Fractional Vol. 4: A Very Dry January
Feast or famine.
I’d heard it a lot when I started freelancing, and it didn’t really sink in until this past month, which was beyond slow. I knew it was coming, and yet still when it came, the underwork was overwhelming for someone who has, for at least the last five years, overworked almost all of the time. January was hard for me–the finances are lower, the slowdown took a mental health toll, and I wrote all of 10 pages the whole month so that whole “more time to do creative writing” thing fell off–and yet, there are some true silver linings. The month started with a famine and ended in a feast, and in that spirit, I’m switching up the order of the newsletter to talk about the bad before the good. Cue Alan Thicke’s “The Facts of Life” (I’m too young for this reference, and I’m sure you are, too).
What Didn’t Go So Well
Like I said, January was slow, which of course means the finances were a little lower, but also it just wasn’t a very creatively challenging or fulfilling month. In November, I had a client put me on pause as they figured out their product next steps and they were due to come back in January, but it’s been crickets (to be fair, product development feels like it’s like construction–always add on a few extra weeks and at least a few thousand dollars).
By the numbers, I invoiced $12,300 this month, but that includes roughly $3,000 attributed to last month as I reissued an invoice, which puts last month’s billings down to $14,000. Nothing to balk at, but very short of the $17,000 goal I set for myself (and even less if we were to leave that $3,000 in December).
So with billings down and a lot of bandwidth, it feels like the important thing to do right now would be to go hard on new business, right? Well, wrong for me. I’ve been trying to pay attention to my professional goals, personal ambitions, and my well-being. I wrote about this last month, but I’ve been feeling pretty burnt out which didn’t leave me with a ton of space to want to pitch any new business, to get excited about new work, to do cold outreach. When I tried to distill this further (thanks therapy!), it really was the cold outreach that felt so forced to me. When I think about the work I love to do, it’s usually 50 percent about the work and 50 percent about the people I get to work with. The giant unknown of how people collaborate and want to work together, not to mention having to hard sell on my services when they aren’t necessarily so traditional (i.e., not an agency copywriter who has a whole book/portfolio), has ultimately been kind of paralyzing to me.
Add onto all of this that I’m trying to make a go of it with more of the creative writing side of things. Together, this all has me thinking: maybe this isn’t the year to really grow my business. Maybe it’s more about sustaining a good business and resetting goals, and making sure I have time for all the life goals I have outside of the brand/content/copy side of things including getting represented for my writing and writing two more pilots and a feature this year.
That’s where I’ve landed. I’m putting a hold on doing cold outreach, and I’m giving myself the year to sustain my business, to focus on clients I already have and doing an absolutely amazing job for them, and to take new business that comes in via referral only. I love reconnecting with old colleagues or when friends refer me work; those are the ways I want to enter into a collaboration, not by sliding into someone’s LinkedIn DMs. At least not for 2024.
As such, I’m resetting my financial goals to be less growth-oriented and more about just building a sound business. If you remember from newsletter number 1, I had set the goal of $17,000 a month in line with a salary expectation I’d have of $200,000/year if I was taking a full-time role. I’m recalibrating that now to $12,500 a month or $150,000/year to line up with expectations and also lower costs (shoutout to getting on my partner’s health insurance).
What does that all mean for this newsletter? To be honest, if you had asked me mid-January, I would have told you that I’m sunsetting this whole thing after this volume. I had initially started this to shed light on what it’s like to go fractional, what I’ve been thinking about, and some of the bumps in the road along the way as I grow my business. If I’m less interested in growth, maybe you’re less interested in reading? And then, things started to look up towards the end of January, so I think there’s still reason yet to keep this party going. You tell me.
What Went Well
For a while, not much was going well and then the last week of January happened.
In the last few days of January (and the first day of February just to be totally honest about it), I reconnected with some old colleagues who reached out about work opportunities. One has already landed in a retainer and the other two I’m very hopeful about. This will put me well above my goals for monthly revenue, and still leave me working under a 40-hour work week if all turns out well. It will also potentially mean I’m at capacity, in which case I’ll be referring other great brand/copy/content people I know some work or even mentoring someone as part of my team. Exciting!
