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What boxes does your job need to tick?

While reading this Harvard Business Review article entitled, “How to Think Strategically About a Career Transition,” I paused at this comment:

I had a conversation with a headhunter at one point, and they were asking me about my job. I told them it ticks all my boxes.

Made me wonder, what are my boxes? What boxes does my current work tick (I actually really enjoy aspects of it!)?

  • Client interaction
  • Client trust
  • Freedom to explore different solutions/ ideas
  • Consultative nature of work
  • Always learning something new
  • Clients value my opinion
  • Work variety

So why am I trying to shift career paths? My skills have outpaced my current audience’s budgets. Ideally, my new role would continue to tick the boxes that make me happy in my current role.

What boxes does your current job tick? What boxes should your next one check off?

Monday, April 29, 2024

I get to choose my area of specialization. Get to. In my mastermind, we are encouraged to build our authority in one chosen area of specialization. I chose landing pages for B2B SaaS startups after much deliberation, waffling, and change. I had (still have!) anxiety around it and feel quite overwhelmed at all the steps needed to get there, but I had an epiphany the other day. A mindset shift. I realized how blessed I am that I get to choose what I want to do, pursue, study, etc. This is a privilege not to be taken for granted!

What do you want?

Every Thursday I meet with a group of four high school juniors to help them with their personal statements for college. One of the scholars was a closed book and it took some coaxing and prying to get her to open up. I asked her, “What do you like to do? What do you enjoy? What are you proud of?” Her answer to every one of these questions was, “I don’t know. I never thought about it.” Sometimes, we are taught to care for others at the expense of caring for ourselves. We don’t carve out space to ponder, “What do I want?” In other cases, we are told our opinions and ideas don’t matter.

I can relate to this. I was never encouraged to think about myself, my ideas, or to advocate for myself. I had to be considerate, think of others, do what was best for the group, and do as I was told (the expectation was to obey my elders and people in authority, never question or challenge).

Now as I try to grow my business, my biggest hurdle is not knowing what I want. Knowing what I want would provide clarity. I know I want to make an impact, do important work. But what does that look like? Other people in my group have financial goals (e.g. I want to earn $3M in three years), or authority goals (e.g. I want to be known as the pricing expert), etc. I don’t know what I want. It’s SO frustrating.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Being honest with yourself starts by admitting to yourself what you want most.

Not what you think you want.
Now what you think you need.
But what you truly—at your core—want.

When you live based on freedom and want, then your life starts transforming in qualitative and non-linear ways. You stop operating in the finite-minded work of other people’s goals and rules.

10x is Easier Than 2x, Dan Sullivan/ Dr. Benjamin Hardy

I can’t remember the last time I thought about what I want—what I really want. I was always taught to be polite, thoughtful, considerate of others, and to put others’ needs before me (note to self: How does this square with my Christian faith?)

What do I want?

I want freedom to travel.
I want freedom to buy my friends gifts without a second thought.
I want to be known.

That’s a good start.

Monday, February 12, 2024

Why yes, it’s February. I didn’t intend to take such a long break from writing, but January was tough… So was December. That challenging project I mentioned in my last post? I completely bombed it. I’ve never failed so badly on a project. Actually, I failed similarly spectacularly during my business school internship. That was a long time ago.

I don’t do well with failure. I feel it deeply. But we all fail at some point, right? We teach our kids to be ok with failure and there’s even the saying, “fail fast, fail often,” right?

I’m trying to change my relationship with failure. Not let it crush me. In the past, even smaller mistakes or setbacks might have caused me to curl up into a ball for a few days. This time, I dare say, I had a tiny flash of hope. I felt hopeful that I was one step closer to my goal (because I know that’s what will happen if I choose to learn from this mistake).

However, I can’t completely shake my sad feelings. The past few days have been some of my worst. Feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and lack of courage have been overwhelming, making it hard to breathe. So far, the only thing that has made me feel better is throwing myself into my other projects. I’m just distracting myself, if I’m being truthful. The learning has yet to happen…

Sunday, January 21, 2024

  • Career

“They” say feeling nervous and excited when you take a big leap towards something you desire is a good thing. I recently took a BIG leap towards HUGE goals and I have NO IDEA how I will achieve them or where my revenue will come from.

I’m also working with a client I really want to impress and I am terrified I won’t deliver. I am afraid I will let her down—and myself.

I’m having a hard time picking up where I left off on the project because I feel stuck because I’m so afraid to try and fail.

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Why do I like copywriting when I find it so hard?

That is a legitimate question that seems worth exploring.

Here’s what attracted me in the first place:

  • I was already doing it in my web design business and was excited to learn there is a method vs. guessing or choosing words that “feel” right.
  • I was attracted to the idea of a process that is data-driven and rooted in research.

Here’s my challenge:

  • I’m a slow reader—and writer.
  • My thoughts on the copywriting process is muddled. I’m swimming in confusion.
  • I haven’t proven that I can do this well.

