How to Write Your Freelance Success Story with Rachel Smith and Lynne Testoni of The Content Byte

Two powerhouse Australian creatives. Seven years of podcasting wisdom. One honest conversation about building something that lasts.

In this episode of The Talk Freelance To Me® Podcast, host Ashley Cisneros Mejia sits down with Rachel Smith and Lynne Testoni, co-hosts of The Content Byte and long-time champions of Australia’s freelance community. What started as a simple idea has grown into a seven-year journey filled with collaboration, community building, and a ripple effect that has touched writers around the world.

 ABOUT OUR GUESTS

Rachel Smith is an Australian journalist, copywriter, and community builder who founded Rachel's List, a long-running hub for paid freelance opportunities. Rachel co-hosts The Content Byte with fellow Sydney journalist Lynne Testoni, a writer–editor with 20+ years covering interiors, design, building, and food and a sought-after speaker on pricing and sustainable careers. The Content Byte is a weekly interview show for people who use words to make a living, sharing practical tips and honest stories from inside the industry. Special thanks to Rounded, official sponsor of The Content Byte. Rounded is an Australian accounting platform built for freelancers.

Full show notes and transcript here.

Chapters

• 2:43 Meet Lynne Testoni and Rachel Smith, hosts of The Content Byte Podcast
• 3:51 How Lynne and Rachel started the podcast, their partnership, and initial challenges.
• 7:12 The impact of The Content Byte Podcast: Building relationships, collaborations, and community.
• 8:51 How Lynne and Rachel divide podcast responsibilities and handle creative disagreements.
• 13:03 Sponsorship: How they secured a sponsor, what’s included in their media kit, and lessons learned.
• 19:12 Community building: The crossover between Rachel’s List and The Content Byte, and the value of podcasting for community engagement.
• 22:11 The personal side: How podcasting has made Rachel more visible and connected.
• 24:11 Lynne’s experience with public speaking and how it shaped her podcasting style.
• 26:17 The Content Byte Summit: Deciding to host live events, lessons learned, and the impact on the community.
• 29:00 Ripple effects: Books, masterminds, and careers sparked by the summit and podcast.
• 32:00 Personal and professional growth: How co-hosting has helped Rachel and Lynne, and what’s next for them.
• 36:00 Advice for collaborations: Choosing the right partner, dividing responsibilities, and starting small.

Transcript

Rachel Smith: 0:00

All the guests who have done different things, are really inspiring to people because they think where can I take my skills next? What can I do? And if you are feeling that fear and that grief from ai or thinking what's my next pathway? There are so many stories out there of people who have struck out and found a new path and managed to transfer their skills in a new way that's helped them make money and help them pay their mortgage and all of that. So I think that's really inspiring as well about the podcast and the people that we've met and learned from, for sure.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 0:32

Welcome to Talk Freelance to me, the podcast for women freelance writers, 10 99 independent contractors and solopreneurs. I'm your host, Ashley Ci SDOs Mejia. For more than 20 years, I've worked as a journalist and freelance writer. Today as a mom of three kids, I'm passionate about helping other women leverage the freedom that freelance offers on top freelance. To me, we're all about the business of freelancing. If you want to learn how to monetize your talents, make money on your own terms, and design a flexible work life that actually works for you. This show is for you. Before we get started, don't forget to follow us on your favorite social media platforms. Review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and don't forget to share this episode with a friend. So long before I ever launched this podcast, talk freelance to me. I was the person folding laundry with a podcast in my ears, soaking up every bit of wisdom I could find. And the content by podcast was one of the shows that shaped how I think about freelancing community and even what a good interview sounds like. I've been listening to journalist Rachel Smith and Lynn Testone for years, and their professionalism, warmth, and the range of guests that they bring on their show has had a real influence on me. I remember hearing about their big in-person event, the content by Summit. I remember scrolling social media, seeing photos from that event and thinking how incredible it would be to attend something like that. I still hope to visit Australia one day, but at the time, I was simply a listener admiring what they were building from afar. So sitting down with Rachel and Lynn for this conversation was really special. In our conversation, they talk openly about what it took to build their partnership, how they run their business behind the scenes, and what they've learned from creating such a long running show and the impact their summit had on the freelance world. I really admire these women and it was an honor to have them here. I think you'll walk away feeling inspired by their honesty, and by the way, they've used their voices to serve the community. Let's get into it. Today we are really honored to welcome Lynn Testone and Rachel Smith of the Content Byte. Ladies, thank you so much for joining all the way from Australia. Thank you. It's lovely to be here. It's so

Rachel Smith: 3:11

exciting to be here. Thanks, Ashley.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 3:13

Absolutely.. I've been listening to your podcast for a long time. I heard about your big content Bite Summit. I think it was in 2023 with a couple other writers in our space. We're just gushing about how. Wonderful. It was all the cool people that they met when they traveled there to attend. And so I'm such a fan. Lynn, I wanna talk to you about this origin story of you two ladies.'cause I know you've been doing this podcast for a while now, and can you take us back to that moment? What sparked the conversation for you to join forces and create the content bite.

