Episode #17: Putting All Your (Client) Eggs in One Basket

Interview
Written By Eman Ismail

When Steve Folland’s *only* retainer client let him go, he’d just quit his full-time job to go all in on his audio and video editing business. 

Being jobless and clientless couldn’t have come at a worse time. Steve’s wife had just gone on maternity leave and they had a brand new (4-month-old) baby – plus an older child too!

In this conversation, Steve – also the host of the ‘Being Freelance’ podcast – shares his entrepreneurial journey, how he diversified his skills and services, and what he learned from his biggest business mistake.

 
 

Listen to the Episode

 
 

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  • Eman Ismail: It's November 2018, and I am two months into starting my brand new copywriting business. I'm sat alone in a windowless basement office, grateful to have somewhere I can get my head down and work.

    The guy who owns the office works next door. He's a business owner too, and he's letting me use his space for free, no strings attached. Until one day he comes over and asks—

    (Old boss): Hey, since you're already here, I was wondering if you could maybe answer the phone every so often, print my emails, that kind of thing?

    Eman Ismail: I'm in need of some clarification, so I ask, "You mean, be a secretary?"

    (Old boss):  No, no, no, just answer the phones, print some stuff.

    Eman Ismail: Even though he already knows this, I explain that I have a business I work on full time and that I don't have time for a second unpaid job, especially considering I have a baby.
    At first, he accepts that answer, until he asks me again to basically be his secretary. I say no.

    Again, this time, I tell him I have a friend who'd be perfect for an admin role if he's looking to hire someone. He says—

    (Old boss): No, that's fine.

    Eman Ismail: Some time passes and then he asks me again a third time to be his secretary. That's when naive me realises there are definitely strings attached to this arrangement.

    Within weeks, I return the key he gave me, thank him for his kindness, and leave that workspace. And I find a co-working space where I can meet other business owners who actually respect me. Most business owners know what it feels like to be underestimated, especially women, and especially Black women like me. Most people don't get what us business owners are trying to do. They don't see our vision and often, they don't believe in us like we believe in us.

    For that reason, being a business owner can be a really lonely experience. You're usually working alone, you don't have colleagues to complain to or grab lunch with, and you're figuring out how to run a business completely by yourself.

    But being a business owner doesn't have to be a lonely experience. You don't have to do it alone. Moving to that co-working space helped me realise the importance of community, the importance of creating your own network of freelancers and business owners, whether in real life or virtually, so you're surrounding yourself with people who do understand you, who do get and believe in your vision, and who never underestimate you.

    One of the first people I think of when anyone talks about business owner communities is Steve Folland. He's the host of the Being Freelance podcast and the creator of the Being Freelance community He's created this safe, warm, welcoming, biscuit-loving corner of the internet for freelancers and business owners who refuse to do this alone.

    Steve is usually the one who's interviewing freelancers and talking to them about their businesses. I thought it was time we flicked the script and got him to open up about his business and his biggest business mistake.

    Steve Folland: For well over a year, I'd been making regular stuff for them. And it got to the point where we were making a regular kind of like a video show for them. I would go in every week. We'd record a couple of episodes. They'd go out every single week. And it was good. I mean, it was a lot of work, but it was good money. And it was almost as much as I was earning in my—I mean, admittedly, I wasn't earning that much in my full-time job, but it was almost as much. And so the logic was like, well, I've got that. I just need to find some more of them and we're good to go. Hand in my resignation. That was my business plan. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: That was the whole business plan.

    On today's show, I'm speaking to Steve Folland, video and podcast producer, host of the Being Freelance podcast, and the award-winning Doing It For The Kids podcast, about the time he put all his client eggs in one basket. That didn't work out so well when this one and only client let him go just when he'd quit his job to go full-time in his business.

    Steve Folland: I didn't realise I was starting a business. [laughs] It changes everything when you have that mindset. It changes the way you deal with your finances, it changes the way you think about your pricing, your rates, investing in yourself. When you're a business owner, you'll suddenly think, businesses have research and development and human resources that look after their employees and all of these things, which you have to do for yourself. It makes you think much bigger and much better.

    Eman Ismail: Welcome to Mistakes That Made Me, the podcast that asks extraordinary business owners to share their biggest business mistake so you know what not to do on your road to success. Mistakes That Made Me is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name's Eman Ismail, and I'm an email strategist and copywriter for online business owners like you at emancopyco.com. I'm a podcast lover, a pizza binger, a proud mama of two, and I have this radical idea that if maybe us business owners were a little less guarded and a lot more open about the mistakes we've made, we could help each other grow a business that brings us more joy and less regret.

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    Steve, you were the first person to ever listen to an episode of Mistakes That Made Me, so this feels extra exciting to have you on. Thank you so much for being here.

    Steve Folland: Oh, yes. Ah, that was so cool. Yes, you were in a Being Freelance master—I don't call it a mastermind. We call it the Cookie Collective, but that's what it is. And you've been talking about it and you shared it with me and I couldn't believe—'cause it's at the intro. Oh, it was so good, Eman. And now I'm on it. I hope I don't ruin it. It's so good. It's so good. I love the care that you put into it. Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: Thank you so much.

    So you've seen this show go from idea to, "I'm thinking about doing this thing," to, "Okay, I think I'm gonna do it. Okay, here's a sample. What do you think?" To here we are today.

    Steve Folland: To saying, "You've got to enter it for awards!"

    Eman Ismail: I've got awards.

    Steve Folland: To winning them. Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: How exciting is that?

    Steve Folland: You were like, "No, I don't have to enter awards." Like, what? Yes. Yes, you did.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah, it was you. It was you actually who told me. I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't told me to do it because I had this thing in my head about I can't submit myself for an award and then it was you telling me to do that that made me realise, well, that's what you do. That's how these shows win awards. You have to put yourself forward for the judges to nominate you to get the award. Otherwise, no one's gonna do it for you. No one's gonna submit your podcast. I was like, wow, mind blown, mind blown.

    So yeah, after that conversation with you, I did apply for the Black Podcasting Awards and we won two awards—Best New Podcast, Best Business Podcast.

    Steve Folland: Congratulations. Rightly so.

    Eman Ismail: Thank you. So excited to have you here. Steve, you are known for so many things. You do so many things. You are a video and audio producer, an award-winning podcaster yourself. You have two podcasts—Being Freelance and Doing It For The Kids with your cohost, Frankie. You have the Being Freelance community. But let's start with your main or your first business, shall we say? Because I want to know more about that. I've always followed your vlog, love your vlog. So I know a bit about your main business, but I want to talk more about that. So tell me how did you get into video audio production?

    Steve Folland: How did I? I always loved creating stuff when I was a kid, would always be making radio shows on this little tape recorder in my room and would be filming. We had a little video recorder for our holidays and then using this really rudimentary way to make video editing. And I just decided that I wanted to work in radio more than anything.

    And so eventually, I went and did a degree in media production or new media production. So we did online stuff. We did video stuff. We did audio stuff. And so I learned all of these different skills, and off the back of that, I went and worked in radio for about 10 years, maybe more, but I would always freelance on the side so that I could work for bigger companies, do more exciting things, meet other people.

    And it was really though, only when I had a family that I realised I could do with some more money. I could do extra freelancing stuff. And that's when I realised it was like a point when video was becoming more useful to businesses to be online. So it was more recognising what my skills were. I started actually thinking I would do writing. So somebody hired me to write a script. Somebody hired me to do some copywriting from people I knew. And so I joined PeoplePerHour, which was like—What are they now, Upwork and Fiverr, stuff like that.

    Eman Ismail: It's Upwork now.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. Upwork was Elance and oDesk. I joined those too actually, but there was one based in the UK, which was called PeoplePerHour. And I sort of put on there and I thought I'll do copywriting. I'll write scripts. And then, people started saying, "Oh, it says in your skills you're a presenter as well. So suddenly, I started presenting videos or writing video scripts. And then people were like, "Oh, we're looking for an animator." And I was like, "Oh, I can do animation." "Oh, we're looking for voiceovers." Like, "Oh, I can do voiceovers." So I said, "I've got a microphone." That's how I started.

    So it was realising what my skills were, were much broader than I thought my skills were, recognising what people wanted. And it was just at the time as online video started to pick up. So whereas today, yes, I make lots of podcasts. Back then, people weren't interested in podcasts like 10 years ago, not really for businesses or anything. They wanted to make online video for their websites, for YouTube. So I started helping people do that, both through PeoplePerHour, but also through people I knew in the real world. And that's how I ended up realising that this was kind of like a business by accident in a way, and just seizing the opportunities that will come in my way.

    I built a relationship with—We used to go and have our radio photographs done in this studio in a nearby village with a self-employed photographer called Mark and he had this awesome studio. And I said to him, "Oh, actually, you've got all these cameras. Would you mind filming me reading these scripts for my client?" And so he and I started to build it. He would then start offering video editing services to his clients and I would edit them. We did so much together, me and him.

    Eman Ismail: I love that.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. It all came from recognising people were willing to give me money to do things that I knew how to do essentially. And then it was a case of finding those people and doing it. And it got to the point where I had this full-time job, I was doing extra freelance radio stuff, but I was also doing all of this extra writing, presenting, editing on the side, and I just was maybe going to bed at midnight and getting up at 4.00 a.m. and it's just not sustainable.

    And that tied together with us having our second kid and our first one getting to be the age of, I don't know, maybe 4, 5. So they were about to start school and so the conversation started in the house of, well, how are we going to get our son to school? My wife, "I'm going back after maternity leave, who's going to have the baby?" And I was like, "Well, actually, I've got all this work off the internet. Maybe I could work from home and look after the kids and do all the pickups and how hard can that be? [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: [laughs] How hard can that be? It's gonna be so easy just working from home and managing all the family stuff. It's gonna be so easy. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: Mm.

