Last month, June 2015, my Biz turned 11! Woohoo. So I decided I would have a blog party to celebrate and invite some of my favourite biz buddies to share what they’ve learned from being in biz for many, many years. This week, my guest is the lovely Sarah Clark of the Word Boutique and author of three fabulous books (links below). Here’s Sarah’s take on the ups and downs of business.
I’m a writer.
I started my business in 2007, after being made redundant from a cushy little civil service number and walking away with a nice pay-out. I was going to be a copywriter/journalist and all I needed was the contacts. The rest would follow; I am a talented writer. That’s what I told myself.
Eight years later and the freelance marketplace has changed immeasurably. If I were going to give anyone one piece of advice to keep them going through setting up and managing their own business, the advice I’d give would be ‘stay flexible’.
If I had stuck to the original plan; pitching article ideas to Grazia every week and trawling through online copywriting websites for jobs, I’d either be in the depths of despair wondering why the editor of Grazia never replied, or working for $5 an hour writing blog posts for companies that don’t care about the content, just their Google rankings. EVERYTHING changes. Google included.
In 2007 I had only just joined Facebook and used it as an amusing diversion.
Today I make money from managing other people’s social media, setting it up for them and promoting my own business through my own accounts. No more Word Twist for me.
In 2007 blogging was a hobby and a fun thing to do when I had a quiet moment.
Today I write blog posts about concrete. Oh, other things too, but I write more blog posts than I do web copy, easily.
In 2007 I managed to get a few articles published in actual real life magazines.
Now I rarely get a magazine commission. Print journalism is bleeding staff, so all the ex-staffers are now freelancers and they get the pick of the magazine jobs at a fraction of the cost to their old editors than a full time salary, meaning actual freelancers, unless well-established have very little chance of getting anything past the features/commissioning editors.
In 2007/8 I had some lucrative working relationships with media agencies who represented beauty companies like Simple, healthcare brands and even cereals.
These days they’ve taken on in-house copywriters who can do the social media as well, and there’s not much call for freelancers.
But am I deterred? Well, perhaps a little bit. I’ve ended up working a lot with small businesses, which has been nice (mostly) and I’ve diversified into branding – creating straplines for small businesses to use on Facebook and Twitter. Other people have asked me to set everything up for them so they can run their social media seamlessly, so I’ve given them a blog, Facebook and Twitter, populated them a bit, added everything to BufferApp and handed it over with a smile.
I’m happy that I kept The Word Boutique going for as long as I have – and I’ll keep it going a bit longer – but I’m about to launch www.pickyourselfup.co.uk and also take on a full time role in an office (hopefully) – maybe one day I can return to full time writing as a business? Here’s hoping…
Sarah Clark works from a little office in sleepy Suffolk from which she gets to watch squirrels. She’s a creative beauty health and lifestyle copywriter, blogger and author with a passion for words and a love of language. She’s also a social media diva with a penchant for Facebook and Twitter. In addition, Sarah is the author of 3 fabulous books – you can find them here. Check out Sarah’s copywriting website here.
Connect with Sarah:
Related posts:
