Making your own rules - Copywriter Robbie King

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After working as a creative in an ad agency, where he developed concepts for big brands and worked across a range of media, Robbie was ready for something new.

His work was fun and exciting, but it left him with no time for his own projects. And, while he admired those ahead of him in the industry, Robbie didn’t want to be them. He knew agency life wasn’t for him.

Robbie now works remotely, living in places like Thailand and Bali, where he’ll often spend the morning surfing before he starts work.

He chats to Steve about how and why he made the move, what life is like when you’re on the road, and how he makes freelancing work as a digital nomad.

TRANSCRIPT OF THE BEING FREELANCE PODCAST WITH ROBBIE KING AND STEVE FOLLAND

Steve Folland: Freelance conversion copywriter, Robbie King. Hey Robbie.

Robbie King: Hello Steve. How are you doing?

Steve Folland: I am well. How about we get started as ever hearing how you got started being freelance?

Robbie King: Yeah, so I started off in ad agencies. I actually went to art school. I did an animation and film-making degree. That was fun, but when I got out of that, I didn't quite know where I wanted to go. I didn't want to go into the film industry. I didn't really like that. I wasn't very good at making cups of tea and making sure that ladders didn't fall over.

Robbie King: So it took a little head scratching, but after a few chats with some friends, I discovered the ad industry. I realised that it was very fun and creative, and you were working on projects. It was kind of like being back at art school in a way. So I dived headfirst into that, and I was in that for about three years.

Robbie King: I did also a course before that to get myself into it, which was quite weird and wonderful, and interesting. Yeah, my whole ad industry experience was a great kind of creative boot camp because for those of you who don't know what it's like in an ad agency, it's quite an inspiring place. There's a lot going on and there's all kinds of briefs just sort of flying this way and that.

Robbie King: And so, you can be one day writing on something like a TV ad or a radio ad, or sometimes you're coming up with a stunt, or a social campaign. It's a lot more varied than the Mad Man era, let's put it that way. So yeah, I did that for a number of years, but constantly nagging at me where were a couple of things.

Robbie King: Firstly, the hours could be ridiculous. Sometimes they weren't, but all too often you'd be working Saturdays and Sundays. For the most part I wasn't necessarily too bothered by that because it was exciting. So at least you were kind of trading your weekend for something quite cool.

Robbie King: But as that went on, and as the portfolio grew albeit slowly, I thought, "Well all I'm really making is ads here. It would be quite nice to be a little freer with my time and be able to kind of still make work that works commercially, but then have my own time to kind of go and do my own things as well," which I'd never really got the opportunity to do in the ad industry, or if I did it was sort of squeezed into a little bit of a weekend.

Robbie King: So I was often thinking, "There must be a better way. I don't think it's advertising." Because I looked at a lot of the people a few years ahead of me and they certainly had quite impressive careers, but I certainly didn't want to be them. I didn't want to be several years down the line and I've spent a large chunk of my life sitting in an office and only have made ads. That's just me, like the ad industry is great. If I had a child, and they said, "Daddy, I'm going to go into the ad industry," I'd be like, "Great. It's great. Have fun." But I just knew it wasn't for me really.

Robbie King: So I did a little bit of research and it slowly dawned on me that it was possible to be freelance remotely. There was a group of people who have often been called, digital nomads, working from wherever they wanted to in the world, and kind of making their own rules. So as soon as I figured that was an option, I thought, "Okay, this is it, this is why I'm going to go freelance."

Steve Folland: And when was that? When did you leave the ad agency?

Robbie King: I left advertising, I'd say towards the end of 2016

Steve Folland: Okay. Did you have a plan? Did you have clients? What was it like when you left?

Robbie King: Yeah, I had some savings. I spent a lot of my time ... because I was working in London, and I grew up in London, and I spent a fair amount of time living at home when I was in London with my parents. So I managed to put a fair bit of cash away, and it suddenly dawned on me, "Hang on a minute, if my whole goal is to work remotely, I can kind of just dive into it now and move to Thailand," which I did with some savings, "and just kind of figure it out as I go along."

Robbie King: I also on top of that, I had my motion graphics and animation degree. There was already a way for me to kind of earn a bit of cash. I already had kind of hard marketable skill that I could work with. So I basically just dived right into it and move to Thailand. Initially, I made videos on Upwork just whilst I kind of sort of got my copywriting up and running as well.

Robbie King: The great thing about doing it all from Southeast Asia is you can sort of work half the week to get by and then you've got time and extra resources that you can then funnel into something else. That's why you meet a lot of people in startup mode building businesses from places like Chiang Mai, Thailand or Bali, both places that I've lived in and worked in.

Steve Folland: By the way, what was it at the ad agency, like what would have been your role? Were you a copywriter there? What was your ...

Robbie King: Technically, my job title was Creative. Whenever people asked me what I did, I said, " Oh, I think of the ads." Because if you say, "I'm a creative," it's like, "Okay, well all right fancy pants, what does that mean?"