    Eman Ismail: I learned so much from you in that aspect. There's so much that I want to unpick from what you just said, but I learned so much from you in watching you manage your, family life and picking up your kids, taking them to school, picking them up from school, all that stuff and making your business work around all that stuff.

    And for me, one of the lessons that you taught me was to use those pockets of time that you can productively use, small pockets of time to get stuff done. So, yes, it's stressful driving your kids here, there, and everywhere, but while your kid is in, I don't know, whatever activity they're in, you'd record yourself in the car, just finishing up some editing or doing a bit of work.

    And I just thought, "Oh my gosh, it's so true," because you feel like, "Ugh, I can't do anything this hour. It's just a waste. I'm just gonna, I don't know, do nothing. I'm just going to do nothing." When actually an hour, 45 minutes of productive work 'cause you know you've only got that one hour or 45 minutes till your kid comes back out, you can really get a lot done. So I don't know if you know that. Well, that's what you taught me, watching you. And I was like, yeah, this is what flexible working is all about.

    Steve Folland: Very flexible when you're curled up on the floor at a swimming pool with a laptop with no chair. Yeah, that's so-called—No, but you're right. It was that at first, it was quite overwhelming, that stress of getting to and from places and picking up on time and things like that, and then you realised—I mean, the smog levels were high. If you got to the school gates an hour early, you got the prime park outside, I'd get out my flask of tea, I'd get out a ceramic mug because I'm not mucking about, I'd pour it into that, and then I'd have my biscuits in the little—It turns out those cup holders are perfect size for digestives. And then I'd have my laptop and I'd carry on editing until it was—

    And then I'd see the gradual thing of people driving past looking for a park and not being able to get one, I'd see the queue of people standing in the rain, and I'm just sitting there in my steamed up little—Also, turns out cars are excellent vocal booths. If you ever want to do-

    Eman Ismail: Yes.

    Steve Folland: -recording in them. I've done that. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Oh, they are. They are. So I used to do voiceovers for my old job, my old traditional job, the one I left for this. They used to ask me to do voiceovers for their videos and stuff. So I used to run in my car and record on my phone. And the acoustics are amazing in a car. I recorded an episode, a podcast interview in the car as well. And I know that the car is great for acoustics because if you know me, you know this by now, I always wanted to be a singer. And so I've done a lot of singing in my car. When you're singing in your car, it's like singing in your bathroom, you're going to sound great no matter how good or bad your voice is. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: So yes, yes to doing voiceovers in the car.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. During the pandemic, we managed to keep the Doing It For The Kids podcast that I also do, going through—Obviously, the house was tiny and it was full of people who never left the house because we were in lockdown. But I could go and sit in the car and record using the 4G on my phone with Frankie, my co-host. All of those were done sitting in the car. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Love it. Love it. So when did you start your business? What would you say was the start date or start year your business?

    Steve Folland: Well, actually, it's 10 years ago. Basically, I quit my job in autumn 2013, the year that our daughter was born. Well, I had a three-month notice period. So my last day was November the 30th. And then just a few days later, we got on a plane and we buggered off to Australia where my wife is from for six weeks. 'Cause she was on maternity leave. I'd never been able to have more than a couple of weeks off. So we went, came back in January after Christmas and New Year. And she went back to work and I was sat there with my laptop and a baby. She didn't actually start nursery until the April. So she and I were hanging out all the time. And then in April, she started.

    The reason I say that is because—So if you're saying, when did my business start? It kind of started as soon as I finished that job, but first of all, I went to Australia, then it was very bitty, you know what it's like to actually work around a baby who isn't-

    Eman Ismail: A newborn.

    Steve Folland: -in any other form of care.

    Eman Ismail: Mm. Mm.

    Steve Folland: But once she went in four days a week, we always had Wednesdays hanging out. I was in April of 2014. That's when I could actually get things moving, I think.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, you took me back to my youngest son. Yeah. My youngest son because I did this whole thing where I was like, he has to be home with me for a full year. That's what I want. And I started working again when he was about six months old. But I made the mistake of [laughs] I thought I was taking on part-time work. I thought I was coming back part-time. What I was actually doing was doing full-time work and taking on a full roster of clients and trying to make that happen around a newborn's sleeping schedule, which was insane. So yes, I know how hard that was, and it wasn't fun. It was not fun either.

    And then they start nursery and then they just get all these viruses and are at home anyway for weeks and weeks. And then you're sick as well and everyone's sick and you're just like, maybe I should have kept them home. Oh my gosh.

    You said something, you initially started off doing video, video editing and producing, 'cause that's what everyone wanted. You saw that that was the demand, and then you started doing that. You also said podcasting back then wasn't really a thing. Right now, you record—not record. You produce and edit a lot of podcasts. I'm really interested in that ability to see what's changing in your industry and being able to keep up with your industry and keep up with demand and I guess, upskilling or changing your skills to meet that demand, especially as AI enters the fold and so many of us are worried about how to stay relevant, how to keep our work relevant. Tell me a bit about that, I guess, about seeing podcast coming into the mix and figuring out, well, actually I can do that as well.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. Because that's the thing. 10 years ago, podcasts did exist. In fact, as a radio station, we had our own podcast. So I had already made hundreds of the things, but businesses wouldn't have seen it as a thing. So I think it's about paying attention to what is happening in the wider world. What are people doing? Where is stuff happening?

    And it's quite hard to rewind your head 10 years and think about the state of social media, to think about YouTube.

    Eman Ismail: It's a different world.

    Steve Folland: Yeah, cause to think about the state of broadband for most people, was it like—And the state of our phones. We weren't watching things on our phones really back then. And actually, all of those things do matter because. I remember I started to realise actually maybe we should be making vertical video, which seems so obvious now. It's just a thing. There would be people who I knew or people on LinkedIn who would be steadfast video makers who were like, no, people who film vertical, it's heresy to filmmakers, isn't it? Films are meant to be in the cinema. They're meant to be this landscape thing.

    And I would be sitting there going, yeah, but people are starting to—If people are picking up their phones and filming vertical, then that's the instinct. Plus people are starting to watch things on their phones and that's how they sit. So I started to try and find video players that would let you share vertical video because not all of them would. So an early one was Wistia that would let you actually share vertical video on your website, knowing that people would probably be watching it on their phones and things like that.

    So it's kind of keeping an eye out for what those trends are, how people are using things. Suddenly you're thinking, okay, people are watching a lot on their phone, but often they're on silent. Are they skipping? And so suddenly you're thinking, okay, how can I add captions to the services that I'm doing? Not just subtitles for accessibility's sake, but for everybody to see the captions in bed. 'Cause that's another thing. People didn't want burnt-on captions. They want subtitle files, but suddenly, you're like, now some people do want burnt-on captions because otherwise you don't know what's happening. If you're watching this in silence or you're watching it while you're on the bus and it's really noisy.

    So it's keeping an eye out for some of these things, even if it's taking away the art of filmmaking. Thankfully, I'm not a filmmaker. I didn't care about that side of it. I wanted to make, you know, accessible communication, I guess, stories, things that people would actually want to look or listen to. And then yeah, podcasts start to become more of a thing.

    And actually, to be fair, I accidentally got really good SEO for a freelance podcast person because I make a podcast called Being Freelance and I'm an editor and all sorts. So if people were to Google freelance podcast, and then they're starting to look for an editor or whatever, obviously, I pop up. So people started to approach me. I was like, ah, now the world is starting to get more ready for freelance podcasts. Oh, not freelance, but now the world is starting to get ready for business podcasts.

    Eman Ismail: Love it.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. And then in terms of the vlog, actually, that came more from—at the time, I was watching, oh God, was it Gary Vee? I was watching his videos, and so this, again, is like 10 years ago, but I have mixed feelings about Gary Vee. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: I think we all do. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: Right.

    Eman Ismail: We all do.

    Steve Folland: You cannot take away the fact, that he spots trends, and where attention is, and what is happening, and is often ahead of the curve. I wanted to start making video content, but I didn't quite know what that was. And I remember him saying, "Document, don't create." That was his thing. "Document, don't create. Document, don't create." And he started doing his DailyVee vlog, where he would actually have a cameraman following him around. They would create this thing every day, which was an insane thing to—such a huge thing to do, production-wise.

    So that's when I started my vlog. I thought, "Okay, I don't really know what else to do, but I'll start documenting what it's like." But actually, it helped me as a business owner because it helped me—it's almost like journaling. I was discussing to the camera what I was going through, and that kind of helped as well as being able to show people because a lot of the stuff I was creating was for businesses, and behind closed doors, I wouldn't necessarily be able to show it. So I was able to show what I was doing as well.

    And in fact, I remember going into a client pitch once. And even before I was talking to the person I was with, walking down the corridor, and as soon as we got in, the lady in there had heard my voice and she was like, "Oh, I recognise that voice." She was excited because she's been watching the vlog. She felt like she knew me. So we thought we were going in there to pitch. And it really, once I sat down, felt like it was a done deal this person had been watching me for months.

    Eman Ismail: Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? It just goes to show that all that hard work really, really does pay off. And it's funny that you mentioned your voice because I was going to say, you have the most radio perfect voice I've ever heard in my life. You can hear your voice and be like, "This guy is a podcaster, radio person, voiceover." It's so funny. And I feel like you were born to be in radio. I don't know what made you want to be in radio, but you were born for it. Your voice was made for it.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. It's the face, isn't it, Eman? Is that what you're saying? Right, thanks very much. Such a backward compliment. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: [laughs] Oh my gosh. No, it's not, it's really not.