Lynne Testoni: 3:51

Well, we've been doing it, this is our seventh year, so it's been a while. So it's a hungry beast, like weekly episodes for seven years. Wow. I think, I think neither of us knew it was gonna be that huge, but it's been great. I think, to be honest, it, it was, I bullied Rachel into doing it. To know Rachel. She did. Let's be honest. Um, uh, look, podcasting seven years ago, it was the new thing and I felt this is something like all content creatives. I thought, I wanna see what this is about. And certainly in my experience, doing something for yourself is a great way of learning about how it works. And you can do it for clients if you want, or, or not. You can just see how it works. And so I wanted to try a podcast and I guess like Rachel and she'll talk to you a bit about Rachel's list, but it's a really. Strong community here for Australian freelancers, and I've been a members of Rachel's list for many years and. Basically Rachel had the audience. I didn't have much of an audience. I had my, a few friends, a few colleagues, my mom, that sort of thing. Um, but not really. And Rachel had a really well established audience of freelancers and we'd worked together for a bit. I'd been her commissioning editor, she'd written for me various different magazines and knew she was really professional, lovely to deal with. So I basically bullied her into it. And so that's. We started in a small way. Rachel's husband, Phil did our audio at first, and then it's just grown from there.

Rachel Smith: 5:20

Yes,

Lynne Testoni: 5:21

thanks.

Rachel Smith: 5:22

She did pull me. She did pull me into a, I was very reluctant because I had two businesses on the go and oh my goodness, adding another. Element to that. I was, I was unsure and we're gonna talk about the summit, but she bullied me into that too. So, yeah, she's, the driving force is the better way of saying it between things that we decide to do, I think a lot of the time. Yeah. Although we, we discuss everything and decide on everything,

Lynne Testoni: 5:47

I just felt there was an opportunity. Honestly, I didn't think it was gonna be. Go on for as long as it has and be as wonderful as it has. But it's been a great journey and we were sort of colleagues, but we're now really good friends. Like we knew each other sort of socially. We had lots of friends in common and professionally, but we had never worked this closely together. So it was a bit of a risk, I guess, but it's worked out really well.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 6:11

Yeah, it seems like it has, it seems like gets paid off in a big way that bullying, maybe sometimes doing things by force works. I dunno. I said bullying, maybe I should say gentle

Lynne Testoni: 6:21

encouragement.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 6:23

We're work people. We can spin that. Yeah, I love that. I love that, Rachel. So let's talk about that journey.'cause you've been doing this for seven years and Yeah. If, if it wouldn't have worked out right, you wouldn't have. Continued this long, Rachel, can you tell me maybe about an opportunity or a connection that happened because of the podcast that maybe wouldn't have happened if you didn't have the content bite?

Rachel Smith: 6:52

Yeah. You know what, there are so many, it's really difficult to pinpoint all the great stuff that has come out of having the podcast. It's hard to just choose one I, I think. It's helped both of us really form deeper relationships with amazing people that we wouldn't have had a chance to talk to otherwise. Mm-hmm. Um, and with that has brought incredible wisdom for us as well. We've learned so much that we've taken into our own businesses. Stuff I've taken into Rachel's list. We had Bernadette Schwart on who has her own fantastic copywriting community, and she invited me to do webinars for her community. So that was just one thing. I got to know people I really admired, like Sarah Howard. She was a job poster at Rachel's List initially, and now someone I really consider a friend. And she was on the podcast and spoke at the summit and now we're cooking up things for Rachel's List. We mentioned off air. We talked about Sarah Gronbach, who was on the podcast talking about content strategy. Lynn, that was a while ago. Yeah, I think so.

Lynne Testoni: 7:49

Yeah.

Rachel Smith: 7:49

Yeah, and I'm now in her doodle right drawing group on Slack and keep up with her on LinkedIn and everything and, and then I've also gone on to be on other people's podcasts like Martin Sully, ed Gandia, Kim Curtin, Jen Donovan, who have all talked to me about everything from Rachel's list to community building to marketing. All of these friendships and these connections leapfrog into other collaborations.

Lynne Testoni: 8:13

Mm-hmm.

Rachel Smith: 8:14

You know, and it's brought new people to Rachel's list as well to post jobs. So I think. Ultimately, it's just created this really collaborative support group around me and Lynn, and that just continues to grow and compound for both the podcast and for Rachel's list and for our own businesses.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 8:30

And Lynn, I know that you mentioned a few moments ago that you bullied Rachel into this, and I know working in any group project, especially one that is creative, one that of course has your name on it, I imagine. You have to talk through who's gonna do what in terms of putting on a podcast, how do you ladies divvy up who does what? All of the moving pieces that it takes to have a show for seven years. And I also wanna know if there are creative disagreements. How do you work those out?

Lynne Testoni: 9:03

First of all, I think you have to start with mutual respect. Mm. Rachel, I had great respect because I. Worked for her. I knew she was good at her job of writing, and I really liked the way she ran Rachel's list. So I think you have to start from that really strong point of view. And I think, to be honest, when we started the podcast, we didn't know what was involved. We just thought, we just turn up with a mic and record it. And of course it's got bigger and bigger and you evolve at the, and I guess we've just gone with our strengths. I think one of the things, even though we're both probably strong writers, we operate differently. And I guess that maybe that's maturity and respect is that we respect the way each other. Works and from basic things that I'm a morning person, so I tend to do a lot of my best writing and things in the morning. Rachel is an evening person and she said gets very creative after nine o'clock at night, isn't it Rachel? I said I'm famous for sending

Rachel Smith: 10:01

emails at midnight.

