Meadhbh Hand, a self-employed copywriter and content writer, shares insights on the value of community, the impact of the pandemic on her business, and the benefits of being adaptable and open to new opportunities.
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In this episode, Meadhbh Hand, a self-employed copywriter and content writer, shares her inspiring journey from obtaining a PhD in poetry to becoming a successful freelancer. The conversation explores the challenges she faced during periods of unemployment, the pivotal decision to pursue her doctorate, and her eventual transition to self-employment. Meadhbh emphasizes the significance of finding alternative paths and the value of community support in navigating these changes. Her story highlights how adaptability and openness to new opportunities have been crucial to her success, particularly in the face of the pandemic's impact on her business.
Meadhbh's insights underline the importance of community and networking in the growth and sustainability of a self-employed business. She discusses how the connections she has built have been instrumental in her career development. The episode sheds light on the power of storytelling, the emotional impact of video marketing, and the influence of mentors. Meadhbh also reflects on lessons learned from her journey, offering valuable advice for those considering a similar path. Her experiences serve as a testament to the resilience required to thrive in self-employment, demonstrating that with the right mindset and support system, it's possible to turn challenges into opportunities for growth and success.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00 Challenges of Unemployment and Overcoming Failure
10:17 The Transition to Self-Employment and Finding Alternative Paths
35:54 Adaptability and Openness to New Opportunities
Transcript:
I think the kind of biggest sort of neon lights failure was after I finished my pH.
DI was applying for jobs and I was just being told, oh, you're overqualified or I was coming second for jobs.
I would get interviews and come second.
So that was a failure.
I was officially unemployed for I think 1812 years, going into the longterm unemployment as it would have been called.
And the part of that was timing because it was after the crash and all that.
It was just, you know, repeating the same thing, keep applying for jobs, keep applying for jobs.
And that was the failure that just made me go back.
I keep doing this like it's killing me, hey.
Everyone, welcome to another episode of Key Moments.
On today's show, we have a special guest who is a human to human copywriter for B2B.
A content writer and content designer, she's on a mission to make the mundane memorable.
With a PhD in poetry, she knows how to make.
Language sync, helping her customers engage with their audiences by creating content they want to click, read and share their creator journey started just around the time she started her pH.
D, and she hadn't looked back since.
She's not helping.
Agencies, coaches and consultants express their thoughts more powerfully from right through all the way to technology and higher education and everything in between may have welcomed the key moments.
Thank you very much, Kareem.
So maybe take us back.
Like, how did you even come up with the idea to do a pH.
D In poetry, of all things I know.
Um, well, I think I as a kid I always loved reading.
Like I I one of my earliest, well, not my earliest memory, but an early memory is of the first time I read a book from start to finish by myself.
And it was The Little Red Hen and I just yeah, I loved, learn, loved reading, couldn't get enough books.
But I actually came to like doing an arts degree quite relatively late in life.
I did it as a mature student.
Then I started working, and when I was working, when I finished my arts degree, I did a Master's in American Poetry, then worked for a couple of years because I was like, I want to earn some money and have a normal life again.
But I had this idea in my head for some research I wanted to do.
I was really interested in one particular poet and uh, after a couple of years, I I just couldn't ignore that little nagging voice in the back of my head going come on, come back, come back to the books.
So, yeah.
So I decided I would say like the bullish and do a PhD and.
Well, what was the what was the the focus of it?
The focus was on Asian American poetry, contemporary Asian American poetry.
So there was, I looked at three different poets through kind of five themes that they explored through their work.
So yeah, I probably couldn't even Remember Remember the five themes now, because it's been.
But yeah, I just, I just loved kind of looking at language and looking at how people use words and why they decide to use some words rather than others, and also how and other poets influence our work.
So yeah, that's that's a nerdy side over.
And I'm sure we're going to dig into like how how are you kind of like around that time how you also make the the transition to to becoming obviously selfemployed and and have been for for several years, but maybe take us back, look I want to, I want to know like.
I want you to take us back to the very, very start.
So maybe tell us about your early childhood and how that kind of love to your early career, how all that kind of unfolded to where you are today.
Okay, it was my birthday and one day, so this is like too much reflection on the past.
So happy birthday.
No, thanks.
So I was in the middle of five children, obviously, not straight away, but but being an Irish family in the 70s and 80s, yeah, five children in relatively quick succession.