    So when we were talking about this, you said something to me, which was that you were working at the radio station for years and years and years before you started your business and you were just waiting to be hired by one of the big radio stations, one of your dream jobs, dream radio stations. I'm really interested in that idea of waiting for something big to happen to you. Tell me about that.

    Steve Folland: It was just, I don't know quite what hap—Oh, no, I do know what happened. I got comfortable. So there was this point in my life where I had this goal and the goal was to be on the radio. And so even when I was like 14, in fact, even when I was like 7, I wrote an autobiography at school. We had to pretend it was us in the future.

    Eman Ismail: Wow.

    Steve Folland: And I said that I was a Radio 1 DJ, Radio 1 being the big UK radio station, and I'd run the London Marathon—neither of which I've done. I'm quite glad about the latter. But yeah, I had this goal. My family, my teachers were all like, "Well, okay, if you want to do that, maybe—" "If you don't end up on the radio, maybe you need the skills to work behind the scenes." So I worked to volunteer at hospital radio, which was kind of, I guess, almost like the podcast and YouTube of its day. It's a way to learn and to develop your skills.

    And then I went to university and I did it. Then I actually got offered a job, two jobs—one at this big London production company who makes stuff for Radio 1 and stuff, or at an actual radio station who had heard me when I was 14 on the radio, remembered me, and come back when they were launching their radio station when I was 21. And I thought, well, you never get offered a job on the radio. This never happens.

    Eman Ismail: Wow.

    Steve Folland: And I had a conversation with the big production company, and he was like, "Well, we'd love to have you, but that never happens." I was like, "Okay, I'll go and take the job on the radio and see what happens." And what happened was I just got comfortable. We ended up making this really—and I'm normally very modest, but I have to not be [laughs] at this point. What we did, our breakfast radio show was awesome. It was so like funny. The people I was with, the chemistry that we had was just brilliant.

    We were based so close to London that in any right, nobody in our area should have listened to us because they could all listen to the big London radio stations. But they did. We had this big audience and we had them writing in and doing crazy things for us. And it was so much fun. We had this podcast, which was so funny. We had all the local media on our side and I always just thought, well, we just keep doing this and eventually Radio 1 will come knocking 'cause, you know, that'll happen.

    And of course, it didn't happen. It didn't happen. We got consumed in creating the thing every day, which is why it was really good. But what we didn't do was start sending our stuff out, think about trying to leave and go elsewhere. Yeah, I just thought that the big media people would come and find me when, of course, what actually happens in real life is that I wasn't the only person who thought they were brilliant and should be on the radio. The world, the country, was full of them, and they weren't just sitting at the end of the drive of Radio 1 or the BBC waving, hoping they'd get noticed. They were knocking on the door, or climbing through the window, or coming down the chimney, and working from the inside, waiting to get noticed.

    That's what happens. And I didn't see that. I got too modest and I just sat there and wait and too comfortable, frankly, I was having so much fun, being able to play what you want to play, which never happens, being able to just laugh solidly for hours every single day. I had so much fun, but I also took my eye off what I had hoped to end up doing. And if you don't go—And it taught me, you want to get things, you've got to go and do it.

    Now, everything I have as a freelancer, as a business owner, pretty much, I have to go out and get it. Sure, some stuff comes to me, but it's only because I'm creating things to draw people to me, isn't it?

    Eman Ismail: Yeah.

    Steve Folland: And if you want a sponsor for your podcast, if you want to win that award, you have to actually enter them. You have to reach out and put in that work because most— Yeah. Ah, I wish I'd realised—Well, actually, I don't wish I'd done it differently because otherwise I wouldn't have the life I have now, but yeah.

    Eman Ismail: I love it. And that was almost the mistake that made you, but we decided to go with another one.

    Steve Folland: You overruled it. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: I did. I did on a technicality because you weren't in business, you weren't a business owner. So I was like, "Steve, I'm sorry. It's a great one, but it doesn't count." But we can talk about it still because I think it's a really great point. And when I sit down and even just list the great things that are going on for me, whether it's clients, whether it's opportunities, often, more times than not, it's things that I've put myself forward for, that I've pitched for.

    And so, actually, someone just tagged me in a post that I wrote a few weeks ago on Instagram. If you're not following me on Instagram, go follow me @emancopyco because sometimes I come with these nuggets. Here's my post. "Stop waiting for things to land at your doorstep. Stop waiting to be invited. Start demanding the world sees you." Because we do, we just kind of sit around and think, you know what, someone's gonna notice me, someone's gonna invite me, someone's gonna give me that thing that I'm waiting for. And no one is.

    But you know what? Often the opportunity is so close. It's right there, but you have to be proactive in making it happen, in planting the seed in someone's mind. I just pitched—I don't know how this is going to work out, but I just pitched my dreamiest of dream, dream clients, as in one of those that I told someone, and they were like, "Oh," and I was like, "Yeah."

    I pitched her one email sequence because I was like, "This is what I can help you with." And she came back and she said, "You know what, I'd really love to work with you, but I don't want you to just do one email sequence. Actually, I want you to work on our whole email strategy. So let's book that call." [laughs] I'm like, "Yes."

    Steve Folland: Amazing.

    Eman Ismail: So the call is happening next week. And I guess by the time this goes out, we'll know how it went, which will kind of be awkward and embarrassing if it's a no, but it was that close. It was that close to me. I just had to ask. And so now obviously, it's on me to nail the sales call and all that good stuff. But sometimes you just got to ask. You got to put yourself forward.

    Steve Folland: You do. I got invited to give a talk to a load of Year 9 students. So Year 9 is what, 13, 14 years old?

    Eman Ismail: Yes, 13, 14.

    Steve Folland: It's one of the scariest rooms I've ever entered, a hundred Year 9.

    Eman Ismail: Terrifying.

    Steve Folland: Not just a hundred Year 9 students, a hundred Year 9 students who didn't want to be there. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Well, I was gonna say, that was the thing. A bunch of Year 9 students who were just like, who is this guy? Why is he here? Why are you making us sit here and listen to him? [laughs]

    Steve Folland: Yeah. But I remember I just sat there and I went, do you know what? The sooner you realise that no one is going to make stuff happen for you, the better, right? Yes, your parents love you. Yes, your teachers are looking out for you. But actually, they're all consumed with their own lives. You've got to get on and make your own stuff happen. You don't just sit there waiting and you're thinking, "Oh, maybe one day I'll do this." No, do it now. [laughs] You have no idea how much spare time you have when you're a kid. Do it now. And maybe creating that vlog or videos or something now will suddenly put you higher up the chance of getting a job further down.

    Anyway, I went off on one at these kids that nobody cared about them really and they had to care about themselves. [laughs] And afterwards, this teacher came up to me and I thought, "Oh God, I'm going to get told off," but the teacher came up to me and they went, "That was exactly what I needed to hear. I need to do something else." And I thought, "Oh, no." [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: [laughs] Wow. Oh, no, Steve, what have you done? [laughs]

    Steve Folland: They've just—

    Eman Ismail: They've lost the teacher.

    Steve Folland: So it was the teacher who went and made it happen. I don't know what happened to the kids.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, no.

    Steve Folland:  This was about 10 years ago. God knows what happened to them all.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, that's so funny. You've got to look it up and find out because they probably handed in their resignation that day.

    [laughs] I feel like this is something that I'm trying to teach my son. So he is almost 8. And sometimes, he'll ask me for something, and it's very, like, you know, hinting, beating around the bush, "You know that thing." And actually, I've started saying this, "Is there something that you want to ask me?" "Is there something you want to ask me?" And he'll say, "Yeah." And I'll say, "So ask me directly. Ask me exactly what you want to ask me." And then he'll change the question, the conversation, and actually directly ask me exactly what he wants to ask me because I want him to get into that habit of asking for exactly what he wants.

    And I told him, and I sat him down. And maybe this is a bit too early, but no, I feel like it's never too early. I sat him down and said, "If you want something, you have to ask for it and you can't assume that the person on the other side understands these hints and these things that you drop in. If you want something, you ask for it and you go for it." And so that's what we're working on in this household. I also don't let him win any of the games that we play. So right now we're into Uno. No, never. Uno, Connect Four, the whole shebang, and I don't let him win.

    Steve Folland: Wow.

    Eman Ismail:  So if he beats me, it's because he's seriously skilled at these games. And he actually really is. And then it's so funny because other adults will come and I'll say, "Don't let him win. Don't let him win. Play him seriously." And he beats every single one of them. And I'm like, "Yes."

    Steve Folland: Wow, Eman. Do you know, so I used to let them win. And you're absolutely right. Because I tell you what, when they are suddenly 10, 14 years old, whatever, they take no prisoners with you. It's like, "Dude, let me win sometimes." And it's like, "No." And I'm like, "Come on. Do you know how many times I used to let you win?"

    Eman Ismail: I love it. No, I'll never be able to say that because I never let him win, ever. Ugh, okay, maybe one time when he actually cried and I was like, "Okay, maybe I'm taking this a bit too far." I'll let you win one time, but generally, no.

    Steve Folland: Fine, I'll let you win that arm wrestle. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Right. Yeah. I'm trying to prepare you for the world. Also, it's really funny, I've got him into wanting to be a business owner. He's like, "I want to do whatever mum does, this podcast, this winning awards thing," this is what he said to me, "I want to do that." [laughs] He's like, "I don't want a boss. I want to be the boss." I'm like, "Yes. Yes." Yeah.

