Truths That Will Transform Your Freelance Business in 2024

Ready to reflect and recharge for 2024?

In this end-of-year recap episode of The Talk Freelance To Me Podcast, host Ashley Cisneros Mejia shares key lessons she's learned from nearly a year of producing the show.

You'll discover the two major truths that have emerged for Ashley around taking action and stopping comparisons. Plus, get insights into how AI tools like Otter.ai have helped her workflow.

Ashley also recaps impactful takeaways from influential early guests like Laura Figueroa Hernandez, Lola Bovell, Lindsay Diven and Marielou Mandl. 

This reflective episode is sure to inspire and equip you to start 2024 off right. Listen now to reflect on your own wins and look ahead with renewed focus and motivation!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Two key truths Ashley has learned from creating her podcast for almost a year
•  How AI tools like Otter.ai and ChatGPT can help streamline your workflow
• Tips for fact checking your content from early guest Laura Figueroa
• The importance of focusing on your "one big thing" each day from Lola Bovell
• Ways to make the client experience easy from Lindsay Diven’s perspective
• How to streamline your creative workflow like Marielou Mandel
• Exciting plans for a new season of the Talk Freelance to Me Podcast

About Ashley and Talk Freelance To Me

Talk Freelance to Me™ is a multimedia company that helps women writers monetize their gifts to live life on their own terms. Led by 20-year freelance writer, journalist, and entrepreneur Ashley Cisneros Mejia, the company achieves this through the Talk Freelance To Me™ Podcast featuring interviews with freelance writers and freelance creatives, online programs like the Freelance Success S.Y.S.T.E.M.™ Course, and other digital products.

Full show notes here.