Lynne Testoni: 10:04

Yeah.

And I send them at 7: 10:04

00 AM so there you are. And so, but that doesn't matter because I don't really tend to, unless it's an emergency, ever read my emails after. Five or six, and then I don't expect Rachel to apply at seven either. Mm-hmm. And so it's things like that. I do all the finances for the podcast. I manage the budget and I'm quite happy with that and doing that. Rachel is much stronger than me on things like Canva and doing some of the social media. So she's evolved into doing that. I quite like organizing. We use both our. Contact books. We've both been doing this for a while. We've got a lot of contacts and we've used it. Yeah, we've got a Google spreadsheet where we throw everything in together, and so we do those sort of things. So Rachel does a lot of the marketing. I do a lot of the business side of it. We've just evolved into where our strengths are, where our preferences are. So I think that's how it's worked. What do you think, Rachel?

Rachel Smith: 10:58

Yeah, I think we've slowly learned over the years, like there are definitely things that we could have done differently, which I think would've helped in repurposing content, and we've talked about that a lot. But when you are six years into something, it becomes very difficult to go back. But we are constantly trying to iterate new ways to get better. So we've got a pitching document. You would've seen it, Ashley,'cause you came on our podcast. Yes. You've gotta upload your photo, you've gotta give us a few angles of what you wanna discuss, which, 'cause we are, we both come from a journalistic background. We started doing that because we got that kind of pitch from someone and it just blew our mind. Almost like a magazine type

Lynne Testoni: 11:36

Yeah.

Rachel Smith: 11:37

Pitch and then we thought, wow. Imagine if we asked people to do that, and it really helped elevate the types of episodes we were doing instead of just flying blind a little bit. That really helped. And then we had everything in the one spot. We had the bio, the photo, the angles that we could choose from, so that really helped. We started a newsletter, which has also helped we, we've done some lead magnets. Switch has also drawn more people to the podcast. You mentioned creative disagreements. I will just say that because Lynn does more content and I do more copywriting, sometimes we will. Suggest a guest and the other person isn't so keen or isn't sure whether that guest would be the right fit for the podcast. So we do sometimes have those discussions where we almost pitch that guest to each other Sure. And say, why do you think this person would be good? Or, tell me why you think our audience would like this person. So we are really clear on who the audience is, what they wanna hear from, what they wanna hear from us and from the guests. And there's a lot of collaboration that goes into that process. Way more than I think we thought would happen when we started getting guests on. And it's really interesting 'cause I mentioned we've just done a survey, so it's interesting to see how people view the kinds of content that we put out and the kinds of guests that we choose. And we are learning a lot from that process as well. When you really ask your listeners, 'cause it's hard to get. Metrics or feedback from listeners. It's one of the hardest things as podcasts. You would probably know that too, Ashley.

Lynne Testoni: 13:14

I agree. Just know which episodes do well, but we often dunno why. Yeah. We don't know if it's a guest thing, if it's a topic thing, if it's a timing thing. If it's that particular guest has done a lot of promotion or no promotion. The survey helps to clarify some of those things.

Rachel Smith: 13:30

Yeah, it's good. We work really well together and we've got really clearly defined roles. It's funny when someone asks you that question, you realize you've created that structure in that system, which works for us and allows us to still run our own businesses and get everything done.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 13:44

Yeah. I appreciate so much that foundation of respect that you have for one another, and you can hear it just even how you were talking about your origins. Story and also the respect for all the listeners and really being intentional in who gets through the door and making sure that you have that the form to sift through.'cause there's so many people that pitch themselves, I didn't know that going in, having a podcast, how many people would pitch themselves and it makes sense. I see that. Probably a contributing factor to your staying power and how intentional and how you center the community, the audience, listening to them, creating a survey to make sure that you're validating what's important to them. That's really admirable. And being a podcaster myself, I know that there's so many costs associated with running a podcast. How do you ladies go about supporting those costs that come with creating the content bite?

Lynne Testoni: 14:37

The best thing we did was about three years ago, we got a sponsor for the podcast and they're like an accounting system that specializes in freelancers. So it was such a good fit and Rachel already had a great relationship with them through Rachel's List, and we just leveraged it into them and it's done really well for us. And it means that we talked a little bit about outsourcing things like the wonderful editor and the transcripts and the sponsorship, although it doesn't really cover. Our time and what we do, it covers all those outside people, which makes the whole thing more manageable. Would you say that Rach.

Rachel Smith: 15:13

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. And it's a unique situation in that our sponsor, which is rounded, if people wanted to check it out, they also sponsor Rachel's list and have a separate sort of deal. So we combine the sponsorship deal for the two businesses at once, which is quite a unique thing maybe to do. It's really good because they get access to two communities of freelancers. That need them. Yeah. So I think it's been a really good arrangement for them as well. Yeah, it's

Lynne Testoni: 15:43

been a great arrangement. And also that's something Rachel had never done a sponsorship agreement, but I had in my, as a magazine. Mm-hmm. Editor and pitching. So I think that's something we also brought together, is to pull together a value document and a media kit, and that was a good learning experience because. I've used that template in other parts of my business too. It's been interesting hearing what a sponsor needs and how we can deliver value is useful in other areas of our businesses. We use that with a conference. Definitely.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 16:18

You mentioned immediate kit For maybe listeners who aren't sure how to develop one, can you tell us about a couple of the things you included, um, that, that document.

