh, it was actually quite fast, because I set myself a deadline. I cannot remember the month. I think it was around June when I lost my job, and I said to myself, "If I cannot get off the ground by August and substitute the money with freelancing, I'm just going to find a regular job."
Mocja Zove: So, I had a deadline. By August, I already had, I think it was like three clients, and they already brought in the money that I'd previously gotten through working with that agency.
Steve Folland: Obviously you're in Slovenia, so were these companies who were local to you that you started out with, or did you spread the net wide?
Mocja Zove: Oh, I always wanted to work with international clients, but I sort of knew my limitations and I knew that international clients will probably be hard to get, especially if you don't have experience in freelancing and in client work. So, I decided to start with local clients, but always knew that I'm going to work with international companies in a few years.
Mocja Zove: So, all of my strategies were kind of oriented in that way, which means that whenever I wrote a blog post, I wrote it in English. All of my Twitter profiles, my Facebook page, everything, was run in English. But, I had Slovenian clients when I started out, but like I said, the foundation that I set was always aimed towards international clients.
Steve Folland: At that point, with those first clients, you said it wasn't just Facebook Ads, it was more general than that. Were you creating content for them, were you managing their social media accounts, or were you teaching them? What was your business at that point?
Mocja Zove: I wanted to create content. I always loved doing that, because I kind of came from that world too. I was a copywriter at the advertising agency, so I was in that world, and I started by creating content for them. I did the images and the copywriting, design, everything that was related to that field.
Steve Folland: How did it evolve from there?
Mocja Zove: When I got my first local clients, I worked really hard with them. Like I said, I always built my foundation. I was writing a blog post very regularly, everything in English. I started going on podcasts. I first pitched to a couple of people, just saying, "You know what? I know social media, and I can teach your audience a lot of things regarding social media, so do you want me to come to your podcast?" And a couple of them said yes. That's how I kind of spread my net.
Mocja Zove: Another thing that I did was, I followed a bunch of sort of influencers in my ... Not exactly my field, but in the technology space and content creation and product field. I followed a bunch of people on Twitter, and regularly interacted with them. What I did is, I replied to their tweets whenever I had something to say, I retweeted them, so I was constantly in contact with them. That actually brought me to my first international conference, which was in Virginia, and that was the first conference that I spoke at. That was kind of big for me, and that's how everything got started.
Mocja Zove: After that, I got my first international clients, and now I don't even work with local companies anymore. It's been years since I've worked with a Slovenian company. Now, all of my clients are international. So, China. We have people from Europe, so Germany, UK. United States, absolutely. I think I even had one from Australia. So, yeah, all over the world, to be honest.
Steve Folland: Wow. Okay. So, you're sitting there, you're working with your clients locally. You're regularly putting out content showing that you know what you're talking about, and you're chatting to people on Twitter, for example, who you might want to connect with.
Steve Folland: But, suddenly, you're on a stage ... I'm just working at the leap here. Suddenly you're on a stage in Virginia, giving your first ever talk as well. Did you put yourself forward for that talk? How did that come about?
Mocja Zove: That's a good question, because I totally ... Like you said, I made that giant leap and I didn't tell you what was happening in between.
Mocja Zove: One of the people that I followed on Twitter was Brennan Dunn. There was a lot of talk about him at that time. I followed Amy Hoy as well, and they created amazing content. Brennan specifically created a lot of content for freelancers. He had this online course, a e-book, which I bought quite a few stuff from him, and I interacted with him regularly. Then, one day, he followed me back. I was one of the first Facebook advertising experts that he got in touch with, and he actually said, "In the future, I definitely want to work with you, once I get to a point where I want to have social media strategy," and we talked.
Mocja Zove: When he followed me, I tweeted still. I tweeted regularly, so he engaged with my content then. Once he started to organize his conference, he wanted to have a marketer on the panel as well, and I came to mind, because I was, like I said, always in contact with him. We were exchanging tweets and so on, and once he was trying to get that going, he thought of me, and he invited me to Virginia.
Steve Folland: Fantastic. Okay. In that case, let's rewind ever so slightly again, because, within that, you said about he was looking at you as a Facebook expert. So, at what point did you start to niche? You started off doing all of social media type content creation for people. Now, if I look at your website, it is very specifically about Facebook Ads. So, at what point did you start to narrow that down, realize maybe that's what you wanted to do?