    Okay. Steve, this has been so great. I had a bunch of questions that I wanted to ask you, that we're just not going to get time to go into 'cause otherwise, we'll never get to the mistake. So we'll have to leave that for another time, but we're gonna get into what I actually invited you here for. Are you ready?

    Steve Folland: [laughs] Yes.

    Eman Ismail: Okay.

    Steve Folland: You got to ask for it though, Eman. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: I've got to ask for it, Steve. I've got to ask for it.

    Steve, what is the mistake that made you?

    Steve Folland: So I thought I had great regular freelance income lined up. So I quit my job and then within weeks, the freelance work was gone. All my eggs were in that one basket and it was just sitting at my feet. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: And I want to add your wife was pregnant at this point and was about to go on maternity leave. Oh my gosh.

    Steve Folland: Yeah, she was on maternity leave. We had a baby. Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: Okay.

    Stick around. Don't go anywhere. We'll get right back to this episode after this quick break.

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    Okay. When you told me this, I told you I felt sick. I felt physically sick. My stomach turned because that is literally your worst nightmare. So you quit your radio job-

    Steve Folland: Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: -thinking you had—It was one client, right? Thinking you had this one client in the bag, and then they let you go, and then you had nothing.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. 'Cause for, I don't know, well over a year, I'd been making regular stuff for them. And it got to the point where we were making a regular kind of like a video show for them at that studio, photo studio down the road. I would go in every week. We'd record a couple of episodes. They'd go out every single week. And it was good. I mean, it was a lot of work, but it was good money. And it was almost as much as I was earning in my—I mean, admittedly, I wasn't earning that much in my full-time job, but it was almost as much. And so the logic was like, well, I've got that. I just need to find some more of them and we're good to go. Hand in my resignation. That was my business plan. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: That was the whole business plan. Hand in the resignation and this one client is the whole business plan. Let's rewind. Let's go back. Take me back to the beginning. So at what point, first of all, did you start to think, "Okay, I could actually do this as a business, so maybe I should hand in my resignation"?

    Steve Folland: I think it was a chip, chip, chip, There was two things. One was the fact that because we did a breakfast show, I would literally get up at 4.00 a.m. and I was tired. I'd sometimes be working on client work until midnight. And we had a baby, so not even that sleep would have been sleep.

    Eman Ismail: You were sleep-deprived. That's why you did what you did, basically. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: But also, the fact that my wife is the organised one. She's the one who actually thinks about our future and plans things. Thank goodness. I'm a bit too like make things up as I go along, really. And she was quite rightly thinking, well, if I'm going back to work, what are we going to do with our children? And when the older one is no longer at nursery and needs taking to school and the nursery and the school drop off, so at different times, how are we going to do that?

    I mean, to be fair, by this point, I'd kind of—I didn't want to become like—and it sounds disrespectful to people who are, but I didn't want to become this bloke in my 40s who was still on the local radio station and had been doing it since he was 20. I didn't want to be doing that. I'd kind of maybe had enough of doing that. I'd had a lot of fun. I'd done that dream job, but I had this other opportunity, and it was an opportunity that meant I could work from home. That wasn't something that I thought I could have done maybe 10 years earlier. It just wasn't, technologically and things that people were asking for.

    So here's this chance to look after the kids, be there, and I was the only dad at the school gates. [laughs] It's very different now after the pandemic, but I was the only one, pretty much, squeezing in a bit of work here and there, but it all came from that conversation with my wife where it's like, well, what are we going to do? Well, maybe I could do it. And if it doesn't work out, I thought, well, I can always just go and get a "proper job", but goodness knows how we'll actually look after our children, but still.

    Eman Ismail: Okay, you've quit your job.

    Steve Folland: Yeah.

    Eman Ismail: You're excited about starting your business. Your wife has just had the baby.

    Steve Folland: Do you know though, it's funny. Sorry to interrupt.

    Eman Ismail: It's okay.

    Steve Folland: But you say you're excited about starting your business. I didn't necessarily see it that way. I remember us going to Australia and my wife going to people, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Steve started his own business." I'm not doing the accent. "Steve started his own business." And I would think she was saying that because maybe she was ashamed of what I really was. Because I thought, I'm not—Am I? I'm not starting a business. I'm just freelancing. I'm just taking money off of people on the internet. And I honestly—

    Eman Ismail: That's so sad, Steve.

    Steve Folland: Which is why. So now—

    Eman Ismail: Maybe she's embarrassed. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: I don't think she was. What she was was—

    Eman Ismail: Of course, she wasn't.

    Steve Folland: What she was was right.

    Eman Ismail: She was.

    Steve Folland: Don't tell her that. No, but I had started a business, and I wish I'd realised it soon. So now I have a course for new freelancers, and the very first lesson is, yes, the course is called How to Get Started Being Freelance, but really this should be How to Get Started Being a Business. It took me maybe a year or more to realise I was a business.

    So you say I was excited about starting a business, I didn't realise I was starting a business. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: That's so interesting. And I'm totally with you. It's one of the things that I say to the business owners that I coach as well, because the more seriously you take yourself, the more seriously other people will take you. It's only when you don't take yourself seriously that others also won't. So I totally agree with you. You're a business owner

    Steve Folland: It changes everything when you have that mindset. It changes the way you deal with your finances, it changes the way you think about your pricing, your rates, investing in yourself. When you're a business owner, you'll suddenly think, businesses have research and development and human resources that look after their employees and all of these things, which you have to do for yourself. But no, [laughs] I was just kind of like going to make do, keep getting up each morning and doing the thing. It makes you think much bigger. And much better.

    Eman Ismail: It does. It really does. So I don't know if you remember this, but can you take us back to the moment that you found out that this one freelancing job, which was paying you how much? It was a few thousand a month, right? So you were thinking, "This is a thing. This is gonna be a thing. This is great. Get a few more of these, I'll be good."  Can you take us back to the moment that they let you go?

    Steve Folland: Oh my gosh. I mean, I can't honestly remember it entirely. [laughs] I do remember feeling a bit sick because I'd already handed in my notice. We had plane tickets to Australia. Oh gosh, I don't know. It's that thing where you think—I mean, it's quite a good lesson to learn in itself in that I found them, I'll find other people.

    I remember I didn't want to panic too much. I didn't want to worry too much because I didn't want to panic my wife about where the work was going to come from and things like that. I knew that PeoplePerHour in itself was full of people wanting jobs done. And I was just going to have to put more effort into applying for things and reaching out to people who I knew in real life. It's quite a sickening feeling to have that ripped away from you when that was the one constant reliable thing you were banking on it. Well, I didn't have much of a plan, but that was a big part of the plan. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: They were the plan. I love that you were feeling optimistic because, I mean, I don't know if I would have felt optimistic [laughs] in that moment, but I'm glad you did. I'd love to just dive in a little bit into the arrangement that you had with this client. Did they owe you any advanced notice when they were letting you go? Was there a contract in place? Anything like that?

    Steve Folland: I didn't have a contract. They owed me nothing. Actually, in fairness, do you know what? They were really decent. They were really nice. They didn't just whip it totally out from under my feet as in, we carried out making the four episodes that we had planned or whatever. 'Cause they didn't have to. They could have said—So what happened was the company, and I had a really good relationship with them, got investment, and those investors were like, okay, let's look at our marketing plan. And basically, I no longer—or video content in general, no longer, but me in particular [laughs] did not feature as part of that. And that's fine.

    But yeah, they were actually pretty decent. I still got to finish the ones I was working on, even though at this point, I wouldn't have been asking for anything upfront. I would have delivered them and then invoiced them.

    Eman Ismail: Gosh. Okay. It sounds like, from what you've told us about your wife, that she's super supportive and not at all embarrassed, just super supportive. And I feel like not everyone has that. In fact, some people have the complete opposite. So I'd love to know—if you're open to sharing—what that conversation was like with your wife when you told her. As someone who's just given birth, oh my gosh, who's still on maternity leave.

    Steve Folland: Right?

    Eman Ismail: I feel sick, Steve. [laughs] I feel sick. What was that conversation with her? Like, "Hey, by the way—" [laughs]

    Steve Folland: I cannot, for the life of me, remember. And I know that isn't a very good story.

    Eman Ismail: No, but that might be a good thing.

    Steve Folland: But I think based on what I'm like, I would have minimised it because I wouldn't have wanted to put the panic on her. I imagine it would have been, "It'll be okay. I'll get other things." And yeah, it was up to me to figure that out really. It's not her problem. It was my problem to fix.

    Eman Ismail: Officially your problem to fix. I love the way that you approach this in that, okay, well, it sounds like you were like, "There's no point in panicking. Let's just figure this out." So what happened next? What were some of the steps you took to find your next client?

    Steve Folland: I would just be a lot more diligent about searching for the online jobs on PeoplePerHour. 'Cause I did also sign up for Elance and oDesk, which became Upwork. I don't think I signed up for Fiverr because at the time, that was very much low-grade stuff. The whole concept was literally, here's something I'll do for a fiver. I'm like, I need a bit more than five dollars. Thanks. PeoplePerHour actually had some really good jobs on it.

    And so I think I just went heavy on applying—'Cause the thing with those sites is you need to get in early. So you need to visit them a few times a day, see when the new jobs become available, pick the ones that you're right for, and then apply for them.

    So I remember there was a ski resort in the Alps who wanted a video made of their chalets and stuff. So suddenly I'm making that. The video producer who I knew—No, it's not a video producer. The photographer whose studio I've been using, he and I—I started making more things for him, and through some connections that he had, we started making some videos for local businesses. One of those led on to some other work. What else did I—Oh, and then I'll tell you what I really did. I sent a lot of cold emails.