Rachel Smith: 16:28

I did the media kit in Canva. There you go. Yeah, and we've updated it recently for this year. We'll probably have to update for next year as well, but we had a photo shoot done this year, which was the first in six years. That was another little persuasive push on Lynn's Park, so I never wanted to do. Do a photo shoot, but it's been really amazing to do that. The media kit outlines a little bit about us mini bios and some stats that we have access to for the podcast, like listener notes. Is it listen notes? We get some stats off them. Yeah, listen notes

Lynne Testoni: 17:00

is a great, tells us 'cause we're in the top 2.5% of podcasts in the world. That's amazing. Which is great and we've got a great score. They're sort of like verified. Numbers. Yeah. Plus the downloads were over a hundred thousand or whatever, and we put that in. Yeah. So they like to know those metrics, but it's also about what value the sponsor wants to know. How many mentions they get. We mention that they're top and tail. We do live reads, we top and tail we, we mention it in the Facebook group and everything, and they like to know exactly the return value that they get. I think those quantifying those things is really helpful so people get access to this many people this many times a year. And they send us a few for the live reads that we do. They send us, uh, some ideas and talking points, and then we do it in our own words in a way that we think is relevant for our audience, that we also give them the space on the newsletter that Rachel and I do. And we, and the wrap up. And the wrap up, Rachel has a weekly newsletter to Rachel's list, so they all get lots of value in reaching the audience, and I think. Quantifying that in a media document is good too. I don't think everybody understands that. It's not just about this is us. We are wonderful. Is this is what you get if you pay us some money. Yeah. It's quantifiable and practical.

Rachel Smith: 18:19

But just getting back to your point, Ashley, about the media kit. If somebody wanted to put a media kit together, I think it needs to have photos of, you have photos of key guests that have been on the podcast. You really need to include social proof, statistics, your bios, so people can ask about you. And then the last page of our media kit is sponsorship prices and the packages that we offer. Mm. So it's really a useful document, an asset that you should have. To go out with anything because you can be chasing your tail if suddenly you get interest from a sponsor, but you don't have something like that. So it can be a really good thing to put together.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 18:56

Fantastic. Yeah. Well shout out to Rounded. We'll be sure to include a link because if they're supporting freelancers in solopreneurs in Australia, well then we need to to definitely check them out. That's great. You were talking earlier about community in terms of Rachel's List and Rachel, I wanna hear more about that. I know that you have an amazing place for people looking for freelancers. They can find talent, and also for freelancers to find opportunities. How did building that community tie in and influence to what you're doing with the content bite?

Rachel Smith: 19:28

So Rachel's list in the content by, they draw in slightly different audiences, but there is also a lot of crossover. And I think in our freelance circles, people tend to have the same challenges, finding clients, raising their rates, having the right skills to take them forward into the future. Dealing with ai, all of those things are really universal to both. Businesses 'cause the content buyer is a separate business to Rachel's list, but they cross over as well. Sure. And I think before we started the podcast, people only really saw me in the Facebook group or perhaps on an online masterclass. So. It's really helped people get to know me and get to know both of us really well, which is important in any community that you run. And it's also been really instrumental in giving people a free way to learn like we help. Mm. We hear over and over from the Rachel's list community how much they love the podcast, and we have lots of amazing people from Rachel's List come on the podcast as guests, so. It's really lovely for us to be able to highlight Rachel's list members and give them that bit of visibility for their own businesses. There's so much like untapped wisdom in communities really, and so we love that the podcast is a vehicle for helping other people as well. And we also learn, like I mentioned before, from their wisdom, so it's this really unique two way street.

Lynne Testoni: 20:44

Mm-hmm. I think also, Rachel, one of the funny things is, which we didn't realize maybe 'cause I knew Rachel is. People were surprised that actually a person called Rachel ran Rachel's list. Yeah. But people actually knew Rachel's list in her community more than they knew Rachel as a person, really. And I think that the podcast has given. Uh, phase two, her name and to the community. Yeah. And it's made it more personal. Podcasts I think are very intimate in some ways. Yes. People are listening to them. It's like a conversation. In fact, that's what's people say all the time. They feel like they know us, even if they've never met us because they've heard our. Heard us chat. Yeah. And we have an informal style as well. Mm.

Rachel Smith: 21:25

Yeah, that's true. We've only had a couple of people say that we laugh too much. Oh. And yeah. We've never tried to stop that.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 21:32

No, that's hard when you're having a conversation, you know?

