Diversify Your Business Fearlessly with Ashley Cisneros Mejia

SEASON 8, EPISODE 4

As a freelancer, the topic of diversification may be on your  mind. The freelance market is what it is, and the pool of freelancers continues to grow - so we need ways of differentiating ourselves from others. You may be wondering how to level up in your business by offering new services, looking to a new client base, or both! But how can you do that in an intentional way?

In this episode, Wudan talks with Ashley Cisneros Mejia

Ashley is an award-winning journalist, communications expert, and former marketing agency owner with nearly 20 years of experience. She is the host and creator of the Talk Freelance to Me Podcast, where she provides freelancers the tools they need to design a life they love, and run sustainable, profitable businesses. Over her career, she’s done a bit of everything. She began her career as a newspaper reporter, worked as a tech writer, marketing manager, in PR, and so much more. 

Ashley and Wudan go over steps for how to diversify your freelance business purposefully and without fear.

Full Transcript Below:

Wudan Yan- Hello friends. We are back this month for a new episode of this season titled, "The Year of Expansive Thinking." This is The Writers' Co-op, and I'm your host and executive producer, Wudan Yan. On episode four today, we're going to talk about how to diversify your freelance business fearlessly. I know that this episode is relevant right now, because in this economy as it is currently, is forcing many freelancers into thinking expansively. Clients' budgets are mostly still not where we want them to be. They may not be using freelancers. Their budgets may be reduced. In many freelance groups that I'm a part of, I see people starting to think about expanding their services, shaking up their freelance business. Maybe it's time to bring your skills to other industries—industries that are actually thriving. Maybe you're thinking of expanding your service offerings. I see lots of freelancers who have been primarily writers and content creators wanting to move into strategy, editing, fact-checking, project management, all very adjacent services to what they currently offer. And maybe you're thinking of offering digital products that can help you generate passive revenue. There are so many ideas out there. The process of deciding how and what and where to diversify your business can feel admittedly overwhelming. There are just so many service areas, so many industries and ways to make money. But today, my guest co host is offering us a system, an actual method that we can use to build a more resilient business. Because what this diversification does is create an adaptable business that can sustain us when times get tough or weird. My co-host today is Ashley Cisneros Mejia. Ashley is an award-winning journalist, communications expert and former marketing agency owner with nearly 20 years of experience. She's the host and creator of the Talk Freelance To Me podcast, where she provides freelancers the tools they need to design a life they love and run sustainable, profitable businesses. Over her career, Ashley has done a little bit of everything. She began her career as a newspaper reporter, worked as a tech writer, marketing manager, in PR and so many other industries. I actually love all this perspective she has. It's like a 30,000-foot view from working with so many businesses and service areas. So listen to our chat to learn all about that. Before we dive into today's episode, did you know that we have an online community for The Writers' Co-op? If you're looking to do big things in your freelance business this year, or just crave ongoing support from a welcoming, safe, inclusive space, come join The Writers' Co-op Slack community. Hundreds of members are sharing best practices and tips when it comes to running their freelance business. And I really can't overstate how important it is to have a psychologically-safe community to help bounce ideas around. You can get in today by signing up at the All-Access level on Patreon. And you'd get a link to join that's at patreon.com/TWCpod. Here is my conversation with Ashley. Thanks so much for coming on The Writers' Co-op. It's a pleasure to have you.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia- Thank you so much, Wudan, this is really exciting. Thank you for the invitation.

Wudan- So we're going to talk about how to diversify your services, not just limited to writing generally, but kind of how to develop this mindset on having a diverse freelance business period. But I want to start off by hearing about your career trajectory. And how did you get into freelancing?