    Eman Ismail: Yes.

    Steve Folland: The thinking that I had was, "Who might need me?" What if you're a web developer, for example, who wants to offer videos for your website? So I put lots of feelers out for that kind of thing. I built up a relationship with an animator who I met on PeoplePerHour. I would voice and write animations and then he would animate them. And sometimes the jobs will come via me and sometimes they will come via him and things like that. And we still work together often, 10 years later.

    But from that, so I remember somebody contacted me and said, "Hey, we need an animation like this. Can you do it like that?" And I was like, "I can't, but I know someone who can." And he was like, "Oh, I just kind of want to deal with you." I was like, "Okay." Well, so I hired the animator and he's like, "Okay, we need a script." I said, "Great." And he went, "Oh, and we need it done in 12 other languages." I was like, "What?" And I was like, "Okay, fine. That's not a problem. Leave it with me." I need the work.

    And I went and found, at the time—It would be a lot easier to do this these days. I went and found translators. I went and found voiceover artists in all of those different countries. We created scripts over—'cause me and the animator didn't know the languages. So we created it. So it was very obvious what language he needed to put where, cause each one had to have different text. But what was really good about that moment was that it made me realise that I—and this was critical for the next few years of my business, was that I could hire other people to do the things that I can't do, and that all the client really cares about is me solving their problem, doing their thing.

    So they don't care how it's getting done necessarily. They just want these videos made. And at first I was like, oh, I feel bad charging extra on top of, 'cause I'm giving this money to that voiceover artist. And then I was like, no, the client doesn't care. They could go and do this all themselves, but they're not 'cause it's a nightmare, but I'm being paid to take that nightmare away and make it this beautiful dream.

    So that was crucial because so much of the next few years of my business, as it really did become a business, were based on me providing services that I couldn't necessarily do myself, but offering them to people anyway—subtitling, translation, hiring different voiceovers other than myself, because I only do this one voice. I can do it slightly lower, but that's about it. I can do serious and happy, but that's it.

    But one of the crucial emails that I sent, so I would have sent it when I—even when we were in Australia, I was checking freelance job sites and things like that. And part of me wishes I hadn't. I wish I'd just enjoyed my holiday a bit more, but I was really conscious that I needed work when I came back. And one of the emails I wrote was to a local company, as in local to where I live, but they're actually an international company. They just happened to be based in my town. And every day, me and my son would walk past their office on our afternoon walk. He'd go to nursery in the morning. I pick him up at half 12. We'd go for a walk, wave at the trains, you know the deal.

    Eman Ismail: Mm-hmm.

    Steve Folland: I'd walk past these offices, and I'd often think, "Oh, wouldn't it be great if I could just work for one of these offices in this stable block. I wonder who is in those offices." So I went on Google and found out who they were and I found this one particular one and I thought, "Oh, maybe I could offer them this thing." So I sent them an email and I just essentially got lucky. That was the one cold email that really paid off because it landed on someone's desk who had their eyes open to the potential of what we could do with animation and things for their businesses.

    And I had a meeting with them. On the very first day that my daughter went to nursery in that April, I went in and met with the guy. And I have been working with them on and off for the past 10 years, creating videos for big international companies, because what happened was we made marketing videos for this company, but their clients saw them and went, "Oh, you do that? We'd like that." And suddenly, we were—yeah. It was lucky, [laughs] but I also seized that opportunity taking on that thing that I'd learned that I can hire other people to help me create the bigger thing. All this company wants is the video. A video is much bigger than just me and one person. I don't even film anything, but we can do it. Sure. That kind of became the thing I did.

    Eman Ismail: So much I want to talk about. The first thing is I love that what worked for you 10 years ago is still working for me [laughs] now—cold email pitching, like I mentioned before, has been really great for me. And I think it's about what you said. It's all about getting the timing right. And you don't know if your timing is going to be right. You've just got to send the pitch. And on the other side of that, that email might reach someone who actually has been thinking about this and it's been on their mind. It's been something that they want to do, but actually, maybe they don't have the resources or they don't have the energy or they don't even know where to begin to find someone who might be able to do something like that.

    So for you to just send the pitch is you putting yourself in front of people, and it might be the exact right time, and that's all you need. And guess what? If it's not the right time, then great, they still know you and they still know how you can help if the right time comes, if they change their minds and they still need someone. So that is really great to see—I'm not biased at all—as an email strategist. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: [laughs] Also, I got some other work out of those cold emails and I used the word cold because I really didn't know the people, but they were tailored to each person. I did put in stuff that was about them and what they did and what I thought we might be able to do together. But it's not like I'd spent time getting to know them on social media or LinkedIn or anything, but maybe I might do these days. But yeah, thank goodness I sent them.

    Eman Ismail: Thank goodness. I do want to say that's so important—not just blasting people with this general template that you've come up with. It really is about personalizing the pitch, about thinking specifically about how you can help that one business, what might they most be interested in. I spend maybe—I want to say I spend maybe an hour and a half doing research on the business. This is the whole process, an hour and a half, not an hour and a half doing research. But I do research on the business, what they've got in place already, what they haven't got in place, where I could come in and help them.

    I actually use Loom now to record videos, video walkthroughs of like, "Hey, I'm in your email funnel," because I'm an email strategist and copywriter, so I'm always going to want to go in and help with them with their emails. I sign up to their email list maybe a few days a week before I want to send the pitch. This is all planned ahead of time. And then I actually analyze it and then I record them a walkthrough and say, "Look, this is exactly how I can help you. This is what I do. This is how I've helped other people do a similar thing. Hope you don't mind that I did this."

    Give them loads of compliments as well in there because you don't want to be showing up in someone's inbox like, "Hey, these are all the things you're doing terribly wrong." No, completely opposite. And then I send in that pitch, and so it really is personalised, but that one and a half hours of just dedicated time to this can mean, like you said, a very long and profitable relationship with a business that otherwise would have no idea who you are.

    Steve Folland: Yeah, definitely. Knocking on doors or on email inboxes. Like I said, I sat there comfortably for years. Nobody noticed me. Now I realise I should be going out there and actually knocking on doors.

    Eman Ismail: Yes. Love it. So you've spoken a lot about using PeoplePerHour and Elance, those kind of websites, 'cause this was 10 years ago. Are you still using those websites now? If yes or if no, how do you get clients now?

    Steve Folland: The short answer—Okay. Yes, technically, I still am on PeoplePerHour. The only thing that I do on then, so I never look for work on there anymore. I have a thing up there for voiceovers. And so basically, it's like, so if somebody were to search for a voiceover, it brings up a load of profiles, and it would have my video and they can literally click Buy on me doing voiceover. It's the easiest sell. And frankly, because it's voiceovers, it's the easiest job. [laughs] Sorry, voiceover artists. But it's not like if somebody were to hire me to write a script, that might take me a day, so I need a day in my schedule. But if somebody asked me just to record a voiceover, well, I can carve out 10, 15 minutes, half an hour, I can easily squeeze that in.

    So since I have such a good profile on there, I have left it on there, but I haven't added that to Fiverr or Upwork or anything like that. Then maybe I should. I do think those sites for other freelancers, those sites are very crowded. I got in there very early. So I built up a reputation. 'Cause every time you get hired, you get reviewed and things like that. So I look like a trusted person to buy from on there.

    So how do I get clients? Mostly, it is a case of word-of-mouth, I guess, referrals. Occasionally me reaching out to people, maybe if I've seen them posting on LinkedIn about something, or they've asked for somebody and somebody has referred me and then I've reached out to them if I think I'm good for it. I still get a lot of work through clients that maybe I cold-pitched to years ago and they still come to me. But a lot of it is word of mouth because the simple fact is—

    One of my guests on Being Freelance once said that the secret to their business was to just keep meeting people. And that really stayed with me. The more people you meet, the more people know what you do, so long as you talk about it, and you stay on their radar, the more likely they're going to refer you to somebody. So now if somebody's like, "Oh, I'm thinking of starting a podcast," somebody's going to think of me most likely, maybe amongst other people, but they're going to think of me.

    In fact, a lot of people who know me because of podcasts probably don't even really know I make videos and stuff, but maybe they've seen my YouTube channel that I used to do and stuff like that or they've seen me creating things like social videos for podcasts where I make an experiment with online. So creating all that content and keeping putting it out there keeps me known by people. Creating the community by accident that I created for freelancers, again, builds this network of people who I know, and I know what they do, they know what I do.

    So I think it's really that. I definitely, long, long, long ago, did not get—I didn't need PeoplePerHour maybe a year or so after that first— [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Incident. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: That first incident. Yeah. It kind of sounds a bit random. There's this sort of like relying on chance that the work will keep coming to you. But I think so long as I keep putting myself out there and my reputation speaks for myself, then people will keep sort of passing my name around seems to be what happens.

    Eman Ismail: Love it. So we haven't spoken very much about your other—I don't know if you think of them as businesses, but the other stuff that you do, you do so much, the other projects. You're very much—I mean, when I think of you, I think of you being as so good at creating communities. So you have the Being Freelance podcast, you have the Doing It For The Kids Podcast, both of those each have communities, really active, really valued communities. And you're so good at that.

    So I'm interested in knowing whether starting the Being Freelance podcast, because that was the one that came first, your first episode came out in January 2015. I did check this. That's a long time, right? Did you create that as a potential source of clients, of marketing yourself, of being able to get more clients?

    Steve Folland: No.