Lynne Testoni: 21:35

I know. Yeah. Part of the fun.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 21:38

I think so. I think so you were mentioning learning, and Lynn, I know that you've done a lot with educating audiences and I know you've done public speaking and spoken to groups and done trainings and things. Can you tell me about how your stage experience, 'cause that's awesome, how that has influenced your style on the show, on this podcast. Well, that's really

Lynne Testoni: 22:02

interesting. It was a great question, Ashley, because I, I hadn't really thought about it, but I think that's part of the reason why I wasn't as scared about doing this as Rachel was. Mm-hmm. This started because I was a magazine editor. And I don't know if the US experiences that we used to call it Wheel out the editor here, when I was magazine editor, I used to do lots of presentations too. Yes. Groups of advertisers. Groups of readers. Not necessarily big things like sometimes our big presentations, obviously to management as well. So I was used to, I also did a lot of radio interviews about the magazine and topics. I did a regular radio segment for a while, once a week with a local radio personality, so a lot of that was confidence. The podcasting didn't worry me. The more you do, the more confident you get. It's just practice. I'm less scared about the risks when you start a podcast. Hardly anyone's listening for the first few weeks or months or whatever. So honestly, if you really muck things up, it doesn't matter. Nobody's gonna hear it. Maybe some people go back to those early episodes, and I can cringe about that. But mostly you realize you just get better and you learn by doing. It's the confidence that it gives you, and that's what the podcast has given me, is it's given me opportunity. I've spoken, I did a TEDx talk. Wow. I've done a lot of moderating of little small events. I've done moderating at our own summit and I've presented at a few things and people have asked me, and I've done little workshops all because of the podcast. So it's been a full circle thing. Love that.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 23:37

Let's talk about the summit. I know that you did it, was it two times two years? Yeah. Two years in a row. Yes. Two years in a row. And that is very exciting, just the idea that people can come and experience the podcast in real life and have this immersive experience and meet you in real life. That's so cool. Tell me about that process. How did you decide to host it, and what did you learn from that process?

Rachel Smith: 24:02

I definitely remember the moment that we decided to do it. We were on a plane coming back from another event that we'd both been at and we thought, oh, let's just give it a crack. It was very quick, very sudden decision, and we had to mobilize fast because we didn't have a lot of time between. Getting it all ready and then promoting it and selling tickets. There's this sort of quick process where you have to get all the speakers locked in. You've gotta build the website, and then you've gotta sell tickets. And I think we decided, was it in November and then we had to promote it in? Yeah, we had,

Lynne Testoni: 24:34

we did a lot of work in January. January's our summertime in Australia, so it was a bit quieter. So we did a lot of the work in and scoping out of it in the January.

Rachel Smith: 24:43

I think the biggest thing that it taught me is that. Online get togethers are great. The learning opportunities can be really powerful, but getting people together in person to learn and to network and build those relationships is just an absolute game changer. I just don't think I realized how huge that part of it would be, and I'm really proud of the conferences. They were a huge amount of work and there was a big financial cost to us. As well. Let's be honest about that. That's true. Yeah. But they brought people to the stage who really blew everyone's minds in what they taught us. And there was this generosity of wisdom shared. I never thought in my life I'd get to meet people like Ed Gandier or Jennifer Goforth Gregory or Austin Church. And then the other speakers we had from Australia were brilliant, like in ways I just never imagined. And they, many of them have continued to be part of our ecosystem. Steven Lewis, Sarah Howard, Brook Hill, Lindy Alexander, Susan Rio. The list goes on. They were just countless great moments and yeah, it's a shame because it is a huge undertaking and it's hard to do, but I think they were both really magical events that live on for people in many different ways. I

Lynne Testoni: 25:52

agree. I think it was lovely to, I. Get all the people we wanted to listen to. There was a selfishness about that. Which is good. We think. Yeah. Wouldn't it be great to have some of the people that we listen to on podcasts like Ed Gandia come to Australia and share their skills and wisdom more widely? And I think that was really good.

Rachel Smith: 26:13

It was. And Ed, wasn't he really unsure of us when we first reached out? He was like, who are these two Australian women trying to get me to fly to Australia? Yeah,

Lynne Testoni: 26:21

yeah. Yes. And also, there's such a wonderful moment when you meet your audience in person. Rachel's talked about the fact that you don't always know who your audience is when you're doing the podcast. Yes, so many people. Said, came up to us and said that they listened to the podcast every week and it gave a human face to us, uh, for us. And also a couple of the presenters had never presented to that sort of size audience, and we helped Wow. Coach them through. That was really rewarding. Seeing people who we knew were really clever and had great wisdom to share. Yeah. To learn how to share it to either on a panel or as a speaker, and I think that was really powerful as well.

Rachel Smith: 27:03

That was great. We did fix some people's presentations or help them fix it, and as Lynn said, coached them into. Doing absolute incredible presentations that were amazing where they were quite nervous about it or it wasn't quite right before. So that was really fun as well.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 27:21

That's powerful. And what a gift to the presenters to be able to workshop that with you two professionals and to be able to, to probably lily pad that to other opportunities or to get that confidence to pitch themselves. You're literally providing a mic. You're passing the mic onto other creators.

Rachel Smith: 27:39

It's possibly a control freak move because we were so, like we'd curated it down to the last thing. We knew what what we wanted on the day, so we were like, right, we have to get this right with everybody. And yeah, so we were very specific and kind of militant about

Lynne Testoni: 27:55

getting what we needed. We were very thorough briefing process, and we wanted to make sure it was a conference without fluff, that it had lots of practical takeaways. So everyone did leave with their brains like it. Phone and go, wow, I've learned this and that. And we know that it sparked at least five books or something. There's a few masterminds that developed from it where people met and found people and developed their own masterminds and a few careers, and it's been great. Talk

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 28:22

about a ripple effect and mm-hmm. That's fantastic. And we need more experiences like that because. There's no shortage of the fluff. There's no shortage of people saying high level things, and I think people really need how, how do I do that? What's the application? So I can see why people are still asking you to bring it back. I imagine you've probably had many moments like this. During the seven years of having the podcast, maybe a moment that made you think, wow, we are really creating something special here. We are really making impact some of those magical moments. Can you tell me about some of those? Maybe Lynn, I'll start with you.