Ashley- Absolutely. So I think for me, like diversification was survival in my freelance career, in my journalism career. So I'm one of those kids that, like, always wanted to be a reporter. I studied journalism in college. And my first job when I graduated was a newspaper reporter. Then I worked in magazines. And this was like a business magazine that I worked for. That's where I really became interested in this entrepreneurial world. And then the recession hit in 2008. So I lost my job. And I turned to freelancing, just while looking for full-time work again. And it took me a little bit, and it's—it's reflecting on it, it's not so different from what we're seeing now, you know, with all the layoffs in tech and in media. And so I ended up getting a job as a tech writer. I still freelanced on the side a bit, and I think that's really my, my journey is sometimes I would freelance as a side hustle. Sometimes it was my full thing, right? So I did tech writing. I did a nine to five as a PR person doing like crisis work. I was a marketing manager. Me and a business partner actually started a digital marketing agency for a couple of years. But then everything changed about 10 years ago when I had my first kid. I have three kids now. And I really needed more flexibility, more freedom, you know, less responsibility that I had when I had like a whole team of people. And so now that's what I love. I love that freelance allows me to kind of take all of these things that I enjoy doing: journalism, PR marketing, and do all of them. You know, I could do two services in one day or something, you know, completely different. So, I do freelance communications and marketing and PR, mostly. And then I have my podcast called Talk Freelance To Me. And thank you so much for being a recent guest. It was really exciting.

Wudan- Yeah, that was a great conversation. So when you say what you're doing now in your freelance business, are you a content strategist? Are you doing content marketing? Or copywriting? What kind of services are you leaning towards these days?

Ashley- I do a lot of ghost writing. So I just did like a business handbook for a women's organization that got like Capital One to sponsor their work for their membership. So it was like all about how to start a business, which was right up my alley, because that's what I love to speak about. But then I just did this whole nine-month project doing political communications for a candidate here, a state representative, who flipped a seat here in Florida. That was like a whole thing. So I was ghost writing for him, like his speeches and his messaging statements. And yeah, like ads, like the whole, the whole nine. We did Facebook ads. That was a big beast of a project. But I love freelance, right, because it can allow you to take on really interesting, really different kinds of work, and then come back and do a magazine article if that's, you know, what you want to do, right?

Wudan- Yes. So when I say that you're somebody who diversifies fearlessly, what does that mean to you?

Ashley- I think it's about really embracing the fluidity, you know, that freelancing offers, and just recognizing that that, for some of us, we were pushed into this freelance life. For some of us, you know, we just found it. We chose it, right? But just recognizing that we're not boxed in, that we can explore and pivot and decide to try something new. And if it doesn't work, who cares? We can come back to whatever we were doing before. And I think it's really super important to diversify to just mitigate these risks. This economy, some people are saying, we're in a silent recession. Some people are saying, you know, it hasn't reached that like technical threshold. But we know that this freelance life, I mean, it's constantly changing. You got AI shaking up the scene last year. Well, it's been here for a while. But like ChatGPT, of course, dominated a lot of the conversations here in freelance. So for me, it just means setting your business up to be more resilient and more adaptable.

Wudan- Yeah, I'm seeing freelancers talk about diversification in lots of different ways right now. Because, you know, starting out freelancing, everyone tells you that you need more than one client, and ideally, a few anchor clients. And so you know, there's this notion that you don't put all of your financial eggs in one bucket. But I think what you and I are talking about here is diversifying our services. And also even diversifying the service industries where our clients inhabit. You're talking about, you know, political candidates. You're talking about, like, businesses and corporations that you're working for. Those are very, very different. Talk more to me about why it's so important to even diversify, like, given a single service, your client base. Or, you know, a specific client base, but diversify all the services offerings that you're making.

Ashley- Definitely. I've had some clients for a long time, right? And I've done different things for them, depending on what their needs are, because I think clients learn to trust you. And one of the things that I've learned too, in hiring other freelancers or having a company is that it's hard to find good people, sometimes. It's sometimes hard to find people that you can trust. And so when you find them, you know, you want to hold on to them, because you need them to meet whatever your other objectives are. And so similarly, you know, being a freelancer, I've found that where I've been able to diversify what I'm offering to one client, just because they trust me. And they don't even care that I have, you know, like eight years of experience in this specific deliverable. They just know that Ashley will come with it. She'll meet the deadline. She's gonna be pleasant to work with. And we can trust her to do it, right? So I've had diversity in that and kind of expanding what I'm offering for a specific client. But then I've also—I've made mistakes where I've had an anchor client that's like: "Hey, peace out," and then I'm thinking: "Oh, crap, I did what everybody says not to do," right? So I've, I've done all of those things. I think, in some ways, I diversify, because I want to grow. I don't want to be complacent. I don't want to be stagnant. I don't want to be left behind. Other ways for whatever—you know—you were saying before that we have to diversify so that we're not leaning on one client, and then they peace out. They leave and then we're freaking out, right? And I think just what we're seeing now, if we want to still have a freelance business in the next 10 years, looking at what's happening with technology and understanding—not being afraid of it, embracing it—but then also looking and trying to say, "Okay, where's the puck going? How can we anticipate what's next? How can we get in front of things as much as possible so that we're not just left surviving, but that we can insulate and innoculate our businesses? I think there's a lot of ways you can diversify. And there's a lot of reasons why I think it's smart to do so.