Steve Folland: You'd be coming up with the concepts for the adverts and things like that?

Robbie King: Exactly.

Steve Folland: But you didn't plan to do that freelance. Is that because those opportunities don't exist, or had you just had enough and thought, "I want to do something else?"

Robbie King: Well, I knew that my advertising skills could somehow translate into the freelance digital marketing world. I knew that there was room for good content writing and the building sales funnels, and things like that. But I wasn't entirely sure exactly how that would look, and because I was just plain impatient and I knew that I could make videos in the meantime, I thought I'd just kind of figure it out as I went along really. So I guess, the title, freelance conversion copywriter, I knew it would be somewhere sort of within that ballpark, but that kind of formed organically whilst I was sort of doing everything on the road.

Steve Folland: So you're in Thailand, back in your story that is, not right now, and you're getting work from freelance job sites like Upwork, and starting to get copywriting work as well. So how did it build from there?

Robbie King: The video work was quite straightforward, I'd got that all from Upwork I managed to set up an account, and then I did a couple of jobs just through personal connections, people that I met here and there. But the copywriting stuff so far, everything's just come from various different places. Some of them have been from just people that I know, just personal connections, pretty straightforward.

Robbie King: Then I'm also in one or two copywriting groups, Facebook groups, Copywriter Club. Shout out to the Copywriter Club. You're all lovely. I mean, get this, one of my first ever clients I basically got off a dating app.

Steve Folland: You were on the dating app trying to find a date and you said you found a job?

Robbie King: Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much. Do you know what? It actually led to quite an awesomely weird series of events. I might as well tell it, yeah. So I was in Bali and I matched with someone, as you do, and then she caught Dengue fever, which is a horrible, horrible tropical disease, but we carried on talking for about a month.

Robbie King: She actually had to go. She had to leave the country. She had to fly home eventually, and we never actually got to see each other, but we carried on talking for about a month or so. And then eventually I had to go to the States for a copyrighting meetup, and I said to her, "Well, I'm going to be in the States." And she was in LA, and the copywriting meetup was all the way in Charleston, but I thought, "Oh stuff it, I'll just hop on an extra flight. This could be fun." So I flew 2000 miles for a first date.

Steve Folland: Wow.

Robbie King: Yeah.

Steve Folland: This feels like the truth and lying section at the end.

Robbie King: Yeah. No, we've got more to go through with that.

Steve Folland: So how did your copywriting business start to grow?

Robbie King: It's just grown mostly through networking. Once you've kind of built various relationships with a few people, then you often just get referrals. I got referrals recently from fellow copywriters really who they've either got too much work that they can't handle, or they know someone who's looking for someone to handle their copy and they go, "I've got the guy. Speak to Robbie." It's mostly like that.

Robbie King: I mean, another thing also is networking events. I've now started to niche down into the blockchain space as well, because although I'm still a generalist, I've had an interest in blockchain for a couple of years now, and I thought, "You know what? I read about this for fun, I might as well start writing about it." So I've been going to my fair share of blockchain events recently.

Robbie King: People are very, very happy to talk, and if you say that you're a copywriter, sooner or later someone will need a copywriter. So I'd say that and just being very, very active on LinkedIn and Facebook, and just making connections with fellow copywriters.

Steve Folland: To me, sat in my dining room, living in Thailand sounds amazing. But how was work-life balance in reality when you were on the road?

Robbie King: Yeah, I'd say the amount of hours that I'd work were probably kind of similar to what I'd end up working in the ad industry, just because that was what I used to and I thought, "Well ..." You get into that mindset of, "Oh it's five o'clock there's still three more hours I can do today before I started feeling tired." You know, it's that kind of mindset?

Robbie King: So because I was in like hardcore growth mode, build the business, get your name out there, you end up working kind of as much as you're used to really, because I've now transitioned into this life of sort of choosing your own hours and everything, I have recently kind of taken my foot off the gas here and there, where I definitely wouldn't have been able to do in the ad industry, and have as and when I want to, the kind of work-life balance that is just magical.

Robbie King: Sometimes I'll work only half the week, if I can, or when I was living in Bali for example, I'd be like, "Right, this week I am going to surf every single day before work." This is why I chose this life, why wouldn't I do this? I'd say here in there, work-life balance can be sort of noticeably more beautiful than it was in the ad industry.

Steve Folland: So you mentioned that you'd meet like startups and stuff in Asia for example, were you meeting lots of digital nomads? Was there a community? Were you making friends but not just friends, like people who would understand what you were going through while you were out there?

Robbie King: Yeah, yeah. The digital nomad community is a pretty vibrant one, actually. What's so cool about it is, it's very interesting meeting people who are from a completely different corner of the world, but they're basically you one of your mates back home but with a different accent. It's really fun seeing the surprising similarities.