And so I was in the middle and and we were, we were a family of kind of readers like nerds that way.
I can remember sitting on my dad's lap and he was, you know, helping me learn to read by reading headlines from the newspaper.
And so there was always that, you know, the power of the written word was kind of big in our house and then you know, obviously normal enough school years and and when I finished school I did kind of a two year course in journalism and print journalism, specifically media management.
But when I finished I just wanted to save money and do do that sort of rite of passage thing of going to Australia for a year on a working holiday visa.
Though actually my first job out of college was in an estate agent's why should those putting those ads into like grids on?
I think it was Quark Express.
I don't know if anyone remembers Quark Express that even still around.
So it was like desktop publishing making the skies blue because somehow that instantly sells a house.
So that was in the late 90s and I went to Australia.
I was there for the Millennium and one of the first countries in the world to see why 2K come in and have absolutely no effect.
Yeah, so when while I was there, I kind of made the decision that I wanted to go back to college and do an arts degree, study English.
So, um, yeah.
I don't know if that that's a fast enough tour of the first hassle of my life, I guess.
Yeah, it made sense.
And walk walk us through.
So what happened after that?
So after that I came back and I had a big credit card bill that I even though I had worked for six months in Sydney and then traveled for six months, but the six months of traveling had eating a big hole in my savings and pushed my credit card to the Max.
So I came back, got a job, it was kind of Celtic Tiger years.
So you know, I attempt for a few weeks and then I got a permanent job pretty much straight away in a bank and doing sales support.
And you know it was very admin based job.
And while I was there I decided yeah I'll do apply to college as a mature student got offered a place.
When I told them in the bank they convinced me to stay part time.
So I had this very kind of weird double life for a while where I was in a language lab speaking old English for an hour and then going in and working on Excel spreadsheet and loan agreements for the rest of the day.
And it was like this really weird mixture.
But yeah, I like varieties.
It was good.
That's one hell of a variety mix for sure.
And I suppose around that time was at the time when you started to think about how you could maybe start making a lot of assumptions here.
But now you could start to find things that are a lot more aligned with your interests and kind of take matters into your own hands.
You know, it's funny.
I was thinking about this before we got on this call and it's like there's been so many times in my life where I could have gone down the right route and I just veered away from us.
Like, you know, the journalism course.
Most of my class went straight either straight into jobs or freelancing for for newspapers here.
And all of these moments where I could have gone straight into writing.
But I guess I was either scared or I didn't think you could make a living from us.
So I just kept running away from us and picking different options.
And after I finished, I did a I did a year study in the States as part that was like a student exchange in Berkeley, in California.
And while I was there, I was working in the communications office for the university part time.
You know, I was always around kind of communications, but I was always kind of, you know, almost shrinking away from us.
Maybe I'm just sort of slow to take the hints that the universe is sending my way, but yeah, I always seemed to move away from it.
So then once I finished my masters and I was working project management kind of role in a an NGO and part of my job was writing training materials for young people and I could never kind of understand why other people were just like, oh hey, writing this stuff.
I was like, this is the best bit of the job, you know, It was the part that came was easily transferring you know, complicated information into a sort of digestible format for 12 to 18 year olds.
I really enjoyed that.
And and I think I just, there were so many moments in my life where, you know, it was like you should be writing, you should be writing.
And I was just going maybe but not yet, maybe even not yet.
So yeah, it's.
Like the universe was like begging you to write.
Yeah.
And even once I started, once I started working as a copyrighter, I didn't think of myself as a writer.
I was just like, you know, kind of finally was like, Oh my God, I'm actually getting paid to write, you know?
It just took a while for the penny to I guess.
Yeah, I can, I can.
I can imagine it's interesting cuz like, it's super cliche to say this, but like it's never, it's never gonna feel like the right time to do something.
And then sometimes when you're already like, well into something, you realize it has been the right time and.
And now you almost like, look at others who are trying to follow into your footsteps and you can recognize that pattern where they're like, oh, you don't know, I'm interested to do something similar, but she's not the right time for me yet.
You know, I need to make sure X or Y or Z is ready before I make that leak, when in fact it's it's kind of like yeah, wanting to jump into like a pool and trying to figure out like when is the right time and the water temperature would be perfect and.
Now I try and tell myself, like, you know what, the longer you wait the colder it's gonna get that leave.