    Eman Ismail: [laughs]

    Steve Folland: Look, in hindsight, if I was doing that, and maybe I should have done that, was I would have started a podcast where I was exploring the ways businesses could use video marketing and podcasts and spoken to businesses who were doing it really well and things like that. That would have been the sensible thing. No, what I did was go with just what I wanted to do.

    And that was in that first year, 'cause you say it was January 2015, so that's a year after I first went full-time freelance, albeit looking after a baby. And in that time, when I didn't have much work on, I'd be pottering around the house or going to the park and I'd be listening to podcasts. I didn't know any freelancers, I didn't know what the heck I was doing. It seems weird to think this now, but there weren't any podcasts like this one. There just weren't any free—There weren't podcasts telling you how to do social media. There weren't podcasts telling you how to run a freelance business, believe it or not.

    There were some entrepreneur podcasts, but they were all—no disrespect to Americans. They were all very American entrepreneur podcasts. I didn't see myself as an entrepreneur, for a start, but I started listening to them and thinking, "Oh, if only there was something like this that was about freelancers." So I started searching and I found people speaking about their freelance businesses, maybe it was graphic designers talking about graphic design or web developers talking about web design, but nobody talking about actually being freelance and how to survive doing that.

    So I thought, "Well, I'll do it then." So that's what I did in that first year and then in the second year, I started it. It was never meant to get me clients. It was never meant to be a business. It was just like a side project. It was a year after that, that I then started the vlog, Being Freelance Vlog, filming myself doing all these things. It was keeping me creative and learning, frankly. I was learning from people how to do this because I had no idea.

    Eman Ismail: So for context, the Being Freelance podcast—if you've not listened to it, go listen to it because it's a great podcast. One of the first that I started listening to when I started my business. You talk to other freelancers and they share their journey into freelance, and how they do freelance and how they run their businesses. It's a really, really great podcast.

    Also, you have recently monetised the podcast. You have sponsors sometimes, you have the Being Freelance community, you have really cool merch—which I have bought. You've inspired me to look into merch for this podcast, but I'm also like, "Eman, stop spending money. Don't get too excited. Calm down." [laughs] I don't think we're at the merch stage yet. Maybe, I don't know. If you think we are, let me know. Maybe I'll look into it.

    So that's some other sources of revenue that you have at the moment as well. I just want to add that information just so that we have a full picture of what your business looks like.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. Do you know though, it grew very organically, accidentally. I didn't mean it to be a business. Until even a year ago, I was calling it a side project. And yes, when you show up enough and you're creating something which is quality, luckily, a company reached out to me and was like, "Can we sponsor your podcast? We want to reach an audience of freelancers." And that then made me go, "Oh, here's a thing."

    So then it was like, okay, I can get sponsors for the podcast and I got some really good sponsors for the podcast as well. But even that, this just kind of like keep creating, keep doing it. My main thing was the business of making podcasts and videos for other people. Being Freelance was this thing I did to help myself and then, obviously, helping other people. And it was more just philanthropic.

    And in fact, I would go and speak at events about freelancing in order to try and grow the podcast. And I had some people come up to me and was like, "Really love what you're doing, Steve, but how do you monetise it?" And I would just feel a bit stupid because I was like, "Well, I don't, really. They could see something, but I hadn't. Why would this guy put so much time and energy into this thing if he wasn't trying to make money out of it or off of people? When I was like, "I just want to help people and be nice." Yeah. So it accidentally became a business.

    Eman Ismail: But this is why it's so important to do things that you want to do versus doing things that you should do, because like you said, you just said, "If I had thought about it, I should have done a podcast about video editing, audio editing, that kind of thing to bring in more clients." But instead of doing what you should have done, you did what you wanted to do.

    And I think when you're pulled to do something and you have no other reason to do it other than "because I want to", kind of like this podcast, actually, you just never know what that's going to bring you. You just never know what it's going to lead to. So I really do feel like if you want to do something just because, give yourself the permission and the space to just do it just because I want to, and not everything has to be monetised, not everything has to make you money.

    Steve Folland: No, it's a danger, isn't it? That you think everything has to be a business. And actually, it doesn't have to be, but it did become—You talk about merch, but really, that started almost by accident as well. and that was because somebody was moaning—this was five years ago. They were moaning about awards being given to freelancers. And this person on the internet had been emailed saying, "Hey, you've won this award." And they were like, "Oh, brilliant." And then it was like, "So send us £250 and you can be at this thing." And he was like, "Oh, hang on." So he was moaning about it on Twitter.

    And I was like, right, enough of this. Next week, we're having our own award ceremony live at 11.00 a.m. It's going to be called The Non Employee Of The Week Awards and the winner gets biscuits, and everybody was like, "Yes." This was on Twitter. And so the next week, the night before, I made a glittery envelope, me and my daughter made—[laughs] Well, in fact, I asked her, "Do you have any glittery card and things that I can make an envelope of? Will you help me?" And she was like, "No, it's your thing." and went off to watch Peppa Pig.

    So I sat there making a glittery envelope and put a gold card inside it. And I opened it. I went live on Twitter, and I opened the envelope, and then said some nice things about the person's business, said their name, and then I did this run around this empty office block that was next to my co-working space, cheering, and it just kind of caught—it took off. But I thought, in order to give away a prize like this, you've got to have a trophy. So I had a mug made, and on one side, I put the Being Freelance logo. And on the other side, we put the words Non Employee of the Week. And that was the first bit of merch.

    Even then it wasn't made to be sold and make me money. I was literally losing. I was paying to make mugs out of my own money, buying biscuits, and then posting them, which isn't cheap by the way. [laughs] I've given away hundreds of these trophies. So even the merch wasn't monetising, it was giving stuff away. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: But that's why it works though, because you were responding to something, you were listening to your audience, and you were responding. And while it was sucking your money at the beginning, it was taking your money, well, it's turned into this amazing thing that we all love and enjoy. And by the way, I was a Non Employee of the Week award winner. I was number 36, winner number 36 out of now 88.

    Steve Folland: Oh no, no, no, it's way over 100. I stopped adding—

    Eman Ismail: There's only 88 on your website.

    Steve Folland: Yeah, I stopped adding them to the website.

    Eman Ismail: Oh, was it too much?

    Steve Folland: Yeah, I'm busy. I'm busy going the post office all the time.

    Eman Ismail: I can only imagine. But I love my mug, I love my packet of biscuits. I think I even had the bookmark that said, what was it? Don't stop meeting people or the quote that you—

    Steve Folland: "Just keep meeting people." And on the other side, it said, "Don't freak out." Two great quotes.

    Eman Ismail: Don't freak out. Yes. Love it.

    So yeah, I was very excited to get that award, by the way. And as someone who—I was quite new to freelancing when you gave me that, and it was so nice. I really valued it because it felt like just being seen by my peers, I was really early on in starting my business when I won that, so thank you for that.

    Steve Folland: That's lovely to hear. And people do—it really does mean something. It started like it was meant to be silly, but the person who first won it, a guy called Gareth Hancock, I did mean everything I said about his business. And every single winner, I look into their business, and I see what they're doing online. I see whether they're nice to other people. I genuinely mean it and celebrate it.

    And we get so little recognition, don't we? It's just us doing our thing week in, week out. So I think just having somebody go, "Actually, you're doing a great job," meant something. Yeah, that was exactly five years ago. It was just before Christmas in 20—whatever. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: 25 years ago. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: Maybe 2018, I think. I think it was 2018 because then the following January or February, I started the Being Freelance community because I'd already always resisted creating a Facebook group because everyone's existed, but off the back of the Non Employee of the Week Awards, I thought, "Oh, actually, I'm having all of these conversations with all of these people who email me about the podcast or about—Wouldn't it be great if they all could speak together?" So I created a Facebook group and just hundreds joined almost immediately. And suddenly, there was 1,000, and I was like, "Oh my God." [laughs] Again, not monetising it. It was just the best, best thing really. And it, yeah, just came off the back of that.

    Eman Ismail: Yeah. I mean, definitely go check out Steve's Being Freelance community, the podcast, the vlog, all of it is just so valuable, so much fun. and the people in the community are great as well.

    So let's move on to the next part of this. How did quitting your job and then being let go, [laughs] how did this mistake make you? How did it help you become the business owner you are today?

    Steve Folland: I think a couple of things—one, it made me realise to avoid having all my eggs in one basket. And when we were in Australia, we stayed with my brother-in-law and he had this big plot of land up in Darwin. To be fair, everybody in Darwin has a big plot of land because there's so much land. But anyway, they kept chickens, and my son and I went and collected these eggs. And he was 4 and he ran so happy with these eggs literally in his basket. And he tripped on the way across the lawn, and all but one of them broke. And I thought, "Oh my goodness, how much more do I need this spelled out for me?" [laughs] So yes, quite literally in front of me was this, do not put all your eggs in one basket.

    And so I've always been very keen since then to try not to let—Now, I've heard many different rules. One of which is like, don't let one client be more than 20% of your revenue. 'Cause that's the power in freelancing. If we have all these different streams coming into our river, if one of them dries up, we've still got a river, but if you're just relying on one stream to fill it, suddenly, the river's gone.

    That's the beauty of it, should be having all of these different things, but it's really hard when you have a client who keeps coming to you for stuff. Why would you turn that away? [laughs] Why would you turn it away? 'Cause it's brilliant. You want the work. So I still struggle with it, but it is always in my mind never to let myself be in that position again.

    But also, what came off of it was the fact that, like we said, looking for work, reaching out to people. Inadvertently, I didn't realise growing a network and creating content and being known, all of that came from that moment so that, ultimately, I would get work from more than just one source, and to the point where work would be coming towards me.