Mocja Zove: So, whenever I did general social media strategies, whenever I developed them for my clients, the most powerful network, still, was Facebook. They were all very present on Facebook, and the most stuff I did was on Facebook. I did Twitter strategies as well, and Instagram. I did Pinterest for a while, but the most powerful one was always Facebook.
Mocja Zove: A couple of years ago, I got more and more inquiries for Facebook Ads specifically. They didn't want any general social media strategies, but they wanted me to develop their Facebook advertising strategy. They didn't care about the Facebook page, they published themselves every once in a while, but they just wanted me to take care of that part of their marketing. That's when I saw the demand and decided to narrow down my services and focus on Facebook Ads only.
Mocja Zove: Now, whenever I get an email asking about can you do a Facebook page strategy for me, I politely refer them to someone else and tell them that I specifically do Facebook Ads now. But, all of that came through observing the market and talking to my potential clients, and seeing where the needs are.
Steve Folland: Yeah. No, that's great. So, you've got the statistics to back you up, but you've also ... If I went to your website two or three years ago perhaps, it would have looked very different then. You would have had a list of services perhaps that you could offer, and it was just realizing that it was that one thing that people always needed help with, that more specialist thing.
Mocja Zove: Yeah. A lot of content that I created a couple of years ago was about Twitter updates and Instagram strategies, and what hashtags to use on Instagram to generate traction and stuff like that. But, then I started naturally gravitating towards Facebook Ads, and more and more blog posts were of Facebook Ads specifically.
Mocja Zove: That's when I pretty much decided, you know what, first of all, there is a big need for Facebook Ads, so just Facebook advertising. Second of all, most of my audience was interested in that aspect of social media marketing as well. So, I just decided to go for it and narrow it down, and it worked in my favor.
Steve Folland: How did it feel when you flipped that switch and all of this other stuff disappeared from your website, and it was like this is what I am now, I'm a Facebook Ads expert?
Mocja Zove: It was so scary at first. I had to talk to a couple of people in my mastermind group, because, at that point, I was a member of a mastermind group of international consultants. All of them were [nicheing 00:12:48] down and talking about how good that is for your business. But, it was very counterintuitive, because they were all talking about, "Yeah, but you'll get more business by [nicheing 00:12:58] down." I was like, "But, it doesn't make any sense, because I'll just be offering Facebook Ads."
Mocja Zove: So, at that point, it didn't make any sense for me, but I just made a decision to go for it. I really enjoyed Facebook advertising, I saw the potential in it. It was scary, but I took the plunge. Like you said, I hid a lot of blog posts from my website, I deleted all the services that I had. I had to tell to my prospects, I had to turn them away and send them to a different person if they wanted to do Twitter strategy.
Mocja Zove: So, it was scary, and at first I didn't see the benefits, to be honest. Like, the first month, it was just horrible, because I've been getting emails about can you do a Twitter strategy, can you do an Instagram strategy for me. But, then after a month, it all started going in the right direction, because people started to refer to me as a Facebook Ads expert, someone that does Facebook Ads. So, whenever people had the need to a) learn about Facebook Ads more, or b) to work with someone who is an expert at that field specifically, they referred to me.
Mocja Zove: Actually, my business, I think, doubled at that point, and I was like, okay, well now it makes a lot of sense, and now I can see the point of it all.
Steve Folland: So, it doubled. Was that partly as well because, as an expert, this is the one thing that I do, did you then also put up your rates, for example?
Mocja Zove: I did. I did, actually, and I still do it very gradually. Because, I mean, I'm always learning about Facebook Ads too, and discovering new strategies that I can use, and I experiment a lot. I can generate great results faster than someone else, for example, so I gradually increase my rates all the time.
Mocja Zove: But, at that point, when I relaunched everything, I naturally did that as well. Maybe it was one of the reasons why my business doubled, but I think the major part of it was just people recognizing me for a very specific niche, and that kind of got them to contact me. So, whenever they had a need for Facebook Ads, they went to me.