Like mentally because you're you've been over thinking that this this whole time exactly also like I mean I think a lot of the stuff I was picking up a lot of really useful skills at the same time.
So maybe, you know maybe the timing happen, it happens when it's the timing is right.
You know so I was picking up kind of data meet, you know managing meetings are dealing with suppliers, all of that kind of stuff that you get to do as an employee and and and working with various stakeholders and and learning all of those skills and which are skills that stand to you when you have your own business afterwards.
So I guess it's not, you know it wasn't years of wasted effort or nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think it's all kind of led to this, to this moment.
And Speaking of moments, I think you're being a segue for us to talk about one failure that.
You've had like earlier on that kind of like shaped the way that you you you see things like moving, moving forward.
Since then.
Hard, hard to think of just one.
There's been many.
But I think, I think the kind of biggest sort of neon lights failure was after I finished my PhD and I was applying for jobs and I was just being told, oh, you're overqualified or I was coming second for jobs.
I would get interviews and come second and yeah, so that was a failure.
I was like officially unemployed for I think 18 months, two years, like going into the long term.
Unemployment as it would have been called.
And the part of that was timing because it was after the crash and all of that.
But it was also just, yeah, it was just, you know, repeating the same thing, keep applying for jobs, keep applying for jobs.
And that was the failure that just made me go, I can't keep doing this.
Like, it's killing me.
And So what came out of that was I emailed a bunch of friends that I trusted and said look, what can I do to support myself.
I can't, can't keep applying for jobs and not getting them and and actually blindly see them.
So they couldn't reply all and influence the answers, you know, very scientific researcher.
And then so they, several of them came back and said you should write.
And one of them was a web designer.
And she was like, you know, you should be a copywriter.
And I was just like, you know, really, could I watch, Could I make a living much?
And I thought about it and kind of did a little bit of more research because I love doing research.
But that was when I kind of was like, OK, this is another way.
There's another way of doing this.
And yeah, it took a while.
But yeah, and that was kind of the big failure and the big kind of realization, I guess.
Yeah.
Well, it seems like you've clearly kind of, yeah, it almost, I think you said it perfectly there.
Like, it's almost like a realization that that this is something that that happened, but it kind of was was the nudge that you needed or perhaps that you're on the path to obviously doing what it is that you do now.
Really.
Yeah.
The nudge or the kick up, Yes.
I mean, no, it's interesting because like that's.
I I could definitely relate like when I was so I'm I'm from from Egypt I've recently gotten my my Irish citizenship as well so so Ireland it's definitely like my my second home but like in terms of in terms of like when I first got here and I finished college I had to like just grab on to like whatever job will take me because if not I get I have to go back and because my visa wouldn't be like valid and so on so.
I remember like that first job that I had, it wasn't in what I studied.
I had nothing to do with what I started, which is like marketing basically.
And normally, you know, I guess I can, I can speak a little bit for this mindset of like, hey, like don't rock the boat, you know, like just just keep the freaking job.
Like don't you know?
And now is not the time to think of like, you know, your your your dreams or anything like that.
But unfortunately, I was very stubborn and I just decided, you know what?
Like, there's got to be like another.
Another way to like get closer to like what it is that I actually want to do and and still get to keep my visa and keep my status.
So I mean that that that need to kind of just doing like side side projects like outside of work after after hours in in this like marketing realm that I was very interested in and that allowed me to build up my skills such that when I applied to other jobs they're like okay.
Well, tell us about your marketing experience.
I actually had like something to show or a little bit at least, because previously it was like, oh, tell us about your marketing experiences.
And I had none because my current job did not allow me to build any marketing skills per se.
So I could definitely relate to that.
So I guess moving on, like what's 1 maybe around the same time or a little bit after after you've actually made that move, what was one book given that you are a researcher and that you have completed?
A PhD just for fun.
I'm just wondering, of all the material that you've read, surely there is one book that has locked in it.
Yeah, I think the book that I read around that time that really helped me was so good.
They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport.
I mean, Cal Newport's always worth reading, but this particular book was arguing against the kind of, while your passion go for your dreams kind of mindset when it came to careers and jobs.
And given that I had followed my passion and spent for really miserable years doing a PhD, it was like, oh thank God, I don't have to look for a new passion.
And it's more about having a craftsmanship mindset and developing your skills strongly in one particular area, which for me was writing, and I had already spent years and years developing those by, you know, writing a PhD and writing various other things for people.