Lynne Testoni: 29:04

There are so many, I think there's a few people's careers we've really boosted by having them come on the podcast and then start doing workshops and taken it into a next level. I mean, people like Lindy Alexander Lindy's remarkable, and she has done courses and she's presented at both the summits. She's amazing and we recommend her. And and her community. And I think she's done very well and she's a powerhouse within the freelance community here in Australia. I think there's many people like that. I find from a personal thing, people always wanted to have coffee with me. Yes. And sort of, you know, pick your brains, that old conversation. Mm-hmm. And now when that happens, a lot of people actually. Listen to the podcast, so I often suggest that. Happy to do that at some point, but maybe listen to the podcast. If you're starting out, we've done, I could maybe give them a couple of episodes. I think that helps so that I feel it's a way people would often, and Rachel too often wanna have coffee with us and chat, and this is a way of having coffee with many, many people. Yes. At a time that suits us. And Rachel and I have always wanted to be really positive and constructive about freelancing and writing. Yes. And it's not all doom and gloom and I think the podcast is our way of contributing to that dialogue without being doom and gloom and also in a proactive way without having to exhaust ourselves by having coffee every second of the day.

Rachel Smith: 30:32

It has really eliminated that pick, pick your brain conversation in a lot of ways.'cause we can just direct them to an episode. Yeah. That might be relevant. For sure. I find it really difficult to put my finger on the impact the podcast is having specifically because metrics are so hard to come by and you don't really know who's listening. You were telling us about someone who listens in Philadelphia and we're like, wow, because we just don't have that transparency as podcasters. So for me, the real impacts of what it led to came from the summit and they didn't come immediately. They came six months later because we had surveys that asked people immediately after the summit what they got out of it. And then six months later, what have you put into practice? We had really specific ways of charting. What people had done from the summit, and as Lynn mentioned, there were like middle little mini masterminds that had sprung up. There were books. I think Emma Lovel wrote The Art of Pleasure, Sarah Howard, who has won multiple awards from her book going solo. There were other books as well that came out of it. So it's those little tangible things, the deep friendships and the connections that you can see in Rachel's list as well. I think that is the real impact in the magic. It taught me that. If you have events that spring off from a podcast, which bring together your people, that can be a really motivating and powerful thing. I would like more metrics in podcasting. Yes, I want all the data. Where

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 31:57

can we get those who, who's in charge of that?

Lynne Testoni: 31:59

We have great picture ones, like we know how many listeners we have in North America versus Australia, but not really where they are. And if they're the same listeners in North America this week as last

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 32:10

week, I love what you were saying that you did. Another touch 0.6. Months after to say, did you implement any of these wonderful things? Because we all leave events with all those ideas in our minds. Yeah. And, but did we actually execute? Did we put anything in? Did we apply what we learned? And not many people do that. I've heard of people doing surveys after the event. How did you rate it? But that's great to be able to see that ripple effect of the events.

Lynne Testoni: 32:37

Yeah, I went to Sarah Howard's book launch and I hadn't realized until that book launch that that idea came from the summit. Wow. That she had the idea in her head. Yeah. But what the summit was, what sprung her into doing it. And one of the other people there has developed a great business, and she'd done this a bit informally of her being a book doula or a book coach, and she'd met this other person, Anna. Who basically coached her through and helped her through that path of publishing. And I didn't realize until the launch is that that whole, 'cause that sort of went off away from us and into their own little ecosphere. And that was really inspiring. And that's when I discovered that they're also in a mastermind with somebody else. And I thought, I had no idea how much it did. Yeah, influence. And there's a couple of people that have become quite good friends. I regularly go to Perth. I have a daughter who lives in Perth, and there's a whole group of people from Rachel's list, and often if I'm over there, I'll have lunch with all the writers over there. So it means that I have a group like my tribe on the other side of Australia, which is really nice. Wow. It gives a connection and they all feel they know me because of the podcast. They all listen to it.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 33:49

That's powerful. I know that podcasts can be hard, there can be lots of pieces to it, but it sounds like this is really been a fruitful experience for you ladies each, but then also for everybody. You know that you've touched everybody that's heard an episode or that's met you, or that's seen the social media post or experienced the in-person event. That's very, very cool. Let's talk about you ladies. I know you have your own businesses. This is something you do together, but you also have your own, um, separate projects and things. Rachel, I know that you've worn many hats that you do copywriting, and you've had this beautiful community. Can you tell me how co-hosting with Lynn on the podcast has helped you? Maybe grow personally or professionally, and also what are you excited about? What's on the horizon for you personally?

