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| *Very confident and knowledgeable, dressed to impress, and armed with the right tools to succeed* |
Fast-forward to 10 years, this is now what my Barbie symbol looks like:
*Disheveled, looks lost and a little embarrassed!*
But kidding aside, I think the next Barbie best describes me (or what I hope I look like) (when I am not disheveled, lost, and embarrassed).
*Free, can work anywhere, a lifelong learner*
And then this also after accomplishing whatever I was working on.
*Relaxed, carefree, and with a positive outlook in life*
So really this time, I will tell you what happened to me and this business venture after 10 long years…
I have become a professional freelancer! And it feels like I have indeed become a businesswoman and a CEO of my own company. I offer editing, writing, and marketing services to clients from various industries here and abroad! And yes, I get to be like the Barbie in the third picture because of freelancing! (Achieving fourth Barbie picture is in the works, hopefully before my retirement age :D)
Here is a definition of freelance/freelancer from https://www.flexjobs.com/: “a freelance job is one where a person works for themselves, rather than for a company. While freelancers do take on contract work for companies and organizations, they are ultimately self-employed.”
Now let’s not waste this full decade’s worth of experience that I have, shall we? Let me jot down things I have learned in my 10 years journey. These are a mix of realizations I had over putting up a business for the first time until I finally embraced fully freelancing as a business and professional career in one.
1. Your first business might fail and that’s alright so; just learn more and try again.
One’s first business may succeed or not and either way, that’s perfect. Though aiming and planning for success is important when starting a business, putting up a business involves a lot of hard work and many factors are at play. If you succeed the first time, awesome, if you don’t, learn why you didn’t and try again.
My first business venture was called Super Occupation Superhero or SOS. It was specially crafted to focus on creating quality educational, motivational, and inspirational materials aimed to help children, teens, and even adults to achieve their dreams. I now know that the brand name was too long but that was just part of the problem. I also did not do a product test before launch. So after that experience, I am bent on learning more and am hoping to launch a similar venture soon.
2. Define who your clients are. You cannot serve various types of clients all at once when you are just starting. Unless you have a lot of experiences or have put up businesses before, it is best to find just one specific market for your first business and learn how you can serve them well. Then expand to a larger market when you already have mastered your initial target. As I have mentioned earlier, my first business catered to children, teens, as well as adults. So that was another major mistake that I did in my first business venture.
3. Find your bliss and determine how you can build a profitable business around it. It is true that if you do something that you love, you will never work another day. Your bliss can be your hobbies or the things that you love spending time on. I love learning and mentoring younger people, that’s why I built SOS. However, I failed at determining the profitability part.
4. If you have lost your bliss, go to the core. If you realize later on that your bliss is not making you happy anymore, then rest. If you still don’t get the same inspiration from your bliss after you have rested, then find the core of your bliss and focus on that. In my case, SOS still made me happy even if it did not turn out to be profitable. But unfortunately, I cannot live (buy food) using that excitement alone. Going back to the core of my bliss, which I have identified to be helping people through Information, Education, and Communication, I was able to shift to another fulfilling but more profitable venture that gives me the same bliss: freelance writing and editing.
5. Join communities that will inspire you to do better. Social media is wonderful because it has allowed easier ways to find people and groups that you can join, learn from, exchange ideas with, and share and understand yourself and your goals.
I have joined a lot of freelancing communities, some formal, some informal and they are all wonderful, each with a unique brand that serves a certain purpose. In 2020, I had the honor to be accepted as a Member of the Freelance Writers’ Guild of the Philippines, founded by Miss Aimee Morales, MA Creative Writing graduate of the University of the Philippines and a freelance writer, editor, and writing mentor for more than 20 years. It is through that group that I realized that freelance writing is not just a means to earn money but a profession that is essential not only to academes or media outfits but even to various private industries, government institutions, and non-profit agencies that need to communicate their own products, services, and ideals and reach out to people.
6. Learn from others but do not compare yourself to them. Each of us has our own journey to take to reach our individual goals. I have seen some people in my community easily earning six figures several times a year. It’s awesome and crazy. Sometimes I ask God, when will my turn come to earn really big money like them but of course I know I need to go through a different journey so I can be where God wants me to be. So what I do is be thankful to get to know these amazing people, be inspired by their success, emulate their best practices, adopt those that are applicable to the services that I do, and enjoy my own journey to my own kind of success.
7. Define your own success and work towards that. This is important so that you don’t get lost on your way to your own success. Some define success by the figures in their bank accounts, some by owning a house, while some by being able to help their parents send their siblings to school. When you have a clear picture of what success looks like to you, it becomes easier to achieve it and enjoy your wins, no matter what other people think success should look like. Take one little step at a time until you can take bigger steps. The important thing is you are moving in the direction of your own dreams.
8. Give value. Now in the 10th year of my blog, I feel more strongly about this life advice that Albert Einstein once said, “Do not try to become a person of success but try to become a person of value.” Thus, to complement item number 7 in my list, I think the best way to define success is that point in time when you also have the ability to give. If you can give love to people dear to you through your financial achievements, then that can be your success. If you can volunteer some of your time to a worthy cause and help people without expecting anything in return, then that can be a form of success as well.
I have been writing every now and then for this blog for ten years now, hoping to give value to the writing industry and help various audiences from both the business and communication fields. Even if my blog did not become popular nor has given me any profit, I still believe it has been an important part of my journey and success as a freelance writer and editor.
This blog has served as my portfolio through which I was able to bag writing and editing consultancy contracts for an online shopping magazine and an e-commerce website, among other freelance writing and editing gigs for other publishing outfits. This blog also became my avenue to express my passion for social entrepreneurship. And when I need to write (because writers just want to write, even if not for money) but my current assignments do not involve writing (e.g. editing or indexing or translating), I go to this blog and find refuge.
To summarize, Elle Goes Into Business blog has given me so much more than what I hoped for. While recording my business and freelance writing journey, I have learned a great deal on so many subjects. In addition, thinking of what next to write about in this blog has also developed in me a love for lifelong learning, evident in my penchant for attending seminars on various things that catch my interest. Ten years into blogging, I pray that this project has also been valuable to others somehow. My quest now for the next ten years or more is to continue this blog and of course, with it, the continuation of my pursuit to explore and share the exciting world of information, education, and communication applied to business and various professions, especially to freelancing.
Special thanks to you who has stayed with me and my blog despite my intermittent posting. Please stay tuned because my services shop will be available soon and so you can be the first to find out the services I can provide to help you.
Let me end my anniversary post with something to inspire us all -- Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. -- Pope John XXIII