And so yeah, that was a book that really left a lasting impression on me and I found really helpful at the time.
Yeah, that that's an awesome book I have.
I think I read it about like two months ago or something like that and to your point like the the whole like Craftsman mindset shift was was really, really good at.
So I think it based just building on what you said.
I think the point that he was trying to make is that.
You don't.
It's not so much about do what you love as opposed to it being just sticking to to something that you are good at.
And because you're good at it over time you end up loving it because because you don't suck at it.
So that the calls for you to think of it as something that you like.
And it was just a very interesting, obviously the book goes like a lot deeper than that.
But did did you, did you have any kind of like Hollywood moment for you?
You read the book, you put it down.
You're like, exactly what I need to do.
Yeah, I'm not sure if it was quite like that, but I think there was probably a lot of vigorous nodding as I read.
And I think it was just like, because, you know, people do Phd's generally to either go into some specialist industry or to go into academia.
And I kind of realized in the second year of my PhD, I do not want to be in academia.
I want to get out of here.
But I didn't want to quit my PhD.
I wanted to finish it, so that was quite.
Could if you do like an M Phil or something like that, yeah.
Well, I had already done a master's and yeah, I guess I could have gone on and done a postdoc or something.
But like, there were no jobs, really, no full time jobs, and I didn't really want to emigrate.
And, you know, I was just kind of like, I could even use a little bit to stay it.
Not stale, but, you know, it just, it just didn't really suit my personality, I guess.
Yeah, yeah.
So I think what when I finished it and I, you know, I just done this big thing and it was kind of like, oh God, what next?
I need to come up with some new big plan and some new passion to lead me.
So when I read that book and it was like, no, you don't need to have a passion.
You just need to have a skill and you just need to get really good.
It was just okay that I can do, you know, I don't have to come up with a a big master plan.
I just have to focus on what what I'm good at, which according to the friends I had emailed and other people, was writing.
Yeah.
Makes makes sense.
Makes sense.
Now, I saw on your profile that you were pretty much running your own shop for at least six years.
Is that is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think it's Rent 2015.
Yeah.
Yeah, eight years, yeah.
Okay.
It's fair to say though that you know cuz you don't have a team with you, right?
No, no, right.
And so during that time, I'm thinking like someone someone was listening to us is probably thinking of making a similar jump.
Maybe something that comes to mind is, hey, well, this can get pretty lonely.
Yeah.
Who was one person that you felt was helping to enable that for you, or at least had some form of an impact on you while you were doing that?
And I think in some ways it's not so much one person, but it's like connecting with other people who are doing the same thing.
So I joined a group for copywriters called Pro Copywriters and started going to their annual conference and their online webinars and talking to other copywriters who were either freelance or in house.
And just having that community around me is really helpful because they're at different stages.
So there's always someone going no, do not price per word or do not price per hour.
You know, who's like, you know, might stop you from making mistakes that you would have otherwise.
And also there's this great phrase from John Younger.
I don't know if you know him, he writes or Forbes about freelancing, but he has his great phrase hunt and packs.
So it's like for freelancers you need to hunt and packs because you can get at work that you wouldn't otherwise.
So that means I can connect up with the designer or a brand strategist or another copywriter, and I got work through other copywriters.
So it's about not seeing your competitors as competitors, their colleagues and they can actually help you to to get interesting work.
As colleagues, yeah.
And.
And that was that group like that have any kind of like local presence or was it predominant?
No, it it's predominantly UK based, but they're and but they now have members all over the world.
So I mean I've been in a lot of networking groups that were like real life meet ups and actually in the first couple of years of my business, I just, I went to everything.
I used to like have this in joke with my friends that it was #networking slush and and you know, people be like, oh, do you want to do this on Thursday night?
And I'd be like counts #networking slush.
But it's like I was always going things.
It was like, oh, someone's opening an envelope somewhere.
I better go to that.
I might get business.
And there was like 0 tragedy to us and I did it to the point of near burn out.
And then I was just like I need to to think about, you know, what rooms I'm going into and who's in those rooms and just be a bit more discerning so I can a have a social life again and be you know, get actual business that I want.
Yeah, and then you don't make like you're actually reminding me of something that I listen to now, you know podcast episode recent.
I can't forget the I got remembering the the podcast.
The podcast itself unfortunately, but they were talking about how sometimes like with you given given your set of interests, chances are like what are the chances that you have been a neighbor or someone who's like in physical proximity who shares the exact same interests.
And so obviously that's the whole appeal of like online communities because you can really find the community that please that that that adds value to to you and you add value to them kind of thing and.
I was just wondering like for people who are listening, like how would you compare it to having like a physical support communities if that if that makes sense?
Do you mean like a real life community, like in person or?
Yeah.
Do you feel like the lines basically get blurred and you don't necessarily, You kind of like you no longer mind that maybe some of these people you've never really met In case you're still getting the same kind of level of value, I think.
I think there is like this splash in my business and the pre Pandemic and the post pandemic and pre pandemic.
All of my clients were in Ireland, maybe one that I did a little bit of work for a copywriter in the UK.
But all my clients are here.
All of my networking was in person and all of my business I would meet the person face to face before they became a client, like every time with that exception, which meant that I had a lot of face face meetings that didn't convert.
You know, because every, you know you're not going to convert to everyone post Pandemic.
You know, I started networking online during the pandemic, I networked into Europe.
There's a freelance business community group in Europe and through that I got a client in Belgium, and through that client in Belgium, I got another two clients in Belgium.
I got a client in Germany.
You know, whereas before it never would have occurred to me that I could be an exporter, but now I'm an exporter and most of what most of my clients, my income from last year was coming from outside Ireland.
You know, and most of my networking is virtual and and a lot of my clients I had never met face to face, maybe online, maybe over zoom, but like you know it was just complete game changer.
So I'm sure there's a lot of other businesses that have kind of similar experience.
Yeah.
Oh, I mean to be honest with you it's it's the exact same for us at a drop cast like with you know we we would have like.
At the time of this recording, we like I think the US would probably be like our biggest market and I personally haven't been to the US more than two weeks and that wasn't even for my current company, that was for my for my previous like employer like I had to do like a training but like we haven't met any of these people face to face and we would we would love to.
But I think the other dimension of it is that is that at least like right now I work in sales and I I.
And I'm an introvert.
But somehow that all kind of like, goes away when it comes to somebody virtually Like, I feel like we can connect on like a deep enough level, like significant enough level to like build rapport and generally understand like what they're going through and whether there is a natural fit between what they're doing and what we're doing kind of thing.
Whereas like, you know what I mean?
Like my default mode would be like a bit more.
Yeah, a a lot more like introverted, basically.
It would take me a lot longer to like build those relationships maybe because like the the, the context of like having virtual calls and stuff.
You kind of tend to, like, get to the get to the point or get to the need of something like I'm terrible with, you know what I mean, like small talk and stuff.
But but if we're actually talking about something this is very comforting for me because we're we have something to talk about as opposed to like talking about you know the weather for like.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean I hear you I'm an introvert too or I think I'm maybe moving to ambivert.
I don't know I don't know about your name but that's an introvert.
And yeah I think but I think like because I hate doing sales.
I mean I'm just going to have to sell myself all the time.
But I think once you're doing it you have more of a have more of an aim than if you're just I don't know you have a focus for your conversation And so that kind of helps and and I'm sure you're you're sales conversations are from the point of how you can help rather than just buy job counts to subscribe.
Yeah, that fine now.
Yeah.
Yeah, 50% discount only today.
Yeah.
No, it makes sense for sure.
And I guess maybe shifting gears a little bit, what was one decision that you've made during your time as a self-employed business owner, yeah, that you were particularly proud of?
And then I think the decision to to kind of go all into, like it's the first while I was, you know, doing the copywriting, but I was still getting all the job alerts and still writing the cover letters and applying for the jobs and hoping for, you know, some sort of job in shining armor to come along and rescue me.
But I think the decision, yeah, exactly.
With the monthly salary and benefits, I think the decision to just go, you know, this is my path.
And actually this is going to be more rewarding to me probably in the long term than than a job would because every, you know, every job I'd had up to now, there would come a point where I would kind of I guess it's that mastery thing.
You master the job in the role and then you start to get kind of bored and you get that that niggling feeling like okay.
I need to start making things more interesting again.
So you need to do something crazy like.
So yeah, so I think that I think what I enjoy about this is that there's always more I can learn.
There's always more I can do.
I can change what Ioffer to people, I can change the people I work with.
I can learn these calls and it's all up to me.
So yeah, that decision to stop applying for jobs and go all in, that was the kind of big moment for me.