Questions: Does struggling with something mean that I should not be doing it? When do I know I should give it up?

Interestingly, I am 100% confident, God brought me my latest work. But it’s such a struggle and that is where a lot of my current doubts are coming from.

January 2, 2024

  • Career

Happy new year!

Here’s what I have been thinking about lately. After joining the mastermind (which was a scary first step!), I got really excited about the idea of growth and the high revenue potential. A month in, I feel scared again…like “how am I going to get from here to there (6x)?”

November 6, 2023

  • Career

I took a big, scary step a couple weeks ago. I made the biggest investment in my business by joining a mastermind-type group.

My goals are:

  • 6x my 2023 revenue
  • Be known for one thing (tbd on the “one thing”)

The 6x goal is very big and scary, but it’s not arbitrary. I chose it because that is what it would take to replace my husband’s salary. Not trying to replace my husband, but it would make me feel good to know that I could support my family if something happened to him. Not at all sure how I will get there. My hope lies in the program, my coaches, and my ability to be coached.

My mind feels scattered, so I’m going to attempt to organize them here. First, here’s what I know:

  • Imposter syndrome is real for me. It impacts my pricing, marketing, how I approach client conversations, extra unpaid hours spent on a project, etc.
  • I am resourceful, and a persistent, tenacious problem-solver.
  • I like web design because the result is more tangible and success is visible.
  • I like conversion copywriting because I have always believed that a website should “do” something. I appreciate that it rooted in research and data.
  • I like to unbury or uncover messages in copy. I enjoy this more than generating fresh copy.
  • Back in school, when working on a group project, I was the one who looked everything over and reorganized things to ensure the paper/ project made sense. Also, I help with college essays, and my favorite stage is round 2 or 3 where I get to reorganize paragraphs and sentences and identify gaps. This is also how I approached web copy before I started writing it myself. I guess I like to organize data.
  • I didn’t set out to be a generalist, but I became one due to my aforementioned problem-solving skills. But I am ready to niche/ specialize.
  • I am uncomfortable with self-promotion and tend to avoid it.
  • I struggle with ADHD/ ADHD-like symptoms. Another reason niching/ specializing feels so attractive.
  • I’m shy, but I love talking to clients. With practice, I think I will really enjoy customer research calls.

Thoughts about my business:

  • I’m at an inflection point. I’m not able to grow my copywriting business because I’m too busy with my web business.
  • In order to grow my business, I believe I need to let go of the commodity tasks and some clients. This is hard because I really like my clients and I like helping people if I know I have the ability.
  • I need to learn to say “no” and remember that just because I “can” do something, doesn’t mean I need to do it.
  • I have been talking about not trading time for $, but I continue to do it. (All of my maintenance/ ongoing contracts are hourly. I do not charge minimum or a fixed monthly fee. Simply bill as needed.)
  • I made the most incredible and depressing discovery the other day: Not only is my rate below market (I have not raised my rate in years), but also, my pricing actively discounts my experience. A task that took me an hour years ago, may only take me 15 minutes today; however, since I bill for actual time spent, I am only earning a fraction for the same output. Super depressing. That’s partly why I feel like I’m doing a lot, but my bank account doesn’t show it, and it’s contributing to burnout.
  • I have never considered an agency model because I like having control over the output and client satisfaction.
  • I think my ideal workload looks like this: 2 medium copywriting projects/ 1 large copywriting projects + 2 small web maintenance projects at any given time. Full website re/ design (up to 7 pages) offered in very limited cases.
  • I would like to transition from local, small businesses to SaaS clients.

In the pipeline for 2024:

  • 1 new build in the pipeline for 2024
  • Finish new build (already started)
  • Finish research-only project
  • Possible new maintenance project
  • Evolution of current, ongoing web consulting/ design contract (they are redesigning—which I said no to—but they asked if I could stay on to help maintain it)
  • Ad hoc tasks from existing clients
  • Hot off the press! This email landed in my inbox minutes ago: Can we actually hop on a quick call again?  It’s been a bit since we spoke & since our needs have changed I’d love to realign on getting content written for the home page sooner rather than later.  This is SaaS prospect who found me through referral. She came looking for a web designer but it became clear in our initial call she could also use copywriting help. Our conversation went cold because they were trying to figure out exactly what their web needs were. I followed up last week, we reconnected, but still she wasn’t quite ready to move forward with anything because the website is a moving target. I offered a couple quick win ideas last Thursday and she came back! I really want this project!

Where I need help:

  • How to transition as painlessly and smoothly as possible (for clients and me)
  • Pricing
  • Based on what you now know about me, do you see a unique intersection of my skills and interests and market need? Been thinking about my market position and my ideal audience… So far, I’ve narrowed it to people who have identified their website as the broken part of their funnel. I’d like to go deeper and get more specific.

Avoiding burnout?

It’s time for change. I’m feeling completely burned out and need to rethink my business and my time. Here’s a conversation I had with a friend today: