This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
I believe we can learn as much from failure as we can from success, if not, in fact, more. And that's what Failure Friday is all about, our weekly collection of short stories on mistakes, missteps, disasters, and of course, failure, all the things that don't work out, all those things that lead to the great lessons learned stories. And I really like it when our side hustlers, our featured case studies, kind of lean into that moment and explain to us, kind of even, not just explain, but take us to that place of, wow, here's what I thought was gonna happen, and here's what actually happened, because that's what it's about. How do you navigate that time? How do you transition from that to something else?
But sometimes you have to just remain in that space before you can actually make a transition. So I've really enjoyed working on this series. I hope you enjoy it as well. And by the way, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
Today's short story features Allie Hill. Allie is the owner of FreelanceSpeak.com. It's a resource for aspiring copywriters and other freelancers. As you're gonna hear from her, it is now a six-figure business. Congratulations.
But of course, getting to that point has been a journey. That included a few missteps. So I appreciate Allie sharing transparently and honestly about one of those struggles. I'll come back at the end with a very quick wrap-up. [Music]
Hi, everyone.
My name is Allie Hill, and I am the founder and director of FreelanceSpeak.com. I have been writing for the past six years and have recently expanded my brand to include my own blog, courses, and other content to help other freelancers build a thriving business. I turned my part-time side gig into a full-time six-figure freelance business, but I would not have been able to come this far if I hadn't have made a few major mistakes along the way. So in my first few months of freelance writing, I was still trying to figure out the business side of things, and I didn't really know the right questions to ask clients. So when one client came to me asking for help with their new website copy, I said, "Sign me up." Now, I'll pause here to say that I offer both copywriting and copy-editing services, so it was not an unusual request for a client to ask me to polish what they had already written.
So the client sent over their website copy, and it looked pretty good. I was actually a little surprised because they were not native English speakers. Their emails to me were a little choppy, a little broken, so I figured they needed some help making their content read more naturally. So I made a few tweaks to the copy, and I sent it back to them, and then I sent them the bill. Should've been an easy project, but nope.
I got an angry email from them saying that I had plagiarized a competitor's website. Yeah, that's something that no freelance writer ever wants to hear. So as it turns out, the copy that they sent me was from that competitor, and they wanted all fresh copy. They just wanted me to use the other website as an example. So that was a big oops.
The lesson learned, I was not the leader of the conversation when I needed to be the leader. The client expected me to take the lead on the project, and I acted more like an inexperienced order taker who didn't know how to ask the right questions. So the good news is that they caught my major mistake before they published it on their website. So I gladly worked on some new website copy for them, and they were happy with it. But after that project, I knew that I needed to learn how to over-communicate, even if I already thought that I knew what I was doing.
So I hope that my mistake becomes your advantage and that you learn how to be the leader in all of your own client projects. [Music]
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. That is the theme of Failure Friday. I love what Allie says here. "I was not the leader of the conversation." You know, when you are trying to work with a client, when you're trying to sell a service, if you are the service provider, there are points in which you need to actually provide leadership, and you need to direct that conversation, as she explained.
But you don't always know that, or you don't know how to do that necessarily. And the more you can kind of figure that out, or the quicker you can get to that point, the easier it's going to be with your other client relationships, with making more sales, building your business. And also, as she said, she had to learn to over-communicate. Another good thing when working with clients. So thanks, Allie, for sharing that story.
Listeners, check out our website, FreelanceSpeak.com. It offers resources for other freelancers. You can also hire her to write, copy, edit, or proofread. If you've got a question or an update for us about your side hustle, sidehustleschool.com/questions. That's it.
Thanks for tuning in today. I hope you'll subscribe, follow, come back tomorrow. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