Yeah, I love that so much, and it kind of reminds me of.
This other podcast that I was listening to recently and they were actually was, it was the Joe Rogan podcast with with Naval Ravi Kant.
And I was listening to another podcast for the founder of Design and Joy which is a design design based company and they were referencing the Joe Rogan podcast with what Naval Robbicant was saying.
He was basically talking about the gig economy and how in the future.
This whole thing of like a full time employee for one company like that old onset's going to go away.
You're most likely going to be a consultant or a specialist that is good at ex skill.
And currently you are consulting with these, the Boeing 6 companies and each one of them is happy to pay top dollar for like your for for your services because if they were to bring you on full time they wouldn't like you'll probably spend 80% of your time like in like.
Meetings and like that.
Like no way.
You know in hindsight like they would, they would not actually get a ton of value from as opposed to like let's say the 20% which really is adding the most value.
And similarly, you know, you know the person would have otherwise been a full time employee.
Like they're they're no longer going to be thinking, you know what, I'm bored here.
Yeah, I want to switch career.
I want to switch companies or whatever.
So I just thought like that's really interesting.
It's kind of.
Related to what you're talking about around how you you you get to call the shots you're no longer like in front like one one company one style of work.
And and I think, yeah, I think like we're we're in a very interesting time cuz you're probably leading the way for a lot of folks who are starting to not think of doing something in that, in that like following these footsteps.
Yeah.
And I think, I think that's what I enjoy is when I get work, like I'll get, you know, a couple of days work or project work.
You know, like I was helping someone with coming up with names for organizations recently.
And that for me was just like why I was so much fun.
Like something really creative almost call a call back to to the poetry stuff because you're trying to find one or two words that will encapsulate this whole brand identity whereas I had been more used to writing longer stuff.
You know it's just that switching gear all the time and and switching from because for me I haven't you know in spite of Connie port saying so good they can't ignore you and like almost like niche suggesting meeting I haven't really niche so like I could be doing something about you know I don't know financial stuff did something about cybersecurity and then I'm on to naming a nonprofit you know so that for me it's just like I'm never I'm never bored.
It's like you don't have to eat the same thing every night.
You ignored it from different takeaways.
You can pull that in a different recipe book.
You just have a world of choice.
So why would you keep eating beans on toast every night?
Totally.
Beans on toast are nice though.
Yeah, they are great.
But I think there's a lot of you just show something interesting cuz I'm talking to my Co founder about this a lot where it's like how do you even define?
A niche, typically it's like, oh, you're always working in this industry.
That's a very lazy way of thinking of me.
Or that's a very primitive way of thinking of.
I think there's so many different ways to to position yourself as you know, the go to person for for X use case or X again could be industry, but it could also be like a mix of other things or could just be the type of work or the style of how you approach certain things.
And many times it could be industry agnostic.
I'm speaking from experience because like we've had a ton of you know challenges trying to figure out like how do we exactly niche down and we realize you know what we don't necessarily because like what we do is more on like content repurposing in general.
And so we figured rather than focus on any particular industry, we can focus on like our methodology and focus on trying to become experts at creating engaging content regardless of.
The, the, the subject matter that's being talked about and so we're always like talking when whenever we're talking to you know people who are considering to work with us, we always say look like we don't claim to be experts in any particular industry that's that's your job.
What we do is we focus on trying to just to express that in as engaging way as possible and as far as like short form video is concerned and so on.
So, So yeah, I I I think you don't.
It's interesting how you're how you're thinking about the fact that you're not really niche down yet, but I don't think, I don't think you you maybe need to be and maybe you are niche.
You're just niche.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, I think like as well when I, you know it was just say 2020, I did this business course and you had to like submit a business plan as part of it.
So 20/20 was the first year after maybe five years of business that I actually submitted a business plan in February, January, February 2020.
And obviously by the end of March, that business plan was no longer relevant because pandemic had happened and everything had shut down.
And I could see the people who had niche in particular areas were either doing really, really well because they were maybe Health Communications or they were doing terribly because they were like, you know, travel copywriters or whatever, you know, So some some niche niches worked out really well at that point and others didn't.
But because I hadn't niche I could kind of go into, well, I can write about this.
So it's kind of like the middle ground I guess.
And you know, there's a there are pros and cons of niches and maybe my niche is more that I'm going, I'm business to business mostly working with brand strategists and designers and so, yeah.