Transcript

Ashley Mejia: 0:08

Hello, and welcome everyone to another episode of the talk freelance to me podcast, the show dedicated to empowering women, freelancers everywhere. I'm your host, Ashley stand with me here. And today, it's just me, we're having a special solo episode to do our end of the year review, we're going to reflect a little bit on the incredible journey that we've shared so far since launching this podcast in March 2023, discuss some key reflections and share exciting plans for the future. First, I just want to say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who's listened to a single episode of this podcast, to anyone who's engaged with our social media, giving us feedback, suggestions for the podcast, all of our incredible guests. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for making this podcast possible. If you haven't already done so please join us on social media, where everywhere you love to hang out, including Instagram and Facebook threads, even acts, don't hesitate to email me if you have ideas for the show questions. If there's a topic that you would love for me to dig into in the new season, let me know you can reach me at Ashley, at talk freelance to me.com. I'd love to hear from you. So I want to first start with two truths that I've learned from creating this podcast. And I gotta say, there are two things that you probably have heard before. I know I've heard of them. I know I've repeated them to other people. But after coming, you know, I think we have 20 episodes after months and months of doing this show. I've just realized how true they are. And I just wanted to remind you of these two truths as you make your plans for 2024. So the very first thing is that clarity comes from taking action. This podcast has taught me so much fulfillment that comes from producing something from creating something and putting it out into the world. Instead of just consuming the content that other people have curated for you. We are creatives. If you're listening to this, you're probably a creative professional in some capacity, you might be a writer, a designer, a programmer, a content creator, it's really important that while we're doing our research, while we're keeping up with trends and learning new things, we prioritize rather creating our own content over consuming content, at least, let's try to make it more balanced. For years and years and years, I consumed way too much content, I would research things to death before taking a step. I've listened to so many podcasts and watch documentaries and shows and read books. And all of it's wonderful. I have a lot of knowledge, but there's no value being traded. If this knowledge stays in my mind, and I'm not creating anything to share with the world, you're never going to feel fully ready to start whatever it is, you want to start. It could be a business, a podcast, a book, but clarity and even motivation to continue. It comes from taking action, not just staying in the planning and researching phase. So I challenge you, whatever it is that you want to create, it could be your podcast, your book, just start, just start the first episode, take your phone into your closet and create your first recording, jot down your first ideas from your book. It's okay if you don't show it to anybody, but take action because by doing that, you're gonna have things that you learn, you're gonna get clarity on what you want to do, and you're gonna get a better vision on what it is you want to create. Don't wait for that perfect moment. Don't Drown yourself in the endless research, grab that phone, turn off those distractions and create. The second thing I want to share with you. The second truth is to stop comparing yourself, you've probably heard that comparison is the thief of joy. And I think that's so true. Stop worrying about what this person is doing or what that person is doing. You know, in business, we're taught to do our competitor analysis and our market research before we get started. And I'm not saying that's not good advice. I think that there's a place for that. But you don't want it to paralyze you to the point where you don't even take action, because you're so convinced that everybody else is doing it better. There's multiple sodas, there's Coca Cola, there's Sprite, there's Fanta, you know, there's multiple types of any product imaginable. There's room for you to and just because a person is already talking about whatever you want to talk about, doesn't mean there's not also room for your perspective because no one has your experience except you. So also be realistic and what you can do for a long On time I, in the past several years, I was focusing on being a mother to my three little kids and dealing with a pandemic and fallout from the pandemic. And I would get frustrated because I knew what I wanted to do, I would see other people doing it. And I would feel frustrated that I couldn't do more, because I had other responsibilities. We can't compare our beginnings to someone else's middle or their peak, our journeys with our own sets of challenges and limitations are uniquely ours. And when I think about this podcast, I wish I would have started sooner, I wish I wouldn't have worried about what other people were doing. And I wish I would have been more realistic with myself. And what's a realistic expectation for what I could achieve with my responsibilities. When I was in my 20s. And I had no spouse and no kids, I could just work and work and work and eat a bowl of cereal, and that was my dinner. And that was the end of it. Now, obviously, that's different. It's okay to do your own your own cadence, your own rhythm, your own speed. It's not a race, to stop worrying about what other people are doing. The next thing I want to share is just a tool are really a revolution this year, you could not go to any writer conference writer event, and not hear about shad GPT. And a lot of the information around it at that point was fear base, there was a lot of concern about what it meant for our industry. And I think there is of course litigation right now happening where creators are standing up for themselves as they should be because their works have been used without their permission to train these AI tools. That's not really what I'm talking about right now. What I want to encourage you is there's a lot of AI tools available and they're getting better and better and better. And AI tools have really helped me remain consistent with this podcast, and have really changed my workflow in a great way. So I was a print journalist. That's what I was trained as writing words, right? So this transition to creating an audio product, there was a learning curve. It's a whole new vehicle for me, but tools like otter.ai for transcriptions, and chat GBT for generating show notes have been really critical for me, they've made it possible for me to work smarter and efficiently in the time that I do have to work on this podcast. I use a tool called Opus dot Pro to create video clips for my YouTube interviews. And they've really allowed me to maintain some consistency and delivering this podcast every two weeks. It's something looking back. It's made a huge difference in my ability to get things done. And so if you haven't experimented, I would definitely look into AI tools not just chat GBT, although that's you know, the most well known one, but there's many, and you might find ways to use these tools to help you get more done and 2024. Next, I want to talk about some takeaways from a couple of our first guests. I'm not going to mention everyone in this episode only because of time, and we're going