Wudan- I think many freelancers right now—especially in this economic moment, a quiet recession, whatever you want to call it—are recognizing how important it is to diversify. I'm curious, as you inhabit this freelance ecosystem, where you see other freelancers get stuck when they think about how to diversify their businesses?

Ashley- Yeah, it's either—I'm seeing like, an overwhelm or a fear like, and I think it's human nature to resist change, to be scared. And you would know more, I know you're a science person, but like, I've heard that, you know, our body wants to protect ourselves, and we are wired to want to survive and continue seeing another day. So anything that's new, that's not in our comfort zone, that can make us feel scared to try, I think there's maybe some, some inner work that we have to do sometimes, depending on who we are and our experiences, about not needing to know everything about a specific service, right? You hear this a lot with studies about even women and the fact that we will not apply for a job if we don't have every one of, you know, the job description items checked off, right? And men are like: "Ah I got about 60%. I'm perfect for this," right?

Wudan- Mhm. Mhm.

Ashley- And so I think even, like, I've seen that with myself, and even in other freelancers in our communities, where it's like, oh, well, you know, who am I to say that now I offer thought leadership, when I've never done that? Like, there's a fear of embracing at something or like, how do I know when I'm good enough at this particular service to start offering it and, like, marketing that? So I think there's—definitely fear's something that I see and overwhelm at, like, the opportunities and feeling: "Where do I start? I have a lot of interests." There's so many people that I know that are multihyphenate, and they just, they see opportunity everywhere. So it's kind of like, well, where do I go first? And sometimes that can lead to overthinking and even analysis paralysis.

Wudan- Mhm. Mhm. Are those things you've experienced yourself? I'm curious how you've worked through them, if so.

Ashley- Yes! Oh, my goodness, especially, especially the first one. Especially the first one. And I think it's just part of my personality, where, you know, I always felt like, I've got to have 100 on my test. And I've got to have everything in line. And I've got to be, you know—I can't make a mistake. And so feeling like, you know, I've had other people reflect on me saying: "Well, why don't you offer XYZ service? You're doing it here.Other people can benefit." And me in different times feeling like, oh, well, who am I to say that I can offer that? Like, this other person has been doing this for 20 years. So who am I to—and just realizing, I think, over time, and through aging. And also encountering a lot of—I love men. I have— I'm married to man. I two sons. But I think experiences where I've been at tables, and I'm like: "Dude, I'm smarter than you." Or like, "I could totally do this too." Feeling, feeling like you know what? All of us are making it up as we go along. None of us come into the world with our eyes open for the first time knowing everything. Everything that we currently know, we learned. We had to learn. We had to be a beginner at some point. So I think over time, I've been more comfortable with taking risks and diversifying, you know, and claiming it, yes.

Wudan- Yes, cause over time, you gather more evidence for yourself that it's possible to make all those, you know, kind of leaps of faith, of inference, of skillset, of client base, and that tells you that it's okay. That really resonates. And I'm curious Ashley, how do you think about whether or not it's time to expand to new areas, whether it be a new service or a client base?