Rachel Smith: 34:38

What is coming up is I'm launching the new Rachel's list website, which is really exciting. But just to wind back a little bit with co-hosting with Lynn, we mentioned I was really reluctant in the beginning 'cause I didn't wanna add another thing to my plate. But she is very persuasive and at times, yeah, she has been the one to nudge me forward into doing certain things because I think she can visualize what it might bring long term. For both of us. And in the case of the podcast, she was really right. I always knew that I really loved interviewing. Obviously we're both journalists, we do a lot of that, but as a journalist, it's not something you are often doing publicly. You're never doing it publicly, right? Coaxing information out of people. And so if you muck up on an interview or it goes a bit awry. No one knows except you and the person on the other end of the phone. But as a podcaster, your interviewing skills are really front and center. And yes, I think at first I was a bit nervous about that, and it's a whole different process knowing hundreds of people are listening to you, interviewing a guest and all of that. I'm much more confident about that after the many years that we've been doing it. And I think the podcast itself has really boosted my SEO. Hugely, which has helped my own business and brought contacts to me, brought new leads in for both of us. I think it's really boosted our authority in the space and it's done that in a way, it's brought lots of new people to Rachel's list, so, and I know for Lynn, it's brought her new business as well, so I feel like it's really worth the time and I'm glad that, I'm glad she pushed me into it all those years ago. And Oh yes, I'm going for the first time. I'm gonna put my face on Rachel's list, which shows, yeah. That sort of risk.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 36:23

Risk taking. I'd love that. Own it. It's yours. Literally. Literally yours. And Lynn, I know that you've done so many things and just had this incredible journey from working with the magazines and doing these presentations and the teaching and your own writing projects. What about you? How has this helped your personal brand, helped with getting new projects for your own enterprise and what's on the horizon for you?

Lynne Testoni: 36:48

I think it's similar to Rachel. First of all, Rachel's had a much higher profile than me, which is obviously why I encouraged her to join with me. I piggybacked off her higher visibility and stronger community. So I think it's certainly raised my profile within the freelance community and even with the writing and journalism community. I have called in a lot of favor. Some of my junior assistants over the years and people are now like editors in chief of like various high profile and I've used them all and I think it keeps me front of mind. We promote on LinkedIn under both the content Biden individually, and I think it makes me. Uh, look like an authority, as Rachel said by interviewing people and having great feedback. I certainly get a lot of work from LinkedIn and I think that constant, so it's not just me saying, I can do this, it's, it's a bit, oh, here's a great episode. This is what you can learn, and it provides value. The other thing is, Ashley, to be totally honest, I'm a grandmother. And I'm in that probably last few years of like, I'm over 60. And I think this in some ways, this is my legacy building years. Mm. And I think that the podcast is a great way of giving back to the freelance community, which I've got so much from over the years. I'm a strong believer in sharing. Knowledge and having that abundance mindset, the more you share, the more you do for other people and support other writers. You build the industry as a whole and we are talking about. Uh, choosing good clients or good editors and charging appropriately and doing good work. I think it helps me and it helps the whole industry, and I think that also helps me by raising the level of professionalism and the way it can be done. That's part of that legacy building thing.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 38:41

Love that. Yeah. This is an archive of your areas of genius, of your, your ideas, your not the early episodes. That's okay. But it tells the story. I heard a quote. If you don't look at your first business card, your first website, your first whatever it is, your first draft, and you're not a little embarrassed, you probably waited too long or you didn't take the risks. So if you're, that's a great, if we cringe, that's okay, because that means we tried and that means we're. Still here. When you talk about legacy, that's powerful. And it's not just

Lynne Testoni: 39:12

us, it's all the many people we've brought on who've all contributed so much information and encouragement to people. We've shown with all the different guests that there's so many different ways to make a successful career as a freelancer, using your words, and whether that's writing for movies or writing for, I'm famously writing for building companies. That's the sort of thing I do. We've laughed about all my nail gun. Studies and things to people who've written for universities and magazines and travel, all sorts of things. And there's so many different ways to make a living and a niche and oh, Rachel does all these great websites for small businesses and there's so many different ways to do it, and it's not just writing for the New York Times or something.

Rachel Smith: 39:58

It's so true actually, when you think about. All the guests who have done different things, like we have a really great friend who is a Rachel's Lister, but she was a journalist for CNN, for all these big mastheads, and she left it behind to start a self-publishing company, Hembry books. So that's Jessica Mudit. And so yeah, all those stories I think are really inspiring to people because they think I. Where can I take my skills next? What can I do? And if you are feeling that fear and that grief from ai or thinking what, mm-hmm. What am I, what's my next pathway? There are so many stories out there of people who have struck out and found a new path and managed to transfer their skills in a new way that's helped them make money and help them pay their mortgage and all of that. So I think that's really inspiring as well about the podcast and the people that we've met and, and learned from, for sure.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 40:49

This is so good. I love the ideas of abundance, of sharing, of community, of helping other people. I really believe that that's how we all. Continue to progress and this collaboration has just been just so beautiful to see. And even just to hear all of these things that have grown from the things that you've created in your mind that you just said, Hey, we should do this. We should have an episode about this. We should have this summit, Rachel, if somebody was considering. Teaming up with someone in the space, what would you tell them? We