Steve Folland: So, now we've covered that, you're on that stage in Virginia. How long was the talk, and how did that feel?
Mocja Zove: I think it was 45 minutes, if I'm correct. It was half an hour of the actual talk, and then 15 minutes of Q&A, and it was scary. When I got booked for that talk, I think it was on the same day I got booked for a talk in Czech Republic, which was before that ... But, that was an easy one I did. The Virginia one was really scary, because I never imagined myself on a stage in the United States, talking about Facebook.
Mocja Zove: So, it was quite scary. First of all, English is not my native language, so just having that in my mind was scary enough. Then, me talking on stage, as a young person, teaching other people that are older than me about Facebook, it was just something that I never imagined will happen. So, I was very nervous. It went really, really well, and from there on I actually got booked on several conferences. Yeah, I just, I've been enjoying that process.
Steve Folland: So, now, it's like one of the things that you do.
Mocja Zove: Yeah. Yeah. Last year ... I cannot even remember. I think I spoke in Texas, I spoke in Vegas, and a couple of other places I cannot remember, to be honest.
Steve Folland: Wow. How cool is that?
Mocja Zove: Yeah, it's so cool. But, like I said, I never imagined I'm going to be here, but it took a lot of practice. It wasn't overnight, so I had to put in a lot of work. I had webinars at that point, for example, so people could see me on a video, so people could see my presence, and people could engage with me, and people saw how I behave in front of other people, how I basically teach. I had to put in a lot of work to come at that point.
Steve Folland: Yeah. So, you mentioned right at the beginning that you started with local companies, but your goal in a few years to be working with international companies. Is this the point where this started to happen?
Mocja Zove: Yeah, it did. First of all, the conferences are great for building your authority, and that's one of the things that happened. After my talk, people loved my talk, and they came to me asking about where can we find out more about you, we want to work with you. That's how I got my first international contact, we stayed in touch, and that's how I got my first international client.
Mocja Zove: So, it was through building those relationships and networking on these conferences, and doing, like I said, webinars and everything else. But, I think it was, that point was the crucial one. So, me appearing on stage somewhere and generating those great contacts.
Steve Folland: Yeah. When you're working with an international client, how does that look like for you? For me, sitting here making videos or audio, or whatever, I just generally do it all online. I could do it without leaving the house. How does it look for you?
Mocja Zove: I don't leave my house either. That's one of the things that I definitely do not want to sacrifice at this point, is my not only work life balance, but to ... I work how I want to. I want to have my freedom, freedom to choose when I work and how much I work, and I actually do that.
Mocja Zove: As long as I achieve the goals that we have, I can work like, I don't know, five hours a day or eight hours a day. I can take a day off if I want, and that's one of the things that I always wanted to keep in mind. I wanted to build my business that way, and all of my clients realize that.
Mocja Zove: All of them are happy, and that's the sort of thing that I want to keep doing.
Steve Folland: How do you manage your time, and presumably the time difference as well between you and them?
Mocja Zove: That's one of the things that I had to get used to, so working in the afternoon. Previously, at the agency, I worked from ... I think it was not even nine to five. I think it was more eight to four. I was used to waking up, going to the office, and then coming back home and being absolutely free. Nothing to do. I had to kind of switch my mindset first, to working in the afternoon with international clients.
Mocja Zove: The client from China was the hardest one. With the United States, I'd work in the afternoon, that was great, but then I had a client from another continent and I had to rearrange my work again. But, it all works really well. Now, I cannot imagine working in the morning anymore, because mornings are my free time. I read my books in the mornings, I go to the gym in the morning, and then I start working around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. That's something that I love, and I just, I've gotten really used to it.
Steve Folland: Yeah. If you're starting work at say 2:00 p.m., when does that day finish? Does your husband work from home as well, or does he come home and you're like a home office, I don't know, or at the kitchen table?
Mocja Zove: We have a home office. we have two home offices, actually, because my husband works with international clients too. He is a freelancer as well, and we have a very interesting relationship.
Mocja Zove: We recently ... I mean, we're in a house right now, and the house has two offices, two home offices. Each of us has its own office, because previously we had only one office in our previous apartment, and we had meetings at the same time. So, then someone had to go down to the kitchen, and it was just ... You know, with all the microphones and cameras and everything, it was just hard to arrange everything.