Ashley- I'm kind of woo-woo, so I go with my gut feelings in a lot of things, you know, or the stars or signs. And for me, like, I love having conversations. I love talking to people, and I love listening. And so I think for me, when I start noticing patterns where clients are repeatedly asking for something or talking about something, or I'm just interested in something, and I'd see a book about, say, a topic that I'm interested or I'm hearing about somebody else offering a service. For me, I'm thinking okay, maybe that's a sign that I should look into this. Specifically, if it's a client asking for something or saying you know that they want to write a book. Okay, what do they have—do they have someone to edit that book? How are they going to promote that book? Like, kind of thinking, like, what's next in their journey and how I maybe could help them. I think that as often been assigned to me that, hey, I could offer something to this customer, you know, to help them in a deeper way. That's been really big.

Wudan- Yeah, that's so interesting, because I had two recent experiences where clients came to me looking for something that is not a precise thing that I absolutely offer right now. But it is very skills-adjacent to what I have already done. And I think that's probably what they're looking at when they initially reached out to me. And I think that's so fascinating, too. You know, sometimes it's not like you're—you might not be diversifying intentionally in that way. But when somebody comes along and is like, hey, how about this thing that you probably haven't thought about? I'm like, that's interesting. But maybe I just have shiny object syndrome.

Ashley- Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes, yeah, people might see it in us sometimes before we see it ourselves, the opportunity. And I think it's okay to say, you know, I'm not interested in that. Like, I think it's good to honor that. If you know, in your gut again, like, I'm a gut person. So if I know oh, that is not a "hell yeah," it's a "hell no." Like, I'm not interested whatsoever. I think that's okay, too. But I think if there is an interest, if there is a curiosity, then I think you can target that and explore that more.

Wudan- Mhm. Mhm. Definitely So I want to get a little tactical. And Ashley, you know, in pre-production, you had these kind of three pillars on how freelancers can best identify areas in which they can expand their businesses into. So can you talk about what those—maybe you don't call it the three pillars, but I've called it the three pillars. Can you talk about what those are? And what anyone listening to the show can do to kind of understand these three buckets?

Ashley- Definitely. I love the pillar. I think that's, that's a good name for it. But yeah, I think it starts with taking inventory. Inventory of your past work, I would say that's probably a good starting place. I think sometimes, you know, especially in the nature of our work that's so deadline-driven, we move fast, you know? We're on to the next one. We file a story, send that invoice and we are—we're on. We're focused somewhere else, right? So I think taking intentional time to stop and reflect. And that can be in conjunction with, you know, I know we're getting into the second quarter now, at the time of this recording. But you know, it can be any, anytime. Anytime you can stop and take inventory of what you've done. I would look at your previous work and see: What did you enjoy? What did you not enjoy? Are there outliers? That kind of were these happy coincidences? Like they just happened organically by a request from a client? Is there something there? Would you like to do that, again? IS there a potential to diversify and expand that? Or if there was like a previous project that you did say, in the last year, the last quarter or last six months, and it wasn't really in your niche, it wasn't your main offering, your main thing, but you did like it or other people express interest in it. Say, like this political thing. I never considered that at all. It happened accidentally, because the gentleman who ran is my neighbor. And now I've got other people that are running for office that are like, hey, what do you do?

Wudan- Wow—

Ashley- Can you help me? Right? So it's, I think, taking that inventory, kind of looking at your client roster, looking at your income and kind of seeing where the money came from, is a good first place to begin. And then I think next would be your inventory of your skills. So making a list of all the stuff you know how to do. And it doesn't mean that you're going to do, but I definitely believe, like, just because you're physically able to sweep doesn't mean that you need to be putting sweeping on your website, right?

Wudan- That's right.

Ashley- Unless, unless that's what you want to do, hey, not stopping anybody, right? But thinking about what you do what you offer, maybe there are certain things that you can do, you enjoy doing, but for whatever reason, you haven't really done a lot with that. And you see an opportunity to expand. Other things, like, if you're passionate about a certain cause, and you're doing volunteer work, in some ways, and you've never char—you're doing something for like, I don't know, a charity, and you're enjoying that work, but you've never charged for it. Is there a way to take something that you've done in other facets of your life and adding it as a service line? If it makes sense, right? You can also think about things that you do informally, like, I started helping a friend. She was going to PA school. She's a family friend. She's like, hey, I have this whole like PA statement that I have to do as part of my application. This is not something I've ever done, right? I didn't study anything with medical, so I didn't know about this, but apparently it's a big deal. So she got into PA school and I'm thinking, wait, there's other, you know, students that need help, that they're really good at one thing, or a couple of things they—maybe they hate writing, and they need to get into this, you know, this school as their next step. So, the other thing, the last one, would be understanding your client needs. And you can kind of couple this maybe with step one, when you're reviewing the work that you did previously, is examining your current and even your old clients. So maybe clients that were one-offs, or you did something and then you haven't talked to them in a while. What services did they come to you for initially? What type of work did you help them do? What other things do they might need? And are there other ways that you can kind of extend service to your existing clients? I think thinking about them and what they need, you can get new ideas for other services that you can diversify to.