Rachel Smith: 41:20

hear about a lot of people collaborating, perhaps starting a small agency, a content agency, or I'm just thinking about other podcasts that we know that have collaborated, but there are lots of collaborations out there. As a copywriter, you can collaborate with a web designer and then share referrals and share those projects together. So that's one really great way to collaborate. I think if you're thinking about collaborating in the way that Lynn and I have done it, it's really good to choose someone who has slightly different skills to you or perhaps works in a slightly different way. Or has different strengths. Like Lynn is very strong on the finance side of things, on making the numbers work, whereas I am a bit different. I would much prefer to write newsletters and work on the marketing side of things and fiddle with assets in Canva and make our feed look great and all of that. They look really pretty. We just have really different strengths that we are. Kind of compliment each other. You really need to understand the risks and you need to both understand the commitment that you're putting in because. If one person isn't as committed as the other person, I think that can cause massive resentment and cause everything to fall over. And so what you build is lost or ends in bad feeling or whatever. It's a tricky one. I think it can be done. I think you need to choose the right people to collaborate with. Sure. Yeah. Does that make, that sounded really negative, didn't it? No,

Lynne Testoni: 42:50

not at all. Not at all. I think it's true. I think there's a couple of things. First, I think I feel better because I'm. Uh, I'm older and I think that you have to know yourself. Mm. You have to know what you're good at and what you're not, and you have to be comfortable with that. Rachel is way better on things like camper than I am. Maybe if I sat there for hours, which I'm never gonna do and do it, I might get to her level, but I don't think so, and it's not where I wanna spend my time. And it's silly to take on a project that where I said I'll do all the Canva and all the artwork. That's just silly. So you have to know where your strength is. I feel much more comfortable understanding the numbers and managing that part of the business, and I think you have to be aware of what you like doing and what you don't. I also think you can start small, to be honest. The risk when we started, it wasn't terrible. We did six episodes at first. If it had been a disaster, either personally or it was just too hard, technically we would've stopped. You can always stop. It's not forever. In some ways, our podcast will live on for, I think starting small is a good thing. Ours has got bigger over the years with the event and the. And having a website and we use a few different people to help us with things like the transcript and some of the social media. That's help. And Josh, who does our audio editing, we, there's a few people, but we didn't have all those people to start with, weren't we on what we didn't

Rachel Smith: 44:14

want to do as well? Mm-hmm. I think that's really important, like to sit down and nut out what do we want to do, what do we really not want to do? What are we good at? What are we not good at? And build from there. Those conversations are really important to have because things can get out of hand really quickly. We both knew we didn't want to edit the podcast. That was just like a step too far.

Lynne Testoni: 44:37

So Phil, Rachel's husband edited at the beginning until we found Josh. Yeah, and Josh has done it ever since and we love him. Yeah. Yeah. It's worth paying Josh. Definitely.

Rachel Smith: 44:48

But I know actually you said you edit your own podcast, which I take my hat off to you. That's amazing.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 44:53

Yeah. I don't know if that's wise.

Rachel Smith: 44:56

You're thinking about getting your Josh now, aren't you? Yeah. It's Josh call you

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 45:00

speed dialed in right now. Yeah.

Rachel Smith: 45:03

Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a lot of work. Yeah, for sure.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 45:07

Mm. I love that. Being clear of what you're good at and being okay with communicating that to your fellow collaborator, that mutual respect that you shared earlier, the being willing to invest and outsource the pieces that you don't have interest in doing. I think all of those are great because I think that sometimes we can make mistakes in. Only talking to people who are exactly like us, and thank goodness, Lynn, that you're great with the numbers because someone's gotta be watching the numbers and making sure that they're making sense. All the parties can't just be creative or say analytical. Right. That's fantastic advice. I really, really loved speaking with you ladies today and just hearing from your wisdom. And just all of the goodness that you put out into the world is so appreciated. Where can people keep up with you both for the content bite? Where can people see your content? Of course for that, and then also your personal brands. How can we connect with you online?

Lynne Testoni: 46:06

Well, we have a website for the podcast called the Content by.com, and that has link to both our personal things as well. And we have an RSS feed. And what we've done in the last few months is we've put e episode transcripts, which has been really good, really successful. My personal website is lynn testone.com okay, and that's how you find us, Rach.

Rachel Smith: 46:29

Yep. So Rachel's list is rachel's list.com au, and my personal website is rachel smith.com au and you'll find us all over the socials. Come and say hello on LinkedIn. We always love connecting with new listeners and new people and new potential clients. Yeah,

Lynne Testoni: 46:49

clients, people who wanna pitch to us and people who wanna.

Rachel Smith: 46:52

Yeah, we have a pitching document and we're, we love getting new pictures and seeing if we can go ahead with that.

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 46:59

Thank you so much. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you for being. Thanks, Ashley. Appreciate it so much.

Rachel Smith: 47:06

Thanks for having us. Thank

Ashley Cisneros Mejia: 47:07

you.

Speaker 2: 47:07

And with that, we've come to the end of another episode. Please make sure you hit subscribe and give me a five star review on your favorite podcast app. Check out the show notes and grab my free guide to help you diversify your freelance business. It's called. If you do this, try that 220 plus smart ways to diversify your freelance services. Until next time, this is Ashley Cisneros Mejia. 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. Our music was composed by Donna Raphael of World Instrumentals Talk. Freelance to me is a product of Fenix Creative Studio.