    Eman Ismail: You know, something that stuck out to me was that you said most of your clients come from word-of-mouth referrals. And I think one of the mistakes that business owners make is only relying on word-of-mouth referrals. And I do just want to, I guess, highlight the difference between what you said and solely relying on word-of-mouth referrals because here's the thing—you get most of your clients from word-of-mouth referrals, so do I, but at the same time, you never stop marketing. You're always marketing. You're always sharing your content, producing content. You're always putting yourself out there so that people know that you're available to be hired and you're available, like, "Pay me. This is how you can pay me."

    And I think some business owners make the mistake of relying off word-of-mouth referral, and that's it. They're not doing anything else. They're even maybe caught up so much in the work that they're doing, maybe they're super busy, that they just look up one day, when they finished all that work, and then realise, "Oh, wait, there are no more clients. I was so busy doing this work, relying on word-of-mouth referrals that I wasn't doing anything else."

    So I do just want to say that that's not what you were doing. You are getting your work from word-of-mouth referrals, but you're also doing the marketing too.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. Sometimes it can feel like they're word of mouth when really, something else is triggered, that something else is fed into that as well, isn't it?

    Eman Ismail: Yeah.

    Steve Folland: Why has that person referred you? Well, it's because of this, this, and this, this knock-on effect of doing great work, being nice to people, of putting yourself out there, staying top of mind, maybe reaching out to people and just being genuine. It's so many different things. It's hard to look at your own internal analytics and figure out what all of that is. And so people say, "Oh, yeah, it's word of mouth."

    Eman Ismail: Yes.

    Steve Folland: Which sounds like you didn't do anything. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Well, exactly. Exactly. And you said exactly what I wanted to say, which was sometimes it's not as black and white as it was this one thing. I have on my contact form, "How did you hear about me?" And then I give them the option to select one way that they heard about me when in reality, it's usually someone told them about me, but then they join my newsletter, then they follow me on Instagram, or then they start listening to my podcast. And so it's all these different things working together to bring that person to me. Absolutely.

    Steve Folland: Yeah. I've started asking people when they join the Being Freelance community, which is now a paid membership—that's when it really felt like that became a business. And that was really only so we could get off Facebook. Now, when people join, I say, "Out of interest, why today? Why did you join today? What was it?" And the answers are so broad. Some people will be like, "Oh, yeah." And they submit like—Bear in mind, I might never have heard of this person, and they'll be like, "Yeah, I've been listening to your podcast on and off for years." "I watched your vlogs when I started freelancing." And then somebody mentioned in this coworking thing I was doing and I thought, "Oh, yeah, I used to do that."

    And it's all these balls knocking together and eventually building up enough momentum for somebody to go, "Oh, yeah, maybe I should check out what the heck that is." Yeah, it's crazy how all of this stuff builds up rather than just one. I think we grow up thinking that we buy something because we saw an advert, like we saw an advert on TV that made us want a toy or a Coke or whatever. And actually, it's not that at all. It's so much more than that.

    Eman Ismail: Absolutely. And also, it's the constant reinforcement of that same message over and over and over and over again until, like you said, it builds up that momentum of, okay, let me go try out this thing. Let me go check out this thing. Let me go buy this thing. Let me go hire this person. A hundred percent.

    I wonder if you have any tips or strategies or advice around how business owners can prevent something like this happening to them where they think they have this job lined up and it's going to go on for a while, but then the client ends the contract or whatever or just lets you go type of thing. Anything that we can do to prevent this, to just make it a little bit safer for us as business owners?

    Steve Folland: Well, I know I should probably say, "Oh, have a contract," and yada yada. And you probably absolutely should. But ultimately, if that client wants to let you go, even the contract isn't going to keep you there. So I think you always have to—even with some kind of retainer relationship—assume that that could end. At some point, it probably will. Somebody who hired you will move on. They won't need you anymore. Financial pressures will mean they take it in-house. Somebody will leave and they'll bring it in and give it to somebody else that they happen to know from another company when someone new joins.

    So I think you have to assume that it could end. And therefore, what are the other things which could take its place? And so hopefully, you have more than one thing possibly lined up at a time. And that's tricky. I work on lots of different things at once. I know some people work on just one thing focused and then they move on to the next thing. So it's slightly different, but yeah, I think that's the main thing—assume that it won't keep going forever because if it does, brilliant. But otherwise, you've got all of these other potential things going on.

    Also, you can do things where maybe if "too much work" start to come to you, yes, you could simply say, "I can't take that on now," and refer it. Or you could say, "I can't take it on right now. Can we come to it in a month?" Or you could say, "I can't take it on right now, but a member of my team will," or however you want to phrase it and start to do what I did, which was to think, "Okay, I've got this massive project. I can't possibly write all these scripts now, even though I'm capable of writing the scripts. I will go and hire a team of scriptwriters," or whatever.

    "I need more animators because my one animator can't help me with that." So it's starting to think—And, you know, that doesn't suit everyone. So don't go thinking you have to grow a business. Don't go thinking you have to hire people and all of that. I don't want you to think that's the answer, but it's just sometimes thinking, "How could I take on that work and do it without necessarily doing it all?" And then I think because of that, you can have perhaps more revenue streams coming in.

    But I think also, the thing that I wish I'd done was to realise that you should be having savings so that if a project disappears, you can still keep paying yourself your salary, in effect, that you've got a buffer of cash. But in order to do that, you need to be pricing all your things properly so that you can afford to put a bit of money aside for that rainy day or that slightly dented basket, if not dropped basket.

    It's all easier said than done, Steve. Thanks very much. [laughs] But last year, in 2023, in June, this client who I had been making their podcast for two and a half years, not on a strict retainer contract or anything, just this assumed thing. We were all having a lovely time. Everyone was happy. Financial pressures meant they took the editing in-house and just like that, not even any notice, they dropped me. And that was a huge—making a podcast every week, that's actually quite a big chunk of time and money, and that made a huge difference.

    But because I had savings, I was able to keep going and kick everything into gear that was going to bring me other works over, all those, I don't know, pokers that were in the fires sort of came to—I have the wrong analogy. There must be a thing.

    Eman Ismail: We got it. [laughs] No, you're totally right though. You're totally right. I think the savings thing is a huge part that I think enough business owners and business coaches and that kind of thing don't talk about, that it is so important to have savings to be constantly saving to not maybe pay yourself all the money that you could when things are great because this really is an inevitability, like you said. It's going to happen. It's going to happen that your clients let you go at some point.

    And I guess the answer in this is, "Well, how well have you prepared for it? How well can you prepare for it?" And I think that's what changed the game for me, was to stop expecting I guess this whole business thing to be stable and sustainable every single month and stable every single month. And it's just not the case. Being a business owner and having a business means this is a rollercoaster. [laughs] So how well are you prepared for the rollercoaster? It's one of the things I did—have savings.

    The past few months—Things have really picked up now, but oh my gosh, the past few months were completely quiet. It was so quiet. And in that time, because I'd managed my money well when things were good, it meant that I didn't have to let go any of my team. I didn't have to let go of my social media manager. I didn't have to let go of my online business manager. I could keep those people and keep my business running in the background. I could still pay myself and not have to start panicking and cancelling everything. It really makes a difference.

    You said so many important things. Let's talk about the contract thing for a second. I remember having a retainer client who signed my contract and agreed that she would give me 30 days' notice. I didn't even ask for that much. Just give me 30 days' notice if you don't want to continue with this retainer contract. But actually, what she did was—I mean, she was the loveliest person, but maybe she just didn't get how retainers worked because one month, she'd be like, "Yeah, let's do this." And we do the work. And the next month, she'd be like, "Oh, you know, actually don't want to do it this month. Let's do it next month instead." I'm thinking, "Yeah, that's not how retainers work. This is not how retainers work." [laughs]

    So I very quickly realised that my contract is more of a, let's set the expectations and requirements for one another versus if you break this, there are going to be lawyers involved. That's not what it is for me anyway, at my business size. But I think a contract is really helpful because it does set expectations and does set requirements.

    And I think with my social media manager now, Nyla, I just had a conversation with her where she said, "Look, I'm going to ask clients from now on to sign a three-month contract. Every three months, we're going to check in. Do you still want to move forward?" And I'm like, "Okay, that sounds good." So I know up until X date that I'm locked in for this. And then she also said as well, "If you decide to break our contract or you don't want to keep working together, can you give me a month's notice?"

    And me, as someone who likes to keep her promises, I know now that that's what I will do. And so, yes, not everyone will accept your contract and follow your contract, but some will. Some will, and that's when it becomes really helpful. That's when it becomes really helpful.

    Steve Folland: I think what you said was great about, we can think of contracts as being these lengthy wordy legal agreements, but we don't necessarily look at what we get from our mobile phone company or Dropbox or Google or whoever. But, really, the actual legal bit of the contract is almost like this fail-safe to get you out of trouble and them out of trouble if something goes wrong. The important bit is right there in email or in the discussion and backed up with email to say, "Here's what we're gonna do together." So you need to kind of lift it out of the contract so it's really obvious for them what you'd like, what your boundaries are, what your expectations are, what you're going to deliver, how it's going to go.

    And to think as well that a lot of clients, they might not have worked with someone like you before to do the things that you're doing before as well. So it's a chance for you to set out how you want it to work. And they might just think, "Oh, it doesn't matter. We'll just drop them the same as we drop our milkman or whatever." I don't know why I picked milkman.