Wudan- Incredible. I'm listening to you talk about this, and I was like wow, this is kind of, like, a lot of work to do. If this concept is new to anyone listening, what kind of frequency would you want somebody to start experimenting with, if they're just doing this for the first time? Is it like, once a month, once a quarter? I feel like the answer is not once a year.

Ashley- Yeah, I mean, I do it informally, probably once a quarter. But you know, I think it depends how busy you are. So if your business is rockin' and rollin', and you're doing great, and you're like, you have overflow work that you're given to other freelancers to just keep up your normal cadence, then, you know, maybe you don't do this as frequently, just because you're already busy. But if you, especially for people who are maybe struggling right now, maybe some of their previous work has dried up a bit. And they're kind of worried about things, this could be exercise that you can do to just generate some ideas on where you could go next for the remainder of the year. I do it quarterly but again, I don't think it's, you know, there's a fast rule to it. But definitely once—more than once a year. So maybe like, every quarter or twice a year would be good to keep you looking for what's next.

Wudan- Mhm. Mhm. And I think too, if people have a gut feeling that like they want to try something new, or they really need to for financial and business reasons, I think it's also a great time to reflect on these things we're talking about here. So I want to drill down in the skill inventory, because this is actually where I see a lot of people getting stuck. I see reporters who produce accurate, compelling copy, be like, I want to get into fact-checking, or I want to get into editing. But I have no idea how to do that, because I've never done it before, who's going to trust me? I have people who have done content marketing for years, and are all of a sudden like, oh my god, I think you want to try out ghost writing. But I've never ghost written before. How do I land my first client? And there's a part of me that's like, content marketing without a byline is ghost writing. You know, like, there are so many things. Like, you know how to interview, you know how to write a story with a beginning, middle and end. Like, if you know how to do all these things, like, you have the skills that transfer from one service to another. So my question here is really: What are some examples of certain skills that translate into different service areas?

Ashley- I love what you said. I think because a lot of times we get stuck in just, you know, the rhythm of it all. If a client, if you're—have a retainer for a client, or even if it's not a retainer, but you know, you're working with a client over an extended amount of time, and you finish up one deliverable and you just get the other one, you get the other one. You may not have a chance even to catch your breath and think about some of these transferable skills that you have and how they may apply to a different offering. And so like, for example, when I was a tech writer—I was a tech writer for a government defense contractor as a 9-5 job—and learning how to write for the Navy, and like, all the technical pieces that were associated with that, I think somebody who's a tech writer could really do well for drafting, like, commissioned reports, white papers, things that are techie in nature. Industry reports. That makes sense, if you already have kind of that skillset created, where you can take really complex things and distill them down in an easy to understand format. I think about, like, creators. There's so many brands that want to talk about their story, about storytelling. And they're companies, right? And so thinking, if you're a creative writer, and you've got—you've been working on like this fiction, say, your first novel, but you're waiting for it to be published, and you're thinking about how I can make money on the side. You know, there's lots of branding agencies—or you can work directly with a client who's looking to establish: What is my corporate story? What is my brand story? What's my brand identity? Because all that feeds into everything else they do. When they go to a graphic designer to say, here's what my logo should look like, or here's my corporate colors, the graphic designer wants to know, okay, well, what's your brand's story? What's your brand identity? Like, you've got to give me something to work with. And there's so many companies that don't have that. And so that's where us as creative people, we can step in and assist them with that. I'm thinking magazine editors—so a lot of magazine editors, you know, they're used to working three months ahead or more. They're already working on stuff for the summer, right? Right now. And so that really translates well for doing content strategy for companies, for brands. Because it's the same skillset that you're, you're applying. It's what do we need to be talking about, whenl in advance. Copywriters, if you can write persuasively to sell an idea, to sell a product or service, this political stuff that I just finished, it's all that. You're marketing a person, their vision and their ideas for solving problems. You can also create content, that ghost writing for busy executives and entrepreneurs who are trying to position themselves as thought leaders. There are so many things that we know how to do that can apply and help other people. Yes.