Mocja Zove: So, now, we have a house, two offices, and that's great. How do I schedule ... My day usually ends around 8:00 p.m.. I work from about 2:00/3:00 to 8:00 p.m.. I'm very, very productive. Turn off all of my notifications, and really, really work, and I achieve a lot of things in that time. But, at 8:00 p.m., it's me time again.
Mocja Zove: I burnt out, I think in February, I experienced that. So, now I have a strict cutoff time of technology at 8:00 p.m., turn off my phone, turn off my laptop, and, I don't know, read my books, take my dog for a walk and stuff like that.
Steve Folland: When you say you burnt out, what did that look like for you, or feel like for you?
Mocja Zove: Oh, yeah. That was ... Thankfully, I think I caught it really early. That's an interesting story, actually. I caught it really early. I just, I didn't enjoy work anymore. Like I said, I always wanted to enjoy work. That's one of the things why I decided to go freelancing. That's one of the things why I'm working for myself. I want to enjoy what I do.
Mocja Zove: That actually stopped around, I think it was January/February, when I had a workshop in Germany, and that was the last day that I was official working. Then I went to a holiday, because I found out ... First of all, I wasn't sleeping. I couldn't sleep. I was nervous all the time. I didn't enjoy my work. I was really frustrated. I was in a bad mood for weeks, and I just couldn't get myself to laugh. Through reading and through talking with a lot of friends, I realized maybe I am burnt out.
Mocja Zove: I had 10 clients at that point. The money side of business was amazing. I was never earning as much as I did at that point, but it just wasn't ... I wasn't satisfied with myself and with my work life balance. I decided to take a week off completely, like no phone, no laptop, nothing. I took a week off, and it was really, really good. When I looked back, I was like, yeah, now I know what I want to do, and I know what my goals are, and I know in which direction I want to move.
Mocja Zove: So, first I established a more work life balance approach to my life. I never worked until midnight ever again, and I started cutting of technology and work at about 8:00 p.m.. That's one of the things that I implemented. The second thing that I realized is, while I do enjoy client work, again, it's not something that I want to keep on doing. So, at that point, I decided, you know what, I want to launch a course on Facebook Ads, on how to do Facebook Ads. Recently, I think that was two months ago, I fired most of my clients and did a course, and pre-launched a course.
Mocja Zove: That's one of the things that I realized on my time off. I think that, if you have that experience too, so if you're not satisfied with what you do, if you're just frustrated all the time, there's something wrong. Take a week off, because you're going to end up just learning a lot about yourself and maybe discovering some things that you previously didn't know because you were too busy, and maybe you're going to start moving in a direction that is a better fit for you.
Steve Folland: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So, that course then though, how much time did you have to put into creating the course? The classic, all the activity that goes into passive income situation.
Mocja Zove: Yeah. So, one of the things that I first realized, I tried to juggle between client work, and I had, I think, seven or eight clients at that point, and I had to ... I wanted to do a course, and it was just frustrating because I didn't have the time to do the course. I always prioritized client work naturally, because they are paying me to do the work, to reach results, to get them an X increase in sales. I was always prioritizing that over the thing that I really wanted to do.
Mocja Zove: So, I think it was the end of June, or maybe mid June, is when I, again, got frustrated again, and I was like ... After February, after I burnt out, I wanted to do a course, but it's been a couple of months and nothing really happened. I'm just thinking about it, and it took me about 14 days of actively thinking about myself, about what I want to do, about how I want my business to develop further, and I decided ... On one day, I again took my dog for a walk, and I was thinking about it, I was like, you know what, tomorrow I am firing most of my clients.
Mocja Zove: That happened, I think, mid June, end of June, is where I fired most of them. So, I kept two clients on, and that's just for the income to generate while I do the course, but I did my first prelaunch just to kind of validate the idea. It went really well. I still have the clients, but now I decided, you know what, I'm investing quite a lot of time in this course, so I'm doing this course and then properly launching it once all of the videos are released, and seeing where that takes me.
Steve Folland: How much actual time and effort did it take to put into doing a course?