Yeah, and I'll give you one more that I think you'll you'll really.
That I hope you like.
You kind of remind me of like music producers as well.
So like someone like Rick Rubin for example.
You know like like they wouldn't necessarily say oh you know I'm rock music producer that's all I do It's like no, I'm my niches.
I'm my niches.
I am Rick Rubin or I am the the the personal brand basically that that that people and and kind of like access and work with them so.
It's not like necessarily confined to any particular industry, even though we both agree that that has its benefits.
I think it almost becomes like a signature.
It's like a signature style of work, right?
Or like an artist or a music producer or something like that.
So it's not necessarily, yeah, I think I'll take that.
A recruitment of copyrighting.
Yeah, yeah.
And you don't even have to.
Or the Steven Spielberg or.
Yeah, the not, not necessarily one genre.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Brilliant every time.
So I or the Tarantino.
We need to think of some women, though, because this is like the feminist in me is going, hang on a second.
Oh, sorry, I I haven't had pop yet.
My own I can't like.
So I'm super conscious of time.
So I did have one final moment to ask you about and that is.
An accomplishment or learning now that you're and maybe something recent, like something recently that you've realized or that you've recently accomplished that maybe didn't mean that much to others, but to you it was definitely something different.
I think the kind of learning I have just from throughout my life is there's always another way, there's always another way.
So it's like, you know, you think you're going to go one particular path, you get to the end and you think it's a dead end.
But actually, you know, you can climb over the wall or you can turn around and double back.
And so it's not, it's not tied to any particular moments.
It's tied to lots of time.
So like when when the pandemic happened and it was like, Oh my God, you know, all my Irish clients are pulling their budgets and are they're afraid to spend money.
And then it was like, oh, look, there's this online event from this group and Belgium, Well, just hook up with them.
And through that I got, you know, six months of of part time work as a copywriter in the huge organization who I'm still working with.
And, you know, so that there's just always another way.
It's just a matter of testing out things and finding that other way.
Which way is the right way for you?
Yeah, I love that.
It reminds me of the research that was done on The Signs of Hope and it talks about like one of the key pillars of it is like.
People, the people who are successful are the people who don't necessarily get overly committed to like plan A or B or C They they're willing to go from like Plan A-Z and then Plan A, A A/B.
Just they're going to figure it out.
And in a in a weird way that that improves your likelihood of success because they're not emotionally attached to any one particular plan or ideal way to get there.
Yeah.
And I think it means you then can kind of see the opportunities like the reason I was thinking a little Europe was also because Brexit was happening and I knew it's it's much easier for a European client to work with an Irish client because there's the vast whenever it's called reverse charging, you know and and you're working the same currency and they all mark it in English 1st and or Muslims seem to and so there's that and I can't remember what my point was but anyway.
That like this you thought that it would have been not having a plan.
That was it.
So, yeah.
So it's like, yeah, So, you know, when I was forced to write a business plan was when I first started my business and I was applying for government support, and then when I was doing that course in 2020.
But I haven't had a business plan since.
And okay, there's this expression about writers that you're either the kind of writer who plots it all out, so you're a plotter or you're the kind of writer who flies by the seat of your pants and you're a pantser.
So I am definitely, when it comes to business, I'm not a plotter.
I'm a Panther.
And it's mostly worked out fine.
I think sometimes you can be kind of enslaved to your plan and think, no, this is, this is the business plan and that's what I've, you know, printed out for the start of the year, which can make you either blinkered and and not to see the other opportunities or not to see the threats.
So I think, yeah, in defense of people who don't have business plans with me.
I love that.
I love that.
So we're coming up to time even.
I was wondering.
Whether there's anything that you wanted to share with the community and also where people can can find you.
Yeah.
So yeah, I'm not.
I'm not like I'm a content writer who doesn't have a lead magma, so I'm afraid of blog here.
But you can find me on LinkedIn, hand and H and from other H for hand.
Or you can find me on my website copywritingbyhand.com.
And I yeah, I'd love to connect with other freelancers or brand strategists or designers or just people who want to connect for book recommendations and podcast recommendations.
Amazing.
All right.
Well, maybe I know we can talk for hours.
I was literally like for every like 5-6 thoughts I was getting, I was trying to, like, suppress them and just take one because I know your time is very valuable.
So, yeah, thank you so much for joining today.
And folks, thank you for tuning in and we will see you on the next episode.