This one might fall under the ‘what went neutral’ category, but while I was shopping at a local store in my neighborhood, I got to talking to the business owner and she confided that she needed some help, mainly on the tech side but also with conversion optimization, marketing, and the like. John (my partner, a full stack engineer) and I pulled together a proposal, and he’s cracked into some of the work with that team, with potentially work with me to follow. Even if that doesn’t net out as anything for my own portfolio and pocket, I’m happy that we can help support a local business that we genuinely enjoy going to.
While I’m pleased with how the turn of events has gone at the tail end of January and I’m feeling a lot less money anxious, what’s even more exciting to me is:
All of these opportunities came from past colleagues across three different jobs. The lesson here is always: just be great to work with. Be kind, be attentive, do a great job, and genuinely care about people. I’ve been reflecting on some recent and distant work experiences and how often I felt just like a transactional factor, and I strive to never make anyone feel that way. I hope that rings true for those of you who have worked with me.
These opportunities are in different sectors of the market! I’m frankly a little fatigued with traditional tech SaaS. So now I have (and hopefully will have) a range of clients from edutech to entertainment, finance, CPG, and wellness. While there’s nothing wrong with trying to stay in one sector, and indeed probably a lot to gain from specializing as such, flexing in and out of different markets keeps me sharp, and I think makes me more strategic across the board. For instance, what happens in D2C often trickles over into B2B marketing trends, so it’s helpful to see the brand and content world from many sides.
I’m still working less than I worked when I was full-time, so there’s time to write. And in fact, what was made very clear to me is that I need to feel more fulfilled in my day-to-day work to feel like I can write in my spare time. Being in the doldrums for a month was uninspiring. I’ve got some pep back in my step, and I’m ready to get back into my latest script.
On the Planning Side…
My S-Corp is official! She’s even got an EIN, and a bank account, and she’s already started collecting invoices. The process was not the easiest, to be honest. There was an afternoon when I called my accountant five times in 20 minutes because the order of operations had never really been clear to me. My only remaining to-do is to set up my payroll service, which I just need to do by the end of the quarter. As mentioned in a previous newsletter, I’ll be taking a low salary, but can take distributions from my business account to my personal whenever I need them, provided there’s money in the coffers of course.
There’s really nothing else to report from the planning side of things! As mentioned above, the new business is taking a backseat, both because I don’t have the bandwidth now and because it’s not a priority for the year. I feel very fortunate that I don’t need to worry about that.
What’s Keeping Me Up At Night
So very many things, but let’s keep this professional and not political, right?
Right now, when I have one new client on board and a few more on the way, it’s so important to me to set those retainer arrangements off on the right foot and overdeliver. I like to think I overdeliver across the whole engagement, but particularly at the start, I like to show my level of investment, care, attention, and strategy some exponential amount higher, so that it’s really clear to the client we’re all in this together. This might mean some overwork for February, but after a slow January, I don’t even mind.
Ask My Accountant
Last edition, I mentioned having lots of conversations with my accountant, also known as my dad, and opened it up for questions if anyone has some… and lo and behold, exactly one of you did.
Question: Can I change my LLC into an S-Corp?
After reading about my decision to start an S-Corp, my friend felt it might be beneficial for her as well, but she’d already established an LLC. My accountant says–have no fear! This is possible. The rules just vary state by state, so it’s best to find a local accountant to help you with how to do it, or at least to look up the laws based on your state. She lives in New York, my accountant is based in California, so we couldn’t be specifically helpful to her case.
And Lastly…
Last month, I shared a few recommendations of things I recently enjoyed and that seemed to go over well. So let’s make it a new tradition, shall we?
In a tough month from a mood perspective, the thing that made me the happiest (aside from time with people I love) is the new season of Love on the Spectrum. It’s just so pure, so heartfelt, and so relatable.
Enough love, more murder. The Decagon House Murders and The Mill House Murders were fun Agatha Christie-esque mystery jaunts for the readers among us!
This chicken parm recipe. It is incredibly time-consuming, so it is very annoying that it tastes so damn good.
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