Mocja Zove: Now that I'm working with just a couple of clients, I have two days, I think it's two days a week where I actively do client work. So, it's just reserved for clients, I do nothing course related. Then, on other days, Monday I work half and half, so partially for clients, partially for my course, and then Wednesday and Friday I work just for the course.
Mocja Zove: I'm not really counting the hours, but, honestly, it takes a lot of work. It is harder than client work, because with client work, I appear there, I do my work, it goes well, and that's about it. In that aspect, it's quite easy. Whereas, launching a course, it's a little bit difficult because, first of all, you have to have an audience, you have to record the videos, you have to structure the course, you have to name the course, you have to promote the course, you have to do the marketing, you have to do everything by yourself. It takes a lot of time. But, to be honest, it's the process that I really enjoy.
Mocja Zove: If I had to pick between the easy client work, so to speak, and the more difficult course, I would definitely choose the course, because it's the process that I enjoy a lot more than client work.
Steve Folland: Who is the audience for that course? Have you been amassing some sort of email list over these years of blogging or speaking and-
Mocja Zove: Yeah. I've been growing my email list for years now, and I have two groups on my email list. Two very distinct groups.
Mocja Zove: The first groups are small business owners that are not yet ready to invest in a Facebook Ads expert to help them with the Facebook Ads expert of their marketing, but they want to do Facebook Ads by themselves and they want to have the best knowledge. That's the first audience. Then, there's the second group of people, which are people like me, so people who do Facebook Ads for clients, people who offer these services to other businesses.
Mocja Zove: I'm actually going to do two courses. The first course is how to do and how to launch a proper professional Facebook advertising strategy that generates positive ROI, and the second course that I'm going to launch, hopefully next year, is one that's oriented into how to grow a Facebook advertising agency, and the contract side of things, the billing side of things, and the management side of things.
Mocja Zove: But, what I did is, when I had to decide between these two courses, I went with the DIY course first, because a lot of those people from the second group, so a lot of the agency owners, still want to update their knowledge somehow, and they were interested in buying the first course too. So, I had a larger pool of people willing to buy the course, and that's why I went with that course first.
Steve Folland: Now, one thing I haven't touched upon, actually, is the fact that the person they're buying this course from isn't necessarily Mocja, but rather Super Spicy Media, right? Have you always traded as Super Spicy Media when you decided to go freelance?
Mocja Zove: I always did, yeah. I don't know why. I have my Facebook page that's called Super Spicy Media, my webpage is called Super Spicy Media, but when I market myself on Twitter, I'm still Mocja. It's kind of the combination of the two. But, to be honest, a lot of people, even though I have someone helping me with the client side of things, and I have a ... There's like a team of three people, kind of. Still Super Spicy Media is mainly Mocja.
Mocja Zove: I have developed a very strong personal brand in that aspect, by communicating as Mocja. When I do a webinar, it's me that is appearing on the webinar. When I write a blog post, it's me that's writing that blog post. So, it's kind of the combination of the two.
Steve Folland: Yeah, it's interesting. Of course, there's links at BeingFreelance.com. Go through, look at Mocja's website, at Super Spicy Media's website. It's an interesting combination of it's very much you, but it's also a company. Anyway, you can figure it out for yourself. Go take a look. BeingFreelance.com, there's links through to what all of our guests get up to.
Steve Folland: But, you mention working with others there. So, the we actually is a we. When did you first start to hire other people to help you?
Mocja Zove: That's a good question. I think I hired my personal assistant three years ago, maybe a little bit more. That was kind of the first investment that I really made. That was, I think, like I said, three years ago, maybe a little bit more, and then I have the expert that helps me out every once in a while with client work, and I think that happened a year ago.
Mocja Zove: That's about it, yeah. But, the personal assistant was the first investment that I made, and I do not regret it.
Steve Folland: What else do they help you with?
Mocja Zove: When I tried to get on podcasts ... Now, everything happens pretty much organically. Podcast hosts contact me directly, so I don't need to go out and look for podcasts, but when that didn't happen organically, my assistant was the one that created a list of podcasts that I could appear on, and she structured or helped me structure an email to send out.