    Eman Ismail: You took me back, Steve. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: If our milkman is listening, I have no intention of dropping you, mate. You do a cracking job. [laughs]  But yeah, I think if you put it out there that that is what you expect, then they like, "Oh, yeah. Okay, actually, yeah, I need to think about this a bit more carefully. I can give this person more notice.

    Eman Ismail: What you said is just so important. Communicate it to them in another way as well, because just assume they're not going to read it. Just assume that all those things that we do, every time we tick that box, that's like, "You agree to our terms and conditions," we don't read them and we just take them and we keep going. Assume that that's what your client is doing. So if there's anything really important that you want them to know, then you want to communicate that verbally, just have the conversation with them. Let them know, "By the way, this is in the contract. This is in our agreement. By signing it, this is what you're agreeing to." So that you know that they've had this communicated to them in another way. You've had this conversation.

    And hopefully, you're working with nice people who will respect that. I also just want to say, I loved—I mean, check out Steve's vlog if you want to hear more about how he subcontracts. I really wanted to get into that today, but we have so run out of time. But I also now subcontract. If I have clients, like dream clients, dream projects that come to me, there's no way I want to say no to them, especially knowing that business is a rollercoaster. So that's also what I do now. It's a yes, let's do it. And then I have a small team behind me where we can work together.

    But I do want to say, I tried this in the past and it did not work. It went terribly, actually. I ended up redoing all the work. So it does really take time to build that team, to find people that you trust. And this is why it's so important to build relationships way ahead of the time that you actually need them, figure out who's good at what, who's doing what, who can help, who's interested in potentially working with you on stuff in the future. Because then when the opportunity comes, you can just get everything and everyone into action.

    Steve Folland: For sure. Yep.

    Eman Ismail: Yes. Okay. So Steve, what do you want others to learn from your mistake and your experience?

    Steve Folland: Do not let your son carry all the eggs. No. [laughs] The trouble with sayings like "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" is they sound so simple and obvious and stupid, don't they? But there's a reason that saying came about, and it's because everybody put their eggs in one basket and then dropped it, and then went, "Man, those chickens aren't going to lay any more till tomorrow," or whatever.

    Seriously, don't put all your eggs in one basket. [laughs] It's as simple as that, but it's so easy not to do. It's so easy to rely on certain things. And if you think that it's not going to be okay, that maybe that one client won't be there forever, then you will broaden your horizons. You'll reach out to things and you'll maybe accidentally create some sort of marketing system that will start to feed your business. But it comes out of realising that you can't just rely on that one thing. You need lots of baskets.

    Eman Ismail: Lots of baskets. And that can manifest in so many different ways. So one way that you did it was offering video editing, producing, and then add in audio/podcasting producing and editing. So now you're offering two different types of things so you're doubling the chances of getting more client work. And for me, in the quiet periods of 2023, I was so grateful that one of the ways I didn't put all my eggs in one basket was I don't just do client work. I also sell digital products and courses. And so when the client work was a bit slow, that kept me going. What other ways can we diversify those streams that you were talking about?

    Steve Folland: Yeah, but I think it's also important to realise that you see, things like courses and stuff like that and digital products, in order to sell them, you need an audience.

    Eman Ismail: Yes.

    Steve Folland: In fact, you maybe need a fairly substantial audience, you need a mailing list and things like that if you want to really make it work. And so I fear sometimes that people will think, "Oh, stuff is quiet. I'll just create these things, and then people will buy them." But actually, it's kind of a longer game of creating useful content, building a reputation, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, building an audience. If then you could potentially—

    Because otherwise, creating a decent course takes a lot of time. What could you have done with that time? How many cold emails could you have sent out or insightful articles or building up the SEO on your website? So many things that you could do rather than relying on maybe one sale or two sales because you hadn't built the audience. So it's kind of like a danger that you can see people like yourself, like me even, creating these things and thinking, "Oh, okay, I'll get extra revenue streams." But that's more like a long-term picture-

    Eman Ismail: Yes. Yeah.

    Steve Folland: -that you can do if you want it. I'm not trying to put people off building courses, but it's a trap, that you can put time into those things when actually, there's no audience to buy them.

    Eman Ismail: Yes. No, it's so true. And it can totally be a distraction, and that nearly happened to me. So I have been working on building my audience, digital products, courses for the entire time I've been in business—so five years. And even now, still, it's not making me millions. I'm no Amy Porterfield, but it helped me enough that it was like, okay, I don't have to let go of my whole team. It kept me going.

    Now, here's the thing—I actually launched a boot camp that I was going to do this online boot camp and I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and it's going to be great, and I'm going to sell tickets to this boot camp for, I think it was like $750—I charge in dollars. And halfway through, I was just like, what am I doing? Why am I spending all this time focusing on selling $750 tickets to, I don't know how many people are going to buy, let's say max, maybe 10, 20 people, when I could be cold pitching and I can land a $10,000 project if I just put my energy in the right place and I'm not being distracted by this idea of making loads of money via course creation and digital products.

    And it's so true, so I'm really glad you said that, because it can be a distraction. So you really have to think, "Okay I'm going to create these different streams, but which ones are the streams that are those levers that I can pull and immediately make money from and which ones are the ones that take a while to get going?" [laughs]

    Steve Folland: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, honestly, [laughs] we could talk for ages.

    Eman Ismail: We could.

    Steve Folland: I'm biting my tongue. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: I know. I had so many other questions for you, but you've stayed over, so thank you so much for staying over. [laughs]

    Steve Folland: I don't want to keep talking, but I just feel like you and I could just go, yes, this and that and that and this.

    Eman Ismail: There's so much to talk about. Okay. Steve, where can people find you if they want to stay connected?

    Steve Folland: Do you know, the best place to head is beingfreelance.com because it has the podcast, it has the vlog, which, incidentally, I don't really make anymore because we've talked about it quite a bit, which is nice, but, that was one of—

    Eman Ismail: It's got a great back catalogue though.

    Steve Folland: Yeah, there is. And actually, some people still go back and watch those and contact me about them. And I did try making a few last year as well, but what I realised is literally, it takes so much time to create that form of content. How better can I use my time?

    Also, I used to edit those like, my family would be sitting in the other room watching a movie or whatever on a Sunday night, and I'd be sitting in a different room, editing away. And the pandemic made me realise actually, maybe I'd rather be sitting in the room with them watching the film. So it kind of changed my priorities and also made me think where's my energy best spent.

    So yeah, anyway, the vlog is still there. There's a course for new freelancers, which, I only made a couple of years ago, but it's built off the back of the podcast. Oh, and the community as well so that you can come and hang out and have fun.

    But I should also say, 'cause you mentioned Doing It For The Kids. Doing It For The Kids is a separate community. It's not my community. That's run by a graphic designer called Frankie Tortora. And she and I became friends online and then started the Doing It For The Kids podcast. But she started her community before I did and I probably would never have started one if I hadn't have seen what she was doing with hers. So yeah, Doing It For The Kids is her thing, but we do a podcast together.

    Eman Ismail: Yes. A great podcast that's won awards. And it's a podcast for freelance parents, but also everyone's welcome and it's kind of like an agony aunt style show where people are asking questions and you're giving them business advice.

    Steve Folland: Yeah, it's so much fun. [laughs]

    Eman Ismail: Thank you so much for joining me, Steve. I'm so happy to have you here. I know everyone's going to love this interview and yeah, I hope you enjoyed our chat.

    Steve Folland: Oh, it's been so nice. So nice. Thank you, Eman.

    Eman Ismail: Thank you.

    When I was little, I told my dad that my favourite band, S Club 7, would never break up. He told me they would, that it was inevitable. Well, I didn't believe him. When I was 11, it finally happened. S Club 7 broke up. My dad was right. It was an inevitability, no matter how much I didn't want it to be. Client relationships are exactly the same. You don't ever want it to end, especially when that client is a great, regular, well-paying client. But like all great pop bands, that relationship will inevitably come to an end. And you need to prepare for that moment as well as you possibly can.

    I feel like Steve's mistake is one we can all relate to. It happened to me a few years ago. I had one big client that I really relied on and they eventually stopped sending me work. It taught me the hard way to never rely on any one client to bring me work. I've gone even further than that and created my business in a way that means I also don't rely on any one of my services to bring in clients. I have multiple services that serve different needs and different budgets, including an email strategy consultation for $550, a VIP week for $6,000 and custom email projects starting from $2,000.

    I also don't rely on any one revenue stream to bring me work. I make money not just from working with clients but also from my digital products, courses, and speaking engagements too. One of the biggest freedoms you get as a business owner is knowing that other people no longer control your income or your future. But sometimes, we accidentally put ourselves in a position where we give our clients that power. Don't feel bad about it, we've all done it.

    But hopefully, this interview serves as a reminder for what not to do, how to come back from it if you do do it, and of course, how to prepare for the inevitability of your favourite pop band breaking up.

    Ever wondered what goes into creating this podcast? What my production process looks like? How I came up with the concept for this show? How I choose which guests to invite and how exactly I research them? Well, I'm sharing everything inside my bonus episode, Behind the Scenes: Making the Podcast. For this special episode, the show's podcast producer, Zuri Berry, takes the reins and interviews me so you can find out all the juicy details and behind-the-scenes stories.

    I reveal, for the first time ever, how I landed the HubSpot partnership and what that agreement involves as well as the key to sending a podcast pitch that'll get my attention, the interview methods that helped me nail my podcast interviews, and the resources and strategies I've used to help make this show a success. If you want instant access to this bonus episode, click the link in the show notes or head over to emancopyco.com/bts, that's behind the scenes, emancopyco.com/bts. Put in your email address, and that's it. It's yours.

Eman Ismail
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