to have a special anniversary episode coming up in March. But when I was first starting this podcast, of course, I reached out to my close friends and people that I knew in the creative space, because you know, this was a new podcast. So I'm really thankful to all of my guests. Those ones who really took time out for me in the beginning when this was just a vision, I owe them at a special thank you. So the very first episode was done with my dear dear friend Laura Figueroa at Amanda's. She's a White House correspondent. And I loved that she really encouraged all writers and content creators, not just journalists to really do some fact checking and take an extra moment to verify sources to corroborate information that we're sharing. There's so much noise in the world. There's so much information. There's whole tick tock channels where people are basically repackaging journalistic reporting and sharing content in that way. There's podcasts that what they do is basically repackage and retell, reporting the journalists have put together, there's so much information. But because of that, you know, there's an opportunity for a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of distrust, and there should be there should be more scrutiny. Everything that we read, we should question it. as content creators, it's important for us to think about our own responsibility. That's a way also that we can set ourselves apart from other content creators is really taking the extra time to think about the facts and our sources when we're putting things together and putting it out into the world. Another standout moment was my chat with Lola Bovell. She is also a good friend, a serial entrepreneur, a former attorney, and she's now a real estate investor, and I love what she shared about focusing on your one big thing. Gary Keller from Keller will Williams is credited with that idea. But it's basically looking at the one significant task that you can do every day, that's going to make the most impact on your business. And on your project. When you look at your to do list, don't just start from the top and work your way down. Don't just open your inbox and just start responding. When you do that you get you're working from a reactionary place where you're responding to the needs of others. And there's a place for that. But when you're really trying to achieve something, identifying that one task that you can do every day, that will get you closer to your overarching goals, that's going to make a profound impact on your productivity, and your on your ability to achieve your goals. Lindsay Devon, she is another person that I interviewed early on, she's an AEC marketer AEC again, architecture, engineering and construction, she shared some cool insights on what she's looking for as a person who hires freelancers. And it was another reminder of the importance of thinking about how we can make our clients lives easier. Remember, when somebody's hiring a freelancer, it's because they don't have time to do something, they don't have capacity to do something, they don't have the skills, maybe they're trying to get something done at a specific turnaround time. And so they're coming to us because they have a problem and a pain point. If we can deliver whatever it is that they need, but make the experience enjoyable, pleasant, seamless and easy. You more than likely are going to have a repeat client. If you can do that. Lindsay was sharing that she really pays attention to the questions that freelancers have for her. She looks to see if they have an established process for whatever that they do that they can guide her. And so she's already busy, she needs someone who can not just be a busy bee and crank out whatever it is that she needs. She wants a consultant to guide her through the process, make her job easier, anticipate what she might need and be a real partner. I think those are great reminders to all of us as we think about our business in 2024. The episode that I had with Mary Lou Mandel early on was also really memorable. She is an influencer and a content creator out of Los Angeles. I've known her since I was a kid. And I loved what she was sharing about removing obstacles and streamlining your workflow. So she if you look at her YouTube interview on our channel, she actually shared a view a tour of her work station. And she was sharing that over time, she's changed it to remove obstacles. So she was saying that before she had, you know, a place where she would do her hair and makeup, she had a place where she would record and then a place where she would edit. And over time, she was able to consolidate all of that and toward one workstation. So she has her makeup kit and her hair tools right next to her computer. And she's got her background for recording and her mic and her lights, everything is set up. And her cameras are connected directly to her computer. So she can sit down and record content, get camera ready, record the content, edit it and release it out into the wild very quickly. And she's been able to really increase productivity by taking a critical eye at her workflow and removing things to make it easier. And even if you're not a content creator, I think you can still apply the same principles. I challenge you to take some posted and map out what your current workflow looks like from start to finish, and identify where do things get slow? Where do you where do you stumble? Where can we make things smoother, or remove obstacles so that you can get more done and not just so you can work on work forever. But so you can get your work done and have more free time to exercise to rest to spend time with loved ones pursue a hobby, life isn't just work. Part of the reason we do freelance is because we want to do work our way. So I love those reminders from Mary Lou. So I'll dive into more takeaways in our upcoming episodes. Right now I just want to tell you how happy I am to announce that we're gearing up for a new season. We're going to be interviewing even more incredible leaders in the freelance writing space, and also interviewing more freelance professionals. So folks that are not just writers, and we're going to be welcoming our very first intern. We're going to be introducing some new offerings to support freelance business owners across the world. And I'm super excited for this. As we wrap up this year. I'm just filled with so much gratitude. Thank you for being part of this incredible journey. Let's continue to grow and learn together. Remember, you're not alone in this freelance adventure. Talk freelance to me, is here to support you and inspire Are you and empower you. Here's to a fantastic year ahead, and an even more exciting future. And with that, we've come to the end of another episode. Please make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already done so, and give me a five star review on Apple. This will help out a lot and reaching more listeners with our podcast. I invite you to check out the show notes and grab my free niches get Rich's freelance writing worksheet. You can use it to brainstorm the best niches for your writing business. And if you're not a writer, you can still use it to get business ideas. And until next time, this is Ashley snows mahiya. At talk freelance to me, don't forget, we all get this one precious life. Don't constrain yourself to a box that you were never meant to fit in. It is your right to profit from your own creative gifts. This podcast was created by Ashley Cisneros. mahiya our intro music was composed by the one and only Donna Raphael of world instrumentals. Top freelance to me is a product of Phoenix creative studio