Mocja Zove: She does things like creating a list of podcasts that I have appeared on, just to send out to people. She does a lot of things. She's now managing my Facebook group as well, so accepting people on there. She's doing a lot of research on my behalf, and managing meetings. That's the number one thing.
Steve Folland: That's fantastic. Is your assistant on a retainer, or is it a per project thing, or?
Mocja Zove: So, she works on a per hour basis, and that's what I loved at the beginning. Because, when I hired her, I didn't exactly have quite a large budget to set aside for a personal assistant. It was good for me to have the feeling that I can always back off if I need to, if the money is tight or anything like that. She still works on a per hour basis.
Steve Folland: Yeah. You touched about a mastermind group earlier. What did you get out of joining that?
Mocja Zove: Oh, first of all, connections. That was something that I knew I needed to have if I want to create a business that works internationally, not just locally. I have to have good contacts. Good contacts is the first thing. The second one was just a lot of knowledge. I was invited to that mastermind group, actually, and it was a closed mastermind group of, I think it was 10 people. I think now it's maybe 15 people. So, a very close group of consultants from different fields.
Mocja Zove: I'm working from Slovenia, so I cannot exactly go out to networking events and meet these people, but those contacts and those people actually helped me get into that world, and they gave me some advanced knowledge that, to be honest, hasn't reached Slovenia yet. That's when it comes to contracts and the billing and how to increase your prices, for example. We talked a lot about copywriting, we talked a lot about sales, about how to manage clients. Our group also, as time went by, it graduated towards products such as courses, e-books, and they helped me just get the courage that I needed to launch my first e-book, which was, again, four years ago, if not more.
Mocja Zove: So, they helped me, like I said, with just getting me that knowledge that I couldn't get anywhere else.
Steve Folland: Yeah. And that was a paid thing, was it?
Mocja Zove: Yeah. It was a paid thing. I think we mainly pay $100 per year, and that was definitely a worthy investment. I was invited to the group, but I was still thinking should I make that investment, because I didn't ... I knew a couple of people, but not all of them. The colleague that actually invited me, he said, "We are going to give you you're money back if the group doesn't pan out in a year," and it paid off completely. I was like, "Yes, okay," and I kept investing in it.
Steve Folland: Yeah. No, that's great. If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Mocja Zove: I wouldn't consider having a regular job at all if I could talk to my younger self. Maybe that's not the best advice, that I would say, "Just skip college, you don't need it. Skip the regular job and just go freelancing right away." It's going to be a lot of hard work, but it's going to pay off and you're going to enjoy the process a lot more than the regular nine to five job.
Steve Folland: For real, though, so you don't think you learnt anything or took anything from that time in the advertising agency?
Mocja Zove: Absolutely nothing.
Steve Folland: Wow.
Mocja Zove: I think the translation is media communications, so we talked about media production. Because I wanted to be a journalist. We talked about media production, we talked about advertising to design, copywriting, everything, and all of the things that I learned that I use now, I've learned everything from the internet.
Steve Folland: No, but ... Okay. So, you didn't learn that from college, but what about your time in the advertising agency? Did you learn anything from there?
Mocja Zove: How not to run a business.
Steve Folland: That could have been useful.
Mocja Zove: That was absolutely useful. That is the number one thing that I took out of that experience.
Steve Folland: When you were pitching yourself to those first clients, you had that 100 list, you were cold calling, cold emailing, were you referencing the fact that you had this experience of working at an advertising agency?
Mocja Zove: I don't think I mentioned that.
Steve Folland: Wow, okay.
Mocja Zove: Because I didn't want to ... The one thing that I did, though, is I had a personal blog at that point, and the day I got fired, I wrote this lengthy blog post talking about how that was totally stupid that I got fired because everything is moving into a digital world, and how I haven't gotten the respect that I wanted and that I deserved.
Mocja Zove: I wrote a blog post about that, and it went viral, in a positive way, in Slovenia, and people started contacting me, just applauding me, like, yeah, like young people aren't cherished as they should be, because you bring something else to the table. So, that happened, and the agency that I worked for actually does not exist anymore.
Steve Folland: Well, well. But, we're glad that Super Spicy Media does and what you're doing, Mocja. All the best, being freelance!
Mocja Zove: Thank you.