Wudan- Yes. I think another place where people get stuck is sending that email, when they're just talking about transferable skills, and not necessarily, like, I have, you know, somebody going from content marketing or copywriting to ghost writing, the skills transfer, but how would you think about wording that email?

Ashley- Yeah, well, I think for me, I always practice first, you know? Whether it's—I'll make up an assignment for myself. I've done a lot of, like, volunteer work and charity work to for causes that I'm really passionate about. And so I'll maybe volunteer stuff and use that as a as a little petri dish, as a little experiment for myself to say, what does this feel like? What does this process feel like? How do I feel about it at the end? What does this look like? So I always kind of test first, but then when I'm ready to talk about it via email, I usually don't do any selling via email, not right off the bat. And I usually start with my own clients, existing folks that are friendly. And then probably my secondary category would be my network— like other freelancers or referral partners, like graphic designers, web folks. And I keep it very conversational. I announce, I tell them, you know, I thought of you because I'm rolling out this new service. And over the years, I've done this—like, you can say what you've done that's similar, I guess, if you want to add something to like, add some credentials to it. And then really talking about benefits. So this service can help you do X, Y, Z, and then maybe end with: Is this something that can help your business? And just really short, right, because I think it's a hook. We're asking someone to just consider it. And then maybe it's a phone call, maybe a sales call, something later. That's kind of what I've done in the past to roll out a new service.

Wudan- Yeah, you know, selling services is so interesting to me, because there's one analogy I think of, which is, say I make pottery. And so I have mugs, bowls, plates, vases, and I want to sell them to a client. And I'd be like, these are the four things that exist. I can't make you a spoon, right? Like, I can't custom make you, like, a bowl plate or a salad bowl or whatever. These are the four things that exist. But I think the interesting thing about freelancing, and being in a service-based industry, is you can do everything up to when the pottery gets fired, in a way, right? Like, everything is still malleable. But then you can go to the client and be like, well, these are all these things that I do. They're not yet fired. But like, what do you need? And then you can kind of adapt what you already have to fit somebody else's needs. And I think, like, that introductory email, we might get so caught up in it, being like, we have bowls, plates, cups. But really, it's like, "This is what I have done. Are you interested in working with somebody like me? What are your business's current needs? How can we work together?" Right? I's a conversation starter, not a conversation ender.

Ashley- I love that so much. I'm thinking even like a restaurant, right? Restaurant might have certain things in their menu. But all of us, we have different preferences. Wemight have allergies. We might have certain things that we're—you know, maybe if you're Catholic, you're not eating something for Lent. Or if you're Muslim, right? But that doesn't mean just because those items are not on the menu doesn't mean you can't make special requests. "Hey, I want my dressing on the side. Hey, are there nuts in that salad? Oh, what I'd really like is this." And so it's similar to like, you know, a waiter coming in saying to you "What are you feeling like tonight? What would you like to eat? Or here's my recommendations," right? But it is a conversation. You don't have to sell them on everything. Right in the first interaction

Wudan- 100%. Continuing on the skills thread, I'm just curious, have you ever wanted to get in with a certain type of client but realized you had to take some kind of continuing education? How did you find time for learning while still working on all your other client projects?