Robbie King: I mean, I guess this kind of goes with all forms of travel, but it's kind of, when you're living like this you get more time to kind of really get to know people from other countries. So yeah, the whole kind of nomad scene was really fun in that regard from the social angle.

Robbie King: Also, it's really, really nice working in co-working spaces because that's where I've done most of my work from the past couple of years. I think the great thing about co-working spaces is, one, a lot of them are really, really quiet, whilst ad agencies were fun, quite often they were a bit too fun. They play music and there are ping-pong tables. It was basically Byker Grove, you know?

Steve Folland: Yeah.

Robbie King: Yeah, co-working spaces are great sanctuaries of focus, and then also because everyone wasn't sort of forced to be there, or there wasn't the same kind of you must conform to the office culture kind of thing. There was just a very relaxed vibe that I really, really dug.

Robbie King: Sometimes offices, if you feel like you don't fit in there, can maybe ostracise people to a certain extent. If you don't want to go to the drinks on Friday then that's a big no, no, and things like that. I mean, for the most part I quite liked the drinks on Friday but sometimes I couldn't be bothered. And so, at least in co-working spaces, if I couldn't be bothered to go to the drinks on Friday, then you were kind of free to do what you wanted, really.

Steve Folland: What's been the biggest challenge of being freelance and being on the road?

Robbie King: Oh, those are two different questions really.

Steve Folland: Ah, okay.

Robbie King: I mean, the main challenge being freelance is just marketing yourself. You wake up certain days and you're like, "Holy moly, I've got this job, and then I've got a retainer, but then in a few weeks' time I'm not going to have a paycheck. What's going to happen?" So that's the challenge we all face, and if get good at that then you basically, I think crack the freelance game.

Robbie King: The other challenge I think to being freelance is I think just being self-disciplined. I meet a lot of people that are like, "Oh, you're freelance. Oh God, I could never do that. I couldn't whip myself every Monday morning to get to work." I think the better you are at sort of being really honest with yourself about how you're spending your time, and whether you do need to be working on a Saturday night, and just being really, really objective about how to use your time efficiently, I think that's the main challenge.

Robbie King: I can be great with time when I really put my mind to it, but I think by default I am with time like ... do you ever meet those people that are just really, really bad with money and they'll get paid, and they'll be like, "Right. Now, I'm going to go spend half my paycheck on a hat"? Well, I'm by default like that with time, I'm a bit too free with it, and I suddenly look at the clock and I'm like, "Oh, damn it, that didn't mean to take so long."

Robbie King: I make a kind of conscious effort to be the opposite of that. Trello is my best friend and I do the Pomodoro Method whenever I can. Yeah, that's certainly my biggest challenge besides getting a constant stream of clients.

Robbie King: As for the on the roading, by far the biggest challenge of the whole digital nomad thing is cultivating a meaningful social life. What I mean by that is, the double-edged sword of living like this is that there's all this excitement and novelty, and there are new people constantly coming into your life, but they're also going out of your life, because most people are in town for maybe a month, two months, sometimes more, sometimes less and it can be a number of things.

Robbie King: Firstly, it can just be heartbreaking having to say goodbye to really good friends all too often, like I've made and lost a lot of best friends in the past 18 months. Then also, it can also make a lot of social interactions. You treat them as if they're slightly ... they're kind of meaningless because every single interaction or new relationships that you make when you're on the road, you're constantly thinking, "Well this person could sort of disappear in a few weeks," which is quite a weird way to live.

Robbie King: Normally, if you're in one place, the general assumption is that if you make a friend, they could be a friend for as long as you want to be friends for. Whereas quite often if you make a friend and then suddenly in three weeks, they're like, "Bye," that kind of flips the whole dynamic and you think, "Well, okay, how gregarious should I be if ...

Robbie King: I mean, this is just sort of getting into a slight spiral of thought here, but then you think, "Well how gregarious should I be if every other person that I meet is almost going to be dead in a few weeks?" That's getting a little bit crazy.

Robbie King: The flip side of that is then you see someone, you become best friends with someone for a couple of months in say Thailand, and then you jump to, I don't know, Bali or Vietnam and then you're like, "Oh my God, you're here too." Then it's all exciting again. So it's got its benefits as well, and because everyone's often living quite slightly more sociable lives and they would do in a big city, you kind of create memories a little quicker than you would if you were living back in a normal city. So it's this bizarre mind mush of way to have relationships, really.

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

Robbie King: Just keep going. Just bang your head against the wall until it stops hurting. Because if you stick at something long enough and there are enough voices around you to tell you where you're going wrong, which aren't difficult to find, things will I think always work out. I don't know anyone that's stuck at something long enough and haven't got what they wanted. So yeah, just keep banging your head against the wall until it stops hurting.

Steve Folland: Robbie, thanks so much, and all the best being freelance.

Robbie King: Thank you very much.

WriterSteve Follandfinding clients, niches, nicheing down, writing, writer, digital nomad, travel, copywriter, copywriting, Thailand, Bali, work-life balance, networkingComment