Ashley- I'm thinking of two things. One, I was editing this weekend entertainment newsletter, and I needed to know Adobe InDesign, and I didn't know it. And so, you know, some people go, and they go on YouTube University, and they teach themselves and that's great, right? For me, I like to optimize, just like you do. So I called—I phoned a friend. I have, you know, my, my graphic designers that I work with for years and years and years. And I call my friend Jones and I said, "Hey, can I pay you for this weekend? Can you just sit with me for a couple hours and teach me. I just need to know how to do this, this and this. I don't need to know how to do everything in Adobe InDesign. I need these relevant things to what I'm offering, what this client needs, what I'm missing and the specific service that I need for this customer." So I've done that, where I'm—literally will pay a friend. I've traded services with friends to learn something that I need pretty quickly. And I don't have time to go to the community college and like do a class. So I've done that before. One of the things—I had an opportunity to do branding, and again, this happened organically with working with a design team on a project where they asked the customer, "Hey, give me your brand's style guide or your like your branding documents," and the clients telling them like, "okay, what's that?" And so the client had no brand. They had been around for years and years and years. And so they're asking me: "Can you help us with our brand identity?" And there's a whole thing with that. And so I thought, okay, I need to learn this. So for that, I read a ton of blogs. I looked at YouTube. I watched webinars. One hack that I've done before is I've Googled marketing or awards programs for different things to find kind of like the best in class examples of things, and then kind of reverse engineered, okay, well, what's so good about this? For example, I did a healthcare marketing project, where I researched—I literally Googled healthcare, best healthcare marketing websites or something. And I've looked at trade associations.

Wudan- Wow.

Ashley- Yeah, different trade associations. I'll go on their resources section on their blogs. Sometimes they'll have replays of webinars. And so I'm like looking at, you know, even older material to kind of school myself quickly.

Wudan- That's amazing. I love this. I mean, I also do everything possible to fast-track myself. Sometimes just throw myself in the deep end. But yeah, the reverse engineering is absolutely brilliant. So Ashley, once you identify different service areas or client bases that you can potentially expand into, how do you actually choose what to focus on?

Ashley- Yeah, yeah, I think from those initial things, I'll develop, usually like a top three. And sometimes there's not that many, right? Like, I'll, I might have a list of a couple things I'm interested in. So I pick the top three, and then I pick one to really focus on at a time. And so for that, I will look at my schedule, and I have—I live and die on my calendar like most of us do. And I'll look and I'll say, "Okay, how much time, realistically, can I dedicate to rolling out this new service and all the associated things that accompany that," right? And I'll usually pick one that it's a natural extension of what I already are pretty good at. And if it is something that I'm—I think I can roll out quickly, I'll go ahead and reach out to potential clients, just to kind of gauge interest. Because if there's no interest, then what's the point of going on YouTube university and doing all the crazy things I just mentioned, right? If they're not even interested. For things that represent, like a steeper learning curve, then I'll actually plug in time and identify how much time can I really put into this and when. For example, when I'm learning something new, I will delete all the social media apps on my phone. Like, I scroll a lot at night, as a mom. Like, after everybody's done, everybody's asleep, all baths are done, a lot of times, I will be scrolling on my phone. And so when I'm trying to learn something, I will delete all my streaming apps. I will delete all my social media. I might leave YouTube on. And in that time that I'm scrolling, then I'll force myself to like, read something nerdy as a way to learn something new. But I think the key is to really start small and scale up as you go.

Wudan- Yes, yeah. Yeah, that is precisely what I offer a lot of coaching clients. It's like, do the thing that you know, you will be able to do.

Ashley- Yeah

Wudan- And if you have the capacity to do more, turn it up.

Ashley- Yes. Love that.

Wudan- So I want to talk about pricing when you're moving into a new client base or service area. And how do you think about pricing them? Because one misconception I think people have is, "oh, if I am not particularly skilled in this new thing, then maybe I should charge less than what I typically would?" In what ways? Is that thinking flawed or not? In your opinion?

Ashley- First of all, you know, I would question why. You know, I'd push back a little bit on that and ask people why, right? Because I think sometimes there's internalized ideas, again, on what we should and shouldn't be doing. And we could talk about that for days and days on end. But I think thinking also what you talk about: Evidence, when you look back at your evidence of your career, of what you've been able to deliver for your clients, really reminding yourself and understanding it's not—usually, you're not like expanding to something way different. For example, if you've never laid out a magazine, and you're offering that okay, yeah, that might be a little bit of a jump. But typically the things that we're talking about are adjacent to what we already do. Connected to what we already do. And so yeah, I don't think it's necessary to do rock bottom pricing, just because you're new-ish at some of this stuff. For pricing, I always phone a friend. That's what I usually try to do even, like I mentioned with my friend Jones with the graphic design, I will send texts to friends and say, Hey, have you done this before? Have you offered this? Or even if you, even if you haven't, do you know someone? Do you have a range for this, just to kind of get a first number. Then do some research. Sometimes you can find public-facing information on market rates, right? And again, taking everything with a grain of salt. I put much more emphasis on the real people that we know, more than I see that I put on like surveys, or certain websites that will have money information, because sometimes they're not always accurate. Then I think about the two things, right? Think about how much time is it going to take for me to offer this, but more importantly, what is the impact to the customer? How are they going to benefit? Right? And just understanding that everything that we do is an investment really in their growth that it's not—shouldn't just be transactional. So yeah, that's kind of where I would start from.

Wudan- Yeah, that's great. And you touched on this value-based pricing. Like, what is our client and their potential customers and their audience getting? You know, like, I think oftentimes, I hear about journalists who wants to diversify into content marketing, and then content marketers or social media managers wanting to diversify into managing content. And like, increasingly, as you go up this—it's not even really a "ladder." It's kind of like a game of Mario Kart, I guess, when you go to different environs, the value of the work that you do changes. Often increases, right? And so that thinking of doing it at a "lower rate" doesn't actually serve anyone. So yeah, I'm with you. I really encourage people to think about value-based pricing.

Ashley- For sure. Yes.

Wudan- So Ashley, to close, I am curious if you have any other marketing strategies to share to let clients know that you're offering new services? I feel like you talked about email, but is there anything else?

Ashley- I've experimented with a lot of different things. I definitely feel like email has been the most fruitful one for me, because you're just going after who you think might be interested. It's—I feel like it's more direct access. But again, I always tell my friends. I always tell my referral partners about what I'm doing. And I think that's really important to get into that habit all the time, because we're always changing. And so if we have a referral partner who still thinks that we're doing, I don't know, blog articles, when we've moved on to ghost writing books, right, we want to keep them informed. So that way, when they are giving us referrals, they make sense, and that no one kind of feels like, "Oh, I didn't even know that you're offering that now." So I think that's just a practice you should do in general. I've done a lot of workshops locally. I know a lot of people do things virtually now. But I've done a lot of talks to my local Chamber of Commerce, and at the public library to drum up business and interest. I've used that as a way to get feedback on things, kind of like a little focus group. I've done some ads. So I've done some targeting ads. I did a social media for nonprofits seminar at a food pantry, or it was hosted by their campus. So I did some ads on LinkedIn. I've done some social media, just general announcements, of course, on my public-facing profiles. And being here, I live in Orlando, so we've got a lot of conventions. So a lot of times you can go to like the expos for free, right? Because all the corporate people, the sponsors want to talk to people. So sometimes you can go for free. So I've networked with people that way as a way to like, meet new people, to test out interest in a new service that I'm thinking about offering. Those are things that I have done the most.

Wudan- Yeah, I love it. All of it is very, almost direct sales.

Ashley- Yeah.

Wudan- Right? Like, going to where the people are. And I think that's really smart. A lot smarter than shouting into the void, which we can all use less of these days.

Ashley- Yes, I agree.

Wudan- Well, Ashley, this has been so tactful and practical and useful. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Ashley- Thank you so much for having me, Wudan. This has been fun.

Wudan- Thank you so much to Ashley for coming on the show. You can follow her on LinkedIn and be sure to check out her podcast Talk Freelance To Me wherever you listen to your shows. If you've been listening to this episode and are eager to learn more about what industries you might want to break into, check out Ashley's Big Money freelance writing guide. She researched and put together 100 places that may very much be so worth your energy to reach out to. The link will be in our show notes. Our Patreon members are already discussing this episode on our psychologically safe and inclusive Slack channel. So join us. You can sign up anytime at patreon.com/twcpod. Thank you so much for listening to The Writers' Co-op. This season is written, hosted and executive produced by me, Wudan Yan. The show's producer is Margaret Osborne and our editor is Susan Valot.